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I am Not a Brain: Philosophy of Mind for the 21st Century
Many consider the nature of human consciousness to be one of the last great unsolved mysteries. Why should the light turn on, so to speak, in human beings at all? And how is the electrical storm of neurons under our skull connected with our consciousness? Is the self only our brain's user interface, a kind of stage on which a show is performed that we cannot freely direct?
In this book, philosopher Markus Gabriel challenges an increasing trend in the sciences towards neurocentrism, a notion which rests on the assumption that the self is identical to the brain. Gabriel raises serious doubts as to whether we can know ourselves in this way. In a sharp critique of this approach, he presents a new defense of the free will and provides a timely introduction to philosophical thought about the self ? all with verve, humor, and surprising insights.
Gabriel criticizes the scientific image of the world and takes us on an eclectic journey of self-reflection by way of such concepts as self, consciousness, and freedom, with the aid of Kant, Schopenhauer, and Nagel but also Doctor Who, The Walking Dead, and Fargo.
In this book, philosopher Markus Gabriel challenges an increasing trend in the sciences towards neurocentrism, a notion which rests on the assumption that the self is identical to the brain. Gabriel raises serious doubts as to whether we can know ourselves in this way. In a sharp critique of this approach, he presents a new defense of the free will and provides a timely introduction to philosophical thought about the self ? all with verve, humor, and surprising insights.
Gabriel criticizes the scientific image of the world and takes us on an eclectic journey of self-reflection by way of such concepts as self, consciousness, and freedom, with the aid of Kant, Schopenhauer, and Nagel but also Doctor Who, The Walking Dead, and Fargo.
240 pages, Kindle Edition
Published September 18, 2017
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952 people want to read
About the author
Markus Gabriel
92 books180 followersMarkus Gabriel was born in 1980 and studied in Heidelberg, Lisbon and New York. Since 2009 he has held the chair for Epistemology at the University of Bonn; and with this appointment he became Germany's youngest philosophy professor. He is also the director of the International Center for Philosophy in Bonn.
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July 17, 2019
In an era of rampant neurocentrism (the belief that the mind is identical to the brain), led by the likes of Sam Harris and others, philosopher Markus Gabriel provides a breath of fresh air in his latest book I am Not a Brain. Rejecting the 21st century version of behaviorism that proclaims consciousness and/or free will to be an illusion, Gabriel presents his case that the mind is not identical to the brain and that neuroscience is not the final frontier of self-understanding.
Between the extremes of the religious belief in an immortal soul and the materialist belief that we are all predetermined biological machines is a more nuanced picture of humans as constrained, but ultimately free, agents. Gabriel shows that one can maintain belief in freedom of choice and action without having to reject the underlying neuroscience or subscribe to outdated religious beliefs.
Gabriel’s case against neurocentrism can be (quickly and partially) summarized as follows: As unlikely as immortal souls are, the other extreme, that we are simply and completely the neurochemical processes in our brains, is equally incoherent. As Gabriel makes clear, those that equate mind with brain face two big challenges.
The first is that, if the brain produces the mind, then how can the mind be identical to the brain? We know that the brain is a necessary condition for the emergence of mind, but is it sufficient? And what possible neuroscientific experiment could confirm the equivalence of mind and brain without first assuming that brain activity, as captured in a brain scan, is all there is to consciousness and thought? At the least, we must admit that neurocentrism is a philosophical theory, not a scientific one. It assumes that causation flows in one direction and that consciousness is a thing inside the physical universe, in this case something that is equivalent to the brain.
Second, the proposition that the mind is identical to the brain works under the (usually unstated assumption) of materialism, which holds that nothing exists except matter and its movements and modifications. The obvious problem here is consciousness, or our internal subjective experience that can’t itself be located in a physical space. It is plainly obvious that, for example, the actual feeling of pain is not a physical object composed of matter in motion. If I’m in pain, you may capture my neurological activity on a brain scan, but you can’t feel what I’m feeling and I can’t locate my pain as existing somewhere in physical space. This awkward fact is impossible to fit inside a theory of the universe that holds that only matter exists. And if something else other than matter exists, we can’t assume that this something must adhere to the laws governing matter.
This idea is captured well in a quote by the philosopher Thomas Nagel. As Gabriel writes, “For Nagel, the idea of a cosmos gradually becoming aware of itself in conscious creatures belonging to it cannot be accounted for in terms of our contemporary materialistic world-view.” This is a major problem for materialists, who usually just side-step the issue by ignoring it or by labeling consciousness an illusion, which, if you remember, was exactly what behaviorists did to the mental states they couldn’t account for in the early twentieth century.
The main idea is this: if consciousness is an illusion, that means something is being deceived, and that something must necessarily experience things that cannot be described as material! My bookcase cannot perceive my writing desk any more than my brain, composed of matter alone, can perceive any other physical object. Consciousness requires some other elusive element that makes possible the feeling of experience itself.
This is the hard problem of consciousness that some neuroscientists pretend to have solved by stating that only matter exists in the world, that we have the full picture of reality, and that all of reality can be described with one coherent set of laws. In addition to the fact that this is a philosophical stance, not a scientific one, it is not even accurate within physics itself, as no one to date has successfully integrated the quantum world with that of relativity. Not to mention the fact that consciousness, if it can’t impact the physical world, would serve no purpose, thus invalidating the underlying rationale for all evolutionary theory!
If Gabriel is right, which I suspect he is, the implications are this: no matter how far we advance in our knowledge of neuroscience, consciousness will remain equally mysterious and we will still have to rely on other means for self-understanding, e.g., literature, philosophy, history, and the humanities in general.
And so, ironically enough, we have a choice: we can continue down the road of neurocentrism, denying our freedom and our humanity, or reject the ideology that says we are all carbon-based robots that are slaves to our biology, which is, in fact, not so different from the old theological argument that God’s omniscience precludes the possibility of our own free will. Humans have the peculiar urge to escape the demands of their own freedom, opting instead to place responsibility in the hands of God, nature, or, most recently, the neurochemistry of the brain.
Regardless of your views on the subject, I am Not a Brain is a worthwhile read, even if you’re partial to the neurocentrist argument. It represents, at the least, a serious philosophical challenge to the modern denial of free will, and will at minimum make you think twice about some of your views on the subject.
That said, the book is not completely without its problems. The author goes on frequent digressions and repeats himself often, which may strain the patience of the reader, and engages in random polemical attacks on several authors. For example, from what I can tell, Richard Dawkins has never taken a hard stand on the nature of consciousness, and instead recognizes it as an unsolved mystery, obviously dependent on the workings of the brain but not fully explicable in terms of brain function alone. And yet Dawkins is referenced several times and criticized by the author.
Also, Gabriel seems to go out of his way to defend religion (perhaps to distance himself from scientism) when he should know that religious thinking is just as antithetical to doing philosophy as is scientism. Both religion and scientism, after all, presuppose certain philosophical assumptions that must go unquestioned. His propping up of religion and denigration of great science communicators is going to put off a lot of people to an argument that is otherwise quite convincing—that the mind is not identical to the brain and that humans are fundamentally free agents.
