This thread intends to understand the realms of philosophy using its core element: Thinking. Here is the thread that raised my quest: http://www.sciforums.com/showthread.php?t=101885 However, you don't have to necessarily go through above thread as I will try to formulate my points in here: Philosophy deals with concepts and thinking methods on concepts (this is a rough definition I must admit). Deducing some results or conclusions out of philosophy is not even necessary. Yet objects themselves are not -and can not be- the subject to philosophy. That's what French philosopher Foucault tried to illustrate when he said "This is not a pipe": Representation is the problem of philosophy, not the object itself; object (earth, pipe, etc.) is subject to natural sciences such as biology, physics. I hope this distinction is clear. Now let's go the second stage: How about brain, as an organic machine, illustrates these concepts? How do neurons works during this process? Do they use a mechanism of visualisation or literation? Above all, no matter which one is used, is it subject to philosophy? Does philosophy deal with how neurons work? Isn't this biological process a subject to some other realm, discipline or science other than philosophy? This is my question. In other way of saying, using the computer analogy, can we understand hardware mechanism of a computer using the understanding of software? Transistors sending and receiving signals, generating and translating signals can be explained through technology of electronics and related physical laws. Can we explain the software behind an operation system, a computer game, or data transfer between networks using the same explanations; or do we use some other methods such as C++, HTML, PHP, etc. type of software logic? In its simple form: Can philosophy question the hardware mechanism of the thinking process?
Contrary to popular belief I believe thought is something ulterior to any physiological process. I believe it is beyond any neuronal processes. A good analogy is vision. We use our eyes to see but what we experience as vision is independant of our eyes, its something our brains feed us to represent the information what our eyes are picking up. We experience this vision in our sleep when our eyes are closed so clearly it is not dependant on our eyes. I believe our thoughts are something beyond the human body but our body definitely profoundly influences it as can be seen when we take substances such as DMT or salvia. At the same time can we really be sure we enter these profound altered states as a result of taking these substances? How do we know the memory of taking these substances isn't just our brains way of providing us with an explanation of why we entered these profoundly different states, an explanation that fits into our belief system/model of reality? Although we can't directly observe this kinda thing like one can directly look at his own eyes by looking in the mirror, we can back engineer. Altered states seem to provide us an excellent medium for back engineering. Dreams, sleep deprivation, mind altering substances. Another tool available to the renegade ontologist is of course philosophy. The intentional implementation of altered belief systems. For example convince yourself that the universe was created by Thor as a training ground for us to become warriors worthy of assisting him in Ragnarock or whatever the hell the vikings used to believe. Watch how your whole perception of reality and yourself change by altering your belief system. This alteration of ones belief system may be superficial but effects do still follow. Using hypnosis we can truly implant beliefs on profound levels and as far as the brain is concerned this is truly what one believes and profound effects will follow. It appears beliefs are like commands for the brain. Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! I think your analogies are what we're up against. Trying to understand how a computer works by using the computer itself. Unless we detach ourselves from our fixed gaze on the computer screen and take the computer apart it seems to be an impossible task. We can certainly back engineer and discover many things that can give us hints as to the mechanisms of the software and even hardware but I don't think we can gain a complete understanding of thought using thought. An incomplete understanding is an understanding all the same though. Through back engineering we can learn things and gain knowledge that would be ordinarily inaccessable to the mind. Do you do any programming yourself? Learning to program gave me a fair bit of insight into how logic itself works and revealed lots of similarities between the use of logic to formulate mental concepts and the use of PHP (thats the only language I know) to formulate web applications.
