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Originally Posted by Fydor Bloom

Have you ever hear of something called "The ghost in the machine"? It's a problem that has been around for a while, we're the ghost and our bodies are the machine. I think our bodies are a necessity of evolution. We need them to fulfill our aspirations. Also I think our minds and the knowledge we have are different. Meaning the mind and that brain are not the same.

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The Ghost in the Machine is a famous book by Gilbert Ryle in which he attempted to dispose of belief in the mind as an independent entity. Yet if the mind is produced by the brain its activity must depend on neurological mechanisms and it cannot be responsible for its activity. All our thoughts, feelings, values and decisions must be determined and beyond "my" or "your" control for the simple reason that there is no self to do the controlling!

Your idea that we need our bodies to fulfil our aspirations implies that we are distinct from our bodies. :)

I agree. Our bodies certainly make our lives richer but the most precious aspects of our existence are intangible. How can truth, goodness, justice, freedom, beauty, friendship and love be explained mechanistically?

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Originally Posted by tonyrey

To say that mental states can be controlled by the brain in what ever way it is trained implies that there is a trainer :)

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I take your point !

We are the trainer... who's to say that there isn't a part of the brain that performs this function, after all there are 2/3 rds of the brain ( I'm told) that we do not use.

i.e when a person suffers a stroke, they are left with scar tissue, the very tissue that may be responsible for transmitting signals to their limbs or what ever part of their body has been affected by the stroke, making it impossible for the limbs etc. to respond, with physio therapy and continual thought to that part of the body whilst various exercises are carried out, very slight movement can be achieved. Over a period of sometimes many months, depending on the severity of the stroke, the person can gain a good percentage of use in a limb that might have been otherwise paralyzed.

Every day knowledge is soaked into our brain via... radio,TV,PC,people, things, visuals, which I believe we store and sometimes forget about... it only takes the relevant key to unlock the memory and everything comes back to us.

People who have hypnotherapy remember things from when they were a few years old, things they never thought they new, it only took the correct way to get into their mind to bring these things to the fore, in their conscious mind they were totally unaware of these memories... like I've said I think from the time that we are born, memories are stored, just like our own personal p.c.

It's very difficult to explain exactly, I do think the brain is the engine of the body.