Metaphysics is a self delusional anadyne

[untermensche]

No comment on the amoeba? btw it's an https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Entamoeba_histolytica

and UM said

The brain creates the mind but does not direct it.

Wrong.

Random ideas may arise but ideas are arranged into something that makes sense by a mind.

Without a mind all you have are purposeless reflexes.

The mind is a controlling agent.

A survival tool.

 

[4321lynx]

No comment on the amoeba? btw it's an https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Entamoeba_histolytica

and UM said

The brain creates the mind but does not direct it.

Wrong.

Random ideas may arise but ideas are arranged into something that makes sense by a mind.

Without a mind all you have are purposeless reflexes.

The mind is a controlling agent.

A survival tool.

Yes, a tool dependent for its correct functioning on a brain working "correctly" (within broad bounds). I have indicated some of the factors affecting that correct function of the brain in a previous post. But for brevity consider again that a severe injury, external or internal (the latter caused by eg a stroke or a cancer deposit) will alter and may pervert the mental function, or consider the lack of a certain level of thyroid hormone changing the brain function and so the mind to such an extent in severe cases that it leads to coma and death. So can an excess of drugs. These examples can be elaborated and multiplied but they will serve for the moment.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypothyroidism

 

[Grendel]

No comment on the amoeba? btw

To be honest I thought it was the most relevant example given so far in this thread. But I may have been looking at it from a different viewpoint. That a single cell critter can show so many of our traits is wonderful. I have a good summary of an amoeba written by somebody sometime. I'll try to find it tonight and post it. Thank you belatedly.

 

[Speakpigeon]

So, prove to me that evidence is something that exists outside our heads.

So, to repeat, I don't believe the probability that 'nothing' exists" (outside the head).

If you don't believe the possibility that nothing exists outside your mind, then why do you state this below?

please note that the rest of Wiki's explanation does apply to untermensche's view (and my own): (B) "knowledge of anything outside one's own mind is unsure; the external world and other minds cannot be known and might not exist outside the mind".

These two claims of yours are in direct contradiction!

No, these two bits are not contradictory.

So, I repeat for your convenience:

X. I don't believe nothing exist outside my mind;

Y. I don't believe "the probability that 'nothing' exists outside" my mind;

Z. Yes, "knowledge of anything outside one's own mind is unsure; the external world and other minds cannot be known and might not exist outside the mind".

These are not contradictory statements. X and Z are complementary.

If you think they are contradictory, well, maybe you don't understand English very well, or you perhaps are just being illogical, I wouldn't know, you're so outside my mind.


And I don't know of any "probability", the word you used, that nothing exists outside my mind. In fact, the notion of probability doesn't apply to whether there is something outside my mind. "Possibility", another word you used, is an ambiguous word. There are I think something like five or six very different meanings. But, logical possibility, yes, definitely. I believe there's a logical possibility that nothing exists outside my mind. Big deal. Only idiots don't understand that.

Why would anyone give your posts any credibility at all? Your back-pedalling and obfuscating. Strike 3.

Seems to me you would do well to drop the pretence you understand these things and start to pay attention to what people actually say. Understanding the world requires humility. All your posts show you're clearly not interested in having a rational conversation. Your OP is a good example of that and you keep insisting on making irrelevant noises rather than rational arguments. That's definitely not good for credibility.
EB

 

[Speakpigeon]

I think everything living on Earth has something analogous to a mind.

Yeah, even UM I'm sure does although there is no evidence of it.
EB

 

[untermensche]

Random ideas may arise but ideas are arranged into something that makes sense by a mind.

Without a mind all you have are purposeless reflexes.

The mind is a controlling agent.

A survival tool.

Yes, a tool dependent for its correct functioning on a brain working "correctly" (within broad bounds). I have indicated some of the factors affecting that correct function of the brain in a previous post. But for brevity consider again that a severe injury, external or internal (the latter caused by eg a stroke or a cancer deposit) will alter and may pervert the mental function, or consider the lack of a certain level of thyroid hormone changing the brain function and so the mind to such an extent in severe cases that it leads to coma and death. So can an excess of drugs. These examples can be elaborated and multiplied but they will serve for the moment.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypothyroidism

You don't need a link to hypothyroidism. I know all about it.

