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Cogito ergo sum

Here in the Philosophy forum we will talk about all the "why" questions. We'll have conversations about the way in which philosophy and theology and religion interact with each other. Metaphysics, ontology, origins, truth? They're all fair game so jump right in and have some fun! But remember...play nice!

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Interaction Problem Involving the Soul and Body

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  • Originally posted by seer View Post
    Jim, first we have to establish - does the image of your mother exist or not? If it is not an image of your mother then what is it?
    It's a memory of his mother which is stored within the engram cells of the brain, these contain specific memories. If there is no brain there's no mind and no memories. The mind cannot exist independently of the brain.

    http://news.mit.edu/2017/neuroscient...formation-0406
    “He felt that his whole life was a kind of dream and he sometimes wondered whose it was and whether they were enjoying it.” - Douglas Adams.

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    • Originally posted by shunyadragon View Post
      Only in terms of being imprinted on brain cells, which are material chemical reactions.
      That is still not a picture of your mom, which you can clearly imagine in your mind. That is like describing music as just air molecules vibrating. Sure but what you experience is entirely different that sensing vibrations. You experience a song. The song is more than just the molecule vibrations that make it up. It has a value greater than it's parts. You can even imagine that song without the air vibrations. the song is immaterial and a mental construct.

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      • Originally posted by JimL View Post
        No, it exists as a mental concept, there is no actual picture of your mother or anything else "in your head." When you close your eyes and think of your mother, whence comes the image? Does it always exist somewhere in your head, is there a special storage place in there where this immaterial picture and a zillion other pictures are hidden away just waiting for you to summon them into view, or do you think them into and out of existence? And what does it mean to say that you can see her, do you have eyes that can see in the absolute darkness inside your head. Your not seeing your mother, you are remembering her as you saw her in the past. I saw my 93 year old mother yesterday and I can remember exactly what she looked like then, but I am not seeing her now.
        Jim I have no idea what you mean by concept. A concept is not an image, yet an image exists. So I will ask again Jim, when you picture your mom do you actually see an image. Do you see her face? Yes or no?
        Atheism is the cult of death, the death of hope. The universe is doomed, you are doomed, the only thing that remains is to await your execution...

        https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jbnueb2OI4o&t=3s

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        • Originally posted by seer View Post
          Jim I have no idea what you mean by concept. A concept is not an image, yet an image exists. So I will ask again Jim, when you picture your mom do you actually see an image. Do you see her face? Yes or no?
          Nononononononono, you don't see an actual picture in your head, you remember things that you've previously seen. Go look at a tree, then come back and think about it, there is no picture of it floating about in your head, you are remembering the image of the tree that previously existed only on the surface of your eye.

          Where do you suppose immaterial pictures come from, does your material brain create them?

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          • Originally posted by Sparko View Post
            That is still not a picture of your mom, which you can clearly imagine in your mind. That is like describing music as just air molecules vibrating. Sure but what you experience is entirely different that sensing vibrations. You experience a song. The song is more than just the molecule vibrations that make it up. It has a value greater than it's parts. You can even imagine that song without the air vibrations. the song is immaterial and a mental construct.
            You can remember how a song sounds in your head too, but there is no song actually playing in your head. It's the same concept as an image, you remember it, but it doesn't exist.

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            • Originally posted by JimL View Post
              Nononononononono, you don't see an actual picture in your head, you remember things that you've previously seen. Go look at a tree, then come back and think about it, there is no picture of it floating about in your head, you are remembering the image of the tree that previously existed only on the surface of your eye.

              Where do you suppose immaterial pictures come from, does your material brain create them?
              Interestingly a few people completely lack the ability to 'picture' things in their minds at all... they tend to be atrociously terrible at art and drawing... I read an interesting article once by a guy who lacked this ability to remember images and how he'd learned that other people could do this thing he couldn't.

              Similar thing applies with sound I imagine. And I would guess that among those who can replay sounds/images in their head, people will vary in how strong the replays are. e.g. my visual replays tend to be fairly faint and vague and I've never confused them with actually seeing something with my eyes, while my sound replays are pretty strong and on a few occasions I have been completely unsure whether I am hearing actual music playing at a distance faintly or whether it is just a song stuck in my head.

              But somehow, someway the brain seems to be creating these qualia. And that's interesting, because absolutely nothing that science has discovered so far has given us any reason whatsoever to think qualia should exist or any explanation whatsoever of what they are... yet they clearly do exist, which is fascinating. I regard the existence of qualia as one of the very very few interesting arguments for why the material world isn't all that exists... though obviously I find the "qualia exist... therefore God, QED" version to be hilariously simplistic. But I think it makes some sort of philosophical version of buddhism plausible.
              "I hate him passionately", he's "a demonic force" - Tucker Carlson, in private, on Donald Trump
              "Every line of serious work that I have written since 1936 has been written, directly or indirectly, against totalitarianism and for democratic socialism" - George Orwell
              "[Capitalism] as it exists today is, in my opinion, the real source of evils. I am convinced there is only one way to eliminate these grave evils, namely through the establishment of a socialist economy" - Albert Einstein

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              • Originally posted by Sparko View Post
                That is still not a picture of your mom, which you can clearly imagine in your mind. That is like describing music as just air molecules vibrating. Sure but what you experience is entirely different that sensing vibrations. You experience a song. The song is more than just the molecule vibrations that make it up. It has a value greater than it's parts. You can even imagine that song without the air vibrations. the song is immaterial and a mental construct.
                Whatever form the memory takes is dependent upon the memory formation within the material brain. In the context of this argument, whereby you seem to be arguing that mind and memory are immaterial entities separate from the brain, they clearly are not. They are the activity of the material brain, without it there are no memories.
                “He felt that his whole life was a kind of dream and he sometimes wondered whose it was and whether they were enjoying it.” - Douglas Adams.

