How does the material brain know if I want to move the right or left toe?

I sometimes get into local debates with materialist and I'm always amazed as to how they can't answer the simplest questions.

I asked, what tells the material brain that I want to move my right toe or move my left to and how does the material brown know the difference between me wanting to move my right toe and me wanting to move my left toe.

No answer.

Of course they can tell you which part of the brain is active when you move your right or left to but they can't tell you what activates this activity.

How does the material brain tell the material brain that the material brain wants to move my left toe? Some will say simple functions like this are controlled by the spinal cord. The same question applies. How does the spinal cord, tell the spinal cord where...you know the rest.

It's the same thing when I ask them about recall of specific memories. The brain stores the memory of when I first went swimming but what recalls this specific memory?

Again, no answer.

They can tell you which part of the brain is active during memory recall but they can tell you what activates it to recall a specific memory.

The atheist David Deutsch made a stark admission. He said:

If you think about how to explain physical events like a footprint on the moon…, it happened because of human ideas [not because of mere configurations of atoms]….

This information can't, in my view, be reduced to statements about atoms because, if you think about what that information does, it is in brains, but the same information then gets transferred into, let's say, sound waves in air, and then it gets transferred into ink on paper, and then it gets transferred into magnetic domains inside a computer, which then control a machine that instantiates those ideas in bits of steel, and silicon, and so on. There's an immense chain of instantiations of the same information…. What is being transmitted, what is having the causal effect, is not the atoms, but the fact that the atoms instantiate certain kinds of information, and not other kinds. So therefore, it is the information that is having the causal effect….

If explanation is going to be the fundamental thing—our criterion, for example—about what is or isn't real, then we have to say that information, and this particular kind which we call "knowledge," is real and really does cause things….

We have to accept the physical world as we find it. We have to find the best explanations that explain it, rather than impose, by dogma, a criterion that explanations have to meet other than that they explain reality.

str.typepad.com...

Think about that for a minute. It's just a great admission to the obvious. At some point, materialism becomes like a dogmatic religion.

He said knowledge can cause things. The question has to be asked, whose the knower of this knowledge?

This is where materialism falls apart like a toy race track on a lopsided rug.

Deutsch is saying that knowledge is immaterial and can cause material things to write a love letter or make a snowman in the snow. This goes back to the earlier discussions. There has to be a Knower that knows how to access a specific memory stored on the brain. There has to be a Knower that knows the difference between moving your left or right toe and how to initiate this movement.

There has to be a Knower that knows how to drive a car Downtown vs driving a car to your cousins house.

This goes back to the thought experiment Maxwell's demon. In order for the demon to know what characterized a hot or cold molecule, it takes information. There has been recent experiments where information has been converted to energy. So the material brain stores bits that allows the Knower to reduce uncertainty. Here's an article on the information to energy article called Demonic device converts information to energy:

www.nature.com...

Also, this Knower can't be reduced to material components of the body so how can it die?

reply to post by neoholographic

I find your question highly amusing (genuinely)!
Hope to get some good answers...as some of my experience has been more than interesting, when it comes to "toe" and "foot" works.
Perhaps some of the discussion will enable me to participate more directly.

BTW - I have 9 left toes and 9 right toes...

reply to post by neoholographic


Here seems to be a basic explanation to your question: Nervous System, but I have a feeling that this won't suffice for an answer; even if it is scientific and has been replicated and observed.

The gist of it is that your brain, in the given region for motor control of your extremities, transmits a signal via the nervous system to the muscle(s) of that area to move.

Now the kicker, and really what I think you are asking is the metaphysical of this. How does the brain know, that you want to move your toe. In some aspect, we have a sophisticated I/O system (think of your keyboard, speakers, microphone and touch screen). Those inputs is what drives the impulses to the specific muscles that will eventually move in some manner in which it needs to.

In terms of non-essential movement, that is the point we are trying to crack in terms of artificial intelligence. We are not defined by any predefined rules in terms of our actions, though they do effect them.

A good study in this would be a contrived smile versus a genuine smile. There is noticeable differences and there is obviously much more input than just us "telling" our brains to smile. The brain is a fascinating organism.

reply to post by ownbestenemy


Thanks for the response but again it's a typical one. Your link says this:

You just sent a message with an electrical signal from your brain to the muscles in your toe and bingo! - it moves. Just how fast was the signal moving? The electrical signals in your body can move as fast as 150 meters per second.

Who sent a message to your toe? How does the brain know you want to move the left or the right toe? How does the material brain activate this signal that goes from the material brain to the big toe?