The mind is a brain creation. A creation that is distinct from the brain and has the ability to influence the brain to force the brain to do things.

If I do something with my mind the brain is forced to move the hand. It has no choice in the matter. It will obey and obey.

But the brain needs to function properly to create a normally functioning mind.

That is a given.

The brain does not control the mind. The brain is the slave to the mind.

The brain is not telling the mind which words to type out. The mind is telling the brain.

 

[DrZoidberg]

I think everything living on Earth has something analogous to a mind.

Yeah, even UM I'm sure does although there is no evidence of it.
EB

We've long had the tradition of equating intelligence with "thinking like a human". There's many ways to think and solve problems. Living things tend to be as smart as they need to be. Since humans is the Swiss army knife of mammals our brains are very flexible. If that's the baseline, then no.... they're not as smart. But what have you proved by formulating it that way? It's like measuring fish on their ability to climb trees. It's a useless test.

 

[ruby sparks]

What I'd like to know is whether UM, like the rest of us, ever succumbs to worrying needlessly about stuff or gets emotional or upset, or panics, when it is not the most appropriate, rational or effective response.

I know he can generally raise his arm. I get that bit.

 

[untermensche]

What I'd like to know is whether UM, like the rest of us, ever succumbs to worrying needlessly about stuff or gets emotional or upset, or panics, when it is not the most appropriate, rational or effective response.

I know he can generally raise his arm. I get that bit.

You do not get it if you so easily dismiss it.

Worry is different things.

A person develops the ability to use their will to quash unnecessary worry.

Or they don't.

I used my will to learn to juggle three balls many years ago and can still easily do it.

Some don't.

 

[ruby sparks]

What I'd like to know is whether UM, like the rest of us, ever succumbs to worrying needlessly about stuff or gets emotional or upset, or panics, when it is not the most appropriate, rational or effective response.

I know he can generally raise his arm. I get that bit.

You do not get it if you so easily dismiss it.

Worry is different things.

A person develops the ability to use their will to quash unnecessary worry.

Or they don't.

I used my will to learn to juggle three balls many years ago and can still easily do it.

Some don't.

But why would you ever freely choose to worry unnecessarily, or for that matter panic (or indeed do anything irrational of that sort on any sort)? Or are you saying you never do? Why would someone not, as you put it, develop the ability to quash all such things, all the time, given that nearly everyone doesn't, possibly no one who ever lived?

Raising your arm is a piece of cake. It's a doddle, and doesn't say much, even if it could be freely-willed (which despite appearances and impressions it can't be explained how that could possibly be, but we can set that aside for now).

 

[Speakpigeon]

What I'd like to know is whether UM, like the rest of us, ever succumbs to worrying needlessly about stuff or gets emotional or upset, or panics, when it is not the most appropriate, rational or effective response.

I know he can generally raise his arm. I get that bit.

You do not get it if you so easily dismiss it.

Worry is different things.

A person develops the ability to use their will to quash unnecessary worry.

Or they don't.

I used my will to learn to juggle three balls many years ago and can still easily do it.

Some don't.

Hey, I can do it to! I learnt that trick while on a BBC English course years ago. I can also throw one of the three balls behind my back and catch it in front of me while still juggling the other two. I can also choose to throw the next ball to go above or beneath the one which is still up in the air, and a few other patterns, too.

I can also make my forearms turn around each other. Most people can make their forearms turn in the same direction only. I can also make my forearms turn in opposite directions to each other. Can you do it? I bet you can't.
EB

 

[untermensche]

I think everything living on Earth has something analogous to a mind.

