[Wittrs] Re: Mind is Brain dependent
- From: "SWM" <SWMirsky@xxxxxxx>
- To: wittrs@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Thu, 17 Sep 2009 01:57:41 -0000
--- In Wittrs@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx, "BruceD" <blroadies@...> wrote:
>
>
> --- In Wittrs@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx, "swmaerske" <SWMirsky@> wrote:
>
> > I am maintaining that phenomenal consciousness,
> > the experience of being a subject (having experiences) is explainable
> in terms of brain dependence.
>
> Everything turns on what sort of explanation you have mind. Explanation
> of what?
>
Of how subjective experience occurs in the world.
> For example: If you want to explain why patient A has lost his memory,
> and then find evidence of brain damage, you have explained the memory
> loss in terms of mind dependence.
Don't you mean "brain dependence"?
> Can't imagine anyone would disagree.
>
> > My main interest, thus, is to determine if minds can be accounted for
> in physical terms.
>
> If you mean that the patient's struggle with memory, his compensation
> and fabrication, then "No", physical terms will not do.
>
What about if the loss of memory occurred because of damage to a part of the
patient's brain? What about my stepfather's ongoing erosion of memory due to
alzheimers which, according to the neurologists we've consulted, is occurring
because of the accumulation of a certain kind of protein based plaque on the
surface and within the neurons in his brain?
My stepfather, of course, seems most of the time to not even realize what has
happened to him though, occasionally, realization breaks through and then it is
incredibly sad to watch.
> I take it for granted (and I assume so do you) that all day long the
> patients experience is simultaneous with brain activity, if brain
> activity would cease, so would mind.
Yes.
> But if we just looked at brain
> activity alone, we would have no sense of what was going on with him.
>
Yes. But what is going on with him as a subject, a conscious being, is a
function of what is happening in his brain (even if factors external to the
brain may also be influencing what is happening in the brain in a variety of
ways.
> His mind cannpt be accounted for in physical terms.
No, it can. However, having a mind, the person operates as a subject and thus
on the level of having awareness, being intentional, making choices, etc. That
we need to talk about persons and minds does not preclude the fact that we need
to talk about brains and what they do in order to understand what underlies a
person with a mind.
> In fact, we find out
> the significance of the brain activity by matching it with the mental.
> We work downward, not upward, so to speak.
>
So? Does it matter where we start the inquiry so long as we go where we need to
which, in the case of minds, is into a discussion of the physical platform we
call a brain?
> Is it your contention that one day we will have mapped every single
> mental event with some unique brain event and then give a full
> description of mind in physical terms?
I have no idea if it will happen but I am inclined to think it is at least
theoretically possible.
> Is "every single mental and brain
> event" an intelligible concept?
>
> bruce
>
>
I don't know what such a question means. Is every single bit of physical
material and energy in the universe, understood as a macrocosm, an
"intelligible concept"? Well theoretically at least we can acknowledge that
such must exist but, of course, it looks to be quite beyond any human capacity
to envision and, perhaps, beyond any level of subjective intelligence to
envision. But merely because something is beyond our scope to conceive of it in
concrete terms doesn't mean that in the abstract it would have to be
unintelligible. Perhaps what's needed now is a little analysis of what any of
us mean when we assert "intelligibility" and its opposite.
SWM
WEB VIEW: http://tinyurl.com/ku7ga4
TODAY: http://alturl.com/whcf
3 DAYS: http://alturl.com/d9vz
1 WEEK: http://alturl.com/yeza
GOOGLE: http://groups.google.com/group/Wittrs
YAHOO: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Wittrs/
FREELIST: //www.freelists.org/archive/wittrs/09-2009
Other related posts:
