dualism

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I see the mind as a complex pattern if energy.
The energy itself is not the mind, but the pattern is.
A computer has such a pattern through it's various circuits, and a brain also has, but to a much higher magnitude.
The computer hardware of the brain is just a body to keep this pattern consistent by providing wires.
The wires might be damaged, and then the pattern gets disconnected, sometimes so badly that it won't work any more.
At some point, this pattern somehow becomes complex enough to refer to itself, to become self-aware.
Then it can start thinking about abstract things like how the mind works and what's for dinner.

Now, it's interesting to think about the possibility of such minds not sustained by an ordinary, material (in our sense) piece of hardware, but that might work as a solitary unit, use whatever matter is handy, or perhaps have a physical piece of hardware, but one that is not part of our very narrow spectrum of existence.
That also brings up the thought of a spirit.
I think of the spirit as energy, like qi, and it's that energy that forms the mind when complex enough.
Now if there's things we can't see then consider the possibility that our mind not only resides in our brain (and our spirit in our body), but also in some other dimension, in a hardware case outside our possibility of perception.
If so, there would be some kind of exchange between these two, and since our physical body is so short lived, something like that would explain among other things life after death, reincarnation and most every other spiritual idea.

This is, of course, just speculating, but always bear in mind that the spectrum of observable vibrations is very narrow, giving room for a lot of stuff we can't observe, at least not on a consistent basis, but that maybe affects us, just like we cant hear over-tones in music, but they work in synergy with the audible ones to create a more pleasant sound. Just ask any audiophile.

By and large I can go along with that. But then who is the user?



There's a book by Eccles and Popper, "The Self and its Brain". The title sums up a good deal of the findings of the two gentlemen (namely, that self and brain are not the same).

I think we may found have a fundamental difference of opinion here. If you define 'mind' as a physical functioning of the brain, then your next statement follows correctly:



Yes, that's what a brain is for.



Just like the computer user is the result of the computer? :-)

Here lies a difference of opinion. I don't think of the mind as a mere mechanical result. Because: why should there be such a result in the first place? I'm thinking also of thermodynamics and enthropy. If you leave an energetic system all by itself, it will collapse to an enthropic state. Why should / how could mere matter, left to itself, build itself up to a fantastically complex structure like the brain? The brain, the nervous system, their functioning, are in my view the point, the interface, where two entities meet.

Yes, the functioning of the mind can be manipulated through a manipulating of the brain. But that's like tampering with means of communication. A phone connection may get cut: does that mean the caller no longer exists? or that he hung up? that he's angry and doesn't want to continue the conversation? One could believe any of these things - or believe that there's a mere mechanical malfunction.

And let's not forget that the opposite happens too, and quite frequently: psychosomatic illnesses. The mind can have such power over the physical aspects of a person that the person falls physically ill.



Indeed. But why are they more adaptable?



But they die (which brings up the question: what is the meaning of death? Which is the logical counterpart to the question what the meaning of life is).



That largely hinges on the definition of 'human being'. If you start from the presumption that a human being is like a machine, that is to say: if you begin by putting the two on one and the same level, then you're more or less right. But then you're also ignoring some crucial matters, like life and meaning. I am precisely questioning whether that presumption is correct. My point is that because human beings live (which means that they know, that they realize meaning, etc.), they are qualitatively different and belong to a different category than devices and machines.



And who is 'we'? And what are the criteria for progress? They are context-sensitive. E.g., nuclear physics represents a step forward in science, and can be put to good use; but a nuclear weapon is, from the point of view of ecology, a disaster. Similarly, the neurosciences indeed are progress, from a certain point of view; but the application of their results in an inappropriate field, with illogical conclusions, is not.



Logic too is just a tool, something useful that arose rather late in the history of the earth. As soon as a tool (which can be used in different ways) takes precedence over the inventor and user of the tool, something is very wrong.



I beg to differ here. Even if these questions haven't been answered 'objectively' (and one may wonder how to answer such questions objectively), we see people everywhere, also throughout the whole of western civilization, also today, seeking meaning and quality.

Some more questions come to mind: who are those "individuals" who have to "answer for themselves"? Why should they answer?

What are all of us doing here, if we aren't looking for answers to questions about meaning and quality? Isn't, for instance, the quest for truth (however truth may be conceived) a quest for meaning and quality?

Why should anyone commit suicide? How many machines do we know that self-distruct after losing a sense of meaning and quality?

