The non-physical Mind? :O

[lizface]

Is it possible to explain the apparent human non-physical mind in purely physical terms? What reason is there for your answer?
C:

[Lex]

What are you talking about? I don't get it?

[lizface]

ummm right,
How would you describe the mind?

[Lex]

The mind is a concept based around the brain, which functions via synapses etc, etc...

[Yokailo]

I think she means: how do you explain the more intricate thoughts, for which there is no clear one hormone or one clear part of the brain.
I think.
And I don't know, and I don't think anyone does.

[krzych32]

I think she is talking about the soul, if you want to call it that way.

[Lex]

*facepalm*

this thread is not serious...

[lizface]

Dang
This is what I get for using too specific terms vaguely, sorry people!
Let me rephrase it a bit.
If the mind is a part of us which has thoughts, ideas, etc. (like having a thought about a cake) and these thoughts don't take up space physically (the cake in my thought would appear to not take up any physical space unlike a cake in the real world) then you could say the mind contains these thoughts in a non-physical way (Some would call this entity the soul).
So how could you explain these thoughts or ideas that we appear to have in terms of physical causes? (from a Physicalist's point of view - someone who believes everything is physical)
Do consider Reasons and Intentions when thinking about it, I want to hear something interesting..?
And if we can't explain them in purely physical terms, then how would we explain them? Or would you say they are irreducible (cannot be simplified)
Simple enough?

[low]

Jul 1, 2010 15:28:51 GMT -5 lizface said:

Dang
This is what I get for using too specific terms vaguely, sorry people!
Let me rephrase it a bit.
If the mind is a part of us which has thoughts, ideas, etc. (like having a thought about a cake) and these thoughts don't take up space physically (the cake in my thought would appear to not take up any physical space unlike a cake in the real world) then you could say the mind contains these thoughts in a non-physical way (Some would call this entity the soul).
So how could you explain these thoughts or ideas that we appear to have in terms of physical causes? (from a Physicalist's point of view - someone who believes everything is physical)
Do consider Reasons and Intentions when thinking about it, I want to hear something interesting..?
And if we can't explain them in purely physical terms, then how would we explain them? Or would you say they are irreducible (cannot be simplified)
Simple enough?

The term tends to be called materialism--the belief that everything is material in nature. This belief has been accepted by leading neuroscientists and cognitive psychologists to a varying degree for at least 55 years or so. What this essentially means is that every last thought or action a person has is accompanied (and caused) by electrochemical signals in regions of the brain.

There are various parts of the brain that are responsible for various kinds of thinking and studies of people with brain damage have been around to give us these insights long before we had the kind of technology to read the brain that we have today (though we still have a lot of work to do!). "Patient H.M.," for example, has an experimental surgery (which the film Memento is based on) where a region of his brain known as the hippocampus was severed, since it was causing him seizures. As a result of this surgery, he had no ability to form new memories (after a few minutes, he would forget anything that just happened; as a result, he still thought he was 23 when he was 70), so thus we discovered that the hippocampus is a region in the brain responsible for forming new memories. Another famous example is Phineas Gage, who Hank Green of the vlogbrothers recently made a video about.

So, in summation, your physical senses take in stimuli from the outside world and convert them into electrochemical signals, which go into different regions of your brain, and relay around to form thoughts, intentions, and actions. Every thought is physical in nature. Here's a good video about it for more of an explanation:

[ladystardust]

Buddhists believe that the Mind is another sense organ, just as the eyes, ears, etc. The mind perceives thoughts, just as the eyes perceive sights, ears sounds, and so on.

Thoughts can also take up physical space, if I'm not mistaken, according to some theories. For example, isn't there an actual numerical capacity in terms of memory? And what are memories, if not thoughts?

[lizface]

Jul 1, 2010 15:58:44 GMT -5 low said:

Jul 1, 2010 15:28:51 GMT -5 lizface said:

Dang
This is what I get for using too specific terms vaguely, sorry people!
Let me rephrase it a bit.
If the mind is a part of us which has thoughts, ideas, etc. (like having a thought about a cake) and these thoughts don't take up space physically (the cake in my thought would appear to not take up any physical space unlike a cake in the real world) then you could say the mind contains these thoughts in a non-physical way (Some would call this entity the soul).
So how could you explain these thoughts or ideas that we appear to have in terms of physical causes? (from a Physicalist's point of view - someone who believes everything is physical)
Do consider Reasons and Intentions when thinking about it, I want to hear something interesting..?
And if we can't explain them in purely physical terms, then how would we explain them? Or would you say they are irreducible (cannot be simplified)
Simple enough?

