Can Atheism Account For Rationality

[JonathanL]

So the attributes of a thing have a separate existence from the thing? You'd have to show that the mind can exist without the brain to make this claim stick.

Since I'm only making the claim that the mind and brain are distinct and not that the mind can exist independently from the brain, which I also believe, but am not arguing for at the moment, I'm not sure why I'd need to be able to show anything of the sort.

No. I am saying that something a leg and arm have in common is they are associated with humanity. So too are "brain" and "mind" (though not ONLY with humans).

It's not an inherent characteristic of an arm or a leg (or a brain, or a mind) that they are associated with humanity though. In fact, I'm not really sure whether "being associated with X" even qualifies as a characteristic in the first place. It seems to me like that is more an abstract connection between two things that is made by a personal mind, rather than an actual characteristic inherent in either of the two things that are associated with each other.

No two attributes will be related to a thing in the same way, Chrawnus - or they would be the same attribute. You said "no characteristic in common." I'm simply citing a few. And I think you are making a leap to claim thoughts are "only associated with mind." We can see the electrical activity associated with "thought" in an FMRI. We can use thoughts to control prosthetics and are even beginning to crack the door on using them as a human/computer interface. There is a relationship between "thought" and "brain." That we don't know how it works or exactly what that relationship is does not eliminate it.

I think you misread me here. I did not claim thoughts are "only associated with mind", but that they are "primarily associated with the mind" and "only secondarily with the brain". My claim is essentially that the relation between thought and mind is fundamentally different than the relation between thought and brain, and so it's quite stretching it to claim that we have a characteristic here that they have in common.

Again - no two characteristics will be related in exactly the same way, or the two things in question would be the same thing. I think you're hair-splitting a bit.

I really don't think I am. I just think the "characteristics" you've listed are so vague and general that it's not really useful to call them characteristics at all. Rather, what it seems to me like you've done (for the most part) is list a category of characteristics, rather than actual specific characteristics.

It means they can make errors - they can fail to operate "normally" in a variety of ways.

Ok. When I hear/read the word fallible my first reaction is to read it as something like, "capable of making errors in judgements, being deceived or mistaken", i.e things that only persons/minds are "capable" of (although it's a bit funny to call "being deceived or mistaken" a "capability"), and not something I'd ever attribute to a non-sentient thing like the brain. But if I go along with the definition you're using then I guess brains are technically able to err, if by err is meant "not functioning normally". Only, it seems to me like that the "normal function" of a brain is something that isn't really an objective fact of reality, but instead "functioning normally" is a value judgement made by the mind, and so when we judge the brain to not be functioning properly when it doesn't behave the way we expect it to we say that the brain is not working properly, even though outside the world of the mind, the concept of error, or not functioning properly doesn't really exist.

Or, in not as many words, whether or not you believe the brain actually can make an error or not depends on whether you believe that the conceptualizations and abstractions of the personal mind actually says something fundamentally real about the objective world, rather than just being imaginative fictions.

Which, incidentally, I actually do, so that technically means you've found a characteristic that I atleast tentatively will have to grant seems to be shared between the mind and the brain.

So rather than the mind and the brain having no characteristics in common I'll have to amend my claim to them having almost no characteristics in common.

And yet, that is our experience, isn't it? Your mind "feels" like it's situated in your head. Indeed, given that eyes and ears are so pivotal to us as communication information gathering, our sense of "me" has a sense of being physically located in that part of our head that is most near these organs, and will even shift slightly as we focus on sight versus hearing. But we never experience our "mind" as being in our foot, or in our index finger.


Well - almost never. A great deal of study has been done on how the mind creates a map of the body and can even extend that map to objects we hold or use. So the baseball bat becomes an extension of the body. Even a car becomes an extension. And then there are those "out of body experiences," which we now know can be induced in a repeatable fashion by the correct electrical stimulation to the correct part of the brain. It seems that stimulation "translates" the map the brain has built to a different set of coordinates, leaving the person feeling as if they are "outside of their body looking down on it."

I mean, I understand what you're trying to get at here (or at least I think I do), but at the same time it feels like you're conflating the sensations that the mind experiences (like the sensation of sight and hearing) with the mind itself. The different sensations of the body and your surroundings do seem to give you the impression that your mind exists in a specific location in the universe, but at the same time, if you removed all of these sensations completely then surely that impression would disappear, would it not? Now, I'm not saying this shows that the mind isn't located in space (or some sort of space) somewhere, but it does make me think that whatever relationship the mind has with space and location it's a fundamentally different relationship than the one that physical objects (like the brain) has with space and location. You cannot perceive another persons mind as existing anywhere in space, not even within the confines of their body, and neither is it possible to measure the physical dimensions of the mind, like you can with the brain.

