The problem knowledge poses to atheism

[Gawdzilla Sama]

Humans have nothing BUT free will until you demonstrate otherwise.

Free will and atheism are not compatible.

Bullshit.

[Ronja]

SPINOZA, LISTEN!!! GO READ A BOOK, WILL YOU! Your questions about e.g. free will have been thoroughly answered elsewhere. Please get at least a modicum of (self-)education about the issues you want to address, before you try to jump down the throats of multiple members of this forum.

The way you are attempting to "argue" your ideas can only raise irritation and contempt, which AFAIU is good for none of us, least of all yourself.

Now, until I see clear evidence of you having actually studied and at least attempted to understand several different, evidence-based books of good repute, I will not answer any of your questions or comments. I live only once, and I don't want to waste time on someone who appears not to be here to learn but to only to preach.

[Coito ergo sum]

Proving God by proving Mind
The Mind/Body Problem
The Problem of Coordination


either: coordination is the result of the random movement of independent material (monism)
or: coordination is the result of a mind with the power to control the movement of independent material (dualism)

I think that's a false dichotomy designed to force the choice of the second item.

Coordination need not be the result of "random" movement. Things operating without a mind need not be random. For example, the planets move without the need for a mind, but they hardly move randomly.

The Computational Theory of the Brain

The materialist/monist hypothesis holds that the human body does not possess a mind, that all that is needed for it to function is the correct configuration of material elements which are 63% Hydrogen, 25% Oxygen, 9% Carbon, 1% Nitrogen and negligible amounts of Calcium, Phosphorus and Potassium. All that is needed for a human body to produce actions is the correct configuration of those elements and moreover, these elements can become correctly configured through natural, physical processes. All actions are the result of an input/output mechanism. Input stimulus, output action, just as in a computer, input hitting the key k and the letter k appears on your screen. Perhaps some stimuli may delay an output, but an output even if its input occurred several hours ago, is still directly related to its input.

Not just matter - matter and energy. And, the correct configuration would not just be the percentages of elements - we would have to have the correct configuration of organs and brain cells. The materialist/monist hypothesis means that whatever we perceive to be the "mind" is a function of our brains.

Mind

definition of mind: an immaterial force that can compel a number of bodies to move in a certain direction

That's one definition. Another definition of "mind" is "the element, part, substance, or process of a human being that reasons, thinks, feels, wills, perceives, judges, etc." It need not be a disembodied force.

The dualist position, which is the one I support, is that there exists a mind that can compel a limited number of bodies to obey its will. The three basic properties of mind are: knowledge, will and power. The mind first wills a result, then it uses its knowledge to determine what bodies must be moved, then it uses its power over a limited number of bodies to move them to the location it wills. All results in the physical world are due to a correct sequencing of the proper bodies. The mind is that force that seqeunces the material. This is all that is required for coordination to arise.

Is there any evidence of a mind existing without a body, or after a body dies? If so, what is a description of that evidence?

Is there any reason that the cause of the movements and actions of a body are not caused by the interactions and processes within the brain? If not, why not?

Bodies (objects, substances)

Definition of a body: an enclosed unit of material that has a finite set of properties

That's one definition. But it's not one I have found in any dictionary. I checked a few, and in this context the definition of "body" is something akin to "the physical structure and material substance of an animal/human or plant, living or dead."

Bodies are routinely combined and often when two bodies merge, they acquire properties that they did not have otherwise. When a body acquires a new property, it ceases to be the old body and becomes a new body. When two hydrogen combine with one oxygen, the body suddenly acquires a whole new property. Three Billion base DNA pairs alone have few remarkable properties, but if sequenced correctly they can initiate a chain reaction that will result in a human.

O.k., I guess. You never step in the same river twice. A is A and B is not A. Got it.

Coordination

Definition of coordination: the placing of bodies in a precise sequence such that a result is triggered that would not have been possible save for that sequence.

For example, the letter D, E, S, T, R alone mean nothing in the English Language, but if we arrange them so that we eliminate S and T and order them as RED, we produce the result of arousing a color in the reader's mind or brain if you're a monist. If I were to take the letters T G U B A N and if I were to eliminate the T and the U and arrange them as BANG I would arouse in the reader the sound that happens when one hits a pot, but the reaction has to be nearly inevitable, so there is always the chance that my reader will not be a native English speaker but a native German speaker and if that were to happen then I would not arouse a sound but the idea of anxiety since that it was bang in German means. To make the reaction inevitable I would have to write Bang, then place the elements G L I ( N E ) S H into the following sequence: (English).

What the Brain is Composed of

The bodies that the human brain is composed of can be debated. It is not the scope of this paper to identify exactly what the human brain is.

LOL..... because....if you defined what the human brain was, it would tend to show that that's where the mind is.