Between the extremes of the religious belief in an immortal soul and the materialist belief that we are all predetermined biological machines is a more nuanced picture of humans as constrained, but ultimately free, agents. Gabriel shows that one can maintain belief in freedom of choice and action without having to reject the underlying neuroscience or subscribe to outdated religious beliefs.
Gabriel’s case against neurocentrism can be (quickly and partially) summarized as follows: As unlikely as immortal souls are, the other extreme, that we are simply and completely the neurochemical processes in our brains, is equally incoherent. As Gabriel makes clear, those that equate mind with brain face two big challenges.
The first is that, if the brain produces the mind, then how can the mind be identical to the brain? We know that the brain is a necessary condition for the emergence of mind, but is it sufficient? And what possible neuroscientific experiment could confirm the equivalence of mind and brain without first assuming that brain activity, as captured in a brain scan, is all there is to consciousness and thought? At the least, we must admit that neurocentrism is a philosophical theory, not a scientific one. It assumes that causation flows in one direction and that consciousness is a thing inside the physical universe, in this case something that is equivalent to the brain.
Second, the proposition that the mind is identical to the brain works under the (usually unstated assumption) of materialism, which holds that nothing exists except matter and its movements and modifications. The obvious problem here is consciousness, or our internal subjective experience that can’t itself be located in a physical space. It is plainly obvious that, for example, the actual feeling of pain is not a physical object composed of matter in motion. If I’m in pain, you may capture my neurological activity on a brain scan, but you can’t feel what I’m feeling and I can’t locate my pain as existing somewhere in physical space. This awkward fact is impossible to fit inside a theory of the universe that holds that only matter exists. And if something else other than matter exists, we can’t assume that this something must adhere to the laws governing matter.
This idea is captured well in a quote by the philosopher Thomas Nagel. As Gabriel writes, “For Nagel, the idea of a cosmos gradually becoming aware of itself in conscious creatures belonging to it cannot be accounted for in terms of our contemporary materialistic world-view.” This is a major problem for materialists, who usually just side-step the issue by ignoring it or by labeling consciousness an illusion, which, if you remember, was exactly what behaviorists did to the mental states they couldn’t account for in the early twentieth century.
The main idea is this: if consciousness is an illusion, that means something is being deceived, and that something must necessarily experience things that cannot be described as material! My bookcase cannot perceive my writing desk any more than my brain, composed of matter alone, can perceive any other physical object. Consciousness requires some other elusive element that makes possible the feeling of experience itself.
This is the hard problem of consciousness that some neuroscientists pretend to have solved by stating that only matter exists in the world, that we have the full picture of reality, and that all of reality can be described with one coherent set of laws. In addition to the fact that this is a philosophical stance, not a scientific one, it is not even accurate within physics itself, as no one to date has successfully integrated the quantum world with that of relativity. Not to mention the fact that consciousness, if it can’t impact the physical world, would serve no purpose, thus invalidating the underlying rationale for all evolutionary theory!
If Gabriel is right, which I suspect he is, the implications are this: no matter how far we advance in our knowledge of neuroscience, consciousness will remain equally mysterious and we will still have to rely on other means for self-understanding, e.g., literature, philosophy, history, and the humanities in general.
And so, ironically enough, we have a choice: we can continue down the road of neurocentrism, denying our freedom and our humanity, or reject the ideology that says we are all carbon-based robots that are slaves to our biology, which is, in fact, not so different from the old theological argument that God’s omniscience precludes the possibility of our own free will. Humans have the peculiar urge to escape the demands of their own freedom, opting instead to place responsibility in the hands of God, nature, or, most recently, the neurochemistry of the brain.
Regardless of your views on the subject, I am Not a Brain is a worthwhile read, even if you’re partial to the neurocentrist argument. It represents, at the least, a serious philosophical challenge to the modern denial of free will, and will at minimum make you think twice about some of your views on the subject.
That said, the book is not completely without its problems. The author goes on frequent digressions and repeats himself often, which may strain the patience of the reader, and engages in random polemical attacks on several authors. For example, from what I can tell, Richard Dawkins has never taken a hard stand on the nature of consciousness, and instead recognizes it as an unsolved mystery, obviously dependent on the workings of the brain but not fully explicable in terms of brain function alone. And yet Dawkins is referenced several times and criticized by the author.
Also, Gabriel seems to go out of his way to defend religion (perhaps to distance himself from scientism) when he should know that religious thinking is just as antithetical to doing philosophy as is scientism. Both religion and scientism, after all, presuppose certain philosophical assumptions that must go unquestioned. His propping up of religion and denigration of great science communicators is going to put off a lot of people to an argument that is otherwise quite convincing—that the mind is not identical to the brain and that humans are fundamentally free agents.
January 7, 2018
A Critique of Neurocentrism
In the recently published I Am Not A Brain: Philosophy of Mind for the Twenty-First Century German philosopher Markus Gabriel takes the philosophical questions head-on in a multi-pronged attack on what he calls “neurocentrism,” the blurring, even the identification, of mind and brain. The claims of today’s neuroscientists and psychologists, he believes, are riddled with omissions, incoherence, and bad logic. In a book sometimes dense with argument, sometimes light and spacious, making its points with references to Fargo and Doctor Who almost as often as Kant and Hegel, Gabriel subjects the pillars of neurocentrism to close scrutiny, picking away at their logic, exposing their presumptions, and investigating alternative explanations.
One of the most powerful images driving us toward the neurocentric, materialistic view is that of a machine-like universe consisting of nothing but particles and energy, all locked into a chain of causality stretching from the beginning of the universe until its end. Because our brains belong to that realm, and because the brain is the originator, apparently, of all thought, it is argued that we are mere automata (as are all other conscious creatures), our entire mental world functioning beyond our control, inescapable and foreordained. Gabriel attempts to weaken the force of that image, pointing out, for example, that the current state of physics is not a closed, finished system: it cannot yet integrate gravity with quantum mechanics, it has no account of dark matter and dark energy, and causality seems vitiated by probabilities. However, he accepts the validity of determinism—as applied to the world of matter. Taking it further, though, is, he says, to over-extend one model of explanation over the entire cosmos.
The World Does Not Exist
Gabriel’s most unusual argument was presented at length in a previous book (and TEDTalk) entitled Why the World Does Not Exist. It is not possible, he believes, to step outside everything that exists, comprehend it all at once in a God-like glance, and thus see both the entire contents and the absolute limits of “the world” or “the universe.” That’s what materialists think they have done when they declare that only matter and energy exist. But why only matter and energy? Do numbers not exist? The rules of logic? How about facts? Or the Federal Republic of Germany, Hamlet (the play, not the physical words printed on the page), relationships, democracy, love? Gabriel contends that it is a mistake to assert that everything that exists belongs to a single class and that everything that exists cannot be comprehended in a single frame of reference. Instead, he wants us to accept a countless number of what he calls “fields of sense,” so that, just as it is meaningful and true to say that chairs and rainbows exist, in other fields of sense it can be meaningful and true to say that principles exist, or friendship or even Ebenezer Scrooge. Of course, Gabriel’s main interest in this argument is to clear the way for the mind and its cognates to be recognized as existing just as surely as atoms.