In order to prevent any misunderstanding that would arise later on, we will go step by step: If thought is something ulterior ,"lying beneath or beyond what is revealed", to any physiological process, this is something what popular belief think about thought and mind; that's how they give mysticism to the "soul". Also one of the main problem of this thread is to question where or how can we start this very "separation", dichotomy? And here is the second most important point if we want to develop some insight to this issue: What we "believe" or "don't believe" will not do any good if we can not support it with evidence. This is a very good starting point indeed. At least eyes, not being more than a limited organic cameras, provide an accurate example for the division between physical activity and its representation on mind level. You may be right, visual perception of brain is not dependent on eyes. If eye doesn't provide a material to visualise, what will brain use to visualise? We all born with hardware to analyse what we see, just as we born with an ability to speak. However, this machine will not produce anything if it does not get any input. That's why I prefer to use computer analogy: Think about a hardware which is capable of store and process certain software. You can built such an hardware, but if you don't install any software, plugging it to the electricity will not produce you any activity. Let's stick to your vision/eye analogy: Bees, falcons or many other creatures are also have capacity to see as well as some inner hardware to process what their organic cameras can see. Yet none of these creatures has similar type of eye organ or similar type of vision as we have: Their inner vision process mechanism have evolved according to the capacity of their eyes. Here comes the importance of your point: "our body definitely profoundly influences it". If we pursue this interdependency for other mind/body activities, we will find correlations. This sounds a bit like "Who is the real boss?" question. Before we enter the realm of substances, we must remind ourselves that our brain already producing (to be more precise: it commands body to produce) various chemicals and pumping them when it is necessary. So there is already a big chemical regime is going on whether we take substances or not. From this only, we can deduce the expected reason that certain chemicals will definitely change the balance of this regime; whether brain or body accepts this change or not. If certain chemicals are able to shut down the entire system and kill us, there must necessarily be other chemicals to slow down body functions. However, you have a point: The consumption of certain chemicals (alcohol, drugs, caffeine, etc.) are calculated attempts because of previous experiences and/or memory. And I am not talking about only the cases where brain has conscious ("I tried this substance before, therefore I know how would it affect me, and I decide to use/not use it" type) experience about it; there are also some substances that brain neurons biologically very sensitive such as THC. I suspect reverse engineering would work for every case. For many situation, the new state (a developed brain, a society, a built up computer) does not allow reverse engineering. Mind altering substances or dreams are mostly doing a similar type of function what art or sport activities doing for a society. Philosophy asks questions, at least that's what it should do. Of course, different philosophical methods and and their logical assumptions use certain bases in order to develop their subject issue. However, it is still questioning and is subject to scrutiny as well as change. Belief, on the other hand, either towards God, Thor or governments, requires unquestioning. I think this alone is a considerable starting point to differentiate philosophy and belief. Other than this small difference, yes, both of them are the regimes of human thought; moreover "conscious part" of human thought. And in most cases one can easily feed one another. Philosophy can be religious, or religion can ask its own restricted set of questions. In order to understand the computers we need certain set of knowledge and certain methods to utilize this set of knowledge. You can perfectly use computers in order to understand how computers work, knowledge is there on internet. A computer can not understand itself is a different story as it doesn't have the basic requirement of "understanding" -yet. And human brain has no supernatural secret locks that ultimately prevents the "self understanding". We have logic, we are developing new knowledge and tools, and there is no reason why we are not going to crack the entire working mechanism of brain. Who knows, maybe computers will be improved to such a level and help us for being able to see the entire picture. That would be ironic. I tried and did some BASICS, HTML and CSS in the past; didn't go for JavaScript or C++ type object oriented programming. However, nowadays I am working on a different type of programming which is a special module of a 3D CAD software. Its name is "Xpresso"; It still does programming but uses nodes instead of typing and compiling. Still you have to use maths and logic. I find it much more entertaining; and it would satisfy you as well since you are a visual person. There are boxes, boxes have ports, and ports are connected with noodles on its window type editor area. Plus, you can see the result straight away without compiling. It's fun.
Just a few thoughts... Let me know if I'm leading things astray here baftan... Indeed. And here I thought you had laid out the scope of the investigation quite well. To me, it was clear that herein, we were going to acknowledge current scientific understandings of mental processes, and from there, demarcate the remainders. Thus, there should be little, if any discussion about any metaphysical mumbo-jumbo... Perhaps I misinterpreted.... Indeed again. What is "believed" and what is "beyond" is not of concern here (or so I thought..). (Then again, Okham's Razor is my favourite weapon...) Ah yes, here we go: the phenomenologist's insightful wedge. Doreen is gonna love this thread... Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!
