Because of my very close encounter with the mysteries of consciousness, as witnessed when Mark was in ICU on full life support and in a coma, I was quite interested in the following article.

OhDear

To me it's simple really. The mind and brain are the same thing. Experience has shown us this time and time again.

I would induce this conclusion even if it weren't for most neuroscientists saying we don't need a 'soul' to experience what we experience (US News). Granted there are still mysteries about consciousness, but really, Occam's razor applied, inference to the best explanation leads to a material mind. Because, although there are some mysteries with this theory, at least it is consistent and strong unlike the 'soul' theory. The latter has many contradictions that still need explaining (How can the nonphysical interact with the physical? If soul has no physical location in time-space then how exactly do you explain that which is inexplicable [there have been futile attempts at portraying the soul as this semi-transparent 'cloud' in human form], etc.).

Kat, I respect your methods of dealing with mystery. Always on the course of reason.

Still for me, the very conclusion that it is a mystery, lends itself to at the very least, being considered outside the realm of scientific method and perhaps turning to a bit of essential faith.

How come we awe at the sight of a sunset or the vastness of the ocean? How come other primates are oblivious to such wonders?

Could the mind truly be the very image of God?

Just askin' is all . . .

OhDear

On the contrary, I believe that the fact that it is a mystery begs scientific investigation for the truth. To the ancient and prehistoric man, for example, the stars were a big mystery. They thought that the night sky, being so mysterious, lent itself to be considered within only religious confines.


Although I may disagree with the nonphysical self, I respect what it is trying to explain, albeit it does so in futility.

I guess the fundamental idea is that we associate emotions and thinking as non-mechanical. I understand that, but I think neuroscience has effectively shown us that emotions and thinking are still subject to the same physical mechanisms that govern what we perceive as the physical universe within space-time. Emotions are induced by chemicals in the brain for example. And it's become quite everyday knowledge that depression and addictions (real mental feelings) can be caused and effected by chemical mechanisms.

By no means, at least in my philosophy, does this reduce the concept of mind to unromantic terms. On the contrary, I've developed a better appreciation of the brain and the wounder that it is, and awe at the intangibly long evolutionary process for something so magnificent to emerge. I personally believe that simply reducing the mind to concepts such as the 'soul' or otherwise non-physical "magic stuff" that somehow interacts with my body is rather unromantic and dissatisfying. To put it bluntly, the truth is more exciting than fiction. I'm struck with more awe by reading a book on neuroscience or the brain rather than some simplistic religious conception of soul or spirit.

Center for Consciousness Center . Tucson . Arizona

Here is an interesting quote relating to this topic:

“In considering the issue of mental experiences in animals, we have begun to wonder if the implicit assumption that humans are almost wholly conscious and aware (and hence fully competent to evaluate our cognitively less sophisticated animal brethren) is correct. Could it be that the degree to which conscious thinking is involved in the everyday lives of most people is greatly overestimated? We know already that much of our learned behavior becomes hardwired: despite the painfully difficult process of learning the task originally, who has to concentrate consciously as an adult on how to walk or swim, tie a shoe, write words, or even drive a car along a familiar route? Certain linguistic behavior, too, falls into such patterns. Michael Gazzaniga, for instance, tells the story of a former physician who suffered from a left (linguistic) hemisphere lesion so serious that he could not form even simple three-word sentences. And yet, when a certain highly touted but ineffective patent medicine was mentioned, he would launch into a well-worn and perfectly grammatical five-minute tirade on its evils. This set piece had been stored on the undamaged right side (along with the usual collections of songs, poetry, and epigrams) as a motor tape requiring no conscious linguistic manipulation to deliver.

…

Indeed, what evidence is there that those sublime intellectual events known as “inspiration” involve any conscious thought? Most often our best ideas are served up to us out of our unconscious while we are thinking or doing something perfectly irrelevant. Inspiration probably depends on some sort of repetitive and time-consuming pattern-matching program which runs imperceptibly below the level of consciousness searching for plausible matches.

It strikes us that a skeptical and dispassionate extraterrestrial ethologist studying our unendearing species might reasonably conclude that Homo sapiens are, for the most part, automatons with overactive and highly verbal public relations departments to apologize for and cover up our foibles.”


“The Insect Mind: Physics or Metaphysics?”
J. L. and C. J. Gould