Semantron 2014

and so affecting the brain affects facets of thought. But that ability to think and understand, and that very sense of security can only come from somewhere. There is a fundamental gap between the physical facts of the brain, and the facts of consciousness. They also claim that there are gross flaws with the examples presented by materialists that consciousness only belongs in the brain. In ancient times, almost every scientist believed that thought and consciousness were closely related to the heart, as when you stopped the heart beating, you stopped that person from thinking. Such a correlation, dualists say, is much like the one modern day materialists place on consciousness and the brain. Just because damaging the brain damages thought, does not mean that thought originates in the brain. The brain is most likely only an organ for interpreting thoughts and communicating them to your body. For example, your brain only receives the thought Âmove my armÊ and sends it down to the arm in readable form, rather than ÂthinkingÊ the thought in the first place. One of the most important dualist through experiments was AvicennaÊs Âfloating manÊ. This states that, if floating with no sensory input i.e. no sight, smell, touch hearing or taste, you would still recognize the fact of your existence. Your first thought in fact, would be ÂI am meÊ – this seems to indicate that, even with no sensory input for the brain to understand, there is something else that recognizes itself and what it is: a soul (or other such entity). This, dualists say, proves the existence of a soul. Another point that dualists will make is the existence of qualia: the fundamental feelings that undoubtedly and uniquely belong only to you. My interpretation of how something tastes is different to that of every other person. Yes, neuroscientists may scan my brain and identify which part recognizes taste. And, this being the same part in every brain, they would say that this is proof that taste is merely part of the brain. And yet they still cannot explain why this experience is different for everyone, and the

fundamental uniqueness of these feelings. The same is true for interpretation of colour. Scientists may understand everything that there is to understand about the physical aspects of me seeing the colour yellow. And yet, they will never know what it actually feels like for me to see the colour yellow. Indeed for all they know my colour yellow is actually their red, and vice-versa. So, surely, there must be a non-physical aspect to these feelings. If every physical and neural aspect is understood, and yet there is more, surely this ÂmoreÊ must be non-physical; these feelings must be an aspect of the soul. Finally, dualists will use computers to prove their point. In this technologically advanced age, humans can outdo nature in so many aspects: planes fly faster and farther than birds, guns are more powerful than any claw or bite, there exist nuclear bombs only a few metres in diameter capable of destroying several square miles around them. And, arguably, computers are the most advanced technology we currently possess, the very crux of human technological achievement. And yet, not one computer, be it laptop, super-computer, or even the giants that occupy square miles of space, has ever shown the slightest shred of sentience. Computers remain, in their essence, glorified abaci. Consciousness is merely mechanical, tan one of these super- computers, with millions of bytes of data crammed into a square inch of computer chip, and literally hundreds of metres worth of computer chip all connected together should have by now shown even the slightest smallest beginning of sentience, and yet, no so. Dualists claims that, if nothing else, this proves that there is a soul, and some kind of gap between the physicality of the brain, and consciousness. The final of the three most important approaches to answering this question is that of the mysterian viewpoint. Of all three, this is without a doubt the most succinct. It states thus: the brain is so horribly complicated that we will never really understand it. Any attempts to try will only result in failure and a measure of wasted

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