You have just made me jealous with pulling your gun so fast: I was planning to use this superb expression of "mumbo-jumbo" if someone was going to dare to bring the "creator" issue into this topic. Anyway I still have "lullaby" weapon that I have the patent (ask Michael). That's why I tried to used -relatively- detailed argument. Then I realised that as long as the issue is "thought" there is no way to escape the shadow of beliefs. Moreover, a long sustained thoughts, -especially if they were built during the adolescence- create physical change in brain structure. In a way, it's not different than going to gym and changing your muscle structure. So I think it is unavoidable to come across with intersection points. Again, the main issue, emancipating brain's hardware working principles from the ways how brain fantasizes, thinks, believe, (or "models the reality" as horsebox mentioned), can still be achieved. They create an environment (I call this as "human universe") for neurons, but neurons don't interact each other with symbols, words or even emotions. I think we have to make some serious mistakes on neurology (maybe we are already doing) and provoke people, who have deeper understanding on how neurons/signals actually work , can intervene and make a contribution to the topic. I hope...
I had some trouble understanding the OP. Not sure why. But let me respond to this last question. I am taking the question as something like is philosophy going beyond its boundaries if it weighs in on issues of what the hardware of a brain is? I would say 'not necessarily'. Philosophers, within their own field, can question the conclusions of neuroscientists - for example showing or trying to show how their conclusions are not justified or how they are confusing realms or how they are ruling something out that might in fact also be true. I think they could also challenge ideas about hardware that do not fit with the phenomenology of thinking or other processes that get called mental. I should like to add that I do not think that brains think. I think humans do - and members of other species. How we think and what we think and what it means to us is a whole body phenomenon. This is a side issue, but I will keep bringing it up. I also think their is something philosophically sketchy to talk about brains thinking. Not that you have, but it seemed possibly implicit.
” I think you might be right but frankly I am not quite sure what is being gotten at. The quote above sounds very dualistic, though I suspect this was not the intent. Anyway, I seem to be confused. I'll keep watching and see if I can hook in.
Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! I do love to keep things on topic... True enough. Still, I think it behooves us to at least wield a tough criterion with respect to "beliefs". By that I mean: I'll be less ready to 'attack' a position that argues for thinking to be described as something 'ineffable' as opposed to a position that argues that 'the soul does the thinking'.... I'm not sure what you're saying here. Are you saying that you hope to shift the focus here to hard science? If so, I think we'd be going offtopic.... If however, you're saying that it falls to philosophy to explore the process of thinking, in so far as science hasn't yet explained the entirety of the process, while at the same time accepting current scientific knowledge, to then push for improved explanation.... then I'm with you.
I can not speculate why, so I'll try to reformulate. You can think of parallel to computers if you like, but it was just an analogy to engage the reader. In fact computers are useful in other area: Brain scans. In its most general description, when you think of something -with or without consciously doesn't matter- brain performs a physical activity. By the help of today's technology we can see these activities on screen. Nowadays technicians have developed devices that literally translates these electrical signals and manipulate computer activities on screen. If you put one of these helmets on your head and thinking "going left", cursor on the screen will go to left without touching any button or moving the mouse. They haven't been able to translate complex tasks yet -such as writing down sentences as you think of them-; but very core commands (up/down; right/left; stop/go forward, etc.) are already decoded. But many other activities can also be read even if they can not be translated into a useful computer commands: When you solve mathematics, when you feel pleasure certain areas of the brain work , certain other areas remain inactive. As computers get more sophisticated, they will crack another signal, then another; and I am not even talking about complete brain simulation (a software equivalent of every single cell in our brain). Anyway, this story tell us one thing: Brain cells (hardware) work with electricity. These cells communicate each other via sending signals. Those cells who says "yes" are screaming during the brain scans, and those who says "no" doesn't give any signals. When you change the task (subject of thinking), a new voting starts; all in all a complex electronic mechanism going on in our brains. My question arises here: How can philosophy deal with this part of brain process? And I would say "no way". In this electrical connections regimes philosophy has nothing to deal with. It is structurally as foreign as questions of how do chemical connections happen, or how does volcanoes erupt. In terms of questioning neuroscience, philosophers have no chance other than admitting that our brains work no different than machines. Yes it's organic, yes it provides a platform for our thinking; however on physical level philosophers have nothing else to say. Precisely. Just as it is impossible to think of transistors sending signals to one another using C++ or other software language, it is also impossible to imagine when we say "eye", neurons will type couple of letter "e" interrupted by a letter "y". So the phenomenology of thinking and its concepts, words, emotions, etc. uses a different language altogether. This thread is emerged from the "How do we think" thread. Because in there, the main discussion was whether or not we think literally or visually. However in this thread this is irrelevant: Here I argue that thinking must be examined in two section: Neural activity (electrical signals, cells -hardware) and conceptual/emotional/logical activities (symbols, tension, love, hate, science, games, belief, language etc.) and their regime what I call as "human universe" in general as being structurally different than physical universe. So my offer is simple: Limit the philosophy and its area of expertise to strictly where it belongs; to human universe, just as any other humanly possible knowledge/emotion regimes. You can say that "obviously, everybody knows that!"; then I would say "don't be so sure"... As far as I understood from the "How do we think" thread, this distinction hasn't been so clear yet. Again, I am hopeful that every new technological achievement will help to differentiate the two kingdom of thinking processes. And I don't think this will make philosophy or any other human universe issues less important: Quite oppositely, everything will be redefined. You see, this is exactly what I am trying to say: First sentence clearly contradicts to the last sentence because of the existing confusion over the identity of "thinking" process. And your Middle sentence; the one about the existence of thinking activity in non-human species, -happened to appear in the middle of two sentences-, may be signalling the reason for our confusion: We can not go back to our natural roots for our thinking, it's too late. Give philosophy its kingdom back, leave neurons alone, we can do any kind of sketching as well as comedy if you wish. I think now another issue arises: Grey area of "how our thinking world communicate with its hardware?"
As I introduced in the last sentence of my reply to Doreen, we have a problem of Grey area: What is the connection/translation regime between neurons and our thinking universe that is subject to philosophy. I wanted some neurological science to intervene in order to completely isolate any possible remnants of philosophical approach/ideas on how the hardware work. I want to make it clear that our ways of thinking has no relation whatsoever with how brain physically, electrically performs. I also want to hear something from hard science about what they "don't know" when it comes to neural activity. What they don't know is still not the subject of philosophy; but I suspect it might belong to the Grey area; transitional part.
Philosophers could look at the protocols and the conclusions and analyze and see if errors are being made and false conclusions are being drawn. They can especially focus on language issues related to conclusions, for example. I think you mean you would answer my question 'Yes.' But I could be wrong. Philosophy has nothing to do with the research, but it can look at, analyze and potentially criticize or support conclusions drawn from that research. Just as it has in relation to other research. There is no machine that works like a human brain. Many things that our brains take for granted no one has come close to getting machines to do. Machines are terrible at working with analogies and analogy use is central to our intelligence. and right here, you and I are having a philosophical discussion about conclusions drawn from scientific research. They can't tell scientists that they did not get the data they got. They can look at the arguments of the scientists and see if they are justified. I agree with this. I think you mean if we think in language, not literally. Because it is quite clear that we do not think literally about a great deal of things, though we usually do not realize this. Our language and conception of all sorts of things is metaphorical in nature. And the fact that people have different experience of thinking - iow phenomenologically - should be, and no doubt is, of interest to neuroscientists. OK I think once you get into the area of conclusions and language, philosophy can inform and be a critic to neuroscience. Just as there is interplay between philosophy and physics, so can there be and in fact I think should there be with neuroscience. Once we move into areas where our expectations can run so counter to what we are finding philosophy can be helpful. And I don't think this will make philosophy or any other human universe issues less important: Quite oppositely, everything will be redefined. I don't see how saying I have a problem with assertions that Brains think is contradicted by my saying it is a whole body phenomenon. I do not think, for example, our thinking is independent of portions of our endocrine system outside what is called the brain. It has been shown that posture affects thinking. And so on. Further, I can show causal connections between what we call thinking and changes all over the body. So it seems clear to me that to isolate thinking in the brain is to make an error of conclusion. Another tack I could take on this would be the research of Candace Pert who posits that emotions occur not simply in the brain and has found structures outside the brain, all over the body, that are similar or the same as structures in the brain related to emotions. So one way to approach the issue is philosophically - though it entails using research to back up my claims - where I point out that there are causal connections between the rest of the body and what we call thinking that are as direct and intimate as brain portions of the body and their connections to thinking. Here the philosopher can challenge the use of the word 'thinking' on the part of the scientist and point out how thinking is causally affected from outside the brain, inside the organizm and that there is no justification in isolating thinking in the brain. The second approach is to try to appeal to the scientists on their own ground, which is a less philosophical critique, and show that structures associated with thinking are not restricted to the brain. There is a 3rd critique, based on language philosophy which is well laid out in this collect of essays.... http://books.google.se/books?id=vAV...euroscience philosophy hacker dennett&f=false Much of the book is online at this site and you can actually read the main argument - as to why, for example, we should say that organisms think and not brains - by the neuroscientist and the philosopher, if you look for The Argument in the table of contents. This is a long complicated argument, but I will stress that the side saying your use of the term is incorrect includes a neuroscientist (and a philosopher). The other team, agreeing with you - against my statement that organisms think, not brains - is also a neuroscientist. That is....I do not see this a clear even amongst neuroscientists. As for the rest I think you will have to make a case. I am not sure what you mean about going back to our roots. I simply wanted to make it clear I do not think only homo sapians think. Most scientists would agree, these days. At times it seems you have a dualism - here between a physical hardware and a.....I'm not sure, but some kind of other software. Is software not physical? Further when neuroscientists use MRIs and try to find out what brain areas are being used, etc., they often are asking people about their experience. Neuroscientists do not avoid phenomenology. And why should they, that would be reducing resources.