A chapter is devoted to each of consciousness, self-consciousness, the self, and freedom, as he both deals with various reductionist views of the mind and develops his own position, which he calls New Realism. Much of it is the common sense view of the mind — that it is real (although not a mysterious ‘substance’ and not existing apart from the brain); the true originator of many, but not all, of our actions; and operating with free will, even as it is subject to unconscious processes. He offers a tricky notion, though, for the defining function of the mind, which he takes to be its ability to think creatively about itself, ceaselessly to form conceptions of itself. At least part of what this means is our ability to imagine our own identities, as a Christian, for example, or a German, a patriot, a gift to the opposite sex (the mind can make errors about itself, of course) or a plaything of fate. This feature he takes to be absolutely crucial: “The human mind does not have a reality that is independent of its self-images.” Because a self-image has consequences in action and engenders a multiplicity of further thoughts, Gabriel believes it is important to push back against neurocentrism’s false image of the mind as illusory and unfree.
Here and there Gabriel raps the knuckles of some incidental figures, such as Richard Dawkins for his thesis that the human is no more than an elaborate biological mechanism devoted to the single purpose of passing on genes, Freud for his idea that the mind is enslaved to the libido, and Silicon Valley types who anticipate cyborgs and a future when an individual’s human experience can be uploaded to a computer, a network, or a USB stick. “Darwinitis” comes under fire for invoking a remote, mythical past to explain concepts such as egoism, altruism, good, and evil in terms of the struggle for survival and genetic transmission rather than accepting the historical development of these concepts, already so well documented in culture.
The Other Sciences of the Mind
“Nothing is more human than the wish to deny one’s humanity,” wrote philosopher Stanley Cavell. Again and again Gabriel sees attempts to reduce our humanity to something other than, and always less than, human. The German word for the humanities, he points out, Geisteswissenschaften, means “sciences of the mind” and consists of subjects such as philosophy, history, musicology, linguistics, and theatre studies. There, he thinks, is where we learn the most about the human mind. Neuroscience undoubtedly helps us understand the biological phenomena without which, of course, there is no mental life. But it has not proven that we are identical with our brains or provided satisfactory explanations of mental phenomena. More important, it seems unlikely ever to provide the level of insight into ourselves that we find beyond the sciences in figures like Sophocles, de Tocqueville, Proust, or Niebuhr.
I Am Not A Brain could be much better focused. As it shifts from topic to topic, the connections can be fuzzy, sometimes leaving the feeling of a miscellany, as if portions were patched together from notebooks. Nevertheless, it is very stimulating, invites repeated readings, and provokes hours of reflection. Written with the lay reader in mind without sacrificing intellectual rigour, it offers a bracing reminder to keep our guard up against, not neuroscience itself, but its philosophical pretensions.
In the recently published I Am Not A Brain: Philosophy of Mind for the Twenty-First Century German philosopher Markus Gabriel takes the philosophical questions head-on in a multi-pronged attack on what he calls “neurocentrism,” the blurring, even the identification, of mind and brain. The claims of today’s neuroscientists and psychologists, he believes, are riddled with omissions, incoherence, and bad logic. In a book sometimes dense with argument, sometimes light and spacious, making its points with references to Fargo and Doctor Who almost as often as Kant and Hegel, Gabriel subjects the pillars of neurocentrism to close scrutiny, picking away at their logic, exposing their presumptions, and investigating alternative explanations.
One of the most powerful images driving us toward the neurocentric, materialistic view is that of a machine-like universe consisting of nothing but particles and energy, all locked into a chain of causality stretching from the beginning of the universe until its end. Because our brains belong to that realm, and because the brain is the originator, apparently, of all thought, it is argued that we are mere automata (as are all other conscious creatures), our entire mental world functioning beyond our control, inescapable and foreordained. Gabriel attempts to weaken the force of that image, pointing out, for example, that the current state of physics is not a closed, finished system: it cannot yet integrate gravity with quantum mechanics, it has no account of dark matter and dark energy, and causality seems vitiated by probabilities. However, he accepts the validity of determinism—as applied to the world of matter. Taking it further, though, is, he says, to over-extend one model of explanation over the entire cosmos.
The World Does Not Exist
Gabriel’s most unusual argument was presented at length in a previous book (and TEDTalk) entitled Why the World Does Not Exist. It is not possible, he believes, to step outside everything that exists, comprehend it all at once in a God-like glance, and thus see both the entire contents and the absolute limits of “the world” or “the universe.” That’s what materialists think they have done when they declare that only matter and energy exist. But why only matter and energy? Do numbers not exist? The rules of logic? How about facts? Or the Federal Republic of Germany, Hamlet (the play, not the physical words printed on the page), relationships, democracy, love? Gabriel contends that it is a mistake to assert that everything that exists belongs to a single class and that everything that exists cannot be comprehended in a single frame of reference. Instead, he wants us to accept a countless number of what he calls “fields of sense,” so that, just as it is meaningful and true to say that chairs and rainbows exist, in other fields of sense it can be meaningful and true to say that principles exist, or friendship or even Ebenezer Scrooge. Of course, Gabriel’s main interest in this argument is to clear the way for the mind and its cognates to be recognized as existing just as surely as atoms.
A chapter is devoted to each of consciousness, self-consciousness, the self, and freedom, as he both deals with various reductionist views of the mind and develops his own position, which he calls New Realism. Much of it is the common sense view of the mind — that it is real (although not a mysterious ‘substance’ and not existing apart from the brain); the true originator of many, but not all, of our actions; and operating with free will, even as it is subject to unconscious processes. He offers a tricky notion, though, for the defining function of the mind, which he takes to be its ability to think creatively about itself, ceaselessly to form conceptions of itself. At least part of what this means is our ability to imagine our own identities, as a Christian, for example, or a German, a patriot, a gift to the opposite sex (the mind can make errors about itself, of course) or a plaything of fate. This feature he takes to be absolutely crucial: “The human mind does not have a reality that is independent of its self-images.” Because a self-image has consequences in action and engenders a multiplicity of further thoughts, Gabriel believes it is important to push back against neurocentrism’s false image of the mind as illusory and unfree.
Here and there Gabriel raps the knuckles of some incidental figures, such as Richard Dawkins for his thesis that the human is no more than an elaborate biological mechanism devoted to the single purpose of passing on genes, Freud for his idea that the mind is enslaved to the libido, and Silicon Valley types who anticipate cyborgs and a future when an individual’s human experience can be uploaded to a computer, a network, or a USB stick. “Darwinitis” comes under fire for invoking a remote, mythical past to explain concepts such as egoism, altruism, good, and evil in terms of the struggle for survival and genetic transmission rather than accepting the historical development of these concepts, already so well documented in culture.
The Other Sciences of the Mind
“Nothing is more human than the wish to deny one’s humanity,” wrote philosopher Stanley Cavell. Again and again Gabriel sees attempts to reduce our humanity to something other than, and always less than, human. The German word for the humanities, he points out, Geisteswissenschaften, means “sciences of the mind” and consists of subjects such as philosophy, history, musicology, linguistics, and theatre studies. There, he thinks, is where we learn the most about the human mind. Neuroscience undoubtedly helps us understand the biological phenomena without which, of course, there is no mental life. But it has not proven that we are identical with our brains or provided satisfactory explanations of mental phenomena. More important, it seems unlikely ever to provide the level of insight into ourselves that we find beyond the sciences in figures like Sophocles, de Tocqueville, Proust, or Niebuhr.
