When I'm flying in a dream, for instance, I know that it's me flying.
— praxis
Really? You remember your dreams. That seems to contradict the well known fact that to remember dreams one has to be woken up in the middle of it. — TheMadFool
what's the defining characteristic of mind?
The self is the "I" that the mind infers to from what is essentially the Cartesian I think, therefore I am. — TheMadFool
I only asked you to provide 4 physical items that includes thoughts as one. :chin: — TheMadFool
I weigh around 80 Kg. So
When I'm alive: My Mind + My Body = 80 Kg
When I die: My Body = 80 Kg — TheMadFool
The self is a letter of the alphabet? Or are you saying that the self is but another thought? Are thoughts about stuff that aren"t thoughts? — Harry Hindu
I’ve explained why it is a poor question. But....
1) cognition
2) traffic
3) cities
4) weather
5) ecosystems — apokrisis
Nothing is ‘purely physical’. If there were any such object, physics would be the discipline which describes it. And yet, the search for the fundamental constituents of matter through the largest and most expensive machine in the history of the world, has resulted in conundrums, paradoxes and arguments about the nature of science.
Every experience we have is mediated by judgement, and judgement can’t be said to be a physical process, as it comprises the relationship of ideas - if this, then that, because this is so, then that must be so. That has no analogy in the physical world, it is wholly in the domain of ideas.
Schopenhauer of course saw all of this, although since his day philosophy has regressed. — Wayfarer
Ergo, there must be a common thread that runs through all five of them that justifies them being listed under the same category, the physical. — TheMadFool
Do you accept them all as physical? Or even just the four listed after cognition? — apokrisis
Then you haven't told me what the self is, only what refers to the self. Harry Hindu and TheMadFool are just another scribble that refers to some self. So I'll ask again, what is a self?Can you use "I" in a sentence Harry Hindu? If you can then what that "I" refers to is Harry HIndu's self. If you can't then that'd be interesting. — TheMadFool
What does "purely physical" even mean? Are you saying that the universe is partly physical and partly something else? How can the physical interact with something else that isn't physical? This is the problem with dualism.Nothing is ‘purely physical’. If there were any such object, physics would be the discipline which describes it. And yet, the search for the fundamental constituents of matter through the largest and most expensive machine in the history of the world, has resulted in conundrums, paradoxes and arguments about the nature of science.
Every experience we have is mediated by judgement, and judgement can’t be said to be a physical process, as it comprises the relationship of ideas - if this, then that, because this is so, then that must be so. That has no analogy in the physical world, it is wholly in the domain of ideas.
Schopenhauer of course saw all of this, although since his day philosophy has regressed. — Wayfarer
What does "purely physical" even mean? — Harry Hindu
In the Aristotelian scheme, nous is the basic understanding or awareness that allows human beings to think rationally. For Aristotle, this was distinct from the processing of sensory perception, including the use of imagination and memory, which other animals can do. (It is what sets h. Sapiens apart as the ‘rational animal’; it is, arguably, ‘sapience’ itself.) This therefore connects discussion of nous to discussion of how the human mind sets definitions in a consistent and communicable way, and whether people must be born with some innate potential to understand the same universal categories in the same logical ways. Deriving from this it was also sometimes argued, especially in classical and medieval philosophy, that the individual nous must require help of (or be an instance of) a higher intellect. By this type of account, it came to be argued that the human understanding (nous) somehow stems from this cosmic nous, which is however not just a recipient of order, but a creator of it.
Then you haven't told me what the self is, only what refers to the self. Harry Hindu and TheMadFool are just another scribble that refers to some self. So I'll ask again, what is a self? — Harry Hindu
My Mind is not physical. — TheMadFool
I have no idea — TheMadFool
You say the mind is not physical. When you say the mind, you can only be referring to two things, either the brain or consciousness. The brain is physical and by definition has mass. You can examine a brain, weigh it, etc. Consciousness is a process, more specifically the brain's process. A process has no mass.
Put another way, a wheel has mass. The motion of spin a wheel experiences has no mass.
Nothing you've stated refutes physicalism. — avalon
So you have no idea if you would classify cities or the weather as physical phenomena?
Sounds legit. — apokrisis
Any non-physical object is, in turn, non-quanitfiable, so it's impossible to use mathematics to describe a non quantifiable object, except maybe imaginary numbers, which are imaginary.
You might think "zero" is used in mathematics all the time and it is "nothing", well, nothing is in relation to what is being quantified. If there are no attainable coins in someone's coin pouch, they have zero, but that doesn't mean there are zero coins, or that there is nothing to make the coins with, or that there isn't mass in relation to what a coin is. It just means there are zero coins from an arbitrated point of view of what is and isn't valuable. — ep3265
I don't believe so, it still falls within the physical realm
a conscious mind is a process, not an object for it to be disproven like so, just like a cake mixer being turned on is a process with electricity passing through it, all still falls under the physical realm — Augustusea
Well, I would've liked to say "exactly" but then your last statement prevents me from doing that.
The mind/consciousness/psyche, whatever you want to call it, is a complex subject. Perhaps what I've been saying in this thread makes sense if we make the assumption that there's something, call it x, that does the thinking in us.
Yes, admittedly, this x could be the brain but how does one explain sleep/death? In both these states we have an intact brain but no consciousness - in sleep it's a temporary absence but in death it's permanent. — TheMadFool
This is the right time to consider the nature of consciousness and we come to the realization that it deals exclusively with thoughts. Consciousness is all about thoughts - ideas/concepts - and thoughts are clearly not physical like brains, and neurons are.
The human body has, at any one time, multiple physical processes in action - the heart, the kidneys, etc. but all of them remain, so to speak, within the realm of the physical - blood flow, urine, etc. all physical. Given physicalism, how do we explain the peculiar fact of the immaterial/nonphysical nature of thoughts? — TheMadFool
To say “thoughts are clearly not physical” seems like a stretch. It certainly appears non-physical but we may simply lack the understanding to describe it in physical terms (currently). — avalon
Here's where the meat of the issue is: "it certainly appears non-physical". — TheMadFool
What appears to us as physical or non-physical has no bearing on rational discourse. There are plenty of things that we interpret or wish to be that are wrong. Neuroscience has shown very clearly that the mind is tied to the brain, and is a result of its chemical processes. This isn't really a debate anymore. It doesn't matter what anything appears to be, when we have the facts and studies to show what it is.
Its like looking at the sun across the sky and saying, "Huh, the Sun goes around the Earth." By appearance, that's the only conclusion one can make. But we've studied it, gone into space, and realized that WE go around the Sun. Its an absolute shock to our common sense conclusion, but that is reality, not our personal perception of it. — Philosophim
It certainly appears non-physical — avalon
Get involved in philosophical discussions about knowledge, truth, language, consciousness, science, politics, religion, logic and mathematics, art, history, and lots more. No ads, no clutter, and very little agreement — just fascinating conversations.