It makes no sense.

The brain isn't a magical device. The brain stores a lot of information but you need a user or a knower who can operate and navigate the information stored in the material brain.

For instance, I can show you the signals sent in a DVD player to play the DVD or open/close the DVD player. It's the user who picks out the DVD they want to play. The DVD player just stores the information that plays the DVD.

There's zero evidence the the material brain knows which specific memory I wish to recall or whether I want to move my right to or my left toe. The material brain stores the information on how to do these things just like my TV stores the information to change channels but again, you need a user to change the channels and to decide which station he/she will watch.

This is what Oxford Professor and atheist Deutsch is talking about. Knowing can't be reduced to any material components.

reply to post by neoholographic


And that is why I also placed the caveat that my link wouldn't answer your question. I knew it wouldn't, but I believe in at least placing a the physically known aspects on the table to start with. With that in play, we can discuss the meta-physical, in which I briefly address.

Some would say this is an argument between dualism and monism. It is an age old question and the questions you ask are nothing new or spectacular as they have been asked since Man could reason enough to ask such a question.

reply to post by ownbestenemy


It's much more than just the metaphysical. There's a few theories out there that say the mind isn't an emergent property of the material brain. These theories are based on science not metaphysics.

This is why I laid out the physical response that come from materialist in my original post.

Like I said, it's a dead end to nowhere and it makes zero sense. It has nothing to do with science, materialist just assume that the mind MUST emerge from the material brain with zero evidence to support this silly notion.

At the end of the day this isn't just metaphysics it's science.

There's zero evidence the the material brain can know or operate the information stored in the material brain. The material brain isn't a magical device.

Everything we know about mediums that store information tells us that there needs to be a user to operate and navigate the stored information.

So what isn't science is the assertion that the mind emerges from the material brain. That belongs in the fantasy section.

neoholographic
There's zero evidence the the material brain can know or operate the information stored in the material brain.

There is zero evidence that states it otherwise though.

Everything we know about mediums that store information tells us that there needs to be a user to operate and navigate the stored information.

And how is this not metaphysical with such a statement as this?

So what isn't science is the assertion that the mind emerges from the material brain. That belongs in the fantasy section.

How do you declare that which you cannot disprove to be fantasy, while claiming that which you cannot prove to be factual?

reply to post by ownbestenemy


You said:

There is zero evidence that states it otherwise though.

What??

Why should I have to provide any evidence to counter something that has zero evidence?

That's like saying show me evidence that Santa doesn't live in a cave in the North Pole. Why should I refute something that has zero evidence with evidence?

On the other hand, there's plenty of evidence that shows a medium that stores information like the brain needs a user to reduce the uncertainty of the information stored(example recalling a specific memory or playing a specific DVD movie) and also operate and navigate the stored information.

Again, there's zero evidence that the mind emerges from the material brain but there's evidence that the material brain needs a user to navigate and operate the information stored on the material brain.

Like I said, the material brain stores the memory of when I first went swimming, it needs a user to recall that specific memory. How does the material brain know I wish to recall that specific memory? How does it know the difference between a memory where I first went swimming and a memory where I first went diving.

Just like the DVD player doesn't know which movie I want to play and just stores information on how to play the movie, the material brain doesn't know which memories I wish to recal it just stores the information on how the user can access those memories.

Like I said, the brain isn't a magical device.

The part of the brain that humans don't use, is where the information is hidden to give you the answer to this question.

neoholographic
Why should I have to provide any evidence to counter something that has zero evidence?

Because you are claiming otherwise that there has to be a "Knower and User".

You are asking others to prove to you, what obviously cannot be proven to your standards, thus proclaiming your view must have validity. No matter what anything said here in opposition, you will not accept.

Like I said, the brain isn't a magical device.

And like I said, you are asking a question that has yet to be answered since Man has been able to reason such a question. Answers are given and they are not always accepted, because it is theory. I can prove to you the actions of the brain and the functions that proceed to happen, when we want to wiggle our toe.

What I, nor anyone else can prove, is what exactly gave that command. In some aspects, our basic I/O (as I highlighted above) does that for us. Our I/O system senses heat, we move our extremities away from that source. Our I/O system senses danger, it sets into motion a series of events that leads us to a cross-roads of "flight or fight".

I am not really arguing your point, as it is a valid question to be asked. Where does our primal and basic ability derive from? When I move my fingers here to type, is it because I am in control of my brain, thus I am separate from the object in which controls my movements or is it because I am my brain, and thus in complete control of my actions.

reply to post by ownbestenemy


You said:

You are asking others to prove to you, what obviously cannot be proven to your standards, thus proclaiming your view must have validity. No matter what anything said here in opposition, you will not accept.

