What's the location of the immaterial soul/mind?

This question is about dualism, so it can apply to the mind just as much as the soul, or spirit etc... It's about the general idea that there's a seperate part of ourselves that somehow communicates with our physical body.


Most people I've talked to..when I ask this question, they kinda laugh and say "it doesn't have a location, it's immaterial, it doesn't take up space bla bla bla" That makes sense, but if I stand 10 feet away from someone, are our minds 10 feet apart too?

If the mind is separate from the body, and at the same time with the body, doesn't this imply that it's able to move? Is your mind with you while you're sleeping, and at work?

If the mind can go from point A to point B just like our body, then doesn't it have to have a location to travel in? like a mind-wallet? :shrug:

 

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Your mind/soul/spirit is like a satellite transmission, it's everywhere, it's universal, infinite. Your brain can tune in to this mind/soul/spirit like a dreambox sat receiver. Depending on you as a person, your history, experiences, attitudes etc chemical processes in your brain choose what channels to tune into and view on this universal dreambox. You are then deluded into thinking that because you experience whatever mind phenomena you experience that it's 'your mind/soul/spirit' creating this stuff, when in fact all the information is just floating in the ether and you're just picking it up (via the brain) and letting it influence your actions to whatever degree.

 

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But what differentiates one mind-soul-spirit from the next are personal stimuli and personal matters of attraction or repulsion, hence there's an element of identity involved. What's "identity", in your reference to the ether, but boundaries—some things are held at bay, others are sucked in. Now, isn't identity not also in the ether?

 

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In your brain.

 

Don't take this the wrong way, but this explanation is difficult to take serious, it sounds like the plotline to a sci-fi/fantasy movie. What I see here is a clever explanation but I don't see a logical argument, I don't see neurological facts..."chemicals in your brain" is beyond vague.

Ok, then how does your mind communicate with your brain? This question goes for both quotes.

 

Even if you are a materialist who believes matter creates mind, Where is your consciousness and what is your consciousness? Why do animals need a consciousness anyway? Robots could communicate with each other by facial expression an sounds without needing consciousness. Computers could be programmed to create more computer code without needing consciousness. I have a hunch that materialism is not the correct answer.

 

'Brain' is an idea drawn from the experiences of minds. We really can only be sure minds exist. If anything the question should be

how does the brain communicate with the mind?

We come up with this abstract idea - matter - out of phenomena - iow experiences - then for some reason we make this idea MORE REAL than phenomena/minds. Then we interrogate minds about how they affect brains.

 

Because of these two simple examples that I'm sure some here can relate to, consciousness cannot entirely be assured a strict confinement to the braincase—something juts out, reaches out.

We've all experienced the feeling of being watched, only to turn around and find that someone indeed was standing there staring at us.

Or what about those unambiguous vibes flowing like coarse velvet between two individuals across a crowded room? But before the hormones are released upon a visual stimuli, who initiates the attraction, who complies?

 

When I said brain, I meant the squishy thing between our ears, not some abstract idea, I was speaking of the brain in medical terms. Looking back, my question wasn't as direct as it should of been, because the issue I was hinting at was the fact that communication between immaterial and material objects is illogical, and impossible. Many people believe in the mind, but when you ask the simple question "how" as in, how do they transfer information, there are many contradictions.

For an immaterial object to communicate with a material object, the immaterial would have to create energy, and transfer this into the material object. If that's the case, at what point in the human brain is unexplained energy entering and causing influence? If we had a mind/soul/whatever, there would have to be some detectable incoming information that appears to come from "nowhere" into our bodies. So, that's what my question was getting at, how is it possible for the immaterial mind to communicate with the material brain.

My response really wouldn't do cognitive neuroscience any justice, I simply don't know enough, and what I do know, I'm not very familiar with. The following thread has a great discussion about the materialism vs dualism.

http://sciforums.com/showthread.php?t=103558

 

DMT = Soul in my opinion.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dimethyltryptamine

 

yeah, but that is an abstract idea. When we refer to brains, we refer to a huge number of experiences, both our own and those we read about. Even the idea of the brain as a separate thing is an abstraction.

I'm not really a dualist, but whatever people have meant by immaterial may not have been at root a dualism. Now we consider neutrinos and EM fields and massless particles and invisible waves material. I think there is a language issue here. I would guess that many non-scientists, when defending their idea of an immaterial soul, probably do not realize the qualities of 'things' already included in the category 'material' or 'physical.'

