The Mind and the Brain

[perplexis]

be careful with the connotations of 'God.'

why do you think we have conscience?

Sorry- what is that even supposed to mean? You're using the term "god" to explain stuff you don't understand. Fair enough if that satisfies you, but it doesn't make it the correct explanation, nor even a functional one. Irrespective of the meaning imposed on the word.

Conscience has fuck all to do with any divine power, it arises out of our evolutionary trajectory as social animals.
The fact that we [believe we] have insight into our motivation in social scenarii is a manifestation of consciousness combined with the fact of having social cognition.

 

[perplexis]

We really need to define some terms. Should have been done in the OP otherwise the conversation is going to get horrifically sidetracked by petty semantic wibblery.

 

[xes]

The brain is physical,and the mind is non physical,which kind of does mean that they're seperate.

Wether concsiousness is a result of brain activity,or the brain is just a tool of the mind is a strange one. I mean,they now know that the heart has a functioning brain,it's much much smaller than the head brain,but as the heart starts beating before the brain starts functioning in the womb,then maybe our conciousness is a result of the hearts brain,and not the main brain.

The brain in the heart:
After extensive research, Armour (1994) introduced the concept of
functional ‘heart brain’. His work revealed that the heart has a complex intrinsic
nervous system that is sufficiently sophisticated to qualify as a ‘little brain’ in its
own right. The heart’s brain is an intricate network of several types of neurons,
neurotransmitters, proteins and support cells similar to those found in the brain
proper. Its elaborate circuitry enables it to act independently of the cranial brain –
to learn, remember, and even feel and sense. The heart’s nervous system
contains around 40,000 neurons, called sensory neurites (Armour, 1991).
Information from the heart - including feeling sensations - is sent to the brain
through several afferents. These afferent nerve pathways enter the brain at the
area of the medulla, and cascade up into the higher centres of the brain, where
they may influence perception, decision making and other cognitive processes
(Armour, 2004).
Thus, it was revealed that the heart has its own intrinsic nervous system
that operates and processes information independently of the brain or nervous
system. This is what allows a heart transplant to work. Normally, the heart
communicates with the brain via nerve fibres running through the vagus nerve
and the spinal column. In a heart transplant, these nerve connections do not
reconnect for an extended period of time; in the meantime, the transplanted heart
is able to function in its new host only through the capacity of its intact, intrinsic
nervous system (Murphy, et al, 2000)

http://www.rcpsych.ac.uk/pdf/Heart, Mind and Spirit Mohamed Salem.pdf

 

[perplexis]

to improve our chance of surviving? i think its flawed because of the remose and guilt we feel over killing things. The animal kingdom needs to survive like us, and conscience isnt key to their survival.

Lots of evolutionarily useful things can be maladaptive in other circumstances. Like sickle-cell anaemia.

 

[mrsfran]

Before we get any further, Cheesy can you please make sure you're aware that this thread is not discussing conscience, but consciousness. Two entirely different things. This thread is not about conscience - ie, feeling guilt, remorse, etc. It is about consciousness - ie. being aware, possibly be self-aware. Are you sure you understand the difference?

 

[Jonti]

In order to have a conscience, one must first be conscious ... it makes sense to focus on the topic of the thread, rather than to get ahead of ourselves

 

[kyser_soze]

to improve our chance of surviving? i think its flawed because of the remose and guilt we feel over killing things. The animal kingdom needs to survive like us, and conscience isnt key to their survival.

You can't survive without engaging with other members of the human species. In order to do so effectively, you need to be able to empathise with them. Conscience is part of this - you seem to think survival=killing things, which is partly true, but only partly true. Cooperative hunting relies on working together to achieve a shared goal; if you're injured your fellows will still provide for you because when you are well you will once again be able to help provide for them and yourself.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

to improve our chance of surviving? i think its flawed because of the remose and guilt we feel over killing things. The animal kingdom needs to survive like us, and conscience isnt key to their survival.

Anatomically modern humans have been around for at least 200,000 years. Our physical evolution since then has included the creation of races and other fairly superficial variations, but our intellectual abilities have remained mostly unchanged (in fact, our brain size has gone down a little from its peak - brains are expensive, and it seems the most brainy of our ancestors just needed too much food when times were hard to keep their heads going).

