The self, sleep and infancy

[pancreasman]

If minds are our thoughts and our essential selves and like a field emerging from the physical brain, what are the selves of brain injured people like? Is their essential self diminished?

[seer]

If minds are our thoughts and our essential selves and like a field emerging from the physical brain, what are the selves of brain injured people like? Is their essential self diminished?

Yes our reasoning ability is diminished. But our identity as a human person is not since that identity does not dependent on anything we do or fail to do, as I have made clear.

[pancreasman]

Yes our reasoning ability is diminished. But our identity as a human person is not since that identity does not dependent on anything we do or fail to do, as I have made clear.

So now you're saying your 'identity' is different from your mind and how it functions. Is that correct?

[seer]

So now you're saying your 'identity' is different from your mind and how it functions. Is that correct?

Yes and no pancreasman. Our identity can be the sum of our experience, and that will never be lost (if one is saved of course). Our "identity" can also be what we are as human persons, regardless of experience. We are image bearers of God, and that is not dependent on brain activity. It is ontological.

[pancreasman]

Yes and no pancreasman. Our identity can be the sum of our experience, and that will never be lost (if one is saved of course). Our "identity" can also be what we are as human persons, regardless of experience. We are image bearers of God, and that is not dependent on brain activity. It is ontological.

But you can't specify what the characteristics of this image might be?

[seer]

But you can't specify what the characteristics of this image might be?

Moral? Spiritual? Volitional?

[pancreasman]

Moral? Spiritual? Volitional?

All question marks I notice. I'm still trying to zero in on what is meant by Self, soul and spirit. I thought we were getting somewhere when you said the self, the essential thing that makes you, you, is your mind. Now you've introduced a new term, the image of God, which is apparently independent of your experience and your thoughts. We got their by thinking about brains which are damaged giving rise to minds which disabled. I feel rather like the caterpillar in 'Alice in Wonderland'.


Who .... are ... you?

alice-with-caterpillar.jpg

[JimL]

I don't know where or how the immaterial lives or takes shape. I kind of think that is why it is material. I do have some thoughts on it, but they are not well formed or ready for public consumption.

Well, the immaterial things, should we assume them to have actual existence, must exist inside your head, for that is your argument, that they actually exist because you can see them, and the only place where you see them is in your head. But I don't think that your argument for the existence of a distinct and immaterial mind is supported by your general argument that immaterial things exist, unlike the images of other things that you may see when you close your eyes and think on them, you do not see the image of a mind, so the argument for the existence of the former doesn't support the existence of the latter, but rather, it seems, undermines it.

[seer]

All question marks I notice. I'm still trying to zero in on what is meant by Self, soul and spirit. I thought we were getting somewhere when you said the self, the essential thing that makes you, you, is your mind. Now you've introduced a new term, the image of God, which is apparently independent of your experience and your thoughts. We got their by thinking about brains which are damaged giving rise to minds which disabled. I feel rather like the caterpillar in 'Alice in Wonderland'.

Yes, the sum of my experience defines my individuality. Who James is. But I’m also defined by God. Ontologically I am one thing and not another - a human being created in the image of God. And like I said, even if I had brain damage at this point, or when I sleep, that individuality, those experiences that make me, me are never lost for they are ultimately known or held in the mind of an omniscient God. So my identity resides in two places - my mind, and God’s. One can be lost the other can not.

[seer]

Well, the immaterial things, should we assume them to have actual existence, must exist inside your head, for that is your argument, that they actually exist because you can see them, and the only place where you see them is in your head. But I don't think that your argument for the existence of a distinct and immaterial mind is supported by your general argument that immaterial things exist, unlike the images of other things that you may see when you close your eyes and think on them, you do not see the image of a mind, so the argument for the existence of the former doesn't support the existence of the latter, but rather, it seems, undermines it.

Well I don't see how that underminds anything. Thoughts and images exist - they do not exist in the material sense, that much is clear. So where do they exist? I would call that place the mind. You may call it something else - I don't care.

