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Mind/Body Problem...
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Kelly, you seem to be trying to use language to separate our thoughts from our brains. What's an 'idea' or 'thought'? It could just as well be defined as a set of instructions, or a course of action we decide to take, based on trillions of calculations we make using our intelligence. Why the need to assert that it's something separate to our own brain?
Also, doesn't the notion that there is a 'spirit' or 'unseen force' guiding our thoughts or ideas contradict the idea of free-will?0 -
Why doesn't the idea of spirit explain intelligence, love & human thought??? Are you having a laugh, how can you not see that this explains nothing, absolutely nothing..Why doesn't it?
If I was to try and explain phototropism of a plant and I said that the reason a plant "follows" (wow an abstract concept) the direction of the sun throughout the day was because the spirit inside the plant "wants" (wow another one) to follow the sun, this doesn't explain anything, it doesn't tell me why the plant does this, it doesn't tell how the postulated spirit (the key part of the theory) and the plant interact, and it requires the invention of an whole new science that can someone how accommodate this mysterious mover called "the spirit". But we know now exactly how phototropism works, the mechanisms of how it all works, why it occurs, we have a fully satisfying explanation of this process without any need for a soul. Of course it seems silly in the first place to attribute a spirit to a plant but 200 years ago it wasn't when 'vital spirit' was thought to exist in all living things. You are simply making the exact same mistake.I think something immaterial is more likely to be the source of immaterial things such as concepts, ideas, love etc.
Every idea is always physically instantiated, whether by sound waves in the air or in ink on a book.
Ideas are immaterial..? What does this mean, what they describe could be considered immaterial in the minimal sense given that they often describe the actions and social interactions of human beings, so obviously a concept like stealing is abstract as it can refer to any type or event of stealing..but this is trivial. Once we can label things with language nothing is stopping us labeling complex interactions of human beings, there is nothing mysterious about this.
Vervet monkeys utter different sounds for different animals (like snake/ eagle or large cat) does this mean they have a concept of a snake? yes it does in a minimal sense but ours is obviously much more rich given the vocabulary we have built up. What is so special about our uttering's that needs a postulated spirit to try and (unsuccessfully) explain them.Does it fully explain the source of ideas, decision-making, passion for knowledge etc or just offer theories?
Well, combined with many other disciplines lots of progress is being made, there are lots of computational models of various parts of language processing, sensory processing, decision making etc etc etc..
(as a side note - there is so much disciplines and approaches involved now in examining the mind & brain that it is getting increasing more rare to see general theories of how the brain and mind work, it is more the case that the brain is seen as a complicated bag of tricks so there is no 'one-trick-pony' employed, so integrating the wealth of empirical research that has been acquired is becoming increasing difficult)
To give an example of some progress that has been made, there are little robots now that can navigate space with little neural networks controlling there movement, and these robots can track various aspects of the environment, and as such develop proto-concepts for objects in the environment that they are tuned to be "interested" in (without any need for a soul, only the shifting patterns of "firing" in artificial neural nets).
You would say of course that such concepts are not really concepts but that they just behave as if they are using concepts, and it is only us that have real concepts/ideas, researchers in such a field would respond that all concepts started out like this, just like the minimal concepts of robots today, and the minimal concept of the sun that a plant has, and the minimal concepts that vervet monkeys have, ours are no different, it is just a long continuum "traveled" over evolutionary time. One big difference between us language bearing creatures and our non-language bearing distant relatives is that with language we have to ability to represent these concepts and talk about them and share them and thus massively enrich and expand them, but there is nothing mysterious about this.0 -
How can matter contain or produce a "conceptual model"? Matter knows nothing about concepts or models. Why are you crediting matter with intelligence? Admittedly a brain is complex but does complexity somehow produce intelligence?A thought is a conceptual model, in the same way that a millimetre is a conceptual measurement of a distance in reality. A computer can "produce" a millimetre in the same way that a brain can produce a thought.
