Can we solve the mind-body problem?

Discuss any topics related to metaphysics (the philosophical study of the principles of reality) or epistemology (the philosophical study of knowledge) in this forum.
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Can we solve the mind-body problem?

No, the "hard problem" of consciousness will never be solved
19
22%
Yes, a future revision of science/physics will allow us to solve it
37
43%
Other-please specify
31
36%
 
Total votes: 87

Belinda
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Re: Can we solve the mind-body problem?

Post by Belinda »

Misty wrote:
Belinda, could you expound on "only animals have nervous tissue?" I have not come across that before.
Tissues are made of cells of the same type. So nerve tissue is made of nerve cells. I looked at the video that you recommended, Misty. During the short while I listened to Dr Leaf she made assertions with which I don't agree. I gather that she was trying to make a scientific case for freewill, and at the same time trying to express this in popular language.
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Misty
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Re: Can we solve the mind-body problem?

Post by Misty »

Belinda wrote:Misty wrote:
Belinda, could you expound on "only animals have nervous tissue?" I have not come across that before.
Tissues are made of cells of the same type. So nerve tissue is made of nerve cells. I looked at the video that you recommended, Misty. During the short while I listened to Dr Leaf she made assertions with which I don't agree. I gather that she was trying to make a scientific case for freewill, and at the same time trying to express this in popular language.
Thank you for nerve explanation.

I was hoping you would listen to the whole video as it was connecting science and mind/body. Just wanted your opinion on the entire video.
Things are not always as they appear; it's a matter of perception.

The eyes can only see what the mind has, is, or will be prepared to comprehend.

I am Lion, hear me ROAR! Meow.
Wayne92587
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Re: Can we solve the mind-body problem?

Post by Wayne92587 »

Habal, if possible I would like to start over by apologize for my comment.

I was just trying to be as rude as I could be; no excuse.

-- Updated June 2nd, 2015, 9:09 pm to add the following --

Okisites, I believe in the Reality of Myth.

The Mind Body problems results in a battle between Mind and Body, Spirit and Flesh, Man and Woman.

I see Man as being a duality, a Singularity having a dual quality.

The problem being that language is based upon Metaphors which results in just so much Babel, gibberish.

The Body, Adam, Man and Woman, he and she, the Flesh Body, is are born of the dust of the ground, Mother Nature, the Evolutionary Process, cause and effect, the body being bound the laws of Nature.

Eve, the Spirit, Woman, no Man, non-Masculine, has no substance, is not born of the dust of the ground, is a creation, is born as if by Magic, right of thin air, Nothing, is a Creation, is Immaterial, is the Spiritual Body.

Man's, his and her Consciousness, Mind is born of Two Sources, has a dual quality, the Consciousness, awareness, thought, born of the five senses of the Flesh Body, the consciousness of the Flesh body being bound by the laws of Nature, cause and effect, through the use of Logic.

The Consciousness, mind, of the Spiritual Body, yes the Spiritual Body has mind of her own (her being a metaphor) being non-Man, Masculine, Immaterial.

As far as the Consciousness of the Flesh Body, Material Body, mind, is concerned, the Spiritual Body, Consciousness, Mind, has no material worth, is Immaterial.

The Spiritual Body, not being bound to the Material World of Reality, the Consciousness of the Flesh Body, is Free to do as she will.

The Flesh Body, Consciousness, Mind, is bound by Logic which is derived from fact, Reality, the Material World of Reality. The Spiritual Body, Consciousness, the Female Mind is boundless, Free to Create her own facts, Illusions of Reality, Facts derived from somewhere far out in Left Field.

The Mind Body Problem, the Battle between the Spirit and the Flesh, Man and Woman, is a battle between Reality and Illusion, Good and Evil.
Belinda
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Re: Can we solve the mind-body problem?

Post by Belinda »

Misty wrote:
I was hoping you would listen to the whole video as it was connecting science and mind/body. Just wanted your opinion on the entire video.
Yes, I know and I'm sorry to let you down. I found Dr Leaf's mannerisms uncomfortable to watch and listen to, and I was also very tired. Also I prefer to read arguments rather than listen to sermons or lectures. I might try again.
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Re: Can we solve the mind-body problem?

Post by Madera »

It is not complicated. Heal the mind and the body heals. Proven.
Harbal
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Re: Can we solve the mind-body problem?

Post by Harbal »

Wayne92587 wrote:Habal, if possible I would like to start over by apologize for my comment.

I was just trying to be as rude as I could be; no excuse.
No need to apologise, your response was quite restrained. I deserved much worse.
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Hereandnow
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Re: Can we solve the mind-body problem?

Post by Hereandnow »

H M:

Key to the problem of experience, in the context of physicalist doctrine, is that the latter does indirectly claim what matter is normally like in itself or independent of consciousness: That when perception and knowledge affairs cease after death, everything disappears (Never Say Die: Why We Can't Imagine Death). There's certainly no Universal Observer or panpsychic background which a particular person's psychological continuity dissolves back into, that continues sporting manifestations of an environment and thoughts about it or scientific, descriptive understandings of the world. Those are deviant variations that turn it into some kind of objective idealism.

