This is precicely what I am saying is  NOT the case.  The physical description is not complete. It is not "the brain state". The physical description is an abrstaction in a similar wat to the mental description. Consider what are the fundamental physical properties of any "real" thing? Position? Mommentum? Energy? Time? None of these are actualluy fundamental. The closest we can get is a wavefunction or event or possibly information. All these to me seem to be rather strange abstract concepts, not the sort of thing one would usually sat is physical and yet when it comes down to the real nitty gritty this IS what seems to be fundamental. Does a wave function exist phsycially? Does a number? Or mathematical abstraction? Or information? Can any of these things be defined as physcial properties or things? I don't think they really can, and yet it is preicely these things that are fundamental.

 

 

And neutral monism is the idea that there is a single "substance" or underlying structure to reality and both phsyical and mental are useful abstractions of that reality. They are useful and convienient ways of thinking about the world. 

 

You clearly aren't familair with the notion of searching WITHIN YOURSELF to find God.  Or God is INSIDE all of us.  Remember, beleivers have an extreme paradoxical view of God of him being both external and internal simultaneously.  But that is aside the point.  My real point is claim validity.  In one experiment you sited, you said that the way the scientists determined if the subjects were in love was by asking them and if they said yes, they assumed they must be in love.  This is poor science.  For example, let's say the scientists were testing wisdom, to move away from God since that also confuses you, and the way they determined if one was wise was by asking the subject if the subject was wise and if the subject said yes, the scientists assumed the subject must be wise.  Would you say the subject in question really is wise simply becuase the subject testified as such?  Or would you develop some sort of experiment to test the wisdom claim? 

 

 

My concern is not with your claim about the mind but with the evidence you are providing for the claim and how that evidence was found. 

Quala? :p 

Then why have you yet to provide me with the definition of love being used by the scientists?  So far, all you have done is either a) considered all my questions about the research irrelevant or b) just reiterate that there is a correlation between love and a physical change in the brain.  I did my part to suggest a type of love being tested, romantic love, in the experiments but I got no correction or even response to this category of love so I do not know if that was a correct understanding or a totally erronous understanding.  either way, however, the problem still persists of what exactly makes love of the romantic type.  Now to be clear, I understand what your view is about the mind, and I understand that you beleive the more important aspect about these experiments you sited is that there is a physical change or movement in the brain when these terms are invoked by the subjects.  Again, my question is very simple  and is not a disguised aruement.  How are the scientists defining love?  To restate my example of why this is important, in any class in basic biology, one of the key definitions one must know before one learns about evolution is what a species is, if the definition of evolution being used is "change in species over time" or what the definition of an allele is if the definition is "Change in alelle frequency over time".  Without defining what they mean by species or alelle, the much more grand definitions become meaningless.  Now, you made the claim that love is a brain state.  Which is fine.  I am not trying to argue that it is not.  I simply want to know how love is being defined since, if you do not provide a definition for love, the claim is meaningless, or if the definition is inadequate, then your claim is faulty.  

 

I figured that much since you never once mentioned the love of siblings, love of parents of their children, or the love of abstract concepts like art.  If thats all I was confused about, I would not have kept the discussion going this long.  What I am confused is about is how do the scientists make sure two people are feeling love as opposed to another brain states such as lust?  Surely lust must be another brain state right?.  How do they know that, in the experiement that documented the rise and fall in certain protiens, they weren't simply monitering lust?  Are they just assuming that what brings two people together is, and always, is love? 

I am new here, so I'll give it a shot.  If mind and brain are the same, how did consciousness evolve from non-conscious matter?  Also, if we are determined, should we place much trust in our thinking processes?  How is free will possible if we are controlled by the mechanistic, electrical and chemical stimuli and catalysts?  How can a universal category exist in a finite, contingent mind?  What material entity ties the particular or any symbols to that which is symbolized?  Doesn't this require volition that overcomes these material causes?  A universal can contain an unlimited number of particulars.  Where would you store an unlimited number of any particulars in the brain within a category?  One thing...I do not hold to Descartes's view of dualism. 

Are numbers, propositions, future contingencies, logical law, ethics all made of a material substance?  How did the brain even formulate logical law if those same laws weren't already existing apriori?  One could not distinguish A from B, etc.  These same laws of logic appear to be universally binding upon all minds, not a product thereof.  What about transfinite math?  Where is this in the brain? 

If we take on kelley's view that there is no 'You', but only a physical entity, then ethics are irrational.  Who cares who kills, steals or does anything to another if there are no transcendent ethics?  Appeal to 'survival' is question begging.  Because one seeks survival does not equate to an obligation of such (is/ought fallacy).  Where would these logical laws be in the brain that do govern relations between propositions? 

