Do minds exist?

[none]

Once again, when you see a chair are you seeing something the brain created or are you seeing the brain?

what about the mind? isn't that what you should be talking about?
I know the brain is capable of storing information produced by sensory organs.

You don't have to leave negative reputation because you don't like to answer simple questions.

you claim there is a mind, prove it

You have a mind. Use it.

there you go, assuming more than you are proving.
define mind?
I'm curious.

 

[none]

I could probably go on for days talking about the brain and never mention mind, can you do the same?
that is curious to me also

 

[untermensche]

Once again, when you see a chair are you seeing something the brain created or are you seeing the brain?

what about the mind? isn't that what you should be talking about.

I know the brain is capable of storing information produced by sensory organs.

Vision is a part of the mind.

But why do you have so much trouble answering a simple question?

Do you think that perhaps you are seeing the brain?

 

[none]

Once again, when you see a chair are you seeing something the brain created or are you seeing the brain?

why not answer the question yourself?
spit it out, I am not a mind reader.
sensory input goes to the brain

what about the mind? isn't that what you should be talking about.

I know the brain is capable of storing information produced by sensory organs.

Vision is a part of the mind.

prove it.

But why do you have so much trouble answering a simple question?
Do you think that perhaps you are seeing the brain?

your all mixed up like a bowl of nuts
this is about you proving that a mind exists not "mind of the gaps" routine.
who's on first? <-- start here

 

[untermensche]

why not answer the question yourself?
spit it out, I am not a mind reader.
sensory input goes to the brain

what about the mind? isn't that what you should be talking about.

I know the brain is capable of storing information produced by sensory organs.

Vision is a part of the mind.

prove it.

But why do you have so much trouble answering a simple question?
Do you think that perhaps you are seeing the brain?

your all mixed up like a bowl of nuts
this is about you proving that a mind exists not "mind of the gaps" routine.
who's on first? <-- start here

You are dancing around like you are on fire.

Calm down.

It is a simple question.

When you see a chair are you seeing something the brain created or are you seeing the brain?

Have you ever seen a brain?

 

[none]

I haven't seen your brain or your mind or anybody's mind, it may be a phenomenon but from what I have been exposed to it isn't a phenomenon.
look carefully at what you are asking me.
sensory input goes to the brain
if the chair is there my eyes see it and pass that stimulus to the brain.
you say vision is part of the mind, this is pretty stupid considering that vision is because there are eyeballs and optical nerves that go to the brain.
I am calm, you are asking incoherent questions to prove a point or trap me into saying something so you can exploit a gap in understanding so you can play the "mind of the gaps"
this is stupid, if you had half an argument you'd use it.

 

[untermensche]

I haven't seen your brain or your mind or anybody's mind, it may be a phenomenon but from what I have been exposed to it isn't a phenomenon.
look carefully at what you are asking me.
sensory input goes to the brain
if the chair is there my eyes see it and pass that stimulus to the brain.
you say vision is part of the mind, this is pretty stupid considering that vision is because there are eyeballs and optical nerves that go to the brain.
I am calm, you are asking incoherent questions to prove a point or trap me into saying something so you can exploit a gap in understanding so you can play the "mind of the gaps"
this is stupid, if you had half an argument you'd use it.

If you won't engage there is no knowledge you can lead yourself to.

I can't force you to think. I can't drag you to knowledge.

But vision is not the eyes. It is not the optic nerves. It is not all the regions in the brain that simultaneously create what we call vision.

Vision is an experience. It is the subjective.

The subjective is the mind.

All that is known is the subjective. The world we see. History, our families, our thoughts and aspirations are all the subjective.

On one side is the subjective and on the other is nothing.

No minds then we are not having this discussion.

