Missing in action: Where is the mind?

How do you know that? You're making stuff up. I shelled out and bought the thing. It has 60 pages of references. But of course, never let the facts get in the way of simple prejudice, eh?

Anyway - I give up. Believe whatever you like. I have read up on it,but the argument is too tedious for words. KJ is a neuro guy, you're a materialist, peace be to both of you and have a nice evening, it is bed time in my part of the world.

Cite some specific falsifiable evidence in support of your claims from this book. This is not an onerous request on my part. It is the very minimum you should be able and willing to provide given the improbability of your claims.

So far, you have produced zilch, nothing, nada

I really don't have the time or the interest. Have a nice evening.

That is matter of opinion. I could dispute you on all of them, if you wish.

I would welcome such a dispute

There are a number of ways to enter into a response mode on the section of your post which I have simply shown the beginning (to provide the link), and I intend to go into the details too (but possibly not on this thread). I will take the following entry firstly:



Fido, your claim that 'no mind can be produced from a brain,' doesn't seem to fit the facts at all, actually. I believe, however, that what you are trying to present is (as I've said before) a different topic, pretty much. The idea of never being in the same river twice is interesting philosophy, but it has extremely little practical application or value...especially when talking about 'that which thinks, perceives; feels; wills; seat or subject of consciousness b) the thinking and perceiving part of consciousness; intellect or intelligence c)attention; notice d) all of an individual's conscious experiences e) the conscious and unconscious together as a unit.'

Otherwise, some points you are making, I don't disagree with in a philosophical manner of pondering them, but I am fully aware that in a practical sense, some of those statements will have the opposite conclusions: for example two people looking at the same wall will have the same experience of looking at that same wall--and there's no advantage in any pragmatic manner to break that down any further.

But here, I am talking about the mind of an individual. I am presenting the knowledge, based on the firmest of evidences, that the mind is brain. I hope that you are not trying to assert that culture spheres derived from geo-demographically based social groups of certain genetic lines over thousands of years were facts of nature before the first H. sapiens had ever been around. I really hope that's not what your trying to assert. Additionally, I hope that you are not trying to assert that other primates do not have minds, or that other animals also are void of minds...like these cats that I have here. This physical organ called the brain, in the special tissue that makes it (brain), is what minds. Are you outright denying that?

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You have to get your head out of the dictionary... They are not an end to definitions, but only a beginning, and trust me on this: My stack of dictionaries is bigger than yours... I love them, but their use does not mean we do not need to use our heads...
No mind can be produced, or reproduced no matter how many brains are sliced and diced in the process of looking for one....It is a moral form with an uncertain meaning... Brains are certain, and bodies are certain, and yet the life we share is also a moral form, infinite, and impossible to define... Can you define music??? Do you think it is only notes on a page, or vibrations in the air??? One can point to these things, like the brain as playing a part in music or mind, and mind playing a part in music.... What Martin Heidegger called the implimentation meaning is what I am calling meaning without being, which is the meaning of infinite forms... Can you say the meaning of love??? Can you say you know the meaning of money without understanding its part in the whole of an economy??? You must see the notion, or in the case of mind, the Quasi Idea of the Mind in action, and in the totality of a person's life to grasp but one... The desire to simplify a subject under consideration and fall back on to dictionry definitions when that is exactly the point in question, of whether we can rely on text books, or dictionaries or any artifact of history in the definition of our own reality- is lazy... A dictionary is a book of answers for people without questions... Philosophers are questions with out answers.... What other generations too easily settled, and settled for, we should call into question...

I assume we are talking about the conscious ability of the brain to have a certain awareness . If it is , it is a human phenomena, not given to my cat.

I would suggest that mind is the ability of the brain to have multiple levels of consciousness and self consciousness, and while your cat may be cosncious four hours out of twenty it could hardly see himself lick his own butt were he self conscious...

How do you know?

In other words, define "conscious ability"

Define "certain awareness"

Provide the reasons why (following provision of your definitions) that the above phenomnena cannot be possessed by your cat.

By the way, I'm still waiting for that dispute you offered and which I accepted

The concept of self awareness is one. Try debating with your cat the rights and wrongs of killing for the sake of it. The ability to reason, the ability to recognise abstract beauty etc etc etc...

just name your poison and I will endeavour to debate with you..But just remember, I dont take kindly to personal insults.

All you have identified here is the capacity to communicate with symbolic forms. Is this what you mean by "conscious awareness" In other words, the use of abstract symbols other wise known as "language"?

If it is, does a human who lacks language also lack "consciouss awareness"? If they do lack such awareness, should they be afforded the rights afforded to other humans.? If so, why?

So looking at the stars and appreciating abstracting beauty requires language..umm

How do you know your cat does not look at the stars and appreciate their abstract beauty?

Or, being less anthropomorphic, how do you know your cat does not look at the disembowelled innards of a mouse and appreciate their abstract beauty?

because my conscious ability has logically concluded he dont.

How do you know your conscious ability (you haven't even clearly defined what this actually is yet) is capable of logically concluding what you claim it has.

Or, to paraphrase...

You believe your cat has no conscious ability because your conscious ability has determined it to be so.

I'm afraid you are going to need to do rather better than that...

Irreducible Mind ed. E. & E. Kelly

Parapsychology and the Skeptics: A Scientific Argument for the Existence of ESP Chris Kelly

The Conscious Universe: The Scientific Truth of Psychic Phenomenon Dean Radin

The End of Materialism: How Evidence of the Paranormal is bringing Science and Spirit Together Charles Tart

Now that is a very interesting set of questions.

Does a human who lacks language also lack "conscious awareness"? Let's think about that. If they were deaf-mute, then they can learn to communicate via signing. But signing is also abstract; so it relies on the same basic mechanism as written language, albeit used in a different way.

I reckon that if a human was unable to even sign - if in fact they had no ability to understand via any kind of language - then they would be suffering from an extremely high level of intellectual disability. So, while they might be 'consciously aware' of pain, other persons, and their sorroundings, wouldn't you think that the nature of their conscious awareness was qualitatively inferior to yours and mine? Would it remain 'human consciousness' or slip below that threshold? Of course they would have the same rights, but would probably need to be permanently assisted.

There is no abstract beauty... Beauty is the abstraction...

All symbols are abstractions...