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
Introduction to verb aspect | The parts of speech | Grammar | Khan Academy
Hello grammarians. So, I’ve talked about the idea of verb tense, which is the ability to situate words in time. But today, I’d like to talk about verb aspect, which is kind of like tense but more. Let me explain what that means. So, with basic verb tens…
All Shower Thoughts I Had This Year
have you ever paused to think about how one of the most famous sentences of all time doesn’t make grammatical sense? Well, because we all apparently heard it wrong and continue to say it wrong. According to the man himself, Neil Armstrong, what he did say…
LearnStorm Growth Mindset: Dave Paunesku on student self-reflection
One important way that teachers can, uh, enhance a growth mindset is to really help students self-reflect on their own learning. So, in the LearnStorm activities, we try to be really intentional about, uh, creating a lot of room for students to engage in …
Introducing Khan Academy Kids
Hi everyone, Sal here with my three-year-old son Azad, and we’re excited to announce the launch of Khan Academy Kids, which is designed to take students like Azad, ages two to five, to become lifelong learners. Hi friends, welcome to my room! Kids love t…
Consumer credit unit overview | Teacher Resources | Financial Literacy | Khan Academy
Hi teachers, Welcome to the unit on consumer credit. So, just as a high level, this is going to cover everything from credit scores—what is it? How it’s able to give people who might give someone credit a sense of how likely you are to pay back that cred…
Increased politicization of the Supreme Court | AP US Government and Politics | Khan Academy
In your mind, why is the Supreme Court important? Well, the Supreme Court is important for the original founders’ reasons, or that it was like all American institutions. There were ideas the founders had, and then John Marshall, an important justice, cre…