> can we not agree that it is entirely manifest in the brain?
This is the old materialist vs idealist, monoist, dualist etc. debate in the philosophy of mind. It isn't as much of a slam dunk as you think it may be, and the gulf in opinion is broad and branches out into many tributaries.
Materialism is the belief that everything in the world, including mind, was material, but that has progressed into physicalism since late nineteenth century physics showed that not every force is made up of matter.
I used to be very interested in this topic and leaned towards the idealist argument of mind being made up of more than material, but I lost interest as the debate on both sides tends to spiral and involve religion and spirituality. But I still tend to believe that if we completely cloned a brain materially, we would still not have a mind, that it would be missing something.
My own conclusion is that we simply do not know, and that to me is more interesting than knowing as the pursuit is more rewarding than the end goal. There will always be open and unresolved questions in science and philosophy. We have yet to explain seemingly more simple phenomena such as gravity, so explaining the mind (or indeed altering it or cloning it) seems so far out of reach.
You express views and attitudes very similar to mine.
For people who find these things interesting, I recommend checking out the so called hard problem of consciousness
James Trefil, physicist - so they aren't all dopey philosophers ;) - notes that "it is the only major question in the sciences that we don't even know how to ask."
This is the old materialist vs idealist, monoist, dualist etc. debate in the philosophy of mind. It isn't as much of a slam dunk as you think it may be, and the gulf in opinion is broad and branches out into many tributaries.
Materialism is the belief that everything in the world, including mind, was material, but that has progressed into physicalism since late nineteenth century physics showed that not every force is made up of matter.
I used to be very interested in this topic and leaned towards the idealist argument of mind being made up of more than material, but I lost interest as the debate on both sides tends to spiral and involve religion and spirituality. But I still tend to believe that if we completely cloned a brain materially, we would still not have a mind, that it would be missing something.
My own conclusion is that we simply do not know, and that to me is more interesting than knowing as the pursuit is more rewarding than the end goal. There will always be open and unresolved questions in science and philosophy. We have yet to explain seemingly more simple phenomena such as gravity, so explaining the mind (or indeed altering it or cloning it) seems so far out of reach.