I’ve been thinking about this idea of Searle, that consciousness would be a biological product … 🤔

Yes, it would be exactly like digestion he says

Right, as a neuroscientist I do find that compelling, but …                 

… but? 🤔

… well, one the one hand biological brains seems to be the only thing we know for sure is or has consciousness

So you think he is right?

We are our brains, more or less?

… but on the other hand, the mind seems to be something very very different from …

the result of digestion … 💩 

Eeeewww 🤢  yeah, sure! 

We figured out a lot about what goes out inside our own bodies by looking at what comes out of it, but minds don’t really do that

How do you mean? 🤨

I read about behaviorism at the beginning of your paper: we can’t study the mind directly, so we study behavior

A belief or a desire would just be the inclination to behave in a certain way

Aha 😊…  so behavior would be the way that the mind expresses itself on the outside? 

Yes, in a sense.

But that’s the rub: behavior doesn’t explain the mind, the mind explains behavior, so what do we gain by reducing the mind to behavior?

 

I’d expected you to say that the brain causes and explains behavior …  😅

I wish stuff were that simple! 😅

We can’t explain all behavior just by pointing at the brain.                

It might turn out to be true in general, but for now we don’t understand the brain well enough yet  🧠

So you think Searle is wrong in the end?

I don’t think the mind and consciousness are as straightforwardly biological as digestion, no.

And then there is another problem …

Which is …? 🤔

If consciouness were just like a biological secretion, then it would likely just be purely automatic and involuntary

We don’t really control our digestion, in the sense of all the intestinal movements and chemistry, etc.
….. but I’m quite sure I’m in control of my life, up to a point 😊

That’s what I also argue in the conclusion! 😁

Indeed, and I agree with you, in the end.  👍🏻

There must be more going on than just biology.                                  

Thank you so much! ☺️

I’ll finish up the essay, your comments have been very helpful!

No problem  ☺️

I got at least as much out of this as you did.                                         

Thanks again for all the information! 🙏

I’ve vastly improved my essay already 😊

I also learnt a great deal. I am used to just thinking of brains as machinery ⚙️…

There actually is a position a bit like that … 🤷🏼‍♀️

You mean the one with the “homunculi” … ?                                  

Right, that’s latin for “little person”…

you’d actually be like a little man sitting in a theatre, looking at all your sensations, and trying to make sense of them

You’re making me regret not having done latin and greek now … 😅

but isn’t that the position he criticizes?

Yes, but he changes it around a bit.

If the actual “you” would be like a little person in your head, wouldn’t this “little person” need one of their own?

 

Right, an infinite regress of observes within observers that in the end fail to explain anything about consciousness

Indeed, then he came up with the idea of a whole bunch of “homunculi” that do really simple stuff, like detect lines or colors, 

then some combining those into simple shapes, like “read triangle”, and further down the line complex shapes, like “a rose” 🌹 

And that sounds a bit weird, but then he links that to neural machinery, and it becomes almost trivial … 😊

But he means it like a kind of mental software running on the neural hardware, it is not exactly like the identity theory

No, that’s right, you explain that very clearly in the paper 📄Someone like that would argue that you can run the same software on many different types of hardware

Yes, so that would account for neurodiversity? Right?

I’m quite tempted to say yes, it does sound very convincing, but then he wants to run it on computers too …

 

You think that can’t be done?

Well, I’m no programmer, but at least nowadays I don’t think we have computers that are big enough or fast enough.

So, … maybe?🤔

Do you think there is something special about the brain itself that allows us to think and be conscious?

Ah! I can see where you are going with this. That’s Searle’s theory, right?

Right!

I’ll have to think about it a bit more …🧐                                            

OK, I’ve read your draft. 😊
Again: I’m not an expert in philosophy or psychology, so you’ve got to explain some things.

I mean, both to me here and now, and in the paper, so the readers can follow along

So, the “identity theory”: mental events are brain events                              

They argue it has to be the same brain process for each mental process.

So if I say that we both believe something, then we have to have the same brain processes …

Like the patients who have undergone hemispherectomy as children to cure certain forms of epilepsy.