Philosophers: Is the mind material?

Question

Thanks to all your answers. Have a great day!

Answer 1

You picked one of my favourite questions.

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What western religion has to say:

Old testament talks of the soul (or lilfe-blood) being a mixture of spirit (mind) and body (dust or matter). New testament nostics emphasized a war between flesh (matter) and spirit (mind). "The spirit is willing but the flesh is weak" and that our animal instincts and baser selves are rooted in the flesh and that God is essentually a pure spirit free from limitations of physical existence.

Hence the need for Logos to bridge carnal man with a spiritual God.

Somewhere in the mix is the analogy of three aspects of man increasing in purity body (or flesh) being purly material. The soul (or individual) being a mixture (or interaction) of body and spirit, and the spirit being purely mental mind. Similarly Gods triune aspects (holy trinity) of father son and spirit might be seen in a similar light.

Eastern religions and philosophies such as hindu and bhudist teachings have similar ideas where bodily or carnal desires need to be abandoned to sever our link with the the dream of physical reality.

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What Science & western academics suggest:

Whenever you try to split mind and body you get problems. It is generally understood that whenever you get a change of mind you get a physical change (usually in brain chemistry, structures and brain waves).

Likewise changing your brain (such as an axe through your head) is likely to change your mind or mental outlook.

Separating mind and matter may be a little like separating space and time. The two concepts may appear different in everyday language but according to scientists view of a space-time continuim the two are inseparable and depending on our frame of view one persons space can be another persons time.

You can read up on Plato for a good summary of the problems of how mental events and physical reality have problems mixing. Some physicalists argue that there is only physical reality and mental events are a delusion, but to be deluded you need a mind to be tricked.

Another approach is to assume the two are connected, that what happens to one is mirrored by the other. If we assume that reality follows the mind than we might assume that minds have magical power to dream things into existence. Common sense dictates that unless we are crazy we perceive what is physically real.

If we define physical reality as those things that we commonly experience we are able to dispense with the concept of matter as it is generally understood. We may however have more difficulty defining mind in terms of matter.

Since there are some paradoxical problems associated with having both concepts of mind and matter co-existing.

I lean towards assuming I do have mental events and that physical objects may have no existence outside their ability to influence minds. [If we imagine a physical object (such as an inaudible, intangible, invisible ghost) with no features that can be perceived or measured we generally assume it has no relevance to our reality]

This of course brings us to the old story of the tree that crashes in an isolated forrest. If noone hears it did it make a sound. I believe it generally does, especially if the tree is able to hear itself crash.

When we look at things real closely we find that laws of physics such as space-time relativity, quantum mechanics and Loop gravity paint a picture where if there is one absolute universe it is one that our everyday concepts of absolutes differ from different framworks or perspecives, to the extent where it may be possible to change past events or slide into worlds with alternate histories by choices we make. Such ideas are of course crazy when viewed from our everyday understanding.

In our everyday world the universe is complete and the past unchangeable; Time is absolute and physical objects properties are the same for any observer and painfully real if we ignore them.

According to modern academics trust in such beliefs is misplaced, and the real situation is likely to begger belief defying everyday common sense.
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My solution to the mind-matter problem is to assume that there is no matter. Academics call this "idealism". I apply the mathematical laws of psychology such as "game theory", and "information physics" to explain physical laws such as "quantum mechanics".

My main analogy is that each person's universe is a virtual world like a dream or computer simulation. The extent we can communicate and share experiences is the extent to which we share the same universe (or experiences).

E.g. if we are playing the same game we might expect to bump into walls at the same places. Likewise if we are playing at the same time we might bump into each other.

We can apply this principle to what would be seen as physical limitations we see in the laws of physics such as people in overlapping Einsteinian space-time event horizons being able to share some experiences but are unable to send information faster than light to change historical events.

Equally we can apply this principle to purely phychological situations. [If we are having a shared dream we would expect to remember similar experiences when we later share what we dreamed.]

People from different midsets are not able to effectively communicate information unless the listener shares a similar language and life experiences.

E.g. in explaining electricity to a cave man you might use lightning and river systems as analogies. On the other hand it would be less easy to convey the concept of color to a person blind from birth or to an animal who is naturally color blind.

Put simply what we view as physical reality is based on what we commonly experience.

E.g. What I am typing should look to you the same as what you are reading.

Likewise If I experience getting hit by a bus and dying you might read about my demise in a news paper because we share much the same existence. In this existence there seems to be a law that once I am "run over by a bus and killed" my ability to send messages over the internet is curtailed, because my mind no longer exist in your world or sphere of influence. Or more accurately if I no longer exist or have moved on, my new location's sphere of influence may not stretch back to the land of the living.

Millions of words have been devoted to the mind-matter problem. I hope my few have added to your understanding.

Answer 2

I suppose the answer would depend on your definition of mind and your definition of material.

One way to look at it is that there is the brain and there is the mind. The brain is physical (and material if that is what you meant when you said material), and the mind is not physical, but none-the-less real. The mind is our conscious and subconscious, as well as our creative energy in this world.

Of course, you could always go the quantum physics and metaphysical route where we are nothing but energy and ideas. In that sense, nothing physical is really physical, it is simply a manifestation of our (collective) thoughts. In this sense, the mind would not be material and neither would the brain. The physicalness or materialness is simply an illusion.

Not sure if that was what you were looking for, but it's a start.

