Consciousness; brain's role (Introduction)

by David Turell , Wednesday, July 13, 2016, 19:31 (2837 days ago) @ David Turell

A neurosurgeon takes on the materialists:-http://www.evolutionnews.org/2016/07/your_deluded_br102987.html-"Is the mind computation? No, it's not. If fact, the mind is the opposite of computation. The hallmark of the mind is that thoughts are intentional, meaning (by the technical definition of intentional) that every thought is about something other than itself. The mind points to things other than itself. We think about things: about people, about places, about concepts. -***-"Computation is computation because it's never about anything. It's is non-intentional. The mind is the mind because it's always about something. It's intentional. Computation is the opposite of the mind. If it is computation, it is not mental. If it is mental, it is not computation. The Venn diagrams never cross. -"Note what this means for "artificial intelligence." A computer can't be conscious, because computation is the antithesis of consciousness. Computation is a mechanical process of mapping without reference to the content of the map. Mentation is a mental process of reference to an object -- to content -- other than itself.-***-"The idiotic claim that "brains play con games" is the mereological fallacy -- the error of attributing to parts that which can only be attributed to the whole. Brains no more play con games than feet run marathons or hands play piano. People play con games and run marathons and play piano, using their brains and feet and hands. The mereological fallacy is perhaps the most common fallacy in neuroscience (a discipline beset with fallacies). Only a human being thinks or has emotions or has perceptions. Brains don't think or emote or perceive. Brains do organ things. People do people things. -***-"Machines can't think, and the brain is not a machine anyway (it's a natural thing, not an artifact). The brain doesn't "insist" anything. People insist. -"And some aspects of thought are indeed non-physical. Thinking about universals, such as concepts, is inherently non-physical, because universals by their nature cannot be instantiated in matter, and therefore must be non-material. -"Neuroscience is infested with materialist fallacies."-Comment: Exactly as I think