Lobstrosity

Maybe the problem then is that your analysis is far too simple? It's quite silly to believe by default without any evidence whatsoever or any logical backing that such influences are probably present but just currently undetectable. It seems that you argue the dualistic standpoint simply because you're astonished by the concept of sentience and cannot fathom how normal physics might generate such a thing. This is an emotional argument devoid of logic. You don't actually have any objective understanding of what sentience is, let alone what might cause such a thing, yet off you leap to proclaim that mere physics can't produce such a thing. Where do you get the nerve to make such a sweeping statement?

So tell me, how precisely is it distinguishable from the materialistic hypothesis? The way it's phrased, the dualistic hypothesis isn't a hypothesis at all. It makes no predictions and declares itself to be inherently untestable. Furthermore, the absurdity of this "hypothesis" is made evident when you realize that a dualistic hypothesis can be applied to literally every process in this universe. Why does water boil? Because some supernatural realm senses that heat is being applied and then intervenes to make the water molecules move faster. The predictions are "all but indistinguishable" from the materialistic hypothesis that governs the boiling of water, and henceforth I must say a priori that you have no understanding of why water truly boils.

Tercel

I didn't say I did so. I merely argued that you could not have the evidence you claimed to have for your position: I'm saying that both positions are equally unevidenced scientifically.

Yup, pretty much. Since scientific analysis can't give evidence either way, it boils down to what I think to be likely for philosophical reasons.

Not really. Emotional arguments are things where what we love/hate or want is affecting our judgement. This I am simply saying that it appears to me that sentience is qualitatively different to what my understanding of physical law provides for.

Perhaps no, but I have a lifetime of subjective observance of my own sentience.

I haven't done any such thing in this thread. However, yes I do believe that given my understanding of physical reality, the laws of physics are insufficient to produce sentience.

Of course perhaps the dualistic hypothesis is wrong, perhaps sentience is part of matter the laws of physics. That's not exactly necessarily a good thing from an athiest point of view. If sentience is a part of everything, then the Whole seems reasonably likely to be sentient. The atheist position appears to depend on a tension between the two assertions that at once sentience is somehow a property of matter or physical law, but that it is not really a property in that it doesn't actually exist in any meaningful way until certain physical neuro-structures are properly formed.
You want to have this dual assertion as the "default position" and you are accusing me of having nerve?

I don't think it is in any scientifically testable way: which is what I've been saying.

It makes the same scientific predictions as the materialist hypothesis. If one is not a hypothesis for this reason then neither is the other: Shoot me down here and you shoot yourself in the foot.
Btw, of course it's testable: Kill yourself and you'll have your answer.

In theory, yes we could produce such a hypothesis for water boiling. But the boiling of water is nigh on completely and utterly understood scientifically. There is nothing suspiciously or vaguely unexplained in our models of water that might be interpreted to call for anything outside physical law. In short, nobody sees any reason to advance the hypothesis that the boiling of water is supernatural.
People do see reasons to advance the hypothesis that sentience is.

Fiach

[QUOTE]Originally posted by Tercel
I haven't done any such thing in this thread. However, yes I do believe that given my understanding of physical reality, the laws of physics are insufficient to produce sentience.

I disagree. Sentience may not be a property of granite and grapite, but it is a property of complex biological systems with electrochemical circuits, neuronal generators, and neurochemical transmitters with their appropriate receptors. Sentience has a brain substrate and is not known to exist in creature's lacking a nervous system. It is coded in our genes, a large portion of our genes, and this genetic code grew over millions of years by a Darwinian natural selection in vertebrates and invertebrates, reaching the likely highest level for invertebrates in octopi, and for vertebrates in Homo sapiens sapiens.

Of course perhaps the dualistic hypothesis is wrong, perhaps sentience is part of matter the laws of physics.

Dualistic Hypothesis is wrong because while a biological substrate for consciousness is proven conclusively, there is no evidence of an immaterial, invisible, and implausible "thing" outside of matter has anything to do with thinking. That is an imaginative hypothesis without even observation of any phenomenon.

