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David Eagleman – Are Brain and Mind the Same Thing?



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For the brain and mind to be the same thing, mind must be entirely the output of brain. This means the mind must be the brain—literally, identically. If so, then the physical world is likely all that exists. But if mind and brain are not the same thing, then what? Could there be extra stuff in the physical world? Could reality go beyond the physical?

David Eagleman is a neuroscientist and writer at Stanford University.

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39 thoughts on “David Eagleman – Are Brain and Mind the Same Thing?
  1. I am afraid that in a not so distant future, it will be possible to recreate without too much difficulty a state of consciousness from an artificial intelligence and then we will conclude that this intelligence is not artificial at all but perfectly coherent with Darwinian evolution. Nothing in the laws of nature afirms that the current sate of consciousness is the ultimate reality.

  2. His logic about the experience of the color red is baffling I can't even entertain anything else he says lol

    Truly mind boggling how he was allowed to say that nonsense without it getting checked.

  3. These guys should drop a fat tab together because they almost get it, but not quite.. talking about the brain and mind and no word about psychedelics? That is dissapointing. There lies the key to most of these questions. I think it's fair to assume by now that no: mind and brain aren't the same thing. But the mind is a product of the brain and consciossness in a sense. I'd say your mind is all your beliefs, hopes and dreams and thoughts and identity..The ' You ' or the ego so to speak. At the core is your consciousness, that is somehow connected to your ego which is experiencing this reality THROUGH all the functionalities that your brain/body has. 'You' are essentially controlling an earthly space suit made out of flesh and bones to navigate this space here in this particular corner of space and time in the universe. But that is just my two cents.. i don't see why it should be anything less or ' more ' than that, it's a beautiful biological / universal process that we are very familiair with and it repeats itself over and over and over until.. well, an eternity? Not quite sure on infinity yet..

  4. If mind and brain are not the same, assume one day humans are able to assemble a General Artificial Intelligence entity that is in all respects indistinguishable from a human, could we then say that that GAI had acquired a mind independent (or above and beyond that) of the apparatus from which it arose?

  5. I continue to marvel at the widespread belief within much of the scientific community (cited in this interview) that we must not entertain certain possibilities because doing so would invite religion into the conversation.

    It’s such an absurdity for these three reasons just to start:

    1. There has been and likely always will be religious people attempting to connect their beliefs to whatever is happening in science at the time, regardless of what that might be. Not everyone is a fundamentalist. Many religious folks don’t see science as implicitly contradictory to their religion.

    2. Sorry to say it, but virtually everyone – even including super smart and educated scientists – has some unchecked assumptions of their own operating somewhere in their life. That is to say, religious thinking is everywhere whether you believe in an anthropomorphic deity or not. Just because we value logic and reason doesn’t mean we’re immune to magical thinking; in fact, I’d suggest that when we are most convinced that we are immune is when we tend to be most susceptible.

    3. This is the big one – You’re making an argument from adverse consequences. It’s fallacious to say that we must not believe (or consider) something might be true based on the possibility that said belief may bring about reactions we don’t care for. I’m sorry that sometimes Deepak Chopra annoys us by using the word “quantum” wrong. But his doing so doesn’t mean we shouldn’t study quantum mechanics.

    I think one of the biggest obstacles to developing a better theory of consciousness is that a sizable chunk of the scientific community is a priori deciding what they are and are not willing to consider possible based on this fallacy. I promise, dogmatic religious believers will continue to believe regardless of what science discovers. Stop worrying about it and let’s start opening our minds to possibilities beyond a strict, material/mechanical-only model.

  6. The radio analogy is totally apt. And about him opening it up to "bad ideas" shouldn't the data dictate ideology, rather than the other way around? We have pretty solid NDE evidence that the mind at least temporarily supersedes the brain.

  7. The Brain is Fiscal the Mind Consciousness is immaterial Conceptual by Nature' the Mind and Consciousness is not Dependent on the fiscal Brain, to be a Naturalist, you have to Believe Brain Mind and Consciousness is one thing

  8. I discovered, after forty years of off hour work, that the mind is not linked to much of anything outside of the brain. The pineal gland is not the conduit Descartes postulated. I discovered what the mind does and it has no mystical elements. As for consciousness, it is this: Every animal, and some devices, that can respond to an event, is conscious. Because other species do not have a mind, they cannot tell themselves and others that they are conscious, but they are. I am writing up my theory without any assurance that it will be read. When you've solved humankind's greatest biological mystery, what else can you do? I am a nice, cute (many years ago) Jewish boy from Dallas, like Eagleman. Cheers.

  9. Everyone treats the question of how the brain creates the mind is something different and special from other questions. But, it’s not. Here’s a similar question: how do two hydrogen atoms and one oxygen atom make water? No one knows. They just do. The water is wet and fluid. How does wet fluid water come from two hydrogen and one oxygen atoms?