So for simplicity's sake we will simply assume that it is composed of neurons, even though a neuron itself is also composed of various elements. One hundred billion neurons (according to this website faculty.washington.edu/chudler/ facts.html) send neurotransmitters to other neurons which then trigger the nerves and in turn trigger the muscles to move in certain ways. We do not know why the firing of certain neurons causes certain actions but for the purposes of this paper, that information is not necessary.

How Does the Brain Self-coordinate its Neurons

The problem that the materialist is faced with is how do these 100 billion neurons "know" what the other neurons are doing,

They don't "know" things. They act according to physical, chemical, electrical and biological laws in accordance with their nature. Hydrogen and Oxygen atoms do not bond to form H2O because they "know" how to do it, they do it because the properties of H and the properties of O are such that they will bond to form H20.

how do they coordinate, such that specific actions in the human body are performed?

They interact according to physical, chemical, electrical, and biological laws and form that which we perceive as the mind. The mind receives input, and can initiate actions based on that input. A worm with only a ganglia can receive an input which goes to the ganglia is processed and then sends out a signal for an appropriate reaction. A human, with its many times more complex brain, can engage in more complex actions.

At the moment, no one can answer this question, but what I am trying to show in this paper is that it cannot be done through material alone, there must be an immaterial force that has a limited power over material.

Well, nobody suggests that it is just "material." Energy is also involved, which is not "matter"or "material." But, if you are referring to an invisible, undetectable force, well, there is no evidence that an invisible undetectable force is necessary for brain functioning.

And I will show this not through an argument from ignorance, i.e., because I don't understand how the neurons self-coordinate, therefore, the mind coordinates them, rather the materialist hypothesis is essentially circular: material is coordinated because other material is coordinated.

I don't think that's anyone's argument.

The brain functions, and the brain controls movement, thought, actions, etc. That much we know. We know we can change a person's entire personality and their thoughts be damaging or modifying portions of their brain. A person's intelligence can be reduced by damaging a portion of their brain, a persons memories can be triggered or erased, etc. We can hook a person's brain up to a machine and make them see, or move things, or operate a computer by their thoughts, etc.

The brain forms the way it does according to DNA code, and the brain operates the way it does according to physical, chemical, electrical and biological laws. The brain is an organ that allows "us" (our body and brain) to control movements and interact with the environment.

An algorithm for manipulating the brain

Theoretically we could write an algorithm for manipulating the brain. It is composed of 100 billion neurons. We could assign each neuron a numeric label. If we knew enough about the human brain, it is conceivable that if we could discover how to fire a neuron and we knew which neurons to fire in what sequence then we could theoretically manipulate the brain to do certain actions. So let's imagine that you could label all 100 billion neurons. The instructions then for causing the human body to pick up a pen and draw a circle could be

57378788325
24689990494
23716322696
50787529104
31756696618
61975019268
69856093802
99228199442
53378965231
82234929520
3025991539
40871675052
90663901417
19315704678
68384406006
34981429968
8115913227
69586592913
75476993292
82247032724
65188553003
74027524099
7703679761
57145491824
30496629414
54810766912
68539071739

Above are simply which neurons have to be fired in which order. The number refers to which one of the 100 billion neurons. They have all been given a number of 1 to 100 billion. In reality probably thousands of neurons have to fire in a precise seqeunces in order for the body to pick up a pen and draw a circle but it is incredibly plausible that actions, thoughts and emotions are nothing more than a precise firing of neurons. The problem which the materialists cannot answer is how do these neurons coordinate with other neurons in order to produce the correct result.

Not sure I get what you're saying here.

Life

dualist definition of life: the extent to which a body is manipulated by mind

Would a dualist then be prochoice, up until a point when there is a brain?

monist definition of life: an object is alive in so far as its movement appears free from the restrictions of the laws of classical physics. An object is alive in so far as it SIMULATES will, knowledge and power.

These definitions seem to be someone's manipulation of definitions to create a straw man argument in favor of some notion of "dualism" - that we have an existence outside of our bodies (I assume to prove that there is a soul).

However, I think an acceptable definition for "life" is something more like, "the condition that distinguishes organisms from inorganic objects and dead organisms, being manifested by growth through metabolism, reproduction, and the power of adaptation to environment through changes originating internally," or, "the sum of the distinguishing phenomena of organisms, esp. metabolism, growth, reproduction, and adaptation to environment." This thing about movement "appearing" free of the restrictions of the laws of classical physics doesn't make sense. Nobody I've ever heard thinks that humans are free from the restrictions of the laws of classical physics, nor do humans appear to be that.

It's not a question of simulating anything - a thing is alive if has metabolism, reproduction, adaptation, etc., or growth. Things don't need brains to be alive.