Also, and part of the point of my first response, this idea of 'material' - which is usually taken to mean solid objects in most discussions - is an idea based on experiences. Experiences that are not material. At least the experiences are not like solid objects.

And again. Brain is a concept taken out of the experiences of minds - which may be brains, even only, but it is important to notice that we could only construct this idea of a brain - or any other 'object' or material thing by reifying experiences or phenomena (experienced phenomena).

 

And therein of course, lies the problem.
In particular, the OP is dangerously unclear: if we're to discuss this "immaterial" object, we must at least work with some sort of definition. Sadly, the OP lacks such...

 

I'm a bit confused here, every time I've said the word brain, I used it as nothing more than the medical definition of the object. I don't understand how you're drawing so much from a word I used in a very specific way.

If you could explain how "Brain: the part of the central nervous system enclosed in the cranium of humans and other vertebrates, consisting of a soft, convoluted mass of gray and white matter and serving to control and coordinate the mental and physical actions." translates into what you've said in the above quote, I'd appreciate it. Either we're having a communication problem or I don't understand the medical term "brain".

I haven't done extensive reserach into dualism, but is it possible to be a dualist without also believing in the immaterial? If a dualist believes the mind(soul/spirit/whatever) isn't immaterial, then they might as well be a materialist as far as the "self" is concerned.

Experience can demonstrate itself as a word, a thought, or an action, aren't all of these things material? Making experience material as well, unless there's something I'm missing.

 

An "immaterial object" can be imagined to be anywhere as it is not detectable anywhere. Personally I tend to think each soul is astride a unicorn, but if you prefer it could be in your big toe.

 

I've been mia for some time, but I've been doing some of my own soul-searching.

Coincidentally (ironic I use that word since I actually don't believe that anything is a coincidence these days), I just happened to come on these forums with the notion of mind and matter and where human consciousness is. In my personal research... I've been leaning towards the idea that the human mind lies in a metaphysical realm outside of the physical location of our brain.

I know that sounds a bit far fetched... but it seems a bit closed-minded to attribute every existing possibility and distribution of energies within the physics of our known universe. The energy to create ideas and self-motivate, may not just lie within the biochemical compositions of our physiological characteristics, which can greatly influence a person's disposition but does not necessarily limit it to just that; I strongly believe that there is a connection to another realm that we aren't able to explain, which may help explain psychological phenomena like being on the "same wavelength" or "train of thought" to other possible "coincidences" in daily situations. Being able to sense what others feel, or think, without directly conveying it through verbal or body language.

Anyways... just thought I'd ramble about that.

 

Coincidentally (ha) I too reached a similar conjecture.

My vision is of a "human" psychic field—not unlike the collective unconsciousness as proposed by Jung. However, Jung's idea of the collective unconsciousness is biological, as something rendered through the "legacy of genetics", the hereditary traits of DNA. My vision, though, is more absurd and less practical but metaphysical in nature, as it describes not a species but points instead to a local cosmic entity.

 

It is a philosophy of language issue. All empirical knowledge is based on experiences. All words used to describe these experiences are experientially based. What we mean when we say things is a shorthand for a lot of experiences. Words are not things at least not the ones they refer to.

Matter is a reification experiences. Any particular example of an object is a reification of experiences.

In a sense you are agreeing with me here. But the word materialist is really misleading, for the reasons I listed. I am saying the issue may be a shame one. We may find that portions of 'us' are what scientists call material, but these portions may have nothing in common with chairs and billiard balls except that they can be detected.

Again, material is a problematic word. If you derive an idea from experience and call this material, it is strange to them say that this idea which is only a portion of experience - in the subject object split - is the substance whose qualities accurately describe what it is a subset of.

Let me see if we can simplify this. We have experiences. Some of these we choose gather and label this or that object. In this case 'the brain'. Given that brains, so far as we know, are solid and liquid - with some gas interspersed in there - we associate brains with those portions of our experiences having to do with other experiences we have gathered together - rocks, trees, etc. We call these things material based on qualites we found IN OUR OWN EXPERIENCES. One problem with this is we have kept a word, matter, to cover things that experientially have nothing to do with what we meant with matter before: fields, massless particles, energy...etc. Still this is matter, for some reason: habit, tradition, not confronting the issue.....

To say a brain is matter means very little. Anything we detect we will call matter, even if it has nothing in common with what that word once meant. So saying the brain is matter really means we detected things, and since what we detect is matter, the brain is matter. We don't know what else we have not detected and while this may not seem like matter at first, it will get subsumed under the word matter.