The concept of "objectivity", by the way, can also be used as a weapon to make people switch off their critical intelligence. It's ideal, among other things, for Mr X having technicians improve Mr X's weapons (he just lets them concentrate on the objective functioning of the weapons), which Mr X, as political bigshot, can use for his own totally unobjective purposes. - Mind you, I'm not saying that objectivity in itself is bad: I'm just saying that sometimes it doesn't fit at a certain point in a discussion. And also, there is more than one view of what constitutes objectivity, also within western civilization.



But why should anything "deal with the struggles of living and breeding"?

Here I'm reminded of an essay by Alfred North Whitehead titled "The Function of Reason" (a lecture given at Princeton University in 1929), in which, among other things, he discusses Darwinistic evolution: the well-known dicta of 'survival of the fittest' etc. Whose survival? What for? If survival means 'continued existence', then we have to conclude that certain turtles, that grow older than humans, are more highly developed on the evolutional scale. And certain trees, like redwoods, live still longer than turtles, so they must be more highly developed than the turtles. But if it's merely a matter of existence, then why live at all? Rocks can continue to exist for millions of years, so according to the criterion of survival as continued existence, the rocks must be still more highly developed than those trees, which seems a bit silly. - Thus goes Whitehead's critique of Darwinism.

We can ask in the same way: whose "struggles of living and breeding", and why? In short: we have to deal with the question of the meaning of life. That's heavy stuff, sure. But as long as we acknowledge that life exists, and non-life too, and if we assume that machines are non-life (which I think is reasonable) and that we are life (which I think is reasonable too), then we should be careful about the metaphors we use in mind-body discussions.

If we take the metaphor of human beings as a kind of machines seriously, then this leads to a number of interesting logical consequences and questions -

1. Human rights? Individual dignity? Why care - Are there refrigerator rights? computer rights? jackknife rights? Rights for any other gadgets?
2. Or: should we care about the mass murders by Stalin, Pol Pot, Mao, Hitler? Weren't they just scrapping a bunch of superfluous automatons?
3. Let's forget about mass murders. What about plain crime? Law and order? Why should we care, if we're just a bunch of machines? Let's just steal as much as we can, and if anyone objects, well, just too bad for them, the weaklings.
4. Or ecology: why bother? Let all the devices function till a big collective breakdown of everything.
5. Aspie rights? Aren't aspies just a bunch of malfunctioning machines? Why don't we just scrap 'm?

If any of these five groups of questions appears absurd, or in any other way is answered with 'no', then it means that there is something behind the mere functioning of the human machinery. And that 'something' has great value. Opinions about just what that something is may differ, but I don't think it quite appropriate to write about the assumption of something beyond the mechanical functioning of the brain as a mere "infatuation with ourselves and our glory".

Time for me to stop for now. Even if this is WP, I shouldn't demonstrate with unending writing about this obsession that I'm in the right place. :-)

Why does there have to be a user? There just has to be function and process. A falling ball has no user.

I do define the mind as being a physical functioning of the brain, I don't see any other meaningful interpretation of the relationship between the 2.


Except that there doesn't have to be a user. In fact, we scarcely ever speak of a user for an ant or any metaphysical meaning for any insect for that matter. The only reason why we get this attention is self-aggrandizement. There is no reason to assume a user and the simplest explanation for human action would assume no user at all.

Except that living beings are self-regulating. We could use this argument for all life, yet the evidence seems to indicate that life created itself out of continual processes due to the fact that this world is in disequilibrium. Mere matter does this because it is capable of doing so and because thermodynamics means that in the long run all will go towards entropy, not that order is impossible. The issue I have with your view is that there is a massive assumption, you assume outside interference in a situation where no assumption is strictly necessary.

Except that we make the assumption of communication where none is necessary and invoke magic where such invocations are not necessary. The issue is that physical things happen in the brain, and these physical things tend to be somewhat deterministic, so why invoke some outside power as the "doer of things". Really though, there is no indication to claim that a caller on the other side exists on the human brain any more as there is to claim that my processor receives information from the nth dimension. The manipulations of the brain are more meaningful than that of manipulating a call as well, a transmitter can usually not be altered with the same power and effects of the brain.

So? The human brain controls the body. The fact that it can alter that body seems only logical. But from a sense of the mind being separate from the body it makes no sense for bodily damage to damage the mind.
Because they were designed to be more adaptable. A mind that does not adapt would not make very much evolutionary sense for a creature.

Death tends to be viewed as the permanent cessation of bodily function.