For example, in the dualist picture the unconscious mind knows what neurons to fire in the brain in order to manipulate the body in the manner it wants. All decisions, desires, judgments, ideas begin in the mind. Some decisions are caused by stimuli in the outside world but ultimately the mind is the final arbiter in determining which stimuli are important and which are unimportant. In many cases, the state of the world does not cause us to behave in only one manner. If we own a store and a gunman enters and demands our money our decisions are extremely limited, most of us will make only one decision in that situation, i.e., hand over the money. If we come home from work and enter our home and have no duties to perform, our minds are free to choose from a wide array of choices. The mind will consider the resources at its disposal, it will consider the state of the world, it will consider what goals it will attempt to achieve, then it will employ its resources to try to achieve that goal. At the end of the day, the mind is not inevitably obeying any Newtonian Physical laws.

Of course it is. Not obeying physical laws? That's ridiculous. We are always obeying physical laws. I haven't seen any superheroes in real life.

Einstein's decision to write a paper about the General Theory of relativity, for example, in the dualist worldview, was by no means the inevitable result of a certain sequence of material.

Nor in the monists view....

His discovery of the General Theory of Relativity was partly caused by some of the essays he read, caused by some of the ideas he thought in the past, but the thought: "what would happen to time if I started approaching the speed of light," was not found in any essay, it was uncaused, and Einstein's mind was the Prime Mover in causing E = mc^2.

I don't think a "monist" would dispute this either. Einstein's brain thought it up.

A body becomes dead when the mind can no longer figure out how to make the body move, usually because it is damaged.

A body becomes dead when it no longer metabolizes and cannot sustain itself and ceases to operate or function.

It is actually rather amazing, but when the brain suffers damage, the human mind knows how to repair it and will do so.

...sometimes...

However, there is some body damage that the human mind simply cannot restore because it lacks the knowledge.

or ability.

Some heart attacks do not send the body into death, the human mind can employ the resources and the knowledge at its disposal to return the heart to functioning. Some diseases the mind is perfectly familiar with, such as a common cold, and can easily dispel them, other diseases such as malaria, it took the conscious mind much research into the nature of the real world before the mind could learn to dispel it.

The Materialist description of life holds that objects (bodies) are alive to the extent that they appear unbound by Physical Laws.

Straw man. Humans are bound by physical laws, and also appear bound by physical laws. Plants and animals also appear bound by physical laws. Yet, they are alive.

What separates a living object from a dead object is simply one of degree. Life and death are loaded terms that assume a dualist world view.

That they don't. Life and death do not assume any "world view." Life means "not dead" and things that are alive share certain characteristics including metabolism, growth, reproduction (sexual or asexual), etc.). One thing is not required for life, however, is a brain or a mind. Things have to be alive to have those things, but they don't have to have those things to be alive.

So for the purposes of this paper whenever a materialist world view is described we will refer to a living object as a movable object and a dead object as an unmovable object. Wind appears alive

To whom? Wind does not "appear alive" to me any more than an earthquake or rain appear alive.

because its movements adhere to some physical law that we humans do not understand,

We don't understand the physical laws that make air move? I've got news for you, humans have understood those physical laws for a long time.

so it appears to be alive

no it doesn't. It appears to move.

but wind never simulates decision and will and if it does then we ascribe to a particular wind more life than other less-living winds. At the Battle of Badr, the first battle between Muslims and pagans, a great wind blew dust in the eyes of the pagans which resulted in victory for the Muslims, that wind appeared to SIMULATE power, knowledge and will.

I think that's just humans ascribing to supernatural causes that which they do not understand. Good fortune is a result of "Fortune" or some god-like intervention.

Stock Market movements appear to be alive,

They do? To whom?

especially when they are crashing, but only because we do not understand the logic behind their movements and moreover they are not bound by any Newtonian Laws but react strangely to news.

Ummm... the stock market does not adhere to Newtonian physics because it isn't matter.

Plants only appear alive because they move then, when they no longer grow and no longer have the capacity to grow, we say they are dead, but in reality all that has happened is that their material composition has changed sequence, such that they can no longer cause movement.

Or, metabolism. The processes that indicated they were living stop, and we call them dead.

Plants simulate decision in that they seem to decide where their roots grow and they seem to simulate will,

I don't get where you find some simulated "decision" making. Their roots grow, and they grow according to physical, electrical and biological laws. Plants don't have brains that make conscious decisions. They interact with their environment and their roots grow where they can grow.

even though it is a process too slow for the average human to detect. The illusion of life occurs when material randomly

Randomly? Why "randomly?"

becomes sequenced in a precise way. Again, in the monist world view there is only material

and energy

that moves sometimes at random, sometimes according to laws and complex, mysterious

sometimes mysterious, sometimes not - we're not know-it alls. things we don't know are sometimes mysterious

actions occur when material is sequenced in a precise way, just as a computer program is sequenced by the correct arrangement of ones and zeroes.

Criminy...I didn't realize how long this was. That's about it for now. I think the basic retort to this is that nothing written here poses a problem for atheism. It's a false dilemma and a straw man.

[Coito ergo sum]

Humans have nothing BUT free will until you demonstrate otherwise.

Free will and atheism are not compatible. If you believe there is an immaterial force which can choose to move our bodies in a certain way, then it's very easy to believe that we humans are not the only ones with this power. God also has the power to choose to move bodies in a certain way, though on a much larger scale.

