Mind cannot be reduced to brain

Agathob

Something I’ve been considering for a while is the mind-brain relationship.

Given that there is enough evidence from the medical literature that the mind can still act and perceive in states without any brain activity; it’s a foregone conclusion to me that the mind cannot be reduced down to the brain.

Here’s some theses to consider:

• The mind can exist independently of the brain.
• The mind can effect the body and conversely, the body can effect the mind.
• Obviously, the mind isn’t an emergent property of neural structures.
• The mind must originate from elsewhere than the brain.
• The brain is some sort of interface system between the brain and the body.

For me, several questions arise:

• What is the mind?
• What is being measured in brain scans like MRIs?

To answer the first point, I say that the mind is the ego; the I as it meant in the original Latin. Cogito ergo sum as Rene Descartes said. Past that, I’m not sure what to state of the mind. Beyond that it’s massless, formless and seems to operate with a much more fluid and “ softer “ set of psychophysical laws than the hard laws of physics that govern the material world.

The second point I answer is: Saint Thomas Aquinas states that the soul is primarily focused on the body. That being said, Saint Thomas was also Aristotelian and there’s always potentas and actualitas.

So, what I believe is being measured in brain scans is the mind’s energeia upon the brain; because I believe the brain houses the mind and acts as it’s interface with the body.

Streetlight

there is enough evidence from the medical literature that the mind can still act and perceive in states without any brain activity — Agathob

Cite?

Agathob

↪StreetlightX

Dr Bruce Greyson of University of Virginia. His YouTube talk: “ Consciousness Independent of the Brain. “

Agathob

↪StreetlightX

And the case of Pam Reynolds as investigated by Dr Michael Sabom

Streetlight

Out of body experiences hey? Hmh.

Agathob

↪StreetlightX

Considering these guys, among others; have been studying them since the mid 60s with strong rigor; I don’t knock it. Plus, psychiatrists are some of the hardest scientists out there. Academic psychologists and psychiatrists are loathe to even consider non materialistic explanations for the soul.

Respectfully speaking, what’s your objections?

Gregory

Those experiences still come from the meat of the brain, the location of consciousness.

Agathob

↪Gregory

How do you figure?

These experiences happen with no brain waves at all. It should be impossible for anyone to perceive and know anything.

Gregory

Aquinas was obsessed with "that which you can't divide", which means the spiritual for him. Well there is dimensionless prime matter too, which for him joins with the simple (partless) soul to form the human person, embodied. I don't know what kind of lsd stuff he was getting from wheat but I want to try.

As long as the brain is warm it can make experiences

Agathob

↪Gregory

I see your point.

But:

You haven’t answered the question, IMO; of: If the mind stems from the brain, how can anyone experience anything in a brain dead state?

Also: Consider the verifiable details these experiences provide. The detail and knowledge is impossible to otherwise know.

Gregory

↪Agathob

It's called dead by fallible doctors. When death happens is debatable. The brain has many avenues for consciousness that science can't reach yet. If you want to get all Thomistic where activity and passivity are the prime factors AND believe that matter is less holy than spirit, that's ok. That stuff is fun. But it's not the only way to interpret reality. I believe I am pure matter, and yet maybe, I wonder, my consciousness will coalesce somewhere in my body at death and I can go to a warm fuzzy and cozy place in the quantum realm. All as my body ceases to be me :)

Agathob

↪Gregory

As Saint Thomas said: Follow where the truth leads.

What makes a materialistic answer better than a non materialistic answer?

That being said, may I ask you: Why do you believe you’re only matter?

Gregory

Spiritual-God thoughts make me very depressed. I am not into the fine details of science but I love matter. China has the rock worship tradition i find fascinating. Even St. Bernard said there is much wisdom in rocks, although I look at it from a "strange loop" perspective

SophistiCat

↪Agathob

You should get together with @Sam26, another OBE "expert."

Gregory

Aquinas says the "more actual" has no length breath or width. Gee, all my favorite stuff! I doubt there are spiritual substances more beautiful than say Susanna Hoffs back in the day. Why believe in stuff you can't sense of measure anyway?

Sam26

↪Agathob

Here's a link for you.
https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/1980/evidence-of-consciousness-surviving-the-body/p1

Gregory

Say, how can they even tell there is experience without brain waves. The experience could have in reality happened right before or right after the brain death. I've heard of cases where the patient can latter say what happened in the operating room while he was dead though. Hmm. I still say a warm brain can have experiences. But besides that, maybe the patients brain was so active after death it read the minds of others in the room and in reality had the experience while awaking.

CeleRate

Dr Bruce Greyson of University of Virginia. His YouTube talk: “ Consciousness Independent of the Brain. “ — Agathob

Can you summarize his arguments and evidence?

Sam26

↪CeleRate

The best summary is from Dr. Greyson himself.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-QYBhzi67NY

Gregory

Paranormal activity might be possible: https://subtle.energy/list-100-peer-reviewed-papers-offer-scientific-evidence-psi-phenomena/?fbclid=IwAR0blIz3cQPjZKXe9WoCTwGS3uNIO2h_xKsa31VBDGNDqSyK4i8ZmFKIFns

Zelebg

↪Agathob

Given that there is enough evidence from the medical literature that the mind can still act and perceive in states without any brain activity; it’s a foregone conclusion to me that the mind cannot be reduced down to the brain.

There is a guy who was sceptic about near death experience and decided to debunk it. However, while investigating he became less sceptic and eventually organised an investigation to be conducted across many hospitals by placing signs or pictures on top of furniture, so if a dying patient indeed gets to float out of the body near the ceiling they would be able to see and later describe what it was.

I think this was in the UK around 5 years ago, but I can’t find any follow up on that story, possibly because the result was negative. But even if it was positive the debate would remain with all the questions still open - what does it mean, why and how it works.

What is the mind?
What is being measured in brain scans like MRIs?

The most specific and pragmatic categorisation in the scope of our current understanding is that mind is a program, a virtual reality simulation within the nervous system, a kind of virtual machine. No ghost, just another machine in the machine, but it is software or virtual machine.

Brain scans measure flow of signals, indirectly, just like we could measure flow of signals between the logic gates and other circuits inside a computer by placing ampere / volt meters around the motherboard, but raw signals are themselves only indirect representation of which program is running and what program is doing within itself, i.e. inside virtual reality simulation.

So, a mind needs a brain like a program needs a computer, but that does not necessarily mean a mind can not exist in some other kind of “brain”, it means that is actually a likely possibility.

tim wood

Plus, psychiatrists are some of the hardest scientists out there. — Agathob

That is, some hard scientists may be psychiatrists - reaction formation? - but I am unaware of anything scientific about psychiatry or psychiatrists as psychiatrists.

As to the notion of mind in the OP, you likely have already noticed that it's almost a lost cause to try to establish a definition that does not also itself lead the understanding, although itself (the definition) lacking understanding - a kind of streetlight, or drunkard's search, effect.

instead of ego, which I would argue is always already socially conditioned. I would more simply say that mind just is that part of consciousness that participates in shared understanding and being. That mind, then, is a collective functionality. But this would be just a start.

What of that part of ourselves that we also call mind and seems to be ours alone? That's elusive, and the closer one looks, the less there seems to be, like a newspaper photograph that up-close too close, is just nothing at all.

Gregory

If we are defined as material objects, who is to say the universe is not one object. You might just be the universe's kidney

Zelebg

↪Agathob

To answer the first point, I say that the mind is the ego; the I as it meant in the original Latin. Cogito ergo sum as Rene Descartes said.

That is true, in a way, but is just a play with words, substituting one phrase with another having equally no any grounding. By “grounding” I mean empirical connection, a kind of information that actually matters in some way.

Ego, soul, self, ghost, integrated information, quantum collapse, illusion, hallucination… as is described by the most prominent thinkers of today. It’s all over the place, children would have come up with more coherent “consensus”, and yet all those words point to what the mind is, in some way, allegorically, but none are really describing it. More or less those are just empty labels, too vague and ambiguous to carry any useful meaning.

Relativist

↪Agathob

If the mind is an immaterial object apart from the brain, many questions are raised. I listed them here

Agathob

↪Zelebg

I’ve heard of this guy. Interesting fellow. I disagree that there’s no ghost in the machine and the mind is only a virtual machine program.

Each mind is an individual with it’s own idiosyncrasies, tendencies and personality. Not a tabula rasa with an OS.

I saw that in my sons as they were babies.

Agathob

↪tim wood

I would argue that the ego/mind isn’t a purely socially conditioned thing. Every human being IS an individual that interacts with others; while retaining autonomy.

Agathob

↪Gregory

My question for you is:

If materialistic science is correct and no ghost in the machine exists; how can there be any psychic abilities like what you’re proposing as a solution to how the mind can exist separate from the brain?

Zelebg

↪Agathob

I disagree that there’s no ghost in the machine and the mind is only a virtual machine program.

Most people even today would consider software to be "immaterial” rather than virtual, and “ghost” was actually a pretty good description of software just until several decades ago, in a sense that, at the time of execution, you can not see software, you can not quite point where it is, nor what it is, and yet it makes the machine do things.

I have no objection to call my program, that is my self, a ghost, especially since I plan on uploading myself out of this body into Earth’s magnetic field, to walk around naked and transparent, go through walls, scare little children, scream at night and engage in other ghostly entertainment activities.

Gregory

↪Agathob

I'd answer your question in saying that the Buddha was right. Nothingness is holy, the root of matter. Positing spiritual entities makes things worse

Greylorn Ell

The OP and subsequent comments seem to regard "mind" as an entity separate from the brain, repeating Descartes' mistake of conflating the concepts of soul and mind.

Consider the possibility that the "soul" is a potentially conscious entity that is insufficiently powerful to achieve consciousness without guidance, and is integrated with a human brain for assistance in the process. Thus, what we think of as "mind" is the result of soul and brain working together, a function rather than an independent entity.

Mind cannot be reduced to brain

Welcome to The Philosophy Forum!

Categories

More Discussions