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what scientific evidence supports the philosophical position in position in philosophy of mind known as physicalism

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Physicalism in philosophy of mind asserts that everything about the mind can be ultimately explained by physical processes. Scientific evidence supporting physicalism comes from various fields, such as neuroscience, cognitive science, and psychology. Neuroscientific studies, for example, demonstrate correlations between mental states and brain activity, suggesting a strong connection between the mind and the physical brain. Additionally, advancements in brain imaging technologies provide insights into how specific mental functions correspond to distinct neural patterns. While the debate continues, these scientific findings align with the core tenets of physicalism.

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What are the top ten neuroscientific findings which support physicalism

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While it's challenging to pinpoint a definitive list of the "top ten" neuroscientific findings supporting physicalism due to the evolving nature of research, here are ten notable findings that contribute to the physicalist perspective:

Neural Correlates of Consciousness (NCC): Identifying brain activity patterns associated with conscious experiences supports the idea that consciousness is closely tied to specific neural processes.

Brain Lesion Studies: Examining how changes or damage to specific brain regions affect cognition and behavior provides evidence for the physical basis of mental functions.

Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI): Studies using fMRI reveal correlations between mental states and localized patterns of brain activity, offering insights into the neural basis of various cognitive processes.

Neuroplasticity: The brain's ability to reorganize itself in response to experiences and learning supports the idea that mental processes are rooted in the physical structure and function of the brain.

Electroencephalography (EEG) Studies: EEG allows researchers to observe electrical activity in the brain, helping to establish connections between specific neural patterns and cognitive processes.

Split-Brain Studies: Research involving split-brain patients demonstrates how distinct cognitive functions can be isolated to specific hemispheres, emphasizing the physical basis of mental processes.

Pharmacological Interventions: The impact of drugs on mental states provides evidence for the role of neurotransmitters and neural pathways in influencing cognition and emotions.

Brain Stimulation Studies: Applying techniques like transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) to manipulate brain activity supports the idea that altering neural processes can directly affect mental functions.

Genetic Influences on Behavior: Investigating the genetic basis of behavior and mental disorders highlights the connection between molecular-level processes in the brain and psychological traits.

Evolutionary Psychology: Examining how the brain has evolved over time to support various cognitive functions underscores the physical underpinnings of mental processes.

These findings collectively contribute to the growing body of evidence supporting the physicalist perspective in philosophy of mind.

Pretty typical religious science denial, with hoops to jump through thrown in. I'm not really interested in doing much more at this point than pointing out that people who deny there is any scientific evidence, for what are matters of scientific consensus, are mostly fooling themselves.

I can find young earth creationist to argue with all over the place. There are much more interesting discussions to spend my time on here.

There is no scientific evidence for physicalism. — Wayfarer

Do you seriously think there is no scientific evidence that minds are a result of physical neurological processes?

Even a lot of Christian fundamentalists don't go that far in their science denial. Of course you do reject evolution. Do you think there is no scientific evidence for evolution as well? How about heliocentrism?

Wayf, I have interacted with so many people who are in denial of scientific evidence in order to maintain their religious beliefs, that statements such as the quote above might as well be an announcement of invincible ignorance on your part.

From what I understand, all of the pieces of evidence put forward for Physicalism are actually bits of evidence against other positions. — AmadeusD

I'm afraid this is indicative to me, of you not knowing much about the evidence. The scientific evidence is rather overwhelming. But then most people don't put a lot of effort into apprising themselves of the scientific evidence.

In other words I think the question of pessimism should not be bad faith dismissed as simply disposition, unless your view is that every claim should be dismissed for such reasons. — schopenhauer1

I don't see myself as dismissing claims as simply disposition, and I certainly hope not in bad faith. To me it just seems there is an awfully well evidenced case to be made for people having varying deeply ingrained dispositions.

A friend, colleague, and in many ways mentor of mine is highly pessimistic. His pessimism plays a big role (and he and I both recognize this) in him coming up with outstandingly high quality electronic designs, because he can't help considering every conceivable thing that might feasibly go wrong. I've learned a lot from him that has improved my design work far beyond the level it would be at, without him playing a role in my career.

I certainly don't dismiss the claims of a person, just on the basis of that person being disposed to pessimism. On the other hand, a claim that I should see the world, with the same emotional shadings as someone I am not, would sound like crazy talk to me.