Free will is not incompatible with atheism.

It is incompatible with some theism, though. Some theists have argued that if god had omniscience and omnipotence and omnipresence, and knew in advance everything you would do, say and think, and created the universe in that way, then he by necessity chose what you do, say and think. Therefore, while you feel like you have free will, you do not.

The reality is that free ill is not incompatible with atheism or theism.

The one thing that's for sure is that most of us say we feel like we have some free will at least, whether atheist or theist. We either have free will or we don't. If we don't, so be it. If we do, so be it.

Most atheists are able to acknowledge that. Most theists seem to want to massage reality to fit their "world view."

[Coito ergo sum]

Gawdzilla,
If you can think of a 3rd way, I would be happy to hear it.

Simply a combination of both.

Gawdzilla if you believe that some human actions are not a blind obedience to physical laws, then you admit that an immaterial thing such as will exists.

Atheists generally don't argue against the existence of "immaterial" things. Energy is not material, and yet it exists. Magnetism and gravity are not "material" and yet they exist. The brain exists. The brain creates what we perceive as "the will" or "the mind." Destroy the brain, the mind and the will are gone. Because we have a will or a mind does not perceive it is something independent of the brain.

We are not in our bodies, we are our bodies (including the brain).

You're not a hard-core atheist. Once you admit that will exists and you admit that an immaterial force has hegemony over material then you've virtually accepted theism.

I don't see that at all.

We can admit that we perceive a will - a will being the brain's thoughts and commands to itself and the rest of the body.

Nobody was talking about anything having "hegemony," - rather, the deal is that the brain uses energy process perceptions through the five senses, retain memories, operate the body, and think thoughts. The brain is the organ which controls the movements of the rest of the body. None of that requires an acceptance of theism.

[Coito ergo sum]

Anyway if you believe humans have free will, how do they exercise this? If they are just blindly obeying physical laws like a rock does gravity then they have no free will. So, is this choice located in a material object?

Humans exercising their free will by thinking thoughts and doing things.

Who says they are "blindly obeying" physical laws? They live in the physical universe, and cannot break the physical laws, but they aren't just sitting at rest relative to the earth like a rock and only falling when the surface beneath them is removed. Humans can use the energy created by their internal power generation systems to move about (all the while obeying physical laws) and they have an organ called a brain which has the capacity to choose which way to go. Nothing is blind obedience there.

The choice is located in the brain, which is a combination of the material aspects of our existence (the atoms that make up the molecules in our bodies), and the electromagnetic energy being transferred within us and within our brains. What we perceive as the mind is a product of the physical cells, the biological processes, and the electromagnetic energy within our brains. What's so objectionable to that?

[spinoza99]

Cogito, thank you very much for taking the time to consider my ideas. I wish everyone in this forum were like you. I respect you as a thinker and I appreciate you're point of view.

Coordination need not be the result of "random" movement. Things operating without a mind need not be random. For example, the planets move without the need for a mind, but they hardly move randomly.

Objects obeying the laws of gravity are not coordinated. Coordination is defined as objects working together such that a result is achieved. The 8 planets revolving around the sun together are not achieving a result. If a result happens to be achieved then it is a mere accident.

Not just matter - matter and energy.

energy is just the degree to which particles move. Energy is a property of matter, it is not a 3rd substance. The fact that water boils at 100 degrees celsius, that is not a third substance, it is just a property. Here's how wiki defines it: is a quantity that is often understood as the ability to perform work. This quantity can be assigned to any particle, object, or system of objects as a consequence of its physical state.

And, the correct configuration would not just be the percentages of elements - we would have to have the correct configuration of organs and brain cells.

I said elsewhere in my paper that I agree with that.

The materialist/monist hypothesis means that whatever we perceive to be the "mind" is a function of our brains.

The monists believe the mind does not exist. It's all brain.

Mind need not be a disembodied force.

Then how would dualism and monism be different? If you believe mind exists then what is it? Can you just get by with the word brain?

Is there any evidence of a mind existing without a body, or after a body dies? If so, what is a description of that evidence?

That's a side issue. I suppose you are only talking about a human mind. If there were no evidence that the human mind could affect reality without a body that would not mean that a human body can coordinate without a mind.

Is there any reason that the cause of the movements and actions of a body are not caused by the interactions and processes within the brain? If not, why not?

Yes. Do you expect 100 billion independent neurons to communicate with one another without what I define as knowledge and power? It would be like watching a piano play a sonata without a piano player.

if you defined what the human brain was, it would tend to show that that's where the mind is.

Take gravity. Gravity is not located in the object, it is a property of the object. At the same time, you need the object in order to have the property. You need a brain in order to have a mind, though perhaps it is possible that a human mind can manipulate reality without a human body, if you believe in ghosts.