That's not exactly necessarily a good thing from an athiest point of view. If sentience is a part of everything, then the Whole seems reasonably likely to be sentient.

There is no evidence that sentience is in everything. Those claiming that must prove it. It is potentially provable but not likely to be proven since there is no evidence.

The atheist position appears to depend on a tension between the two assertions that at once sentience is somehow a property of matter or physical law, but that it is not really a property in that it doesn't actually exist in any meaningful way until certain physical neuro-structures are properly formed.

Aye.

You want to have this dual assertion as the "default position" and you are accusing me of having nerve?

The dualistic view is a wishful thinking hypothesis for those who WANT to believe in a soul and immortality. That is their real agenda.

I don't think it is in any scientifically testable way: which is what I've been saying.

Aye, if you are referring to the soul hypothesis of the dualism. The biophysical substrate for sentience is proven.

It makes the same scientific predictions as the materialist hypothesis. If one is not a hypothesis for this reason then neither is the other: Shoot me down here and you shoot yourself in the foot.
Btw, of course it's testable: Kill yourself and you'll have your answer.

I am not sure about what you are saying.

In theory, yes we could produce such a hypothesis for water boiling. But the boiling of water is nigh on completely and utterly understood scientifically. There is nothing suspiciously or vaguely unexplained in our models of water that might be interpreted to call for anything outside physical law. In short, nobody sees any reason to advance the hypothesis that the boiling of water is supernatural.

The natural properties of water are to freeze at O degrees Celsius and boil at 100 degrees Celsius at normal (whatever that is) sea level. It has no choice. Water has a number of properties, including crystalisation, melting, vapourising, disolving certain salts and minerals but not others. A better analogy is that water is essential for life. We die without it. Split it into Hydrogen and Oxygen, and we can breathe the O2 but the H2 is of no direct biological use. We would still die of starvation. We also need salt NaCl. But Na is a caustic metal, and Cl is a poisonous gas. Two elements that are poisonous in their properties, when ionically bonded are a necessary salt for living things.

Properties of matter change dramatically with new compounds and combinations. Sentience is not possible in Carbon, Oxygen, Hydrogen, Nitrogen, Sodium, Potassium, Calcium, Phosphorus, Iron, Chloride, Magnesium, Zinc, and and sulphur are each non-sentient beyond any reasonable doubt. But in the right combinations, they compose living tissue, neuronal saltatory electrical charge generators, axons that transmit impulses by ionic phase shifts, synapses that release neurotransmitters to stimulate dendrites of other neurons or a million other neurons, where specific receptors activate the receiving neurons in a reverberating circuit.

This complex circuitry may connect different multiple parts of the brain (Frontal-premotor-motor cortex, descending pyramidal tract or Corticospinal tract with inputs from the basal ganglia motor centers for tone, and cerebellar inputs for coordination. And thus you can reach up and scratch your head over this.

A more complex system centered in the Ascending Reticular Activating System (ARAS) of the brain stem, connects to the conscious centers of the hypothalamus (sleep and wake centers), relays in the thalamus to set muscle tone for possible activity, the autonomic nuclei of the Hypothalamus for pulse reate, blood pressure, temperature regulation, pupillary and lenticular muscle contraction to focus vision, connections are made to various cortical association areas and feedback to the ARAS. This is a simplified outline of the structures of consciousness/sentience. In case there are other neurologists here, I know that I left out many other tracts and reticular tracts, motor tone tracts, activation of the whole complex sensory system for awareness of all inputs (tactile, visual, auditory, proprioceptive, touch, pain, temperature, vibration, two-point discrimination, etc.)

