Freethought & Rationalism Archive

crocodile deathroll · 02-02-2002, 03:03 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by xoc:


Positive evidence as you define it is a priori material, or material evidence. This puts "materialism" on the front burner to start because whatever is to be measured is measured by materialistic objects and related only to material things. But the typology, the consciousness, the sense of the individual etc. are not readily reduced to simple brain patterns. The "Socratic" soul is distinguished from the conscious individual we know now because things like the appetitive desires, the passions etc. are stripped away and only an essence is left. The Pauline "new man" or resurrected man(with the glorified body) is in a sense similar in that there remains a continuation of the individual but there is now the loss of the sinful nature, which in this body/life is a nature that runs throughout all of man's conscious faculties as a kind of widespread mange. The first follows a path similar to "reincarnation" (migration of soul to a different body and consciousness, a temporal hell for some and eternal hell for few in the meantime) while the second follows the soul to a "remade" body, sans the previous problems. Not that this is a proof.

What I consider a primary proof "dualism" is the inability to assert the mind in purely physical terms. The thinking man is different qualitatively than the inanimate object, or a substance of motion like a wind. His logical conception of things is not directly equivelent to his brain waves, although there is a correlation. Basically it could be seen as an abstract, or the abstract level of being. That allows the leap of communication. The bumps on a CD allow for a message to be put upon it and "translated" by computers and then to be understood by us. It is not the "bumps" that make the message; these bumps can only produce apparent meaning once they are put in a logical framework of a code of interpretation, that meaningless physical states have been injected with meaning to convey the abstract message. Physical media are the conductors of "intelligence", but it is symbolic. A picture of a 3-D box is a symbol of a greater-dimensional object upon a lesser-dimensional medium. The intelligence of a person represents(or can/should) be represented as another dimension as the mere physical actions of the brain are not the abstract ideas themselves but the interaction or symbolic representation with the physical.

One way to put this could be that "Meaning is not inherent in the physical itself" but it's claim to us that it exists and is important is enough for us to believe it exists as either a) apart or b) distinct from the purely physical.

On a side note, while the ability of neurologists to "hit" a certain part of the brain and produce an association in the subject is interesting, there are some greater challenges. This arrangement of subject-environment (the subject's apprehension of the environment) causes a sense of change of environment; what could as easily be done by actually "changing" the environment. But it is not as easy to change the "identity" of the subject, or his consciousness of his self, as it is to change the consciousness of his environment. It is the thread of the "individual being" distinct from mere physical reactions that I find most important, which is the harder thing to reduce than a particular "sense" or "feeling" that is transmitted to the individual. Admittedly though those kinds of experiments, if possible, are less likely to be done because of their ethical significance.

To pardon a pun there is a new dualism emerging that is functional dualism. The belief the consciousness is an emergent property of matter that reached a critical level of complexity. To understand the brain fully one has to be fully aware that there is a genetic history, and your brain didn't just grow independently of other brains but it is also evolved with them and paralleled many of the same physical processes like it is pretty universal what happens if you have six beers in a given hour, then immediately get in your car and get pulled over by the cops. So the effect alcohol has on your brain is not discernibly different to the effect to the effect it has on many other people's brains from their experience. The only difference is you are feeling it. Any does alcohol effect us all the same? it genetic commonality we all share.

Psychiatrists usually take a more individualistic view of the human brain, they have to that is part of their job, because they have to treat the individual patient. Treat what is going wrong with that particular patient albeit a schizophrenic or an anxiety disorder, etc.

A neurobiologist on the other hand has to take a more holistic view of the human brain, the morphology of it, the gene markers that a behind it, the evolution of it and what generally what make the human brain tick. Sometimes a psychiatrist and a neurobiologist may have a bit of interdisciplinary exchange when a genetic disorder like Hutchinson's disease of fragile x is involved. But the healthy brain and not the disordered or diseased brain in the domain of the neurobiologist, and entity that was essentially built on genetic information. Information is immaterial and has no well defined boundaries and patterns of information can emerge out of a multiplicity of sources at any one time with not direct communication at all at some epistemological flash point . The theory of evolution is a good example; the theory did not need Darwin to bring it to our attention, Wallace also formulated a similar theory at the same time and Darwin had beaten him to the punch and only just. The world was already right for that epistemological flash point with recent discoveries like the discovery of the gorilla. So information knows no boundaries and I am sure Darwin felt that at that time, so he really burnt the midnight oil to publish his theories as quickly as possible.

