The Mind vs. Brain debate

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What If Consciousness Comes First?

An excellent article that asks good questions. The stand out statement in it is this:

The key to resolving the hard problem of consciousness lies in the following observation. While physical properties cannot explain consciousness, consciousness is needed to explain physical properties.

Take a moment to read the article and give your thoughts.
 
I love this topic because I think it is central to everything happening in the physical world. I copied this small excerpt from the article :
if the universe is to actually exist, its properties can’t be exclusively relational/dispositional. Something in the universe has to have some kind of quality in and of itself to give all the other relational/dispositional properties any meaning. Something has to get the ball rolling.​

That something (at least in our universe) is consciousness.​
I think God is the leaven that started the consciousness of exIstence. Weather we had a realization of self prior to being born I don’t know. I tend to believe so. But we all are aware after birth for sure. I personally believe in the non locality of consciousness. NDEs and OBEs would attest to this. The blind being able to see during these experiences. I think our mind is the robot activated by a non local soul or consciousness.
 
I think... that, "in Mind,Body&Spirit" refer to this... Mind being us aware and thinking, Body being the brain itself, and Spirit would be the Consciousness part of ourselves, our Soul.
The Mind to me is what involved the unconscious as well and the conscious state and to be aware and make decisions, it connects with Enlightment and God. It takes in account the consciousness or Soul and tells the Brain how to act.
The Brain is the biological connections that helps us translate and make in action the Mind; i think the brain can be plastic and repair itself but it can have limits; example people that have physical disabilities or brain injuries, can have a great Mind but have troubles expressing their thoughts speaking, making it very frustrating, because their Brain have limit compare to their Mind.
Consciousness is maybe not always aware and has no limits, our Soul.
This is very quick how I see i personally.
 
Okay, whoa! So I’ve barely gotten into the article and want to post. Reading that second paragraph which begins with “The problem is that there could conceivably be brains that perform all the same sensory and decision-making functions as ours but in which there is no conscious experience” really gave me a shiver.

I finished reading but almost did not want to because each sentence in that paragraph reinforced my recall of the recent movie named, “Us”. That movie had the most unique and relevant (to that specific paragraph) premise. I can only say, “Sh*t!” I can imagine many people who would not be into the violence of that movie but damn it has a great premise and Twilight Zone like twist which could have been born right out of that one paragraph.

If you’re interested in the movie but don’t want to see most of the scenes of violence, then just watch the beginning of the movie up to the point where the first chase scene starts - you’ll know the point to pause when the main character tells her daughter to “Put on your shoes and run!”. Then fast forward to see the last 15-20 minutes of the movie. There is one meaningful violent scene there near the end but damn what a premise it helps to reveal.
 
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What If Consciousness Comes First?

An excellent article that asks good questions. The stand out statement in it is this:

The key to resolving the hard problem of consciousness lies in the following observation. While physical properties cannot explain consciousness, consciousness is needed to explain physical properties.

Take a moment to read the article and give your thoughts.
ohhhhh that is a GOOD one!
 
Interesting analogy WitchAndShaman...i didn't see the movie and only checked the plot since you mentioned it...it gave me shivers just to read it...like the characters would be with consciousness, but their self unmasked ones, would be without consciousness ... !!!
I wonder what the director of the movie wanted to illustrated...but to me, it sounds like a fight against one's self if we didn't had consciousness indeed...or our conscience (right and wrong) fighting itself between right and wrong in our head...fighting it own self... and others we love ...
or a person possessed enough with hallucinations, to started to see enemies or attackers as their own loved ones...
 
Interesting analogy WitchAndShaman...i didn't see the movie and only checked the plot since you mentioned it...it gave me shivers just to read it...like the characters would be with consciousness, but their self unmasked ones, would be without consciousness ... !!!
I wonder what the director of the movie wanted to illustrated...but to me, it sounds like a fight against one's self if we didn't had consciousness indeed...or our conscience (right and wrong) fighting itself between right and wrong in our head...fighting it own self... and others we love ...
or a person possessed enough with hallucinations, to started to see enemies or attackers as their own loved ones...

You’ve almost got the premise of the movie right Phoenix. It’s only a little more twisted but close enough. I honestly did not think that reveal of this movie would strike me (because I read reviews before watching) it...but it did. It is surprisingly like that sentence I quoted. I could not help while reading that sentence but think back to Us.
 
