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Mental processes, physical quantification

שו”תCategory: philosophyMental processes, physical quantification
asked 4 years ago

Is there a situation in which mental processes can be physically quantified?
If not, how can one reach conclusions regarding human mentality, through physics? (such as free will, etc.)


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מיכי Staff answered 4 years ago
I didn’t understand the question. It would be better to give a concrete example.

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גבריאל replied 4 years ago

On the question of freedom of choice:
It is clear that physical processes occur in the background (not related to the person himself - occurring in an ‘unconscious’ manner), but there is a factor that is unknown and cannot be measured, the mind itself.
And from the way it looks, it is itself problematic for physical understanding.

How can one decide this question when the factors are not clear?
Another question, were the Libet experiments able to isolate the ‘point of choice’? If they relied on some kind of ‘spark’ that materializes some time before the overt choice, how can one know that this is not a kind of ‘suggestion’ that the brain offers to the mind? (Then the person chooses whether to accept it, or not)

The same goes for other things related to the body-mind.

מיכי Staff replied 4 years ago

This is a general question and there is no point in giving a general overview. If you have a specific question, raise it. Several options have been raised to test this empirically, and they have been discussed extensively in the books of the liberal sciences.
There you can also see your proposal to interpret the results of the Libet experiments, which is called in the literature “Veto”.

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