Just curious, political and moral arguments for various sides are constantly defended and presented- why do you suppose there are still arguments made for various sides rather than people leaving it to “simply dispositions”? — schopenhauer1

I suppose one significant factor is that the dispositions of others are fairly invisible to us on superficial observation. I'd think most of us tend to assume that others share our dispositions until shown evidence to the contrary.

Just going to step in here noting that I have professionally trip-sat in the past and observed clinical psychedelic trials. — AmadeusD

Wow! That's some unusual career experience. :rofl:

Speaking of ridiculous...

https://www.cnn.com/2024/01/30/media/taylor-swift-super-bowl-right-wing-conspiracy/index.html

Unfortunately it doesn't seem as surreal to me these days in the US, as it would have seemed to me before 2016.

I found this fascinating and immediately understood. — Tom Storm

I don't get it, and would want to ask questions in order to have a better sense of where Vidal was coming from. It seems to me to be a matter disposition.

There are things I have done that I deeply regret, and I wouldn't want to 'do it all over again'. However, I think I'm just biologically disposed to appreciate the long strange trip humanity is on.

Yeah, many of them are just parroting the arguments without fully understanding them and are terrible. — Tom Storm

Yeah, it is usually more rhetorically effective script, than thought through position.

The best an atheist can say is that the logical absolutes work - it's a presupposition which can be continually demonstrated and there need be no additional presupposition to guarantee them. Particularly not god/s which has/have yet to be demonstrated as existing. — Tom Storm

I tend to go with a more "in your face" approach, in the (admittedly slim) hope of getting the presuppositionalist to question his presuppositions.

A recent convo I had:

Theist:
My question is how laws of logic are accounted for on an Atheistic worldview.

Me:
I suggest that there are no laws of logic, and that what we call laws of logic are actually incorrigible intuitions about how language tends to relate to reality. Such intuitions arise from pattern recognition which occurs in the neural networks of our evolved brains. The regularities of the universe, are what allowed for the evolution of the brains which our minds supervene on. Having some understanding of how brains work can lead to a lot of understanding of people’s minds, not least our own. From this perspective, your lack of understanding of minds seems a bit problematic, when you want to presuppose that an omniscient and omnipotent mind can exist for no reason.

Full thread.

In that case I got a more thoughtful response than I tend to expect from presuppositionalists.

I generally find presuppositionalists more sad than funny, because presuppositionalism is pure epistemic poison, that badly cripples the thinking of many who fall into it.

A God (defined as an omnipotent/omniscient being who intentionally created the world) provides a solution to all philosophical conundrums. If the world of metaphysical explorations can be considered a jigsaw puzzle, the "God" piece is a ball of putty that can be used to fill any empty space in the puzzle.

Naturalist philosophers have to do more work, since they don't have this handy fits-all puzzle piece. — Relativist

:100: :up:

Surely if you can make a judgement on anchovy pizza, you can make a judgement about life. — schopenhauer1

Sure, I place positive or negative values on things routinely, but I also recognize that the way I do so is idiosyncratic aspect of the way I am and not some general fact about human existence. I don't see how you think it can be justified to generalize about the subject as you seem to.

Optimists may have fugitive doubts about the
basic desirability of existence, but pessimists never doubt that existence
is basically undesirable. — Ligotti- CATHR

I don't see any more reason to think that there is an objective fact of the matter as to the desireability of existence, than there is an objective fact of the matter as to the desireability of anchovy pizza.

Can you provide some reason to think that the idea of there being an objective fact of the matter is something to be taken seriously?

FWIW, I took a look at my Kindle copy of CATHR and saw that I got 26% of the way before losing interest.

That may be true. I only wanted to say that what happens after you swallow the pill is not determined. It depends on you (not in the sense that you are responsible for it or in control of it!) and your circumstances. From what I've read and heard, having an experienced guide with you makes a big difference, at least at the beginning. It goes back to the beginnings in the '50's. The "aristocrats" emphasized the need for a guide, the "democrats" insisted it was for everyone. The aristocrats were probably guilty of snobbery and elitism, but they were right about the guide - as the psychiatrists seem to be demonstrating nowadays. — Ludwig V

I've never had a bad trip, but I did trip one time with someone who did, and it can be a very bad situation. The bad trip this guy had was very much a result of him being someone whose psychology was fairly fucked up to begin with, and I wasn't a guide so much as someone too young and ignorant to recognize the potential for things to go really bad for this guy. That was a long scary night of continually talking this guy down.