Give me one example of something non-physical that a computer can produce? It's a dumb machine that follows instructions. It can't even make decisions - it only appears to. Computers can compare numbers and act on rules but that isn't decision making. Likewise books only contain paper and ink. Books know nothing about the information contained in them. Books don't hold thoughts. The mind produces thoughts upon reading the words.Computers can produce non-physical things. Books can store them. Again the idea that non-physical things, such as ideas, cannot exist in a material fashion doesn't hold.0 -
...and alcohol "knows" nothing about singing badly and throwing up in the streets, but that's what happens.Matter knows nothing about concepts or models.
Complexity, per se, doesn't, but the complex design of the brain certainly seems to.Admittedly a brain is complex but does complexity somehow produce intelligence?
And that's what some recent research is suggesting -- that the brain isn't conscious, but it is very good at giving the appearance that it is.It's a dumb machine that follows instructions. It can't even make decisions - it only appears to.0 -
You think really simplistically e.g. big brain - small brain, talking about matter when we are talking about a brain, its not like a rock you know, do you actually know what a neuron is for example. Your comments are about as intelligent as saying if a rock was really big would it be able to think or maybe if it was a complex rock made of many different rocks and metals, these kind of assertions are analogous to your level of understanding.How can matter contain or produce a "conceptual model"? Matter knows nothing about concepts or models. Why are you crediting matter with intelligence? Admittedly a brain is complex but does complexity somehow produce intelligence?
The brain is not just any all piece of matter, it is complex, massively parrallel, computational device. And thus thinking about how it works it is a bit more complex than your silly assertions..well its just matter
photosensitivity (given that using a word to describe a complex behaviour automatically elevates it to an abstract notion). As this word most accurately explains the behaviour of a photo sensitive robot.Give me one example of something non-physical that a computer can produce?0 -
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Books and computers only store symbols. It requires a mind to recognize and understand what the eye sees. words composed of symbols aren't in themselves thoughts. Words don't act upon the reader, the reader acts upon the words and creates thoughts based on what he/she reads.That doesn't really matter. While having no idea of what it is storing you can't deny that it does actually store it. The "idea" exists independently of any conscious mind. I could write a book, kill myself and pass the idea on to a new human who had never seen the idea before. The "idea" (a non-physical thing) exists independently of myself and can be passed around.
Has any scientist been able to demonstrate how the brain is capable of producing thoughts? We can see activity in the brain when thoughts occur but we don't know if these are the thought or are produced by thought. Not to my very limited knowledge anyway.Through the neural network of the human brain.0 -
Apparently so, since we are intelligent.Admittedly a brain is complex but does complexity somehow produce intelligence?
You are working on the unfounded assumption that a system made of matter, such as the human brain, cannot produce intelligence (which in turn produces concepts and ideas). I see no reason to believe that, nor have you presented one.
From where I'm standing the brain is material, the brain produces intelligence, therefore a material object can and does produce intelligence.
World of Warcraft. Few would claim that Azeroth is a real place.Give me one example of something non-physical that a computer can produce?
That is rather irrelevant. A book is completely dumb, yet it holds non-physical concepts and ideas.It's a dumb machine that follows instructions.
I would remind you that your claim wasn't that material things could not process ideas, your original claim was that ideas cannot exist independently of a mind to hold them. Which isn't true.
Books and computers cannot process ideas but the human brain can. Again I see no reason for your assertion that a material object such as the brain cannot do that.
And to be honest your argument is getting rather muddled. Perhaps it is time to regroup and have a think about what you are actually asking.Has any scientist been able to demonstrate how the brain is capable of producing thoughts? We can see activity in the brain when thoughts occur but we don't know if these are the thought or are produced by thought. Not to my very limited knowledge anyway.
We do understand a lot about how the brain works, and we can see what areas of the brain are working when we think about something, or try and do something. A very interesting example is when you lie or attempt to fabricate a story, you can see parts of the brain that deal with imagination and memory come very active.
If you want to you can insist that these areas are stimulated due to some external unknown "spirit" that is actually doing the work, but I see little reason to believe that, nor why the spirit would in fact stimulate areas of the brain if the spirit itself was doing the actual thinking.
