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16th May 2018, 09:52 PM | #121 |
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I didn't say that we knew yet, but to say that there have been no strides made towards understanding it is blatantly false. Google "integrated information theory" or related fields if you're interested; whether or not you agree with their conclusions, they are undoubtedly making strides.
It is not an assumption. It is a conclusion, because things meet the definition of being external. Read my posts before responding, please. This is not a complicated concept. I didn't say that I could. See the above reply to Larry. And again, the point that you keep ignoring is that materialism does not need to explain how consciousness arises from matter in order to demonstrate that it does, in the same way that I don't need to know how gravity works in order to demonstrate that water flows downhill. Stop strawmanning. It only makes you look like a fool. |
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16th May 2018, 10:36 PM | #122 |
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16th May 2018, 10:46 PM | #123 |
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This is not a “catastrophic” defect. It is a limitation of human knowledge. In any case, some important progress has be done in demonstrating the correlation between brain alterations and modification of mind states. This is a serious hint of causal relation brain-mind that suggest the advantages of a materialist point of view of consciousness. What is absolutely unproductive in the study of mind is idealism.
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17th May 2018, 12:36 AM | #124 |
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Well, actually none of that changes what I said, or what I explained to Larry about why his sentence is wrong. It's simply a matter of use of English language, not a matter of anything else as to why Larry's sentence is wrong. I am not claiming to know that external reality does exist, I did not say that at all and I don't think you will be able to find any example of me saying that, here or anywhere else. What Larry's sentences say is that external reality does not exist. His sentence actually states that as a fact (without any caution or doubt at all). But what I have said to him is that, he cannot claim that external reality does not exist ... because he does not know that it does not exist, and cannot actually prove that it does't exist. But he keeps writing sentences that say it does not exist ... ... he keeps writing sentences that claim “you cannot touch anything outside of your mind” (see his quoted words below) – well that is wrong isn't it! The answer is, "Yes!", it certainly is wrong. Not because it's certain that you can touch real objects, but wrong because Larry cannot claim that it's impossible to touch real objects that are outside of your mind. Here is his sentence (just one of many) - As I've said in the above replies to Larry - if he means anything sensible at all, then what I expect he meant to write was something to say that because we rely entirely upon our brain (he calls it a "mind") for any "experience" of what may or may not be real objects in a real external world, we cannot say for sure that the external object actually do exist ... it might be possible that the object is just an illusion created as "experience" within our mind .... but that is NOT what his sentences say ... what his sentences repeatedly say is that the external objects definitely do not exist at all! ... he say's they have no existence except within your " touch or point to anything outside your mind. You can't do it - because everything you see, touch, etc. lies within your experience. You can't see, touch, etc. anything outside of experience" His words specifically and explicitly claim that "you cannot touch anything outside of your "experience" " ... well that sentence claims that the object that you think you are touching (outside of your |
17th May 2018, 01:10 AM | #125 |
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Er whilst the detail was unknown for a long time people did work out the general gist of that quite some time ago.ago....
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17th May 2018, 01:17 AM | #126 |
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Larry, we have been over this in virtually every single thread where you ever post on this forum/site. You make that same statement over-&-over again virtually every single time you make posts in any thread at all. You are obsessed by making that claim, as well as obsessed by making the claim that "we cannot touch any real objects outside of our "experience" mind/brain" ... and you are manifestly wrong with both statements. As far as what is called "consciousness" is concerned - as you well know, in the previous threads about so-called "out of body experiences", where people were arguing that intelligent souls continued to exist as our consciousness after death (i.e. claiming that intelligent "consciousness" somehow filled the universe), it was shown by myself and others with numerous references to properly published genuine research in psychology, medicine and neuroscience (papers & books that all contained within them scores of other references), that all modern research agrees that what we call the "mind" is quite definitely an effect or set sensations produced by the