I Am Not A Brain could be much better focused. As it shifts from topic to topic, the connections can be fuzzy, sometimes leaving the feeling of a miscellany, as if portions were patched together from notebooks. Nevertheless, it is very stimulating, invites repeated readings, and provokes hours of reflection. Written with the lay reader in mind without sacrificing intellectual rigour, it offers a bracing reminder to keep our guard up against, not neuroscience itself, but its philosophical pretensions.
December 19, 2018
Gabriel does not present a single cogent argument in this entire book that is his own. He floats between vague allusions to the ideas of others (usually presented with as much as depth as an undergrad who perused the relevant Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy page while stoned), all sprinkled with pop-culture allusions which add absolutely nothing. I do not recommend. It's ultimately still the same faux-intellectual tripe as any other generic book of 'theory' with a few references to neuroscience mixed in for fun.
May 28, 2018
pop philosophy done right
October 22, 2023
Demasiado repetitivo. Supongo que por querer ser didáctico, acaba siendo un poco tostón. Me gustó muchísimo más "Por qué el mundo no existe" del mismo autor.
March 7, 2018
did not like it
Auf dem ersten Blick sieht es aus als hätte man sich bei diesem Buch Mühe gegeben, neue Wörter werden fett gedruckt und eben diese Fetten dann erklärt. Aber hier hört es auch schon auf mit der MÜhMuhMühe und auch mit dem didaktischen Mehrwert. Gabriel versucht sich hier im schön schreiben aber es funktioniert gar nicht, selbst oder gerade nicht für ein solches Sachbuch. Hier wäre ein strenger Lektor viel wert gewesen - vielleicht. Gabriel versucht viel Wissen oder eher viele Fakten, viele Dinge auf kurzen Raum zu packen, jedoch ist es wenn dann zu viel und ohne Tiefe - much like name dropping, oder es wird durch seine schön schreib Versuche erstickt.
Viel schlimmer ist jedoch dieser Essaystil, hier wird einfach nur des Autors persönliche Meinung dargestellt, diese wird nie ordentlichwissenschaftlich belegt. Nach den ersten hundert Seiten musste ich es dann als Comedy weiter lesen. Ich glaube Gabriel versucht hier wirklich too hard cool zu wirken. Seine vielen Ausschweifungen zu Filmen wie Lucy, Upstream Color, Indianer Jones, Dr. Who, Fargo, Word War Z scheinen da noch angebracht und zeitgemäß, seine vereinfachten Schlüsse und Vergleiche hinken aber wie ein "Saugroboter oder ein unglücklicher Hippie, der auf einem LSD-Trip hängen geblieben ist." Strandlektüre? Dafür fehlt dann doch die Spannung.
Ein Beispiel für G's Argumentation - S.179 ff.
Die Überlegung, dass wir nur Gehirne sind die in einem 'Tank' stecken und extern stimuliert werden, und unsere ganzen Eindrücke nicht in dem Sinne real sind wie wir es uns vorstellen sondern nur so wie sie uns durch die Stimulation vermittelt werden 'widerlegt' Gabriel indem er sagt, dass man dann nicht wissen würde was 'echtes' Wasser ist weil man ja nie 'echtes' Wasser gesehen hätte, weil die Berührung mit 'echtem' Wasser ja etwas 'Echtes' ist und keine Illusion. Daraus leitet er ab dass wir als Gehirne im Tank genau so viel über Wasser wissen würden wie Ameisen über Churchill und Affen über Faust. ... I am fucking done
Gabriels Handhabung anderer Wissenschaftler bzw. anderer Theorien bedarf auch gesonderter Würdigung, zwei kleine Beispiele:
"Er bestreitet aber, dass sie kausal in das Naturgeschehen eingreifen (schade, da geht schon wieder alles schief)."
"..., ist freilich aus vielen Gründen ein ziemliches Ammenmärchen. Geben wir auch dieser Idee einen Namen: das Containermärchen."
Ich denke nicht, dass ich mit zu hohen Erwartungen an eine wissenschaftliche Arbeitsweise an das buch heran gegangen bin. Ich hab wirklich gekämpft the struggle is real aber ich konnte es nicht komplett lesen. Nach 60% hab ich angefangen es zu überfliegen und der Rest hat sich auch nichtmehr zum besseren gewendet. Eine persönliche Meinungs/Essay Sammlung, für mich ohne viel Gehalt. I really did not like thisfucking book!
Auf dem ersten Blick sieht es aus als hätte man sich bei diesem Buch Mühe gegeben, neue Wörter werden fett gedruckt und eben diese Fetten dann erklärt. Aber hier hört es auch schon auf mit der MÜhMuhMühe und auch mit dem didaktischen Mehrwert. Gabriel versucht sich hier im schön schreiben aber es funktioniert gar nicht, selbst oder gerade nicht für ein solches Sachbuch. Hier wäre ein strenger Lektor viel wert gewesen - vielleicht. Gabriel versucht viel Wissen oder eher viele Fakten, viele Dinge auf kurzen Raum zu packen, jedoch ist es wenn dann zu viel und ohne Tiefe - much like name dropping, oder es wird durch seine schön schreib Versuche erstickt.
Viel schlimmer ist jedoch dieser Essaystil, hier wird einfach nur des Autors persönliche Meinung dargestellt, diese wird nie ordentlich
Ein Beispiel für G's Argumentation - S.179 ff.
Die Überlegung, dass wir nur Gehirne sind die in einem 'Tank' stecken und extern stimuliert werden, und unsere ganzen Eindrücke nicht in dem Sinne real sind wie wir es uns vorstellen sondern nur so wie sie uns durch die Stimulation vermittelt werden 'widerlegt' Gabriel indem er sagt, dass man dann nicht wissen würde was 'echtes' Wasser ist weil man ja nie 'echtes' Wasser gesehen hätte, weil die Berührung mit 'echtem' Wasser ja etwas 'Echtes' ist und keine Illusion. Daraus leitet er ab dass wir als Gehirne im Tank genau so viel über Wasser wissen würden wie Ameisen über Churchill und Affen über Faust. ... I am fucking done
Gabriels Handhabung anderer Wissenschaftler bzw. anderer Theorien bedarf auch gesonderter Würdigung, zwei kleine Beispiele:
"Er bestreitet aber, dass sie kausal in das Naturgeschehen eingreifen (schade, da geht schon wieder alles schief)."
"..., ist freilich aus vielen Gründen ein ziemliches Ammenmärchen. Geben wir auch dieser Idee einen Namen: das Containermärchen."
