Peter Tse - Are Brain and Mind the Same Thing?

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?

Peter Ulric Tse is Professor of Cognitive Neuroscience in the department of Psychological and Brain Sciences at Dartmouth College. He holds a BA from Dartmouth, and a PhD in Experimental Psychology from Harvard University.

Closer To Truth, hosted by Robert Lawrence Kuhn and directed by Peter Getzels, presents the world’s greatest thinkers exploring humanity’s deepest questions. Discover fundamental issues of existence. Engage new and diverse ways of thinking. Appreciate intense debates. Share your own opinions. Seek your own answers.

[ianwaltham]

Patterns can't create a conscious mind. But a pre-existing conscious mind must observe a pattern for it to have any meaning at all.

[myscat]

I think this debate is intresting, yet truly non-ending. I mean, I do believe mind and brain are the same thing in a way, but saying that brain creates a mind is a way too put it that I dont find convincing. Simply because all the world we know of, and I mean ALL of it is mind. And it is really the collective mind that we end up calling "physical". The mind is the only constituent of the physical description of the world, including our brain.

However, the representation of the collective mind that our ego has is very limited and incomplete, which doesn't exactly allow to figure out the features of the mind (which is nothing in itself). It should be also noted that at the end our mind and collective mind are also the same thing, and they are only one consciousness.

There can be only one consciousness ever, and our experience is the representation of that consciousness. The quest of the reality is to find out why this representation is exactly this way, and the only plausible answer is that is because there is one possible representation of reality. This should be because this representation exactly the same as "nothing" or "everything". But as it doesn't make sense to me, I cant really understand it...at least for now

[alanbooth]

he didnt answer the question he just elaborated on the mechanics of the brain

[thewefactor]

I really don't think the two are the same from my perspective. The universe spends too much time relaying information in ways that are not understood because of the size of the matter involved... We are a part of this evolving process at seemingly the highest point – and that means to me the conscious-consciousness.

[used]

The "ALL", is "MIND".
The "UNIVERSE", , , is "MENTAL"...
As I Gaze, upon the Stars in the night sky, , ,
I Realize, , , I See My Own Reflection...

[profskmehta]

To correlate a physical phenomenon with comprehension process does not explain the comprehension process. Mind is the final consumer of the signals reaching the brain. Brain processes this information to send that information to a non-physical domain. Don’t say that this process is comprehension.

[jamesnasmith]

A spark (and then ignition) derives from, but is not a spark plug. Structure determines function which elicit events to be modified by inputs from adjacent structure/function elements. It seems reasonable that an almost infinite amount of such processing might emerge as a conscience experience for the beholder.

[buttegowda]

Depends in how you define these, simple analogy would be one is HW and another is SW

[TheTroofSayer]

Are brain and mind the same thing? Are society and culture the same thing? Same question. Cultures have "thoughts" that are analogous to thoughts at the individual personal level. Traditions, technology, history, news and markets account for city-level "thoughts" that are acted upon by human agents. Not unlike brains and neural agents.
The modern, human-plastic city, comprised of people making choices, is an ideal metaphor for the neuro-plastic brain, comprised of neurons making choices.
Human-plastic, telecommunications-entangled cities form into functional specialisations just as neuro-plastic, DNA-entangled brains do.

[pandoraeeris]

To answer the title question (before watching the video):

Well, yes, but also no.

I'm a substance monist and a panpsychist (or protopanexperientialist?

There is only one metaphysical substrate. You can call it the physical world, or just 'reality', or whatever else you want to call it, the only important factor here is that all of it is unified as a single substrate or substance. That is to say that everything that exists is of the same kind, or type, of substance.

'Mind', in the way it's typically used in these types of conversations, generally refers to the capacity to have experience. The contents of that experience are irrelevant (to this discussion), we're just talking about having any ability to experience anything whatsoever.

Now, let's briefly switch gears and talk about empiricism. Empiricism is knowledge derived from the senses, i.e. from awareness (subjective experience). It stands in contrast to rationality, also called reason, which is knowledge derived from thought (and there are endless debates on wjich of these has ontological primacy, but empiricism is given higher priority in science as it's difficult to imagine reasoning about anything one has not first had a sensoey experience of).

We also need to understand Karl Popper's falsifiability test for scientific knowledge. Falsifiability means that if you cannot devise an experiment, even in principle (meaning even as a thought experiment) which could, at least in theory, prove a claim false, then that claim is not even an empirical, scientific claim. In short, if there is no means to even test a hypothesis (such as the claim that a Creator exists 'outside' of space and time, since by definition it is impossible to measure anything outside of space and time) then it's not a proveable/disproveable claim at all - i.e. not even a 'scientific question'.

With these two given definitions of empiricism and falsifiability - the very bedrock of the scientific method - consider thos:

The claim that ANY part of reality exists independently of awareness of itself is wholly unfalsifiable, .and therefore not a scientific claim, nor is it testable in any way.

This inevitably leads us to the unassailability of the solipsist argument, no matter how unsatisfyimg that may be to most, and the reason why I'm a panpsychist.

Empirically, I cannot logically separate my perception of the universe from the existential existence of the universe, therefore, as far as I CAN know, the entire universe possesses at least rudimentary self awareness.

I call this primitive self awateness protoconsciousness, only to distinguish it from tje fact that some parys of it are more evolved conscipusness.

[tomazflegar]

Very very careful guy not to cross boundary he crossed anyhow. Now the question is, are we not what we seem to be, with other words are we just led to think with the brain something else that is just in the brain? Bravo, sir

[-by-_Publishing_LLC]

*Brain and mind coexist within the same arena.* ... If I'm standing in a room, I am both a part of the room and separate from the room.

[oskarngo]

Yes!
Mind, Consciousness, are just a more complex mind...!

What is the mystery ...?

[georgegrubbs]

Yes, the mind is the operating brain.

[elgatofelix]

They're not the same. Jellyfish for example exhibit intelligent (not mindless) behavior, and yet it's a proven fact that they don't have brains. There are many other sea creatures that also have no brains and are very similar to jellyfish in this regard, so they are far from being the only example.

[todrichards]

MIND is what the brain DOES. Qualia is the subjective experience of a brain DOING mind.

[esorse]

There's a sense of opposite in recovering your spatial, but not temporal, coordinates by retracing your steps and maybe even more so when you turn around *, therefore is logical representative for absence not, ¬, a euphemism for infinity?

* The complement of one in list one, two, three, is two, three and the geometric opposite of, '<', lexicographically said, "ir", about a vertical straight line segment called 'vertical axis', is '>' said "ri".

[feltonhamilton]

The mind is imprinted in cells that are constantly recycling themselves but if the neurons stop firing up the mind would slowly disintegrate because it is not a part of the brain.

[derektrudelle]

Are the microphone and the singer the same thing? Same question.

[Promatheos]

I can't speak for everyone else here, but my mind isn't a wrinkly pile of fatty nerve bundles pulsating with blood. That's what my brain is, sure, but my mind isn't. That's just speaking personally though and I don't want to presume what everyone else is experiencing.

Calling mind and brain identical is the stupidest, most pathetic attempt at saving materialism I've heard. I mean, materialism is false even with it's best arguments, but this one just reveals how desperate some materialists are; that they would put forth something so silly just to hold on to their beloved worldview.