This would come as shocking news to most neuroscientists. REally, I cannot see why interdisciplinary approaches cannot be helpful. Neuroscientists are certainly interested in how we think and what we experience.
So philosophers will decide on which chemical activities result which electrical signals? I don't think they are qualified for this. If you admit that philosophy has nothing to do with the research, could you also tell me how on earth they will be able to make criticism, and how will they be able to support conclusions. Are you offering a new role for philosophy as being judge between scientific research papers? On what basis, ethical, existential, discourses? Maybe, but once we start to define these unique areas, they will also become set of challenges that can be solved, i.e. reproduced. Yet none of these facts give brain a mystic position. According to what? Using which legitimization/justification or logic? I used "literal" as oppose to visual, you can replace it with lingual. If you transfer it to "metaphorical", I wouldn't object. Yet "in nature" bit is problematic. As you mentioned earlier "no other machine like human brain"; and this doesn't include only metals and plastics; it also includes other creatures "in nature". So you will either make the separation or you will not. Plus, when you say brain thinks "metaphorically", I don't take the organic, physical system of the brain. Because that bit does not work metaphorically. Again, on what basis philosophy can inform and be a critic to neuroscience? There is no interplay between philosophy and physics. Modern science has spent centuries to clarify its subject area, which are natural subjects such as energy, velocity, gravity, and similar concepts. Just because both physics and philosophy think about concept of "time", it doesn't mean that they are thinking on the same thing. Moreover, human beings are not subjects to contemporary physics whatsoever; neither in atomic level nor in galactic level. If you put philosophy or other human universe issues in front of physics and neurology, I am afraid you will not make them important. At the end of the day, no matter what kind of knowledge scientific inquiries come up with, human societies are governed by non-scientific elements of human universe (culture, politics, law, etc.) In short, human societies and human individuals are ultimately depends on human universe rules. They don't need any extra tasks on top of what they have already got, putting them next to natural sciences will not make them less or more important. These areas are irrelevant when it comes to working mechanisms of human universe and we first live in human universe, then in the natural universe. All our understanding, knowledge, judgements, emotions and relations are not governed by nature. So leave the sciences that deals with the universe alone. Let's clarify this: You don't think with your organs, and you don't think with your brain cells and their electrical activity. These are infrastructure, necessary platform for your thinking activity. As you mentioned earlier, we think -for instance- metaphorically, symbolically (by the way I must remind you those who can not think metaphorically like autistic people are still thinking), visually, i.e. humanly; not physically. According to my understanding, when we create a suitable conditions such as artificial physical and/or virtual alternatives, we can transfer our brains to these structures. According to your understanding, "brain doesn't think, how we think and what we think is a whole body phenomenon", and there is no contradiction in here whatsoever, is that so? It is clear that we are restricted to physical environment including our own bodies. But what makes us humans is the fact that we do not accept to be limited only to what nature provides for us. Nature says that we must be hunter gatherers who can easily be hunted by wild animals. Nature did not allow us to go outer space, discover DNA and establish global communication systems. We don't think naturally, and our thinking ability does not ultimately bound to our physical appearance. It's a temporal situation for the time being. I think you have to make one: Philosophers who will be judges for scientists' research papers without qualifications; and human minds thinking of the universe, their planet, life, civilization, "philosophy" and billions of complex issues are ultimately bound to ape bodies and to the grey organic machines. This case sounds bit archaic to me, what would you say? I said "there is no chance to going back to our roots". There is no chance we can think like animals do. I don't have to enlist why and how we don't think like animals I assume. Just because we have come from the same roots, just because they also have social, a degree of cultural and other type of mind agendas we can not equalize our hell to their world. Yes, in animal cases what is thinking is their brains. In our cases, we think our brains. The worst thing I have always accepted as dangerous are the type of things that claim being mono, unique, single and only. Dualism, quadraphonic, or anything which makes plural does have options to get richer. I already mentioned the reason why I make this distinction: In order to define the translator, in order to find out the connection points between the physical reality of our neurological brain activity and the fantastic regime of human universe. United levels of independence within the interdependent universe. We can not go and discover the universe travelling with tin boxes and wearing mortal monkey costumes.