All you are is the information processes of your brains at any one time; it is your memory and your language all built up on a foundation of genetically programmed instincts you had in you first year or two of life and we all share that. I am of the view now when you die those boundaryless genetic information processes still remain those information processes that booted your sense of self into existence. You will be at one with the information processes of all the neural stem cells at every point of time in history. The function of information, although it is immaterial and not made of baryons like brain tissue it is still none the less just as real.

Interesting theory hahh!!!

excreationist · 02-02-2002, 08:49 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by crocodile deathroll:

To pardon a pun there is a new dualism emerging that is functional dualism. The belief the consciousness is an emergent property of matter that reached a critical level of complexity.

It has to be an operating machine that is organised in the right way. A pile of rubble is a very compex arrangement of matter but that doesn't mean that it is necessarily conscious. And two human brains sewn together from two corpses and freeze-dried (to make it more compact) is even more complex than one human brain, but it doesn't guarantee that it is consciousness.

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To understand the brain fully one has to be fully aware that there is a genetic history, and your brain didn't just grow independently of other brains but it is also evolved with them and paralleled many of the same physical processes like it is pretty universal what happens if you have six beers in a given hour, then immediately get in your car and get pulled over by the cops. So the effect alcohol has on your brain is not discernibly different to the effect to the effect it has on many other people's brains from their experience. The only difference is you are feeling it. Any does alcohol effect us all the same? it genetic commonality we all share.

Well of course chemicals affect us in similar ways - we are all the same species after all! People might experience it differently though - e.g. someone might be doing it as a bit of casual fun, another may be doing it to forget their depressing worries and another might do it to try and impress their young peers.

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....Information is immaterial and has no well defined boundaries and patterns of information can emerge out of a multiplicity of sources at any one time with not direct communication at all at some epistemological flash point . The theory of evolution is a good example; the theory did not need Darwin to bring it to our attention, Wallace also formulated a similar theory at the same time and Darwin had beaten him to the punch and only just. The world was already right for that epistemological flash point with recent discoveries like the discovery of the gorilla. So information knows no boundaries and I am sure Darwin felt that at that time, so he really burnt the midnight oil to publish his theories as quickly as possible.

There was a common source of the information though - the natural world. It's not like one person meditated and another read tea-leaves and another used a ouija board...

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All you are is the information processes of your brains at any one time;

Yeah, *processes* - matter in action, rather than static information.

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...I am of the view now when you die those boundaryless genetic information processes still remain those information processes that booted your sense of self into existence. You will be at one with the information processes of all the neural stem cells at every point of time in history. The function of information, although it is immaterial and not made of baryons like brain tissue it is still none the less just as real.

So after death what happens? Do you spend eternity flying around as an invisible observer? Do you get reborn as a passive observer inside a body (like in "Being John Malkovich")? Or do you have some influence over the body (also like in "Being John Malkovich")? Do you still have thoughts after death, or is it some kind of thoughtless of awareness? And what are you aware of exactly? Every atom in the universe? (So you become omniscient?)

xoc · 02-02-2002, 09:26 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by excreationist:
Well I wouldn't call 100 billion neurons each connected to about 10,000 others "simple". Though it can be described in a certain amount of detail in the same way that weather or the internet can be described to some degree.

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What I consider a primary proof "dualism" is the inability to assert the mind in purely physical terms.
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What about if someone was asked to describe how Windows works in purely physical terms. They might say that it involves electron flow through the CPU and switching between magnetic poles on the hard-drive, etc. Does that person need to explain how Windows works in a purely physical way (on a molecular level)? If they are unable to do this, does this mean that computers are accessing a non-physical dimension? (like how brains access some mysterious non-physical dimension?)

Yes, but the higher-level "logical" aspects of Windows was injected into it by people who have that consciousness aspect to themselves. IT would follow along the same line as transmitting messages via the web or writing ideas down. Because we have a protocol for understanding symbols(letters and words) we can use the "2-d" physical medium to transmit higher level ideas and concepts, even like how people can paint 3-d landscapes in a meaningful way on 2-d canvasses. But Windows does not "reproduce" or invent new ways of thinking of things the way humans do; it might be likened to a static, unlearning system(although I suppose people could liken the addition of drivers and patches as "teaching" Windows new things- analogously at least)