Ich denke nicht, dass ich mit zu hohen Erwartungen an eine wissenschaftliche Arbeitsweise an das buch heran gegangen bin. Ich hab wirklich gekämpft the struggle is real aber ich konnte es nicht komplett lesen. Nach 60% hab ich angefangen es zu überfliegen und der Rest hat sich auch nichtmehr zum besseren gewendet. Eine persönliche Meinungs/Essay Sammlung, für mich ohne viel Gehalt. I really did not like this
January 8, 2025
Interesantisimo
February 25, 2018
I begin this review where Gabriel ends his book: on the subject of freedom. Quoting Friedrich Schelling, Gabriel observes that “the alpha and omega of all philosophy is freedom.” By “freedom,” Gabriel does not refer merely to unbridled subjective autonomy, nor political freedom in the form of having a say in the direction of the collective. He means free will. He means that we as human beings have agency.
A necessary consequence is that the naturalist view of reality is false, because it depends upon a determinist automaton view of human action, which in turn requires the view that one’s subjective consciousness of freedom is illusory. “I Am Not a Brain,” Gabriel says, because he (and we) have free will.
Gabriel’s book is excellent and highly recommended. He takes on the mind-body philosophy problem and convincingly trounces the view that self=brain, as required by those who promote naturalism. He makes a compelling argument against that proposition even before getting to his fuller-scoped discussion of human freedom. It’s a great summary of the state of the (philosophical) art on the mind-body question.
Despite that, I confess that I’d have preferred that his last chapter (“Freedom”) be his first. Until that chapter, I found myself wondering how Gabriel was going to reconcile his view that the mind is more than a mere brain, with a metaphysical position somewhere short of theism. In his introduction, he tells us that he is convinced that we “live only once,” by which he means there is no soul with an immortal nature. This conviction doesn’t necessarily rule out some non-Christian version of theism, I suppose, but neither does it provide a metaphysical stance which could explain how there is more to human consciousness than the brain.
Even reflecting back on the book as a whole, including his last chapter on Freedom, I find myself wondering about Gabriel’s metaphysics. He doesn’t prove the theistic understanding of consciousness, but he disproves the naturalist view of it. He completely dismantles the brain=self proposition, using free will as a lever. He doesn’t, however, provide a unified alternative theory.
But perhaps that would be asking too much. Even the philosophies of careful Christian thinkers (like David Bentley Hart, for example) trail off at some point to mystery: consciousness as a phenomenon held in some vague way in common with the consciousness of God.
Gabriel correctly identifies ideology as the source for much of the currently-accepted philosophy of mind. “[T]he contemporary ideology of neurocentrism has particularly tried to dismiss the concept of human freedom.” Neurocentrism is the view that “to be a minded animal consists in nothing more than the presence of a suitable brain.” This is the brain=self proposition. Gabriel likens the prevalent mind-body neurocentrist view to be a “neuromania,” a wrong-headed view exacerbated by “Darwinitis,” the complementary view that our deep biological past is emphasized in order to lead us to believe that typical present-day behavior is only explainable if reconstructed as the result of adaptive advantage in the struggle for survival.
Among the more obviously (and fallaciously) ideological results of neurocentrism are the specious and illogical rantings of empiricist New Atheists, like Lawrence Krauss and Richard Dawkins. They hold, as good empiricists, that all legitimate knowledge claims are the result of the scientific method. But if that is so, whence comes the knowledge claim that there is no God?
"[I]t is simply an unfounded and arbitrary belief that religion generally is what Dawkins imagines it to be. His account of religion . . . is not based on actual empirical and conceptual engagement with the phenomena grouped under the heading of ‘religion.’ What he says about religion is, thus, unscientific by any respectable standard."
Empiricism is the perspective that all knowledge is the result of experience, so science is to be our only god. Gabriel’s quite reasonable question is: "How could we know on the basis of experience that we know everything only on the basis of experience?"
His quite reasonable conclusion is this: "The claim that everything which happens does so because there are laws of nature does not follow from the fact that there are laws of nature."
Though Gabriel does not construct a God-filled existence explicitly, he demonstrates that the God’s-eye view, so to speak, is necessary to an understanding of human consciousness:
"In modernity, one finds, on the one hand, the representation of a universe without mind, which one then, on the other hand, complements with mind. The mind, as it were, illuminates blind nature without anyone knowing how this works. As a result, the universe, or nature, feels like a ‘cold place to call hime,’ as Wolfram Hogrebe puts it."
The materialist, neurocentrist, self=mind view is not at all tenable because it is not supported by the evidence, in particular the evidence of mind.
A necessary consequence is that the naturalist view of reality is false, because it depends upon a determinist automaton view of human action, which in turn requires the view that one’s subjective consciousness of freedom is illusory. “I Am Not a Brain,” Gabriel says, because he (and we) have free will.
Gabriel’s book is excellent and highly recommended. He takes on the mind-body philosophy problem and convincingly trounces the view that self=brain, as required by those who promote naturalism. He makes a compelling argument against that proposition even before getting to his fuller-scoped discussion of human freedom. It’s a great summary of the state of the (philosophical) art on the mind-body question.
Despite that, I confess that I’d have preferred that his last chapter (“Freedom”) be his first. Until that chapter, I found myself wondering how Gabriel was going to reconcile his view that the mind is more than a mere brain, with a metaphysical position somewhere short of theism. In his introduction, he tells us that he is convinced that we “live only once,” by which he means there is no soul with an immortal nature. This conviction doesn’t necessarily rule out some non-Christian version of theism, I suppose, but neither does it provide a metaphysical stance which could explain how there is more to human consciousness than the brain.
Even reflecting back on the book as a whole, including his last chapter on Freedom, I find myself wondering about Gabriel’s metaphysics. He doesn’t prove the theistic understanding of consciousness, but he disproves the naturalist view of it. He completely dismantles the brain=self proposition, using free will as a lever. He doesn’t, however, provide a unified alternative theory.
But perhaps that would be asking too much. Even the philosophies of careful Christian thinkers (like David Bentley Hart, for example) trail off at some point to mystery: consciousness as a phenomenon held in some vague way in common with the consciousness of God.
Gabriel correctly identifies ideology as the source for much of the currently-accepted philosophy of mind. “[T]he contemporary ideology of neurocentrism has particularly tried to dismiss the concept of human freedom.” Neurocentrism is the view that “to be a minded animal consists in nothing more than the presence of a suitable brain.” This is the brain=self proposition. Gabriel likens the prevalent mind-body neurocentrist view to be a “neuromania,” a wrong-headed view exacerbated by “Darwinitis,” the complementary view that our deep biological past is emphasized in order to lead us to believe that typical present-day behavior is only explainable if reconstructed as the result of adaptive advantage in the struggle for survival.
Among the more obviously (and fallaciously) ideological results of neurocentrism are the specious and illogical rantings of empiricist New Atheists, like Lawrence Krauss and Richard Dawkins. They hold, as good empiricists, that all legitimate knowledge claims are the result of the scientific method. But if that is so, whence comes the knowledge claim that there is no God?
"[I]t is simply an unfounded and arbitrary belief that religion generally is what Dawkins imagines it to be. His account of religion . . . is not based on actual empirical and conceptual engagement with the phenomena grouped under the heading of ‘religion.’ What he says about religion is, thus, unscientific by any respectable standard."
Empiricism is the perspective that all knowledge is the result of experience, so science is to be our only god. Gabriel’s quite reasonable question is: "How could we know on the basis of experience that we know everything only on the basis of experience?"
