Do minds exist?

[untermensche]

?

The only way for us to possibly know something exists is to have some kind of experience of it, or it's effects.

The following is not a request for a story about what you claim the mind, a mind, and minds functions are or what you claim they do.
You've already expressed that the mind, a mind, and minds perform an activity, what is the empirical evidence to support the claim?

You don't know the difference between an argument and a story.

Again:

The order of strength of evidence.

1. That which one experiences.

2. That which is documented, a recording of some kind.

3. That which is reported by another.

For me the evidence is #1, the strongest possible evidence.

I don't care what you think about it.

You have evidence of your mind too. You just lie about it. That is the only difference.

- - - Updated - - -

No.

There is that which is experienced (qualia) and that which experiences it (mind).

No. Qualia is experience. It is the actual process of experiencing.

You can't just have experiencing.

If there is experience there is that which is experienced and that which experiences. A divide exists.

This is beyond dispute.

 

[Juma]

The following is not a request for a story about what you claim the mind, a mind, and minds functions are or what you claim they do.
You've already expressed that the mind, a mind, and minds perform an activity, what is the empirical evidence to support the claim?

You don't know the difference between an argument and a story.

Again:

The order of strength of evidence.

1. That which one experiences.

2. That which is documented, a recording of some kind.

3. That which is reported by another.

For me the evidence is #1, the strongest possible evidence.

I don't care what you think about it.

You have evidence of your mind too. You just lie about it. That is the only difference.

- - - Updated - - -

No.

There is that which is experienced (qualia) and that which experiences it (mind).

No. Qualia is experience. It is the actual process of experiencing.

You can't just have experiencing.

If there is experience there is that which is experienced and that which experiences. A divide exists.

This is beyond dispute.

Is it? Then you could easily prove it.

 

[untermensche]

Is it? Then you could easily prove it.

It's a truism.

You tell me how there can be experience without both the thing experienced and the thing that experiences it.

Just provide one example of how it can be done and you have proven me wrong.

The word itself contains two elements.

Experience: What was experienced? What experienced it?

 

[Speakpigeon]

If there is a "feeling of sensation" then there is that which feels.

Of course there is, the body as a whole has the ability to sense.

There is no difference between saying; To feel pain or to experience pain.

Pain is not a reaction to the environment. The reaction is just some cells becoming excited.

So at what point do cells becoming excited cease to be a reaction and start to be an 'experience'.

Pain is something created by the brain and experienced by the mind.

If it isn't experienced by the mind, even if there is great damage, there isn't pain.

Ok, but in this case we're conflating two terms, 'brain' with 'mind'. The brain is an extremely complex structure which can drastically change a person's sense of self. Damage one part of the brain and 'sensing' and 'feeling' can change quite a bit. So if by 'mind' you just mean 'brain' then sure, people have minds.

If that's not what you mean you need to demonstrate what the mind actually is.

If you can't demonstrate what the mind is then the conversation can't progress, either because it doesn't actually exist, or we don't have enough information about it yet.

As far as I know for now, I can know only my own mind. I don't know yours and so I don't know if you have one. So, I accept that the reverse is true and that you don't know that I have a mind.

I know mine because broadly what I call "my mind" is my subjective experience and subjective experience knows itself.

But maybe you're not like me. Maybe you have a brain but no subjective experience and so if you have a mind you don't know you have one. I'm not sure I really want to believe that but it's at least a theoretical possibility. There are more likely scenarios but that's not the issue here.

So you don't know I have a mind and you yourself don't have one or don't know you have one so you are going to say that minds don't exist. If you had one you would easily understand, presumably, that I could have one even if you still wouldn't know I have one. This is the reverse for me. I have a mind that I know through subjective experience and so I tend to believe that everybody has one. But, maybe not. That would explain our disagreement. And there, I would entirely agree that the difference could come from différences in our brains.
Although I would still not know that.
EB

 

[Juma]

Is it? Then you could easily prove it.

It's a truism.

You tell me how there can be experience without both the thing experienced and the thing that experiences it.

Just provide one example of how it can be done and you have proven me wrong.

The word itself contains two elements.

Experience: What was experienced? What experienced it?

Do you know what qualia means?

 

[untermensche]

It's a truism.

You tell me how there can be experience without both the thing experienced and the thing that experiences it.

Just provide one example of how it can be done and you have proven me wrong.

The word itself contains two elements.

Experience: What was experienced? What experienced it?

Do you know what qualia means?

