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At Inspiring Philosophy: There is no evidence that the brain creates consciousness

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Physicalist Arguments Debunked: Irreducible Mind (Part 3)

Here are the first two parts:

Neuroscientific Evidence: Irreducible Mind (Part 1)

Hard Problem of Consciousness: Irreducible Mind (Part 2)

More about Inspiring Philosophy

Hat tip: Philip Cunningham

Comments
Doubter @#6 said:
I’m curious. Then how would you interpret the paranormal evidence of veridical NDEs and reincarnation memories, in which the experiences are very much like that of a mobile center of consciousness intimately enmeshed in the physical brain, that under extreme circumstances can separate from the body and move to other locations spacial or otherwise?
Under MRT, what do you think "dreaming" is? Or for that matter, "imagination?" Have you ever investigated what is commonly called "astral projection?" You don't need extreme circumstances to experience what you are describing; it's actually a very normal activity we have just psychologically mis-characterized (and largely dismissed) due to external world theory programming. Any experience (including the paranormal) that can be thought of occurring in dualistic terms, can occur with exponentially less explanatory baggage under MRT. AaronS1978: When scientists have looked into our physical experiences at the deepest, most fundamental level currently possible, they have found that matter doesn't exist. This is the result of decades of quantum physics research which has been shown that there are no "bits of matter" with intrinsic, measurable characteristics that exist independent of observation. Essentially, we are observing/interacting consciously with informational potentials that do not have specific characteristics (local reality) until it interacts with a conscious observer. Furthermore, the observer can even actively change the history of what they are observing, and change the characteristics of things going back billions of years and millions of light-years distant simply by making a local observation. Quantum physics has overwhelmingly demonstrated that whatever it is we are observing and interacting with, it is not what we have called "matter" for thousands of years.William J Murray
August 11, 2020
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William J Murray @2 Will you liberate on that a little further I am not quite understanding and I’m not trying to be Facetious here, But what do you mean there’s no proof of matter I honestly want to know why you take that position and how it has been proven because physics and science depends solely on the existence of matter and its interaction with itselfAaronS1978
August 10, 2020
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William J Murray @5 I'm curious. Then how would you interpret the paranormal evidence of veridical NDEs and reincarnation memories, in which the experiences are very much like that of a mobile center of consciousness intimately enmeshed in the physical brain, that under extreme circumstances can separate from the body and move to other locations spacial or otherwise?doubter
August 10, 2020
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Doubter @4: The least complicated theory is actually an existential fact: all experience occurs in mind. We know the mind is capable of producing any experience in it or else we wouldn't be able to have that mental experience - regardless of whether or not anything "external" is causing it. Any form of dualism would require (1) an entirely separate domain we would have no way to directly access, and (2) a means by which that external domain could interact with mind, translate successfully and cause a mental experience that correlated closed with that external domain. Any form of dualism is less efficient and and unnecessarily complex by orders of magnitude.William J Murray
August 10, 2020
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William J Murray @2
"Currently, both materialism and substance dualism have no supportive evidence. It is now obvious that everything we thought was evidence for those perspectives is not what we assumed it was. Idealism, in one form or another, is the only ontological framework left standing, indicating the inevitable ascendance of MRT."
With regard to Dualism, not so fast. It's not clear to me how most forms of Idealism will predict the well researched and investigated phenomenon of NDEs with separation of the mind/soul as a mobile center of consciousness from the physical body, observing the physical body, doctors and other surroundings from an elevated position in the room, visiting another realm via some means of transportation sometimes experienced as a "tunnel", communicating with advanced beings and also deceased loved ones, and then returning to re-inhabit the physical body/brain. This deep NDE phenomenon which is sometimes veridical seems to me would much more directly and readily be predicted by Interactive Dualism. Investigation of these accounts has verified that some of these experiences are veridical and inexplicable via materialism in that, as an example, while the brain is dysfunctional due to cardiac arrest or other trauma observations are made of details of the emergency or operating room including the doctors, and of other more remote locations, that are later verified by the investigators. See a survey summary of more than a hundred such cases in the book The Self Does Not Die, by Dirven and Smit. To the NDEer experiencing an out-of-body experience while his brain is dysfunctional, the experience can sometimes be of literally leaving his body like shucking off a heavy old coat, floating up to the corner of the ceiling, and observing from there the doctors working on his body and other details of the scene, later remembered and included in the account. Then, moving back into his body. Sometimes the NDEer remembers at what place on his body he left it, and where he reentered it. In all this he clearly sensed himself as a mobile center of consciousness moving in space and interpenetrating matter. The same seems to apply to memories of past lives including a process of entering the fetus and leaving the body (memories of which many features have been verified, including details of the identity , life, personality and manner of death of the previous incarnation), and memories of a between lives period of making choices. Dr. Ian Stevenson of the University of Virginia investigated and documented hundreds of these cases. My view is that the empirical evidence is paramount and the theory that explains this data in the least complicated way is most likely to be correct. This is of course the Occam's Razor principle. It's not an invariable law, just a principle that from experience points to the most likely explanation. It seems to me Interactive Dualism is the most direct and simple explanation of the data. For instance, to explain the NDE data via Idealism, a theory of a single underlying substance, requires the additional complication of a number of subsidiary hypotheses describing how the single substance will under certain specified circumstances diversify and separate into what appears to be two - mind and body. But the property of a Monist reality substance of it having two (or perhaps even more) radically different aspects has its own level of complications that inevitably go along with it - all the principles and mechanisms that must underlie which aspect of this single ground of reality governs consciousness for the time being. Interactive Dualism directly predicts these observed features of the deep NDE and therefore is the more likely theory based on the Occam's Razor principle. As to Idealism. Objective Idealism is the only form of Idealism that seems to me to be reasonably compatible with the paranormal data, without a lot of special rationalizations. This posits "....the existence of a separate objective consciousness which exists before and, in some sense, independently of human consciousness, thereby bringing about the existence of objects independently of human minds" (Wiki). This would need perhaps to be combined with the proviso that this is reality as experienced, but at the ultimate underlying level of existence an all-pervading consciousness is the ground or true nature of all of reality including conscious beings. This all-pervading consciousness would have various names including God or the mind of God.doubter
August 10, 2020
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___ I Am Not A Brain
I Am Not a Brain, by philosopher Markus Gabriel, goes after, hammer and tongs, and with wit and humor, reductionist accounts of mind and concludes, as I concluded a long time ago, that such "fields" as neuro-philosophy, which reduce all mental states to brain states (really, brain chemistry), are what he calls, following Thomas E. Schmidt, "terrifying theory-golems." In an age in which our spirits are being sucked out of us by consumerism, commercialism, materialism, determinism (i.e., the view that holds that free will is an illusion), physicalism, and "nothing-but-isms" of various kinds (including in politics) this book is more than a breath of fresh air. It is a counter-offensive against all reductionisms at a time in which the natural sciences, prematurely, arrogantly, and perniciously, are claiming for themselves the ur-vocabulary that explains all, even consciousness itself, and are asserting that all reality is within their domain. This view is as deadly (and deadening) as it is false. It is the new positivism of our time, and its attraction has led to the deadening of philosophy as a field of study, although that is not its worst offense. Yet, it is no wonder that philosophy departments struggle. Indeed, on the door of many departments the sign "No Wonder" should be hung, with the tag line "Abandon All Soul, All Ye Who Enter Here." The "terrifying theory-golems" were also attacked by other philosophers over the years, among them William James, Henry Bugbee, Edward F. Mooney, and Bruce Wilshire. Gabriel holds the chair in epistemology at the University of Bonn. The book is very accessible to non-philosophers, however.
https://www.amazon.com/Not-Brain-Philosophy-Mind-Century/dp/1509514759Truthfreedom
August 10, 2020
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More argument and support for MRT (mental reality theory.) He even references the exact same book I referenced in a comment on another thread - Kastrup's The Idea of the World. I watch things like this and it seems that everyone is just ignoring the fact that we have conclusively demonstrated that matter, in any significant sense of the word, simply does not exist. It's nowhere to be found. We've looked high and low. Until someone can point to where we've actually discovered the existence of matter, the existence of it is not something that warrants serious consideration or should be considered a "problem" that needs solving. Currently, both materialism and substance dualism have no supportive evidence. It is now obvious that everything we thought was evidence for those perspectives is not what we assumed it was. Idealism, in one form or another, is the only ontological framework left standing, indicating the inevitable ascendance of MRT.William J Murray
August 10, 2020
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I’ll just wait for the no brain no consciousness 7.7 billion examples I’m right but still can’t explain it Btw guy and freewill goers you all might want to check this link out https://neurophil-freewill.org/publications/AaronS1978
August 9, 2020
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