The problem that the materialist is faced with is how do these 100 billion neurons "know" what the other neurons are doing,

They don't "know" things. They act according to physical, chemical, electrical and biological laws in accordance with their nature.

The human mind knows which neurons to fire and when.

how do they coordinate, such that specific actions in the human body are performed?

They interact according to physical, chemical, electrical, and biological laws and form that which we perceive as the mind. The mind receives input, and can initiate actions based on that input.

I'm glad you're defending the monist position. It's tough to find someone who will actually do it. Can you seriously imagine a simple physical law, such as F = MA that would force Beethoven to write his 9th symphony?

We know we can change a person's entire personality and their thoughts be damaging or modifying portions of their brain..

As I stated in the section called resources and an algorithmn for manipulating the brain, if we humans know enough about the brain that we could tell what each of the 100 billion neurons do, I believe we could theoretically manipulate the body to do what we want. But it takes knowledge to do this. The human mind already has this knowledge.

A person's intelligence can be reduced by damaging a portion of their brain, a persons memories can be triggered or erased, etc. We can hook a person's brain up to a machine and make them see, or move things, or operate a computer by their thoughts, etc

When we damage the brain we deprive the mind of its resources. A mind needs resources in order to manipulate reality. A mind cannot manipulate reality if it has no resources under its control.

The brain forms the way it does according to DNA code,

There are 100 billion neurons and only 3.2 billion base DNA pairs, much of it junk DNA, or, just in case someone finds a use for it one day, 50% of DNA is the same sequence over and over again. Moreover, do you really believe the code for Tolstoy to write War and Peace is in the DNA? How would Natural Selection know what War and Peace is?

Life

dualist definition of life: the extent to which a body is manipulated by mind

Would a dualist then be prochoice, up until a point when there is a brain?

Seperate issue

Nobody I've ever heard thinks that humans are free from the restrictions of the laws of classical physics, nor do humans appear to be that. ... We are always obeying physical laws.... Humans are bound by physical laws, and also appear bound by physical laws. Plants and animals also appear bound by physical laws. Yet, they are alive.

Just because no one says something does not mean it is not true. When our neurons fire and cause a movement that movement is not a result of Newton's first law: an object at rest shall stay at rest or an object in motion shall stay in motion until another force acts on it. In the monist view of life when neurons fire they do so due to a physical law. But in the dualist view, neurons fire not because of a physical law but because the mind desires them to fire.

It's not a question of simulating anything - a thing is alive if has metabolism, reproduction, adaptation, etc., or growth. Things don't need brains to be alive.

You could say that. That definition is also valid. I'm not saying that my definition is the only definition. I'm just focusing on how dualism and monism differ in their conceptions of what life is.

Einstein's decision to write a paper about the General Theory of relativity, for example, in the dualist worldview, was by no means the inevitable result of a certain sequence of material.

Nor in the monists view.... I don't think a "monist" would dispute this either. Einstein's brain thought it up.

So do you believe that all of Einstein's idea were the result of how his DNA was coded? Natural Selection has to select for 20,000 proteins in the human body, how can it possible have time to also encode Einstein's ideas. Moreover, the ideas a human can think are roughly infinite, where is all the space in that DNA code to write all those ideas?

I don't get where you find some simulated "decision" making. Their roots grow, and they grow according to physical, electrical and biological laws. Plants don't have brains that make conscious decisions. They interact with their environment and their roots grow where they can grow.

If you are blindly obeying a physical law you are not making a decision. A thrown rock does not decide where to go, it merely obeys the laws of gravity. In the monist world there can be no decision because everything is an obedience to a physical law. Even when Roosevelt says: "to whom much is given, much is expected," even that in the monist worldview is an obedience to some law. Decision can only happen when there is a choice. So the word decision exists in our vocabulary. To the monist, decisions are only an illusion, a simulation. We don't have choices, we are all just complex computers acting according to laws that we do not understand.

even though it is a process too slow for the average human to detect. The illusion of life occurs when material randomly

Randomly? Why "randomly?"

Random means movement that occurs without knowledge, will or power.

[spinoza99]

Some theists have argued that if god had omniscience and omnipotence and omnipresence, and knew in advance everything you would do, say and think, and created the universe in that way, then he by necessity chose what you do, say and think. Therefore, while you feel like you have free will, you do not.

I don't believe in an omnipotent God, so this does not apply to me.

The reality is that free ill is not incompatible with atheism or theism.

Then where do decisions come from in the monist world? If everything is just the result of physical laws, then we have no choice because we are just inevitably obeying the laws of physics.

In order for choice to exist, you need the power to violate Newton's first law. You need to be able to move a body that is at rest.

[Coito ergo sum]

Cogito, thank you very much for taking the time to consider my ideas. I wish everyone in this forum were like you. I respect you as a thinker and I appreciate you're point of view.

Coordination need not be the result of "random" movement. Things operating without a mind need not be random. For example, the planets move without the need for a mind, but they hardly move randomly.