So -- as even some village idiots might well grasp better than those of us who reify "physical" in a truly serious or literal way -- material phenomena are actually a feature of extrospection or external-oriented experience. Inferences, concepts / propositional knowledge concerning them are part of the intellectual activity affiliated with consciousness, though just as much exhibited in the private and public divisions of experience as symbols, words, etc. The combination of both these concrete and abstract phenomena ("physicalism", to differentiate from outdated materialism) is itself just another construct of intellection, whether treated as a mere methodological approach or an outright metaphysical stance.

The brain or anything else that perception and reflective thought present as their origin, or as a representation of themselves, is also content of experience. But this circularity does not forbid satisfactory progress being made in neural sciences, etc. Consciousness (or the "mind", etc) brings phenomena (representations for received influences) into causal relation and spatiotemporal co-existence with each other; that is, the generating of explanations falls out of its very nature. It is only when the content of such experience (which includes the inventions of personal thought and social collaboration as much the concrete manifestations of perception) is used to explain experience itself (the field or "ground" wherein they are originally made available before being abstracted) that no explanation seems fully satisfactory (i.e., the circularity of explaining phenomena with phenomena can no longer be casually ignored for the hurried sake of proceeding forth, anyway).
I found this interesting. Just a couple of notes: panpsychic background? You may find "Synchronicity : Through the Eyes of Science, Myth and the Trickster". Einstein took Paul Kammerer seriously and there is a great deal that suggests that something, in a skewed way, Kantian is perhaps worthy of consideration: perhaps our psychic world is not so distant from what is Real; after all, it is experience itself that gave rise to the notion of the real in the first place. It is a false dichotomy that sets what is Real against what is experienced, though this is not to say that we "village idiots" are omniscient. I would suggest that philosophy has taken us to a strange threshold where, as Putnam puts it, the words have run out. One can drop the whole enterprise (like Rorty) or maybe the Hindus have been right all along: that nagging question of the thing in itself, Being as such, and so forth could be just nominal in nature, that is, a universal that subsumes all particulars (whatever they are), which is boring and reduces are encounters with Being qua Being to something of no more significance than a concept. Just as 'cat' encompasses all cats, 'being' encompasses all things that are. Or: it could be that the Intuition of Being as such beckons from something within. An analysis of phenomena as such does not yield anything enlightening about this very odd intuition (and I call it an intuition and reject the nominalistic view); so from whence does it come?

It could be that it issues from what is really Real (capital letters signify non contingency). Maybe Descartes was right (and Husserl, and Kierkegaard, et al) and, since the origin of the intuition of Being as such comes from within (consider it a Kantian argument that moves from what is the case to what must be the case to account for it) there must be something of Being qua Being within. One does have to take the intuition of Being seriously to think like this, though. I think it is arguably the most profound thing one can do, contemplate Being as such.
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Re: Can we solve the mind-body problem?

Post by Madera »

First message on this forum I agree with. Seems philosophy has created intellctuals that fail to go within.
Wayne92587
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Re: Can we solve the mind-body problem?

Post by Wayne92587 »

Yes!

As soon as that which is above is the same as that which is below.

Hermes Trismegistus lord of the ring, keeper of the Holy Grail--->0

Ye! Amen RA!
Dionysus12
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Re: Can we solve the mind-body problem?

Post by Dionysus12 »

Thinking about emotions, thoughts and language, are these intangibles physical or mental? I want to put the question another way. Because they are associated with areas of the brain does this make them physical by association with their various areas of the brain? If, say, the amygdala was removed from the brain and the person survived but showed no emotion, would that mean the emotions are physical by association with that group of neurons? The same could be asked of language and thoughts, though by this time we would only be left with a twitching zombie after the operations. Would it be a fallacy to assume the properties associated with something makes that something its properties? In front of me is a blue jar, but that does not mean the jar is blue, it is only contingently blue, and could have been other colours. It would be the same for all things. Trees are not green and only become green when they grow and bloom and then often become brown. Even if the experiments on the amygdla were repeated indefinitely, that would only repeat and reinforce the association and not prove that the emotions were physical. To say this does not mean the emotions (or language and thoughts) are mental by association with the mind, the mind here meaning something supra-cerebral. We seem to be caught in a categorial either/or agenda. The obvious question is: if it is not one or the other then what is it? I think it is a meaningless question. Let's say the mind was something epiphenomenal with no attributable qualities or properties and the physical was everything with qualities and properties, including atoms, photons etc. Now let's say I filled a tub with water, took a stick and gave the water a whirl. The water is every constituent element identified as H2O, but water atoms are not water, nor are they fluid nor do they whirl, but it shows qualities or properties of whirling and fluidity on an aggregate level. The whirling itself has no properties or qualities, they all belong to water in this instance. Gravity has no properties, it is the energy of matter that allows gravity to be identifiable. In some ways then, mind or consciousness emerges from the aggregate of things, but not as an attributable quality or property. This does not mean everything is physical. The whirling is not physical nor is fluidity. (I have only just joined this thread so I hope allowances may be made if the aspect I have taken has been discussed before.)
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Re: Can we solve the mind-body problem?

