The Physical Does Not Exist: The True Nature Of The Brain

[Brilliand]

Is it that important for you to be 'right'? You already know everything? Your posts certainly give that impression...

This again? Sorry, I've had trouble with this impression of me in the past... and this time, I'm not going to act more uncertain than I am because my certainty annoys people. Rest assured that I am wrong sometimes and I do take in ideas from others' arguments; I simply know from past experience that after reading your articles, I will still disagree with you, and I won't be able to remember any of the individual points that I disagreed with (I won't be able to say much more than "those articles were horrible").

I didn't offer 30 pages (obviously you didnt't look at anything), and the reading isn't that difficult.

I clicked on all three links; one was 12 pages, one was 14, and one was a whole archive of articles (I assumed there were at least four pages there).

But, hey, if you already knopw everything and need not learn anything, you must be here to simply offer your 'pronouncements' all over the site. But, i gotta tell you, that your unwillingness to even read an offered link says much about your egoic emotional states and deliberate ignorance.
I'll be happy to be the human that you can interact with after you read the links (educate yourself).

I was in a Creation vs. Evolution debate once (online) where we just threw scholarly links at each other; I doubt either one of us really understood what we were talking about. I don't want to go through that again, to any extent... every argument must be presented by the arguer.

I meant that all external behavior of humans

Exactly what do you mean by "external behavior"?
"External" to what? The Universe? Perception?

External to the human with the behavior... in other words, perceivable by humans other than the one whose behavior is being perceived.

[nameless]

Is it that important for you to be 'right'? You already know everything? Your posts certainly give that impression...

This again? Sorry, I've had trouble with this impression of me in the past... and this time, I'm not going to act more uncertain than I am because my certainty annoys people.

Great, don't read this one either;
The Certainty Bias: A Potentially Dangerous Mental Flaw

"If a man dare teach, he must never cease to learn."

Stomping about making pronouncements of the "way it is", and refusing to admit critical investigation into your 'beliefs'/ego is not philosophy, it is religion. Religion is where people 'know the Truth' and aren't sidetracked by facts..)


Rest assured that I am wrong sometimes and I do take in ideas from others' arguments; I simply know from past experience that after reading your articles, I will still disagree with you, and I won't be able to remember any of the individual points that I disagreed with (I won't be able to say much more than "those articles were horrible").

I didn't offer 30 pages (obviously you didnt't look at anything), and the reading isn't that difficult.

I clicked on all three links; one was 12 pages, one was 14, and one was a whole archive of articles (I assumed there were at least four pages there).[/quote]
Well, dude, I hope that you didn't waste your time reading any of it.

I was in a Creation vs. Evolution debate once (online) where we just threw scholarly links at each other; I doubt either one of us really understood what we were talking about.

Well, if neither of you knew what you were talking about, it must have been quite the comic 'debate'.

If you have nothing that you can learn, then ignore any offered information. Right? Whatever. If you are going to deliberately ignore any evidence in conflict with your beliefs, we cannot have any sort of discussion. There is nothing that we need 'debate'. I was merely, I repeat, generously, offering you food for thought. If 'unpalatable', or too 'tough', ignore it and stomp on with your pronouncements of "how it is for all of us", and I'll simply ignore your posts (knowing your lack of 'information' and current understanding and encrusted 'beliefs'... Willful ignorance).

... every argument must be presented by the arguer.

Homey don't play by your rules! I 'presented', you ignored, I leave the discussion...

I meant that all external behavior of humans

Exactly what do you mean by "external behavior"?
"External" to what? The Universe? Perception?

External to the human with the behavior... in other words, perceivable by humans other than the one whose behavior is being perceived.

There is not (evidence of) any thing 'external' to the perceiver. There is nothing 'external' to the perception of a Conscious Perspective.
But I can see how it 'appears' that there is.
But I won't bore you with any data/evidence or links to good thoughtful examinations of the issue...
Well, happy trails
nameless out

[Belinda]

But brains are physical objects.This does not mean that they are NOTHING BUT subatomic particles or subatomic whatevers.Brains are organised systems.Brains may be described subatomically, or biochemically(mashed up) or anatomically (electronically or with knives)or physiologically.

How is it helpful either practically or academically to say that brains are made of subatomic whatevers?

Illustration of faulty reductionist reasoning from the OP. The cutting also includes wrong use of the apostrophe by the accepted rules of good spelling:

The upshot of this is that there is nothing special about the brain in comparison to everything else in the universe in terms of it’s physical structure If neurons somehow create subjective experience, it is far from obvious how subjective experience

[phenomenal_graffiti]

Belinda:

But brains are physical objects.