Objects obeying the laws of gravity are not coordinated. Coordination is defined as objects working together such that a result is achieved. The 8 planets revolving around the sun together are not achieving a result. If a result happens to be achieved then it is a mere accident.

Coordination need not be the result of "random" movement. Things operating without a mind need not be "random." The planets aren't behaving randomly. I was pointing out your conflation of something being "undirected" with "random." It doesn't matter if the planets don't achieve a result, they are not behaving randomly.

Also - there has been a result achieved - the formation of the solar system as it is today. In the past, it was not as it is today. Today's solar system is the result achieved by the things in the solar system acting in accordance with the laws of physics (not randomly). The solar system would not be here if it acted randomly.

[Xamonas Chegwé]

Thread bookmarked for nights I have trouble sleeping. Thanks Spinny. You provide a valuable service as a sedative.

[Coito ergo sum]

Not just matter - matter and energy.

energy is just the degree to which particles move. Energy is a property of matter, it is not a 3rd substance. The fact that water boils at 100 degrees celsius, that is not a third substance, it is just a property. Here's how wiki defines it: is a quantity that is often understood as the ability to perform work. This quantity can be assigned to any particle, object, or system of objects as a consequence of its physical state.

Umm... no. Energy is not just the "degree to which particles move." Energy and matter are interchangeable - E=MC2. Matter can be transformed into energy and energy into matter. There is thermal energy, electromagnetic energy - different kinds of energy. It's not a mere property of matter. Properties of matter are that matter takes up space and has mass, and its physical properties like density, chemistry, and shape/size, etc. Energy is not a "property of matter."

[Coito ergo sum]

The materialist/monist hypothesis means that whatever we perceive to be the "mind" is a function of our brains.

The monists believe the mind does not exist. It's all brain.

Right - whatever we perceive to be the "mind" is a function of the brain. What you think of as a "mind" is the functioning of your brain. There isn't a separate mind floating around somewhere undetectable (that's what you believe).

Mind need not be a disembodied force.

Then how would dualism and monism be different? If you believe mind exists then what is it? Can you just get by with the word brain?

I believe that whatever you are describing as the mind - that sense of being "us" inside of a body - the idea of being separate from our bodies and inhabiting our bodies - is a construct of the brain. It's not a "thing" or "energy field" that exists separate and distinct from the brain - it is a construct of the brain.

Yes, I can get by with the word brain. However, you've been talking about something called a "mind." And, when you describe what it is you are defining as "mind", I don't disagree that there is a perception of that - what I am stating is that there isn't any reason to suppose it isn't just a construct of the brain (and there are many reasons to suppose that it is, in fact, a construct of the brain).

Is there any evidence of a mind existing without a body, or after a body dies? If so, what is a description of that evidence?

That's a side issue.

LOL - that's not the side issue, that's the rub.

I suppose you are only talking about a human mind.

Is there a mind somewhere that you are aware of that is not affiliated with a brain? If so, what, where, when?

If there were no evidence that the human mind could affect reality without a body that would not mean that a human body can coordinate without a mind.

No no...that wasn't the question -- I didn't ask that. I asked "Is there any evidence of a mind existing without a body, or after a body dies?"

When you phrase a question "if there were no evidence that the human mind could effect reality without a body...." You PRESUME the existence of a human mind as a separate thing from the human brain. So, I'll ask again - is there any evidence of a mind existing without a body, or after a body dies? The answer is, of course, no there isn't. There is no evidence of a mind existing without a body, or after a body dies. None. Zip. Zilch. Nada.

Moreover, a human body can "coordinate" without a mind. No mind causes the embryo to develop into the fetus inside the mother. It happens according to known biological laws and processes, physical laws and processes and chemical laws and processes. It is undirected, but not random. No "mind" is needed. The undirected and nonrandom processes proceed and a human being eventually comes into being. The brain of that human being develops and begins to think. What that being perceives as its "mind" is produced by its brain. Smash the brain, and the mind is gone.

Is there any reason that the cause of the movements and actions of a body are not caused by the interactions and processes within the brain? If not, why not?

Yes. Do you expect 100 billion independent neurons to communicate with one another without what I define as knowledge and power? It would be like watching a piano play a sonata without a piano player.

The brain has the knowledge and power to perform its functions. It develops over time from a sperm and an egg, which meet inside the mother, and attaches to the wall of the uterus. The chemical, biological, and physical processes naturally follow, non-random yet undirected, according to the laws of nature and the cells divide and redivide, through the various stages, blastocyst, embryo to fetus. The brain develops from its early stages to its later stages, and begins to function in accord with the laws of nature. It has certain built in processes and abilities (keep the organs functioning - control breathing and heart rate - and many others), and it has certain abilities - e.g. receive input from the sensory organs - and it processes that information. The brain has the capacity to do the things it does. There is no need to assume some undetectable things outside of the brain are required for brain functioning. And, again, that quality that you perceive as a mind separate from your body, inhabiting your body, is a construct of your brain.