 

[none]

I haven't seen your brain or your mind or anybody's mind, it may be a phenomenon but from what I have been exposed to it isn't a phenomenon.
look carefully at what you are asking me.
sensory input goes to the brain
if the chair is there my eyes see it and pass that stimulus to the brain.
you say vision is part of the mind, this is pretty stupid considering that vision is because there are eyeballs and optical nerves that go to the brain.
I am calm, you are asking incoherent questions to prove a point or trap me into saying something so you can exploit a gap in understanding so you can play the "mind of the gaps"
this is stupid, if you had half an argument you'd use it.

If you won't engage there is no knowledge you can lead yourself to.

I can't force you to think. I can't drag you to knowledge.

But vision is not the eyes. It is not the optic nerves. It is not all the regions in the brain that simultaneously create what we call vision.

Vision is an experience. It is the subjective.

so blind people just don't want to see
how humble...

The subjective is the mind.

the subjective is the subjective, if the mind were something unto itself don't you think you could illustrate that?
this is the main point you should express: a thorough explanation of the mind not some weird semantic game

All that is known is the subjective. The world we see. History, our families, our thoughts and aspirations are all the subjective.
On one side is the subjective and on the other is nothing.

not sure what to make of this^ and I really don't want you to explain it either
ooh I get it... you aren't real, this is all my subjectivity... cool
likewise I am not real.

No minds then we are not having this discussion.

funny enough if I damage your brain we can still talk but you would be at a disadvantage.
no debate about you being brain damaged?
plus I'd like you to prove there is a mind not give it's supposed function.

 

[untermensche]

If you won't engage there is no knowledge you can lead yourself to.

I can't force you to think. I can't drag you to knowledge.

But vision is not the eyes. It is not the optic nerves. It is not all the regions in the brain that simultaneously create what we call vision.

Vision is an experience. It is the subjective.

so blind people just don't want to see
how humble...

This doesn't follow from a word I said.

And it is not a refutation to a word I said.

It is another dodge away from what I said.

Your unwillingness to engage is making this very boring.

The subjective is the mind.

the subjective is the subjective,

Such are the truisms of children.

But at least you can recognize that something called the subjective exists.

Now all that is left is for you to think about that fact.

The subjective is not the brain. It is something created by the brain. A product of the brain.

And mind is just a name we have given the subjective. There is no difference between the two concepts.

...if the mind were something unto itself don't you think you could illustrate that?...

No. You can't illustrate anything to people with minds that won't engage. Afraid they are running into a trap as if there were such a thing.

But it really begins with my simple question.

When you see a chair, are you seeing something created by a brain or are you seeing a brain?

The seeing of a chair is the subjective.

If the seeing of a chair exists then a mind exists because they are both the subjective.

And try to understand that this does not imply that those who can't see don't have minds. All it means is those who can see have evidence of their mind in their seeing.

Thoughts are just as much evidence that one has a mind. So is pain.

 

[none]

so many excuses, but you are subjective to my experience and so am I.
thought you might have something to offer but you are so convinced of your own platitudes it shows.
like I said if there was a chair there and I saw it that information would be stored in my brain, not the chair but the sensory input would be stored.
yeah you see minds but choose not to produce one or fully elaborate what it is.
pfft, mr subjective.
if it begins with a question you have already lost.
explanations are not questions and you don't have an explanation, so pat yourself on the back.
Affirming the Antecedent right? isn't that what you are doing?

if you have a mind you talk to people
you talk to people therefor you have a mind

 

[untermensche]

so many excuses, but you are subjective to my experience and so am I.
thought you might have something to offer but you are so convinced of your own platitudes it shows.
like I said if there was a chair there and I saw it that information would be stored in my brain, not the chair but the sensory input would be stored.
yeah you see minds but choose not to produce one or fully elaborate what it is.
pfft, mr subjective.
if it begins with a question you have already lost.
explanations are not questions and you don't have an explanation, so pat yourself on the back.

You are a fool to think you can wipe away the subjective with the wave of a hand.

That which we experience is all we are.

Take away experience and you take away everything.

The brain is merely a way to have experience. It is not experience.

