Interaction Problem Involving the Soul and Body

[seer]

If it turns out that a computer modelled mouse displays the same behavior (including running through various types of computer-modeled mazes in various ways) as real mice have been observed to do, that will be very very interesting, as it will imply that mouse brains aren't dualistic, as their behavior is fully explained from their physical components alone.

How would this tell us what the first person (or first mouse) subjective experience of being a mouse is like? Mouse qualia would still be beyond our understanding no matter how much mapping we did.

[rogue06]

Not even you are this stupid, so stop pretending like you are.

You are really overestimating the lad.

[Starlight]

How would this tell us what the first person (or first mouse) subjective experience of being a mouse is like? Mouse qualia would still be beyond our understanding no matter how much mapping we did.

Sure, that's a totally different issue. And we have no idea whether mice have qualia, and no notion of how to prove that one way or the other.

But being able to demonstrate that a mathematical model of the neural processes alone explained mouse behavior fully would indicate that the mouse's brain is not acting as a 'receiver' for messages from a 'soul' / immaterial mind. That would rule out quite a number of metaphysical options. (It would not, of course, impact the common Christian view that only humans have souls, or my preferred view that we are players in a computer game)

[Starlight]

If you think that you are seperate from your body, that you can exist without your body, then why don't you just leave it, go on vacation from it for a while?

That gave me a good chuckle.

But, isn't that called sleep / dreaming?

[shunyadragon]

You are really overestimating the lad.

Nice cheer leading complete with skirt and pom poms.

[JonathanL]

Nice cheer leading complete with skirt and pom poms.

You're not doing so bad yourself

[seer]

Sure, that's a totally different issue. And we have no idea whether mice have qualia, and no notion of how to prove that one way or the other.

But being able to demonstrate that a mathematical model of the neural processes alone explained mouse behavior fully would indicate that the mouse's brain is not acting as a 'receiver' for messages from a 'soul' / immaterial mind. That would rule out quite a number of metaphysical options. (It would not, of course, impact the common Christian view that only humans have souls, or my preferred view that we are players in a computer game)

Except the qualia thing is actually important to the discussion since there would be a reality that couldn't be grasped by any mathematical model, even in principle. Only a mouse knows or senses what it is like to be a mouse (its sense of pain, fear, hunger, etc...). The tests you suggest would completely miss that, can not account for it. Yet these first person (mouse) experiences most likely (as with us) have a profound on behavior. I don't think we can hold a reductionist view, even for the mouse.

[Starlight]

Except the qualia thing is actually important to the discussion since there would be a reality that couldn't be grasped by any mathematical model, even in principle.

Oh, I think qualia is absolutely essential to wider discussion of mind-body interactions, and they are why I am a dualist / idealist rather than a physicalist.

I don't know I agree though that qualia lead to the specific conclusions you argue for.

Only a mouse knows or senses what it is like to be a mouse (its sense of pain, fear, hunger, etc...).

Well, assuming a mouse experiences qualia, that would be true. I don't know if it does. I can't even prove that you do. I can only experience my own qualia. Though I think assuming other humans also experience qualia is a reasonable assumption.

But when it comes to different kinds of animals, guessing at whether they have qualia and to what extent is pretty speculative and we currently have zero way of measuring that. Do they have 100% the level of qualia we do? Or a lower level? Do plants have qualia? Do rocks? Do worms? How would we know? My best guess would be that qualia have something to do with brain structure, so only animals with brains of at least a certain complexity are likely to have them I would guess, but I have no idea what the cut-off would be, what part of the brain is associated with them, or whether you can have a "lesser amount" of qualia. It's a bit like observing my laptop has a wifi link, and then seeing other computers and trying to guess whether they can connect to wifi or not simply because "well they are computers like my laptop is, so they must have wifi, right?" That's not a reliable indicator one way or the other of whether those other computers really do have wifi capabilities, and it doesn't tell me about whether there might be different speeds of wifi or types of wifi, because the only one I know about is the one my laptop has.

The tests you suggest would completely miss that, can not account for it. Yet these first person (mouse) experiences most likely (as with us) have a profound on behavior.