My opinion is that adult supervision is highly highly recommended.

The real flaw here is the presupposition that either our cognitive faculties (all of them) are accurate or they (all of them) are not. The awkward truth is that sometimes they are and some of them are not. We learn which is which through the feed-back loop (doing and being in the world) - and we never need to stop learning. — Ludwig V

:100:

I see there is a need to distinguish between "process" as a particular process, a particular event which is happening to a particular physical object, or objects, and "process" in the sense of a generalized, or universal, type of event which may happen with objects. The former is a physical event, the latter is not, being conceptual and applicable to many different physical events, in a descriptive way. If "time" is said to be a sort of process, it is the latter, a generalized or universal conception, and therefore not physical. — Metaphysician Undercover

Simply asserting that conceiving of a universal is not the outcome of a physical process is unpersuasive in light of understanding things like this:

Exactly, that's what i said, time is not physical. — Metaphysician Undercover

Not exactly. "Not a thing" isn't equivalent to non-physical. For example, a process doesn't need to be a thing, in order to be physical.

You can elect to define words in such a way that physicalism can't be coherent under your usage of the words. However, that doesn't allow for you to make any cogent argument against physicalism. It just keeps you from understanding what you are arguing against.

There is no physical thing being described. — Metaphysician Undercover

From my perspective, "thing" seems like a strange category to try to put time into. So I'm not really seeing a problem with not describing time as a thing.

Which leads to a clear formulation of my question: why is it the things that by nature must necessarily be the closest to us, most intimately connected to us, the things that must be us, are the hardest things to see? — Fire Ologist

Because most of the light we see reflected by our bodies is reflected off surfaces like skin, hair, etc. The enormous complexity of what goes on in our brains is pretty well hidden.

How is it I could be a mind that cannot know what a mind really is? — Fire Ologist

Via biological evolution that selects for propagation of genes rather than insight. Which is not to say that there isn't much that can be learned.

Physics describes time as one of the dimensions of space-time.
— wonderer1

That is not a description. — Metaphysician Undercover

It's a useful description for a lot of people. I'm not sure there is much I could do about it not being a useful description for you.

This is not to say that the experience itself is not rich and cannot be inspiring, even life-changing; it is necessarily vacuous only in the propositional. not the poetical. sense. — Janus

:up:

It seems to me that there is awfully good evidence from entheogens that some capacity for 'spiritual experience' tends to be a physical characteristic of human brains.

I'm saying he has supplied a normative belief system himself, which is exactly comparable to the type of normative beliefs systems he says we can do without. He has generically employed the term "belief system" and associated that with "strong bias". Beliefs may be prone to bias, but the fact that bias exists in no way invalidates belief in general. I take no issue with the comments directed to a very specific subset of religious practices, but the idea that we can dispense with "belief systems" isn't reasonable. — Pantagruel

Ah ok. I'm not familiar with past discussions you two have had regarding belief systems. It sounds like an interesting topic for discussion.

We need to focus on the natural drives towards compassion and empathy and work aligned with that and not against it.
— Christoffer

Isn't this in fact also a belief, purporting guidance? — Pantagruel

Not to speak for Christoffer, but suppose we do use your word "guidance" and understand it as guidance from one social primate to another? What would be the significance of it being a belief?

...it is the lack in acceptance of our empathically natural and biological interactions between people that leads to nihilism. — Christoffer

:100: :up:

For example, abstract objects such as numbers and mathematical structures have a mode of existing that is different from the physical mode in which thought exists. — jkop

Is this something that you think you can demonstrate?

Anyway, I was interested, in particular, in Eagleton saying that 'it would be perfectly coherent for religious types to claim that God does not in fact exist.' — Wayfarer

Finally, one of the better books on the topic, notwithstanding its frequent polemical passages, is David Bentley Hart's The Experience of God. He 'gets' this understanding of the meaning of 'beyond existence' in ways that most do not. — Wayfarer

Do you think that views like those of Eagleton and Hart are typical of theists?

For example, do you think the typical US Evangelical Trump fan, or Iranian Ayatollah fan, is likely to be an Eagleton and Hart fan as well?

Einsteinian space-time is a concept which is well over 100 years old..
— wonderer1

Concepts do not have physical existence. — Metaphysician Undercover

The point was that the following statement of yours is false.