I was once, a long time ago, a Christian and a person who believed in the human soul and eternal life. Despite the claims of many, I don't come at this from the perspective of a "died in the wool materialist" looking to justify my pre-conceptions. If I had a "pre-conception," it was to think as you (apparently) do. But over time I grew convinced that this idea of an eternal mind/soul was simply not viable - and was a form of human wishful thinking. I think one of the consequences of sentience is that we not only reflect on ourselves, but we come face-to-face with our own mortality. Life yearns to continued. A conscious mind will struggle with the idea of its own ending. Winking out of existence is a fate it naturally resists. Sentience brings with it the concept of "meaning" and "purpose," so it has long been humanity's quest to find "ultimate meaning" and "ultimate purpose."

Coming to grips with the fact (I believe) that such things are illusions is not an easy process.

Of course, from my perspective it simply seems like you coming to the conclusion that the belief in the existence of an eternal soul/mind as not being viable was unwarranted. Losing your belief in the existence of an eternal soul because you think the reasons and evidence supporting it are not strong enough is one thing, but claiming that the idea itself is not viable seem to me to be a far stronger claim that cannot be supported simply by appealing to "lack of reasons or evidence to believe in the concept". To be able to support your claim that the idea is not viable it seems to me like you would have to accomplish something akin to showing that the concept is incoherent. At the very least something more than "we don't have any experience of a mind surviving the death of the brain" seem to me necessary in order to be justified in the belief that the concept of an eternal mind is not viable, as opposed to simply lacking the belief in the concept.

[JonathanL]

Fair enough.

I am not sure if I have said this to you before, but I thoroughly enjoy your discussion style. You focus on the arguments and the concepts, and don't appear to take disagreement as a personal attack. There is not a hint of sarcasm about you (except playfully), and your tone is consistently civil. I wish there were more posters like you. You set an example that I strive (not always successfully) to emulate.

And coming from a 61-year-old curmudgeon - that's high praise!

Thank you for the compliments, they're well received. I do mostly* enjoy my discussions with you as well, although I'm not able to articulate the specifics of why in the same manner you've done here, and seeing as I've been up all night it feels like my brain would fry if I even tried, especially after writing my latest post.




*Although the few frustrations I sometimes have is more due to my own occasional inability to articulate my beliefs and arguments in a satisfactory manner, which will sometimes lead people to misunderstand what exactly I'm arguing, rather than any fault on your end.

[JonathanL]

You're simply making assertions, Chrawnus. You are simply assuming that the brain and the mind are two distinct entities and therefore that they do not share one single characteristic. If thinking, if mental states, are of the brain, if consciousness is of the brain, then the mind is simply how we define those functions of the physical brain, not something distict from it;.

If my "assuming that the brain and the mind are two distinct entities" you mean "making the judgement that the brain and the mind are two distinct entities based on the incontrovertible experience that they appear to be two distinct entities", then yes, I guess what I'm doing is "assuming".

[Tassman]

So funny.

[Tassman]

No, you've got it pretty much backwards. The fact that we clearly experience the mind and the brain as being distinct entities is what underlies the belief in the existence of the soul, not the other way around.

It's not that I assume that the mind and the brain are distinct from each other because I need them to be in order to rescue my belief in the existence of souls, but rather it's my experience of my mind and brain being distinct that compels me to believe in the existence of souls.

Again, an assumption based upon subjective feelings and unsupported by evidence.

It would certainly not be any problem what so ever for my position if they did.

Well chimpanzees are sentient, i.e. they have self-awareness and see themselves as individuals, just as we do. So, do chimpanzees have souls too?

[tabibito]

I don't know of anything in scripture that would preclude animals from having souls - to the best of my knowledge, there is a question raised about whether they have souls-in-kind with humans, but the question is not answered, nor does it have any of the markers needed to identify it as rhetorical.

So ... is this a separate subject, or is "mind" being equated with "soul" here?

[Zara]

So funny.

So dumb. You passed with low Bs, or did you scrape through on Cs?

[JonathanL]

How on earth can an experience be an assumption? You can make assumptions based on your experience, but the experience itself is still real, in the sense that you really are having the experience.

Again, an assumption based upon subjective feelings and unsupported by evidence.

