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
Feeling the Effects of Climate Change | Before the Flood
It’s not about when the entire islands are underwater; it’s well before that. It’s going to be the crisis, and it’s already happening. What we are facing at the moment is severe flooding. It’s gone into the freshwater supply, and that’s how people get the…
The Worst Economic Collapse Is Coming (How To Prepare)
What’s Grandma? It’s guys, hear you. And if it hasn’t already become obvious, the banking system is in deep trouble. Now, I know there’s been a lot of talk about major banks over-leveraging themselves to the point of failure. But as of a few days ago, tw…
The WALKING WATER Mystery (in SPACE and SLOW MOTION!) - Smarter Every Day 160
Hey, it’s me Destin and welcome back to Smarter Every Day! I have a problem. There is a specific water phenomenon that I see happening all around me, but I have no idea how it works. I’ve been trying to figure it out for years. In fact, I put a video on t…
Pick one desire at a time and pick it carefully
You know, if you there’s the old saying, like, if you love what you do, you’ll never work a day in your life. It’s a little exaggerated; it’s more aspirational. Of course, there’s all kinds of things you’re going to have to do that you don’t necessarily w…
Agriculture: Humanity's Best, Worst Invention
Imagine this: you wake up in a beautiful meadow after a long, restful sleep. You watch the sunrise sparkle through the morning dew as you pick a hearty breakfast of nuts, berries, and mushrooms. Seeing storm clouds on the horizon, you head back to camp an…
The People and Tech That Power Nat Geo | Podcast | Overheard at National Geographic
Foreign, when you think about a 135-year-old institution, you know, you might think of something that’s, you know, fussy or tradition-bound. This is Nathan Lump, he’s National Geographic’s editor-in-chief, the 11th person to lead this magazine, and nowada…