And physics does not describe time in any way, it is something which is taken for granted in that field. — Metaphysician Undercover

Physics describes time as one of the dimensions of space-time. Furthermore, it is not merely taken for granted. As I said, the concept has been tested in all sorts of ways.

And of course you are merely begging the question against physicalism in saying, "Concepts do not have physical existence." You need to show that concepts can exist apart from any sort of physical instantiation. Good luck with that.

I think you'd be surprised by what some physicists believe about time. I happen to know a few. — Metaphysician Undercover

I know some physicists as well. This guy owes me a beer I never collected, for troubleshooting some problems in a Bose-Einstein condensate experiment of his, which wasn't working right.

And physics does not describe time in any way, it is something which is taken for granted in that field. — Metaphysician Undercover

Einsteinian space-time is a concept which is well over 100 years old, and has been tested in all sorts of ways. Perhaps your physicist friends just don't consider challenging your closed-mindedness to be a good use of their time?

Time consists of three parts, past present and future, none of which is physical. — Metaphysician Undercover

I suspect you would have a hard time finding physicists who agree with that assertion.

In any case, do you have an argument for the claim?

We [monkeys] are in need of our monkey trainers. — Fooloso4

Just doing my part. :wink:

The reality of time is good evidence for the existence of non-physical aspects of our world. — Metaphysician Undercover

Why do you think so?

Do you understand what "evidence" is? Evidence consists of facts which support the hypothesis. Evidence doesn't walk through the door, it must be sought. That's why experimentation is a significant aspect of the scientific method, through experimentation we seek evidence. If you are happy with your physicalism you will not seek evidence to falsify it, and the evidence will never walk through the door. Real scientific understanding recognizes that evidence does not walk through the door. — Metaphysician Undercover

Yeah, I much prefer my beliefs being based in evidence. Can you point out any good evidence for a mind existing sans an information processing substrate? I mean, I can't say I've looked on the moons of Jupiter for evidence of brainless minds, and I think that would be asking a bit much. So do you have any reasonable suggestions?

How different is the starting point of atheism and theism then. — Vaskane

I don't know what you mean by "the starting point". Sounds grossly simplistic.

Anyway, I realize you are stuck in monkey minded face saving mode, despite my attempts to show you off ramps, so I'll leave you to it.

you're the dick head who asserted my idea had no philosophical basis... — Vaskane

See, this is just you making stuff up again. I didn't say anything about the philosophical basis of your comment. I pointed out that your lack of experiential basis for knowing what you are talking about:

It looks to me like you are happily making up stories about figments of your imagination. That doesn't sound like something, which anyone with the experience to know what they are talking about, would say. — wonderer1

Okay, so Nietzsche asserts silly things, and you believe him? Why do you think this argument from authority might be interesting?

I suggest it would be more valuable for you, to reflect on your tendency to react defensively when exposed as not knowing what you are talking about, and recognize the opportunity to admit to yourself that you really don't know what you are talking about.

:up:

Your argument against my thoughts on atheism and theism are merely rhetorical hyperbole based off an emotional reaction you had, you dont even understand my position, let alone know it. Feel free to explain why you think you're a fucking authority on the matter yet can only resort to weak ad hominem, and is pathetically afraid of delving the etymology of atheism and theism because you know you blundered and are trying hard to cover your tracks. — Vaskane

You just jump to conclusions right and left without really knowing what you are talking about.

One of the reasons I am much more of an authority than you are on the subjects is the observations of people (and getting to know them) involved in making 17k posts since 2008 on another forum.

With that kind of background your pretense to psychological insight is obvious.

I have a friend who works for one of the biggest tech companies in the world. And, they want to know what his essence is. He tells me they have regular meeting about how him and his staff feel about themselves and the company. Are they asking if the essence of the company is alligning to the essence of the employee? He thinks they are. This companies mission statment is, the essence of the company. And employees are expected to not just agree with it, but to own the same essence to correctly align themselves to their priorities. — Rob J Kennedy

Can you say what company? Sounds kind of creepy to me.

How much money did Dawkins make off of God? — Vaskane

Feel free to explain why any sort of answer would be of any relevance, to your lack of insight into the thinking of theists and atheists. Better yet, just think about it, and see if you can figure out on your why your question is irrelevant.