Experience itself cannot be subsumed under matter, not yet at least, since it is that huge set, out of which a portion has been labelled matter.

 

Medical terms tend ignore philosophy of language. At some point you have to move past your own personal view of words and language and accept the text-book definition of certain words/objects. I mean..you do this with every single word you type, I'm confused as to why this one word is an issue while we use hundreds of words to talk about it. I understand what you're saying, words aren't the things they represent, but if anybody lived their entire life questioning every single word til they were at least 99% satisfied with their interpretation of the meaning, they would get nowhere. Sometimes you're better off simply accepting meaning, especially with something as well doccumented as the human brain.

I doubt a brain surgeon would view it that way. What I mean is, I've clearly defined what a brain is, the definition is outside of philosophy and interpretation, if your philosophy of words doesn't allow you to accept a text-book medical definition for a known object, then how can you accept any other word I've used til now, just seems like a bit of a contradiction. I fail to see the problem with accepting that, as far as we know, the brain is an object in our skull, you haven't presented evidence that says otherwise.

I'm not seeing your method for drawing the line between words that are fine to use, and words that are misleading because they were built on experience...aren't all words created from experience? And at some point, don't you have to simply accept your current understanding of a word til it's been proven false?

So ideas about material objects aren't the same as the material object itself? If ideas are material..which I believe they are, then I fail to see how what you've said here proves material is a problematic word. I can't store a car in my head, only my interpretation of that car in the form of thoughts and memories. Obviously these thoughts/memories aren't that car, but that's the nature of observing and retaining information. Basically, we have no other method of gathering experience than through the inaccurate interpretation of our environment, it's not perfect, but our options are limited.

Ok, so matter was once used to describe rocks and trees, and as we've grown more advanced, the word has been used to describe things that aren't like rocks and trees. Just making sure I'm understanding you correctly.

But this brings me back to something I said previously. If we can agree that material and immaterial are two different states, then I'm sure we can agree that immaterial is the state of not being made of matter. Like I said previously, the nature of immaterial and material objects makes them incompatable. For example, lets say ghosts are real, there's nothing about the anatomy of the human ear that suggests we could hear a ghost talk to us. There's nothing about the nature of an immaterial ghost that suggests they would be able to create sound. Basically, if ghosts were real, there would be no logical method for detecting them with our material senses. I believe all immaterial/material interactions are impossible for that reason, there is no logical way to explain immaterial interaction with the material world. Which is why I choose to believe there is nothing immaterial(not made of matter).

That being said, anything that has the potential to be observed...in my opinion, is matter. And yes, I understand this brings us back around in one giant circle of experience...but like I said before, what do we have besides experience? It's not perfect, but it's all we've got, this is why we created the empirical method. To discredit something because it's based on the only information-gathering method we have just seems self-defeating, or, at least counterproductive.

To combine several things I've said before, if immaterial and material objects truly are incompatable, then it's safe to say that everything that will ever be detected is matter.

Unless you've alraedy mentioned it, and I didn't understand.. Under what circumstances is experience NOT matter?

Wouldn't it be easier to simply accept coincidenes for what they are? two random possible outcomes happening in a similar way, or at the same time. Instaed of believing in metaphysical realms and souls. Creation of ideas and self-motivation have been proven to take place in the brain, so I'm not sure how that counts as an argument for a soul or alternate realm.

 

and ...

Your position constitutes an attack on the universality of physicalism. Does physicalism have limitations and where can these limitations be demonstrated? If dualism is true, say at least in appearance, then can physicalism explain consciousness, else can spiritualism explain the lawful aspects of the physical?

The test is for physicalism to explain awareness on the one hand, and will to act on the other. On what basis do I decide to raise my hand, and how do I initiate that action?

Seems to me that it might be easier for the spiritualist to develop both aspects of reality from a non-material basis than the other way around. The logic of physicalism, such as the laws of conservation, limit the scope of what is physically possible. While next to nothing is known of the spiritual, it is also unbounded.

 

See: http://www.sciforums.com/showpost.php?p=2227485&postcount=1 and post 8 & 62.

Point being that parts of your brain you have no direct contact with (knowledge of their actions) make these types of decision many seconds before you think "you decided."

Title of that linked thread is something like: "You will be the last to know." (What the decision is.) You only erroneously think you consciously decided - in fact seconds before you think that, external monitors can tell that your brain has decided.