But the only thing is that such matters are not necessarily crucial and the human desire for such meaning has no bearing on the nature of the world. We may be smart enough to philsophize on the world but that does not mean that we have anything greater than the philosophical depth of a fly. The very aspects that you emphasize can be created by a device of massive complexity, which is exactly what I paint the human being as. Your assumptions require the additional assumption of a higher thinking plane, while my assumption of complexity can be seen from just looking at the brain we have in comparison to similar devices on other creatures and drawing conclusions upon that.

I would put "we" as being human beings in general, I do not view that simple pronoun as really being worthy of notice and insert the one that seems to fit. I put the criteria for progress to be understanding. Neurosciences are progress and I see no mention of them being put into an inappropriate field with illogical conclusions. In fact, my conclusions are logical, while your conclusions are a defense of certain mysticisms and make claims based off of things not even proven to exist to justify.

Logic is both tool and system, mankind conceptualized logic but all logic does is describe systems. Reality takes precedence over man's fervent desires to protect his fantasies though.

I never stated that people do not seek to answer that but only that logic cannot and that no objective answer can be found, which leads to the question on individuals.
Being that individuals cannot find an objective truth, the best they can come up with is some mangled up bit of lies to claim as their own. They don't have to answer though, nobody has to do anything.

Yes because absolute truth has meaning, but physical truth cannot give philosophical meaning because man seeks some self-importance through his view of himself as greater than a rock.
Actually evolutionary psychologists believe that human beings commit suicide in order to avoid embarrassing their families and preventing their chances of breeding. This is why evolutionary psychologists believe that human suicide notes tend to talk a lot about disappointing their families.
Except that in this case it is prudent as it is incredibly doubtful that an objective mind would accept an explanation that requires appeals to forces not proven to exist when totally acceptable explanations based upon the known are available.

Because we arose from creatures who self-perpetuated through breeding so in order to continue with this process. If they stopped breeding or living they would not have successors.

Except that if he viewed evolutionary fitness as merely a function of the longevity of a being then he had no idea of the true requirements of evolution and his critique would then be false accordingly. Evolution means that beings continue to reproduce, they could live for 4 ms but so long as they bred during that time and had ancestors to continue the tradition they would be evolutionarily fit. Rocks are not living beings and have no place in evolutionary theory whatsoever. As well, "why live at all?" is really not an answerable question.

The only issue is that life and non-life are only distinguishable by composition and complexity, not by any other measure and the 2 differences are arbitrary from a philosophical standpoint.

1. Human rights do not exist, they are a desire, as is human dignity. We only care because we are humans and have certain desires while we live. These desires are largely motivated by our desires for comfort so that we can survive.

2. Why should we care? We might like for our governments to avoid doing so to us but the individuals mentioned are dead.

3. Crime is forbidden as well due to the fact that individuals dislike it. It does not stem from some deep higher meaning but rather these rules are a creation of a form of rule utilitarianism and a social contract due to the innate human desire to survive endowed by biological processes.

4. Why care? The only reason to care is so that our own asses and goals aren't interfered with. We can let every stinking critter die though.

5. Aspie rights are the same as humans, as in they don't exist but tend to be acknowledged out of rule utilitarianism and a social contract. I would pose this question on the scrapping aspect though: why bother? Scrapping requires effort and if we malfunction too much to work then we will not survive and if we don't malfunction too much then we will live. All humans malfunction so to claim that aspie is necessarily special is an error in assessment.
They weren't answered with anything but a no.

No, you shouldn't. Such efforts wouldn't be that endearing, and would not serve any of your social purposes.

All this looks clever, logical and 'scientific', but a closer look reveals that it's a bit silly.

Maybe you've heard of a philosophical phenomenon known as solipsism. What this basically amounts to is that the clever arguer claims that literally everything is his own dream, apart from which nothing exists. That means that as soon as you protest that you exist, the oh-so-clever clever solipsist explains you away as just another part of his dream (maybe a nightmare, but still a dream). It doesn't matter what you say, everything's his / her dream. Which effectively means that no further discussion is possible.

If someone wants to believe this (or pretends to believe this), there is no argument that can logically refute this belief. It's a sealed-off little world that has sterilely isolated itself from the larger world outside.

What you're doing is basically the same, just in reverse. Instead of saying that everything anybody says is your dream, you're saying that nobody is saying anything, because nobody is there: just purposeless processes, soulless interactions, physical processes 'only more complex' - which is just a materialist superstition.

Both these approaches, the solipsistic and the crypto-solipsistic, are sophistic tricks to sabotage any meaningful discussion. To compare:

Solipsist: Everything is my dream.
Opponent: [says something, doesn't matter what]
Solipsist: You're not really there, dear opponent, because you're just my dream, and what I just dreamt you said is also part of my dream. Don't ask me why. That too is just part of my dream, and my reply to it would be so too.