Answer 3

Not in the same sense that your lunch is. You can imagine (using your mind) in great detail that you are eating your lunch, but your mind will not fill your stomach. Things material are made up (as far as we currently understand) of particles that interact within a system of atoms, molecules etc. Whilst the mind can be demonstrated to exist as a result of the working of the brain, we can't find particles of 'mind ' existing elsewhere. In reality, 'mind' is a definition of one of the things that the brain does in the same sense that 'washing clothes' is what a washing machine does. We wouldn't expect to be able to find a material substance called 'washing clothes', so we shouldn't expect to be able to find 'the mind'.
Oh, and if I might put in a response to 'brother' - the mind is what we use when we think, which is not what you are doing when you spout all this nonsense about your experience of jesus. If you want to share your fabulous religious experience, do it on the religion site and leave the philosophy site for people who can, do and want to think for themselves without relying on secondhand, second rate belief systems that don't require any thought whatseover, only belief. I used to believe in Father Xmas, then stopped when I thought about it. You will find the same with your jesus if you are capable of thinking.

Answer 4

Good question.

The human mind is both material and spiritual -- a blend.

The material mind is material; (brain) but the "substance" of this material human mind is a spirit portion (gift) of the Holy Spirit here of the Infinite Spirit on Paradise as acting for the Universal Father-Eternal Son will union.

Peace and progress,
Brother Dave, a Jesusonian Christian Truthist
http://www.PureChristians.org/ Gospel enlarging website,
proclaiming worldwide the True Religion
OF JESUS and ABOUT JESUS and IN JESUS
Come and share !

Answer 5

The mind is unequivocally material -- spirito-material, but material nonetheless. Such is the highest form of matter, rarified in both form and purpose and within its domain, which for all intents and purposes here in the worlds of matter, energy, space, and time, and under that vast umbrella of duality expressing through the Three's, is the most powerfully endowed of all forms of mass -- animate or inanimate, subtle or gross.

Answer 6

This is an ambiguous question. Sometimes, when we say "mind" we mean "that which thinks." In my own view, that which thinks is ... the brain. Which is in fact a very complicated chunk of matter.

But other times, when we say "mind," we mean the stream of consciousness itself. Not that WHICH thinks, but the fact of thought. In my view, thought is immaterial.

So something material is causing the existence of something immaterial. This is a very odd sort of fact, if it is a fact at all, and raises a lot of very difficult tangled questions.

For me, if all becomes slightly less tangled when reading the relevant works of John Searle. For you on your own search, best of luck!

Answer 7

Legally, yes, as are its products. Hence copyright... All else is immaterial.

[Why Gnosticism is a heresy is that it is unfounded in the substance of Scripture, and operates from a dualism contrary to the given-ness of the world God created, seeing spirit and mind as non-substantial and higher, imprisoned within physical reality, i.e. a ghost within the machine. The mind, spirit, and soul are coterminous with the body and are indistinguishable composite parts of the living person. The mind is material because it functions, it conceptualises and brings into being its ideas, operatus operandi. At the moment of death it ceases to function, rather than devolving or evolving to some other plane of existence. There are no gates and magic passwords to immortality. Time and space are both categories peculiar to human consciousness. They are entirely relative, and apart from the mind non-existent. The idea that the mind is a function of the brain is preposterous. It is no more so than it is a function of the endocrine or digestive system, or heart and lungs for that matter. Each cell within the living body is as much a part of the mind, intricate and purposeful in its operation and contribution to the whole organism. [Within biological research, and actual experience, we might think of the function of stem-cells, whether embryonic or auto-infused from a person's bone marrow to take on the function of either muscles of the heart or neurons in the brain. This has great potential in resolving problems of damaged cells and tissues. Stem cells are undifferentiated until they take their place in the organism wherein they function. This has been proven, there are people who have already benefited by these procedures.] Paul Ricouer and Maurice Merleau-Ponty took this question up in the phenomenolgy of perception. How else could you explain something such as phantom pain? Or the unique ability of professional musicians to "think" with their hands, ear, or voice? Magical views may arise from different understandings of Scripture, but these are entirely denied throughout the history of philosophy, by people as divergent as Hillel, Gamaliel, Philo Judaeus, Judah Ha-Nasi, Origen, Tertullian, Cyprian, Peter Abelard, Duns Scotus, Albertus Magnus,Thomas Aquinas, Moses Maimonides, Benedict Spinoza, Henri Bergson, all the way up to Ludwig Wittgenstein. Ideas shape reality more firmly and fixedly than a mould shapes poured concrete.]

[Germinal works to consider are Henri Bergson's "The Creative Mind; an Introduction to Metaphysics":
http://www.angelfire.com/md2/timewarp/bergson.html

Gabriel Marcel's "The Mystery of Being":
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/marcel/

Martin Heidegger's "Being and Time" (Here's an abstract and commentary on his work relative to Mind):
http://etd.lsu.edu/docs/available/etd-04152005-085655/unrestricted/Hollingsworth_thesis.pdf

Maurice Merleau-Ponty's "Phenomenology of Perception":
http://www25.brinkster.com/marcsgalaxy/merlric.htm ]

Answer 8

The contents of the mind are the material for thought. No more, no less.

Answer 9

Is a modulating voltage material? Is an atom material (yes) but not the electrons and protons and neutrons that unify for the atoms existence? Perceptible qualities flow into the imperceptible qualities.

Answer 10

When body dies the mind also dies. Materials are dead.

But we can associate the word material with human consciousness. Like, Hardwork was a material in their success.

Answer 11

We are strongest when we are at our weakest. Only when we reach a point of great stress do we discover how much resilience we truly have. You may feel you are handling a situation badly. Given the circumstances, though, you could be expected to fair far worse. Don't criticise yourself for alleged failings. Celebrate for doing so well in such an adverse climate. You are about to discover that a brave step has been far more successful than you dared hope.
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