Does thinking take place in the human brain? — Alkis Piskas

I have to say yes, but I offer you to see for yourself that the answer is no. Yes, the brain is active, but that is not the "place" or cause of thinking, anymore than it is the "cause" of, say, us, everything of a human being. Thinned out that much, how does it matter to everything?

As Cicero and Heidegger (and Wittgenstein @Luke, even Austin @Banno) would say, thinking is the kind of act that is ethical, in the sense it matters how you do it, who "you" are, your interests (your voice, Cavell says).

I would like though to include in it all the possible complex functions of the human mind: computation, problem analysis and solving, creative imagination, etc. — Alkis Piskas

So thinking (as an ethical epistimology, say) is in pursuit of the criteria, the way of reasoning, of every different type of thing, action, expression. It "takes place" in our listening, explicating, considering, waiting, strategizing, experimenting, reserving, judging, accepting, receiving, contextualizing, etc., etc. In our striving to do those well, to think better, say, more thoroughly, patiently, creatively, reflectively, imaginatively, concretely, etc., etc.

The term "thinking" is used here basically as "The process of considering or reasoning about something — Alkis Piskas

I would say: considering the process of each individual thing's rationale (taking in the expression of what is essential about that thing). But this is not a "use" of thinking, that is a definition of thinking. I can think, in the sense of: mull over, find and learn about options, study its history, draw out the implications of a type of action., etc., etc. ("In the sense of" is the same as "in the use here of"--as (in the sense of) which option of--here: thinking--are we talking about? which use of the expression or action; in the sense of entertaining, or pondering? And you can tell yourself the difference if you think about it.

... to see for yourself that the answer is no — Antony Nickles

But I don't have to see anything ... I already know! :smile:

I have to say yes, but I offer you to see for yourself that the answer is no. Yes, the brain is active, but that is not the "place" or cause of thinking, — Antony Nickles

Aren't these conflicting statements? You say "yes" (i.e. thinking takes place in the human brain) and then you say "the answer is no"! And then, "the brain is active, but that is not the 'place' or cause of thinking".
Maybe I miss something ... Can you please clear that for me? Thanks.

Aren't these conflicting statements? You say "yes" (i.e. thinking takes place in the human brain) and then you say "the answer is no"! And then, "the brain is active, but that is not the 'place' or cause of thinking". — Alkis Piskas

It's a trick question, or loaded. You can't say no, because it begs the question: the body doesn't have anything to do with thinking? (preposterous!) then where does thinking take place? (in the "mind"? Ha!) So, yes, one must say thinking involves the brain, as everything human does, which means it doesn't particularly matter to thinking anymore to anything else, say, any movement (which are not particular "actions" without our history of acts). We could say, "I can't think straight" and the answer could be I'm hungry; my brain is affecting my thinking because I'm hungover.

But to say the body is necessary (a threshold requirement) does not make it important/relevant--it means little to finding out what thinking consists of at all (which acts compared to others); or to the fact that thinking involves thinking well (as opposed to something like pointing); that thinking "takes place" in doing certain things, and, categorically, Kant says, grammatically, Wittgenstein says, in doing them closer to the manner we judge them being done well). To focus on the brain as part of thinking is to confuse science with/for philosophy, that science has an answer for everything, is important simply because of its ability to be certain (not seeing philosophy can be specific and rigorous and rational, just without the same force or ability for conclusion). This also goes the other way, in that science does not consider its knee-jerk framework of an ancient (self-serving?) picture of causality (as the basis and measure of everything).

... to see for yourself that the answer is no
— Antony Nickles
But I don't have to see anything ... I already know! — Alkis Piskas

Some measures of thinking well are keeping an open mind, not jumping to conclusions, seeing things from another's point of view, finding common ground, not prejudging, imposing our interests, etc., etc.

Every thought has a physiological reaction in the brain, and mental things such as mental stress and mental suffering can affect the body, leading me to believe thoughts happen in the brain.