Yeah you're right I shoulda said contrary to mainstream scientific belief, which if I'm not mistaken implies that thought and consciousness is purely a product of neuronal connections of the brain. I don't have any direct solid evidence but heres a few things that come to mind. Supposed NDE experiences where people observe the attempts of the doctors to bring them back to life from an outside perspective. The most interesting I find are the reports of blind people who died http://www.seattleiands.org/stories/blind.htm This isn't evidence because we don't know if these people are telling the truth or not but its interesting all the same. On a somewhat related note there is solid evidence of the existence of remote viewing. Although this does not constitute evidence of thought being ulterior to the brain it does constitute evidence of the non local nature of either the mind or information itself. http://www.princeton.edu/~pear/remote_perception.html I've observed the phenomena for myself whilst in sleep paralysis. I saw my brother and a couple of his friends playing cards at the other side of the house while I was in sleep paralysis. Thats a good point, I've researched this and people who are born blind apparently do not visualize, not even in dreams. Thats what makes their NDE reports so interesting because according to people blind from birth, when they have NDE's they suddenly gain the ability to see. Yep, this I find highly interesting. Serotonin receptors really fascinate me. As you know many of the tryptamines such as psilocybin do not occur naturally in the brain but they do fit nicely into various 5-HT receptors and cause bizarre things to happen to our consciousness, things that I assume would probably never occur if we had no profoundly altered the "balance" of bindings to neurotransmitter receptors. I don't know much about pharmacology yet so correct me if anything I said there is wrong. I'm in the process of building a ghetto EEG machine at the moment so I can attempt to map out my own brains electrical activity associated with these profound altered states.
To be honest, I don't have enough knowledge on these issues, not even enough for speculating. I only know the basic principles. That's why I said this above: and this: That's great, try to map out "alphabet", I mean what are the signals we produce when we think of individual letters; so maybe you can develop a keyboard and save us all from typing. Sorry, I am up for practical solutions to improve my laziness.
I found this question very interesting for its own rights and started a thread Doreen. Here we go: http://www.sciforums.com/showthread.php?t=101991
Have you heard of BrainGate? http://www.braingate.com/ I think if enough neuroscience hobbyists obtain their own EEG machines and start experimenting we can really further mankinds knowledge of the electrical activity associated with altered states. They do lab studies involving this kinda thing but everyone responds to drugs differently so the more diverse the range of neurochemical makeups being experimented on the merrier. Heres an interesting documentary, this is where I heard of BrainGate http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RjU5v1eAvvE
I've heard of the activities, I didn't know the name of the company. I hope Doreen would like to watch it and finds a place for her philosopher around those machines.
