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
Strategies for eliminating variables in a system examples
We’re asked which of these strategies would eliminate a variable in the system of equations. Choose all answers that apply. So this first one says add the equations. Pause this video. Would adding the equations eliminate a variable in this system? All ri…
15 Habits That Help You Balance Life Better
Alexer, have you ever in your life, in this year or even in this week, felt truly balanced? Have you ever felt like you did everything you wanted to do, hit your goals, were present with people in your life, and nailed your work? It’s a great feeling, but…
NEVER Beg for LOVE And Have Everything NATURALLY | STOICISM
Imagine going into every relationship in your life with peace of mind, a deep understanding and the strength to handle any storms that may come your way. Stoicism teaches us that we can’t change the outside world or other people’s actions, but we can cont…
The Physics of Lightsabers | StarTalk
[Applause] Star Talk, we’re back featuring my interview with the British physicist Brian Cox. So I had to bring up the fact that he and I had, like, a Twitter argument over the physics of lightsabers. Aha, yeah! And I just had to bring it up and just ope…
Let That Be a Lesson
I think what’s appropriate is a very simple story that I think you’ll appreciate. There’s an island right off the coast of South Africa where the largest population of sardines exists. Seals love sardines; hundreds of thousands of them sit on an island ju…
Scientific polling introduction
In this video, we’re going to think about what makes a poll or a survey credible. Because remember, the whole reason why we’re going to do a poll or survey is we want to understand public opinion. But if it’s not statistically credible, if we can’t believ…