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The thinking man is different qualitatively than the inanimate object, or a substance of motion like a wind. His logical conception of things is not directly equivelent to his brain waves, although there is a correlation.
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Well is the logic in a computer or in the brain of an intelligent bee directly equivalent to the physical processes involved? If so, then why is the human brain different? Of course, the human brain is much more powerful than computers or bees, it is about 1000 times more powerful than the fastest computer in the world. (But it is very inefficient for doing maths)

I'd say that it is made equivelent. The word "dog" is in some sense made equivelent to the concept of a dog; because it acts as a pointer to it. So I guess I shouldn't say it's "equivelent" but that it acts as a medium or carrier of the idea. The electricity that transmits the bit signals in networking is not the "data" itself but acts as a carrier to it. We can say they're not equivelent because information on a CD or hard-drive is considered equivelent to the "logical" aspect of the computer even though the physical mediums are different: one uses "optical" medium, the other "magnetic." In a similar way the ideas a writer lays down are the same whether it is handwritten or typed. And we can say two different objects individually called "books" are the same "book"- because they have the same intellectual content. A pure materialism would, IMO, not recognise Joe's Bible as being the same as Smitty's, because they exist in a different space, have different mass etc. and are not at all dependent on the other.

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One way to put this could be that "Meaning is not inherent in the physical itself" but it's claim to us that it exists and is important is enough for us to believe it exists as either a) apart or b) distinct from the purely physical.
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Well I believe that meaning is inherent in the function or action of a system. If a system uses some information to count things then that's what the meaning is. It is related to how the information is applied and its purpose. I don't believe in Idealism which consists of a static world of ideas. For information to have any meaning it has to be used and part of a system - like a machine. We only get information to serve some purpose and we attach it onto our already learnt information and can use it later.

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On a side note, while the ability of neurologists to "hit" a certain part of the brain and produce an association in the subject is interesting,
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No, it is about neurons being electrically stimulated. Certain parts can consistently trigger intensely vivid memories - the same identical memories when the same neuron is stimulated. When neurons are triggered strongly I think their information is sent to the short term memory, where "we" become aware of that recalled long term memory.
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I don't really have a problem with this view. It still seems to follow the same line of "environment input" that is distinguished from the individual "self" who receives it. He may fall into the "environment" of memories, but we no longer act positiviely as individuals in memories as we do in "real life." We may wish that we had done something differently, but the sense of the environment, or the "World" outside of our control, remains as a phenomenon different than ourselves which we may or may not be able to do something about. The phenomenon of the "individual" who makes conscious choices is the most intriguing: not that the brain is stimulated so the person feels like something is being done to him or is experiencing something(like a memory) passively, but that we could make people make choices, or affect the top level of the "chooser" of the self. It maybe possible to make a person feel "anger" by stimulating the brain, but could we make someone "chose" to act on his anger or try and repress it?

excreationist · 02-02-2002, 10:12 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by xoc:
Yes, but the higher-level "logical" aspects of Windows was injected into it by people who have that consciousness aspect to themselves....

Ok... well what about explaining the behaviour of bees and how they can be trained to go through mazes in purely physical terms. When bees are put in a box and taken to an unknown location they can navigate home very easily. There is also other evidence that they use some kind of internal representation about the world. And using food they can be trained to always select something that has a certain colour, etc.
So what do you mean by "explaining it in physical terms" anyway? I mean, in the case of bees, does the person have to explain bees on a chemical level, without abstracting the explanation into larger pieces like neurons?

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A pure materialism would, IMO, not recognise Joe's Bible as being the same as Smitty's, because they exist in a different space, have different mass etc. and are not at all dependent on the other.

What does that mean? Are you saying that memories are impossible in a materialist world? Bees have memories you know.

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...but that we could make people make choices, or affect the top level of the "chooser" of the self. It maybe possible to make a person feel "anger" by stimulating the brain, but could we make someone "chose" to act on his anger or try and repress it?

Well this area of the brain would probably be running at about 20-40 cycles per second... it might be difficult to modify their priorities (emotional intensities associated with the possibilities) in real-time.... I think it would be easier to modify their long-term memories and associate memories associated with anger have a lot of pleasure and memories associated without anger involve discomfort. So when they are triggering possible courses of action, the angry path will seem the most desirable since they intuitively expect it to bring the most pleasure. They mightn't have any rational explanation for it, but as long as this expected pleasure outweighs the effects of their self-control (may be guilt based) then they will choose the angry course of action.

Vorkosigan · 02-03-2002, 04:29 PM

[QUOTE]Originally posted by xoc:

Positive evidence as you define it is a priori material, or material evidence.

