Neuroscientist says the brain isn't for thinking

Apologies Laird, I have edited the original version.

Is the idea so very different from the filter model of consciousness?  I haven’t read the article.

It's the same kind of...your mind is just your body so all your mental stress and anxiety is just to serve a bodily purpose type of perspective. Since the mind is the brain, if I think of my mental anxieties as just brain things happening they might not be so stressful. The contradiction in this is apparent, but I think its gone over her head. Mental stresses are just brain stresses so think about them differently so they stop being so bad.

Edit: though, to be completely fair, this was written as a opinion peace meant to help people find ways to deal with stress in rough american times. Approaching problems like this in psychology can help alleviate them alongside other treatments. Shouldn't be so dismissive towards it.

It's the same kind of...your mind is just your body so all your mental stress and anxiety is just to serve a bodily purpose type of perspective. Since the mind is the brain, if I think of my mental anxieties as just brain things happening they might not be so stressful. The contradiction in this is apparent, but I think its gone over her head. Mental stresses are just brain stresses so think about them differently so they stop being so bad.

Edit: though, to be completely fair, this was written as a opinion peace meant to help people find ways to deal with stress in rough american times. Approaching problems like this in psychology can help alleviate them alongside other treatments. Shouldn't be so dismissive towards it.

Yeah the sentiment is ideal but I do think it works better when "You" is separate from the brain, rather than just the brain.

I mean someone might eschew medicine for mental health issues because they "just need" to pull a mind over matter trick on their brain, but someone might also think that they're situation hopeless if it's all determined by their brain.

Irreducible Mind's suggestion that the relationship between soul and body is more akin to salt dissolved in water than a kid controlling a toy car via remote is a good one.

A neuroscientist says your brain isn't for thinking - just-surviving. A new article in the New York Times (paywall), discussed here. 

It's amazing how utterly wrong-headed and even self-contradictory committed materialists can be. 

From the discussion at Mind Matters:

I recently listened to her on Lex Fridman podcast:


While it was a meandering entertaining conversation, I didn't feel like it went all that deep.

Later in the podcast Lex brings in philosophy and (tangentially) the Hard Problem and Lisa shies away from that, saying those kinds of questions are impossible for us to figure out or they're above her pay grade.

it's hard for me to square this idea of humanity's mental foundations resting on instinctively guided sea creatures.

Well... I've heard (Jordan Peterson) that Lobsters and humans both have dominance hierarchies which affect our serotonin levels which in turn affect our mood and levels of aggression. Apparently, giving SRI drugs to sad Lobsters makes them feel better.

Is the Fundamental Theory of Calculus really just the result of animal processes rather than a discovery of a context-less "Platonic" truth?

What about all the mathematical proofs from graph theory, discrete mathematics, and so on that allows the Internet to exist and effectively function so people can pay the NYTimes for the pleasure of reading in pixels how [according to these materialists] worthless human existence is?

Anytime someone says something "is just"... a diminishment follows. A drawing of a wider boundary to identify that which is elevated with that which is base.

I do hear the materialists doing this type of diminishment with humans... or anything for that matter... the process of reduction... reduces. Nerds are cynical because as understanding increases via reduction, the self is by comparison elevated.

Well... I've heard (Jordan Peterson) that Lobsters and humans both have dominance hierarchies which affect our serotonin levels which in turn affect our mood and levels of aggression. Apparently, giving SRI drugs to sad Lobsters makes them feel better.

How do we know the lobsters are sad?