On 9 February 2014 22:50, Craig Weinberg <[email protected]> wrote:
>> Neuroscientists assume that we think with our brains just as cardiac >> physiologists assume the heart pumps blood around the body. It's >> possible they are wrong, but you would have to have a very good reason >> to challenge these assumptions. > > > One good reason is that the absence of the experience of thought is just as > consistent with our model of physiology and neuroscience as the presence of > such an experience would be. That's not a reason. It could still be that thought is entirely dependent on a functioning brain. > Another good reason is that there are persistent claims of veridical OBEs > and NDEs. That would be a reason if it were true and it could be shown that thought persisted even though brain activity was absent. At present, the scientific consensus is that this is crackpottery. > Another good reason is that if all of our experience is manufactured within > the tissue of our brain as a kind of cinematic illusion, then the brain > itself, and our understanding of it, would also be just as illusory as any > fictional story. But that could be so whether thought was generated by the brain or not, so is not a reason. > Another good reason is that matter in general has no plausible potential to > generate intentions or illusions of itself. That's begging the question, and not a reason. -- Stathis Papaioannou -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