What this means is that the change in humans over this time has been entirely due to an accumulation of culture. The socialisation of the group is a largely culturally inherited trait. Hence the wide variation by culture of notions of right and wrong. There is nothing god-given about this. It is society-given, and society-specific.

As for your separation of humans from the rest of the animal kingdom, there is a huge thread on this already, but suffice to say that concepts such as guilt and remorse are most certainly not confined to human beings, and they serve exactly the same purpose of social cohesion within groups of other social animals which have undergone a degree of what you might term 'cultural evolution'.

 

[Santino]

The brain is physical,and the mind is non physical,which kind of does mean that they're seperate.

Wether concsiousness is a result of brain activity,or the brain is just a tool of the mind is a strange one. I mean,they now know that the heart has a functioning brain,it's much much smaller than the head brain,but as the heart starts beating before the brain starts functioning in the womb,then maybe our conciousness is a result of the hearts brain,and not the main brain.

If you have a heart transplant you still have the same mind the next day.

The key thing that leads people into error is the distinction you make at the very beginning of your post. If you set out with the assumption that the mind is not physical of course you're going to run into difficulties understanding how the mind and brain relate.

 

[perplexis]

Before we get any further, Cheesy can you please make sure you're aware that this thread is not discussing conscience, but consciousness. Two entirely different things. This thread is not about conscience - ie, feeling guilt, remorse, etc. It is about consciousness - ie. being aware, possibly be self-aware. Are you sure you understand the difference?

This is precisely why we need to define our terms!
Awareness shouldn't be conflated with consciousness, the two must be carefully distinguished.
Animals can be said to be aware of stimuli if they orient to them or respond to them, but it doesn't mean they are conscious in the way we're discussing here.
Awareness is a prerequisite of consciousness.

 

[xes]

If you have a heart transplant you still have the same mind the next day.

The key thing that leads people into error is the distinction you make at the very beginning of your post. If you set out with the assumption that the mind is not physical of course you're going to run into difficulties understanding how the mind and brain relate.

but consciousness isn't physical. My thoughts aren't physical,they may have a physical side to them (little electro signals in the brain) but they're controlled by me,by my metaphysical mind. *stamps feet*

And maybe our consciousness starts in the heart brain,and then jumps into the cranial brain once it's ready.

 

[perplexis]

but consciousness isn't physical. My thoughts aren't physical,they may have a physical side to them (little electro signals in the brain) but they're controlled by me,by my metaphysical mind. *stamps feet*

If this were absolutely true, then drugs wouldn't have reproducible effects, and all forms of counselling and therapy would fail.
edit: sorry I think I misunderstood your post!
-- you're arguing for a supra-ordinate governing "entity" or process that you think of as consciousness. This is kind of fair enough, but it calls for arguments of infinite regress. As soon as you invoke something above the brain to apprehend it you need something beyond that etc.

 

[Jonti]

but consciousness isn't physical. My thoughts aren't physical,they may have a physical side to them ...

Well, the question is then, what sort of physical thing is happening that gives rise to your awareness of sensation or thoughts or whatever?

 

[Santino]

but consciousness isn't physical.

What basis do you have for saying this?

If you start with the axiom that the mind is non-physical, you will - quelle surprise - conclude that consciousness is not physical.

Start from the beginning and demonstrate what fact about the mind warrants putting it into a different category from the rest of the universe. Just asserting that the mind is not physical is not an argument.

 

[xes]

If this were absolutely true, then drugs wouldn't have reproducible effects, and all forms of counselling and therapy would fail.

well,I'm not stating it as absolutly true,cos I know rather little about it. But I don't see how it would effect counselling The mind and brain,whilst i think they're seperate,work together on both a physical and non physical way. (of course,this is just my opinion,as it's still an open debate)

 

[xes]

Start from the beginning and demonstrate what fact about the mind warrants putting it into a different category from the rest of the universe. Just asserting that the mind is not physical is not an argument.

but you're assuming that the entire universe is physical. I don't think it is,there are many dimensions,we just percieve 3 of them because that's how our brains/minds let us view it.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

The problem with the term consciousness is that in its modern 'god-free' form, it is possibly only a few thousand years old. It is quite possible to act and interact, to acquire language even, with a very different sense of awareness from the self-reflecting language-based unified 'I' that most of us have developed.