How does one know that their perceptions are equal to reality if their mind is controlled by these mechanistic forces? 

How does this mind/brain dualism fit into the indiscernibility of identicals?  Since mental states are likened to software of a computer and not the hardware, there is a loss of identical relations in brain/mind dualism.  Which is the software and which is the hardware?  A physicalist must show that brain states and mind phenomena are inseparable to establish any truth.  Here is an example from J.P. Moreland: 'my afterimage of a ball (the impression of the ball present to my consciousness when I close my eyes after seeing the ball) may be pink, but nothing in my brain is pink.  Mental events and properties have different attributes and therefore they are not identical.  One can know their mental states, but not have awareness of brain states.  This violates the law of identicals.  First person awareness is not identical to brain-state awareness arrived by second-hand knowledge.

A quote from Howard Robinson: 'The notion of having something as an object of experience is not, prima facia, a physical notion; it does not figure in any physical science.  Having something as an object of experience is the same as the subjective feel or the what it is like of experience.'

Another point against this physicalist view is that our cells renew to entirely new cells in various parts of the body.  Does this mean that 'I' am a different person over time?  What about memories; do they remain if certain parts of the brain cells regenerate?

In regards to ethics, if my actions are the result of one brain state acting upon another, how can I be blamed for my actions?  Are there logical and moral laws that govern which brain states are true, sound, right or wrong?  If so, what absolute binding laws are these?  There is nothing in the brain that obligates one brain state to logically connect to another in a syllogistical manner or rational/irrational one. 

Since this is the Rational Response Squad, how is rational volition possible given physicalism?  If we reduce all to the finite brain, then there are no absolute laws of logic that govern your 'Rationality' in your view here.  All is merely subjective and whimsical.  You have no objective foundation to require Theists to take on 'oughts' of belief such as non-Theism.  This view is entirely self-defeating.

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'But the natural man cannot receive the things of God and neither can he know them, as they are spiritually discerned.' (1 Corinthians 2:14)

 

 

 

 

 

The problem I think many people- even very intelligent people- have with reductive physicalism is that while mechanistic models of life easily explain the "objective" or "behavior" aspect of consciousness (such as recognizing and responding to stimuli, and in many cases creative thought and problem solving) these models don't account for the subjective experience of consciousness. That's not to say the mechanistic models preclude the existence of subjective consciousness. These models are still valid, but they don't explain why or how we have it.

 

Think of it this way: if you had access to a virtual reality program based on somebody else's memories or experiences- like the holodecks in Star Trek- you'd still be experiencing the program from your perspective, not the perspective of the person whose experiences the program was based on. Without subjective consciousness we really wouldn't have different reactions to the same stimuli. Without subjective consciousness, presumably we'd all have the same thoughts about everything.

 

This isn't much of a problem for me. I think that many prominent intellectuals sometimes buy too deeply into adaptationist arguments. I think the high cognitive functions of humans might have been a kind of evolutionary fluke for one thing, and I'm not alone in thinking that. There are some prominent scientists who think such an event is very unlikely to occur again, given the unique combination of variables that drove the evolution of modern humans. However there are many good arguments against that notion, too. The reason I bring it up, however, is to point out that not everything in evolution is necessarily an explicit adaptation. Some traits are the byproducts of other adaptations controlled by linked genes. I think it's at least plausible that our subjective, introspective level of consciousness could have been such a byproduct of related adaptations, possibly those adaptations involved in the other kind of consciousness I alluded to earlier- the more objectively understood, behavioral consciousness that is the subject of science.

You're probably right about the higher primates, but again that's something which is difficult to scratch with the scientific method alone. Many students of higher primates have nixed the concept of species-specific behavior, instead focusing on the behaviors and personalities of individuals and communities for description. A great example of this is De Waal's work at the Arnhem Chimp Colony, where he describes the inadequacy of depersonalized approaches to working with and studying the behavior of higher primates like Chimpanzees. Certainly chimps, other apes, and some species of monkeys (particularly certain New World monkeys with very ape-like social and behavioral patterns) definitely use self-reflection and probably some degree of abstract thinking to deal with living in a close-knit community of individualists, which is what higher primates for the most part must do. Think about how stressful it is to live in that kind of community, for us and for the rest of the primates. We have to be constantly on guard, trying to figure out what our neighbor is thinking about us, with our "theory of mind." I can't emphasize this enough, higher primates are very much as individualistic as humans, personality-wise, and they deal with a lot of the same social issues: hierarchies and even charismatic authority derived from force of personality. Anyone who's ever watched Chimps can also tell you they have an uncanny sense of humor.

Good point.