You are not "in" your body. You "are" your body (body includes brain).

[Lozzer]

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I came.

[Coito ergo sum]

if you defined what the human brain was, it would tend to show that that's where the mind is.

Take gravity. Gravity is not located in the object, it is a property of the object.

No, it is not a "property" of the object. Gravity is a force created by the object bending space-time.

At the same time, you need the object in order to have the property. You need a brain in order to have a mind, though perhaps it is possible that a human mind can manipulate reality without a human body, if you believe in ghosts.

Objects produce gravity - a planet doesn't "have" gravity that it carries around with it - gravity exists because the planet bends space-time. The brain produces what you perceive as the mind. It's a construct of the brain.

I don't believe in ghosts because there is no evidence of ghosts. There is no evidence of any minds without brains.

The problem that the materialist is faced with is how do these 100 billion neurons "know" what the other neurons are doing,

They don't "know" things. They act according to physical, chemical, electrical and biological laws in accordance with their nature.

The human mind knows which neurons to fire and when. [/quote]

It doesn't "know" - the neurons fire in accordance with the properties of the brain. The problem with using words like "know" in these circumstances is that you tend to start thinking of these things as conscious actors. They aren't. A neuron doesn't "know" when to fire. It fires because of how it is built - energy is transmitted and passes through the neurons as they are made to do.

how do they coordinate, such that specific actions in the human body are performed?

They interact according to physical, chemical, electrical, and biological laws and form that which we perceive as the mind. The mind receives input, and can initiate actions based on that input.

I'm glad you're defending the monist position. It's tough to find someone who will actually do it. Can you seriously imagine a simple physical law, such as F = MA that would force Beethoven to write his 9th symphony?[/quote]

Why does monism require Beethoven to be "forced" to do anything?

All I'm arguing here is that the mind is a construct of the brain. Isn't it? Or, are you seriously suggesting that there are minds floating around somewhere, that eventually show up and inhabit brains. That is what you are arguing after all. You're saying the brain and the mind are separate things. Well, if they are separate things than they exist separately, and a mind could hang around if the brain were incinerated. That appears to be what you think.

I'm pretty sure I know why you want to believe that - because you want to extend that to mean that there is some existence that individuals have after the body dies. You want the mind to continue because it is separate.

That's all well and good, but there is no evidence for it. There is evidence, moreover, for the fact that what we perceive as the mind is a construct of the brain and does not exist apart from the brain. What is that evidence? The fact that we can destroy the mind or change it by doing things to the different structures of the brain, and there is no evidence that the mind exists unaffected thereby.

We know we can change a person's entire personality and their thoughts be damaging or modifying portions of their brain..

As I stated in the section called resources and an algorithmn for manipulating the brain, if we humans know enough about the brain that we could tell what each of the 100 billion neurons do, I believe we could theoretically manipulate the body to do what we want. But it takes knowledge to do this. The human mind already has this knowledge.

What is the human mind? You mean the brain? Or, is it something else floating around separate and apart from the brain, or temporarily inhabiting the brain?

Of course it isn't! Again - what you perceive as the mind is a construct of your brain. The "mind" knows nothing. The brain does.

A person's intelligence can be reduced by damaging a portion of their brain, a persons memories can be triggered or erased, etc. We can hook a person's brain up to a machine and make them see, or move things, or operate a computer by their thoughts, etc

When we damage the brain we deprive the mind of its resources. A mind needs resources in order to manipulate reality. A mind cannot manipulate reality if it has no resources under its control.

And, I suppose you have some evidence that there is a mind out there separate and distinct from the brain? I've asked you for that. You've not been willing to describe that evidence because you said it was incidental. Here it is again - central to the argument.

You SAY we damage and deprive "the mind" of its resources. But, you've not established that there even is a mind apart from a construct of the brain.

The brain forms the way it does according to DNA code,

There are 100 billion neurons and only 3.2 billion base DNA pairs, much of it junk DNA, or, just in case someone finds a use for it one day, 50% of DNA is the same sequence over and over again. Moreover, do you really believe the code for Tolstoy to write War and Peace is in the DNA? How would Natural Selection know what War and Peace is?

Natural selection doesn't "know" anything at all. It's no different than gravity in that regard. Gravity doesn't "know" how to make planets orbit the sun and apples to fall to the Earth. It's a physical law - a law of physics. Natural selection is no more than that - it's just a law of nature that operates when there are changes in the frequencies of alleles within a population of interbreeding organisms. That's it. Natural selection (more of one trait breeding than another) operates to cause the frequencies of alleles within a population of interbreeding organisms to change.

It doesn't "know" anything. The brain evolved, and it's not "natural selection" that writes War and Peace, it was Tolstoy...much to the chagrin of many a reader, I must say, IMHO.

Life

dualist definition of life: the extent to which a body is manipulated by mind

Would a dualist then be prochoice, up until a point when there is a brain?

Seperate issue[/quote]

I knew you'd dodge that one. You are right, though....it is a separate issue. I'd like your answer, though.

