On the material mind

There may be another reason that we might want to imagine a separation between the mind and brain when we truly know that none, in fact, exists. For the recreational drug user, their induced pleasure is purely biological. In other words, their pleasure is not from any “human” experience, but from the fact that they are a biological organism with a biological response to chemicals. The same chemical interaction can occur in isolated cells on a petri dish. But such pleasure for the drug user is fleeting and meaningless. Of course, all pleasure is meaningless, as all emotion is simply a biochemical reaction, but with the brute application of chemicals to attain direct pleasure, one treats themselves as nothing more than a biological organism.

Once we have the ability to control the mind, we would have no need for such chemicals. Rather, with neurotechnology, we could precisely excite and stimulate the very same neural responses which drugs like marijuana do. But if, as we have concluded, our conception of ourselves should include some separation of mind and brain, then would we consider raw pleasure from direct neural stimulation to be acceptable? (Assuming control of the brain, we could also make this pleasure non-addictive.) But would we consider this right? We would have to assume no difference between the mind and the brain exists, because if immediate pleasure arose in simply this way, then society would crumble. There would be no motivation to pleasure ourselves in other ways, and perhaps eating and sexual reproduction as a whole would halt. But if we assume that there is some distinction between mind and brain, then we can revere other sources of pleasure as meaningful. We could activate the very same biochemical pathways artificially, but actually performing the action to attain the pleasure, although exactly the same as stimulating these pathways to "simulate" the action and the resulting pleasure, will have a different meaning if we consider the mind and brain as separate, and the human as a being which somewhat transcends its biology.

The notion that the mind is capable of free and infinite thought, and therefore could not manifest from the reactions of individual biological units is ridiculous. Thought or conception are neither infinite nor free. There are limits to what the human mind can conceive. We cannot conceive of infinite space, infinite things, or even much more than a thousand things. We cannot think in infinite dimensions, and most not any more than in three (and, thanks to the digital revolution, this maximum is approaching two). We are forgetful, meaning that we have finite memory — not necessarily a limitation of an immaterial soul but necessarily one of a material brain. And our thoughts are not free. Indeed, they are led largely by external experience, but also they are led by one after the other. By our own volition, we cannot choose to think of the next idea without — yellow jacket — without being led by the last, or by some external prompt. (Perhaps my "yellow jacket" interjection functions as a counterexample, but this word somehow streamed into my consciousness upon some long chain of thought, while it entered your consciousness as an external stimulus, so this thought was free for neither of us.) In other words, humans are very poor random generators.

The argument that the human mind must be immaterial because one cannot possibly fathom a material basis of consciousness is inherently flawed: the fact that you cannot conceive of a material consciousness is proof of your finitude.

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