                Comment


                • Originally posted by JimL View Post
                  Nononononononono, you don't see an actual picture in your head, you remember things that you've previously seen. Go look at a tree, then come back and think about it, there is no picture of it floating about in your head, you are remembering the image of the tree that previously existed only on the surface of your eye.

                  Where do you suppose immaterial pictures come from, does your material brain create them?
                  Again Jim, if you close your eyes do see an image of your mother - I know for certain that I do. I'm not asking where it comes from or why - but do you see it? Yes or not?
                  Atheism is the cult of death, the death of hope. The universe is doomed, you are doomed, the only thing that remains is to await your execution...

                  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jbnueb2OI4o&t=3s

                  Comment


                  • Originally posted by seer View Post
                    Again Jim, if you close your eyes do see an image of your mother - I know for certain that I do. I'm not asking where it comes from or why - but do you see it? Yes or not?
                    A mental image seer, not a picture, and you aren't "seeing it", you don't have eyes in your head, so how could you see it, you are imagining it, which is why it is called a mental image. You can experience sounds in mentalese as well, does that make the sounds you experience real? I don't think so. And star is right, some people can not even imagine, neither visions, sounds, smells, or whatever. It's a condition called Aphantasia. Those people don't experience sensory Qaulia at all, so what does that say about the supposed homunculous/spirit/ghost that you believe to be the inner experiencer of qualia.

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                    • Originally posted by JimL View Post
                      You can remember how a song sounds in your head too, but there is no song actually playing in your head. It's the same concept as an image, you remember it, but it doesn't exist.
                      Since everything you see and hear or smell is translated from your eyes, ears and nose into signals in your brain, you never actually see, hear or smell anything any other way than with your brain. So technically you imagining an image is no different than you seeing one to your brain. Ever have a vivid dream that seemed entirely real until you woke up?

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                      • Originally posted by Tassman View Post
                        Whatever form the memory takes is dependent upon the memory formation within the material brain. In the context of this argument, whereby you seem to be arguing that mind and memory are immaterial entities separate from the brain, they clearly are not. They are the activity of the material brain, without it there are no memories.
                        No, I am saying even if the mind is completely dependent on the brain and not the soul or spirit, it is still something more than just the brain. It might be generated by the brain, but just like light is generated by a light bulb, the light is not the bulb. The mind is a self-conscious fully aware being that uses the brain to sense the world, and can actually control the brain's functions and neurons.

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                        • Originally posted by Chrawnus View Post
                          Nothing of the sort has been shown to be the case yet.
                          Nothing has been shown to be NOT the case.
                          Glendower: I can call spirits from the vasty deep.
                          Hotspur: Why, so can I, or so can any man;
                          But will they come when you do call for them? Shakespeare’s Henry IV, Part 1, Act III:

                          go with the flow the river knows . . .

                          Frank

                          I do not know, therefore everything is in pencil.

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                          • Originally posted by Sparko View Post
                            No, I am saying even if the mind is completely dependent on the brain and not the soul or spirit, it is still something more than just the brain. It might be generated by the brain, but just like light is generated by a light bulb, the light is not the bulb. The mind is a self-conscious fully aware being that uses the brain to sense the world, and can actually control the brain's functions and neurons.
                            The reverse is true. The brain's functions and neurons in action are the mind. A dead brain equates to a dead mind. And a damaged brain equates to a damaged mind...experts can even predict what parts of the mind will be affected by specific types of brain damage.
                            “He felt that his whole life was a kind of dream and he sometimes wondered whose it was and whether they were enjoying it.” - Douglas Adams.

                            Comment


                            • Originally posted by Sparko View Post
                              Since everything you see and hear or smell is translated from your eyes, ears and nose into signals in your brain, you never actually see, hear or smell anything any other way than with your brain. So technically you imagining an image is no different than you seeing one to your brain. Ever have a vivid dream that seemed entirely real until you woke up?
                              No, it's not exactly the same, if it were, then your mentalese, your qualia, would be as clear as is direct sensory experience. You can imagine hearing your favorite music playing in your head, but it's not the same as actually hearing it. It's not actually there. Same with pictures. I don't know how the brain actually does it of course, but direct sensory experience and the imagination are certainly not the same thing. What you are suggesting is that there is a ghost in the machine with sense organs of its own which would make our physical bodily sense organs superfluous.

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                              • Originally posted by shunyadragon View Post
                                Nothing has been shown to be NOT the case.
                                NOT nothing has not been not shown to not be the case.

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