I think the problem goes at least as far back as Plato and the allegory of the cave. Plato spread this concept that there was a difference between the body and mind or soul, and Western culture has never really recovered from the stupidity of that idea.
There's really no evidence or justification for it. Your mind and your body are the same thing.
My Python code ultimately runs on a circuit, but it feels lacking to say that my program is the circuitry. The program itself only has meaning inside of my mind, and in fact could exist equally well on paper. It exists conceptually even if it never manifests physically. So where do concepts like this exist, given that they don't exist as matter? What do we mean when we say that something like 1+1=2 is true - that that truth exists - and would exist even if there wasn't any matter to have 1 and 1 of?
The more you look at it, the more it looks like truths and ideas are even realer than the material world. After all, the only thing we know of the material world is what we experience of it in our mind. That was Plato's point, that the material world is a shadow of the real, immaterial world of thoughts, ideas, and truths.
Similar argument patterns permeate most ancient philosophies. The meme is that mind is the ultimate reality, of which the materialistic worldview is a surprisingly fragile inverse.
Google embodied cognition - while it is true semantics can be separated from the physicality of the incarnation of the system for simple software things, it seems likely any digital representation of the mind will include a lot of data about the material facts of wet brains, chemicals, diffusion, weird coincidences between same gene pathways affecting multiple systems and all.
> My Python code ultimately runs on a circuit, but it feels lacking to say that my program is the circuitry. The program itself only has meaning inside of my mind, and in fact could exist equally well on paper. It exists conceptually even if it never manifests physically. So where do concepts like this exist, given that they don't exist as matter? What do we mean when we say that something like 1+1=2 is true - that that truth exists - and would exist even if there wasn't any matter to have 1 and 1 of?
You're claiming that these concepts don't exist as matter, but you've actually described how it exists in matter. Moving the program to paper just changes the matter from silicon and metal to paper and ink. You're saying it never manifests physically while describing its physical manifestation.
Even if the program exists only in your mind, all that means is that the physical manifestation is neurons/synapses instead of silicon/metal or paper/ink.
I won't claim to know completely how the human brain works, and I think it's unlikely that anyone completely understands everything. But it's unreasonable to claim that anything we don't completely understand the physical manifestation of must not have a physical manifestation. That's just the God of the Gaps argument[1] repackaged into a "Mind of the Gaps" argument. If you are defining the mind is every thought and mental process that we don't understand, then the mind is an ever-shrinking phenomena that slowly disappears as we apply the scientific method. In that case, I think we have a better word for that than "the mind": we typically call that "ignorance".
> Similar argument patterns permeate most ancient philosophies. The meme is that mind is the ultimate reality, of which the materialistic worldview is a surprisingly fragile inverse.
This is unsurprising, given that ancient philosophers lacked even basic scientific knowledge. The materialistic worldview seems fragile when you know next-to-nothing of the material world. We might draw the same conclusions as them if we only look at the evidence they had, but it would be foolish to only look at the evidence they had, when we have access to, for example, modern neuroscience. It would be extraordinarily improbable for people who believed fire came from phlogiston to come to the same conclusions about the nature of the mind, as people with access to decades of magnetic resonance imaging of the brain.
I like your analogy and do have a similar view in that the total consciousness level of all humans combined, at any given point in time, creates a separate universe of our own. This total consciousness level has its own rules and principles created by us which also evolves over time. It shapes all of our belief systems, actions, behaviors, etc. throughout various human civilizations in history.
It operates almost like a mind of the entire human race just hovering above all of us. This concept is pretty abstract but like you said, at any given point in time this total soul may not exist physically, but it does exist conceptually in our exclusive reality and it too constantly evolves together with us.
How did you come to the conclusion that the phenomenon you are describing is hovering above all of us, instead of resting comfortably inside our brains in the form of neurons?
I was saying that it would be a total level of consciousness from all human individuals combined, and its power is really more than just the sum of each individual. In a sense, this could be considered as the total knowledge that our species has acquired at a given point in time.
Some people feel one’s essence is fundamentally different from one’s body, including the brain as part of the body. Not saying I support this notion, but to brush it aside as stupid or unjustified seems a bit hasty in view of the huge literature behind these issues. Moreover, doesn’t the notion of reincarnation in some parts of the Eastern world show it’s not restricted to Western culture? I’m sure there plenty more such notions outside the West.
