The mind entity hypothesis

[Ninshub]

Posted today on the IANDS channel:



It's the dendrites.

Posted today on the IANDS channel:



It's the dendrites.

Hi Ian. I'm giving that a like because you've posted it but I don't like it lol

Hi Ian. I'm giving that a like because you've posted it but I don't like it lol

I see exactly what you mean! To me, this theory is incredibly vague, and seems designed to appeal a bit to materialists, and non-materialists! However, we are talking about a crucial scientific question here - one version of the Hard Problem - and there is no sense in fudging the issue!

Materialists are stumped by the various forms of NDE phenomena, and the sane response to that is to say that Materialism is false, so let's move on!

this theory is incredibly vague, and seems designed to appeal a bit to materialists

Yes, partly to appeal to materialists, I suppose. Robert is meticulous in his work but I personally think that it's ridiculous to try to hatch a plausible theory of disembodied consciousness or the mind outside of the brain. Whatever it is and it is for sure, I doubt if it's something we'll ever be able to deconstruct.

Yes, partly to appeal to materialists, I suppose. Robert is meticulous in his work but I personally think that it's ridiculous to try to hatch a plausible theory of disembodied consciousness or the mind outside of the brain. Whatever it is and it is for sure, I doubt if it's something we'll ever be able to deconstruct.

My feeling is that science doesn't really need theories of consciousness, it needs some mutually accepted standards for collecting relevant data. I mean if, for example, most of the information revealed in "Irreducible Mind" is accepted by some researchers and dismissed by others, then what use is a theory?

David

My feeling is that science doesn't really need theories of consciousness, it needs some mutually accepted standards for collecting relevant data. I mean if, for example, most of the information revealed in "Irreducible Mind" is accepted by some researchers and dismissed by others, then what use is a theory?

David

I don't have any answer. But there might be some degree of mutual interdependence of a theory and data which supports it. That is, with a theory in place, evidence might be more readily accepted.

But that isn't my own position. I've always placed data and observations first. Finding possible explanations then follows as an inevitable consequence. That's how I came to be interested in telepathy, starting with strange occurrences in my own life, then I began to weigh up various possible explanations.

I don't have any answer. But there might be some degree of mutual interdependence of a theory and data which supports it. That is, with a theory in place, evidence might be more readily accepted.

But that isn't my own position. I've always placed data and observations first. Finding possible explanations then follows as an inevitable consequence. That's how I came to be interested in telepathy, starting with strange occurrences in my own life, then I began to weigh up various possible explanations.

There was that issue Bill posted about, that the evidence gathered is apparently biased by the theory authors' desires.

Why I find the idea that Psi needs a theory before it can be taken seriously to be getting it backwards. That said it is a thorny issue, because a theory can ideally help give a starting point on how to read the evidence, but as noted in that link it seems the desire to have the right theory gets in the way of proper science.

I don't have any answer. But there might be some degree of mutual interdependence of a theory and data which supports it. That is, with a theory in place, evidence might be more readily accepted.

It certainly seems odd to come out with a theory which more or less postulates the known observations - that people's mind can separate from their body and reconnect after a period of time. it is a bit like having a theory of magnetism that states that magnets tend to pull together after sometimes reorienting!

But that isn't my own position. I've always placId data and observations first. Finding possible explanations then follows as an inevitable consequence. That's how I came to be interested in telepathy, starting with strange occurrences in my own life, then I began to weigh up various possible explanations.

Also, the 'theory' seems to postulate consciousness outside the body plus some other sort of consciousness - which is weird.

My feeling is that science doesn't really need theories of consciousness, it needs some mutually accepted standards for collecting relevant data. I mean if, for example, most of the information revealed in "Irreducible Mind" is accepted by some researchers and dismissed by others, then what use is a theory?

David

That's novel, I suppose. It may be a way to proceed but I don't think most scientists and philosophers would agree with you. There's three main options, if I'm not mistaken. Materialist reductionism, panpsychism and dualism (and substance dualism included in the latter, which I prefer) 

Scientists and philosophers are now receiving big grants to try to crack the problem (the hard problem). Materialism hasn't done it and can't do it, although those that want it to be true will never give up trying (promissory materialism). Panpsychism is popular, I believe, because most of them simply can't stand the latter, dualism. 

