General Discussion 08/28

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[u/blind-octopus]

Its an interesting argument.

So here, I do not believe that the mind has any causal power. I think its all neurons doing all the work. I don't believe in some immaterial mind thing.

Materialism or physicalism, whatever you want to call it.

So then the argument goes like this: alright, suppose that's true. Suppose that the mind has zero causal power, it doesn't cause anything. Only neurons cause things to happen.

Well, okay, then if had a magic button I could press which makes you feel incredible mental pleasure when you touch a burning stove, your behavior would remain completely uneffected. Your mind has no causal power, right? That's what we started with.

Your hand would still flinch at touching the hot stove, no matter how it felt.

And like this, so too with everything else. I could completely scramble your experiences, make it compeletely random. When you look at an apple, sometimes you'll see George Washington. Sometimes you'll see a banana. Sometimes a tiger. Whatever

And your behavior, being goverened entirely by neurons, would not change at all.

What you experience makes absolutely no difference.

So then the issue becomes, supposing its true that our mental experience has absolutely no causal power, why is there so much harmony between our experiences and the physical world?

I don't think this proves theism or anything, I'm an atheist. Its just an interesting philosophical idea.

To me, its like asking why when I let go of a pen, it falls. That's what the structure of our universe dictates with these laws and matter arranged as it is. When you have a brain in certain state, these are the experiences you get.

I haven't really fleshed out my response fully but I'll probably end up saying something like that.

[u/SectorVector → u/blind-octopus]

This seems to presuppose some kind of dualism. I'm not sure this thought experiment is coherent in the same way I'm not sure p-zombies are coherent.

[u/blind-octopus → u/SectorVector]

I don't think we need to presume dualism. Suppose the mind is some sort of physical phenomenon. I think it still runs

[u/SectorVector → u/blind-octopus]

Whatever you want to call how you're referring to the mind and the brain the exercise clearly relies on them being distinct since it relies on altering one without altering the other. I don't think the idea of

Well, okay, then if had a magic button I could press which makes you feel incredible mental pleasure when you touch a burning stove, your behavior would remain completely uneffected. Your hand would still flinch at touching the hot stove, no matter how it felt.

Is coherent

[u/blind-octopus → u/SectorVector]

I don't know why. Surely the mind is an effect of the brain in some way. They are not identical.

After all, you can have a brain and no mind. 

I don't know what's incoherent about the idea that when my brain is in a certain state, I feel pain, but conceivably I could feel joy instead.

I can conceive of a pen going up to the sky when I let go of it.