> Some people feel one’s essence is fundamentally different from one’s body, including the brain as part of the body. Not saying I support this notion, but to brush it aside as stupid or unjustified seems a bit hasty in view of the huge literature behind these issues.
I don't think it is.
Consider: someone decides to say something without evidence. It's obviously okay to brush this aside and just say "there's no evidence for that". Then hundreds of thousands of people read what that person said, and then decide to propagate the idea by saying it themselves, still without any evidence. You're claiming that at some point, the bulk of literature means we can't say it's a stupid idea any more? I disagree. Ideas are determined valid by the evidence or lack of evidence, not by how popular they are.
In fact, when a stupid idea is popular, that's when it causes the most damage. So when there's a bulk of literature propagating a stupid idea, that's the time when it's important to say that it's a stupid idea.
> Moreover, doesn’t the notion of reincarnation in some parts of the Eastern world show it’s not restricted to Western culture?
You'll note I didn't say it was restricted to Western culture. I think Plato has a large part in spreading the idea in Western culture, but I'd guess he wasn't the first, and other people probably came up with the same idea independently.
What's the evidence that there is a brain or body in the first place, which is a big part of the original discussion? No, I don't mean that just because Plato said it cannot be "stupid", but you have clearly provoked the crowd bringing philosophy to the fore, and broadly speaking philosophy is where you stop having certain evidence for anything, as it precisely challenges anything deemed certain. Once the body is assumed and our senses trusted, if you find solid evidence it'll be about how the brain differs (or not) from the rest of the body, not about the presence or absence of a mind or soul.
> What's the evidence that there is a brain or body in the first place, which is a big part of the original discussion?
I'll sidestep this by saying that for my purposes, reality is just a theorized model of what our senses perceive. If we don't trust our senses, then it's possible none of the things we perceive exist, but who cares? The things we perceive as our brain and body can be modeled to predict what we will perceive in the future.
> broadly speaking philosophy is where you stop having certain evidence for anything
That's not how I define philosophy, but I won't get into a semantic argument about what philosophy is. I also think saying things are "certain" is almost always a mistake. All I'll say is that if that if you define philosophy as eschewing evidence, then I'm happy to dismiss all of what you consider philosophy. If you aren't able to produce evidence (empirical or logical) for the statements you make, then all you're doing is stringing together words into grammatically-correct but meaningless sentences, which is not a skill I care about by itself.
I'm happy to say that I don't think all philosophers share your view that evidence is unnecessary, so there are many people who I would respect who I would also call philosophers.
> Once the body is assumed and our senses trusted,
I don't think we can assume that. Nor should we. Nor is there any value in doing so.
Let's temporarily assume the opposite: let's assume our senses are lying to us. If that's so, I'd argue that our senses lie to us in consistent, predictable manners. I can predict how my senses will lie to me in the future based on how they are lying to me now, and how they have lied to me in the past. If I choose to tell my fake body to let go of a fake ball, my senses will lie to me and tell me that the fake ball falls toward the fake earth. Every fake morning, my senses lie to me and tell me that the fake sun rises.
How would my situation differ if all this were real? If I really dropped a real ball and it really fell toward the real earth, would that be different? If a real sun rose in the real morning, how would that change my experience? In short, a falsehood so complete that it is completely indistinguishable from the truth is not meaningfully different from the truth. If I put my hand on a hot stove and sense pain, does it matter whether that pain is real or fake? I don't think it does.
> if you find solid evidence it'll be about how the brain differs (or not) from the rest of the body, not about the presence or absence of a mind or soul.
That's true, which is why minds and souls should be relegated to the fiction section of the bookstore, with ghosts, werewolves, elves, and all the other fictional things we don't sense with our senses. I'm not saying these things aren't fun to think about, they just shouldn't be considered as existent phenomena on which we base our beliefs and decisions.
First of all, thank you for your thorough replies, and not just to me. I feel you engage in and know philosophy way more than I do, though I know in philosophical circles this is not supposed to be a problem. My main issue is simply that you labeled "stupid" and "unjustified" a position that indisputably has been justified at length (clearly not to your satisfaction), and that (at the risk of sounding stupid myself) makes some sense, like so many incompatible positions in this area. I understand people in philosophy are prone to dismiss other views, either as stupid, stating "we must pass over in silence", or with some remark in between. Interestingly, and I'm sure with plenty of precedent, in Wittgenstein's case he came to dismiss parts of his own dismissal later on.