Just as it is tempting to think of non-linguistic thinking as not really thinking, it is also a mistake to think of other kinds of feedback loops as less valid than our particular version. Autistic people are an interesting example of this. Temple Grandin, who thinks in pictures rather than words, believes that her autistic mind is closer to the minds of other mammals than to those of non-autistic humans. This doesn't stop her from being a successful biologist and writing books.

 

[xes]

Well, the question is then, what sort of physical thing is happening that gives rise to your awareness of sensation or thoughts or whatever?

I dunno

They work together,like 2 well oiled cogs. Or something.

 

[xes]

I just thought of another thing that could suggest that the mind and brain are seperate. Memory. How much information can 1 brain store,is it like a hard drive where it fills up,or is it endless. If it's endless,the ammount of information we can store in our mind/brain/sock drawer. Then it could suggest that it's not being stored in the physical brain.

 

[Santino]

but you're assuming that the entire universe is physical. I don't think it is,there are many dimensions,we just percieve 3 of them because that's how our brains/minds let us view it.

There could exist something that is not physical, but it would ispo facto be irrelevant because it could not affect us or be affected by us in any way.

Also, the idea that there are many more dimensions than the 3 we experience is extremely far from being an established fact, and many would dispute that it is even a meaningful theory.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

I just thought of another thing that could suggest that the mind and brain are seperate. Memory. How much information can 1 brain store,is it like a hard drive where it fills up,or is it endless. If it's endless,the ammount of information we can store in our mind/brain/sock drawer. Then it could suggest that it's not being stored in the physical brain.

I think the best argument against this is the range of brain injury/disease that can destroy any of the facets that make up our sense of identity – memory, emotion, personality, the ability to make a decision, etc. These are all physically based, and all you need to do is destroy a part of the brain to show it.

 

[kyser_soze]

No one really knows if the brain remembers everything we ever do/see/hear/feel etc, or if it remembers very little and actually constructs the things we call 'memories' from related chunks - kinda like an MP4 file, which only stores the bits of a picture that move.

There is a theoretical limit to the amount of information you can store in any given volume

Although we'd all like Moore's Law to continue forever, quantum mechanics imposes some fundamental limits on the computation rate and information capacity of any physical device. In particular, it has been shown that 1 kilogram of matter confined to 1 litre of space can perform at most 1051 operations per second on at most 1031 bits of information.

 

[xes]

There could exist something that is not physical, but it would ispo facto be irrelevant because it could not affect us or be affected by us in any way.

If we're operating in the same space as these dimensions (should they exist) then it's a possibility.

I think the best argument against this is the range of brain injury/disease that can destroy any of the facets that make up our sense of identity – memory, emotion, personality, the ability to make a decision, etc. These are all physically based, and all you need to do is destroy a part of the brain to show it.

Yes,but all that shows is the physical the brain,controls our physical body. The mind can still be viewed as seperate even with this model of thought.

 

[perplexis]

I just thought of another thing that could suggest that the mind and brain are seperate. Memory. How much information can 1 brain store,is it like a hard drive where it fills up,or is it endless. If it's endless,the ammount of information we can store in our mind/brain/sock drawer. Then it could suggest that it's not being stored in the physical brain.

There's not really an answer to how much info can the brain store.
Crudely there are two ways information can be stored
1) individual neurons can represent memories
2) neural assemblies can represent memories
In the case of 1) then this is necessarily limited by the number of neurons in the brain, of which only a portion can realistically be given over to memories.
However, in the case of 2) the number is countless. There are estimated to be about 100billion neurons in the brain and even more glial ("supporting") cells. There's not really any theoretical limit to how they can be assembled. If you think of memories as needing to be individually represented in separate networks you can probably estimate how many networks are feasible, but if you consider that memories may be composed of sets of overlapping networks that represent sub-concepts of a memory then it's getting hard to even conceive of how you'd estimate it.
Just to further complicate matters, we need to remember that the brain is constantly building, strengthening and pruning connections, and by doing so altering the neural assemblages that can represent ideas, concepts, memories, etc.
And yet further complications come from the fact that there is some very recent evidence that suggests that the glial cells, which were previously thought to subserve a very basic function of holding the neurons together and providing a little metabolic support, can actually transmit action potentials (nerve impulses), which massively increases the interconnectedness of the already massively interconnected system.

