Posted by alexandra_k on January 30, 2005, at 21:45:20
In reply to Re: It always amuses me that..., posted by smokeymadison on January 30, 2005, at 17:59:55
> i definately used to believe in identity theory whole-heartedly. then i took too many religion classes.
So you swing on the pendulum between dualism and the identity theory (which many believe is synomomous with materialism or a scientific world view)?
>i also took this class on psychopathology where i read this book on how the soul has been forgotten in modern neuroscience.
Hmm. Well first you need to say what you mean by the soul. Then we have to figure out whether it is any different from the mind... Then you have to figure out how much neuroscience forgets the both of these! In the worlds of John Searle 'the trouble with cognitive science is that it leaves out the mind' "The Rediscovery of the Mind".
>but there is this article from Newsweek that still gets me. i will post it in my next post.
Thanks, I will tell you what I think.
>I still believ that the mind=brain, but then there is the soul, which does not equal brain. so if the soul exists beyond the brain, then the mind might too.
ok.
what evidence do you have to support the notion that mind does not equal brain?
The same evidence that we have that a voice does not equal any portion of the physical world. That was what Dennett was showing in the bit from him I quoted. All the things he said about voices apply to beliefs and desires and hopes and fears and pains as well. There isn't any portion of the phycial world (including a portion of the brain) that just is those things. I can tell you a bit more about why. I like Dennett, but that section was probably a bit much 'philsophy for philsophers'. If you can't say it so that other people can understand it then what I am increasingly starting to worry about is whether it really does make sense.
Or whether it is just disguised nonsense...
poster:alexandra_k
thread:449954
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/write/20050118/msgs/450380.html