Tuesday, March 15, 2011

The Brain Is the Mind

The Brain Is the Mind
by Scott Bradley


I picked up a book off a friend’s coffee table not long ago and read on page one: “I am a materialist ...the brain is the mind.” That’s all I read and it made a deep impression on me. The author is a philosopher and medical scientist specializing in the study of the brain. Not a lightweight.

What this statement basically means is that the mind is nothing more than the product of a physical phenomenon, the brain. All talk of spirit or soul is gibberish.

This seems to me to be the most plausible description of how things stand. But I certainly don’t know one way or the other.

For me, the real importance of this statement is that it serves as a bottom line, the lowest common denominator of world-views for which my own philosophy must be divisible. However I approach life, I want it to be with honesty, and that means it has to be compatible with the possibility that it all equals zero.

You can check out Scott's other miscellaneous writings here.

4 comments:

  1. This "brain as mind" concept just doesn't work for me. Science so far has failed to "explain" consciousness, and I'm not convinced that it can. Consciousness is the mind...the brain is very amazing, but without some spark, it's just a light bulb that has burned out.

    This is all about the REALLY BIG question.

    ReplyDelete
  2. One could just as easily say the mind is the brain, that is, the brain is the result of the mind.

    ReplyDelete
  3. I'm not sure I would trust a neurologist to do mind surgery.

    ReplyDelete
  4. If the brain leads to reality then the brain must be unreal as it preceded reality.

    ReplyDelete

Comments are unmoderated, so you can write whatever you want.