Premier Unbelievable?
Neuroscientist Sharon Dirckx calls for vigilance in recognising when non-scientific claims are being made about the mind-brain connection. Watch the full episode here: https://www.thebigconversation.show/videos/season-4/episode-3-is-there-a-master-behind-our-mind/ đ§
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I wouldn't call myself a materialist, but how do you know that thoughts in the shape of mental imagery or internal dialogue aren't generated by the brain if the brain is able to create auditory hallucinations?
wowđ
Why are believers or non believers required to "explain away"
(whatever that even means)
consciousness?
Thoughts come from the brain. If it was ethical, then we would prove it using fatal dose anesthesia or a high caliber bullet to the brain, and test for brain function afterwards.
Why do atheists need to explain anything or required to?
An atheist is simply someone who lacks any god belief. Thatâs it.
If a religious person claims âgod did itâ when faced with a complicated question about nature, then thatâs just a baseless assertion without evidence. You donât get to solve a mystery by appealing to an even bigger mystery.
To attribute psychological verbs to the workings of the brain is what Bennett & Hacker (2003, 2nd ed. 2022) describe as committing the mereological fallacy that confuses parts with wholes. It is embodied and socioculturally embedded human beings that think, act, believe, etc. not their brains.
The brain and the mind arenât the same and the earth is flat
Where does the Bible say the âsoulâ is our thoughts or related to our brain? Isnât that a human construct to fill in the explanation that is not presented in the Bible?
Religious people can't explain why children get bone cancer. What sort of malevolent god thinks that's fair? I'd be ashamed to worship that bastard.
"Atheists can't explain away consciousness using brain science"….so what? What the heck does that have to do with any proof of a god? Just the same old bonkers delusional desperate god of the gaps…."we don't understand exactly how the brain works therefore there's a god…" Their arguments are a pox on rational thought.
As someone who suffered a severe mTBI, consciousness isnât what we think. Unless you experience your own consciousness ripped apart for yourself, you cannot understand it. When my brain tried to heal, it became obvious that unified consciousness is an illusion. Consciousness works like an orchestra such that each section has to work in harmony to give the illusion that itâs one piece of music. I could see and feel the pieces of consciousness fire out of sync for months, effecting my personality to physical well-being until I healed. Thoughts come from the neurons firing to convey an illusion of unification.
Assuming a Creator that creates order: even if the brain, and everything arising therefrom, is "material", wouldn't the Creator have allowed/designed for such a thing to be a possibility, i.e., a wholly material brain that can apprehend the Divine in some way? With that, no need for mind-brain distinction (for the sake of Ms. Dirckx's argument), no need for physical/metaphysical distinction (for the sake of cognitive scientist's arguments), simply a physical system that evolved to the point where it can contemplate and attempt to understand invisible phenomena.
Meaning thoughts only make sense "if God?" đ¤ˇ
Of course brain science isn't enough, becuz CONSCIOUSNESS is primal, not matter-filled brains… everything (all objects, including brains, stars, rocks, plants, ourselves, all "matter" and even our feelings and thoughts) appear WITHIN consciousness. Consciousness is literally all there is. So, "God" can be considered to be the pure, unblemished dreamer of all perceived reality. "God" dissociates Itself into becoming the illusion of us. We are actually "God" wearing the masks of various humans, acting out existence. So, one could say there is no "God" outside of consciousness, because, again, "God" is the One consciousness. This is how nondualist thinkers believe, such as Hinduism's Advaita Vedanta (my own philosophy) and some Buddhists camps.
However, Christianity is typically dualistic, which involves there being actual real matter PLUS soul stuff. Therefore, "God" to most Christians is sort of like outside and pokes inside space and time…. mankind is created in God's image, but is not God. Therefore, humans use freewill and make mistakes (and, are therefore imperfect) and in need of redemption to please that perfect, separate entity "God."
In contrast, in Advaita Vedanta, God is the only doer (freewill does not exist on a personal level) and everything is perfectly "God's" will. No need for human redemption.
Omg…. I'm tired n rambling badly, now, at this point…. I apologize.
atheists..?.. What do they have to do with the sciences..?..
and scientists have explained how consciousness evolved and developed;
Try school…!
Mmmmm delicious! I love god of the gaps arguments, they're so tasty.
Religious people like to use this. SCIENCE CAN'T EXPLAIN THE PLAGUE! ONLY GOD CAN!
Then science explained it.
Religion looks to the sky and asks, "What do you want me to do?"
Science looks to the sky and asks, "What makes you work? How?"
One answers no questions, the other asks and seeks to find answers. So I say that science can not explain it…yet.