The true test of whether or not something is "physical", given the first law of thermodynamics ("...energy is neither created nor destroyed, it merely changes it's form) is whether or not the thing continues to exist in the absence of brains or in the event of cessation of function of every brain in the universe. This is the litmus test of the existence of the physical and whether or not something is physical.

Given we do not know if brains would continue to exist in some form if all brains everywhere ceased to function (and according to the secular mythology all consciousness everywhere ceases to exist), we cannot know if brains are physical.

This does not mean that they are NOTHING BUT subatomic particles or subatomic whatevers.Brains are organised systems.Brains may be described subatomically, or biochemically(mashed up) or anatomically (electronically or with knives)or physiologically.

How is it helpful either practically or academically to say that brains are made of subatomic whatevers?

Unless you believe that atoms magically "Wonder Twin" into brains with a complete disappearance of atoms as they morph into some discontinuous "brain stuff"...you better believe that brains, in the end, are NOTHING BUT subatomic particles or subatomic whatevers.

Presumably, when atoms form brains the atoms still exist and hold their relative positions to each other. From the visual point of view of the observer, however, they appear as an object we call a "brain". But this object is still, in the end, just a bunch of atoms in a football hurdle, nothing more.

Your assumption that when the last atom is locked in place the brain magically becomes something other than just a bunch of atoms, you're invoking the Transformational Magic Of Strong Emergence, in which atoms, like the Wonder Twins, "fist bump" each other and say: "Shape of...a Brain!"



There are Weak and Strong types of emergence and weak and strong examples of emergent properties. Weak Emergence involves novel behaviors that may or may not have been predicted from the constituent parts going into the system, with such new and random behaviors ultimately explicable to the range of motions available to the atoms making up the machine. The machine exhibits "emergent motions" and "emergent actions" by reason of the fact that the atoms making up the machine begin to interact in ways that previously lay dormant in their potential.

Strong Emergence, on the other hand, involves the transformation of the macro-entity into something other than the atoms making it up, such that one must explain the emergent property as something that is beyond or that is not the interactions of its constituent parts, while simultaneously insisting that only it's constituent parts make it up. This magical explanation ignores the existence of the atoms within the macro-entity and the collective actions of the atoms to pull the rabbit of the novel behavior or appearance out of the subatomic magic hat. This defies logic, for what else is there, or what else arises from, the entity beyond it's constituent atoms and their interdepenent and interconnected interactions?

Regarding strong emergence, Mark A. Bedau observes:

"Although strong emergence is logically possible, it is uncomfortably like magic. How does an irreducible but supervenient downward causal power arise, since by definition it cannot be due to the aggregation of the micro-level potentialities? Such causal powers would be quite unlike anything within our scientific ken. This not only indicates how they will discomfort reasonable forms of materialism. Their mysteriousness will only heighten the traditional worry that emergence entails illegitimately getting something from nothing."

-Bedau: Weak Emergence,1997

Illustration of faulty reductionist reasoning from the OP. The cutting also includes wrong use of the apostrophe by the accepted rules of good spelling:

Quote:

The upshot of this is that there is nothing special about the brain in comparison to everything else in the universe in terms of it’s physical structure If neurons somehow create subjective experience, it is far from obvious how subjective experience

Eh, Me no speeka de Englesss? Correct away! Maybe one day I will, by God, learn how to write.

J.

[ape]

PG:
The true test of whether or not something is "physical", given the first law of thermodynamics ("...energy is neither created nor destroyed, it merely changes it's form) is whether or not the thing continues to exist in the absence of brains or in the event of cessation of function of every brain in the universe. This is the litmus test of the existence of the physical and whether or not something is physical.
APE: True.
PG:
Given we do not know if brains would continue to exist in some form if all brains everywhere ceased to function (and according to the secular mythology all consciousness everywhere ceases to exist), we cannot know if brains are physical.
APE: So since our brains do exist now and even after we cease to exist, our brains are physical which is why brain-autopsies are done.
PG:
There are Weak and Strong types of emergence and weak and strong examples of emergent properties.
APE: All based of the Right-brain Left-Brain opposites thing.
Weak and strong are opposites and composites and so there must also be weakness in strength, and strength in weakness.
PG:
Strong Emergence, on the other hand, involves the transformation of the macro-entity into something other than the atoms making it up, such that one must explain the emergent property as something that is beyond or that is not the interactions of its constituent parts, while simultaneously insisting that only it's constituent parts make it up.
APE: Exactly what we wd expect impirically from the apriori trnasformation of weakness in strength and strength into weakness.
PG:
This magical explanation ignores the existence of the atoms within the macro-entity and the collective actions of the atoms to pull the rabbit of the novel behavior or appearance out of the subatomic magic hat.
APE: This magical explanation includes the fact that all words and phsical things have images and thus are intrinsically imagical or magical.
PG:
This defies logic, for what else is there,
APE: This defies logic only when the premise is defective. This fulfills logic because the axiom is effactive and affective, not to mention it is affectionate!
PG:
or what else arises from, the entity beyond it's constituent atoms and their interdepenent and interconnected interactions?
APE: In Love and in words and in life and in the brain, which last 2 are also words, the whole is always greater than and more interconnected than the sum and connection of their constituent parts.
What Mark A. Bedau deductively observes means inductively:

Because strong emergence is inherently and ontologically and thus logically possible from weakness, it is uncomfortably like magic only to those who hate any images and hate themselves and what they see as any images as themselves. How an irreducible but supervenient downward causal power arises is because, by definition, it is also automatically reducible, venient and upward, and so produces and can produce the aggregation of the micro-level potentialities and their macro-level kineticalities. Such causal powers are only quite unlike anything within our scientific ken only because we do not want to have and so do not have the ken to know that we have ken of something when we have ken of nothing.

This not only indicates how they will discomfort reasonable forms of materialism in Hate of the intangibe. Their excess mysteriousness, caused by the fact that there are none so uncomfortable and illegit as they who willnot be comforted nor want to be legit, will only over-heighten the traditional worry that emergence entails over-illegitimately getting not only something from nothing but also getting everything from mothing.

The upshot of this is that there is nothing special about brains in comparison to everything else in the universe in terms of its physical structure other than the words by which brains work and thus other than the fact that brains work by words and has the Right-brain/Left-brain structure and form that follows its Word-and-Sound Machine functions.

Neurons somehow create subjective experience by words and their opposites such as object and subject.
PG:
Eh, Me no speeka de Englesss? Correct away! Maybe one day I will, by God, learn how to write.
APE: You write well already. To take it to the higher and highest level by God is to love all your words and their opposites so you write everything(et) when you write nothing in Love and write doubly et when you write et!:) see Love's Labor Lost by Shakespeare: no writer writes nor is ready to write right until the pen of his brain is filled with the Ink of Love for all his words and their opposites.

[phenomenal_graffiti]

Ape:

Thanks for your response and your words of encouragement at the end. But you know me, where there's an issue to address in terms of the topic at hand, I can't resist. So forgive me for the "nitpicking" to follow....

PG:
Given we do not know if brains would continue to exist in some form if all brains everywhere ceased to function (and according to the secularmythology all consciousness everywhere ceases to exist), we cannot know if brains are physical.

APE: So since our brains do exist now and even after we cease to exist, our brains are physical which is why brain-autopsies are done.

Our brains exist "now" in phenomenal form within the experience of a particular conscious being. When phenomenal brains cease to function and are subject to autopsy, they are still (non-functioning) phenomenal brains within the experience of a particular being (the one performing the autopsy). This does not prove that brains are physical, as this requires that brains exist in the absence of all consciousness in the universe, not just one person.

We cannot, therefore, know if brains are physical, as a physical brain must be known without using one's consciousness to know it---a metaphysical impossibility.

As for the rest of the post, I don't think that words or language substitute for experience (or existence on a larger scale). Weak and Strong Emergence, then, is more correctly described in my first post above.

J.

[phenomenal_graffiti]

error repeat deleted

[kk23wong]

The Earth is a high level of lives.
Although her existence is different from all of us, it is rational and logical.
As I used to say, “Science cannot be fictional story”.

You have suggested many ideas without a clear thread to solve the problems.

Physical existence always comes first. Science already gives us an explanation.

Instead of producing funny cartoons, a REAL philosopher should be thinking of the myths of our world by rationality.

What will our world be if our philosophers are novel writers only?
Philosophers are CARTOONS only if they do not even have the courage to become realistic.

Instead of resisting science and technology, philosophers have to find other ways out.

Philosophers should be real.

Let us become real.

Teru Wong

[phenomenal_graffiti]

As I used to say, “Science cannot be fictional story”.

Neither is experience a fictional story. And science is based on experience.

You have suggested many ideas without a clear thread to solve the problems.

If the ideas cannot solve the problem, a clear thread certainly will not disspell the illusion of the physical.

What will our world be if our philosophers are novel writers only?
Philosophers are CARTOONS only if they do not even have the courage to become realistic.

True courage is to admit that the only thing that certainly exists is consciousness, not the physical.

Instead of resisting science and technology, philosophers have to find other ways out.

Philosophers should be real.

Let us become real.

Science and technology are subjective and experiential. The physical may not be.

Now THAT's becoming real...

J.