"I exist" is not an observation? What is it then? — khaled
I agree that immaterial Mind is the function of Brain matter. But, do you know of a viable theory to explain how Mind & Consciousness & Meaning are "derived from" from mindless Matter, such as neural networks? Where is the latent potential for mental properties located in brain matter? How does that latency transform into manifest mental behavior? :smile:I’m not doubting consciousness, only that it derives from “mind” as opposed to brain. — Pinprick
Mind is just a basic word for whatever goes on inside of a person, as opposed to what we can observe about them from looking at their physical characteristics. At least I think that is how people who disagree with you are defining it. Thought, intellect, feelings, will, memory, impressions. Mind is kind of a catch all word for the combination of all those things. You can claim those things are not all part of a singular thing called a mind, but what appears absurd to many is claiming those things are reducible to matter.For what it’s worth, if the only reason for believing in minds is that they explain consciousness, then how is this anything more than a “god of the gaps” style argument? “Brains can’t explain consciousness, but minds can, therefore minds exist.” All the while completely overlooking or ignoring the fact that minds themselves require an explanation. Hitchens’s razor seems to dispose of this rather quickly. — Pinprick
I’m not doubting consciousness, only that it derives from “mind” as opposed to brain. — Pinprick
Mind is just a basic word for whatever goes on inside of a person, as opposed to what we can observe about them from looking at their physical characteristics. — Yohan
You can claim those things are not all part of a singular thing called a mind, but what appears absurd to many is claiming those things are reducible to matter. — Yohan
You cannot explain to someone what the color red looks like without showing them the color red. — khaled
Both have not been observed by the senses — khaled
So I don’t see what this proves. — Pinprick
Redness is still a physical property — Pinprick
Yeah, because we’re unable to visualize, or imagine particular wavelengths, etc — Pinprick
I would say we can observe consciousness when we observe brain activity. — Pinprick
We are able to correctly predict whether or not someone is conscious by observing brain states, right? — Pinprick
For the same reason as above, color and wavelength are different. Everyone can agree on wavelength without agreeing on color. — khaled
If you’re proposing that consciousness IS brain activity then that is demonstrably false. We have more brain activity while sleeping but we’re not “more conscious”. — khaled
I’m not even sure that’s true and regardless “observing brain states” is different from “observing consciousness”. — khaled
The fact that people perceive the same phenomena differently has no bearing on whether or not the object is physical. — Pinprick
I would claim whatever that difference is has to relate to consciousness. — Pinprick
If you observe people hitting a tennis ball back and forth across a net, are you observing a game of tennis? — Pinprick
I'm not saying that the object is immaterial. — khaled
I'm saying that "color" is not a physical property. — khaled
And you would be correct. It relates to consciousness. It IS not somehow consciousness. — khaled
Yes but I'm not looking for a game of tennis I'm looking for the sensation of hitting the ball. I can't "observe" that no matter how many tennis matches I watch. I have only been able to observe it by hitting a tennis ball. — khaled
Similar to brain states and consciousness, I equate color and wavelength emitted — Pinprick
I don’t need to know how you experience seeing a rock to know that it’s physical. — Pinprick
Even if you’re trying to get at experience itself, it still must be physical, because it to is experienced. — Pinprick
So how come you can imagine the color red without any photons entering your eyes? — khaled
So can I hold "the experience of seeing the color red" in my hand? — khaled
Or can "the experience of seeing the color red" be propagated through a medium like a wave? — khaled
If there is no wave, there is no color red. — Pinprick
As I said, you can imagine red. So what you're saying is that color itself is an electromagnetic wave? So if we were to imagine color using memory does that make memroy an electromagnetic wave? What is memory then? — khaled
how exactly does imagination work in your view? — khaled
So they're clearly not the same thing. — khaled
I agree, but I don’t understand why they both can’t be physical. — Pinprick
but do you think consciousness is required to experience qualia? There are animals with no brains, which implies that they are not conscious, which are still able to navigate their environment and discriminate between different types of things (food, mate, etc.). — Pinprick
Ironically, Aristotle's definition of "Substance" combined the mental (metaphysical) and material (physical) elements : Form + Matter. But Materialists only recognize the sensory stuff as "real", and ignore the invisible structure or "essence" of reality, that is apparent only to Reason. It's true that human minds cannot "make substance" (matter) directly, but they can and do Enform matter to Conform to imaginary concepts (information) in the mind of the designer.To refute 'All is Mind', one needs to show that there is substance, which I'd say includes forces/energy acting as substance, plus that Mind cannot make substance, plus that there can't be a kind of a movie going on through Mind in which everything operates exactly as if there were substance and its laws, and that if there is this perfect movie going on that a difference in the message between the faux and the true substance is not a difference that makes no difference. — PoeticUniverse
Well what's the meaning of the word "physical" at that point then? — khaled
I don’t know exactly, but I find it more reasonable to assume that perhaps we aren’t aware of all properties a physical thing can have, as opposed to assuming things must be immaterial. — Pinprick
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