I haven't asked for any particular kind of evidence. Don't read into my requests things that are not there.

In any case, your complaint might have made sense in the 16th century. We are now 500 years into the success of the methodological naturalism. If you can offer an more successful interpretive framework based on the supernatural, by all means do so. But this complaint about a priori materialist assumptions is of course a concession that you have no such framework, and can only complain about the last 5 centuries of naturalism.

But the typology, the consciousness, the sense of the individual etc. are not readily reduced to simple brain patterns.

Never said they were. "Consciousness" includes many different functions in the brain.

The "Socratic" soul is distinguished from the conscious individual we know... The Pauline "new man" or resurrected man(with the glorified body) is in a sense similar in that there remains a continuation of the individual but there is now the loss of the sinful nature,

Neither the soul nor the Pauline new Adam exist. Please demonstrate their existence and properties in some fashion, instead of simply making assertions.

problems. Not that this is a proof.

It's not anything but fiction writing.

What I consider a primary proof "dualism" is the inability to assert the mind in purely physical terms.

The limits of current knowledge do not imply that there is something supernatural going on. That must be demonstrated with positive evidence.

The thinking man is different qualitatively than the inanimate object, or a substance of motion like a wind.....

So are cockroaches, bacteria and tomato plants. And?

His logical conception of things is not directly equivelent to his brain waves, although there is a correlation.

Nobody said it was. Also, women think too.

Once again, positive evidence. Note that I am not asking for evidence that is acceptable in a particular framework. I am asking for any evidence at all. Which you don't seem to have.

Michael

Little War · 02-04-2002, 11:54 AM

theophilus

I too would like to know what you mean by a "dialectic philosophy"

The marxist philosophy is one of historical and dialectical materialism, it is the method in which all historical movements and beliefs of humans follow a certain pattern in which the coming together of different beliefs lead to new beliefs. THis includes all philosophical ideas too. It is something that explains these movements, while all other philosophies only look at it's immediate surroundings and deveolops a basis from that. Historical and dialectical materialism, shows how these philosophies are a pattern human development and lead from one another as humans progress through history.

phaedrus · 02-05-2002, 02:22 AM

Materialism seems to be the buzz word in this forum for umpteen no. of days.

What is materialism anyhow and why is its validity so important to our existence?

Vorkosigan · 02-05-2002, 03:25 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by phaedrus:
Materialism seems to be the buzz word in this forum for umpteen no. of days.

What is materialism anyhow and why is its validity so important to our existence?

We've been over this very question before. Materialism is important because it happens to be the best picture of reality we currently have. Actions taken in pursuit of values can only be ethical if they reflect the best possible knowledge. That is why supernatural systems are not only incorrect, but unethical as well.

Michael

crocodile deathroll · 02-05-2002, 03:39 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by excreationist

It has to be an operating machine that is organised in the right way. A pile of rubble is a very compex arrangement of matter but that doesn't mean that it is necessarily conscious. And two human brains sewn together from two corpses and freeze-dried (to make it more compact) is even more complex than one human brain, but it doesn't guarantee that it is consciousness.

A living human brain has organized complexity, it is highly dynamic and the synapses neurotransmitters and dendrites with other are seething with activit. Trillions of functioning connections by by neurons with other neurons. which is what gives a living brain far more organized complexity than one dead human brain or even a million dead brains sewn together.
What I speak of is organized complexity if I give you a pile of tiles and you arrange into a very complex mosaic or a pile of square cookies and arrange them in the same complex mosaic then you will notice even though that materials used to create those two mosaics are very different, but by adding that property of complexity I did not add one atom of matter.

Now if I had messed up that mosaic of tiles and doubled their weight of tile them by throwing
an identical set of tiles then they would still have no more organized complexity than the original tiles in their separates sets, and certainly a lot less organized complexity than one of the original set of tile arranged in their most complex possible arrangement.
If I had arranged those two sets of tiles into to even a far more complex mosaic pattern than before then that will raise it to a new level of complexity, but there is no evidence that can happen with two dead brains sewn together.

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Well of course chemicals affect us in similar ways - we are all the same species after all! People might experience it differently though - e.g. someone might be doing it as a bit of casual fun, another may be doing it to forget their depressing worries and another might do it to try and impress their young peers.

I am not neural surgeon but I am sure if I had a brain tumor he/she will have a fair idea of the right and wrong places to cut because all brains emerge from the same genetic template.

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There was a common source of the information though - the natural world. It's not like one person meditated and another read tea-leaves and another used a ouija board...