This is not in anyway simply theoretical or hypothetical. These pathways have been mapped by two different imaging studies showing consistent patterns of awake alertness, sleep, and unconscious coma. We already know certain FACTS. Drugs can inactivate the ARAS and put the person into transient drug coma (General Anaesthesia) during which there are no memories, and no awareness of passage of time even in patients in 4 or 5 hours of heart surgery. Patients last remember being "put under with the mask" and inevitably awake thinking that surgery is yet to happen when it over, in the recovery room. We also know that localised lesions can affect sentience partially (cortical and brainstem strokes), and some midline brainstem haemorrhages that produce permanent non-sentient coma (but not true brain death.)

Fiach

Clutch

Tercel, your sense of entitlement to pronounce on these matters without any actual knowledge of them appears to have reset to "maximal".

First. Evidential support is a differential notion, on pain of a familiar problem called the "Tacking Paradox". I pointed out long ago that your naive claims about evidence built this incoherence into your view. (This must have been before the "reset".) The basic point is that any empirically adequate theory T1 can have unobserved absurdities tacked onto it to become T2, while remaining, ex hypothesi, empirically adequate. The idea that T1 and T2 are equally confirmed by the evidence is risible, though, which is why nobody who has given thought to the idea of evidence shares your claim that dualism is as well supported as materialism.

Even a priori reasoning requires getting out of your armchair, Tercel -- preferably to take a class or hit the library. Smart people have done lots of work on confirmation theory; and not every thought that runs through your head is an a priori truth.

Second, another point about keeping your position at least logically coherent. You claim that one simply could not have evidence discriminating the two views, no matter how much one knew about the relations between neurophysiology and behaviour. (Prescinding from unknown conceptual revolutions.) But then you claim that boiling water is a bad analogy, since we understand just how water boils -- there doesn't appear to be a gap there, into which supernaturalism could be inserted. But by your first claim, the second claim is utterly irrelevant. For if the second claim is relevant, then learning more about the causal relations between neurology and behaviour would make intelligence as settled a question as boiling, vis a vis materialism. Decide which way you want to have it, and then tell a coherent story. It'll be wrong, but it might have the virtue of logical intelligibility.

Third. You yet again betray a fabulous misconstrual of materialism.Perhaps you've inherited these weird ideas from the "99%" of the other atheists, to whom you are fond of attributing your misunderstandings when these are pointed out to you. But the fact is that there is exactly zero tension here. Or rather, there is as much tension as there is between (A) and (B).

A) Life is a property of matter.

B) Life does not exist in the absence of certain physical structures.

Imagine the sheer brass of someone holding both of these propositions! Yet, somehow, in your head, the same claims about intelligence, mutatis mutandis are in "tension", requiring real "nerve" to hold.

You really ought to learn at least something about this stuff before telling everyone what they really think and why it's all wrong.Now, there's something we can agree on: On your understanding, the physical cannot constitute the mental. That is a moderately interesting fact about your understanding.

Fiach

Newsweek
May 7, 2001

http://www.bio.utk.edu/Neils.nsf/b4f...5?OpenDocument

Religion And The Brain

Author: Sharon Begley
With Anne Underwood

Edition: U.S. Edition
Section: Science and Technology
Page: 50

Article Text:

"One Sunday morning in March, 19 years ago, as Dr. James Austin waited for a train in London, he glanced away from the tracks toward the river Thames. The neurologist--who was spending a sabbatical year in England--saw nothing out of the ordinary: the grimy Underground station, a few dingy buildings, and some pale gray sky. He was thinking, a bit absent-mindedly, about the Zen Buddhist retreat he was headed toward."

"And then Austin suddenly felt a sense of enlightenment unlike anything he had ever experienced. His sense of individual existence, of separateness from the physical world around him, evaporated like morning mist in a bright dawn. He saw things "as they really are," he recalls. The sense of "I, me, and mine" disappeared. "Time was not present," he says. "I had a sense of eternity. My old yearnings, loathings, fear of death and insinuations of selfhood vanished. I had been graced by a comprehension of the ultimate nature of things."