The subjective feelings themselves are the evidence. Or rather, the fact that we even experience ourselves to be subjects with thoughts and feelings is itself indicative that we are more than just fleshy automata with a fat clump of neurons as the control center.

Well chimpanzees are sentient, i.e. they have self-awareness and see themselves as individuals, just as we do. So, do chimpanzees have souls too?

Assuming the data used to draw the conclusion that they are self-aware and see themselves as individuals have been interpreted correctly, I guess they do have some sort of mind/soul?

[carpedm9587]

Since I'm only making the claim that the mind and brain are distinct and not that the mind can exist independently from the brain, which I also believe, but am not arguing for at the moment, I'm not sure why I'd need to be able to show anything of the sort.

Because the statement I was responding to was your claim about them having a separate existence.

It's not an inherent characteristic of an arm or a leg (or a brain, or a mind) that they are associated with humanity though. In fact, I'm not really sure whether "being associated with X" even qualifies as a characteristic in the first place. It seems to me like that is more an abstract connection between two things that is made by a personal mind, rather than an actual characteristic inherent in either of the two things that are associated with each other.

Now the requirement is that the characteristic be "inherent?" The original comment was just about "no characteristics in common." And "where it can be found" would seem to me to be a fairly basic characteristic of a thing.

I think you misread me here. I did not claim thoughts are "only associated with mind", but that they are "primarily associated with the mind" and "only secondarily with the brain". My claim is essentially that the relation between thought and mind is fundamentally different than the relation between thought and brain, and so it's quite stretching it to claim that we have a characteristic here that they have in common.

Again, "primarily" and "secondarily" are suddenly being added. I simply provided characteristics "mind" and "brain" have in common. I'm not even sure you can make that case for "primary" "secondary" without first assuming mind is primary and brain is secondary. If mind is given rise to by brain, the relationship would be exactly the opposite.

I really don't think I am. I just think the "characteristics" you've listed are so vague and general that it's not really useful to call them characteristics at all. Rather, what it seems to me like you've done (for the most part) is list a category of characteristics, rather than actual specific characteristics.

Even if that were true, aren't the categories of characteristics themselves a characteristic shared by two things? Lobsters and men both have appendages is a "shared characteristic."

Ok. When I hear/read the word fallible my first reaction is to read it as something like, "capable of making errors in judgements, being deceived or mistaken", i.e things that only persons/minds are "capable" of (although it's a bit funny to call "being deceived or mistaken" a "capability"), and not something I'd ever attribute to a non-sentient thing like the brain.

You are making an assumption here, again. If the brain gives rise to the mind (as I believe), calling it "non-sentient" is a bit of a stretch.

But if I go along with the definition you're using then I guess brains are technically able to err, if by err is meant "not functioning normally". Only, it seems to me like that the "normal function" of a brain is something that isn't really an objective fact of reality, but instead "functioning normally" is a value judgement made by the mind, and so when we judge the brain to not be functioning properly when it doesn't behave the way we expect it to we say that the brain is not working properly, even though outside the world of the mind, the concept of error, or not functioning properly doesn't really exist.

Chrawnus, this is somewhat akin to the other discussion I recently had about concepts and their existence. Although it takes a mind/brain to articulate/express/recognize something that deviates from the norm, if all the members of a species have vision and one member is born with a brain that does not have a proper vision center, that one individual will still deviate from the norm, even if there is no mind to express it or recognize it.

As for the concept of "error," I think I have to concede that point. Categorizations are actions of the mind. It is a value judgment. Without a sentient mind, value judgments don't exist.

Or, in not as many words, whether or not you believe the brain actually can make an error or not depends on whether you believe that the conceptualizations and abstractions of the personal mind actually says something fundamentally real about the objective world, rather than just being imaginative fictions.

Which, incidentally, I actually do, so that technically means you've found a characteristic that I atleast tentatively will have to grant seems to be shared between the mind and the brain.

So rather than the mind and the brain having no characteristics in common I'll have to amend my claim to them having almost no characteristics in common.

You are one of the rare individuals that would post any form of a concession here. I raise my (coffee-filled) glass to you.

I mean, I understand what you're trying to get at here (or at least I think I do), but at the same time it feels like you're conflating the sensations that the mind experiences (like the sensation of sight and hearing) with the mind itself. The different sensations of the body and your surroundings do seem to give you the impression that your mind exists in a specific location in the universe, but at the same time, if you removed all of these sensations completely then surely that impression would disappear, would it not? Now, I'm not saying this shows that the mind isn't located in space (or some sort of space) somewhere, but it does make me think that whatever relationship the mind has with space and location it's a fundamentally different relationship than the one that physical objects (like the brain) has with space and location. You cannot perceive another persons mind as existing anywhere in space, not even within the confines of their body, and neither is it possible to measure the physical dimensions of the mind, like you can with the brain.