The evidence for the theory they can't stomach (dualism) is enormous and I don't need to point it out, but the problem is that there are so many dishonest 'sceptics' or even honest sceptics who won't even look at the evidence because they already "know" they don't need to. Without the dishonest debunkers we would have been further along by now, as more money would surely have been made available.

That's novel, I suppose. It may be a way to proceed but I don't think most scientists and philosophers would agree with you. There's three main options, if I'm not mistaken. Materialist reductionism, panpsychism and dualism (and substance dualism included in the latter, which I prefer) 

Scientists and philosophers are now receiving big grants to try to crack the problem (the hard problem). Materialism hasn't done it and can't do it, although those that want it to be true will never give up trying (promissory materialism). Panpsychism is popular, I believe, because most of them simply can't stand the latter, dualism. 

The evidence for the theory they can't stomach (dualism) is enormous and I don't need to point it out, but the problem is that there are so many dishonest 'sceptics' or even honest sceptics who won't even look at the evidence because they already "know" they don't need to. Without the dishonest debunkers we would have been further along by now, as more money would surely have been made available.

Sorry Tim, as a lurker but rarely-active forum member, I found I had to break my silence temporarily to comment on this. Traditionally, as far as I am aware (I'm not a philosopher), and also currently, the three main options are Materialism, Idealism and Dualism. Indeed, historically idealism was the dominant worldview until after the so-called "Enlightenment" when materialism started to gain ground due to the advances of scientific reductionism and the rejection of top-down theism (the rejection of religious techings). So, ever since the ancient Greeks, the main battleground has been between idealism (Plato, etc.) and materialism (e.g. Epicurus). All the other "isms", including panpsychism, are offshoots of those main three concepts while one of the three - dualism - is nothing more than a compromise position between materialism and idealism.

I will accept that many materialists will insist that the battle for ideas about reality is between materialism and dualism and, as you have demostrated here yourself, completely ignore idealism as something not even worthy of consideration. But there are still some prominent idealists out there, especially when it comes to spirituality. Sciborg will be better placed to fill in details and correct my mistakes but I think I am correct in saying that idealism forms the basis of most spiritual teachings from Hinduism, through Buddhism to mystical Judaism and Chritianity. Going outside of mainstream schools of philosophy, people like Tom Campbell are essentially promoting an idealist worldview although I think that some, like Sheldrake, are more inclined towards dualism. I think Bernardo Kastrup might, as I do, take exception to your ommision of idealism.

I'll just quote the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy to justify my above argument:

The seemingly intractable nature of these problems have given rise to many different philosophical views.

Materialist views say that, despite appearances to the contrary, mental states are just physical states. Behaviourism, functionalism, mind-brain identity theory and the computational theory of mind are examples of how materialists attempt to explain how this can be so. The most common factor in such theories is the attempt to explicate the nature of mind and consciousness in terms of their ability to directly or indirectly modify behaviour, but there are versions of materialism that try to tie the mental to the physical without explicitly explaining the mental in terms of its behaviour-modifying role. The latter are often grouped together under the label ‘non-reductive physicalism’, though this label is itself rendered elusive because of the controversial nature of the term ‘reduction’.

Idealist views say that physical states are really mental. This is because the physical world is an empirical world and, as such, it is the intersubjective product of our collective experience.

Dualist views (the subject of this entry) say that the mental and the physical are both real and neither can be assimilated to the other. For the various forms that dualism can take and the associated problems, see below.

In sum, we can say that there is a mind-body problem because both consciousness and thought, broadly construed, seem very different from anything physical and there is no convincing consensus on how to build a satisfactorily unified picture of creatures possessed of both a mind and a body.

Other entries which concern aspects of the mind-body problem include (among many others): behaviorism, consciousness, eliminative materialism, epiphenomenalism, functionalism, identity theory, intentionality, mental causation, neutral monism, and physicalism.