Re: Are All Thoughts and Feelings Electro-Biochemical?

GreenRobe22@xxxxxxxxx wrote:

This comment was made on AAT...

What is "AAT?"

Can we be certain that what we experience, does not
originate in chemical and electrical events
in the brain?

Gods that's a silly fucked-up question. Who does the writer mean by
"we?" Who has impled that perception is not a function of brain
chemistry? Why would anyone expend their time and effort pondering such
a nonsense "question?"

If it does not... how do we explain the consequences
of injury and disease involving the brain? Can we
explain it to someone who has lost a loved one to
Alzheimer's? Can we explain it to someone left with
short-term memory problems, lost a lifetimes
experiences, who has behaviour and personality
changes as a result of a stroke?

---m3d

my reply...

i agree that everything we experience originates in the
electro-biochemical functions of the body (including the brain),
bearing in mind that while there is no evidence of a mind-body
dichotomy, there is every reason to think of the mind/body connection
as a contintuum of a highly organized system; the software of the mind
operates within the hardware of the body, but like software on a
computer is not per say determined by its software the software of the
mind is not per say determined by the hardware of the body (each
operate within certain parameters established by their counterpart),
and the direction of effect goes both ways (the software of the mind
can influence the hardware of the body, as well as the reverse)

however, to say that everything we experience takes place within the
mind is not to say that external factors are not involved; certainly
light exists, yet i experience light only through the perceptions and
sensations of my mind and body

therefore, damage to the hardware of the body can certainly affect the
operation of the software of the mind, but that is rather irrelevant to
the issue of whether psychic phenomenon can exist or not (which was the
original point that m3d was replying to, here; though it was not I who
mentioned psychic phenomenon, in this case). arguing against psychic
phenomenon on such grounds is a straw man argument; no reasonable
person, who believed in psychic abilities, would deny that damage to
the brain affects the operation of the mind, or that psychic knowledge
was, like all other forms of knowledge, perceived through the
perceptions and sensations of the mind and body (this having nothing to
do with whether the information originated externally, or not). straw
man arguments convince no one of anything. you might as well argue
against psychic phenomenon on the grounds that John Edwards is a dirt
manipulative lying sack of filth, which few believers in psychic
abilities would argue with (and the few who would are just desparate to
communicate with their dead loved ones and don't particularly mind
being told sweet sweet lies; few people who seek mediums go to the
great lengths of Houdini and his wife to scientifically test
mediumistic claims). then again, most people seem to take one extreme
side or another on this issue, and i suspect that, as with most things,
the truth lies somewhere inbetween

.

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