His quite reasonable conclusion is this: "The claim that everything which happens does so because there are laws of nature does not follow from the fact that there are laws of nature."
Though Gabriel does not construct a God-filled existence explicitly, he demonstrates that the God’s-eye view, so to speak, is necessary to an understanding of human consciousness:
"In modernity, one finds, on the one hand, the representation of a universe without mind, which one then, on the other hand, complements with mind. The mind, as it were, illuminates blind nature without anyone knowing how this works. As a result, the universe, or nature, feels like a ‘cold place to call hime,’ as Wolfram Hogrebe puts it."
The materialist, neurocentrist, self=mind view is not at all tenable because it is not supported by the evidence, in particular the evidence of mind.
July 19, 2022
O autor busca responder filosoficamente ao neurocentrismo e ao equívoco da idealização de uma absoluta objetividade. Markus Gabriel vai encontrar os melhores argumentos na filosofia do Eu em Fichte. Ser um Eu significa conhecer algo e poder compartilhar esse conhecimento. Não significa, portanto, estar sozinho consigo mesmo.
Nosso ideal de objetividade é formulado de um ponto de vista que não pode, ele mesmo, ser objetivo, porque ele é e permanece o nosso ponto de vista. Essas teorias não são primeiramente forjadas no laboratório, mas sim em relações sociais.
Searle, autor contemporâneo, nos indica uma pista decisiva para abandonarmos a idealizada objetividade. “O bom da consciência é: se se tem a ilusão de se ter uma consciência, também se tem uma. Não se pode aplicar a distinção comum entre aparência e realidade à consciência do mesmo modo como se a aplica a outros fenômenos.”
June 2, 2020
It's a very strange book - even by philosophy book standards.
Although the author affirms the existence of a singular thesis to be presented throughout the book, he gets lost in immense ramblings without any sense for the conclusion of his initial thesis. In the end, he ends up giving an extremely generic presentation of philosophical theories that have nothing to do with philosophy of mind - or philosphy of the spirit as he will. The book is easily lost in parallel and tedious explanations
I still managed to get half of the book - but then I realized that life is also too short to finish it. If you ask me what I`ve learned from it, what will I say? I will practice the silence of the innocents.
Although the author affirms the existence of a singular thesis to be presented throughout the book, he gets lost in immense ramblings without any sense for the conclusion of his initial thesis. In the end, he ends up giving an extremely generic presentation of philosophical theories that have nothing to do with philosophy of mind - or philosphy of the spirit as he will. The book is easily lost in parallel and tedious explanations
I still managed to get half of the book - but then I realized that life is also too short to finish it. If you ask me what I`ve learned from it, what will I say? I will practice the silence of the innocents.
December 21, 2017
Magritte was a creative person. Markus is just an academic paper pusher striving for a better state pension plan. He, Markus, is a good pupil. He knows the classics. But he has a shallow understanding of the science. Never mind, the state is going to pay him anyway.
December 30, 2019
Too many digressions and rants.
October 10, 2023
Compré este libro pensando que se trataba de "Somos Nuestro Cerebro? La Construcción del Sujeto Cerebral", así que fue desilución la que me acompañó durante las primeras páginas de este libro. Esa sensación, sin embargo, duró poco. Markus Gabriel hace un recorrido histórico y filosófico rebatiendo la ideología extendida del "neurocentrismo", cuya parece insistir en que "somos nuestro cerebro" o que el yo o nuestra identidad serían más bien un epifenómeno de nuestras neuronas, prescindibles por tanto para el avance de la ciencia. La sospecha de Gabriel es que esta ideología constriña nuestra libertad bajo un discurso cientificista que desplaza de la discusión a otros saberes y conocimientos válidos como lo son la filosofía o incluso la espiritualidad. El auge o lugar común que guarda hoy lo "neuro" en el discurso público es rebatido a través de la cultura pop y su diálogo con figuras del pensamiento filosófico, científico, científico religioso, etc. Markus evidencia un interés apasionado por las humanidades, lo que parece opacarse ante la irrigación del neurocentrismo en nuestros marcos de comprensión de nosotros mismos y los otros. La perspectiva del autor es justa en poner paños fríos a estás discusiones, lo que permite que el texto no caiga en una defensa romántica del humanismo ni en un desprecio absoluto de la ciencia. El libro insiste una y otra vez por poner la atención en la libertad, en es derecho y deber que tenemos con ella.
"La idea básica del neurocentrismo es que ser una criatura espiritual consiste en disponer de un cerebro adecuado, de modo que se puede resumir en pocas palabras diciendo que Yo soy mi cerebro. Si se quiere entender el significado de «Yo», «conciencia», «mente», «voluntad», «libertad» o «espíritu», no se puede preguntar a la filosofía, la religión o al sentido común, sino que hay que aplicar al cerebro los métodos de la neurociencia, a lo sumo complementada con la biología evolutiva. Yo lo niego y presento así la tesis principal de este libro: ¡Yo no es el cerebro!" (p.20)
"La ironía está en que quizá no haya nada más egoísta que la fantasía de una descripción completamente objetiva de la realidad, en la que no interviene ninguna vivencia subjetiva; pues con ella se barre también de la visión del mundo cualquier aspiración ética, derivada del hecho de que hay vidas conscientes que albergan actitudes proposicionales. Si nos negamos mutuamente la conciencia y en su lugar nos concebimos como neuro-ordenadores, se nos hace más fácil obviar que en realidad no somos neuro-ordenadores. Es un alivio hacerse tal imagen de la propia libertad y acabar delegándola en nuestra neuroquímica. Pero todo eso es una forma de autoenceguecimiento (p.103)
"Los cerebros son una condición necesaria que ofrece las prácticas en las que el Yo participa. Pero el descubrimiento del Yo tiene lugar en el marco de los procesos his- tóricos de autoconocimiento". (p.233)
"La idea básica del neurocentrismo es que ser una criatura espiritual consiste en disponer de un cerebro adecuado, de modo que se puede resumir en pocas palabras diciendo que Yo soy mi cerebro. Si se quiere entender el significado de «Yo», «conciencia», «mente», «voluntad», «libertad» o «espíritu», no se puede preguntar a la filosofía, la religión o al sentido común, sino que hay que aplicar al cerebro los métodos de la neurociencia, a lo sumo complementada con la biología evolutiva. Yo lo niego y presento así la tesis principal de este libro: ¡Yo no es el cerebro!" (p.20)
"La ironía está en que quizá no haya nada más egoísta que la fantasía de una descripción completamente objetiva de la realidad, en la que no interviene ninguna vivencia subjetiva; pues con ella se barre también de la visión del mundo cualquier aspiración ética, derivada del hecho de que hay vidas conscientes que albergan actitudes proposicionales. Si nos negamos mutuamente la conciencia y en su lugar nos concebimos como neuro-ordenadores, se nos hace más fácil obviar que en realidad no somos neuro-ordenadores. Es un alivio hacerse tal imagen de la propia libertad y acabar delegándola en nuestra neuroquímica. Pero todo eso es una forma de autoenceguecimiento (p.103)
"Los cerebros son una condición necesaria que ofrece las prácticas en las que el Yo participa. Pero el descubrimiento del Yo tiene lugar en el marco de los procesos his- tóricos de autoconocimiento". (p.233)
April 13, 2022
Markus Gabriel es muy claro. Puede pasar incluso por un mero divulgador. El trabajo que se toma a lo largo del libro tiene un fin muy claro también: defender la libertad humana. Esto debe hacerlo desde las bases, preguntándose por la consciencia, por el yo, por el espíritu, por la mente. Gracias a la rica tradición alemana, y tomando mucha filosofía de la mente (que llama de la consciencia, por cuestiones ´del alemán), Gabriel es capaz de dar cuenta de varios problemas, desde el homúnculo como cuestión de percepción, hasta el las causas y las razones, de Mcdowell. Siempre está en juego la tensión entre la reducción cientificista de toda experiencia humana y la intencionalidad humana, que pasa de ser intención a ser un reino de propósitos, garantizando la libertad, la cual solo se da si se considera que hay algo que no es el cerebro, lo cual llama espíritu. Para el filósofo alemán, el mayor enemigo del humano es el embrutecimiento, sea para abajo (reducción ontológica biologicista y física) o para arriba (posmodernismo, posthumanismo y transhumanismo), pues ambos tratan sobre un desvelamiento de la verdadera naturaleza del hombre, ya sea por la invención de una ciencia de la ciencia, la cual es capaz de dar cuenta de todo lo que es la humanidad, explicándolo en términos científicos; ya sea por la tecnología que revela la verdad del ser humano, en medio de una omnipotencia que elimina la contingencia y el error del humano. EN cualquier caso, un determinismo duro, que aleja al humano de la libertad, es el resultado. Con ese horizonte, es claro que lo humano se acaba, se elimina, dando lugar a "algo mejor", lo cual, para el alemán, es un engaño, pues no hay un mejor que no implique la libertad, la dignidad, el universalismo.
