[ExI] Is the brain a digital computer?

[Gordon Swobe]

--- On Tue, 2/23/10, Dave Sill <sparge at gmail.com> wrote:

> Blood is tangible, mental phenomena are not. Of *course*
> they're in different categories. 

You argue then for mind/matter dualism. 

> You can hold a pint of blood in your hand, but you can't
> hold a pint of thought

Again you argue for mind/matter dualism. The question of how to answer you has weighed heavily on my mind. 

If we want to call ourselves materialists (a noble motivation, I think) then it seems to me we must say that thoughts have mass. This does not mean however that one's brain becomes more massive when one has thoughts; it means only that one has thoughts by virtue of having a massive brain. 

If should seem obvious, for example, that thoughts don't exist in the absence of brain matter. 

-gts