Ever had an experience in a sensory deprivation tank? There is a complete lack of light or sound, and yet this persistent feeling of the "mind" being located in the "head" persists. I would love to have a chance to communicate with someone who lacks sight and hearing. I would be willing to bet they report the same thing. As for measuring, how do you know this to be true. An EEG is a physical measurement of the activity of the brain, which is electrochemical in nature. We literally radiate electromagnetic energy as we think that can be measured. Who is to say that what we experience as "mind" is not simply this electromagnetic energy. It meets many of the criteria we would expect: it's not a "thing," it's a "force." It occupies space - and is distinct from the thing that produces it. Perhaps, any being capable of producing a significantly complex electromagnetic field experiences that as "mind."

I'm not saying this is the fact - but I'm proposing a possibility that cannot, AFAICT, be excluded. It fits the scenario quite well. It comes into being as "mind" comes into being. It disappears as mind disappears. It is produced by the electrochemical activity of the brain. It is centered in the head. How can we blithely dismiss it as a possiblity?

Of course, from my perspective it simply seems like you coming to the conclusion that the belief in the existence of an eternal soul/mind as not being viable was unwarranted. Losing your belief in the existence of an eternal soul because you think the reasons and evidence supporting it are not strong enough is one thing, but claiming that the idea itself is not viable seem to me to be a far stronger claim that cannot be supported simply by appealing to "lack of reasons or evidence to believe in the concept". To be able to support your claim that the idea is not viable it seems to me like you would have to accomplish something akin to showing that the concept is incoherent. At the very least something more than "we don't have any experience of a mind surviving the death of the brain" seem to me necessary in order to be justified in the belief that the concept of an eternal mind is not viable, as opposed to simply lacking the belief in the concept.

OK, perhaps "not viable" was too strong. "Not real" or "not actual" would have been better. When I look at the body of evidence, that mind is a function of brain seems to me (by far) the more plausible proposition. Psychologically (and historically), there are strong inducements to believe otherwise. But when you begin to peal apart the "why do we believe in an immortal mind/soul?" I find most of them end up devolving to "wishful thinking." But then again, I found the same to be true about the notion of gods. For me, it's all part of the same picture.

[carpedm9587]

Thank you for the compliments, they're well received. I do mostly* enjoy my discussions with you as well, although I'm not able to articulate the specifics of why in the same manner you've done here, and seeing as I've been up all night it feels like my brain would fry if I even tried, especially after writing my latest post.

*Although the few frustrations I sometimes have is more due to my own occasional inability to articulate my beliefs and arguments in a satisfactory manner, which will sometimes lead people to misunderstand what exactly I'm arguing, rather than any fault on your end.

Funny you should say that. I had a parallel discussion with my son the other day. He's 20 and struggling with a number of things, anxiety being one of them. He has learning challenges that he's struggled with all his life, and it has left him "feeling stupid." I regret that I probably contributed to that, something I shared with him yesterday. When he was younger, we homeschooled him for a while. I would get frustrated when I could not seem to find the right combination of words, activities, or exercises to convey a point (telling time was a particularly difficult one for him. He couldn't read a clock until he was in sixth or seventh grade). My frustration would be largely about me - because I'm a teacher by profession and not being able to find a way to help someone "turn on the light" was hard for me. Professionally, it has always been something I excelled at - but not with Michael. Unfortunately, that frustration would sometimes (often?) show, and he ultimately internalized it as frustration with him.

I find myself wondering how much I made his struggles my failures.

[JimL]

If my "assuming that the brain and the mind are two distinct entities" you mean "making the judgement that the brain and the mind are two distinct entities based on the incontrovertible experience that they appear to be two distinct entities", then yes, I guess what I'm doing is "assuming".

There is no evidence of a mind distinct from the brain, we have only evidence of the physical brain and what the experience produced by one feels like. Just because it feels like you are something other than your physical self, is not evidence that you are. In other words, what you feel is not incontrovertable evidence of what is, it isn't even a valid argument in itself.

[carpedm9587]

There is no evidence of a mind distinct from the brain, we have only evidence of the physical brain and what the experience produced by one feels like. Just because it feels like you are something other than your physical self, is not evidence that you are. In other words, what you feel is not incontrovertible evidence of what is, it isn't even a valid argument in itself.

