Enmos
Valued Senior Member
No, but I do have reasons to believe that existential despair in humans finds it's origin in structures that are similar to those found in animals, only more developed.
Russell's teapot
- Thread starter Michael
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No, but I do have reasons to believe that existential despair in humans finds it's origin in structures that are similar to those found in animals, only more developed.
Depends on how you define higher. I don't see any dolphins forcing themselves out of bed at an early hour to meet a deadline that he has to meet so he can get paid to eat, do you?
so in terms of hard nosed empiricism, not even you can point it out in the human body?
Enmos
Valued Senior Member
Enmos
Valued Senior Member
Depends on how accurate you want my answer to be.
Do you have any reason to assume that it has its origin in something other than the brain ?
Thats not how hard nosed empiricism works
Enmos
Valued Senior Member
No, but did you seriously think I was a neuro-scientist or something ?
No, but I thought you might have the empirical claims of a neuro-scientist to back up your beliefs
Enmos
Valued Senior Member
I could go look for them, you on the other hand cannot.
on the topic of empirical models of consciousness, at this point in time it doesn't matter who does the searching ....
Enmos
Valued Senior Member
Consciousness ? I thought we were trying to find the origin of existential despair ?
without an empirical model of consciousness, how do you propose to locate it?
Enmos
Valued Senior Member
Same way they located other areas in the brain, for example speech.
speech can be empirically verified .... unlike existential despair
Enmos
Valued Senior Member
A quick search resulted in this article:
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2006/09/060920193424.htm
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2006/09/060920193424.htm
Existential despair is a description of a state of mind and is , therefore, potentially open to empirical verification . It is , of course, important to recognize that the mind is brain-dependent.
what does that have to do with existential despair?
Enmos
Valued Senior Member
Existential despair has nothing to do with fear ?
It's little hard to find research that exactly matches any odd emotional state you come up with LG.
The point is that they are similar processes and that there is no reason to believe existential despair is not a mental state produced by biochemical processes in the brain, just like any other mental state.
It's little hard to find research that exactly matches any odd emotional state you come up with LG.
The point is that they are similar processes and that there is no reason to believe existential despair is not a mental state produced by biochemical processes in the brain, just like any other mental state.
well we were talking about states distinct in humans from the onset - I mean animals also experience fear - trying to close the case by blurring the distinction between despair and existential despair doesn't help your case
Enmos
Valued Senior Member