[hackingonempty]

We understand the fundamental laws of physics well enough to say there is not some mysterious soul influencing the brain. Just like we can say that the moon is not made from cheese.

> Modern physics, in other words, provides evidence for what philosophers call “causal closure of the physical”: physical events have purely physical causes (Loewer 1995, Papineau 1995), at least in the regime relevant to human life. Without dramatically upending our understanding of quantum field theory, there is no room for any new influences that could bear on the problem of consciousness.

https://philpapers.org/archive/CARCAT-33

[rendx]

> We understand the fundamental laws of physics well enough to say there is not some mysterious soul influencing the brain. Just like we can say that the moon is not made from cheese.

I don't see how this relates to the "seat of consciousness" (with)in a human body, or how the biological system works together to "form it". Or where thinking or memory storage or retrieval takes place. At least that was what I was talking about. You're talking about something else.

It is a theory that we think in the brain. As far as I understand it, and please prove me wrong, there are other, valid theories? It's unscientific to discard theories purely based on belief. You seem to be arguing from a certain belief, not from science.

The modern term for "soul" is "psyche".

Remember that the OP was asking: "How do you ensure that you aren’t torturing a brain that can’t see, hear or scream?" -- clearly refering to something... conscious?

[hackingonempty]

> It is a theory that we think in the brain. As far as I understand it, and please prove me wrong, there are other, valid theories? It's unscientific to discard theories purely based on belief. You seem to be arguing from a certain belief, not from science.

The evidence that the brain is where thinking happens is overwhelming, the minor influence of the rest of the body notwithstanding. There are no other theories.

[rendx]

How can you claim that "There are no other theories"? Do we operate from a different definition of "theory" perhaps?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philosophy_of_mind

Plenty of examples of theories listed there, no? Picking a random one: "Open individualism states that individual personal identity is an illusion and all individual conscious minds are in reality the same being".

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extended_mind_thesis

"the extended mind thesis says that the mind does not exclusively reside in the brain or even the body, but extends into the physical world"

To state it explicitly, I am not saying I believe in these alternative theories. I am also not stating anything about their probabilities. I just want to be accurate in my understanding, which is that multiple theories do exist and none of them have been proven or disproven. It is not known whether you only need a brain to think, or how much other regions like the nervous system spread throughout the body play a crucial role for "thoughts" to form.

If you discard a theory just because you judge there not to be sufficient evidence, you're working from a belief, and not from scientific reason.

In this particular thread, we're not even coming from "thinking" or "mind", but from sentience -- the stated idea that the "brain can feel pain", as brain alone (!). Depending on which physical regions and matter you include in "brain", it doesn't even have any structures that according to the current scientific consensus provide or relay perceptive data. Unless you believe in one of the many theories that place the mind outside of the physical structures of the brain.