I won't get into the philosophical issues themselves (as I'm sure it can only hurt my case:), but you must surely be aware that when dealing with philosophical matters, your, my or anybody's agreement or dismissal of a viewpoint will never be universal, not even nearly universal. To wit, philosophers will still in this century go back and forth about the law of non-contradiction [1], one of the pillars of classical logic, and there is no sign of a slowdown. So, before you find "evidence (empirical or logical)" you may have to first wrestle about the very nature and demarcation of logic, with turtles all the way down.
Like you say, these issues can be fun to think about... or not (I'm not sure I can agree, certainly not for the prolonged periods of time that would make a person a philosopher), but in any event I have great appreciation for the people that get involved seriously in this discipline. Precisely for this reason, I take issue with labeling most any position carefully put forth as stupid, moronic, unjustified, etc. Even more so when nobody will ever get nowhere near unanimous consensus on any topic in philosophy, which can easily be contrasted with science or mathematics, where you do find it, at least for some issues, such as the (sigh... nearly) universally dismissed geocentric and flat-Earth models.
> Interestingly, and I'm sure with plenty of precedent, in Wittgenstein's case he came to dismiss parts of his own dismissal later on.
Okay, but that doesn't prove that I will reach the same conclusions Wittgenstein did.
> I won't get into the philosophical issues themselves (as I'm sure it can only hurt my case:), but you must surely be aware that when dealing with philosophical matters, your, my or anybody's agreement or dismissal of a viewpoint will never be universal, not even nearly universal.
Whether everyone believes the truth is irrelevant to whether or not it's true. Universality and consensus are not goals I have when seeking the truth.
It will never be the case that everyone believes what's true.
> To wit, philosophers will still in this century go back and forth about the law of non-contradiction [1], one of the pillars of classical logic, and there is no sign of a slowdown. So, before you find "evidence (empirical or logical)" you may have to first wrestle about the very nature and demarcation of logic, with turtles all the way down.
Sure. I won't claim to have a solution to this debate, but this, like "Can we trust our senses?" is another question without implications. If the law of contradiction is false, few people are willing to really put their money where their mouth is and really embrace contradiction, and those who do end up in psych wards. That doesn't help us prove that it's true (or false) but it does make the question fairly uninteresting. I prefer to ask questions where the answer has real-world implications.
Universality and consensus are not goals I have when seeking the truth.
If there is one truth per (willing) mind we might as well call them points of view, no? I won't hide that's a big part of what pulled me to mathematics for my college degree: foundational issues notwithstanding, it is the discipline that, at least on some fundamental notions (such as the number 7 being prime), gets closest to universality and consensus.
I prefer to ask questions where the answer has real-world implications.
You have basically stated that science is more interesting to you than philosophy. We can agree on that, and so can most other people.
I like reading ignorant things like this because it helps show why we really need more classical education in society. If you'd actually read some Plato, as opposed to summaries, I'd be shocked if you could keep the same belief. It's just so damn good for thinking with.
But prior to Plato, the Pythagorean Philolaus wrote that sensation/experience comes from the interaction between the soul (greek: psyche) and the body. Soul, here, is not the experiencing thing but the immaterial forms. (Summary: an example of an immaterial form is the concept of a triangle — a real and meaningful form but separate from any material instance). This Pythagorean view of the soul is compelling and has similarities with the idea of computational logic being fundamentally separable from the media of computation. The same logic can run on silicon or some water pump computer.
So, from this, if mind is what we'd call the experience, then it isn't just the body. It is the material body interacting with the soul (the "computational" forms).
"Be kind. Don't be snarky. Comments should get more thoughtful and substantive, not less, as a topic gets more divisive. Have curious conversation; don't cross-examine."
You mean you've read some Plato? That's great. I'm most inspired by Phaedo, Gorgias and Timaeus. I think it's really important to stay attuned to the Pythagorean tradition, which seemed to be Plato's largest philosophical influence.
I've read The Republic. There wasn't anything in there that inspired me to read more of his work.
I think Plato and a lot of other early writers should be studied as historical figures, but we should also recognize that they were products of their time. Plato got it wrong more often than he got it right, not because he was stupid (he wasn't), but because he didn't have the benefits of thousands of years of previous thinkers to refine his ideas against. But we do have that benefit, and we should use it. We have the opportunity to stand on the shoulders of 21st century giants, and we miss that opportunity if we choose to stand on the shoulders of philosophers in the infancy of philosophy.
Even where ancient philosophers got things right in their theories of the mind, it was mostly just lucky guesses, without the benefit of modern neuroscience to validate those guesses. And neuroscience itself is in its infancy: our theory of the mind should be expanding every day as new discoveries are made.
