The mental and the physical.

1. at that time he wasn't able to observe or understant complexitiy of neural networks. ---...which clearly implies now we can.

No it doesn't implie that now we understand FULL complexitiy of neural networks. It implies what it says that: "at that time he wasn't able to observe or understant complexitiy of neural networks."

Currently we also don't fully understand that compelxitiy and it is possible that we also have some wrong assumptions on how brain functions. We know that it is not used just for cooling, that this is only one of its functions.

2. Lets play.
If I understant correctly what you are trying to say is that for instance car doesn't exist on its own but that it is rather product of my brain.
Something like in movie matrix where world doesn't really exist but it is just an computer simulation.
Or maybe this computer which is simulating our world is all of our brains connected together so our brains are both creating the universe we see and then they also play inside it.
Something like when I dream and part of my brain creates different situations and another part of my brain decides what to do in those situations.

I agree with you.
There might be an objective truth.
Or we might be imagining all of this.
Or it might be something else.

Science might find one day which is truth but currently it can only say that it doesn't know which of these scenarios is truth.

What science IS doing is detecting, observing and analysing rules which seem to exist in this world of ours. So in this objective/ imagined/whatever world scientist were able to observe a lot of rules which we are calling laws of physics. For each of those we have mathematical model which models that rule more or less precisly. Such mathematical models are considered to be valid if we can used them to predict what will happen. As new info becomes available those models are refined, rejected or replaced with other models that are capable of predicting this new info that became available.

Sometimes those models predict that there should be something in nature we havent seen so far like black holes or dark substance.

So currenlty all those models suggest that there is no "mental" as something which is not physical. We neither have seen it nor does models point that there should be something "mental" needed to explain human behaviour.

Vori, I do not feel comfortable with mind as just epiphenomena: I do see it as something that brains do. Yet, I am also not comfortable with the perspective of brains (and all the things of our meaningful world) as independent of thought. I prefer the nondualistic notion that minds and brains are two aspects of a single reality. Yin-yang. The internal diversification of unity.

WTF is epiphenomena?
With you guys I constantly have to use Wikipedia to keep up.
An epiphenomenon (plural - epiphenomena) is a secondary phenomenon that occurs alongside or in parallel to a primary phenomenon.

WTF is mind?
Mind (pronounced /ˈmaɪnd/) refers to the aspects of intellect and consciousness manifested as combinations of thought, perception, memory, emotion, will and imagination, including all of the brain's conscious and unconscious cognitive processes.

"Mind" is often used to refer especially to the thought processes of reason.

Subjectively, mind manifests itself as a stream of consciousness.

As you can see from the above definitions of mind I took from wikipedia there is no definition.
Mind is some strange word which is defined by bunch of other even stranger words which at the end means nothing but only looks like some kind of definition.

--

Why can't we keep things simple if those simple explanations make sense and can be verified through experiemnts.

You have bunch of neurons connected to each other in a blob called brain.
If the brain is not dead there will be bunch of electrical impulses traveling between neurons. So instead of saying: "bunch of electrical impulses are traveling between neurons." we can say: "brain is thinking".

We still don't know what emotions are so using them to define some other term like mind is silly.

---
Wtf does this mean:"Minds and brains are two aspects of a single reality. Yin-yang. The internal diversification of unity."
How do I look this up in Google?

No, that's not quite what I mean. I mean that we segment "reality" according to common purpose. Things are "thinged by thingers". The existence of "trees" is bound up with the existence of "observers" and vice versa. (Social Reality thread).

The existence of "trees" is bound up with the existence of "observers" and vice versa

So you are saying that trees do not exists on their own, and that they are not product of my brain. So what else is there?

I'll go try to find that thread now

vori,

Congratulations. You are now into the philosophy of existence - "ontology" !

Descarte's "cogito" (I think therefore I am) is one point of entry to ontology, and is often kicked against by existential philosophers.

http://www.formalontology.it/
Ontology is the theory of objects and their ties. Ontology provides criteria for distinguishing various types of objects (concrete and abstract, existent and non-existent, real and ideal, independent and dependent) and their ties (relations, dependences and predication).

If this definition that I have found on the web is true then ontology says nothing about type of existance of object. It simply categorizes objects by defining how they are related to each other.

This is the same as when I have to write something in C++, Java or C# programming langugaes which are OOPL-Object Oriented programming Langugaes and before I start programming i have to define bunch of classes and define how they are related to each other.

For instance:
object {weight; location}
vehicle inherits object {speed; }
tire inherits object { radius; manufacturer; }
engine inherits object { horse power; fueltype }
car inherits vehicle { tire1; tire2; tire3; tire4; engine}

This means that if three doesn't exist objectivly, and if it is not product of our brain, ontology doesn;t give us third option.

There are several forms of ontology. Further down in your link it says



One such problem involves the existential status of "observers" and consequenrly the status of science itself. This was discussed on
http://able2know.org/topic/109523-1

Fresco, you are good educator. You don't talk down to anyone (one is always challenged to understand your utterances), and you always show the tremendous patience needed to assist those who are not quite ready for your assistance. These are qualities shown by the zen masters I have known.

A compliment indeed from one even more patient !

Once, a member of the choir I'm in was convinced that we were only 19 present of the 20 members. But no one could say who was missing. After a few recounts she discovered that she had been forgetting to count herself.

she must really enjoy counting.