Yeah, even UM I'm sure does although there is no evidence of it.
EB

We've long had the tradition of equating intelligence with "thinking like a human". There's many ways to think and solve problems. Living things tend to be as smart as they need to be. Since humans is the Swiss army knife of mammals our brains are very flexible. If that's the baseline, then no.... they're not as smart. But what have you proved by formulating it that way? It's like measuring fish on their ability to climb trees. It's a useless test.

I think most humans have about the same intelligence. There are outliers up and down.

What differs is experience and the will to learn things, especially at a young age.

Not just the desire to know things. The will to learn them.

The will, not some magic aspect of the mind, is the big difference.

Nietzsche spent a lot of time contemplating the will.

 

[untermensche]

What I'd like to know is whether UM, like the rest of us, ever succumbs to worrying needlessly about stuff or gets emotional or upset, or panics, when it is not the most appropriate, rational or effective response.

I know he can generally raise his arm. I get that bit.

You do not get it if you so easily dismiss it.

Worry is different things.

A person develops the ability to use their will to quash unnecessary worry.

Or they don't.

I used my will to learn to juggle three balls many years ago and can still easily do it.

Some don't.

Hey, I can do it to! I learnt that trick while on a BBC English course years ago. I can also throw one of the three balls behind my back and catch it in front of me while still juggling the other two. I can also choose to throw the next ball to go above or beneath the one which is still up in the air, and a few other patterns, too.

I can also make my forearms turn around each other. Most people can make their forearms turn in the same direction only. I can also make my forearms turn in opposite directions to each other. Can you do it? I bet you can't.
EB

The will to learn things.

That is how we know things.

Not some magical invisible thing called "intelligence".

The will and memory.

That is all a person needs to know many things.

But there is also the will to question what people say and not believe everything you hear.

Another manifestation of the will.

 

[Koyaanisqatsi]

You've had your say and proved nothing.

I've systematically deconstructed your incoherent ontology and revealed every fatal flaw to which your only responses have been childish posturing, avoidance, cherry picking and additional incoherent assertions out of your ass that don't even pass the most rudimentary logical assessments, let alone any kind of deeper philosophical rigor.

It's just a sophomoric combination of Descartes and substituting "mind" for "brain" by petulant fiat.

Case in point:

Mind is a word to describe that which experiences.

So, in other words, brain. You simply do not need--and have not justified, merely asserted--to go beyond the word "brain" for any of this drivel.

"Brain" is a word that refers to a collection of central processing organs located inside our skulls. "Experiences" are interpretations by the brain of information transmitted to the brain from the body's external sensory input devices (e.g., eyes, nose, mouth, skin, central nervous system, etc). The interpretation has already happened. Making up another word and then arbitrarily ascribing to it certain functions the brain already has is completely unnecessary.

If, as in your tortured and now expanded ontology, "mind" has all of these meta/omni-capabilities you've just started pulling out of your ass (like somehow being able to observe itself in the act of physically directing muscle movement and somehow having some form of expansive existence that it can have a "within" for all the "experiences" etc) then so, necessarily must brain, which your ontology already affirms anyway.

What's the fucking point? All you've done is added another incoherent layer of complexity to something already complex, but worse is you haven't done so legitimately. You just keep pretending that fiat is argument.

It also describes all that is experienced.

So, the word "mind" describes "all that is experienced." WTF does that even mean? Again, going back to your ontology, that would mean the word "mind" describes all of the brain's translations, which is clearly incoherent. It does not in any way describe all of the brain's translations.

What you are TRYING to fiat is that, in your definition, the word "mind" represents the culmination of all of the body's experiences in life--marriage, and death, and eating fruit, and a stubbed toe, etc., etc., etc.--and that this poetic collection of objective experiences makes us all what we are, etc.

It's a Hallmark card, at best, but the fatal flaw in all of it is that the "experiences" are not, of course, objective and the "mind" doesn't exist in any substantive fashion and it was actually the brain that interprets the information from the "outside" world from the senses, so the far more coherent (yet still complex) use of a separate, more vague term like "mind" would be to say, "I use the word 'mind' when I mean the process of the brain's interpretation of external telemetry" or the like, but that still doesn't get us very far.