What makes you think Plato didn't have the benefits of thousands of years of previous thinkers to refine his ideas against? I'm not aware we have any evidence that cultures with oral traditions didn't have thousands of years of history of philosophical thought. They would have dressed them up in stories because that's how oral traditions work but they're still very philosophical.
It would not surprise me if Plato did have the benefits of thousands of years of previous thinkers to refine his ideas against. I'm not saying he didn't, I'm saying we have the benefit of thousands of years more than he did.
1. Plato doesn't get things wrong because the nature of his rhetoric is presenting provocative dialogue for thinking with. The questions he raises are still relevant: what is good, what is virtue, what is beauty. I'm of the opinion (it's disputable) that the purpose of Philosophy isn't finding "the truth" but in living better.
2. Standing on the shoulders of 21st century philosophers... Well, there have been some good ones. But consider this list -- wouldn't you be standing taller on Plato's shoulders than on any of these?
https://bigthink.com/scotty-hendricks/10-living-philosophers...
3. Neuroscience can't validate what is good, what is virtue, what is beauty. As a neuroscientist, I find an incredible amount of value in reading the original texts of the oldest philosophers, particularly the Pythagoreans (all is number; Harmonious soul in a harmonious cosmos). Understanding cognition in terms of harmonization processes is, for me, of great value. It is actually an excellent framework for understanding phase-amplitude coupling and other neural dynamics. The notion of harmony passed from Pythagoras to Plato to Plotinus to Ficino to Kepler to Newton... And then largely died. Why? It was the tacit agreement between the church and the scientific establishment to clearly separate science and spirituality.
Today, some seek to deny the existence of science, some the existence of spirituality. The alternative to that rejection is an integration of the two. Yet, modern science simply isn't interested in that task-- and neither is modern philosophy. So, if one cares about that integration (and I'm not the only one), there is a lot of benefit in going back in time to when there wasn't a difference between the two fields. And that's why I love the Pythagorean - Platonic tradition: an empirical investigation of the spiritual mysteries of a mathematical universe. Good luck finding a modern philosopher to take that on!
If you are intrigued, try reading "mathematics useful for understanding Plato" by Theon of Smyrna (c. 100AD)
> 1. Plato doesn't get things wrong because the nature of his rhetoric is presenting provocative dialogue for thinking with. The questions he raises are still relevant: what is good, what is virtue, what is beauty. I'm of the opinion (it's disputable) that the purpose of Philosophy isn't finding "the truth" but in living better.
Plato absolutely gets some things wrong. For one, he favored dictatorship (self-servingly, he thought the dictator should be a philosopher).
Sure, some of what Plato says is relevant, but lots of modern philosophers are saying those things, only more refined. There's not much value in reading Plato if you can read the same thing by a modern author, with all Plato's mistakes ironed out by two and a half millenia of discovery and debate.
In fact, Plato's belief in dictatorship was a great example of where we have the benefit of two and a half millenia of experience that Plato didn't have: we've seen a lot of dictators, and had the benefit of comparing the results of dictatorship to other forms of government.
> 2. Standing on the shoulders of 21st century philosophers... Well, there have been some good ones. But consider this list -- wouldn't you be standing taller on Plato's shoulders than on any of these? https://bigthink.com/scotty-hendricks/10-living-philosophers....
No. You think this is a rhetorical question, but it isn't. I would absolutely rather stand on the shoulders of one of those philosophers, rather than Plato.
It's likely that all of those philosophers have read Plato, and are already standing on his shoulders. So by reading those philosophers instead, you get the parts of Plato that have value, plus the benefit of their having refined Plato's ideas. Plato might have been a giant in his time, but he's a child compared to those who have the benefit of his height in addition to their own.
Incidentally, the argument I'm making in this post is pretty similar to one made by Martha Nussbaum, one of the philosophers on this list.
"Now the fact that Aristotle believes something does not make it true." --Martha Nussbaum
> 3. Neuroscience can't validate what is good, what is virtue, what is beauty.
Nor can Plato.
> As a neuroscientist, I find an incredible amount of value in reading the original texts of the oldest philosophers, particularly the Pythagoreans (all is number; Harmonious soul in a harmonious cosmos). Understanding cognition in terms of harmonization processes is, for me, of great value.
The part that makes this palatable is where you speak for yourself. If you like it, I applaud your enjoyment of it!