Here's another one, now with somebody who denies free will:

Determinist: Nobody has a free will.
Opponent: [says something, doesn't matter what]
Determinist: It doesn't matter what you said, you're only imagining that you have a will of your own. Everything that happens, including everything you do, is pre-determined. Don't ask me why. That too is pre-determined, and my answer too.

And now what we have here, which is just a variation of the same:

AwesomelyGlorious: Humans are just machines, without thoughts of their own. All of us are just automatic processes.
Opponent: [says something, doesn't matter what]
AwesomelyGlorious: It doesn't matter what you said, you're still a machine, just like me, and what you said is an automatic process. Don't ask me why. Anyhow, you're just a machine, like me.

At least since Karl Popper, this kind of reasoning is considered anti-scientific, because it does not open itself to critical investigation.

Of course you're free to continue playing that game. But excuse me if I don't play along, because I think it's useless, and it's not even fun. I've seen lots of adolescents play it, as a justification for anything they want (drugs, being a dropout, being cruel or selfish, you name it). Dictators play it, to collect cannon fodder and other slaves.

But I can't help adding a few more remarks - not that I really hope to convince you in public (I've been on mailing lists long enough to know that that is a vain hope), but for the benefit of other readers:



Just like that?



Just like that? And why doesn't all matter do that? Because that's what we see: living beings vs. non-living entities.



We'd still need a reason why certain entities live and others do not; that order occurs sometimes, and sometimes not. My contention is that (as you have confirmed) "in the long run all will go towards entropy", but that at the same time we notice something (life) that runs counter to that, evolving to ever greater complexity - hence matter is something, but there is also something else. That's not so massive at all.



Again the same questions arise: who designed? What evolutionary sense? Why evolution?

Last time you objected to me talking about 'meaning'. I don't think that your 'sense' is very different from 'meaning'.



Wrong. Logic describes nothing. People describe, using their creation, logic, as a tool. (This is not a triviality. It's crucial to what I've been saying all along.) And I believe that primitive, superstitious materialism is a fantasy, and that common sense takes precedence over it.



That kind of argument can also backfire, you know.



Which in my view precisely means that they exist - not materially, but in another sense very really, because they lead to effects, also on the material plane.



That's just one [wo]man's opinion, based on what supposedly are my social purposes. Oh, sorry, I forgot: you probably don't have opinions, because you're just an automated process. Or perhaps you do have opinions, defined in a way which is not mine, but they don't matter anyway, since they have no meaning, in which case I can do whatever I want.

Except that nobody can prove this larger outside world. Like you said, solipsism is internally consistent. There are only issues with solipsism on the grounds that it seems less likely than other explanations given that the nature of the solipsist and his environment, such as language and of course there are questions on why he would dream this dream where he can get hurt, where he must struggle, etc.
Except that it isn't. You have not proven a world outside of the material and your entire argument falls upon that. Greater complexity is not unimaginable and is in fact, the most likely explanation rather than some outside force impelling something. After all, it does not take much imagination to assume greater complexity in a pre-existing phenomenon as much as it takes imagination to assume an outside force, unseeable, untouchable, etc, affecting our world. If anything you substitute superstition for reason for insisting upon the less likely answer to the question.

Wait, you accuse me of sophistry?? Do you want me to go look up neurobiology?? Frankly, I reject this mischaracterization of my standpoint on the grounds that all I have been implying is that the simplest answer is most likely true. This is no sophistry, if anyone is committing an act of sophistry it is you for making this kind of argument. The brain is a physical device that processes information, a computer does the same thing but a lot less complex. I have made no improper argument but rather refer to the idea that my answer being simpler and based upon what we already understand is most likely to be true.
Anti-scientific??? If you have evidence to debunk my theory then go ahead and use it. From everything that I have heard though, scientists prefer the simplest answer requiring the least amount of assumptions. To call my argument anti-scientific is like saying that the big bang is anti-scientific as you promote creationism. It is ridiculous.
Oooh, clever wording and moral argumentation but absolutely no point or even refutation of anything, an elaborate smokescreen to hide behind and nothing more.

Stop with this morally self-righteous attitude. Yes, just like that. If we argue entropy we might as well be arguing that the energy from the earth should have logically gone dry itself. The argument of entropy is ridiculous, we will eventually go to entropy but that does not prohibit the creation of complex arrangements when the circumstances are conducive. Entropy means that overall the universe is decaying, not that order is impossible. All matter doesn't do that because of the nature of carbon bonds and the favorable conditions of the early earth's environment. Matter does not inherently create life but it does interesting things if put in the proper conditions, just like nuclear reactions only spontaneously occur under the right circumstances.

