Thread: can the mind exist independent from the brain?

Show me one thing that exists that isn't physical. How can something exist if it isn't made of anything? I'm tempted to repeat my first post.

Even if the mind is non-physical, it has to be made of something, some kind of non-physical substance.

Originally Posted by StonedApe

Show me one thing that exists that isn't physical. How can something exist if it isn't made of anything? I'm tempted to repeat my first post.

Even if the mind is non-physical, it has to be made of something, some kind of non-physical substance.

I don’t think that consciousness necessarily has to be ‘made’ of anything at all. It may simply BE an intrinsic irreducible basic part of the universe in the same way that matter simply IS.

What you’re doing is looking at consciousness in a material context. Ex: If it exists, it must be observable and measurable. I don’t necessarily think that must be the case, although I don’t discount the possibility.

If that is the case and consciousness is made of ‘something’, then I’ll readily admit I don’t know what consciousness IS, and I’m in good company, given the rest of the world doesn’t seem to know what it is IS either.

Mainstream materialism has not solved this either. It holds that consciousness ‘somehow’ arises as a byproduct of the combined processes of the brain. It’s essentially saying, we don’t know how consciousness comes to be, but it must be in there somewhere. It can’t define what consciousness IS either, nor can it tell you how insentient matter gains a sense of awareness. That's the hard problem.

So you guys are giving up? No one can show me a single example of a non-physical thing? If not, what leads you to believe that consciousness is such a thing? You're inventing a new category of things just so that you can entertain the idea that you will live on after death in some new shell. There is no shell.

Originally Posted by RideTheWalrus

I don’t think that consciousness necessarily has to be ‘made’ of anything at all. It may simply BE an intrinsic irreducible basic part of the universe in the same way that matter simply IS.

If that is the case, that it is an intrinsic part of the universe, it is still made of something, the universe.

I am currently conscious of a delicious sandwich going down my esophagus. My consciousness of this sandwich is created by(made up of, same thing) a number of physical things. The sandwich, my body, my nerves in my digestive system, and the signals this creates in my brain.

Even if consciousness is some kind of mystical essence it is an essence, it is something. In order for something to be something there has to be something there god dammit! If it isn't made of anything then it is by definition nothing, it doesn't exist.

Originally Posted by RideTheWalrus

What you’re doing is looking at consciousness in a material context. Ex: If it exists, it must be observable and measurable. I don’t necessarily think that must be the case, although I don’t discount the possibility.

I've never said that it has to be observable or measurable, though I would hope you can observe you're own consciousness, it's quite an important skill. What I'm saying is that it has to be something or it is nothing. I'm pretty sure that isn't a false dichotomy, there isn't some third category. And if it is something we can only assume that it's made of energy like everything else*. It's physical.

Originally Posted by RideTheWalrus

If that is the case and consciousness is made of ‘something’, then I’ll readily admit I don’t know what consciousness IS, and I’m in good company, given the rest of the world doesn’t seem to know what it is IS either.

Mainstream materialism has not solved this either. It holds that consciousness ‘somehow’ arises as a byproduct of the combined processes of the brain. It’s essentially saying, we don’t know how consciousness comes to be, but it must be in there somewhere. It can’t define what consciousness IS either, nor can it tell you how insentient matter gains a sense of awareness. That's the hard problem.

Honestly I am not the best person to explain this. I admittedly don't know much about how the brain functions. But science does have a good idea of how this all works. Do you have any idea how a non-physical consciousness would function? Would you care to explain?

If you really don't know what consciousness is, then how are you supposed to have any clue if it's physical or not, or if it exists independently from the body. Reason from what you know. If you don't know how can you reason or experiment? How can you have any kind of a clue at all. If you don't know what it is, any theory you come up with is just you making stuff up because you want the world to be a certain way. Let go of self clinging and live life right now.

If you don't know what consciousness is, maybe you could google it or something, there's an assload of different definitions. But I'd assume that the reason why you don't know what it is is that you are assuming it's something that exists independent of other things rather than just a byproduct of things.

*disclaimer, I haven't been paying attention to or studying science much lately, maybe it's really strings or whatever the hell the latest theory is. Bottom line is that anything that is real can be considered physical. And at their basis, even imaginary things are physical, as are sensations and all forms of consciousness.