OK...I lean towards your views about the mind/brain relationship. There is little question in my mind that the mind transcends the brain; it is more than the sum of the parts, if you wish. And since the thing we are talking about is entirely about how we think/feel/experience, then our thinking/feeling/experience seems to me to be evidence we should consider. What is the reason for discounting it? It seems to me that the only information we have about "mind" is what is reported by those who have one, and our own internal experiences.

But if we really want to have fun - what exactly is the "I" that possesses all of these characteristics? Look at the language. It is "my arm," so I am not an arm but rather I have an arm. We can say the same thing about every part of us, including our minds. Note how many times we have said "my mind." So apparently I am not a mind either, but rather I have a mind. So what is the "I" that has all of these things, including a mind?

It can make your brain hurt!

[JimL]

OK...I lean towards your views about the mind/brain relationship. There is little question in my mind that the mind transcends the brain; it is more than the sum of the parts, if you wish. And since the thing we are talking about is entirely about how we think/feel/experience, then our thinking/feeling/experience seems to me to be evidence we should consider. What is the reason for discounting it? It seems to me that the only information we have about "mind" is what is reported by those who have one, and our own internal experiences.

But if we really want to have fun - what exactly is the "I" that possesses all of these characteristics? Look at the language. It is "my arm," so I am not an arm but rather I have an arm. We can say the same thing about every part of us, including our minds. Note how many times we have said "my mind." So apparently I am not a mind either, but rather I have a mind. So what is the "I" that has all of these things, including a mind?

It can make your brain hurt!

I would say that the "I" is the whole of you. It isn't that the arm, when you say "my arm" is other than you, it is a part of you, part of the whole of you, which we signify as "I".

[shunyadragon]

What you cited was irrelevant to the issue, which is what I accused you of. Why is it irrelevant? Because making a piece of DNA or whatever function as a logic gate is not sufficient for making a mind. If you want to make an actual brain, whose causal powers are sufficient - then have sex. You could conceivably build one in a lab, but given the complexity of an actual brain - good luck with that. Simulating one is insufficient.

You are not up to date on AI in terms simulating the neurological nature of the brain. To simulate the neurological network of the brain does not involve DNA nor actual neurological organic network of the brain. It is a simulated neurological network using the same chemical electrical principles.

Understand this first then we may discuss this.

[shunyadragon]

What you cited was irrelevant to the issue, which is what I accused you of. Why is it irrelevant? Because making a piece of DNA or whatever function as a logic gate is not sufficient for making a mind. If you want to make an actual brain, whose causal powers are sufficient - then have sex. You could conceivably build one in a lab, but given the complexity of an actual brain - good luck with that. Simulating one is insufficient.

More on the basics:

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artificial_neural_network

Artificial neural networks (ANN) or connectionist systems are computing systems that are inspired by, but not necessarily identical to, the biological neural networks that constitute animal brains. Such systems "learn" to perform tasks by considering examples, generally without being programmed with any task-specific rules. For example, in image recognition, they might learn to identify images that contain cats by analyzing example images that have been manually labeled as "cat" or "no cat" and using the results to identify cats in other images. They do this without any prior knowledge about cats, for example, that they have fur, tails, whiskers and cat-like faces. Instead, they automatically generate identifying characteristics from the learning material that they process.

An ANN is based on a collection of connected units or nodes called artificial neurons, which loosely model the neurons in a biological brain. Each connection, like the synapses in a biological brain, can transmit a signal from one artificial neuron to another. An artificial neuron that receives a signal can process it and then signal additional artificial neurons connected to it.

In common ANN implementations, the signal at a connection between artificial neurons is a real number, and the output of each artificial neuron is computed by some non-linear function of the sum of its inputs. The connections between artificial neurons are called 'edges'. Artificial neurons and edges typically have a weight that adjusts as learning proceeds. The weight increases or decreases the strength of the signal at a connection. Artificial neurons may have a threshold such that the signal is only sent if the aggregate signal crosses that threshold. Typically, artificial neurons are aggregated into layers. Different layers may perform different kinds of transformations on their inputs. Signals travel from the first layer (the input layer), to the last layer (the output layer), possibly after traversing the layers multiple times.

The original goal of the ANN approach was to solve problems in the same way that a human brain would. However, over time, attention moved to performing specific tasks, leading to deviations from biology. Artificial neural networks have been used on a variety of tasks, including computer vision, speech recognition, machine translation, social network filtering, playing board and video games and medical diagnosis.

© Copyright Original Source