If the spirit exists what is the purpose of the brain?0 -
Now that computer games have been mentioned, I'd like to discuss AI. Kelly1, how and why is it that an enemy character in a modern computer game will run from you, duck, hide and make decisions on whether or not to pursue you based on how much ammunition he has?0
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OK, let me get this straight. You don’t “buy” the possibility that the complex arrangement of neurons and chemicals in our brain can, through experience, shape our behaviour but you can “buy” the notion that there is some all seeing all knowing being somewhere beyond our existence that one day decided to create a universe for a laugh and in an tiny insignificant part of this universe he placed and tiny and insignificant galaxy and in this insignificant galaxy he placed an insignificant sun and orbiting this sun he placed an insignificant planet upon which he put us. Further, he later sent his only begotten son, born of a virgin, to earth so he could die for our sins and during his brief sojourn on our planet before his death, or suicide by cop as I prefer to think of it, he performed many amazing feats of magic and then subsequently rose from the dead and levitated into heaven where he wait for the faithful to join him and his dad for everlasting boredom. Have I got that correct? :rolleyes:
Sorry, I don't buy this. How does an arrangement of atoms or firing synapses (or whatever it is that goes on in the brain) represent justice or produce love for another person or God?
MrP0 -
OK, I know it doesn't offer a scientific explanation but there no reason why spirit couldn't in fact be the answer to the question of where intelligence/thoughts/ideas come from.lookinforpicnic wrote: »Why doesn't the idea of spirit explain intelligence, love & human thought??? Are you having a laugh, how can you not see that this explains nothing, absolutely nothing.
Scientists don't actually know what produces thought and you can't assume that they will find a natural/physical answer some day. Science is confined to the study of the natural world and I predict this will result in many dead-ends for science e.g. the question of what produced the big-bang.
I never claimed that plants or animals have spirits and I actually claim they don't.lookinforpicnic wrote: »But we know now exactly how phototropism works, the mechanisms of how it all works, why it occurs, we have a fully satisfying explanation of this process without any need for a soul. Of course it seems silly in the first place to attribute a spirit to a plant but 200 years ago it wasn't when 'vital spirit' was thought to exist in all living things. You are simply making the exact same mistake.
Where did you get this idea? I can think about the idea of genocide but that doesn't produce genocide. Same goes for justice.lookinforpicnic wrote: »Every idea is always physically instantiated, whether by sound waves in the air or in ink on a book.
Physically speaking there's no difference between moving something from one place to another and stealing. Stealing involves the concept of ownership.lookinforpicnic wrote: »Ideas are immaterial..? What does this mean, what they describe could be considered immaterial in the minimal sense given that they often describe the actions and social interactions of human beings, so obviously a concept like stealing is abstract as it can refer to any type or event of stealing..but this is trivial. Once we can label things with language nothing is stopping us labeling complex interactions of human beings, there is nothing mysterious about this.
We have a vocabulary because we have a need to communicate thoughts and ideas.lookinforpicnic wrote: »Vervet monkeys utter different sounds for different animals (like snake/ eagle or large cat) does this mean they have a concept of a snake? yes it does in a minimal sense but ours is obviously much more rich given the vocabulary we have built up. What is so special about our uttering's that needs a postulated spirit to try and (unsuccessfully) explain them.
Very few would deny that human intelligence far surpasses that of animals. Animals don't communicate ideas and concepts. They don't build machines and have an understanding of how things work. They can't ask the big why questions.
So I think it's reasonable to ask what accounts for the huge difference in intelligence and understanding that we see between humans and animals.
If I understand you correctly, the various theories of how the brain works are multiplying and bifurcating and becoming more and more complex. If this is the case, it's hardly a satisfactory answer as to how the brain works. Sounds like the theories are becoming as complex as the brain.lookinforpicnic wrote: »(as a side note - there is so much disciplines and approaches involved now in examining the mind & brain that it is getting increasing more rare to see general theories of how the brain and mind work, it is more the case that the brain is seen as a complicated bag of tricks so there is no 'one-trick-pony' employed, so integrating the wealth of empirical research that has been acquired is becoming increasing difficult)
What does this demonstrate? Do these robots have rules built in? Do they show any kind of intelligence? Can they solve problems?lookinforpicnic wrote: »To give an example of some progress that has been made, there are little robots now that can navigate space with little neural networks controlling there movement, and these robots can track various aspects of the environment, and as such develop proto-concepts for objects in the environment that they are tuned to be "interested" in (without any need for a soul, only the shifting patterns of "firing" in artificial neural nets).