So, um, basically, no we're not using some kind of outside-the-brain storage system for our many memories.
edit: but it's not infinite, obviously, because the brain is of finite volume

 

[xes]

There's not really an answer to how much info can the brain store.
Crudely there are two ways information can be stored
1) individual neurons can represent memories
2) neural assemblies can represent memories
In the case of 1) then this is necessarily limited by the number of neurons in the brain, of which only a portion can realistically be given over to memories.
However, in the case of 2) the number is countless. There are estimated to be about 100billion neurons in the brain and even more glial ("supporting") cells. There's not really any theoretical limit to how they can be assembled. If you think of memories as needing to be individually represented in separate networks you can probably estimate how many networks are feasible, but if you consider that memories may be composed of sets of overlapping networks that represent sub-concepts of a memory then it's getting hard to even conceive of how you'd estimate it.
Just to further complicate matters, we need to remember that the brain is constantly building, strengthening and pruning connections, and by doing so altering the neural assemblages that can represent ideas, concepts, memories, etc.
And yet further complications come from the fact that there is some very recent evidence that suggests that the glial cells, which were previously thought to subserve a very basic function of holding the neurons together and providing a little metabolic support, can actually transmit action potentials (nerve impulses), which massively increases the interconnectedness of the already massively interconnected system.

So, um, basically, no we're not using some kind of outside-the-brain storage system for our many memories.

maybe,all the information of the universe is allready in our brains. But only when we learn something/read something/be taught something at school do we "remember" it.

[/wild brain fart]

 

[littlebabyjesus]

Yes,but all that shows is the physical the brain,controls our physical body. The mind can still be viewed as seperate even with this model of thought.

It can still be viewed as separate if you wish, but this does not produce any interesting results. If you wish to study the mind/brain, you normally need to set to one side the so-called hard problem of consciousness – how qualia (our subjective experiences) are produced. Considering the mind as mystically separate is merely a block to further understanding.

 

[xes]

I don't consider it to be mystical at all,perfectly natural.

And how can you canst aside the so-called hard problem of consciousness,when studying the mind/brain. Surely that's going to effect the results. I mean,if you completly ignore something,which could have effects on what you're studying,then you're going to end up with results that would prehaps differ if you included them. (IYSWIM)

 

[weltweit]

I just thought of another thing that could suggest that the mind and brain are seperate. Memory. How much information can 1 brain store,is it like a hard drive where it fills up,or is it endless. If it's endless,the ammount of information we can store in our mind/brain/sock drawer. Then it could suggest that it's not being stored in the physical brain.

I am pretty sure that the brain can become full so that if you stuff more into it some of the stuff that was already inside just gets displaced.

At least that came to me in a moment of clarity

Some people have noticeably better ability to retain information than others, look at University Challenge peeps .. bags of normally useless data they retain and can access seemingly when they want to .. not everybody can do this.

 

[perplexis]

maybe,all the information of the universe is allready in our brains. But only when we learn something/read something/be taught something at school do we "remember" it.

[/wild brain fart]

Maybe. But not if the universe is infinite.
Although I'm not sure what good it would do us...
To some extent, given the right set of tools it could be argued that all of the information in the universe is in our brains, in the same way that with the correct application of physics and massive particle accelerators we can potentially answer questions about the universe.
But then, it's only the information contained in the matter of the brain, rather than the structure or function of the brain that would yield that. And it would be equally true of records. or cabbages. or poo.

 

[Santino]

If we're operating in the same space as these dimensions (should they exist) then it's a possibility.

If they could affect us, if we could perceive them - they would be part of the physical universe. Even the idea of something occupying a space means you're thinking about it in physical terms.