It's a trick question, or loaded. ... — Antony Nickles

All that is unnecessarily too complicated! You could just answer, "Indeed, they are conflicting statements." And make some correction or something.
Anyway, the question is very straight: "Does thinking take place in the human brain?". The basic answer should be "Yes" or "No". One could then proceed to an expanation why. With your answer however, I really cannot be sure if it's "Yes" or "No" ...

Some measures of thinking well are keeping an open mind, , not jumping to conclusions, seeing things from another's point of view — Antony Nickles

I am open to all kind of views and I have stressed this point a lot of times. I always like to hear things that challenge my reality. In this case, however, you said "to see for yourself that the answer is no". But I already know and have answered "No" on this subject! What then do I have to see? ... See? :smile:

Every thought has a physiological reaction in the brain, and mental things such as mental stress and mental suffering can affect the body, leading me to believe thoughts happen in the brain — Cidat

I certainly agree with this!
Welcome to the club! I feel better "hearing" such things, not so much because they are congruent with my views, but mainly because I am totally disappointed to see that most people in here, i.e. philosophical "thinkers", not only believe that thinking is produced and takes place in the brain, but even that they are just bodies. I find this quite sad ...

Mind-body dualism?

But yeah thinking certainly has a physical presence/existence.

Mind-body dualism? — Cidat

I don't use this expression. I normally specify "Descartes' dualism", because "mind-body dualism" is attributed to various philosophers since ancient Greece and I don't know what did this term mean to each of them.

But yeah thinking certainly has a physical presence/existence. — Cidat

Well, I find this a little ambiguous ... What kind of presence/existence. For one thing, thought is not part of the physical universe and thus it has no mass or location. But it can produce energy and mass in the body. This is what we talked about previously. That is it can have a physical effect. It can produce emotional energy and emotion can produce mass (e.g. fear can produce adrenaline).
So, the nature of thought/thinking is a subject that constitutes an illusion for most people.

It's a trick question, or loaded. ...
— Antony Nickles
All that is unnecessarily too complicated! You could just answer, "Indeed, they are conflicting statements." And make some correction or something.
Anyway, the question is very straight: — Alkis Piskas

No offense, it's just not a straight question; it asks for a straight answer. Logically (technically, definitionally) this is a loaded question because it includes hidden assumptions and then limits the possible answers to only “yes” or “no” forcing an answer within the limits of a specific conclusion.

The term "thinking" is used here basically as "The process of considering or reasoning about something — Alkis Piskas

Okay, I see that I could "make some correction or something" with this definition of the assumption of what thinking is.

The question thus would be: "Does the process of considering and reasoning about something take place in the human brain?"

Unfortunately, this assumes what a "process" is, so we are back in the same (a similar) boat. However, let's try to give the benefit of attempting to move past whatever doubts we may have (we could say this is part of the process of thinking), which is I take it the gist of accusing me of overcomplicating this, perhaps in the vein of my not being constructive. I get it, so let's try to help.

A given is that "take place" limits the answer to a location, and specifically: in or out of the brain. So maybe we can solve for: what processes take place inside the brain? and what processes take place outside the brain?

Science!! It can not only tell you that thinking takes places in the brain, it can tell you where in the brain those (thinking) processes take place.

The prefrontal cortex is where sophisticated interpersonal skills and competence for emotional well-being take place; the inferior frontal gyrus is where the use of baseline knowledge combines with innovation for creativity, along with where speaking and understanding, attention control, and memory take place; the temporal lobe is where reading and hearing take place; the occipital lobe is where visual recognition takes place; the parietal lobe is where math, anaulysis and geometric perception and manipulation take place; and the limbic system is where emotional memory and mood control take place. — Paraphrase of Parts of the Brain Associated With Thinking Skills by Dr. Heidi Moawad

The "process of considering and reasoning about something" sounds an awful lot like: the use of baseline knowledge combined with innovation, speaking, understanding, attention control, memory, reading, hearing, analysis, geometric perception, manipulation, and emotional memory.

So thinking takes place in the brain. Game over. Who needs philosophy?

Actually, if you ask where any of the processes of thinking I mentioned take place, and the answer is: yes, they take place in the brain (or can be said to). Considering, reasoning. listening, explicating, waiting, strategizing, experimenting, reserving, judging, accepting, receiving, contextualizing, mulling over, finding and learning about options, studying history, drawing out the implications of a type of action, and being thorough, patient, creative, reflective, imaginative, concrete, etc., etc.

