The Brain Can Be Split, but Not the Mind | EvolutionNews

@sbu

Bearing in mind that I am not a Christian, I am inclined to believe that the anomalies that Egnor describes are real. Put yourself in the position of other neuroscientists. They probably encounter some of this stuff and don't write it down because from their standpoint, it doesn't make sense.

I'd say not recording phenomena that 'don't make sense' is more understandable than inventing lies to justify an extreme position.

There is a lot in this book that is really valuable - unless you take the view that it is all made up - and it is extremely relevant to the question of nature of consciousness.

David

@sbu

Bearing in mind that I am not a Christian, I am inclined to believe that the anomalies that Egnor describes are real. Put yourself in the position of other neuroscientists. They probably encounter some of this stuff and don't write it down because from their standpoint, it doesn't make sense.

I'd say not recording phenomena that 'don't make sense' is more understandable than inventing lies to justify an extreme position.

There is a lot in this book that is really valuable - unless you take the view that it is all made up - and it is extremely relevant to the question of nature of consciousness.

David

I don’t hold the view it’s all made up. But claiming children with Hydranencephaly are consciousness is just an assumption he is making. Just like some neuroscientists are assuming neural activity is responsible for consciousness.

There are also cases for example in epilepsy where the electrical disturbances in the brain causes changes to consciousness. I suspect Egnor to ignore this material for example as it doesn’t fit into his narrative.

Okay, I would like to retract my earlier comment about Egnor underplaying some of Wilder Penfield's research. I double-checked with mindmatters.ai, and Egnor writes:

“All the stimulations were concrete things: move your arm or feel a tingling, or even a concrete memory, like remembering your grandmother’s face or something. But there was never any abstract thought stimulated.”
I think this is a very honest representation, as I'm not sure the evidence for explicit recall of episodic memories was particularly strong in Penfield’s research. Ultimately, Wilder Penfield himself became a dualist.

While I enjoy playing devil’s advocate, I must admit that this particular line of inquiry provides some of the strongest arguments for the brain not being the source of consciousness. Additionally, I appreciate that Egnor doesn't mix this discussion with psychic phenomena, which, in my opinion, rest on much weaker ground.

But claiming children with Hydranencephaly are consciousness is just an assumption he is making.

I think claiming that they don't have consciousness is the rather more contentious claim... they're not vegetables. The fact that they can smile and react to things is indicative of more than mere muscle reflexes like you're seemingly implying.

I don’t hold the view it’s all made up. But claiming children with Hydranencephaly are consciousness is just an assumption he is making. Just like some neuroscientists are assuming neural activity is responsible for consciousness.

Well if you read the book, you will discover that this observation was backed up by a Swedish neuroscientist who spent a week at Disney World with 5 families, each with a child suffering from Hydranencephaly, and observing them respond to environment! I must say, I think Disney World would send me to sleep, but seriously, it is just waay too easy to dismiss research like that.

There are also cases for example in epilepsy where the electrical disturbances in the brain causes changes to consciousness. I suspect Egnor to ignore this material for example as it doesn’t fit into his narrative.

There are plenty of phenomena that Egnore really does ignore, but I guess you would be happy to ignore all of parapsychology, all the evidence for reincarnation, etc. etc.

My beef with Egnore is that after presenting a good case that each of us contains a non-physical component, he tries to skew the evidence to fit a Christian perspective. For example he tries to make a case that humans alone exhibit 'abstract thought' - whatever that is exactly, and this downplays the intelligence of animals.

I am pleased that this discussion is at last starting to broaden out into a discussion of Egnor's book. As I say, his book is very cheap, and I can't possibly do justice to it in its entirety!

David

My beef with Egnore is that after presenting a good case that each of us contains a non-physical component, he tries to skew the evidence to fit a Christian perspective. For example he tries to make a case that humans alone exhibit 'abstract thought' - whatever that is exactly, and this downplays the intelligence of animals.

It's rather odd, because many animals have been shown to clearly demonstrate manifestations of abstract thinking ~ the ability plan to ahead, for example ~ jumping spiders, ants, crows, and so on. Hunting requires this, working together in a mass requires it, tool use requires it.

I'd dare say many animals do this in many other ways as befits their psychological makeup and particular needs and motivations too, hence we may never recognize it.

It's rather odd, because many animals have been shown to clearly demonstrate manifestations of abstract thinking ~ the ability plan to ahead, for example ~ jumping spiders, ants, crows, and so on. Hunting requires this, working together in a mass requires it, tool use requires it.

I'd dare say many animals do this in many other ways as befits their psychological makeup and particular needs and motivations too, hence we may never recognize it.

I'd say having a pet such as a cat clues you in to what animals can really do!

Pushing concepts like "abstract thinking" too far can also be slippery - I mean Chat-GPT is just a pattern matcher, but it sure fools one into thinking it is an abstract thinker.

David

I'd say having a pet such as a cat clues you in to what animals can really do!

Pushing concepts like "abstract thinking" too far can also be slippery - I mean Chat-GPT is just a pattern matcher, but it sure fools one into thinking it is an abstract thinker.

David

Indeed!

But unlike a computer algorithm, cats are actually conscious and intelligent ~ in a feline sense ~ so we shouldn't be so quick to rule out abstract thinking. After all, abstract thinking isn't easy to observe or test for, because every animal has its own conceptualizations and understandings of its world. When all we can observe are behaviours, we have no insights into a cat's mental processes.

I'd argue that abstract thinking isn't all that special ~ we just take our human abstract thought patterns for granted, because we can communicate them to one another. But a cat, or the like, cannot communicate their abstract thinking to us ~ nor would it necessarily make any sense to us, even if they could, because their model of the world differs dramatically to ours, despite there being some overlap.