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If a permanent change in your psychology did not correspond with some permanent change in your physical person, then what would there be that was causing the ch

by rntz 10y ago

If a permanent change in your psychology did not correspond with some permanent change in your physical person, then what would there be that was causing the change in your psychology? Some non-physical "soul" or "mind"? All psychological facts have physical correlates (in philosophy of mind, this is called "supervenience"). The only limit is our ability to measure things. As our ability to measure our own brains and bodies increases, we should expect to uncover more and more physical correlates of psychological conditions.

PeterisP 10y ago
As I said, the question (answered by others) is about structural changes. Any memory is formed by changing something in the brain, but forming this memory doesn't cause any meaningful changes to the general physical functioning of the brain; forming memories and having preferences (and changing them!) is what the brain does; perhaps the quantity of memories affects the structure of the brain or alters its functioning/learning, but generally the content of memories will not. Psychological facts having physical correlates isn't the answer - to use a wrong-but-useful analogy; it's clear that hardware can inappropriately alter/damage software in many different ways, but in what ways software can/cannot damage or alter the normal functioning of the hardware? The other answers give some examples where this can happen - are there more direct ways?
- DougWebb 10y ago
  forming this memory doesn't cause any meaningful changes to the general physical functioning of the brain Maybe not any that we are currently able to measure, but something's got to be changing. As an analogy, consider your computer: you could open it up, look inside, and feel that temperatures of different parts change over time, but you can't tell what it's doing or how well it is working just by looking at it. Even with fancy electrical equipment you'd have a hard time determining what's going on, beyond detecting that there's a lot of signal activity flowing around. To really see what's happening you need access through the software, and we just don't have that kind of access to the human mind.
  - PeterisP 10y ago
    I still don't understand if you're really claiming what I feel you're claiming, that is, saying that "forming this memory doesn't cause any meaningful changes to the general physical functioning of the brain" is false? It's not a question of being able to measure - I believe that we can measure e.g. synapses being strengthened and weakened as a result of learning skills; but that these changes don't change the physical functioning; it's just part of their normal functioning and it functioned exactly as well before and after - the behavior is different but physically equivalent. For what I mean as a "meaningful change to the physical functioning", consider your computer - deleting all the software and installing a different operating system would not be a meaningful change to the physical functioning; the temperatures, electric charge and magnetic properties of the involved parts would be very different, but that doesn't matter as all the physical parts would still function in the same normal way although the screen would be displaying very different signals. On the other hand, a software program that manages to physically disable or re-enable parts of some chip in a way that's not normally possible through software, blow a fuse in a hard drive or trigger a processor bug that "bricks" the processor - those would be the kind of changes to the general physical functioning I'm talking about. In what cases do we have such changes to the physical functioning of (parts of) the brain? Changes that are substantially different from any changes that the brain "does to itself" in the course of normal operation?
    - DanBC 10y ago
      https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Eric_Vermetten/publication/10805021_Magnetic_resonance_imaging_of_hippocampal_and_amygdala_volume_in_women_with_childhood_abuse_and_borderline_personality_disorder/links/0fcfd507333c02d8d5000000.pdf https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Eric_Vermetten/publicat... > Borderline personality disorder (BPD) is a common disorder associated with emotional dysregulation and other symptoms that have been hypothesized to be related to dysfunction of limbic brain areas including hippocampus and amygdala. The purpose ofthis study was to measure hippocampal and amygdala volumes in BPD. Hippocampal and amygdala volumes were measured with magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) in 10 patients with BPD and 23 control subjects. Patients with BPD had a 21.9% smaller mean amygdala volume and a 13.1% smaller hippocampal volume, compared to controls. These findings are consistent with the hypothesis that alterations in the hippocampus and amygdala are associated with BPD. Here they see changes in the structure of the brain.
- Razengan 10y ago
  > it's clear that hardware can inappropriately alter/damage software in many different ways, but in what ways software can/cannot damage or alter the normal functioning of the hardware? I see where you're coming from, but in the case of biological brains and their physiology, the hardware IS the software, no?
- nikdaheratik 10y ago
  The problem with looking it this way is you are ignoring another thing the brain does, which is to link events in memory with emotions, and triggering these emotional responses in turn release all kinds of chemicals that affect the way the brain functions. Granted this link fades over time (and likely therapy helps), but the body is not always good at handling major stresses and the damage can become permanent.