A few thoughts on the nature of consciousness, and the mind vs. brain debate. The following are some examples of the properties and qualities of conscious awareness, of mind. They are all completely immaterial:

- intentionality - the quality of directing toward achieving an object
- aboutness: being about something
- this object of aboutness may be totally immaterial as in abstract thought, i.e. a thought about the number pi
- having meaning
- subjectivity
- qualities of subjective awareness - qualia: i.e. blueness, redness, loudness, softness

What are the properties of the physical biological/neurological phenomena (the workings of the neurons of the brain) that materialists try to claim are one and the same as consciousness? These are the parameters of the physical space/time/matter/energy continuum, all those things that are measurable and investigatable by science, including forces, field strengths, masses, charges, velocities, positions etc. All of these amount to "things" of some sort, not thoughts.

The properties of mental phenomena such as the examples given can't be derived from the properties of ultimately physical phenomena. They are in entirely different existential realms, and mental phenomena can't be measured and experimentally investigated by science. All neuroscience can do is measure phenomena that are correlates to consciousness, like brain electrical fields and cerebral blood oxygenation levels (using FMRI techniques). Correlation is not causation.

Materialist neuroscience believes and assumes that consciousness is some sort of epiphenomenal illusion, where what it is that is experiencing this illusion is conveniently undefined. But consciousness can't be a powerless epiphenomenon because consciousness obviously has causative power in the world. To say this is just "emergence" (as they like to do) is just to evoke a buzzword for another mysterious miracle.

I think interactive dualism is the most viable mind-body theory. Two fundamentally different continua in which the properties of conscious awareness are in an entirely different existential realm than the properties of matter, energy, space and time. But interaction is still permitted in certain ways, in particular in the interfacing of mind with the material world via complex brains. The clincher is that interactive dualism is also much more in accordance with the empirical evidence of psychical and paranormal research in areas like NDEs, reincarnation and mediumistic communications.

The best metaphor or simile would be the TV set analogy. The TV set interfaces between the immaterial electromagnetic waves carrying the picture information, and the physical display. The TV is essential for the manifestation of the TV show in the physical world, and disruption of its various component parts will distort or destroy that displayed picture, but the TV set does not actually generate the displayed program. Any more than the brain generates consciousness.
 
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The best metaphor or simile would be the TV set analogy. The TV set interfaces between the immaterial electromagnetic waves carrying the picture information, and the physical display. The TV is essential for the manifestation of the TV show in the physical world, and disruption of its various component parts will distort or destroy that displayed picture, but the TV set does not actually generate the displayed program. Any more than the brain generates consciousness.
^^^^THAT. Been my theory for many years. Thank you for the lovely metaphor. Works very well. I've always used the radio as an example but the TV works better to include the visual.
 
A few thoughts on the nature of consciousness, and the mind vs. brain debate. The following are some examples of the properties and qualities of conscious awareness, of mind. They are all completely immaterial:

- intentionality - the quality of directing toward achieving an object
- aboutness: being about something
- this object of aboutness may be totally immaterial as in abstract thought, i.e. a thought about the number pi
- having meaning
- subjectivity
- qualities of subjective awareness - qualia: i.e. blueness, redness, loudness, softness

What are the properties of the physical biological/neurological phenomena (the workings of the neurons of the brain) that materialists try to claim are one and the same as consciousness? These are the parameters of the physical space/time/matter/energy continuum, all those things that are measurable and investigatable by science, including forces, field strengths, masses, charges, velocities, positions etc. All of these amount to "things" of some sort, not thoughts.

The properties of mental phenomena such as the examples given can't be derived from the properties of ultimately physical phenomena. They are in entirely different existential realms, and mental phenomena can't be measured and experimentally investigated by science. All neuroscience can do is measure phenomena that are correlates to consciousness, like brain electrical fields and cerebral blood oxygenation levels (using FMRI techniques). Correlation is not causation.

Materialist neuroscience believes and assumes that consciousness is some sort of epiphenomenal illusion, where what it is that is experiencing this illusion is conveniently undefined. But consciousness can't be a powerless epiphenomenon because consciousness obviously has causative power in the world. To say this is just "emergence" (as they like to do) is just to evoke a buzzword for another mysterious miracle.

I think interactive dualism is the most viable mind-body theory. Two fundamentally different continua in which the properties of conscious awareness are in an entirely different existential realm than the properties of matter, energy, space and time. But interaction is still permitted in certain ways, in particular in the interfacing of mind with the material world via complex brains. The clincher is that interactive dualism is also much more in accordance with the empirical evidence of psychical and paranormal research in areas like NDEs, reincarnation and mediumistic communications.

The best metaphor or simile would be the TV set analogy. The TV set interfaces between the immaterial electromagnetic waves carrying the picture information, and the physical display. The TV is essential for the manifestation of the TV show in the physical world, and disruption of its various component parts will distort or destroy that displayed picture, but the TV set does not actually generate the displayed program. Any more than the brain generates consciousness.
beautifully said!!! I will remember that,David L.M