"Call it a mystical experience, a spiritual moment, even a religious epiphany, if you like--but Austin will not. Rather than interpret his instant of grace as proof of a reality beyond the comprehension of our senses, much less as proof of a deity, Austin took it as "proof of the existence of the brain." He isn't being smart-alecky. As a neurologist, he accepts that all we see, hear, feel and think is mediated or created by the brain. Austin's moment in the Underground therefore inspired him to explore the neurological underpinnings of spiritual and mystical experience. In order to feel that time, fear and self-consciousness have dissolved, he reasoned, certain brain circuits must be interrupted. "

"In December, the scholarly Journal of Consciousness Studies devoted its issue to religious moments ranging from "Christic visions" to "shamanic states of consciousness."

"The result is that certain regions of the brain are deprived of neuronal input. One such deprived region seems to be the orientation area, the same spot that goes quiet during meditation and prayer. As in those states, without sensory input the orientation area cannot do its job of maintaining a sense of where the self leaves off and the world begins."

For the full text see the website:

http://www.bio.utk.edu/Neils.nsf/b4f...5?OpenDocument

Fiach

Fiach

Exorcising the Homunculus
There’s no one behind the curtain

by David C. Noelle

http://www.secularhumanism.org/libra...elle_21_2.html

The following article is from Free Inquiry magazine, Volume 21, Number 2. Here are a sample of about 25% of the article. I urge you to read the entire article at the website:

http://www.secularhumanism.org/libra...elle_21_2.html

"Among the issues probed by philosophers, perhaps none strikes closer to home than inquiries into the origins of human action. How do our thoughtful decisions arise, and how are they translated into overt words and deeds? Many of our actions appear to be produced automatically, without deliberation. We need not focus on the precise control of every muscle as we execute a practiced golf swing, and we rarely find ourselves weighing each individual word choice when we utter a request for a condiment during dinner. In the midst of such automatic behaviors, decisions seem to be made for us, enacted by reflexes and learned habits. There are some actions, however, for which we claim authorship. We carefully weigh the options before selecting a particular golf club from our bag, or we purposely edit an amusing tale that might offend those with whom we dine. These controlled behaviors feel more effortful to produce, and we sense that they stem from our conscious thoughts."

"In the brain, the frontal lobes appear to be critical for executive control. In addition..."

"Cognitive neuroscientists have begun breaking down executive control into its functional parts. Much of this research is still speculative, and detailed accounts of such processes as strategy generation and complex action planning have yet to receive much attention. There is still much work to be done. "

It was speculative two years ago. Now mapping and stimulation studies have confirmed it Fiach insertion.

"The Power of the Brain Compels You

"The traditional view of the will as a kind of little man in your head needs to be replaced by a detailed account of how neural tissue gives rise to controlled behavior. Preliminary attempts to understand the mechanisms of executive control have found that they do not form an isolated psychological faculty, but are heavily dependent on other psychological processes, including emotional response. Initial attempts to dissect the mental executive have identified critical roles for a frontal working memory system and a limbic reward-prediction system. The scientific exorcism of the homunculus continues, hoping to produce a clear view of how mere flesh can give rise to our most deliberate and considered actions."