  10. …thanks for the nostalgic journey down radio memory lane! 📻

    The 'if you've just tuned in now' moment had me questioning if they could see me! 👀

  11. DO YOU KNOW THE SPERM CELL IS THE SOUL IN THE PUREST CLOTHING BORDERING THE SPIRITUAL AND THE NATURAL?

    Our journey into this world no doubt started as a sperm cell and ovum cell (egg cell). The sperm cell entered the ovum cell (egg cell) and embedded itself into the ovum cell, as what is internal into what is external. In no time, the duplet cell replicates its chromosome and starts dividing into cell divisions (mitosis) and finally project a brain, then a neck`, then a torso, then hands and legs to produce the human form. For that reason, the principal cause, the sperm cell (development into a spirit) is not perceived in the instrumental cause (the ovum cell development to become the physical body) otherwise than as one with it.

    Since the human form belongs to the sperm cell, it follows that the sperm cell is also in the human form and is a mirror image of our physical form. This is what wills, sees within us as if we are watching a video in our heads, and thinks in words as if we are listening to a telephone conversation within us. For that reason, the body by itself can do nothing, but is always moved in complete obedience to the bidding of the will, seeing within us, and thinking in words, even to the extent that whatever a person thinks in words he speaks with his tongue and lips, and whatever he wills he does with his body and limbs. Thus, the will and understanding (made up of the seeing within us and thinking in words) belonging to our spirits are what act, while our physical bodies by themselves do nothing.

    Moreover, when we go to sleep, we see ourselves in our dreams, but think we are still in our physical bodies only to realize on awakening that we have dreamt. The Bible calls our mirror image the inner man (Eph 3:16), the inward man (7:22), the hidden man (1Pet 3:4), and also a spirit (Dan 2:3), and also distinguishes between the two, calling them the inward man and the outer man (2Cor 4:16).

    Because the inner man is our spirit is the reason why God Speaks to his prophets in dreams (Numbers 12:6). It should be here stated that the sperm cell covering is woven from the purest natural substances bordering the spiritual and the natural, while the soul’s substances is purely spiritual. The soul is called a spirit because we stamp on it our way of willing, our way of seeing things within us, and our way of thinking in words. Thus, soul and spirit can used interchangeably.

    From all this, it is clear that the mind belongs to the spirit and the brain belongs to the physical body. This is why we can get injured in the spinal cord and in a part of the brain, but still, we will, something, see within us as if watching a video, and think in words as if listening to a telephone conversation. We can see that these three, namely, to will will, see within us, and think in words are our consciousness which form the mind. Thus, the mind generates the brain, and not the other way round

    The seer Emmanuel Swedenborg [1688-1772] wrote:

    "The physical body is added to and apparently almost joined to the spirit, in order that the spirit of man may be able to live and perform activities in the natural world, all things of which are material and in themselves devoid of life. And as it is the spiritual only which lives, and not the material, it can be seen that whatever lives in man is his spirit, and that the body merely serves it, just as what is instrumental serves a moving living force. An instrument is said indeed to act, to move, or to strike; but to believe that these are acts of the instrument, and not of him who acts, moves, or strikes by means of the instrument, is a fallacy."

  12. A radio can play what is being broadcast by some radio wave source. Many radios can play the same song broadcast by a station. So unless there is a unique radio station for each person out there, only then radio analogy has a remote chance of making sense. Each person has their own unique consciousness. Mutiple brains do not share and play the same consciousness. Therefore, it does not make sense to apply radio analogy.

  13. I think the mind controls the brain activity. When we don't think(mindfulness), the brain activity changes. Another example is if you have pain in two different parts of your body and try to focus only on a single part, you don't feel the pain in the other part. So thinking must block some of the pain signal. Or is it other way around?

  14. The radio analogy is a good one. I also like thinking of the brain as a movie projector. You have this machine with film in it spinning away and projecting a flickering light called a movie. If you shake the projector, the images shake. If you cut out some film you skip some plot. You’d be a projector materialist and say the projector IS the movie, but we know that’s not true. I believe consciousness is akin to the light behind the film. The pure, white light, when filtered through a film slide creates an image. Even if you smashed the projector to pieces, light still exists. We are this divine light and for now we experience human bodies and minds but when the body dies our light is still here.

  15. All I know is that this is all a simulation. Many people have been trapped here for a VERY long time through incarnation including myself to keep reliving this same exact memory over, n over, n over again. I literally have know idea how to escape this or if im even meant to. All i know is this is my hell.

  16. synoepds oratomus is my consciousness i blood from onualios so what is your synopsas or neuro actvity if what powers you is pottasium and melecular be quantum someday or qauntum

  17. This dualism issue will never go away. Even if it becomes certain that there is no mind outside of the brain, and once the brain dies, the mind dies, people will still figure out a way to explain the evidence away. They do this with many other subjects.

  18. Is the sensation of mind or feeling your nervous system, but not your brain, due to the biological fact your brain has no feelings, but your nervous system does?

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