So what processes of "considering and reasoning about something" take place outside the brain? Let's say "outside" is a physical location (not in us), with other actors, changes in time to an external situation; we could call that, a context. This would include experimenting, focusing on an object (seeing a person in a different aspect); attending to what changes happen; problem-solving by manipulating physical objects, a conversation (bouncing ideas off a sounding-board), being understanding to another's thoughts/hearing them (there's that benefit-of-the-doubt thing), knowing how long to be patient for, not jumping at a first impression, leaving a thought and coming back to it, avoiding dichotomies, etc., etc., ???

We find certain things about seeing puzzling, because we do not find the whole business of seeing puzzling enough. — Wittgenstein, PI p. 212, IIXI (my/Cavell's emphasis)

Doing more science is not going to tell us anything about what is essential to thinking (why we care about it), nor how to think better. What part does our interest play? being attracted? desiring an outcome? how does it go wrong? what temptations? how is it faked? how does a goal fit in? an expectation? how does (must) thinking change based on the object of thought?

The brain allows for thinking, or, put another way, for us, at all. Any examination into the brain is not going to find out how/if it determines or causes our thoughts or intentions. Those concepts just do not work that way (determination, cause, intention, thought), as neither do: currency, fairness, believing, knowing, etc., etc.

Some measures of thinking well are keeping an open mind, , not jumping to conclusions, seeing things from another's point of view
-- Antony Nickles

I am open to all kind of views and I have stressed this point a lot of times. I always like to hear things that challenge my reality. In this case, however, you said "to see for yourself that the answer is no". But I already know and have answered "No" on this subject! What then do I have to see? ... See? — Alkis Piskas

Eeeeeerrrrrr, whoops. That's on me; that's my bad.

No offense, it's just not a straight question; it asks for a straight answer. — Antony Nickles

None taken. I wonder why you don't find the question "Does thinking take place in the human brain?" straight ... There are 3 words/phrases that could make it ambiguous: thinking, "takes place" or "human brain"? I guess it's "takes place" (occur, happen). Well the meaning of the question is not different than "digestion takes place in the small intestine". The difference lies in the process, since thought (thinking) is something much more complicated than digestion.
And yes, "it asks for a straight answer": Yes or No. But this doesn't mean that the "how" (explanation, proof, etc.) is simple. In fact, it's quite complicated and proof might be missing, but at least it must make sense logically, i.e. include sound arguments and statements that appeal to logic.

...it includes hidden assumptions and then limits the possible answers to only “yes” or “no” forcing an answer within the limits of a specific conclusion. — Antony Nickles

1) Re "it includes hidden assumptions": What are the "hidden assumptions"? Since you mentioned this and esp. w/o offering an explanation, isn't this statement an assumtion iself? :smile:
2) Re "limits the possible answers to only 'yes' or 'no'”: Right, I already mentioned this above.
3) Re "forcing an answer within the limits of a specific conclusion": Not necessarily. As I also explained above, the answer can be quite complicated, etc.

The question thus would be: "Does the process of considering and reasoning about something take place in the human brain?" — Antony Nickles

This is fine, only that thinking is much more than a process of considering and reasoning. A thought can be an ideas, an opinion, a decision, a simple or complex computation, a remembrance, ... Yet, your version would do the job! :smile: In fact, you made me kind of regretting using the "loaded" term "thought". I should better use the more specific and much less "loaded" term, "reasoning"! Indeed, this might make people actually wonder! :simle:

Unfortunately, this assumes what a "process" is — Antony Nickles

Well, I can confirm here that you make the whole issue too complicated. If we start questioning such common terms as process, idea, logic, and so on, we could never complete a discussion! :roll:

A given is that "take place" limits the answer to a location, and specifically: in or out of the brain. — Antony Nickles

The question and subhect of the topic is "Does thinking take place in the human brain?". "In" means inside, not outside! :smile: Oh, come on now, this is too simple!
OK, I can undestand why this is happening. Making things complicated creates confusion about simple and too evident things.