brain ... if you take away the brain (e.g. if the brain is truly dead or destroyed) then all signs of any consciousness are gone ... there is zero evidence of any consciousness without a living/functioning brain. I gave you this reference before, but you need to read this, because it explains with a long list of references to recent research papers, why consciousness is only an effect created by the physical functioning of the brain (i.e. a complex set of electro-chemical interactions with the sensory system etc.), and it explains in great detail how all sorts of experiments have shown that various quite specific "conscious experiences" can be created, and manipulated (e.g. turned on and off) just by subjecting a patient to tiny electrical pulses, and/or by use of various chemical drugs, and/or by deprivation of oxygen etc. ... the effects are quite dramatic, clear and specific, and the patient/subject experiences various situations of "conscious experience" that seem to the patient exactly like the "conscious experience" that the patient has in normal life ... but in this case (in these experiments), those very real seeming experiences were created in the patients "consciousness'' (i.e. in their brain or "mind") entirely by artificial means in the laboratory. From experiments like that, we do now know a great deal about how the sensation that we call "consciousness" is produced. It's simply an effect i.e. a set of very complex and sophisticated sensations (i.e. extremely highly evolved in humans), produced by what is now a fairly well understood chemical functioning of the structure that we call the "brain" ... here's the reference to the book - Stanislas Dehaene Consciousness and the Brain: Deciphering How the Brain Codes Our Thoughts, Penguin Random House, Dec. 2014. https://www.amazon.co.uk/Consciousne...nislas+dehaene And by the way, since you (or others) probably will not read any of that book - iirc, Stanislas Dehaene is a French professor of psychology who leads an active research group that has published a lot of papers on this subject, many of which are described and referenced in the book, along with many descriptions and references to recent published research from other scientists in this field. |
17th May 2018, 01:33 AM | #127 |
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“If only it were all so simple! If only there were evil people somewhere insidiously committing evil deeds, and it were necessary only to separate them from the rest of us and destroy them. But the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being. And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart?” Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, The Gulag Archipelago |
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17th May 2018, 02:29 AM | #128 |
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17th May 2018, 02:31 AM | #129 |
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Even if that were true, there is also no mechanism for how idealism produces individual experience and simultaneously a kind of seemingly objective reality. 'It's all mind that appears like stuff' isn't any better than 'it's all stuff and some of it produces minds'.
In fact, it's worse, since there are no workable models for it, and it cant even really be tested... |
17th May 2018, 02:48 AM | #130 |
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17th May 2018, 04:23 AM | #131 |
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“If only it were all so simple! If only there were evil people somewhere insidiously committing evil deeds, and it were necessary only to separate them from the rest of us and destroy them. But the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being. And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart?” Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, The Gulag Archipelago |
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17th May 2018, 04:58 AM | #132 |
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17th May 2018, 07:21 AM | #133 |
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I never claimed an external reality doesn't exist - I claimed it was a belief - there's a big difference. Both Myriad and Nonpariel have provided explanations / thoughts on why believing in a physical external reality is rational and justified - which we as individuals can either accept or deny.
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17th May 2018, 07:27 AM | #134 |
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“If only it were all so simple! If only there were evil people somewhere insidiously committing evil deeds, and it were necessary only to separate them from the rest of us and destroy them. But the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being. And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart?” Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, The Gulag Archipelago |
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17th May 2018, 07:39 AM | #135 |
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Obviously, I had not time to read this book, but judging from some abstracts, reviews and quotes Deahaene holds up a similar theory than mine. There is still a long way to explain the neurological basis of consciousness. He uses many concepts of psychology and philosophy, subjectivity and introspection included. But there is an important progress in the neural explanation of consciousness.