If the mouse does have qualia, and its qualia do have a profound effect on its behavior, and mathematical models of neurons omit qualia, then if we run the experiment of modelling the mouse's neurons in a computer and seeing what simulated behavior it performs we will see the computerized mice acting very differently to real mice. That would be very, very interesting. So what I see you saying is that your worldview would predict this particular empirically testable outcome to this theoretically-possible-in-future experiment! That's great. It means your worldview is (potentially) actually empirically testable, and in future we might be able to do an experiment which indicates whether your views are right or wrong. That's why I find this potential experiment so interesting because it would rule in or out certain worldviews.

[JimL]

Not even you are this stupid, so stop pretending like you are.

That's not an answer to my question. Shall I take it you don't have one?

[JimL]

That gave me a good chuckle.

But, isn't that called sleep / dreaming?

I wouldn't think so. I would say that dreaming is just the result of the functioning of the brain during sleep as opposed to how it functions while awake. The brain doesn't really sleep, or at least it remains relatively active during sleep.

[Starlight]

I wouldn't think so. I would say that dreaming is just the result of the functioning of the brain during sleep as opposed to how it functions while awake. The brain doesn't really sleep, or at least it remains relatively active during sleep.

As a kid one dream I had several times just before waking was that my soul had been running around dreamworld and had to get back to my body fast because my body was waking up, so my soul would jump quickly onto the bed and stand where my feet were then quickly fall over backward into my body... I would wake up with a bounce as if I'd actually fallen backward onto the bed and then bounced forward... was a very weird sensation that stood out to me which is why I still remember decades later.

For all I know, perhaps my dream was actually what was really happened and 'souls' do go for a wander...

[JonathanL]

That's not an answer to my question. Shall I take it you don't have one?

It's such a stupid question it doesn't deserve an answer.

[JimL]

It's such a stupid question it doesn't deserve an answer.

Whether it deserves an answer or not, I think the truth is that you are just at a loss for one. Surely you can explain why you, you know, your soul, can't just leave the house for a while.

[Tassman]

Whether it deserves an answer or not, I think the truth is that you are just at a loss for one. Surely you can explain why you, you know, your soul, can't just leave the house for a while.

That's pretty well what supposedly happens during NDE's, but these are all anecdotal and unsupported by verified evidence.

[Tassman]

I don't know. My guess is that what you call the mind being "severy diminished" isn't actually the mind being diminished per se, but simply the brain not being able to communicate with the mind properly due to brain damage. If this is true then the "diminished" mind (which if my guess is true isn't "diminished" at all, but "simply" a mind that is unable to access information from the brain it had previously been able to) is what survives the death off the brain. Whether or not the mind is then restored to a "pre-diminished" state after death is something I also don't know.

Your speculations depend entirely on the unevidenced assumption that the ‘mind’ is a separate entity from the brain, i.e. you are begging the question.

It's irrelevant, because whatever the case might be with other hominoids, or human predecessors a simple analysis of your own mind clearly shows that it's immaterial.

All sentient creatures have consciousness, perception, thinking, judgment, memory and communicate to a greater or lesser degree; these attributes are all qualities of the mind. We are just more intelligent examples of creatures with a mind.

There are cases where absence of evidence is evidence of absence. This is not one of those cases, unless you can give a probable explanation as to why it is that we should have scientific evidence of a mind surviving the death of the body when per definition of the word "immaterial" there would be no way of detecting an immaterial mind that is no longer connected to a physical body with any sort of scientific equipment. The only potential way to "see" these disembodied minds would be through ways that would not be admissible as scientific evidence, such as clarvoyance (which I'm not saying even exists in the first place), or God opening your eyes and revealing them to you.

Again, you are begging the question. See above.

Again, due to the very definition of immaterial we shouldn't expect to have any scientific evidence of the mind existing without the brain. It's not a question that can be answered with science.

This is merely a theological presupposition, not an argument.

If it doesn't show that there is any more than that there is a connection/relationship then it follows that it doesn't show that the minds existence is dependent on the existence of the brain.

What it shows is that there is a “connection/relationship”, between the brain and the mind. It shows nothing more than that because there is no evidence that there IS any more than that.

Depends on what you mean by separate. It's clearly separate in the sense that it's a different entity from the brain, and is not material (for the reasons I laid out in my previous post). Whether or not you believe it can exist separately from the brain is another question, and your answer to that question ultimately comes down to presupposition.

It’s not a different entity from the brain; it is what the brain does.