March 11, 2018
What attracted me to this book is my own experiences with meditation and having experienced death in my own hands. Which in part I have formed my own beliefs what consciousness really is. I am not a Brian is basically a thesis by Markus Gabriel. A serried argument which displaces science, religion and self. Minus all physics, I was getting through the book waiting for the closing statement on how he was going to bring his claims together for the close. As an artist, it ended in freedom. Even though it wasn’t the easiest read I enjoyed the book, it had some humor, some wild ideas and reminds us. Now is all we have and to believe freedom is out in the stars that one day will be ours is Naive and possibly wreck less. This book isn’t for everyone but if you’re open minded and can stand the argument give it a go.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
July 27, 2023
I am giving this 4 stars because this is one of the few voices of dissent against neurocentrism that posits the self is a brain.
I could not give it 5 stars because it is very clear what the author is against but he has not made a case for what he is for.
He claims to take the position of Antinaturalism where not everything which exists can be investigated by the natural sciences. He contends that there are immaterial realities which he considers essential for any accessible insight of sound human understanding.
What are these immaterial realities? How do we study these immaterial realities?
Despite this, I did enjoy his attempts to tear apart naturalistic theories of consciousness, self and free will.
This is a very dense philosophical thesis. Best to read it slowly.
I could not give it 5 stars because it is very clear what the author is against but he has not made a case for what he is for.
He claims to take the position of Antinaturalism where not everything which exists can be investigated by the natural sciences. He contends that there are immaterial realities which he considers essential for any accessible insight of sound human understanding.
What are these immaterial realities? How do we study these immaterial realities?
Despite this, I did enjoy his attempts to tear apart naturalistic theories of consciousness, self and free will.
This is a very dense philosophical thesis. Best to read it slowly.
September 6, 2025
Didn’t enjoy this, unfortunately. Too much time is spent dismissing anyone who would disagree as incoherent, naive, ideological, even “mean spirited” at one point. The author also calls out misogyny and racism in various classical thinkers, but conveniently only when they're not on his side.
None of that would bother me that much if there were some new or interesting ideas in here, but most of the pages are spent recapping existing ones. The core claim is that there are “material” and “immaterial” realms, with “the self” to be found in the latter. I didn’t find the case for that at all convincing. A late section has an interesting take on compatibilism that I did enjoy, but not enough to save this for me.
None of that would bother me that much if there were some new or interesting ideas in here, but most of the pages are spent recapping existing ones. The core claim is that there are “material” and “immaterial” realms, with “the self” to be found in the latter. I didn’t find the case for that at all convincing. A late section has an interesting take on compatibilism that I did enjoy, but not enough to save this for me.
April 18, 2021
Mich hat das Buch leider sehr enttäuscht. Ich finde das Thema unfassbar spannend, die Art und Weise, wie Markus Gabriel seinen Standpunkt begründet hat mich jedoch nicht überzeugt. Gleich zu Beginn macht er den Neurozentrismus lächerlich und wirft ihm Ideologie vor, ohne jedoch zu begründen, warum dies so sein sollte. In seiner gesamten Argumentation versucht er zu überzeugen, indem er die Vertreter der Gegenposition ins lächerliche zieht anstatt wirklich in der Tiefe mit Argumenten zu überzeugen
May 26, 2025
Me hubiera gustado más sustancia filosófica, un poco más de reflexión del propio autor sobre el tema. A diferencia de otras críticas, no creo que solo haya sido una recapitulación de citas e ideas de otros autores, claro que Markus plantea ideas originales propias, sin embargo, a mí parecer faltaron ciertas impresiones del materialismo y el dualismo que a mí me hubiera gustado leer más. Quizás este no era el libro, pero me ayudó a entender el problema de la conciencia, y es por eso que le doy está calificación.
July 19, 2017
Interessante Streitschrift wider den Neurozentrismus. Auch als Einstieg in die Philosophie geeignet, da jeder Fachbegriff hübsch mit einer Definition erklärt wird. Allerdings wenig neue Erkenntnisse sondern eher ein Konglomerat bereits vorhandener Argumente gegen auch bereits vorhandene Argumente. Die Interpretation von Marx im Kapitel "Das ich ist kein einarmiger Bandit" S. 285 ist leider komplett falsch.
December 2, 2018
Son yılların en ilginç filozoflarından Markus Gabriel'den nöro-merkezcilik yanı sıra post-hümanizm tartışmalarına bir karşı argüman denemesi. Haysitete çağrı.
Finalde alıntıladığı Schelling'den alıntılarsak: .
Finalde alıntıladığı Schelling'den alıntılarsak: .
June 20, 2019
Een prima recensie hier:
https://nrcwebwinkel.nl/author-review...
Jammer van de misleidende titel; een directe vertaling van het oorspronkelijke "Ich ist nicht Gehirn" was beter geweest.
https://nrcwebwinkel.nl/author-review...
Jammer van de misleidende titel; een directe vertaling van het oorspronkelijke "Ich ist nicht Gehirn" was beter geweest.
Read
June 4, 2021Alenka Zupancic hat aber etwas viel Interessanteres über MRT zu sagen:
"What makes us subjects (of the unconscious) is perhaps not something which doesn’t show on the brain scan, but rather something that shows only on the brain scan and cannot be mapped onto anything else…"
"What makes us subjects (of the unconscious) is perhaps not something which doesn’t show on the brain scan, but rather something that shows only on the brain scan and cannot be mapped onto anything else…"
January 2, 2023
I really enjoyed this. Its a philosophical text centered around the self being more than just the materialist claim that consciousness is neurons firing.
