[Wittrs] Re: When is "brain talk" really dualism?
- From: "blroadies" <blroadies@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: Wittrs@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Sat, 29 Aug 2009 17:34:23 -0000
--- In Wittrs@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx, "swmaerske" <SWMirsky@...> wrote:
> Can you think of any scientific studies of brains
> or minds that proceed from any other basis?
My problem is that I can't find ONE study is based on the causation of mind,
when cause is used as in the physical disciplines. Let's not confuse causation
with locating what area of the brain is vital or a condition for -- this is not
what I'm questioning.
Again, I'm questioning whether physicalistic reduction can make sense out of
our life, behavioral and mental. I'm not doubting that mind is embodied.
> Dennett's Consciousness Explained,
> which sets out to give an account of how brain activities result
> in the mental phenomena
Quote me where Edelman says "the brain causes mind" and the manner in which he
demonstrates.
What am I getting at? If I hit you in the head and you scream, that shows that
your pain receptors and brain are working. It doesn't show that my hit or your
brain caused you to "feel pain" or scream at me "you are going to be sorry."
Nothing you feel or do stands in a causal relationship with my hit or that
brain activity. You may not feel anything, say, or do anything. That is not how
physical causation works. The nerve endings on your head and your brain have no
option but to respond. You have that option.
What you feel and do is account that can't be made on a physical level.
> You can't possibly have in mind some of the
> philosophical stuff that opts for dualism
There isn't a study I've read that isn't Dualistic, not in the sense of
substance, but in explanatory account.
> I mean the cortex in the infant's brain...
> goes through a learning process
Ae you not confusing causality with intentionality and hence bordering on
vitalism. You treating the cortex as person, as if it had a mind of its own.
> Talk of cortexes is not talk in the "language of physics".
> It is, however, talk in the language of biology
which does not tolerate intentionality or purpose.
> various self-sustaining, self-propagating, closed systems.
Are not agents with purpose or intention. The zygote develops into a person but
not on purpose. The cortex changes when the person learns
> by running a single, relatively simple algorithm
but the cortex can't refuse to learn or deceive itself. You are mesmerized by
the computer and can, if you elect, imagine humans as computers. But is Hawkins
actually doing that? Look below.
> One can thus talk about how an infant can learn by
> considering how the infant's brain operates and,
> as Hawkins proposes, how the brain itself learns.
"How the infant operates" means looking at my grandson as a person with a life
of his own, his wishes and fears, odd imaginings,etc...and then working
"downward", as it were,to see how his infant brain supports this behavior (and
world), the limits it sets, etc.
Hawkins' work couldn't get started if he actually start with ignoring the
person of grandson and just focused on the physical object.
bruce
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