I'm asking questions about what you have claimed. I'm trying to understand what you are claiming. You said that mental processes involve conceptual thought. I'm asking about those processes that occur in the brain stem, pituitary gland, basal ganglia, the lower brain, etc,. From what I know, those processes do not involve conceptual thought, so I'm basically asking if you know something that the neurologists don't.What about processes in the brain that do not involve conceptual thought? The information in your consciousness was processed in the brain before appearing in consciousness. Are those not mental processes?
— Harry Hindu
Are you claiming there are no subconscious thought processes? — Janus
Then we are talking past each other. You're talking about a difference in concepts (conceptual thoughts), which are mental processes and I'm talking about a difference mind vs brain. Are you saying that everything is mind and brains are just another idea, or concept, not a actual "physical" thing?No, I'm not saying that at all. In all I've said I've been arguing that the mind is not the brain simply because there is a valid distinction between the two concepts. — Janus
I'm asking how do you become mentally aware of a physical state.The mind becomes aware of the pain caused by tendonitis. The tendonitis could have earlier been incipient and no pain felt, so there would have been no awareness of the tendonitis. To know (that is to come to believe under good authority) that I have tendonitis I have to research the symptoms or seek expert advice. — Janus
Here you seem to be saying that processes (like mind) are the same as the physical state (brain).Physical states (or better, processes) — Janus
I'd refer to the emic-etic distinction.
When talking about the mind, we talk about the emic.
When talking about the brain, we talk about the etic. — baker
…Emic knowledge and interpretations are those existing within a culture, that are ‘determined by local custom, meaning, and belief’ (Ager and Loughry, 2004: n.p.) and best described by a 'native' of the culture. Etic knowledge refers to generalizations about human behavior that are considered universally true, and commonly links cultural practices to factors of interest to the researcher, such as economic or ecological conditions, that cultural insiders may not consider very relevant (Morris et al., 1999). — from Wiki
We never observe minds in brains, like we do digesting in guts. Brains and minds are the same thing, just from different perspectives. Thinking that it's brains that are really "out there" is naive realism. — Harry Hindu
Right. And there is a neural difference between when something makes sense and when it doesn’t. That’s your logical entailment explained in physical terms. — khaled
You keep asserting this. It doesn’t get any more convincing when you keep insisting on it. — khaled
Yes. Except that the neural process IS the thought. Not “is associated with” the thought. — khaled
It seems to me that to assert that the mind and brain are not one and the same, or at least the mind is at least part of the brain and there are other non-conscious processes in the brain, is dualistic and dualism's problem is in explaining how two different things can interact. — Harry Hindu
I'm saying I've never seen such an explanation, so it's not an empty assertion. — Janus
That's just a baseless assertion rejecting the distinction between the semantic and the physical. — Janus
Coming from a guy that doesn't know me and can only create a fictitious image of me to help him sleep at night. :roll:Coming from a trumpy, card carrying member of the Dunning-Kruger Gang . — 180 Proof
You're confused again. I'm not the dualist. If you had been reading my posts, youd understand that I'm arguing against dualism.I'm not advocating dualism, but semantic pluralism. You don't seem to be able to get out of your own dualistic framework of thinking in order to understand what I'm saying, so there's no point continuing. — Janus
Science Identifies and integrates sensory evidence which is the nature of reason. Science is essentially based, not on experiment, but on observation and logic. Looking under a rock or into a telescope are both scientific acts. So is the act of observing and thinking about your own mental processes - a scientific act is private. Proof of one's conclusions to others comes later, but that is argumentative, not inquisitive.Perfectly private 'observation' is (or seems to be) scientifically irrelevant. What I'm questioning is this starting point of the private dream. This makes the brain a mere part of the dream, so then so is the dream a part of the dream. (?) — T H E
Again, we're talking past each other. Your taking about the meaning of scribbles and sounds (semantic pluralism), and I'm talking about the ontological "distinction" between mind and brain - what exists independent of language and how we use scribbles and sounds to refer to things — Harry Hindu
So is the act of observing and thinking about your own mental processes - a scientific act is private. Proof of one's conclusions to others comes later, but that is argumentative, not inquisitive. — Harry Hindu
https://arisbe.sitehost.iu.edu/menu/library/bycsp/whatis/whatpragis.htmA person is not absolutely an individual. His thoughts are what he is "saying to himself," that is, is saying to that other self that is just coming into life in the flow of time. When one reasons, it is that critical self that one is trying to persuade; and all thought whatsoever is a sign, and is mostly of the nature of language. The second thing to remember is that the man’s circle of society, (however widely or narrowly this phrase may be understood), is a sort of loosely compacted person, in some respects of higher rank than the person of an individual organism. It is these two things alone that render it possible for you—but only in the abstract, and in a Pickwickian sense,—to distinguish between absolute truth and what you do not doubt. — Peirce
You're fooling yourself if you think that the distinction between how you observe your own mind vs. other minds is a difference in the scribbles and sound you make. Is the distinction between scribbles and sounds also dependent on language? Hearing is distinctly different than seeing, without using words.And I'm saying you're kidding yourself if you think the "ontological distinction between mind and brain" is independent of language. — Janus
This simply can't be the case. Newborn infants have to learn the language and learning anything requires an ability to reason. The ability to reason exists prior to learning a language. Language is just visual scribbles and sounds, like most everything else, and we interpret our visual and auditory sensations individually. Actions speak louder than words because actions are visual, like words, and can be interpreted, and provide more accurate information than words can. It's more difficult to lie with your actions than with your words.I think I understand what you are saying, but IMV thinking itself is (counter-intuitively) not a private act. I say this because we think in and through a public language and through the 'lens' of an education. Also consider that any interest in trust seems to reference some reality that transcends the individual. The goal is true-for-anyone and not just true-for-me. To find these true-for-all propositions is also to work in a shared language. I do see that we can quietly talk to ourselves and have insights that lead scientific revolutions. — T H E
Newborn infants have to learn the language and learning anything requires an ability to reason. The ability to reason exists prior to learning a language. Language is just visual scribbles and sounds, like most everything else, and we interpret our visual and auditory sensations individually — Harry Hindu
Actions speak louder than words because actions are visual, like words, and can be interpreted, and provide more accurate information than words can. It's more difficult to lie with your actions than with your words. — Harry Hindu
It is just scribbles and sounds that children learn to imitate. Using language is a behavior, and just like all other behaviors we learn to interpret them.I agree that individually we are born with the ability to (pre-)reason and learn a language. I can't agree that language is just scribbles and sounds. Language is something like a set of conventions. — T H E
It is just scribbles and sounds that children learn to imitate. Using language is a behavior, and just like all other behaviors we learn to interpret them. — Harry Hindu
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