yego.me
💡 Stop wasting time. Read Youtube instead of watch. Download Chrome Extension

Supervenience


2m read
·Nov 8, 2024

One of the questions was, "Um, how is it that logic supervenes on our brains?"

And I think it's a good question.

Um, I think it's a question that we're not currently in a position to give a full answer to.

Um, for that, our understanding of how the brain and the mind are interrelated needs to be, uh, much more advanced than it currently is.

Um, but I think by way of analogy, I can give you an idea of how, uh, a materialist conception of the mind—how it, how it can, how it approaches this question.

Anyway, so to take the example of a computer, um, we know exactly, uh, the parts that make up a computer, and we know exactly what happens in those parts in order for the computer to do the things it's expected to do.

Ultimately, what happens inside a computer is electrons move around.

That's all it is at a basic level, and yet we're happy to say things like the computer calculates, uh, a sum, an equation, or the computer displays a web page.

And yet we don't feel the need to posit some kind of immaterial entity or immaterial knowledge or symbol or something from another realm that somehow is injected into the computer that enables it to do these things.

We know exactly what's in a computer, what happens in a computer, and we also know that in a manner of speaking, the result is greater than the sum of its parts.

The ability to calculate or to display a web page supervenes on the fundamental activity of electrons in a computer.

And what the materialist worldview says, or at least the version that I'm familiar with, is that in a similar way, the electrical and chemical activity inside the brain gives rise to Consciousness, thought, abstract Concepts, etc.

So logic, as in our internal representation of the most general features of the reality in which we find ourselves, logic in that sense supervenes on the physical.

I hope that makes it a bit clearer.

More Articles

View All
Worked examples: Calculating equilibrium constants | Equilibrium | AP Chemistry | Khan Academy
An equilibrium constant can be calculated from experimentally measured concentrations or partial pressures of reactants and products at equilibrium. As an example, let’s look at the reaction where N2O4 in the gaseous state turns into 2NO2, also in the gas…
Cave Diver vs. Tricky Maya Elves | Campfire Stories
I work in lots of sonatas in caves. The North day is basically a flooded cave, and I by myself, and I hear this lation. Whose it was there, and nobody answer? And then I heard a splash again, and I even have waves. I swear I have waves, the words: what’s …
Building a Bathhouse in the Arctic | Life Below Zero
When I first started bringing my kids in the woods, I wasn’t sure how they’d take to it, and it seems like it’s in their blood. It makes me feel real proud. Let’s go check out the bath house; we got some work to do ahead of us. Part of having these hot s…
Olympic Training During a Pandemic | Podcast | Overheard at National Geographic
High jump is a part of me. This is Priscilla Frederick Loomis. She’s a track and field athlete, a high jumper, and she’s training for the 2021 Olympic Games. I look at the timer; 59 seconds remain. I fix my hair and roll back my shoulders. I look at the …
180° Kathmandu, City of Temples | National Geographic
Carved into the foothills of some of the world’s highest peaks, the Kathmandu Valley has been a unique witness to the development of Buddhism and Hinduism. The valley is dotted by more than a hundred sacred spots: temples, stupas, and monasteries, many sh…
SEC Puts Robinhood on Notice Over Gamestop Ban
[Music] Well guys, we have an update on the Gamestop situation. The SEC, the Securities and Exchange Commission, which is basically like the stock market police over in America, have released a statement recently on the whole Gamestop situation and what …