> The notion of harmony passed from Pythagoras to Plato to Plotinus to Ficino to Kepler to Newton... And then largely died. Why? It was the tacit agreement between the church and the scientific establishment to clearly separate science and spirituality.
This not only ignorant of history, but it is also ignorant of the present day. If there's a agreement between the church and scientific communities to separate science and spirituality, neither side is holding up their end of the bargain. Did you read the part of the article you linked on Daniel Dennett? If you think Darwin or Einstein weren't spiritual, you can't have read much of their writings.
"The Darwinian Revolution is both a scientific and a philosophical revolution, and neither revolution could have occurred without the other." --Daniel Dennett
To be entirely fair, by reading those philosophers listed, you get the parts of Plato that they believe have value. That's not necessarily the same thing as the parts of Plato that actually have value, I'm sure you agree?
Of course that Aristotle believes something does not make it true, but also that Nussbaum doesn't believe something Aristotle believes doesn't make it false either!
That's true--what I said was intended as an approximation. I should have added some "most"s and "probably"s.
I think we can say that if one or two other philosophers besides Plato think that something Plato says has value, the chances of it actually having value are higher than a random sampling of what Plato says having value.
Why then would historians emphasize the importance of primary sources? If you rely on a progression of secondary sources over and over, you get serious misconceptions. Such as, for instance, your notion of the forms as being indicative of a descartian mind/body split. That simply isn't what Plato wrote.
So, as it turns out, not everyone can or should read primary sources. It's only for the select few. But those that do won't be dumber than those that only read secondary sources.
Plato's allegory of the Cave is about the liberation provided by education, and self-awareness.
How gaining understanding of your environment freed you from the limited reality it presented you.
The initial usage of the story was to illustrate how political indoctrination could present a false reality to ardent followers "the shadows of cave fire for those raised in the cave", and how education could "open the eyes and show them the true light" (the fire in the sky/sun vs the fire in the cave). "...even if one was dragged out of the cave".
This was later extended to demonstrate that if humans learned about their own emotions, they could learn to reason decisions, rather than allow emotions to guide them exclusively.
Tangentially, this rough concept in early western philosophy evolved into the religion of the Sun, and had significant influence on early Christianity.
I would caution you on ever thinking that allegories or analogies "demonstrate" anything. Analogies can be used to explain a model of a system, but they can't be use to prove that that model is accurate.
Consider the analogy "arms are like wings". That's actually true in a lot of ways, but we can't simply assume that arms have all the properties of wings by analogy, otherwise we'd conclude that arms allow us to fly.
That education improves our capabilities is fairly well proven via other means.
I believe the mind, or soul, is indeed in the brain. But it's also separate. It's more like software controlling the hardware.
Take self control and attention. How many people struggle with it, procrastinating? You want to do something, you know you have to do it, you like doing it... But you don't.
Because your brain doesn't listen to your mind. Because the brain is mostly a primitive autonomous system and needs to be constantly motivated, coerced, trained to do things that it technically doesn't need to (why do anything besides eat, survive, reproduce?)
Take away what we call the mind/soul, and we're just a basic animal, running reactively on instinct and reflexes.
I think the battle in procrastination is not between the brain and something outside but between different parts of the brain, one favoring a long term perspective and others favoring immediate gratification.
That is incorrect, but unfortunately a very common misunderstanding.
The mind is highly correlated with the brain but it is not the brain. It’s easy to see this is the case because the brain is made up of a qualitatively different material than the mind. While the brain is composed of biological cells / chemistry / atoms, the mind is composed of things like sense-perceptions (like colours, smells, sounds, etc), emotions, etc.
Which is to say that the mind is composed of material that is fundamentally different from the brain. Of course they’re highly correlated but they are in fact separate entities composed of different materials.
You may say that the fundamental materials of the mind are reducible to the same things as the brain, but that would be confusing correlation for the thing itself.
Take for example the colour red, which is present in the mind but not the brain. Yes the brain enables the perception of red but it is not red itself. Eg a photon with a wavelength of approximately 620-750nm is often confused for red but in fact it’s just a photon which, when it hits the back of our eyes causes a chemical cascade from the relevant cone cells. So it’s abundantly clear this photon in itself is not red because it just causes a specific chemical cascade at back of our eyes. So is this chemical cascade red? No it’s just a chemical cascade that is highly correlated with red appearing in our mind.