Nope, it's not my standards.

Let me repeat:

THERE'S ZERO SCIENTIFIC EVIDENCE THAT THE MIND EMERGES FROM THE MATERIAL BRAIN.

So again, it's not my standard, it's scientific standards.

There's more evidence that Extraterrestrials exist than there is that the mind is an emergent property of the material brain. At the end of the day there has to be some evidence for me to overturn common sense. We know that a medium that stores information needs a user to operate and navigate that information.

Until there's evidence that shows the material brain can magically give rise to a user that navigates and operates the information stored in the material brain then it's just a fantasy that belongs in middle earth with the Hobbits.

When I wish to recall a specific memory, how is it possible that a material medium that stores information knows which memory I wish to recall? What part of the brain says I want the memory from when I first went swimming? How does it know the difference between the memory where I first went diving?

Like I said, it's not my standards, it's scientific standards. There's simply no inkling that the mind can emerge from the material brain.

reply to post by neoholographic


And it boils down to duality or monism. Are we of mind, body and spirit or are they the same? If they are the same, how is it, as you have suggested, we can recall what we want to? What force allows such a recall of information?

If it is of the duality aspect, why are we bound by a physical form and why must we have a body and mind to sustain life?

Maybe I am looking too philosophical in this regard.

reply to post by neoholographic


You're absolutely right. There's a lot of theories, but we don't know exactly how consciousness operates, and the problem you've outlined is indeed a problem. It doesn't destroy materialism in itself, but then materialism isn't strong enough as a One True philosophy to do much of anything but internally validate itself. I think even materialists accept this now, by way of an increasing willingness to accept that reality is fundamentally weird.

The growing ability of neuroscientists to manipulate neurons using methods from molecular biology in combination with optical tools (e.g., Adamantidis et al. 2007) depends on the simultaneous development of appropriate behavioral assays and model organisms amenable to large-scale genomic analysis and manipulation. It is the combination of such fine-grained neuronal analysis in animals with ever more sensitive psychophysical and brain imaging techniques in humans, complemented by the development of a robust theoretical predictive framework, that will hopefully lead to a rational understanding of consciousness, one of the central mysteries of life.

Here's a very basic wiki primer on the subject which can lead one into many fascinating areas of neuroscience, an area roughly as well mapped by science as the bottom of any ocean. This is because it's rather difficult to examine a tool with the tool used for examining the tool -- or indeed to explain through what primary action the tool begins to use itself, which should be, and indeed aside from the fact that it's happening constantly is, completely impossible under the accepted models of cosmic law.

Why can I imagine my own mind? Why is my mind the only place in the universe where universal laws can be broken at will, and what the heck does at will mean, anyway? Hardcore oldschool types will say it means we are not truly conscious, we just think we are, a truly sublime absurdism, but that's pretty much fading away now since it's as much of a dead end as the Calvinist lifestyle-ennui which informed it.

Neural Correlates of Consciousness

reply to post by ownbestenemy


Good points and I understand what you're saying about dualism and monism. I was just trying to keep it scientific and I have debated those things many times in the philosophy forum.

From a scientific standpoint, there isn't any evidence that the mind emerges from the material brain and in fact, it's a really silly notion when you think about it.

For instance, the mind can take rocks and say if there's 2 rocks in the driveway meet me at Subway if 3 rocks meet me at Mr. Hero. The Mind can configure the rocks in a way that conveys information. The material brain just stores the information to move the rocks and move your body. The brain also stores the memory.

It's like a car. The car drives from Nashville to Atlanta but it's the mind that gets you to your destination.

So scientifically speaking, the mind emerging from the material brain doesn't make any sense. It's a belief that says the mind must emerge from the material brain and that's not scientific.

Anyway at this point it's fairly well accepted that we have at least three "minds", one of which is in the gut and doesn't play well with the other two, particularly the emotional one which evolved a hell of a long time before the rational one and is probably emergent from the enormous complexity of the human system as a whole. Some think if you have a system complex enough it will inevitably self-organize, though it does rather tend to do so in the direction of utter catastrophe. Whether mammals as conscious as humans qualify for that designation I cannot quite decide.

neoholographic
From a scientific standpoint, there isn't any evidence that the mind emerges from the material brain and in fact, it's a really silly notion when you think about it.

You have created the Mind though, as some would say. Scientifically, it was pointed out how toes wiggle, you are in a realm where the scientific, dares not go in my opinion.