All that is experienced with and in a mind.

So, once again, brain.

You simply have no legitimate justification for supplanting the word "brain" with "mind," which is precisely what you are trying to do.

It also describes something that has limited power. It can command the body to move. It can form arguments. All of this is mind.

You can't possibly establish any of this. You are simply fiating objective conditions.

This is our starting point.

No, this is you making incoherent assertions and just insisting that they are properly basic. Worse, your own ontology doesn't allow you to do any of this! You are asserting objective conditions based entirely on subjective observations that by your own otology must originate with and be generated by the brain, which, again, is an unreliable narrator.

In short, you have started with your pet conclusion in order to prove your pet conclusion and failed at every step to come anywhere close and instead of addressing all of the flaws and even attempting to fix them, you respond with unearned condescension and intellectual cowardice.

 

[untermensche]

I've systematically deconstructed your incoherent ontology and revealed every fatal flaw to which your only responses have been childish posturing, avoidance, cherry picking and additional incoherent assertions out of your ass that don't even pass the most rudimentary logical assessments, let alone any kind of deeper philosophical rigor.

Absolute delusion.

You have proven over and over you cannot make distinctions.

You still probably think the heat is the same thing as the heater.

Nothing could be more ignorant.

And you have proven you have no idea what my ontology is no less what conclusions can flow from it.

Mind is a word to describe that which experiences.

So, in other words, brain.

Only to a mind that is so lost it thinks the heat is the same thing as the heater.

That movement is the same thing as the car.

The mind is a product of some subset of brain activity. Like the picture on the screen is the product of activity. The picture and the activity are not the same thing. And the activity is also distinct from the controls of the activity. There is a distinction between hardware and software.

To not have the ability to make these clear distinctions is just stupidity.

 

[Koyaanisqatsi]

You have proven over and over you cannot make distinctions.

Demonstrably false.

You still probably think the heat is the same thing as the heater.

Strawman (based on yet another category error).

Nothing could be more ignorant.

Childish avoidance through unearned condescension.

And you have proven you have no idea what my ontology is no less what conclusions can flow from it.

Demonstrably false. And no "conclusions" can "flow from it" since it starts with a conclusion and only desperately and fatally works backwards from there.

But you know this, of course, because like a petulant child whose father won't just let him have his way, you keep desperately avoiding addressing any of the numerous flaws directly, opting instead for more foot stomping.

So, in other words, brain.

Only to a mind that is so lost it thinks the heat is the same thing as the heater.

Strawman (based on yet another category error).

That movement is the same thing as the car.

What? When did I ever even hint at the notion that "movement" is the same thing as the car?

The mind is a product of some subset of brain activity.

Incoherent definition by fiat (that was nevertheless already granted for the sake of argument leading nowhere but more fiat).

It is not the brain.

Category error. It is, at best, a phenomenon (i.e., illusion) generated by brain activity, just as the heat in the room only exists so long as the heater in the room continues to operate, because it is the heater's activity that is causing the room's temperature (which we call "heat") to rise. Turn off the heater in that room and the activity stops, which in turn means the temperature in that room lowers (and thus we say, "it is cold in this room").

Does that mean the concept--the noun--"Heat" disappears? Does that mean a Heater (noun) is the same thing as the concept of Heat (noun)? No, that would be a category error and only a fucking moron--or intellectual coward--would repeatedly stuff that strawman as a desperate attempt to avoid dealing with his failed ontology.

You can't comprehend that simple analogy, then go with this: it is not a cake; it is baking. It is not a noun; it is a verb. You, however, are desperately trying to fiat that a verb is a noun. Category error.

And the proof of it all is this late stage attempt to pack more and more non-sequitur shit into your ontology that was never there before, instead of just conceding you don't know what the fuck you're talking about.

To not have the ability to make these clear distinctions is just stupidity.

We finally agree.

