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Originally Posted by Rudism  I hear this metaphor a lot, but it doesn't really work. The TV has a mechanism for receiving and decoding the external information which, when removed or disabled, renders the rest of the components completely useless. You could experimentally verify this with a simple test--unplugging the cable, or blocking the signals with some kind of shielding. This is not analogous to the brain--there is no evidence of any kind of external signal, but there is tons of evidence supporting a more materialistic view.
For example, if memories are stored outside of the brain, why does damage to the hippocampus affect our ability to form memories? Why are scientists able to develop drugs that can target and remove specific individual memories ( see here for an example)? If the self and consciousness are external to the brain, then why does damage to the prefrontal cortex so drastically change people's personality and awarenesses?
The configuration of the brain is obviously extremely important in how we perceive the world, how we perceive ourselves, and how we behave--so where's the evidence that there's outside information involved in any of this?
I would like to see a TV that, when you damage a certain circuit, starts showing more violent programming. Or a TV where removing a component results in actors showing up in the wrong shows, or causing the plots to become noticeably more disjointed and confused. This is the kind of stuff we see happening in the brain--this is the kind of evidence we have for these processes being entirely a function of processes in the brain. There is tons of empirical evidence to suggest that the brain is responsible for these things, and zero empirical evidence that there is any kind of external component to them. |
This is an extremely powerful argument - possibly the only decent argument in favour of a purely physical basis for consciousness. However, my view is that purely materialistic explanations for consciousness ultimately run into contradictions - as I have been arguing with Mszlazak. Let me offer a few suggestions as to how dualism may be able to survive this argument:
1) The non-material part of consciousness does not need to be a single entity. Damaging the physical brain may disrupt the balance between such entities. Schizophrenic patients do actually report multiple entities in their heads. Even normal people often find that they are pulled in several directions, as if by two individuals with different motivation. Again, the orthodox interpretation is that is just an analogy, but maybe it isn't
2) Science, and in particular medical science, always interprets evidence from a materialistic standpoint. Thus, for example, the multiple personalities of schizophrenia are simply considered as some sort of vague disorder of the brain - orthodox science never even considers that this may be evidence of multiple (non-physical) entities occupying the same brain. This bias may distort some of the facts considerably.
3) The TV analogy is only an analogy - but it is amusing that if the signal to a digital TV(at least in the UK), as opposed to analog, degrades, the effect is more interesting. The image can become jerky, and faces can sometimes look horribly distorted. This is obviously the effect of noise on digital image compression process, but it illustrates that the relationship can be more complex than one might think.
4) Maybe an intact brain communicates with just one non-physical entity, but when it is damaged, other entities tune in to a greater or less extent. A damaged or badly tuned TV (or at least radio) can pull in more than one station at once.
David