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
Current due to closing a switch: worked example | DC Circuits | AP Physics 1 | Khan Academy
We are asked how does the current through R1 behave when the switch is open compared to the current through R1 when the switch is closed. Pause this video and see if you can figure that out. All right, so let’s just think about the two scenarios. We coul…
The Second Great Awakening - part 1
The Second Great Awakening was one of the most important social, religious, and cultural aspects of the early 19th century in the United States. In fact, I might even make the argument that it’s impossible to understand the early 19th century without unde…
Combining mixtures example
We’re told a partially filled tank holds 30 liters of gasoline with an 18% concentration of ethanol. A fuel station is selling gasoline with a 25% concentration of ethanol. What volume in liters of the fuel station gasoline would we need to add to the tan…
Safari Live - Day 23 | National Geographic
Hello everybody! Again, I’m sorry about that. We have got untold troubles, and I’ll show you why I think we have untold troubles. Let me just get to this corner over here. I think if you look up, that’s where we live—a tan gamma Maura. Unfortunately, not …
The Worst Housing Crash Just Started
What’s up guys? It’s Graham here. So, the housing market has taken a rather unexpected turn in just the last few weeks. New reports are beginning to show some major cracks throughout some of the largest cities in America, with empty San Francisco office b…
Passive Income: 6 Ways To Make $100 Per Day
What’s up, guys? It’s Graham here. So, first of all, I don’t think there’s anyone watching this right now who would not want to make an extra hundred dollars a day in passive income. Seriously! What I’ve noticed is that when it comes to anything related …