The right answer, I believe, is simply that red is highly correlated with specific pathways of chemical cascades in our brain. The point remains that the brain and the mind are separate and distinct entities made up of qualitatively different material.
If you disagree with this assessment, please tell me what is red?
Your argument falls apart where you claim something is abundantly clear, when you can't even clearly describe what you think is abundantly clear.
You're claiming red light isn't the perception of red. I can be on board with those semantics, but they are just semantics. In that case, I'd say the phenomenon described by the terms is that red light is the electromagnetic radiation in the long range of the visible spectrum, and the perception of red is the chemical cascade starting with the stimulation of L-cones and ending with the firing of neurons in the visual cortex.
You keep saying that red light and the perception of red are "highly correlated" with red, but I'm saying, there's no evidence for anything besides red light and the perception of red. You're saying that the brain and the mind are made up of qualitatively different material, but I'm saying, "qualitative" implies "observable", and you've yet to present an observable phenomenon that is clearly the mind.
Either the mind is indistinguishable from the brain, in which case we don't need a second term for it, or it's a distinguishable phenomenon that you've failed to actually demonstrate exists. It's not clear which is the case, because you haven't made it clear what observable phenomena you are calling "the mind".
Do you agree that orange light isn't the same as the perception of orange? After all, the perception of orange can exist without orange light, as demonstrated by the RGB monitor you are most likely using to look at the header at the top of this web page.
The mind is a distinguishable phenomenon from the brain because I can observe other people's brains (although I hope I never actually do) but I can't observe other people's minds.
Is it not abundantly clear that a photon is just a photon? What else could it be?
> the perception of red is the chemical cascade starting with the stimulation of L-cones and ending with the firing of neurons in the visual cortex.
So this quote illustrates the gist of your thinking, but I think you've got some muddled terms. For you there is "red light" and "the perception of red". So for you:
"red light" is the photon &
"the perception of red" is the chemical cascade.
Whereas, I would break it down as follows:
"red light" is the photon as well - ie a photon with wavelength between 620-750nm (though I'd caution that despite calling this photon "red light", there is in fact no "red" associated with it - except that it can cause the perception of red if it hits and excites specific cone cells at back our eyes, but it is still just a photon, albiet with a specific energy level but the point is this photon has no quality "red")
Where we differ is I believe:
The chemical cascade is the chemical cascade &
"the perception of red" is "the perception of red"
So I think the real problem with your understanding of this is your confusing the chemical cascade caused by a 620-750nm photon to be "the perception of red".
In a sense, you are claiming that this chemical cascade is 2 things: 1: a chemical cascade and 2: the perception of red (i.e. the subjective sensation of looking at red); whereas, I would say the chemical cascade is just a chemical cascade... that's all it is, because of course chemicals can't be chemicals AND sense perceptions - that's the real incorrect leap of faith in your argument.
I believe it makes much more sense to consider sense perceptions to be a separate distinct phenomenon. You say that I have yet to present an observable phenomenon that is clearly in the mind, but just imagine a red triangle, boom there you have it - that red triangle only exists in the mind. Sure, in the brain there's electrochemical activity within the visual cortex, but you won't find a red triangle in there, because the red triangle is made up of fundamentally different material - i.e. the sense-perception of red in the shape of a triangle. Now, I have no idea what red actually is, except that I know it is a qualitatively different material than the brain and is fundamentally irreducible.
If you still disagree with this, tell me where is the red triangle? Because I think it's patently absurd to say the red triangle IS a chemical cascade in your brain. No, it's not. It's highly correlated with a chemical cascade in your brain, but it is an objectively distinct and separate entity/object; it's simply made of qualitatively different material than the brain. Ultimately, as I said before, I believe you're confusing 2 correlated processes/things for a single process/thing: the chemical cascade and the sense-perception.
> Is it not abundantly clear that a photon is just a photon? What else could it be?
Well, light can be modeled as either a wave or a particle[1]. When talking about colors, it makes more sense to talk about light using the wave model of light than the particle model of light--not that either way of talking about it is wrong, it's just that the particle model is way more complicated for modeling this particular phenomena.
> "red light" is the photon as well - ie a photon with wavelength between 620-750nm
No. If you're talking about wavelength you should be using the wave model. It absolutely makes sense to say "red light" when you're talking about a wave.
There's no such thing as a red photon because photons don't have color by themselves--red light is made up of many photons, which have a frequency.
It sounds like your argument is basically that you don't know how to represent color with the particle model of light, so you assume the answer is "the mind". Not only can you go learn how to represent color using the particle model, but even if that weren't possible, assuming that anything you don't understand is "the mind" is pretty premature.