For instance, your Mind has this question and my Mind has challenged it. What is the Mind? Is it the brain or is it external?

So scientifically speaking, the mind emerging from the material brain doesn't make any sense. It's a belief that says the mind must emerge from the material brain and that's not scientific.

But we are not talking science here. I am not sure how you can debate that. We are exactly discussing Descartes' theories to a monism theory regarding where conscious thought arises from.

reply to post by sepermeru


Good points,

I do think some materialist are realizing that you can't reduce everything to it's parts. Here's some more from Atheist Thomas Nagel:

Some scholars, notably philosopher Thomas Nagel, are so unimpressed with science that they are challenging its fundamental assumptions. In his new book Mind and Cosmos: Why the Materialist Neo-Darwinian Conception of Nature Is Almost Certainly False, Nagel contends that current scientific theories and methods can’t account for the emergence of life in general and one bipedal, big-brained species in particular. To solve these problems, Nagel asserts, science needs “a major conceptual revolution,” as radical as those precipitated by heliocentrism, evolution and relativity.

Many pundits calling for such a revolution are peddling some sort of religious agenda, whether Christian or New Age. Nagel is an atheist, who cannot accept God as a final answer, and yet he echoes some theological critiques of science. “Physic-chemical reductionism,” he writes, cannot tell us how matter became animate on Earth more than three billion years ago; nor can it account for the emergence in our ancestors of consciousness, reason and morality.

Evolutionary psychologists invoke natural selection to explain humanity’s remarkable attributes, but only in a hand-wavy, retrospective fashion, according to Nagel. A genuine theory of everything, he suggests, should make sense of the extraordinary fact that the universe “is waking up and becoming aware of itself.” In other words, the theory should show that life, mind, morality and reason were not only possible but even inevitable, latent in the cosmos from its explosive inception. Nagel admits he has no idea what form such a theory would take; his goal is to point out how far current science is from achieving it.

blogs.scientificamerican.com...

I have a great place he can start. Biocentrism or look into the Quantum Mind.

The problem is, materialism becomes a belief when it's used to support someones atheist beliefs.

reply to post by ownbestenemy


You said:

You have created the Mind though, as some would say. Scientifically, it was pointed out how toes wiggle, you are in a realm where the scientific, dares not go in my opinion.

Again, this is wrong.

Scientifically, it wasn't shown how the mind knows which toe you wish to wiggle. Scientifically it wasn't shown how the material brain knows which memory you wish to recall.

The reason why some in science don't dare to go there is because they can't box the mind into their materialistic box. This doesn't mean the the Mind isn't scientific, it just means people don't go there to placate their beliefs.

neoholographic
Again, this is wrong.

Scientifically, it wasn't shown how the mind knows which toe you wish to wiggle. Scientifically it wasn't shown how the material brain knows which memory you wish to recall.

Scientifically, the brain sent the prerequisite signals to specific toe in which "you" have desired to move. Now the question really is, what is "you", or "I".

If "I" click my tongue, what is "I"? It is obvious that the signal to that muscle group was sent, in which resulted in the clicking of the muscle of the tongue, but what is "I"? I agree that it is a perplexing concept and one that has not been answered since mankind started. It is the basis of religions, philosophical thinkers, tyrants, dictators and ponders.

It is evident that as long as one is aware of their brain, they can move any toe (or leg, tongue, etc) as they wish.

Loads of good points on here........ I am no where even close to understanding how our brain works but I have always thought of it as a CPU where there is a core and electricity runs the different parts for that specific use. Just like getting a memory its simply ROM and RAM where once a file is created - (Day out at sea) to access that file the CPU just sends the current through the synapsis that contains the data and boom it loads up. When we are born our brain would be less developed due to lack of data input, makes me understand why we cant just go running out from the womb and have to learn the whole walking and talking and learning which toe to which foot etc. Just like when you cross your fingers and bite one nail. I for one get confused on which fingernail I am biting because I haven't done it before.

What makes us have something from the start? IMO its a data dump or 'Cache' from our Mother from the womb. Certain things like moving a toe reminds me of when my Niece scratches her back by doing a handstand against a wall, only other person I have heard do this was her mother as a younger child and could no longer do a handstand for obvious reasons lol On that basis I then ask.... So what was the first brain CPU if evolution is anything to go by then we just simply pic up from our last software upgrade and so forth till we are here today.
Sorry I am not a man of a Scientific background nor a Tech specialist... Just Joe Blogs with a guess.