Perhaps you can add some more. |
17th May 2018, 07:42 AM | #136 |
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The whole duality thing, mind/body
Evidence that consciousness arises solely from brain processes:
-Injuries to the brain cause changes in memory, personality, thinking, behavior and perception. -People who suffer from brain degenerative diseases like Alzheimer’s have changes in states of consciousness along with the same changes as we see in injuries. -Neurosurgeons can elicit changes in speech and behavior by stimulating or removing certain brain areas. -When someone is brain dead, there is no consciousness at all. Evidence that consciousness is separate from brain processes: - Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk |
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17th May 2018, 08:45 AM | #137 |
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Well you've said exactly that (word-for-word the exact same sentence) so many times in previous threads, that you really must know by now that the sort of scientists who work in this field (i.e. psychologists, researchers in neuroscience, and various practitioners in certain areas of medical research), have published numerous papers in recent decades showing that what we call “consciousness” is an effect produced by normal functioning of the brain (in all “higher” animals, not just humans), and it arises from perfectly normal processing of sensory input. It is not, as you keep trying to claim, a complete and utter mystery. But just because we do not yet have a really detailed explanation of exactly how our brain creates such a seemingly vivid and detailed awareness of the world around us, that does not entitle you to claim that it's all a total mystery with no scientific explanations of any kind at all. Really that is, from you, nothing more than you attempting the usual “argument from ignorance” in which you seek to claim that just because we do not yet understand everything about the way the brain works to produce the sensation of consciousness, that means you are entitled to claim that we know absolutely nothing at all about it, and to thereby imply that it must involve some spiritual or quasi-religious mystery outside/beyond of the remit of mere science. IOW - what you are doing here, is no better than rampant creationists who keep insisting that science has no explanation for how humans came to exist, because they say we cannot answer the fundamental question of exactly how any life ever began in the first place (many of them would even deny that Man ever evolved from anything). However, apart from all of that – in one of the previous threads about a year or two ago, where I think you were involved and making all the same claims you are making here, one or two other anti-science posters were also claiming that we had not even the first notion of how such a thing as consciousness could possibly be produced by a brain within a living body alone (i.e. without some mysterious god-like agency). And after being asked several times, I eventually gave a fairly long explanation of what I think is the most likely way in which science would eventually explain the effect that we perceive as “consciousness”. Do you remember that? Do you remember that explanation? No? Well I can repeat it again for you if you really cannot remember, but it's a waste everyones time and goodwill if when people give you genuine considered credible explanations, you really take absolutely no notice, never properly consider what is being explained to you, and instead just continue to repeat your same untrue and deeply unscientific claims in thread after thread. |
17th May 2018, 09:01 AM | #138 |
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There is no experiential evidence that conscious experience comes from our brain, nor does conscious experience share any properties of a brain (as a seperate unit or grouping of matter inside the skull).
Nor do we experience consciousness as an epi-phenonomon, as something that might arise from the purring of a kitten or the flushing of a million toilets. Consciousness is not mysterious or abstract, it's real and substantial - that's our experience. |
17th May 2018, 09:15 AM | #139 |
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When you sever the corpus callosum connecting the 2 halves of the brain you have 2 separate personalities in the same body. In one instance a man with this tried to hit his wife with one hand controlled by one half of the brain while the other hand grabbed his hand to prevent the attack and protect his wife.
Isn't that interesting? |
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17th May 2018, 09:25 AM | #140 |
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No, because I don't disagree with what you said except in that slight detail about materialism needing to meet the burden of proof first.
Save literally everything that we know about the brain and consciousness. Because consciousness is not a brain. Consciousness is what a brain does. Alter brain function and you alter consciousness. |
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17th May 2018, 09:27 AM | #141 |
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What causal explanation does IIT give for how consciousness arises from matter? What evidence is there for IIT? How is it perceived among people who actually study working brains? And IIT has it's own peculiarities. Is an abacus falling through the air conscious? The beads are sliding. Information is being processed....
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Take a look at this comic: https://xkcd.com/505/ Do you believe it's possible your conscious awareness is a result of some guy pushing rocks around on an endless plain? No, of course you don't. It's not even in the realm of possibility is it? But there are those that do think it's quite possible, and the logic is spelled out in the comic. I don't know if they're around anymore. |
17th May 2018, 09:31 AM | #142 |
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17th May 2018, 09:37 AM | #143 |
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I suspect you are a sandwich, metaphorically speaking. -Donn And a shot rang out. Now Space is doing time... -Ben Burch You built the toilet - don't complain when people crap in it. _Kid Eager Never underestimate the power of the Random Number God. More of evolutionary history is His doing than people think. - Dinwar |
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17th May 2018, 09:54 AM | #144 |
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We don't know everything, so it's MAGIC.
That's unfalsifiable. Magic doesn't need to be falsifiable. |
17th May 2018, 10:20 AM | #145 |
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Originally Posted by Dara Ó Briain
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17th May 2018, 10:53 AM | #146 |
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Google is your friend.