> In a sense, you are claiming that this chemical cascade is 2 things: 1: a chemical cascade and 2: the perception of red (i.e. the subjective sensation of looking at red); whereas, I would say the chemical cascade is just a chemical cascade... that's all it is, because of course chemicals can't be chemicals AND sense perceptions - that's the real incorrect leap of faith in your argument.
People who have the chemical cascade experience red. People who don't, don't--even if red light is there (i.e. if they are colorblind). Do you have any reason for believing these are different phenomena?
> You say that I have yet to present an observable phenomenon that is clearly in the mind, but just imagine a red triangle, boom there you have it - that red triangle only exists in the mind. [...]
> If you still disagree with this, tell me where is the red triangle?
It's also in the brain, because the mind is just the brain.
This isn't hypothetical. We can read (very) fuzzy images from people's brains using neural-imaging[2]. I'm not aware of any experiments that specifically has read a red triangle, but I don't see any reason to believe that this image is uniquely in the mind and not the brain.
Again, it seems like you're just defining "the mind" as anything that happens in the brain where you don't know how it happens. And again I'll say, even if we didn't already know how it happens, concluding that this is "the mind" rather than some physical process we haven't yet discovered, is premature.
> it's simply made of qualitatively different material than the brain.
If it's qualitatively different, what are the qualitative differences?
As for the parts of your post I didn't respond to directly: declaring things irreducible, patently absurd, and declaring that you know things, all ex nihilo, is not a persuasive argument.
A lot of what you say is irrelevant. I get the feeling you aren't aware of the hard problem of consciousness, so I'll leave this here for you to read up on: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hard_problem_of_consciousness. Are you familiar with concepts like qualia? I recommend reading that wiki too.
The problem for you is that you still fail to draw a distinction between 2 highly correlated phenomena: the chemical cascade & the perception of red. You even get close to admitting the distinction yourself. E.g.:
> People who have the chemical cascade experience red. People who don't, don't--even if red light is there (i.e. if they are colorblind). Do you have any reason for believing these are different phenomena?
So yes, many reasons - some of which have already been explained and inadequately responded to, but here's another example that should prove it to you: We can put someone under anesthesia, shine red light into their eyes & they will still have the chemical cascade, but will not experience or perceive red. How do you square this circle? I suspect you'll insist they must also experience it and simply not know, but I'll be interested in hearing your mental gymnastics.
> It's also in the brain, because the mind is just the brain.
> This isn't hypothetical. We can read (very) fuzzy images from people's brains using neural-imaging[2]. I'm not aware of any experiments that specifically has read a red triangle, but I don't see any reason to believe that this image is uniquely in the mind and not the brain.
I've looked at brains under the microscope... never once have I seen a red triangle, or green square, or blue circle, yet here they are in my mind. Again your confusing correlation for the thing itself.
Yes I'm sure we'll get to the point where if I imagine a red triangle, then we'll be able to "read" it from my brain, but this doesn't mean that the red triangle is in my brain, just that a certain activity of neurons in the brain is correlated with a red triangle... those neural imaging techniques are all largely about correlation, which is my point exactly.
> If it's qualitatively different, what are the qualitative differences?
The brain is made of traditional matter we're familiar with (e.g. atoms and their constituent parts, amongst others), but the mind is made up of things like sense-perceptions (e.g. the colour red or the smell of lemons, which are fundamentally irreducible - by which I mean you cannot say the perception of a red triangle is made up of traditional matter. Instead a red triangle is simply made up of red; in essence, if a red triangle is made up of atoms, those atoms would have the quality red, which is a property traditional matter does not possess, hence the mind being made up of qualitatively different matter than the brain.
I know it's probably hard for someone who refuses to believe consciousness exists to admit that consciousness does in fact exist as a separate distinct phenomenon, so I won't try too hard to convince you. I'm sure with time you'll make that distinction too.
> I get the feeling you aren't aware of the hard problem of consciousness, so I'll leave this here for you to read up on: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hard_problem_of_consciousness. Are you familiar with concepts like qualia? I recommend reading that wiki too.
This is, again, saying a problem is hard, and then concluding that since we can't solve it, the solution is mind! Which again remains a premature conclusion.
> The problem for you is that you still fail to draw a distinction between 2 highly correlated phenomena: the chemical cascade & the perception of red.