No, we DON'T. You obviously have a misunderstanding on the overall dynamic of what's going on. Life only gets more complex because the sun is giving off energy that life uses. The sun is where the loss in order is coming from, you have failed to see the entire picture.

Nobody designed. Nobody had to design. Over a thousand years of random changes and alterations life arose and the ones that could continue themselves the best continued. Evolutionary sense in that in order to the thing to continue itself it had to have certain features to allow it to react to its environment, the brain therefore evolved in a manner to be react to its environment. Evolution is the most logical theory and relies on the least additional assumptions and has a more complete view over why and how things occur, as well, we have seen micro-evolution and have created computer models which seem to indicate the possibilities of macro-evolution.
I think it is. Sense means logic, meaning is more metaphysical. Logically it would be detrimental for a creature to have a brain that does not help it interact with its environment. It would make no sense for such a creature to continue.


Logic is the describer of reality just like an equation describes a function. This is a reality, logic is true if the premises are true. I believe that primitive superstitious dualism is a fantasy and common sense would agree with that. Your metaphysical claims of a mental plane are not justified in face of the evidence and materialism is internally consistent, it fits all of the evidence, and it does not rely on many assumptions but rather simply refuses to assume things that have not been seen.


Not really when we speak of objective truth. I only allowed for you to continue to believe what you wanted, I never stated that it was going to be true.
Human rights do not exist in any objective manner and that is what most people refer to when they speak of human rights. They do exist as a concept which you may be referring to, but this does not mean that rights really exist, only that some people believe that they do.


Saying that I have no opinions because I am an automated process is a strawman of my beliefs on this matter. I do indeed have opinions on some matters that are not totally backed up by logic, all people do. My opinions are exactly that though, they don't matter, they are just little thoughts that I have. Yes, you can and do do whatever you want, just like everyone else chooses to.

I am a committed dualist myself, but nobody can ever prove or disprove such matters so it is just my opinion of what I prefer to believe in.

i challenge you to a dual!

I thought dualism was Mind, Matter, and Math.

wow

but that's three things! shouldn't it be called triplism?

OK DivaD. I'll see you on AspieTrash where we can have a dual over AntiHeather.

The winner gets to spend a night with her............oops......perhaps that last bit should have gone in the mature section.

Sorry AwesomelyGlorious and DarkEnergy - I'll let you continue your debate now!

Okay, I haven't read any of the posts above because I'm lazy, but...

The mind body problem should be thought of as a relationship. The physical and mental realms cannot exist without each other. Otherwise, they would not be labeled "physical" and mental". There can be no objects without perceivers, and no perceivers without objects. Now, one immediately wants to say here that, "of course there would be still be objects even if no one existed", but this is a faulty assumption because the term "physical" is a product of a humans cognitive perception.

Would their be "stuff", yes, but it wouldn't be called anything, in fact, there would be no names for anything because there would be nothing to assign names to anything. The buffalo does not know that he is a buffalo because he does not exist in a plane where he has a high enough cognitive abilities in order to seperate the two concepts of "physical" and "mental". And that is exactly what the "physical" world is, it is an identity statement, NOT an explanation, as is "mental". And, if there were only perceivers, what would they perceive? If perceptions did not take on some type of physical manifestation, there would be nothing to percieve, and hence, no need for dualist labels.

Now, does this mean that there are two distinctly seperate realms existing? Not necessarily. When comes to mind/body dualism it all depends on how you define the words because we don't have the technology to scientifically show that there is a "mental" realm that is completely distinct from the "physical". However we do see the ability for one "realm" to affect the other. Tests have shown that meditation can build brain matter, and brain injuires show that cogntive abilities rely on physical health. However, causation does not imply complete seperation, nor seperation at all.

It could be that the mental realm IS the physical realm (absolute reductionism), however, we don't have the scientific know-how to make that declaration yet. The argument here is along the lines of what they call the "is" of identity. That argument states that certain things are literally other things, once we find the technology, or knowledge to make that declaration. For ex, the "heart IS a pump" was not a possible statement until we discovered what pumps were. People were unable to describe what the heart was until the first pump was invented. Nor was the statement "lighting IS electricity" possible until we discovered what electricity was. Now, the statement the "mental IS a manifestation of the physical" will not be possible until we know more. It fully well may be, but we cannot declare it as fact yet.

Interesting...