Post by Okisites »

Can we solve the hardware-software problem? If yes, I am sure we can also solve mind-problem. If not, I am sure we cannot solve mind-body problem. I think we have to understand that both mind and body are the part of everything that exists in universe. You cannot come to an existence with any one missing from the equation, no matter what you are. The problem with human mind is that it is very complex to understand how it consists both mind and body. :D
Get the facts, or the facts will get you. And when you get them, get them right, or they will get you wrong.” ― Thomas Fuller
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Re: Can we solve the mind-body problem?

Post by Bohm2 »

Okisites wrote:Can we solve the hardware-software problem?
Why do you think there's a hardware-software problem?
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Okisites
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Re: Can we solve the mind-body problem?

Post by Okisites »

Bohm2 wrote:
Okisites wrote:Can we solve the hardware-software problem?
Why do you think there's a hardware-software problem?
I don’t think there is any hardware-software problem, but I think such question can be asked in the same way as mind-body problem. I asked the question as analogical question. Certainly there is no such question, as human very well understand the working of software and hardware and how it processes information. The same thing human do not understand about working of mind and body, and thus ask the question of mind-body problem. I think if this question is right then it would be right to ask the question of hardware-software problem about computer’s processing power, that whether it is based on hardware or whether it is based on software, or it is based on both. Am I correct, or I misunderstood something about mind-body problem?
Get the facts, or the facts will get you. And when you get them, get them right, or they will get you wrong.” ― Thomas Fuller
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Lagayscienza
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Re: Can we solve the mind-body problem?

Post by Lagayscienza »

Dionysus12 wrote:Thinking about emotions, thoughts and language, are these intangibles physical or mental? I want to put the question another way. Because they are associated with areas of the brain does this make them physical by association with their various areas of the brain? If, say, the amygdala was removed from the brain and the person survived but showed no emotion, would that mean the emotions are physical by association with that group of neurons? The same could be asked of language and thoughts, though by this time we would only be left with a twitching zombie after the operations. Would it be a fallacy to assume the properties associated with something makes that something its properties? In front of me is a blue jar, but that does not mean the jar is blue, it is only contingently blue, and could have been other colours. It would be the same for all things. Trees are not green and only become green when they grow and bloom and then often become brown. Even if the experiments on the amygdla were repeated indefinitely, that would only repeat and reinforce the association and not prove that the emotions were physical. To say this does not mean the emotions (or language and thoughts) are mental by association with the mind, the mind here meaning something supra-cerebral. We seem to be caught in a categorial either/or agenda. The obvious question is: if it is not one or the other then what is it? I think it is a meaningless question. Let's say the mind was something epiphenomenal with no attributable qualities or properties and the physical was everything with qualities and properties, including atoms, photons etc. Now let's say I filled a tub with water, took a stick and gave the water a whirl. The water is every constituent element identified as H2O, but water atoms are not water, nor are they fluid nor do they whirl, but it shows qualities or properties of whirling and fluidity on an aggregate level. The whirling itself has no properties or qualities, they all belong to water in this instance. Gravity has no properties, it is the energy of matter that allows gravity to be identifiable. In some ways then, mind or consciousness emerges from the aggregate of things, but not as an attributable quality or property. This does not mean everything is physical. The whirling is not physical nor is fluidity.
You make some interesting points, Dionysus12. I think the difficulty with emergent phenomena like consciousness is that they only emerge when all the bits that make up the necessary physical substrate are in place and working together. Take out the amygdala and we see the loss of emotions but that doesn't mean emotions are the amygdala. The emotions seem to be states of consciousness that emerge when a functioning amygdala is part of a functional brain. So does that mean the emotions are a fully functioning brain that includes an amygdala? I don't think so. Emotions are no more the brain than a car is it's speed. A particular speed is what you get when you car is in a particular state. Emotions are what you get when brains are in certain states . And consciousness is what you get when functioning brains like ours are in a universe that's in a particular state. At least that's how it seems to me. I don't think we can disentangle the brain from the universe - they are inextricably one. Maybe that's why meditation can result the feeling of oneness and the loss of self. Of course this is all just conjecture and I have no idea how this could be tested.
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Re: Can we solve the mind-body problem?

Post by Wayne92587 »

The mind body problem is based upon both.

The Consciousness of the Flesh based upon the five senses of the Flesh Body is perverted by the Consciousness of the Mind, the Rational Mind, Spiritual Body.

The soul purpose for the Creation of the Rational Mind being to act as Man's, Mankind's, his and her, Help Mate so as Man can reach a higher level of Consciousness than that of a mere Animal, thus allowing Man to be come the Ultimate Survivor.

The Transfiguration of both the Rational Mind and the Flesh Body being accomplished thru an Alchemical Process; the Process of taking something of little and no value, the two as One being greater than the sum total of the two as Individualities.
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