No offense (my turn now! :smile:), and I am really sorry about this, but the discussion has been reduced into clearing very simple and evident points. Let's put an end to it. OK?

I was pleased to "talk" with you! :smile:

Unfortunately, this assumes what a "process" is
— Antony Nickles

Well, I can confirm here that you make the whole issue too complicated. If we start questioning such common terms as process, idea, logic, and so on, we could never complete a discussion! :roll: — Alkis Piskas

If we do not draw out the options and the implications of what, say, a "process" is, it's possibilities, we do not understand what we are getting ourselves into when we say it, put it in an expression. That a word can have a specific definition does not make it clear even what that is here (between the options of what a process can be), much less the impact on this question as a whole, which is not clear and not subject to definition. The idea of some common sense for ordinary words hides the assumption that our confidence in an expression dictates what it means or that the way it has meaning is "simple". Taking the time to make this unexamined structure explicit I would argue is the basic nature of philosophy from its beginning. Skipping understanding the question is what makes the answers "complicated".

No offense (my turn now! :smile:), and I am really sorry about this, but the discussion has been reduced into clearing very simple and evident points. Let's put an end to it. OK?

I was pleased to "talk" with you! :smile:[/quote]

I'm not sure you understand how being rude works. I pointed out a fact that was not personal, but I still apologized because I knew the embarrassing nature of calling it out, even granting that it actually was up to me to make it intelligible rather than dismiss the matter out of hand before we got started.

You have ignored the bulk of what I took the time to go through to set up and then actually answer your question, and then you are cutting off the conversation right before it could begin. Your implied characterization that I am being obtuse to what you feel are "very simple and evident points" is both condescending and dismissive; that I am (unnecessarily) making this complicated is belittling and vaguely slanderous. And then you want to be cute and passive aggressive at the same time, implying that, because of me, we didn't even get to a conversation you are ending! Apology not accepted. If you don't have the interest to discuss anything that doesn't fit into your self-defined simple world then don't get on a philosophy forum and ask a question. I was going to actually take the time to read your other post answering this question, but, yeah, we're done.

Does thinking take place in the human brain? — Alkis Piskas

What a superb question. I wouldn't say it's a definite NO!, but have you considered Revelations - these being, in a sense, divine transmissions via prophets (recievers).

Too, we might need to work backwards here - do a thorough analysis of the human brain (its substance, construction, architecture, and so on) and try to figure out the nature of the signal it's meant to pick up/receive?

I mean, if I see a radio antenna and study it, can't I somehow come to know it's for radio. Intriguingly, are insects tuned in on some kind of frequency arthropoda antennae (biology)?

Basically, the song on your radio is not generated by the radio.

have you considered 'Revelations' - these being, in a sense, divine transmissions via 'prophets' (recievers) — TheMadFool

Please, don't geive me homework to do! :grin: I don't have that much spare time! (But I will note down these refs for the future.)

do a thorough analysis of the human brain (its substance, construction, architecture, and so on) and try to figure out the nature of the signal it's meant to pick up/receive — TheMadFool

Well, there's much literature about the subject in the Web to satisfy even the most demaning minds! I have read and watch already enough --I don't ident to become an expett!-- through time to know what the brain is mainly composed of and how it functions. Of course, among the stuff I read there were indications regarding the location in the brain of the hyman memory, human consciousness, and all that. This is not only ridiculous and irresponsible from the part of the scientists or, more correctly, those who try ro popularize science.
The bare fact and truth is: a system that is composed of neurons and based on a stimulous-response mechanism cannot be responsible for such higher human faculties as thought, reasoning, consciousness etc. This the first and basic fact Another one is that they work with the brain in laboratories for too many years, to have most probably found almost whatever is there to find. Yet, they continue to talk about "The future will reveal this and that", "This and that is still a mystery" etc. They cannot simply accept the fact thet there is a part of the human being that is non-physical and which Science, as it stands at present and with the tools it can use, is not able to explore.

I mean, if I see a radio antenna and study it, can't I somehow come to know it's for radio — TheMadFool

Exactly! Well put! :up: