Identity (Identity)

by dhw, Monday, August 31, 2009, 11:33 (5345 days ago) @ George Jelliss

George: This is the problem I have all the time in attempting to argue on this forum. The only reliable evidence we have is that we are made of atoms. The evidence for this is overwhelming. Yet you disregard this evidence completely! There is no evidence for "universal intelligence" or disembodied minds other than subjective speculation and fanciful imagination, [...] My views are solidly based on what we actually know.-I agree with you that there is no evidence for "universal intelligence". My point was that you had no more evidence for your materialism than those who think our minds are part of such an intelligence. The problem for me is that you don't seem to acknowledge that there IS a problem. No-one is denying that we are made of atoms, and no-one is denying that all our mental activities are somehow connected with our physical brains which work "by means of electrochemical connections" (your latest post). But despite all the progress of neuroscience, no-one has yet explained how these blobs of matter can actually produce thought, emotion, imagination, and consciousness of themselves. If I decide to do a crossword puzzle, are my brain cells telling me what to do, or am I telling my brain cells what to do, and if my mind is made only of brain cells, what constitutes "I/me"?-There are two kinds of thoughts: those that come to us involuntarily, and those which we form or process deliberately. In the first instance, why and how do my brain cells confront "me" with ideas, memories, imaginings, independently of my will (another product of my brain cells)? In the second, how does my brain-cell-will control the processes of my brain-cell-thinking? Furthermore, if my identity is fashioned by heredity, environment, chance and experience, but my mind (which encompasses my identity) consists only of brain cells, how are the brain cells changed by environment, chance and experience? Do I have any control over such changes ... and if so, what gives me that control? -My mind does not SEEM to me to consist solely of brain cells ... because I feel that I have some control over my brain ... but you tell me it does, and you say your views are solidly based on what we actually know. But we do not "actually know" anything about how all the above mental processes work. My own views are CONFINED to what we actually know, and therefore until a satisfactory physical explanation of these processes is found, I simply cannot say that the mind is nothing but atoms. And so long as that question remains open, I cannot say that there are no dimensions or forms of existence beyond those of the physical world as we now know it.