No, it's a conclusion based only on entirely demonstrable facts. The only thing that materialism depends upon (that an external universe exists) is entirely provable. Saying "but what if somehow magically-" is pointless hand-waving with no actual weight behind it, and no one cares. If you want anyone to actually pay attention to this line of "reasoning", you will need to actually supply a way in which things may not be what they seem, and show how this is a coherent explanation for observable fact. But is not being presented now, so no one cares, as this question is entirely irrelevant to the question of whether or not materialism is demonstrably true. Stop attempting to derail the discussion. |
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17th May 2018, 10:59 AM | #147 |
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I suspect you are a sandwich, metaphorically speaking. -Donn And a shot rang out. Now Space is doing time... -Ben Burch You built the toilet - don't complain when people crap in it. _Kid Eager Never underestimate the power of the Random Number God. More of evolutionary history is His doing than people think. - Dinwar |
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17th May 2018, 11:22 AM | #148 |
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“If only it were all so simple! If only there were evil people somewhere insidiously committing evil deeds, and it were necessary only to separate them from the rest of us and destroy them. But the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being. And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart?” Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, The Gulag Archipelago |
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17th May 2018, 11:25 AM | #149 |
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“If only it were all so simple! If only there were evil people somewhere insidiously committing evil deeds, and it were necessary only to separate them from the rest of us and destroy them. But the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being. And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart?” Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, The Gulag Archipelago |
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17th May 2018, 01:03 PM | #150 |
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And yet, you had no problem with us being simulated by a "programmer" instead of God in the other thread. Computers being able to run a consciousness, or for that matter several billion consciousnesses is apparently OK with you, just as long as it's woowoo. It only becomes not ok if it's not conducive to your religious woowoo
As you say, it's rather hilarious |
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17th May 2018, 01:10 PM | #151 |
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Consciousness is nothing more than our ability to experience. This ability arises from brain processes; when we change brain structure or chemicals, we change experience. Take LSD, get drunk, sustain a head injury...these things all alter our experience of consciousness. If my brain doesn’t get enough oxygen, I lose consciousness . All my senses are directly connected to my brain. Sever those connections and I lose those senses which alters my ability to perceive. We have plenty of experiential AND experimental evidence that consciousness is solely the product of the brain. We have no evidence or experience that consciousness is a separate thing from our brains. What would be good evidence of consciousness being separate? Evidence of the survival of this consciousness after brain death, would probably be the best. Alas, there is no such evidence. Given that all of our experience and all the data we have on brain function shows us that consciousness arises from the brain, how can you possibly say that, “there is no experiential evidence that conscious experience comes from the brain?” Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk |
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17th May 2018, 03:50 PM | #152 |
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The same way that flipping a bunch of switches can control an autonomous vehicle or a personal assistant that can answer questions or numerous other things that computers can already do, if not all that well yet. At the heart of it is processing sensory data, generating an internal representation of relevant aspects of the external world, and using that to plan actions that meet pre-programmed goals.
Personally I don't see that much difference between an a grid of RGB values that form an image in a computer's memory and electrical pulses exchanged by neurons that seem to us to be qualia. |
17th May 2018, 03:55 PM | #153 |
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Though I agree there are people that do cite out of body experiences and near death experiences as direct evidence to contradict your cavalier assertion. Which is precisely what it is. Though we both agree we both need to recognize the obvious weakness inherent in that assertion. Are you able to show that whatever constitutes our identities cannot continue post mortem?
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17th May 2018, 04:03 PM | #154 |
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I cannot. But I am not making the claim that it can. I'm willing to consider whatever evidence such a claimant might have. I have not seen any so far that shows that such experiences are anything more than fabrications, confabulations or hallucinations.
I think the cavalier assertion is that such reports are evidence of duality. |
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17th May 2018, 04:31 PM | #155 |
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Your claim, your burden of proof. Does IIT explain consciousness or not?
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If materialism cannot explain consciousness, if ti can't even go down the path of explanation without absurdity, then some other metaphysical foundation is needed. Necessarily, that's either dualism or idealism. Naturally, either of those are relevant to the "whole duality thing, mind/body". |
17th May 2018, 04:34 PM | #156 |
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17th May 2018, 05:00 PM | #157 |
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17th May 2018, 05:15 PM | #158 |
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I'm happy to see you understand. Here's a forum where one can hone their debate skills. I got tired of beating my head against the wall there. Maybe you'll have better success. http://psiencequest.net/forums/index.php
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17th May 2018, 07:49 PM | #159 |
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That isn't my claim. I am simply stating that your claim that there have been no strides made towards understanding consciousness is blatantly false. Whether or not integrated information theory serves as a complete explanation is irrelevant, and it's hardly the only example.
Asserting this does not make it true. People trying to have a coherent discussion without derailing it. You claiming that something is absurd does not make it so. Nor does you stating that the only possible materialistic explanations for consciousness are necessarily absurd make that so. Even accepting, for the sake of argument, that materialism has no explanation for how consciousness arises from matter, this doesn't actually change the fact that we know that it does. |
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17th May 2018, 07:51 PM | #160 |
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