Mind or Matter?

Please report broken hyperlinks using the Reply option at the bottom of each page.

—

The Closing of the Scientific Mind

http://www.commentarymagazine.com/article/the-closing-of-the-scientific-mind/#.UsVzvbolLBQ.facebook

———————

Nothing but a pack of neurons?

http://www.st-edmunds.cam.ac.uk/faraday/resources/Faraday%20Papers/Faraday%20Paper%2016%20Judge_EN.pdf

and…

“[T[here’s real doubt as to whether machines are anywhere near matching wits with their creators.  According to a [2020 article]… in The Guardian, ‘Despite the vast number of facts being accumulated, our understanding of the brain appears to be approaching an impasse.‘ For example, it’s estimated that about 95 percent of brain activity involves what are called spontaneous fluctuations, or neural impulses, independent of both conscious thought and outside influence.  That’s a problem that shuts machines down.  As [another article in Salon] puts it, ‘For computers, spontaneous fluctuations create errors that crash the system, while for our brains, it’s a built-in feature.‘  Uniquely human thought arises from this chaos, unpredictable and unreproducible.  What we think of as intelligence — reason, logic, and processing — may instead be the end result of consciousness, not the means of achieving it…  [Both of the cited articles, though,] assume that the mind and the brain are identical, that there’s nothing more to our minds than ‘meat.’  While this is a common assumption of a naturalistic worldview, it’s a worldview that will never be big enough to explain human cognition, much less motivation and behavior…  [A]s philosopher Mortimer Adler noted over thirty years ago: ‘[T]he brain is not the organ of thought … an immaterial factor in the human mind is required.‘  We’ve made great strides in understanding certain elements of our biology as well as our ability to imitate certain behaviors with machines.  But, it’s just that.  Only an imitation.  As Gelernter put it, ‘Computers do what we make them do, period. However sophisticated the computer’s performance, it will always be a performance.‘  The more we learn of the brain and of human consciousness, the more it affirms that humans are not just meaty machines.”

https://www.breakpoint.org/the-limits-of-artificial-intelligence/

[ASND thanks Wintery Knight for that image.]

and…

Neuroscientist: Consciousness is not a neural phenomenon

http://www.uncommondescent.com/neuroscience/neuroscientist-consciousness-is-not-a-neural-phenomenon/

and…

“The patient’s mind can only be something quite apart from neuronal reflex action.”

— Wilder Penfield, Princeton research physician

http://www.breakpoint.org/bpcommentaries/entry/13/25025

and…

“… after a generation or more in which biological materialism has had neuroscience — indeed, all the life sciences — in a chokehold, we may at last be breaking free.”

http://www.firstthings.com/article/2007/01/the-mind-and-the-brain-neuroplasticity-and-the-power-of-mental-force

and…

“When neuroscience and Darwinism trespass into the humanities, they become… neuromania’ and ‘Darwinitis’ – unhealthy, mad and malign.“

http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2011/aug/07/aping-mankind-raymond-tallis-review

and…

Free will: What should we make of claims that neuroscience shows it does not exist?

http://www.thebestschools.org/bestschoolsblog/2013/01/12/free-will-claims-neuroscience-shows-exist/

and…

Neuroscience: Communicating with people trapped in bodies that live but no longer work?

http://www.thebestschools.org/bestschoolsblog/2013/02/10/neuroscience-communicating-people-trapped-bodies-live-longer-work/

and…

Fallacies of neruoscience

http://edwardfeser.blogspot.com/2012/03/scruton-on-neuroenvy.html#more

———————

What Is Consciousness?

http://www.evolutionnews.org/2016/07/what_is_conscio102995.html

and…

Are Abstract Thoughts Just Patterns in Our Brains?

http://www.evolutionnews.org/2015/11/are_abstract_th101131.html

and…

Human consciousness is much more than mere brain activity

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/belief/2011/jun/17/human-consciousness-brain-activity

and…

The Spiritual Brain

http://www.probe.org/site/c.fdKEIMNsEoG/b.4426915/k.AC8/The_Spiritual_Brain.htm

and…

4 Amazing Facts Suggesting the Mind Can Exist Independent of the Brain

http://pjmedia.com/lifestyle/2014/05/11/4-amazing-facts-suggesting-the-mind-can-exist-independent-of-the-brain/?print=1

———————

Atheist Philosopher Michael Ruse on Consciousness

http://truthbomb.blogspot.com/2014/04/quote-atheist-philosopher-michael-ruse.html

———————

Is Religious Belief Just a Brain Function?

http://enrichmentjournal.ag.org/201204/201204_110_religious_belief_brain_function.cfm

———————

“Brain scan images… are not pictures of our brains in action, and so they are positively not images of our minds at work.“

http://www.npr.org/blogs/13.7/2012/12/07/166733094/brain-scans-dont-catch-the-brain-in-action

———————

“… unlike religious fundamentalists, scientific fundamentalists do not realize that their opinions are based on faith… committed materialists have made science into a kind of religion.  They believe that there is no reality but material or physical reality…  These materialist beliefs are often taken for granted by scientists, not because they have thought about them critically, but because they haven’t.  To deviate from them is heresy, and heresy harms careers…  there is still no proof that consciousness is merely brain activity.  Leading journals such as Behavioural and Brain Sciences and the Journal of Consciousness Studies publish many articles that reveal deep problems with the materialist doctrine.”

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dr-rupert-sheldrake/why-bad-science-is-like-bad-religion_b_2200597.htm

———————

Pentecostal “tongues” speech is generated from some place in the brain other than the normal speech centers.

http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2014/06/what-happens-to-brains-during-spiritual-experiences/361882/

———————

Advertisement