More Mind-Body bullshit

Charles Camosy gets a few things right in a round about way in his "You are not your brain: Why a head transplant is not what you think it is." A head transplant would have limited practical application and would involve a number of medical and ethical questions. However, the basic premise he seems to be operating from is not only non-sensical crap it is demonstrably false. You are your brain. The mind is not separate. The mind is created by the brain. Though we may not fully understand how consciousness emerges it is clear that the mind is a product of the brain. With roughly a hundred years of observation, testing and experiments there is no reason to doubt the conclusion that everything we are as individuals is created by the brain. The mind-brain dichotomy is both false and willfully ignorant. 

Bad dichotomy.... No reason for you

The false dichotomy of Spiritual vs. Material has always seemed to be one of the most ridiculous and easiest to refute. Unfortunately, it is an incredibly pervasive one. A recent piece on the Elephant website, "The Truth About Spirituality & Materialism", once again reminded me of why I have such a low opinion of this type of tripe.

Really, what exactly do people think they are being "spiritual" about and how do they think they are even capable of contemplating such nonsense? Don't people realize that all thinking and feeling are dependent on the mind? It has been pretty well established at this point that the mind is a direct product of the brain. The brain, put simply, is a physical organ. Despite claims to the contrary, the mind is material. The mind cannot exist without the brain. The mind cannot function without any number of physical, hence material, processes carried out by the brain. The conclusion seems so blatantly obvious that I have a hard time understanding why so few can figure it out. What people talk about when they refer to the spiritual cannot be separated from the mind. It is a product of the brain just as much as the mind itself is. Quite literally, everything is material. Spirituality is not a separate thing. That's the truth.

God is in the Brain, Sort of

Douglas Fields makes some decent points throughout his short Huffington Post piece, "Is God in the Brain?" However, roughly half way through he ends up giving in to various common fallacies. Despite pointing out earlier that science and religion take opposite approaches he weakens an otherwise decent post with such nonsensical statements as, "Science and religion are different worlds, but fundamentally they are not antagonistic..." First, we only have one world. Even if you take this metaphorically it is still silly. He points out in an earlier sentence that religion relies on faith. How can baseless opinions be used to accurately "explore and comprehend the world around us"? In the second place, if two approaches are opposites by nature, which Fields does imply, how can they not be antagonistic?

Shortly after this he adds that, "One would not look to scripture for the secrets of subatomic particles, but having discovered nuclear energy through the scientific method, one would not look to science for answers about how to use it." Really? Without sound scientific information you want to create policies concerning something that is potentially lethal? It seems to me that a greater understanding of how such particles work is what you need to figure out how to use them.

He ends his piece in a tone that is nearly the opposite of its opening. He seems to give up all pretense at critical thought for the sake of an overly sentimental notion devoid of any merit.

"Yes, Mr. President, you can see God in the brain; just as you can see it in the hand of a child or in a stunningly beautiful sunset that steals one's breath."  Actually, the beauty argument for God's existence is among the weakest. It has been picked apart and trashed so thoroughly that it still amazes me than anyone with half a brain tries to trot it out so regularly. As for the Brain, yes you can see God there but only in terms of how we construct and use concepts. This, of course, makes God as real as Puff the Magic Dragon or Papa Smurf. Mention either of these two characters to anyone my age or older and odds are they know exactly what is being talked about. They could probably give a more detailed description of either of them than they could for God. They may even have some rather warm and fuzzy feelings about them. Does that mean they are more real than God?