[JimL]

Well I don't see how that underminds anything. Thoughts and images exist - they do not exist in the material sense, that much is clear. So where do they exist? I would call that place the mind. You may call it something else - I don't care.

So, is the mind just a place where immaterial thoughts and images exist, or is it something in itself, a thinking thing, that like those thoughts and images also emerges from the physical brain? I mean I am just trying to grasp your argument that states that an immaterial mind, like that of immaterial thoughts and images, emerges from the brain. What is this mind that emerges? Is it a thing in itself, a thinking thing, that emerges from the physical brain, or is it just a immaterial place where your immaterial thoughts and images are stored?

[seer]

So, is the mind just a place where immaterial thoughts and images exist, or is it something in itself, a thinking thing, that like those thoughts and images also emerges from the physical brain? I mean I am just trying to grasp your argument that states that an immaterial mind, like that of immaterial thoughts and images, emerges from the brain. What is this mind that emerges? Is it a thing in itself, a thinking thing, that emerges from the physical brain, or is it just a immaterial place where your immaterial thoughts and images are stored?

Jim, if I had all the answers it wouldn't be a mystery! This is what we do know - thoughts and mental images exist, they are not material. Yet we can act on, or respond to, these thoughts or images - like in my cake example. So the immaterial can, in some way, direct the material - I reach for the piece of cake or walk away. Sorry bro, that is about the best I can do.

[JimL]

Jim, if I had all the answers it wouldn't be a mystery! This is what we do know - thoughts and mental images exist, they are not material. Yet we can act on, or respond to, these thoughts or images - like in my cake example. So the immaterial can, in some way, direct the material - I reach for the piece of cake or walk away. Sorry bro, that is about the best I can do.

But I don't think that your assertion of knowledge is justified. We do not know that thoughts or mental images have any real existence apart from the electro-chemical activity going on inside our brains that represent them. When you look at a tree, the image of that tree exists on the surface of your eye, but it has no reality of its own, no more so than does your own image when you look in the mirror, they are merely reflections of things that do exist, and they have no real existence inside your head, they don't go any further than the surface of your eye, they don't as images travel through the nervous system and project themselves on a screen somewhere in your brain to be viewed, they don't need to be, they have already been viewed, and the electrochemical activity of the brain is the way in which reality is transformed into information. If you posit an immaterial mind in the place of the brain, then that mind would also need a mind to process the the same images presented to it by the brain. You are just pushing the process back another step and closing the case without solving the issue. But the issue is already solved, things seen are information, and it is information in the form of electrochemical activity that exists in the physical brain, not actual images or thoughts. At least that is my opinion, and I don't think it illogical or that you can disprove it, so we can not say, as you do, that "one thing we know is that images and thoughts exist." We don't know, and neither do we know that a distinct and immaterial mind is needed to do the same thing that you insist can't be done by the physical brain, i.e. process a reality into information.

[Otter]

Again James, as this point no one really understands all this. My only point here is that it is objectively true that I see a 57 Chevy that can not be seen by others. Even if you open my head. I do think that the immaterial mind is an emergent quality of the brain, and dependent on the brain and can have a looping effect. Look - I think - there a car coming, I can now act on that proposition (don't cross the road, try to beat it, etc...). And that thought is not material yet he helps me direct my physical actions.

Good points.

Quantum neurology is just beginning to grapple with questions that might unlock some of these fascinating problems (or it might go nowhere). Christian faith of course believes that the mind is not locked inside the skull; but whether the facts support that, and what implications the facts will bring that readjust Christian conceptions of "spirit" and "self," are a bit amorphous just now.

[JimL]

Good points.

Quantum neurology is just beginning to grapple with questions that might unlock some of these fascinating problems (or it might go nowhere). Christian faith of course believes that the mind is not locked inside the skull; but whether the facts support that, and what implications the facts will bring that readjust Christian conceptions of "spirit" and "self," are a bit amorphous just now.

No one as of yet has defined what an immaterial mind is or how it differs from the physical brain. Why, if the physical brain needs a mind to interpret information, does not the immaterial mind also need a mind to interpret information? What is the difference?