Nothing mysterious? That's quite a statement! I assume that language was developed from a need to communicate ideas. The question is where do these ideas come from? I see a lot of people assuming that the brain is the origin of thought and I just want to challenge that.lookinforpicnic wrote: »One big difference between us language bearing creatures and our non-language bearing distant relatives is that with language we have to ability to represent these concepts and talk about them and share them and thus massively enrich and expand them, but there is nothing mysterious about this.0 -
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On a totally unrelated subject, does anyone know how to include an original quote and the response in a post? i.e. a quote within a quote without fiddling around with tags.0
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I never claimed that plants or animals have spirits and I actually claim they don't........
..................So I think it's reasonable to ask what accounts for the huge difference in intelligence and understanding that we see between humans and animals.
Animals get excited, happy, sad, depressed and scared just like humans do. Where exactly does the 'spirit' idea come in for humans?
You also say that humans are more intelligent than animals. Very true, but dogs (who you claim have no spirit), for example, are vastly more intelligent than ants (also with no spirit), so surely you'd equally being interested in knowing why this is.0 -
OK, I know it doesn't offer a scientific explanation but there no reason why spirit couldn't in fact be the answer to the question of where intelligence/thoughts/ideas come from.
Yes but kelly1 you are missing the point that it isn't an answer. It doesn't answer anything, and it in fact raises far more questions, such as what the heck is "spirit" and how does that work.
You might as well say Strawberry jam is the answer, but you have no idea how it does it.I never claimed that plants or animals have spirits and I actually claim they don't.
But what are you basing that on?
How do you determine that plants and animals don't have "spirit"?
See this is the problem when people start making up answers, you start dealing with totally non-testable concepts as if they were real. You say animals don't have spirits. Someone else claims they do. Even if one assumes "spirits" actually exist (that is a totally unsupported assumption), how does one determine who is correct? What makes you say animals don't have spirits? What are you basing that on? If I was to develop an experiment to determine if plants have spirits how would I do that?
Animals certainly do communicate ideas and concepts, as anyone who has ever watched wolves or lions hunt in packs, or watched a mother chimp with her child.Very few would deny that human intelligence far surpasses that of animals. Animals don't communicate ideas and concepts.
Kelly1 you have no idea what questions they can or cannot ask, and to be honest your religious agenda is showing.They can't ask the big why questions.If I understand you correctly, the various theories of how the brain works are multiplying and bifurcating and becoming more and more complex. If this is the case, it's hardly a satisfactory answer as to how the brain works.
What, and "spirit" is?
To be honest this is simply another case of religion providing easy sound bite nonsense "answer" to what are in fact complex questions.
The brain is a complex organ, it is possible the most complex thing in the known universe. I would be very surprised if scientists found it easy to figure out how it works. But that doesn't mean it is a productive excercise to simply start making stuff up.0 -
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WRT stealing, most animals show senses of irritation similar to what humans feel. Have you ever tried to take a piece of meat from a dog? On the tool-use front, most (all?) animals can use themselves to carry out simple mechanical actions, things like birds using their beaks to peck open milk bottle lids. Some have been observed to carry out first-order tool use, where, for example, a bird picks up a stick and uses it to peck open a bottle lid. Fascinatingly, some birds have even been observed to carry out second-order actions, which involve picking up something which then allows them to pick up something which helps them to open a bottle lid. Communication of these abilities has also occurred, where skills seem to have been transferred from one animal to another by the second animal just watching the first (there's a well-known study which documents the rapid spread of some new form of bottle-pecking in the UK some years back).Stealing involves the concept of ownership. [...] Animals don't communicate ideas and concepts. They don't build machines and have an understanding of how things work.
All of these are amazing abilities when you think about what's going on, and they do suggest that animals are a lot smarter than many of us give them credit for.