 

[none]

so many excuses, but you are subjective to my experience and so am I.
thought you might have something to offer but you are so convinced of your own platitudes it shows.
like I said if there was a chair there and I saw it that information would be stored in my brain, not the chair but the sensory input would be stored.
yeah you see minds but choose not to produce one or fully elaborate what it is.
pfft, mr subjective.
if it begins with a question you have already lost.
explanations are not questions and you don't have an explanation, so pat yourself on the back.

You are a fool to think you can wipe away the subjective with the wave of a hand.

That which we experience is all we are.

Take away experience and you take away everything.

The brain is merely a way to have experience. It is not experience.

oh so you are not merely a subjective experience I have and I am not a subjective experience you have?
I think you graduate to the part where you are not a brain in a vat

here is what you are doing, pay close attention:
Affirming the Antecedent

if you have a mind you talk
you talk

therefore you have a mind

problem is you haven't proved you have a mind

if you think there is a mind explain it don't piddle fuck around.
I don't care about it's function, explain what it is.

 

[Speakpigeon]

You could try to use your brain.

If you're sure you have one and if you actually know how to use it maybe it's one way to do it. Me I actually don't know I have a brain but apparently I don't need to. All I need is know my own mind. And I just happen to do. Something like Descartes I guess. I'm also sceptical about brains proving minds, even collectively organised brains, like, say, CERN or whatever. There seems to be some sort of catch. Fascinating.
EB

To "use" a brain requires something that does the using.

Yeah, true enough, and I don't see that it's how it goes. Or at least, we don't normally really believe that brains are used. Some twerky lab scientist recently interconnected several rat brains to use as a kind of computer and I guess we could do something similar with human brains. Someday, some even twerkier scientists will collect donors' brains, after their deaths I assume, and use them to control tax returns or something. Yeah, but short of that one doesn't truly use one's brain. I guess the brain does its own things. So, the question is, is a brain capable of finding out whether there are minds or not? Obviously, some brains will somehow conclude there are no minds, but I will assume that they don't really know what they are concluding about in this instance.
EB

 

[Togo]

None, I suspect the problem here is that you don't understand the available science.

Let's start with the basic problem that you were struggling with earlier.

When you see a chair, does your brain store the sensory input of the chair, or an internal representation of the chair, based on that sensory input?

Step 1 is to understand that the brain does not, as you appeared to claim, store raw sensory input.

Ok, next step.

When you process information about the outside world, does the brain process raw sensory input, or the internal representation?

Step 2 is to recognise that the brain processes information based on a model of the world, and not raw sensory input.

OK, next step,

People regularly report having sensations of subjective representation. That is they report having the sensation of having subjective experiences, of experiencing a view of the world and making decision. These sensations are correlated with observable and measureable neural activity and observable and measureable performance characteristics, that are directly comparable and distinguishable from similar processes and actions that do not have a component of subjective experience.

Step 3 is to recognise that the phenomenon of subjective experience appears to be linked to measureable characteristics of the brain and behaviour.

Do these three steps help you to understand what scientists are referring to when they talk about theories of mind?

With the science out of the way we can turn to the philosophy, where we can afford to get more speculative. Maybe the mind is an illusion, maybe the mind is a side-effect of some other process, maybe the mind represents an alternative non-physical reality, maybe the mind is determined by prior events, etc. etc. There are people who will argue for and against all of these positions, and you're welcome to put forward your idea.

 

[Speakpigeon]

This is a dodge.

What doubts, you or your brain?

I am not going to give you an answer, what you are looking for is "mind of the gaps".

It's probably fair to deny being to our logical sense once we've denied being to our own mind.

This interrogation of yours could go on indefinitely, turn to semantics and philosophy all so you can not provide anything empirical about the mind but deny the one thing that is empirical... the brain.

