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
The Housing Market JUST Went From BAD To WORSE
What’s up, Graham? It’s guys here! So, while the stock market was sneaking towards its record all-time high, Dogecoin was blowing past 40 cents, and Apple was unveiling a purple iPhone that sent their stock price soaring a whopping .0038 percent. There w…
Saving Cabins in the Arctic | Life Below Zero
I’m learning new country this winter, so my greatest challenge is don’t let the land or the weather kill me. The water is cold; you feel get used to it after a while. This is a big chunk of ice. Rico and Skyler have traveled to the Celawat hot springs wit…
Fat Tuna Hooks Up | Wicked Tuna | National Geographic
I want to move that one to that rod holder there too. Might as well just have it there. Well, we’re down here in Chatham. We’ve got a bunch of boats with us. We have T.J. from Hot Tuna. We got Jack on Time Flies and Paul on Wicked Pissah. So there’s a bu…
Tradition in the Old West: How Past and Present Co-Exist in Fort Worth | National Geographic
I’m just intensely curious about people and social behavior. Everything that I’m doing is just my way of satisfying that curiosity. My work as a photographer is deeply rooted in culture. I’m really excited to travel to Fort Worth to explore all the old We…
The World isn't Nearly as Terrible as We Think (or is it?)
As soon as we turn on the radio or television, or scroll through our social media feeds, a rush of tragic events scourges our minds. From pandemics to street violence, from clashes between countries to changes in climate: if we immerse ourselves in these …
Charlie Munger on Why Are People So Unhappy? | Daily Journal 2022 【YAPSS Highlight】
Speaker: What worries you most about our economy and the stock market, and on the other hand what makes you optimistic? Well, you have to be optimistic about the competency of our technical civilization. But there again, it’s an interesting thing if you t…