Nobody I've ever heard thinks that humans are free from the restrictions of the laws of classical physics, nor do humans appear to be that. ... We are always obeying physical laws.... Humans are bound by physical laws, and also appear bound by physical laws. Plants and animals also appear bound by physical laws. Yet, they are alive.

Just because no one says something does not mean it is not true.

It means that your attribution of that to some group of "monists" is not true. It means you created a straw man.

When our neurons fire and cause a movement that movement is not a result of Newton's first law:

Newton's first law is not the only physical law.

an object at rest shall stay at rest or an object in motion shall stay in motion until another force acts on it.

But clearly, when an atom within the human body is set in motion, it is because a force has acted upon it. The brain instructs the muscles to move by transmitting electromagnetic energy to the muscles. That electromagnetic energy is the "force" which acts on the muscles to cause them to move. Of course it is in accord with Newton's law that an object at rest tends to stay at rest unless acted upon by an outside force.

In the monist view of life when neurons fire they do so due to a physical law. But in the dualist view, neurons fire not because of a physical law but because the mind desires them to fire.

It's not a question of simulating anything - a thing is alive if has metabolism, reproduction, adaptation, etc., or growth. Things don't need brains to be alive.

You could say that.

I did. And, I'm right. Plants have no brains and they are alive, as are single celled organisms.

That definition is also valid. I'm not saying that my definition is the only definition. I'm just focusing on how dualism and monism differ in their conceptions of what life is.

I don't think that your concept of "dualism" makes any sense. You'd need to establish that a mind exists outside of a brain. This you have refused to do, calling this central point of your philosophy merely "incidental." I don't think anyone in the world thinks that the issue of whether there is a mind outside of a brain is anything but central to the philosophy of dualism.

Einstein's decision to write a paper about the General Theory of relativity, for example, in the dualist worldview, was by no means the inevitable result of a certain sequence of material.

Nor in the monists view.... I don't think a "monist" would dispute this either. Einstein's brain thought it up.

So do you believe that all of Einstein's idea were the result of how his DNA was coded? [/quote]

I think his brain developed the way it is because of what his DNA coded, but I do not think that DNA preordains particular thoughts. Einstein could easily have chosen to be a lazy lay-about and stayed int he patent office, rubber stamping inventions.

Natural Selection has to select for 20,000 proteins in the human body, how can it possible have time to also encode Einstein's ideas.

Nobody ever said it "encoded Einsteins ideas."

Moreover, the ideas a human can think are roughly infinite, where is all the space in that DNA code to write all those ideas?

All the ideas don't need to be in the DNA code.

I don't get where you find some simulated "decision" making. Their roots grow, and they grow according to physical, electrical and biological laws. Plants don't have brains that make conscious decisions. They interact with their environment and their roots grow where they can grow.

If you are blindly obeying a physical law you are not making a decision. A thrown rock does not decide where to go, it merely obeys the laws of gravity. In the monist world there can be no decision because everything is an obedience to a physical law. Even when Roosevelt says: "to whom much is given, much is expected," even that in the monist worldview is an obedience to some law. Decision can only happen when there is a choice. So the word decision exists in our vocabulary. To the monist, decisions are only an illusion, a simulation. We don't have choices, we are all just complex computers acting according to laws that we do not understand.

I think you have a limited notion of what monism and dualism is. You're using the terms in relation to brains and minds. Your argument is about - is the brain all there is, or is the mind a separate and distinct entity from the brain.

Monism actually is any philosophy that tries to explain everything by resort to one governing principle, or the manifestation of a single substance. Most Christians are monists, because they reduce this single governing or unifying principle, and single substance, as "god." Hegel considered the spirit as one reality, and he was a monist, and Spinoza the pantheist said we are all attributes of the one substance, the deity. Ernst Haekel took one substance, "energy" and said that was the one reality.

Monistic philosophies are juxtaposed against "pluralistic" - not just "dualism" -- philosophies.

A monistic philosophy, however, does not require that humans be automatons, as you suggest. Our thoughts need not be predetermined. You seem to be mixing up obedience with the laws of physics and being predetermined. Those aren't the same things at all. Whether monistically, or dualistically, or pluralistically, our brains function the way they function.

even though it is a process too slow for the average human to detect. The illusion of life occurs when material randomly

Randomly? Why "randomly?"

[/quote][/quote]
Random means movement that occurs without knowledge, will or power.[/quote]

Nothing moves without power (force) having acted upon it. However, planets move without knowledge or will, yet they don't do so "randomly."

The Andromeda galaxy is chock-full of movement, and none of it because anybody is willing it, or anyone knows about it - it's moving according to gravitational laws, and the laws of physics. But, look at it! It's not random at all!



Undirected does not mean "random." It doesn't need a "mind" to make it go. It goes because that's the laws of physics operating on matter. It moves, but not randomly.

[FBM]

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I came.

I saw.