The hilarious gibberish Dirckx spouts here "we must be careful science doesn't make a leap of faith" and in other videos is evidence that the Christian god is a delusional fantasy. Every apologist I've ever heard – I mean every one from Lennox and WLC across the spectrum – just parrots the same tired assertions, tropes and word salad garbage…..nothing to prove a god.
I agree with her.
If you don't beleive consciousness comes from the brain, try being conscious without a working brain.
Have a protocol where your magic soul come in a closet room without your body, then give every info on it you can when you come back, and have a better guess then statistical random luck.
Even magic can be tested, wherever it interact with the physical world.
But you won't even try, because you know in your subconscious that magic isn't real and that is why it has always failed to be tested.
"We don't know, therefore god"
*watches at the sky.
-yup, i ve heard that before, and *every single time*, it has not been the correct answer.
I'm sorry, she's just wrong. Period. Empirically. Sigh.
Neurons release brain chemicals, known as neurotransmitters, which generate these electrical signals in neighboring neurons. The electrical signals propagate like a wave to thousands of neurons, which leads to thought formation.
This is not some weird unknown phenomena. We understand it, generally speaking. And certainly nothing WHATSOVER leads any scientists to believe it's something supernatural. Dogs have thoughts, but not, biblically speaking, souls. Humans are animals.
Her reply here doesnt post any problem for thoughtful atheists. If she is responding to people like Dennet or the Churchlands et al then she will know that their views purport to be philosophical views which they maintain are better philosophical positions to adopt than whatever theist positions there are. In short she hasn't really addressed why their philosophical position is less virtuous than whatever hers is.
We can't fully explain consiouness yet, but as this person recognizes, now we can map neural networks which correspond more and more precisely with particular mental states. We don't fully understand how the brain produces the mind, but we know for certain that the brain activity produces the mind. I think we will understad if we promote science and technology.
This is like when creationists say 'were you there?' To people who believe in evolution. Until we have every answer to every question they will never think its enough to draw a reasonable conclusion based on substantial evidence.
The naturealist matierialist wants to explain how the brain matter produces consiousnes because if mind and brain are separate that might heaven forbid indicate a soul.
If you block synaptic pathways consciousness disappears. The brain size and function of any mammal tracks exactly the degree to which it exhibits indicia of consciousness. We would need very good evidence to suggest that instead of causation we are seeing some kind of interaction with a non-physical cause. There isnât any.
Yes, and maybe there is an alien that makes ice melt every time and everywhere ice gets too hot. Ice melting is not just simple physics.
As long as there is no reliable evidence of any soul, or alien, and definitely no known mechanism or process for how a soul would interact with the brain, it's reasonable to accept the physical explanation.
she is very poor in her explanation, what she needs to say is that brain science, and science in general says nothing about meaning because it is all about causation and mechanism. The 'why' of the whole affair, and the meaning of the sum of the parts added up to the whole human experience escapes science entirely, because it is not what science does. It takes a whole human being to do that.
A little sense, not"science", is all you need to know that your mind and body are connected.
NDEs/OBEs unequivocally prove that consciousness can and does exist outside the brain. Too much evidence to say otherwise. In fact, to do so you must willfully ignore the evidence. That is why when atheists say they want evidence, they really donât want evidence. Donât be fooled.
You never see people who think that minds can exist independently of brains trying to blow their own brains out…so there's that
Maybe this conversation plays out such that the moderator actually pushes back instead of just swallowing these claims, but in case they don't, Sharon's making the presumption that there's a distinction between mind and the brain in the first place.
First: any serious critique of where science can or cannot take us wrt to whether or not thoughts are an emergent phenomenon of brain activity can't stop at Dan Dennet and Sam Harris. They're not neuroscience researchers in this topic. They're philosophers and comminicators. There's serious published research conducted on this topic by theoretical and experimental neuroscientists.
Second: you know what is unscientific? To state without justification that science cannot take us somewhere. The fact that it hasn't fully happened doesn't mean it can't be done.
Third: it might be that science doesn't get us there. I don't, however, see another serious player in the race. If it is in fact the case that brains are deeply 'connected', but not the complete picture then we need a methodical study of what completes the puzzle. No amount of furious handwaving about souls and spirits will even begin this research program.
You know what else science has YET to explain – why theists are delusional.
The title shows how theists' only strategy is to attack alternative views because they are incapable of providing a reliable method on its own. At least science has a reliable and testable method whereas theism relies on making bold claims that can't be confirmed nor rejected in any way.
Why does this video have the word " Atheist " in the title ?
it doesn't just give you a connection- it gives you causation. In the same way that moving a magnet results in a magnetic field, neurons firing result in conscious thought. It is using the exact same definition of causation that all science uses.