Sure. 100% natural, no augmentations, chemical or otherwise. It stops working (if you are referring to filling a diesel car with gasoline.) So no, it's not like that. It is the person who knows; the person's awareness resides in the brain. That "someone" lives in the brain. Let's use an analogy. You are currently running a browser. Is the browser the computer? No, it's just a program running there. But take away the computer and the browser is gone too. Without the computer, there's no browser. You are "running" in your brain. Are you your brain? No, you are just an awareness residing there. But take away the brain and you are gone too. Without your brain, there is no "you."
Keep using "magic" or "magical" James. Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! You're right, the consciousness doesn't persist through the dead body, because it is dead. But there has been NDE's which have shown conscious activity after being pronounced clinically dead. On one occasion (at least), it occurred after brain death. Jan.
That's your presupposition. A dogmatic, faith-based one. You believe you are your body. I don't. Jan.
Are you saying the browser's existence depends on the existence of your computer? That without your computer Chrome or Explorer or whatever would cease to exist?
I mean. How does the brain know? Or is it that if there are any changes, the brain simply reacts? And your brain stops working if you overdose on mind altering drugs. So it is like that. Where in the brain is it? Where in our brains do we live? That's simply materialist dogma. Jan.
There's nothing "simple" about the brain's reactions. I didn't say anything about overdosing. When you use drugs as prescribed by a doctor, your brain generally works better than it did before. It is distributed throughout the brain; there is no one location. Where in your computer is your browser? See above. No one location. Well, as much as your beliefs are superstitious nonsense.
What about simply damaging the brain and not killing it? We observe that if a small part of the brain is damaged, the personality of the person can be fundamentally altered, for example. Damage certain parts of the brain and memories no longer form. Damage other parts and basic things like recognising one's own limbs as "mine" disappear. Does damaging the brain simultaneously damage the "soul-spirit" that it interacts with? Or does it damage the connection with the soul-spirit? Or what? Why does this happen, Jan?
Those terms are entirely appropriate term to use to describe your beliefs. No. NDEs have never shown that. On what basis? More magical knowledge? You "just know"? Where is the "you" in your brain? As billvon said, it's all over the place in the brain - bits and pieces of "you". Your conscious perception of yourself as an individual - that "self-awareness" you keep going on about - mostly happens in the cerebral cortex, but that is connected to other parts of the brain that handle your memories, your senses, the regulation of your basic bodily functions, and so on. You're thinking about it the wrong way, trying to create a false dualism. There's not a separate "you" who lives apart from your brain. You are your brain ... or, more accurately, you are a product of your brain's function. Then no doubt you'll be able to explain exactly how the "spirit-soul" interfaces with the brain, to show exactly what the materialists are missing in their dogmatic picture. In the process, you'll of course explain why damaging the brain also seems to damage the "you", which it shouldn't do if the "you" was separate from and independent of the brain, like you claim it is.
For most who believe in a soul, the brain is largely a switch board. Damage to the switch board means messages don't get relayed, possibly in either direction.
Mayhap, but it isn't merely a communication issue; it's a cognitive one. A damaged brain should not stop this spirit soul from recognizing its own children, or knowing it's in the kitchen.
Sure it should, if the sense signals cannot connect with memories of those identities. But maybe I erred on the side of too much simplicity above. The brain obviously has memory storage, programmable routine handling, and computing capabilities. Much like a computer, the soul is considered the user. Damage to a computer can impair memory, input, and output...even though the user is completely unimpaired. Images stored on a computer can get corrupted beyond recognition, keyboards can malfunction, whole sections of a drive can be lost, etc.. In a wholly computer world, we would not expect the user to have access to the world by any means other than a computer. But souls can take a kind of damage as well, hence religious morality.
Huh. If I didn't know better, I'd say it's almost as if all the processes of the mind, or self, are already facilitated by the brain - memory, input, output, processing, etc. leaving this spirit soul with no responsibilities. One could almost say that all the processes of mind and identity occur in the brain, and this spirit soul were merely wishful thinking. If I didn't know better of course... Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!
But of course you do know better, just like you know all those processes in a computer are dependent on the user.
What I know is that a person is not comprised of a computer-and-operator combination. The concept of an inner pilot operating the person (i.e. homunculus) has been debunked.
Syne: Is this what you believe? Can you tell me how the interface works between the soul and the brain, then? How does the immaterial soul connect to the brain to produce physical changes in the brain? And how do messages from the senses get passed through to the immaterial soul? The brain/soul duality isn't a very parsimonious explanation, is it? We could just cut the soul out of the picture and nothing would need to change, as far as I can see.
Ok, how exactly is this considered to be a) Sexual harassment, and b) Trolling? We’re talking about the identity of a hypothetical simulated character. You seem to have no problem with the implied violence involved in kidnapping a subject and imprisoning their brain in a vat, yet the assignment of a sexual background to the resultant fictional entity is to be considered a greater offense. What kind of twisted moral compass do you fly by? How about if instead of a sex slave Syne, we cast you as cannibal Syne, and you’re forced to eat aborted fetuses everyday for sustenance. Will that work for you? Or will you continue with your persecution complex? If not for your prudish aversion to all things sexual, this discussion would be almost entirely on topic, so your assertion of trolling on my part is without merit.. Do you have causal connection to your own brain? If yes then it also applies to any envated brain when properly equipped. When a brain experiences thought, who’s brain would be expected to generate said thought? Someone else’s? I didn’t expect to have to keep restating the obvious to someone who on the surface appears to be intelligent. The simulation may provide the envatted brain with sensory data that is equal to that of a real body. So that when the envatted brain has a headache, its sensory reference to that physiological condition is as valid as yours. The BIV is still a biological entity, and the simulation is designed to present the artificial support and sensory system as if it were a native human body. The programmed dynamics that govern that “body” are ideally identical to that of a real body. So if you slash your wrist in the simulation, it leads to simulated profuse bleeding, and the system responds by physiologically mimicking that real life condition, causing an actual reduction of blood flow to the brain, which left unchecked results in unconsciousness. The goal of the experiment is not to hide all knowledge of the brain from itself, only to hide knowledge of where it resides. If action performed on the envatted brain is accurately duplicated virtually, then knowledge of that action obtained by way of simulation will equal that of the original. Just as a photograph can be assumed to be an original, and a copy to be its compositional match, we can also assume that essential elements of a simulation can be accurate representations of a given reality.
While your analogy may be accurate in principle, it behooves you to find an example that is not cluttered with deliberately inflammatory imagery. Casting your opponent into the scenario is further inflammation. This is flirting with trolling, and it suggests that your debating tactic might not be entirely in good faith. You can find an example that respects your opponent as well as other readers.
The homunculus argument only applies to a physical infinite regress. So it seems you're taking the computer analogy too literally. Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!
