Wednesday, November 16, 2011

Materialism Ramachandran Brain Chemistry

Materialism is a subcategory of Monism that says that everything is physical, there is nothing that is spiritual or of the non-physical world. There are many arguments supporting this claim, and one big one is the Brain Chemistry argument. This argument says that even though we think things like love, hatred, anger, and any emotions or something that would seem supernatural is actually just our powerful brains at work. Everything is composed of the elements, and they form in some specific way to appear to us in this way.
Ramachandran's three examples of brain disorders appear to have took this argument to a new level. These three brain disorders that he talks about are Capgras Syndrome, Phantom Limb Pain, and Synesthesia. Capgras Syndrome is where one thinks that a friend or family-member has been replaced by an imposter that looks exactly like your friend or family-member. Phantom Limb Pain is when sensation is still felt in a missing body part, even after it has been treated completely, and usually these sensations are painful. Synesthesia is when stimuli in one sensory goes automatically to a different part of the brain, thereby causing other involuntary sensations.
So these three disorders help further the argument of Brain Chemistry. Because Synesthesia could be leading pain to the limbic system which gives you dopamine, which is the same rush as love. So Pain lets you feel loved. That doesn't sound very spiritual, and quite contradictory to what most Idealists would say about love. Phantom Limb Pain might actually slow this argument down, because it then supports the fact that pain is in the mind, but still, it could be badly used as that pain is simply brain chemistry interacting with your nervous system. Capgras Syndrome also reveals that ones you love definitely do not have some spiritual interaction with you, because something so small and physical cuts off your love with them, by making you think they are someone else.
So these three support the Brain Chemistry argument for Materialism, because they show that such feelings are easily distorted by the chemistry and brain, simply because the brain is an assortment of biological chemicals and other chemical reactions to stimuli, not from spiritual or out-of-body stimuli.

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