 

[ruby sparks]

We've long had the tradition of equating intelligence with "thinking like a human". There's many ways to think and solve problems. Living things tend to be as smart as they need to be. Since humans is the Swiss army knife of mammals our brains are very flexible. If that's the baseline, then no.... they're not as smart. But what have you proved by formulating it that way? It's like measuring fish on their ability to climb trees. It's a useless test.

I think most humans have about the same intelligence. There are outliers up and down.

What differs is experience and the will to learn things, especially at a young age.

Not just the desire to know things. The will to learn them.

The will, not some magic aspect of the mind, is the big difference.

Nietzsche spent a lot of time contemplating the will.

Ok. And I am not familiar with Nietzche or what he said about the will.

What I am thinking though is that, correct me if I'm wrong, your example, often used, of raising your arm suggests that you are free do do that at any time (barring some physical restraint) because your mind is independent of your brain (and body). So, you can see where I'm going by brining up panic etc.

It's not that I don't believe there is a will (or a mind) it's just that....I do not think either has (or understand how it/they could have) as many freedoms (or as much freedom) as you seem to sometimes imply. I see a two-way process, where the mind influences the brain and the other way around. In short, I think you claim too much for the mind.

 

[untermensche]

It is not the brain.

Category error. It is, at best, a phenomenon (i.e., illusion) generated by brain activity, just as the heat in the room only exists so long as the heater in the room continues to operate...

It is not just like generating heat.

It is generating a mind and all the fullness of a mind. Which includes the ability to move the arm. The mind and the will are talking about the same thing. The mind includes the will as part of it's fullness.

You use the words "category error" as a dodge.

You have never once demonstrated it.

The total error is to say that heat is the same thing as a machine that generates heat.

The machine can be there without the heat.

It cannot possibly be the same thing as the heat.

 

[untermensche]

We've long had the tradition of equating intelligence with "thinking like a human". There's many ways to think and solve problems. Living things tend to be as smart as they need to be. Since humans is the Swiss army knife of mammals our brains are very flexible. If that's the baseline, then no.... they're not as smart. But what have you proved by formulating it that way? It's like measuring fish on their ability to climb trees. It's a useless test.

I think most humans have about the same intelligence. There are outliers up and down.

What differs is experience and the will to learn things, especially at a young age.

Not just the desire to know things. The will to learn them.

The will, not some magic aspect of the mind, is the big difference.

Nietzsche spent a lot of time contemplating the will.

Ok. And I am not familiar with Nietzche or what he said about the will.

What I am thinking though is that, correct me if I'm wrong, your example, often used, of raising your arm suggests that you are free do do that at any time (barring some physical restraint) because your mind is independent of your brain (and body). So, you can see where I'm going by brining up panic etc.

It's not that I don't believe there is a will (or a mind) it's just that....I do not think either has (or understand how it/they could have) as many freedoms (or as much freedom) as you seem to sometimes imply. I see a two-way process, where the mind influences the brain and the other way around. In short, I think you claim too much for the mind.

Absolutely not.

My mind is connected to my brain, not free from it.

But my mind makes decisions based on things like ideas.

The brain does not function based on ideas and therefore cannot make decisions based on ideas.

 

[Koyaanisqatsi]

It is generating a mind and all the fullness of a mind.

Meaningless assertion.

Which includes the ability to move the arm.

HOW? Your ontology is that "mind" is generated by the brain--a "mental" process--that is fed translated stories by the brain that it "experiences" (and as such is only experiencing whatever the brain tells it is an "experience" with no ability to independently verify anything it is imbued with).

How--exactly--does any of that allow for it to physically direct arm movement?

You use the words "category error" as a dodge.

You use the word "dodge" as a dodge from having to address all of the painfully obvious category errors you keep repeating.

You have never once demonstrated it.

Demonstrably false as everyone readily sees, but keep stomping that petulant little foot and maybe it will all just magically go away.

The total error is to say that heat is the same thing as a machine that generates heat.

An argument I have never made and have clarified countless times regardless, in the post you just once again ignored in fact, in favor of continuing to use it as a pathetic dodge.