You haven't challenged anybody yet, as you haven't said what you mean by "spirit", nor suggested how this immaterial object can interface to a physical substrate.I see a lot of people assuming that the brain is the origin of thought and I just want to challenge that.0 -
That's a mind/body problem I haven't experienced for a while....and alcohol "knows" nothing about singing badly and throwing up in the streets, but that's what happens.
And, in fairness, it is a pretty accessible and practical experiment in how chemistry impacts on mental functioning. For example, after a few beers, I'm the funniest guy in the world and the most profound.0 -
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Shhh with your shouting, JC.
My National Geographic arrived today with a cover story "Inside Animals Minds". I won't get around to it for a bit so in case anyone wants to do some research, I've found the feature on their site here.
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A highly pertinent story from today's Guardian (and this week's Nature):Scary or sensational? A machine that can look into the mind
Scientists have developed a computerised mind-reading technique which lets them accurately predict the images that people are looking at by using scanners to study brain activity.
The breakthrough by American scientists took MRI scanning equipment normally used in hospital diagnosis to observe patterns of brain activity when a subject examined a range of black and white photographs. Then a computer was able to correctly predict in nine out of 10 cases which image people were focused on. Guesswork would have been accurate only eight times in every 1,000 attempts.
The study raises the possibility in the future of the technology being harnessed to visualise scenes from a person's dreams or memory.
Writing in the journal Nature, the scientists, led by Dr Jack Gallant from the University of California at Berkeley, said: "Our results suggest that it may soon be possible to reconstruct a picture of a person's visual experience from measurements of brain activity alone. Imagine a general brain-reading device that could reconstruct a picture of a person's visual experience at any moment in time."
[...]
The technique relies on functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), a standard technique that creates images of brain activity based on changes in blood flow to different brain regions.
More here.
In the context of this thread, I suppose it shows how scientists are beginning to get an increasingly precise picture of what the mind is up to by looking at what's going on in the matter of the brain.0 -
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You already come to this argument believing in a spirit so it doesn't take much of a big step for you to link an explanation involving something you strongly believe in (a spirit) and attach it to something that you haven't the slightest clue about (human thought), it gives your mind a sense of comfort, your religious tailored mind I'm afraid can't deal very well with uncertainty. But for someone who doesn't hold such religious ideas the idea of talking about something immaterial as an explanation of how thought works is not any where near an explanation.OK, I know it doesn't offer a scientific explanation but there no reason why spirit couldn't in fact be the answer to the question of where intelligence/thoughts/ideas come from.
Lots of scientists do think they understand what thought is, and most scientists (and all the available evidence) would claim that the brain produces or enables thought. But you who probably doesn't even know what a neuron is, seem to know enough about what thought is (must be all the years you have devoted to studying it!) to conclude that is inexplicable and that another completely inexplicable entity explains it.Scientists don't actually know what produces thought and you can't assume that they will find a natural/physical answer some day. Science is confined to the study of the natural world and I predict this will result in many dead-ends for science e.g. the question of what produced the big-bang.
Whatever, my point was that a mechanistic account of human thought is in the offing and your ramblings about spirit are no different to what people used to think about life less than 200 years ago, but given your ignorance of science and biology this is probably wasted on you.I never claimed that plants or animals have spirits and I actually claim they don't.
Your idea of genocide is made possible by the physical firing of neurons in your brain.Where did you get this idea? I can think about the idea of genocide but that doesn't produce genocide. Same goes for justice.
Again did all your years working and studying the mind give you this idea, many scientists don't think first there were ideas and then language sprung from this, but instead that both may have evolved together in a sort of mutual symbiosis. But given that you haven't probably thought about the mind longer than it took you to say "spirit is the explanation", your probably thinking thats impossible.We have a vocabulary because we have a need to communicate thoughts and ideas.
Of course, so what.Very few would deny that human intelligence far surpasses that of animals.
You don't have any clue to what animals do and don't.Animals don't communicate ideas and concepts. They don't build machines and have an understanding of how things work.
language, and it was probably only very small differences in the evolution of the brain that facilitated uptake of such.So I think it's reasonable to ask what accounts for the huge difference in intelligence and understanding that we see between humans and animals.