I never suggested anything like this. To judge the conclusions drawn from the results. For example, if someone draws the conclusion from a series of studies of nerve cells that we are machines. I think it is perfectly appropriate for philosophers to come in and look for language, logic, analogy and paradigm problems and issues. Let's look at the assertion.... Brains are machines. Here's how philosophers might come at this conclusion. 1) machines are artifacts that are made for purposes. To refer to brains as machines implies teleology, which most science advocates want to avoid. 2) we have no evidence that any machine is conscious, so any statements that brains are machines is speculative in the extreme. Certain processes in brains or in humans, may be machinelike. But a cautious scientist does not presume what will be discovered in the future as if this is research he or she can use now to support conclusions. Which is what you are doing here. I was not aware mystic positions were on the table. One example is the problem I pointed out above with referring to brains as machines. The book I linked to deals with some others. Issues around 'cause' are another set of examples. Scientists can be as naive as anyone else in relation to correlation vs. cause. Or in confusing late in the chain causes for primary ones. I would argue that much of the application of neuroscience in the current fad of pharmacological approaches to dealing with individuals' problems is problematic precisely because of naivte around issues related to cause and paradigmatic confusions. But that's another thread. It is now commonplace in science to refer to the thoughts, intentions, emotions and awareness of animals. For a long time this was taboo and judged anthropomophizing. Of course cautions about assumptions are still in place, but the general categories are not in question anymore - in terms of consensus. I agree. But then if we look at your suggestion to separate out the two realms - ironically similar to Jesus and the two kingdoms - I think it would be damaging to research, for neuroscientists NOT to note that different thinkers think differently, since this no doubt will help them to understand organisms that think and on the physical level. Philosophy is skilled at uncovering assumptions. In the 20th century physics hit upon a huge amount of radically counter-intuitive findings and philosophy did in fact help them work with this. It is not a coincidence that many of the physicists read philosophy and vice versa. It is one thing to come out with the math and to be able to describe results in this way. But once they want to understand what it means that a single particle going through one of two double slits acts AS IF it is a wave anyway, philosophy can be of help. Not necessarily by providing answers, but options at least, and also to help unravel what assumptions might be making something that is in fact true seem impossible. That is just one take. The same goes for neuroscience. I am not suggesting that philosophers go into a lab and tell the researcher 'no, there was no increase of blood flow to the amygdala when subjects were asks to imagine certain kinds of injury.' However, results are often used to reach global conclusions - emotions are _________. Thinking is____________. X causes Y. IOW results are often related to other research and conclusions are drawn - both in papers and in the ways research is used both within and outside the scientific community and here philosophers can make a difference. Philosophers are trained to analyze language in ways scientists are not. Philosophers are trained in seeing the way thinking can affect interpretations of empirical and other data - iow experience. Here scientists are also, but not in the same ways. Scientists tend to have less experience analyzing their own cultures, thinking itself, as said language, metaphor, etc. And here they can and do make errors. Terms which have changed meaning over time. I really don't know what this means. I don't see these as separate and I doubt the scientists do either. I don't really understand why you are saying this. I am not suggesting anyone take up some extra task. Nor can I see where you can assume philosophers are trying to make themselves important by paying attention to and on occasion critiquing - in the broad inclusive sense of that term - current scientific interpretations, applications and conclusions. This would also be news to scientists. Simply put, 'No.' Not that I am a philosopher. I am about as well read in philosophy as I am in neuroscience. Call me a passionate lay person in both fields. They may have trouble with metaphors, but I assure you if they are using language they are thinking metaphorically. Language is built up on metaphors that have become dead, so we think they are literal. You really can't get through a day without them. (Notice the spatial metaphor for time) Speculation. I really don't see how this relates to my two statements or how it shows they contradict each other. That this didn't really make sense. 1) from the scientific perspective, we are animals. 2) cognitive and neuroscientists would not agree with you. We do think like other animals in a number of ways, in fact this is part of the motivation scientists have for studying how animals behave, learn, etc., and also for studying their brains and nervous systems, etc. Sometimes I get the impression you are responding to things I did not say. I am not saying that my thinking is the same as a dog's or a wolves or even a chimp's. All I said was that animals - meaning other animals - think. I disagree. It is more than the brain that thinks. I think there is porbably a straw man here, but I cannot even guess what you think I might have said. You should know that dualism is not very popular in science these days. It also sounds like you presented a dualist position not because of empirical research or current scientific theory, but because you consider monisms dangerous. IOW you based this conclusion on intuition. And again, dualism is almost contra science these days. I think I'll drop out of this thread, at least for a while. I get wary when it seems like someone is responding to much to things I have not said.