No, that's not a failure. That's my entire point. There aren't two phenomena: they are the same thing.
> We can put someone under anesthesia, shine red light into their eyes & they will still have the chemical cascade, but will not experience or perceive red. How do you square this circle?
Surely you can see how inserting a chemical into the brain might change or interfere with the chemical cascade? If you assume that the chemical cascade IS the perception of red, then interfering with the chemical cascade preventing the perception of red makes perfect sense.
> I've looked at brains under the microscope... never once have I seen a red triangle, or green square, or blue circle, yet here they are in my mind. Again your confusing correlation for the thing itself.
I must admit I got a chuckle out of this. Is this what you think I'm claiming? This is definitely not what I'm claiming. I'm just going to quote this so you can't retract it.
> those neural imaging techniques are all largely about correlation, which is my point exactly.
Neural imaging is done with physical machines, which can only detect physical phenomena. "Correlating" means to take two things and show them to be related. So if you're correlating two phenomenon with machinery that can only detect physical phenomena, you can only correlate physical phenomena. If you're claiming that neural imaging shows the correlation between a chemical cascade and the processes of the mind, then the processes of the mind must be a physical phenomenon--which is my point.
> I know it's probably hard for someone who refuses to believe consciousness exists to admit that consciousness does in fact exist as a separate distinct phenomenon, so I won't try too hard to convince you.
I don't refuse to believe in consciousness--consciousness certainly exists, as electrical and chemical processes in the brain. And I wouldn't refuse to believe in consciousness as distinct from electrical and chemical reactions in the brain, if you presented any evidence for that assertion, instead of just repeating it and adding new unfounded claims.
> I'm sure with time you'll make that distinction too.
From the viewpoint of the mind, red is an illusion or perhaps a conventional way of organizing experiences. From the view point of the body, red is an emergent phenomena. Color is an interesting example because people literally don’t see colors that their languages do not differentiate: https://www.wnycstudios.org/podcasts/radiolab/segments/21121...
Okay, if you're saying that the mind is just the sequence of events occurring inside the brain, I certainly won't argue that the sequence of events doesn't exist.
However, I don't think that's what most people mean when they say "mind", and using the word "mind" brings with it a lot of baggage, so I'd prefer to use a more descriptive term, like "sequence of events".
"Sequence of events", to me, doesn't capture the relationship between subsequent states of either the brain or the mind. Also, "states of mind" have an explanatory power that "states of the brain" don't have, even though the former are theoretically reducable to the latter.
I think it is at this part of the debate where the ship of Theseus becomes interesting.
The sequence of events in the brain are what make up the mind. But, if you replace the brain while keeping the sequence of events continuous, you have a new brain and the same mind.
Or maybe just the same brain. Ship of Theseus and all that.
> The sequence of events in the brain are what make up the mind. But, if you replace the brain while keeping the sequence of events continuous, you have a new brain and the same mind.
Okay, but as far as I know, we've never replaced a brain while keeping the sequence of events continuous--I'm not even sure what actions one would take to do that.
But the fact that we can't currently do so doesn't mean that it isn't relevant to the philosophical discussion of whether the mind is a separate entity from the brain.
It seems likely to me, though, that we'll be able to really make progress on that question in the next century or so for this very reason.
Modern philosophical thought and religion were built on that idea, and they were arguably inextricable from science in it's early stages. This is like someone people never fully recover from adolescence. Correct, it forms an integral part of who you eventually become.
> Modern philosophical thought and religion were built on that idea, and they were arguably inextricable from science in it's early stages.
So were lots of bad ideas. Science is a process of trial and error. This was an error. The hope is that you correct the errors, not make them an integral part of your belief system.
Metabolism. How the chemistry of your body interacts with itself.
I know for sure I have 'episodes' when I've got acid in the wrong parts of the gut. I also 'feel' the stages of stool composition, and there are definitely relics of unhealthy eating in my mood swings.
One thing though, is I never take pharmaceuticals, as I wish my body to be a picture of my life balance, which I believe are two separate realms completely (body/life). Instead I do everything I can to eat well, and give my body the sport it needs. This isn't easy, but everyone's got their own body, and its own needs. If you pay attention, it'll tell you what it needs.
The brain, or at least my brain, is a nice soft spongy joystick for controlling the rest of it. It feels good to throw around a bit, but you gotta take care of what its attached to, as well. A good day in the surf is how I charge my mind up, anyhoo...
There's really no evidence or justification for it. Your mind and your body are the same thing.