Your betraying your childlike need for a quick answer again, what i was saying was that there probably won't be one quick fix answer, so it will require a lot of work to get a satisfactory explanation, something your religious mind would know nothing about (you just have to read the bible).If I understand you correctly, the various theories of how the brain works are multiplying and bifurcating and becoming more and more complex. If this is the case, it's hardly a satisfactory answer as to how the brain works. Sounds like the theories are becoming as complex as the brain.
They don't have rules built in (except for simple rules of how the neurons work), they learn they own behaviour as they interact with the environment, but look this is all lost on you, as you think to give this simplistic device real ideas you would need to insert a spirit somewhere.What does this demonstrate? Do these robots have rules built in? Do they show any kind of intelligence? Can they solve problems?
Its fine to challenge that idea, but given you understand very little about the brain and very little about human thought it is very arrogant of you to think you can bypass all the knowledge of thousands of scientists and psychologist who devoted their lives to studying the mind and brain, and instead insert your religious intuitions. You have to understand something first before you can challenge it. I suppose your religion never thought you that. Grow up.Nothing mysterious? That's quite a statement! I assume that language was developed from a need to communicate ideas. The question is where do these ideas come from? I see a lot of people assuming that the brain is the origin of thought and I just want to challenge that.0 -
OK, let me approach this from another angle.
Can anyone account for the huge difference in intelligence that we see between animals and humans?
We've established that brain size is not the determining factor because other ainmals e.g. whales have much bigger brains than us.
So what is? Is the construction of the human brain very different to that of animals e.g. the chimpanzee? Are our brains wired very differently?0 -
As pointed out early on though, brain mass -v- body mass *is* a factor. Proportionately our brains are bigger than whales'.
While you may say there's a *huge* difference between our intelligence and animals', you have to take into account that it only requires a slight variation from primate intelligence for us to develop spoken language, for example.
From language, it's possible to generate massive leaps in "intelligence". We only know what we do today because of everyone that has come before us. Our "intelligence" is built on hundreds of thousands of years of knowledge and skills passed forward by ancestors.
If anything, IMO all we have over primates is complex language and a slightly more sophistaced problem-solving ability. Given a few hundred thousands years of separation, we've ended up with what we have today.
I encounter plenty of people who I'm sure are only a step above a monkey purely because of their ability to vocalise. So I don't believe for one second that we're a million miles above animals in our inate intelligence.0 -
Can anyone account for the huge difference in intelligence that we see between animals and humans?
As Seamus points out your determination that there is a "huge" difference in intelligence between us and any other animal is rather subjective. It would probably be more accurate to state that we are slightly more intelligent in certain areas that have allowed us to rapidly advance at a faster speed. But this is only in the last 10,000 years or so, a very short period of time in relative terms. For a large proportion of our species time on Earth we were rambling around in small tribes of people hunting with sticks and stones, not a million miles away from apes and other primates.
That isn't accurate. Brain size is a determining factor, but it is not the only factor. But in general animals with larger brains demonstrate higher levels of intelligence than animals with smaller brains. Animals such as whales and elephants that have large brains demonstrate high levels of intelligence.We've established that brain size is not the determining factor because other ainmals e.g. whales have much bigger brains than us.
There have been a number of small advancements that have allowed us to get where were are, such as the ability to form complex speech. It wasn't a massive jump.
And before someone says "But chimps and whales aren't building cars", that is very true, but for 99% of our time we weren't either. There is little doubt that we are more intelligent than other animals when it comes to development and ability to build, but it would be a mistake to assume we are massively more intelligent. We didn't suddenly figure out how to build a car, it is the accumulation of idea, largely facilitated by our ability to communicate in advanced manner and record our ideas for later generations.So what is? Is the construction of the human brain very different to that of animals e.g. the chimpanzee?
No its not, but then we aren't that much different from a chimpanzee.
Again your determination that there is a huge difference in mental ability is inaccurate.0 -
OK, let me approach this from another angle.
Can anyone account for the huge difference in intelligence that we see between animals and humans?
We've established that brain size is not the determining factor because other ainmals e.g. whales have much bigger brains than us.
So what is? Is the construction of the human brain very different to that of animals e.g. the chimpanzee? Are our brains wired very differently?