The term tends to be called materialism--the belief that everything is material in nature. This belief has been accepted by leading neuroscientists and cognitive psychologists to a varying degree for at least 55 years or so. What this essentially means is that every last thought or action a person has is accompanied (and caused) by electrochemical signals in regions of the brain.

There are various parts of the brain that are responsible for various kinds of thinking and studies of people with brain damage have been around to give us these insights long before we had the kind of technology to read the brain that we have today (though we still have a lot of work to do!). "Patient H.M.," for example, has an experimental surgery (which the film Memento is based on) where a region of his brain known as the hippocampus was severed, since it was causing him seizures. As a result of this surgery, he had no ability to form new memories (after a few minutes, he would forget anything that just happened; as a result, he still thought he was 23 when he was 70), so thus we discovered that the hippocampus is a region in the brain responsible for forming new memories. Another famous example is Phineas Gage, who Hank Green of the vlogbrothers recently made a video about.

So, in summation, your physical senses take in stimuli from the outside world and convert them into electrochemical signals, which go into different regions of your brain, and relay around to form thoughts, intentions, and actions. Every thought is physical in nature. Here's a good video about it for more of an explanation:

You have a very good point there, a very long one too, thanks for taking the time to write all that I really appreciate your opinion.
Just one thing:
I see how thoughts can be translated into the physical, however, how would you explain the Qualia of our thoughts?
Qualia are the way our thoughts 'feel' to us, for example: the thrill of anticipation or the pangs of regret and remorse.
There is something it is like for us when we experience a sensation, and it is impossible to tell externally, and when we try to describe what a Quale is in simple terms we end up using metaphors.
So would you reduce it somehow to brain activity and chemical reactions? Then surely we can know with certainty what it feels like for any person to experience a particular sensation? Is that possible?
I know this may be a fairly weak point but I just want to know your response to this, because I think it's quite interesting
Thanks.

[low]

Jul 1, 2010 18:11:25 GMT -5 lizface said:

I see how thoughts can be translated into the physical, however, how would you explain the Qualia of our thoughts?
Qualia are the way our thoughts 'feel' to us, for example: the thrill of anticipation or the pangs of regret and remorse.
There is something it is like for us when we experience a sensation, and it is impossible to tell externally, and when we try to describe what a Quale is in simple terms we end up using metaphors.
So would you reduce it somehow to brain activity and chemical reactions? Then surely we can know with certainty what it feels like for any person to experience a particular sensation? Is that possible?
I know this may be a fairly weak point but I just want to know your response to this, because I think it's quite interesting
Thanks.

Your brain is a series of modules with specific jobs, which are coded for in DNA. Abstract descriptions, and thus abstract reasoning, which I believe is what qualia fall under, were useful in natural selection because primates with the advantage of describing something as "heavy" or "blue" or "strong" to others of its kind had obvious survival advantages ("Don't eat the blue flower" or "antelope carcasses are heavy" or "this arrowhead is strong"). It simply becomes pointing and memorizing, categorizing each adjective into a schema. Chances are that yes, there are direct regions of the brain with neurons that fire for this particular kind of activity, and I'd imagine them to combine both the language regions of the brain (Broca's area, angular gyrus, wernicke's area) and the areas for abstract reasoning on the right hemisphere of the cerebral cortex, though I could be wrong.

Now, it took an awful long period of time to get to that point, but humans are remarkably genetically similar for a species of 6.5 billion. Our ancestors were all nearly killed off many times over (the most genetically different people on the planet are less than 60,000 years apart, despite over 6 million years of separation from chimps, 2 million years of hominids, and 200,000 years as homo sapiens) thus making what worked really spread fast and what didn't work weeded out at a good rate. I know for a fact that chimpanzees have very little ability for abstract thought. They can copy things they're shown, but have no concept of weight or color.