by rntz 10y ago

PeterisP 10y ago

As I said, the question (answered by others) is about structural changes. Any memory is formed by changing something in the brain, but forming this memory doesn't cause any meaningful changes to the general physical functioning of the brain; forming memories and having preferences (and changing them!) is what the brain does; perhaps the quantity of memories affects the structure of the brain or alters its functioning/learning, but generally the content of memories will not. Psychological facts having physical correlates isn't the answer - to use a wrong-but-useful analogy; it's clear that hardware can inappropriately alter/damage software in many different ways, but in what ways software can/cannot damage or alter the normal functioning of the hardware? The other answers give some examples where this can happen - are there more direct ways?

DougWebb 10y ago
forming this memory doesn't cause any meaningful changes to the general physical functioning of the brain Maybe not any that we are currently able to measure, but something's got to be changing. As an analogy, consider your computer: you could open it up, look inside, and feel that temperatures of different parts change over time, but you can't tell what it's doing or how well it is working just by looking at it. Even with fancy electrical equipment you'd have a hard time determining what's going on, beyond detecting that there's a lot of signal activity flowing around. To really see what's happening you need access through the software, and we just don't have that kind of access to the human mind.
- PeterisP 10y ago
  I still don't understand if you're really claiming what I feel you're claiming, that is, saying that "forming this memory doesn't cause any meaningful changes to the general physical functioning of the brain" is false? It's not a question of being able to measure - I believe that we can measure e.g. synapses being strengthened and weakened as a result of learning skills; but that these changes don't change the physical functioning; it's just part of their normal functioning and it functioned exactly as well before and after - the behavior is different but physically equivalent. For what I mean as a "meaningful change to the physical functioning", consider your computer - deleting all the software and installing a different operating system would not be a meaningful change to the physical functioning; the temperatures, electric charge and magnetic properties of the involved parts would be very different, but that doesn't matter as all the physical parts would still function in the same normal way although the screen would be displaying very different signals. On the other hand, a software program that manages to physically disable or re-enable parts of some chip in a way that's not normally possible through software, blow a fuse in a hard drive or trigger a processor bug that "bricks" the processor - those would be the kind of changes to the general physical functioning I'm talking about. In what cases do we have such changes to the physical functioning of (parts of) the brain? Changes that are substantially different from any changes that the brain "does to itself" in the course of normal operation?
  - DanBC 10y ago
    https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Eric_Vermetten/publication/10805021_Magnetic_resonance_imaging_of_hippocampal_and_amygdala_volume_in_women_with_childhood_abuse_and_borderline_personality_disorder/links/0fcfd507333c02d8d5000000.pdf https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Eric_Vermetten/publicat... > Borderline personality disorder (BPD) is a common disorder associated with emotional dysregulation and other symptoms that have been hypothesized to be related to dysfunction of limbic brain areas including hippocampus and amygdala. The purpose ofthis study was to measure hippocampal and amygdala volumes in BPD. Hippocampal and amygdala volumes were measured with magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) in 10 patients with BPD and 23 control subjects. Patients with BPD had a 21.9% smaller mean amygdala volume and a 13.1% smaller hippocampal volume, compared to controls. These findings are consistent with the hypothesis that alterations in the hippocampus and amygdala are associated with BPD. Here they see changes in the structure of the brain.
Razengan 10y ago
> it's clear that hardware can inappropriately alter/damage software in many different ways, but in what ways software can/cannot damage or alter the normal functioning of the hardware? I see where you're coming from, but in the case of biological brains and their physiology, the hardware IS the software, no?
nikdaheratik 10y ago
The problem with looking it this way is you are ignoring another thing the brain does, which is to link events in memory with emotions, and triggering these emotional responses in turn release all kinds of chemicals that affect the way the brain functions. Granted this link fades over time (and likely therapy helps), but the body is not always good at handling major stresses and the damage can become permanent.