We're certainly beginning to answer these questions. The cerebral cortex is greatly enlarged in the human brain relative to other primates. Over a year ago, comparison of the completed human and chimp genomes showed that a region (HAR1) apparently associated with development of the cerebral cortex has undergone far more evolutionary change in humans than chimps since the species diverged (story here). The inference is that the detected HAR1 change is indicative of substantial selection for brain changes in the human lineage.0 -
Thanks Sdep. So intelligence is more related to the size of the cerebral cortex than to over-all brain size. As I said already I don't know much about biology/neurology.We're certainly beginning to answer these questions. The cerebral cortex is greatly enlarged in the human brain relative to other primates. Over a year ago, comparison of the completed human and chimp genomes showed that a region (HAR1) apparently associated with development of the cerebral cortex has undergone far more evolutionary change in humans than chimps since the species diverged (story here). The inference is that the detected HAR1 change is indicative of substantial selection for brain changes in the human lineage.
Here's an interesting quote from the article:-"Something caused our brains to evolve to be much larger and have more functions than the brains of other mammals."
The analysis showed that HAR1 is essentially the same in all mammals except humans. There were just two differences between the versions found in chickens and chimps.
However, there were 18 differences between the chimp version and the one found in humans - which scientists say is an incredible amount of change to take place in a few million years.
I think at this point I'm going the throw in the towel because I can't make any headway. I still believe spirit has a lot to do with intelligence, reason and love but I'm not likely to find much support for that theory here.
Thanks to all who contributed (positively).0 -
You're not making headway because you're trying to understand it from the wrong end of the stick. If you drop your preconceptions, or at least suspend them for a while, you may be able to make some progress.I can't make any headway. I still believe spirit has a lot to do with intelligence, reason and love but I'm not likely to find much support for that theory here.0 -
Not one person had said to me that I could/might be right about spirit being the source of intelligence and reason. Nobody can rule it out just like you can't rule out God's existence. I know nobody can prove that spirit exists but it's a valid belief and theory and it's arrogant to say that it's nonsense.You're not making headway because you're trying to understand it from the wrong end of the stick. If you drop your preconceptions, or at least suspend them for a while, you may be able to make some progress.
I have difficulties with the idea that a brain can have intelligence, produce ideas and consciousness and love. I have always been against the reductionist view that man is nothing more that a complex arrangement of atoms.0 -
Indeed. But when you're dealing with big unknowns then almost *any* theory is valid. One could theorise that consciousness comes from the ground, up through our feet. I can't prove it doesn't.Not one person had said to me that I could/might be right about spirit being the source of intelligence and reason. Nobody can rule it out just like you can't rule out God's existence. I know nobody can prove that spirit exists but it's a valid belief and theory and it's arrogant to say that it's nonsense.
However, in order to accurately test and make headway, science has to assume that the simplest explanation (i.e. the reductionist one) is indeed the correct one. Metaphysical explanations such as the spirit are completely untestable and therefore not worthy of scientific consideration, so the scientific community cannot consider them to be "valid theories" until some evidence arises which lends some support to them.0 -
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Not one person had said to me that I could/might be right about spirit being the source of intelligence and reason. Nobody can rule it out just like you can't rule out God's existence. I know nobody can prove that spirit exists but it's a valid belief and theory and it's arrogant to say that it's nonsense.
I can't see how the belief could be scientifically testable. You've said that you think that ignoring any possibility of God means that science can't answer the big questions of life. The scientists' response (incidentally, I know a good number who do have religious beliefs) is to say, OK, but we can't test for the supernatural, so let's see how far we can get in modelling the world in terms of the natural processes and laws that we can and do understand.
As an aside, a frequent assumption I always find amusing is that scientists are arrogant and believe they know everything. Actually the default state for scientists is working on problems they don't understand. One of the most frequent things you'll hear any scientist say is 'we don't know ... [yet]'; often they question whether they ever will.I have difficulties with the idea that a brain can have intelligence, produce ideas and consciousness and love.
It is pretty weird, but then I'm not a neuroscientist either.0
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OYZnsO2ZgWo
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