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Zoe Fuller-Young's picture

Some great ideas...

I agree with many aspects of this post. It does not scary to be without a "mind" in that it is our brains that are conducting our thinking and our behavior, it fascinates me. As mentioned in class, there have been scans done of the brain showing activity during thought processes, and I have also heard of activity while someone is working through questions of morality. The brain is constantly changing but also has lasting patterns- it seems that in class we were interpreting the brain as the conductor in a stimuli-response situation, and the mind as the input-output coordinator. I wonder, to those who are attracted to dualism, what do you see as the mind? Is it a function of the brain but separate, is it something higher than us? If the mind is separate from the brain, why do we have such large brains? I think that it is morality and agency that add to the sheer mass of our brains.

 Some questions class made me think about are why do humans so often search for their self? by this I mean the quest for the self, the journey to discover who one truly is? Also, when thinking about the mind/brain, does anyone know about comparisons to other animals? do other primates practice moral judgement, and if so, does that mean that they have what you determine to be a mind?

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