I know what it is to experience a quale.

 

[Juma]

Do you know what qualia means?

I know what it is to experience a quale.

You dont. Qualia is the experience.

 

[untermensche]

I know what it is to experience a quale.

You dont. Qualia is the experience.

What do you think you're trying to tell me?

I know there is both pain and there is me, that which feels it.

 

[Juma]

You dont. Qualia is the experience.

What do you think you're trying to tell me?

I know there is both pain and there is me, that which feels it.

No you dont. You know that there are experience. You also feel a "I". But you dont know that these experiences i someting else the actual "act" of experiencing them.

They be the result of something else (as the experience blue is induced by specific neurosignals from the eye (or the ear) but the actual experience, the qualia, is the act of experiencing.

 

[untermensche]

What do you think you're trying to tell me?

I know there is both pain and there is me, that which feels it.

No you dont. You know that there are experience.

No. I know I am having an experience.

You also feel a "I".

I am an "I", a subjective agent. I am that which feels all things. The center of all things.

But you dont know that these experiences i someting else the actual "act" of experiencing them.

They must.

For there to be blue there must be that which produces blue and that which experiences it.

For there to be bitterness there must be that which produces bitterness and that which experiences it.

You cannot just have one side of this duality.

They be the result of something else (as the experience blue is induced by specific neurosignals from the eye (or the ear) but the actual experience, the qualia, is the act of experiencing.

Blue is the qualia. It is that which exists only as an experience.

 

[Juma]

No you dont. You know that there are experience.

No. I know I am having an experience.

You also feel a "I".

I am an "I", a subjective agent. I am that which feels all things. The center of all things.

But you dont know that these experiences i someting else the actual "act" of experiencing them.

They must.

For there to be blue there must be that which produces blue and that which experiences it.

For there to be bitterness there must be that which produces bitterness and that which experiences it.

You cannot just have one side of this duality.

You have yet to prove it.

 

[untermensche]

You have yet to prove it.

Prove what?

Again, it is a truism.

If there is experience there MUST be both that which is experienced and that which experiences.

There can be no other way for experience to occur.

 

[none]

You have yet to prove it.

Prove what?

Again, it is a truism.

If there is experience there MUST be both that which is experienced and that which experiences.

There can be no other way for experience to occur.

prove it, prove you experience a mind, the mind, and minds...
that is all I've been asking for 20+ pages...

 

[Juma]

You have yet to prove it.

Prove what?

Again, it is a truism.

If there is experience there MUST be both that which is experienced and that which experiences.

There can be no other way for experience to occur.

Why do you believe that?

 

[none]

weird that the brain records stimuli in the brain...

 

[untermensche]

Prove what?

Again, it is a truism.

If there is experience there MUST be both that which is experienced and that which experiences.

There can be no other way for experience to occur.

Why do you believe that?

It is a concept that has these elements within it.

To experience means there was something that had the experience AND something that was experienced.

Tell me how you can have experience any other way.

 

[untermensche]

Prove what?

Again, it is a truism.

If there is experience there MUST be both that which is experienced and that which experiences.

There can be no other way for experience to occur.

prove it, prove you experience a mind, the mind, and minds...
that is all I've been asking for 20+ pages...

What would constitute proof?

We know the wind by seeing the effects.

We know minds by seeing their effects as well.

We can look at something like Darwin's work on natural evolution.

Clearly the work of a mind.

 

[Juma]

Why do you believe that?

It is a concept that has these elements within it.
.

How a concept is structured says nothing about reality is structured.

 

[untermensche]

It is a concept that has these elements within it.
.

How a concept is structured says nothing about reality is structured.

Concepts have an existence of their own.

We are not discussing "reality". Whatever that conversation could be and whoever thinks qualified to do it.

We are discussing a concept; Experiencing.

We are stuck with words and concepts. That is all we have. We can't transmit "reality" to each other over the internet.

 

[Juma]

How a concept is structured says nothing about reality is structured.

Concepts have an existence of their own.

We are not discussing "reality". Whatever that conversation could be and whoever thinks qualified to do it.

We are discussing a concept; Experiencing.

We are stuck with words and concepts. That is all we have. We can't transmit "reality" to each other over the internet.

This is what we are discussing:

That is your side of it.

For me there can be no greater evidence than the evidence of my mind. I need no convincing and cannot be persuaded that what I know best is known better by somebody else.

But the evidence of your mind is only evidence of itself. Qualia is itself.