A few genes encoding the morphology of the human brain is the information we all had in common. Those genetic information processes are at one stage overridden by neural information processes

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Yeah, *processes* - matter in action, rather than static information

The human mind is what the brain does and what the brain does is information processing

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So after death what happens? Do you spend eternity flying around as an invisible observer? Do you get reborn as a passive observer inside a body (like in "Being John Malkovich")? Or do you have some influence over the body (also like in "Being John Malkovich")? Do you still have thoughts after death, or is it some kind of thoughtless of awareness? And what are you aware of exactly? Every atom in the universe? (So you become omniscient?)

Do you have any perception of darkness or time after death and how did you manage to home in into your physical body and be born at all in the first place?
Why did not become somebody else?

crocodile deathroll

phaedrus · 02-05-2002, 04:35 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by turtonm:


We've been over this very question before. Materialism is important because it happens to be the best picture of reality we currently have. Actions taken in pursuit of values can only be ethical if they reflect the best possible knowledge. That is why supernatural systems are not only incorrect, but unethical as well.

We have been over the requirement of materialism as a pre-requisite for existence? I dont recall it, all i can recall is the discussion regarding "truth-claims" "provisional knowledge" "values"...etc

Does your best picture of reality offer a framework of values? And again "best" according to whom? When people talk about a materialistic culture, what would they be referring to?

Does the possession of "best possible" knowledge always certainly result in an ethical action? (If individuals want to believe in some corny belief system, let them by all means, until unless it doesnt affect you, might sound very selfish, but doesnt natural selection help those who can adapt to changing conditions in their environment?)

And regarding the supernatural angle, why should the antithesis of materialism always result in something "supernatural"?

Regarding religion, god and all that crap we both are on the same side, except for the question - is the definition of "natural" static?

JP

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02-03-2002, 04:29 PM	#35
Vorkosigan Contributor Join Date: Jan 2001 Location: Barrayar Posts: 11,866	[QUOTE]Originally posted by xoc: *Positive evidence as you define it is a priori* material, or material evidence.** I haven't asked for any particular kind of evidence. Don't read into my requests things that are not there. In any case, your complaint might have made sense in the 16th century. We are now 500 years into the success of the methodological naturalism. If you can offer an more successful interpretive framework based on the supernatural, by all means do so. But this complaint about a priori materialist assumptions is of course a concession that you have no such framework, and can only complain about the last 5 centuries of naturalism. But the typology, the consciousness, the sense of the individual etc. are not readily reduced to simple brain patterns. Never said they were. "Consciousness" includes many different functions in the brain. The "Socratic" soul is distinguished from the conscious individual we know... The Pauline "new man" or resurrected man(with the glorified body) is in a sense similar in that there remains a continuation of the individual but there is now the loss of the sinful nature, Neither the soul nor the Pauline new Adam exist. Please demonstrate their existence and properties in some fashion, instead of simply making assertions. problems. Not that this is a proof. It's not anything but fiction writing. What I consider a primary proof "dualism" is the inability to assert the mind in purely physical terms. The limits of current knowledge do not imply that there is something supernatural going on. That must be demonstrated with positive evidence. The thinking man is different qualitatively than the inanimate object, or a substance of motion like a wind..... So are cockroaches, bacteria and tomato plants. And? His logical conception of things is not directly equivelent to his brain waves, although there is a correlation. Nobody said it was. Also, women think too. Once again, positive evidence. Note that I am not asking for evidence that is acceptable in a particular framework. I am asking for any evidence at all. Which you don't seem to have. Michael

02-04-2002, 11:54 AM	#36
Little War Banned Join Date: Jan 2002 Location: At my computer Posts: 166	theophilus I too would like to know what you mean by a "dialectic philosophy" The marxist philosophy is one of historical and dialectical materialism, it is the method in which all historical movements and beliefs of humans follow a certain pattern in which the coming together of different beliefs lead to new beliefs. THis includes all philosophical ideas too. It is something that explains these movements, while all other philosophies only look at it's immediate surroundings and deveolops a basis from that. Historical and dialectical materialism, shows how these philosophies are a pattern human development and lead from one another as humans progress through history.

02-05-2002, 02:22 AM	#37
phaedrus Veteran Member Join Date: Oct 2000 Location: Indus Posts: 1,038	Materialism seems to be the buzz word in this forum for umpteen no. of days. What is materialism anyhow and why is its validity so important to our existence?

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