It spans across lots of philosophical texts, through lots philosophers from both sides of the argument. Very fun read.
It spans across lots of philosophical texts, through lots philosophers from both sides of the argument. Very fun read.
August 5, 2024
Decidedly odd and bad.
Read
December 10, 2019Gabriel’s book amounts to presenting a threshold for posthuman thinking. My review of his book is limited to one significant concept: that of human consciousness, and his contribution to the understanding of it. Since it is from consciousness all else about the human mind follows. Referring to human consciousness, he writes: “We are once again dealing here with old wine in new bottles” (p. 130). Conscious belongs to the mind and, there is no objective solution to the question of the mind, according to Gabriel. However, subjectively, the mind has the capacity to create self-conceptions, he maintains. Besides material realities, “immaterial realities” also exist which cannot be investigated by the natural sciences. Nor do these immaterial realities belong to another world. They are part of this world. Here his perspective is reminiscent of that of the religious philosopher Leslie Dewart (1922-2009) that is, only one world exists, the one in which we currently live. There is no other transcendent world affording humanity a better life. Gabriel’s view supports a type of duality since he holds that there is no mind (an immaterial thing) without a brain (a material thing). Mind and brain are distinguishable but not separable. From my perspective this view amounts to a preservation (although altered) of Hellenic metaphysical principles (by that I mean, interpreted phenomenologically) which are often somewhat forgotten in philosophical modernity. Gabriel insists that contemporary sciences cannot avoid a role for philosophy in the interpretation of technological social experience.
Influenced by the Continental tradition in philosophy, Gabriel distinguishes philosophy of mind from philosophy of consciousness. He avoids thinking of the mind as equivalent to consciousness. However, such equivalency often occurs in the Anglo-American philosophical tradition. Unless I have misread him, he thinks it is a misguided effort to view the human mental life as part of the directionless world of the natural sciences. Human mental life always has motives, and he suggests that Hellenic inspired metaphysics (reflecting fixed conceptual thinking) is “just another form of superstitious overextension of one model of explanation over the entirety of the cosmos, a modern form of mythology” (p. 44).
Knowing that we are conscious is not equivalent to knowing what consciousness is (a moment’s reflection confirms this) and human consciousness allows the human being the unique capacity to say “I.” However, philosophically, the form needed to manifest this “I” is not clearly understood, as yet. In our techno-scientific age the classical concept “animal rationale” no longer specifies the human being as it had in classical times, he believes. Rather, the human being is a conscious “self” that knows some “thing” and able to communicate it to others and to itself. Leslie Dewart had much the same notion earlier when he distinguished between thematic and non-thematic speech. “We shall see, however, that the ability to experience meaningfully is the basis of self-definition, the creation of a self that is meaningful to itself: therefore, the thematic consciousness may be best referred to as the “self-defining” mode of conscious life” (Evolution and Consciousness, 1989:118). Gabriel’s whole work is a subtle appeal to retain philosophy (of consciousness) as a legitimate concern in itself, countering the tendency in the English-speaking world to “outsource philosophical issues from philosophy to natural science, which is a fundamental mistake” (p. 176). Gabriel notes that a “realm of ends” specifies the conscious human being. In the “realm of ends” there is no Hellenic sense of an “essence” needed for a posthuman understanding of the individual human being. Rather, “the realm of ends is a system of concepts that we use to make conscious human action understandable to ourselves,” which is characteristic of posthumanity, according to my view (p. 206).
While I am sympathetic to Gabriel’s overall assessment of the current situation constituting a threshold of posthumanism, I cannot help but conclude that he is less optimistic about the future of posthumanity than I am. “It is a central task of philosophy to work on an avatar of the human mind that can be led into the field, in the sense of an ideology critique, against the empty promises of a post-human age” (p. 220).
Influenced by the Continental tradition in philosophy, Gabriel distinguishes philosophy of mind from philosophy of consciousness. He avoids thinking of the mind as equivalent to consciousness. However, such equivalency often occurs in the Anglo-American philosophical tradition. Unless I have misread him, he thinks it is a misguided effort to view the human mental life as part of the directionless world of the natural sciences. Human mental life always has motives, and he suggests that Hellenic inspired metaphysics (reflecting fixed conceptual thinking) is “just another form of superstitious overextension of one model of explanation over the entirety of the cosmos, a modern form of mythology” (p. 44).
Knowing that we are conscious is not equivalent to knowing what consciousness is (a moment’s reflection confirms this) and human consciousness allows the human being the unique capacity to say “I.” However, philosophically, the form needed to manifest this “I” is not clearly understood, as yet. In our techno-scientific age the classical concept “animal rationale” no longer specifies the human being as it had in classical times, he believes. Rather, the human being is a conscious “self” that knows some “thing” and able to communicate it to others and to itself. Leslie Dewart had much the same notion earlier when he distinguished between thematic and non-thematic speech. “We shall see, however, that the ability to experience meaningfully is the basis of self-definition, the creation of a self that is meaningful to itself: therefore, the thematic consciousness may be best referred to as the “self-defining” mode of conscious life” (Evolution and Consciousness, 1989:118). Gabriel’s whole work is a subtle appeal to retain philosophy (of consciousness) as a legitimate concern in itself, countering the tendency in the English-speaking world to “outsource philosophical issues from philosophy to natural science, which is a fundamental mistake” (p. 176). Gabriel notes that a “realm of ends” specifies the conscious human being. In the “realm of ends” there is no Hellenic sense of an “essence” needed for a posthuman understanding of the individual human being. Rather, “the realm of ends is a system of concepts that we use to make conscious human action understandable to ourselves,” which is characteristic of posthumanity, according to my view (p. 206).
While I am sympathetic to Gabriel’s overall assessment of the current situation constituting a threshold of posthumanism, I cannot help but conclude that he is less optimistic about the future of posthumanity than I am. “It is a central task of philosophy to work on an avatar of the human mind that can be led into the field, in the sense of an ideology critique, against the empty promises of a post-human age” (p. 220).
May 9, 2018
Gabriel writes two types of books. Ones are for the academia professionals, others for the general public. This one is of the second type. The book provides very broad "retelling" of debates in the fields of philosophy of mind, neuroscience, and the problem of freedom. This could be it's the greatest virtue for the general public. It is always written in the witty and interesting manner and has amazing chapter titles. Although I am sympathetic to views defended in this book, I found the positions which Gabriel opposes overgeneralized sometimes and, in few places, arguments convincing arguments missing, as there is so much stuff in the book so he runs quite quickly through it. One also should note that some arguments may be harder to understand if a reader is not familiar with his book "Why the world does not exist". BTW, I think the former is stronger work than "I am not the brain". 3 stars.
July 20, 2019
Un muy buen ensayo filosófico y sorprendentemente accesible a cualquier lector.
Muy satisfecho, buscaré más cosas del autor.
Muy satisfecho, buscaré más cosas del autor.
December 15, 2023
Interesting philosophical introduction to the relation between Brain and Mind from the Greeks to our own times.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 30 reviews