Experiencing one's own mind is the most empirical thing one can possibly do. The funny thing is that everything thing else goes through that one experience. I'm sure a brain can work without a mind and I doubt a mind could work without a brain but these beliefs are only as good as my brain allows them to be and I have no idea how truthful brains are, including my own. Eck, I don't even know I have a brain!
EB

 

[Speakpigeon]

it might be easier to prove there is a mind, why don't you try that..?

Personally I don't need to prove I have a mind because it just happens that I know my mind and I couldn't possibly do that if I had no mind. Well, at least it's how logic has it starting from the usual meaning of "know". You don't know my mind, and apparently nobody else does, and maybe you yourself have no mind, or in philosophical terminology, you are a zombie. Freaks me out somewhat but it's a bit like at the cinema, you know, I've secured a firm grip on my seat. I can't prove to a carrot I have a mind. I couldn't even prove to it I'm cooking it for my supper!
EB

 

[untermensche]

You are a fool to think you can wipe away the subjective with the wave of a hand.

That which we experience is all we are.

Take away experience and you take away everything.

The brain is merely a way to have experience. It is not experience.

oh so you are not merely a subjective experience I have and I am not a subjective experience you have?

I am that which has experience. That which can experience.

And it is my brain that creates me and my experiences.

But I am not my brain. I am a creation of my brain, like the chair I see.

problem is you haven't proved you have a mind

You can pretend we have moved past Descartes but we have not.

I think therefore I am.

What needs proving is that there is more than mind.

 

[Speakpigeon]

problem is you haven't proved you have a mind

Some sciency types like to believe that denying the existence of the mind is the rational thing to do. Beside the fact that you really need to be screwed up to believe such a claim it's in fact very bad science because this is the angle less likely to help us move forward. Sure I'm not optimistic about the possibility of science explaining the mind but that's not the point. The point is that at a fairly large number of human beings if not most report having a mind, one apprarently very hard to account for using current science. Denying this is just the idiotic and easy way out. There's an empirical result and probably most scientists would make the same report: human beings report experiencing a mind. Now, do the grown-up thing and try to explain it. Nobody need to prove to him or herself that he or she has a mind. We all know it. Science needs to get its act together and try to explain the facts.
EB

 

[untermensche]

problem is you haven't proved you have a mind

Some sciency types like to believe that denying the existence of the mind is the rational thing to do. Beside the fact that you really need to be screwed up to believe such a claim it's in fact very bad science because this is the angle less likely to help us move forward. Sure I'm not optimistic about the possibility of science explaining the mind but that's not the point. The point is that at a fairly large number of human beings if not most report having a mind, one apprarently very hard to account for using current science. Denying this is just the idiotic and easy way out. There's an empirical result and probably most scientists would make the same report: human beings report experiencing a mind. Now, do the grown-up thing and try to explain it. Nobody need to prove to him or herself that he or she has a mind. We all know it. Science needs to get its act together and try to explain the facts.
EB

When you can't explain something there are many attitudes you can take. You can admit you don't understand. You can claim some god is responsible. Or you can pretend it doesn't even exist.

 

[Speakpigeon]

When you can't explain something there are many attitudes you can take. You can admit you don't understand.

Yep, that's me.

But again, I'm not sure we always need an explanation. Scientific explanations seem to come with the kind of thing we call the material world. We explain for example bubbles, something flimsy but definitely material, in terms I guess of molecules, surface tension and pressure, all things eminently material. Yet, this sort of explanations can only go so far. Presumably, you always explain something in terms of something more fundamental, for example the properties of metal, say ductability and strength, are explained in terms of the properties of the particular atoms that make up particular metals. Then you can go on explaining atoms in terms of the electrons, protons and neutrons that make up a particular kind of atoms, and so on. Yet, I guess we all expect that it will stop one day because there must be something that is not made up of something else. This something would have no explanation. Yet, it would have to exist if only to explain everything else. We would be embarrassed otherwise.

You can claim some god is responsible. Or you can pretend it doesn't even exist.

Yeah, and I wonder, which is the worst of the two?
EB