>>> First, excellent post. Thanks for taking time with this.. <<

> On Tue, 26 Feb 2008 08:38:17 -0500, thinker wrote:

>> Mental states can be correlated with behaviors, whether inside the body
>> (eg, brain imaging) or outside (eg, facial expressions).  Human
>> subjects can verbally report the experience and this is done all the
>> time in the doctors office.  Finding the neural correlates of
>> consciousness or particular conscious states is a step on the way to
>> figuring out how conscious states occur in human brains.

>
> This can be trouble. Correlated events do not ensure understanding
> outside of the correlation. So when science finds a correlation between
> behavior and a scope readout, a chemical change or expression this is
> only as far as the actual understanding goes. The next step is of course
> to induce one thing to see if another will happen. If this proves correct
> a better understanding of control happens but not necessarily what is
> being controlled.
>
> With consciousness, or how people think, all roads, which began in
> ancient times, have lead to control only. Why?
>
> Maybe this...
>

>> We have grounds for seriously pursuing the brain as the cause of
>> consciousness,

>
> Seriously consider what is the brain the effect of? What causes the
> brain? For now the only serious answer to this question is that it
> structurally evolved. OK. But how to account for all the other species
> who have generally the same gear?
>
> Now the door is flung part open. It presents an objective and more
> inclusive if/then direction. If the brain is consciousness then all
> things with a brain must have it in some manner. The only other thing to
> do is merely point out the differences between the attributes of species
> conscious, grumble, quickly assign the human superiority and move on.
> Quick!  
>

>> but no grounds for seriously pursuing panpsychism except
>> as a religious intuition.  

>
> If panpsychism is "the doctrine that mind, in some sense of the term, is
> everywhere, in some sense of that term.."
>
> (http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/panpsychism/#1)..
>
> ,...slamming the 'R' word onto it is not completely unfair but not
> completely fair either. If for no other reason than an inclusive
> direction is already set with "all things brainy". On the other hand, if
> consciousness is relegated to a brain which is defined by a distinct set
> of physical properties, there can be no ambiguity, like "Beijing is the
> capital of China".
>
> All of this so far has taken your premise as true. Brain causes mind
> (mind for our purpose = consciousness).
>
> The brain alone in not mind, however. It is mind only after it is acted
> upon by something else. For now, it's recognize that sensory nerve inputs
> are the source of this something else but they usually are responding to
> something else again. Mind is the process but is this process the brain's
> alone? I think not.
>
> How can anything having even the a remote kinship to electricity be a
> lone process in this universe? It threatens logic. Science certainly
> isn't clear on this yet.
>
> I do not think it is a matter of pure religious intuition to say that
> 'electromagnets' (electrochemistry included) will be found to have many
> attributes that are unknown to science today. I do not know what they
> might be. My safe guess is they will center on broad effects. It seems so
> today. The problem is coming up with numbers and words to explain it to
> ourselves.
>

>> To be open-minded, this may be all wrong and
>> panpsychism might be true.  But we have no reasonable grounds for
>> thinking it to be true.

>
> I can not defend panpsychism per se. It seems to be too preloaded with
> 'mind in everything' which does not ring true because it seems like
> simple personification. 'Everything in mind' seems closer but might also
> just look clever to me at the moment.
>
> It does come down to: If mind is process and this process can form
> relative to specific physical properties it may not be a question of how
> much conscious any other thing has but how much of any other thing makes
> up the subset of our own consciousness.
>
> With that I will end with an emphatic "?".