"Notes
1. J. Ridley Stroop, "Studies of Interference in Serial Verbal Reactions," Journal of Experimental Psychology 28(1935): 643-62.
2. Jonathan D. Cohen, Todd S. Braver, and Randall C. O'Reilly, "A Computational Approach to Prefrontal Cortex, Cognitive Control, and Schizophrenia: Recent Developments and Current Challenges," Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London B 351 (1996): 1515-27.
3. Angela C. Roberts, Trevor W. Robbins, and Larry Weiskrantz, eds., The Prefrontal Cortex: Executive and Cognitive Functions (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998); and Mark Wheeler, Donald T. Stuss, and Endel Tulving, "Frontal Lobes and Memory Impairment," Journal of the International Neuropsychological Society 1(1995): 525-36.
4. Norman A. Krasnegor, G. Reid Lyon, and Patricia S. Goldman-Rakic, eds., Development of the Prefrontal Cortex: Evolution, Neurobiology, and Behavior (Baltimore: Brookes Publishing, 1997).
5. John Duncan, Rudiger J. Seitz, Jonathan Kolodny, Daniel Bor, Hans Herzog, Ayesha Ahmed, Fiona N. Newell, and Hazel Emslie, "A Neural Basis for General Intelligence," Science 289, 5478 (2000): 457-60.
6. Antonio R. Damasio, Descartes' Error: Emotion, Reason, and the Human Brain (New York: G. P. Putnam, 1994).
7. Lars Nyberg, Endel Tulving, Reza Habib, Lars-Goran Nilsson, Shitij Kapur, Sylvain Houle, Roberto E.L. Cabeza, and Anthony Randal McIntosh, "Functional Brain Maps of Retrieval Mode and Recovery of Episodic Information," NeuroReport 7(1995): 249-52.
8. David C. Noelle, "A Connectionist Model of Instructed Learning," Ph.D. thesis, University of California at San Diego, Department of Computer Science and Engineering, Department of Cognitive Science, 1997.
9. Daniel J. Amit, Modeling Brain Function: The World of Attractor Neural Networks (Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press, 1989).
10. Earl K. Miller and Jonathan D. Cohen, "An Integrative Theory of Prefrontal Cortex Function," Annual Review of Neuroscience, in press.
11. Wolfram Schultz, Paul Apicella, and Tomas Ljungberg, "Responses of Monkey Dopamine Neurons to Reward and Conditioned Stimuli During Successive Steps of Learning a Delayed Response Task," Journal of Neuroscience 13(1993): 900-13. 12. P. Read Montague, Peter Dayan, and Terrence J. Sejnowski, "A Framework for Mesencephalic Dopamine Systems based on Predictive Hebbian Learning," Journal of Neuroscience 16(1996): 1936-47.
13. Gerald Tesauro, "Temporal Difference Learning and TD-Gammon," Communications of the ACM 38(3) (1995).
18. Todd S. Braver and Jonathan D. Cohen, "On the Control of Control: The Role of Dopamine in Regulating Prefrontal Function and Working Memory," in S. Monsell and J. Driver, eds., Attention and Performance XVII (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 2000).
19. William J. Gehring, B. Goss, Michael G. H. Coles, David E. Meyer, and Emanuel Donchin, "A Neural System for Error Detection and Compensation," Psychological Science 4(1993): 385-90.
20. Matthew Botvinick, Leigh Nystrom, Kate Fissell, Cameron S. Carter, and Jonathan D. Cohen, "Conflict Monitoring Versus Selection-for-Action in Anterior Cingulate Cortex," Nature 402(1999): 179-81; and Clay Holroyd, Jesse Reichler, and Michael G.H. Coles, "Is the Error-Related Negativity Generated by a Dopaminergic Error Signal for Reinforcement Learning? Hypothesis and Model," in Cognitive Neuroscience Society Annual Meeting Program, p. 45, Washington, D.C., 1999.

David Noelle is a postdoctoral research associate at the Center for the Neural Basis of Cognition, a joint project of Carnegie Mellon University and the University of Pittsburgh."

Fiach

Fiach

The Evolution of Thought
by James Underdown

The following article is from Free Inquiry magazine, Volume 21, Number 2.


"Of the millions of nonreligious people out there, many seem to be experiencing a fairly high level of frustration about the recent rate of the evolution of thought. (By “evolution of thought,” I mean the long, slow transition from the belief in myths and magic to the use of science and reason.) We witness political candidates engage in prissy contests to see who can get to church (or synagogue) first, and hear public figures routinely assume that religious citizens are somehow more moral than atheists, agnostics, or secular humanists. There are angels on television, devils in the movies, and “In God We Trust” disfiguring our money. When are we, as a species, going to graduate past all this?"


http://www.secularhumanism.org/libra...down_21_2.html



"The modern world knows exponentially more than in Jesus’ day, or Darwin’s for that matter. Two hundred years ago, how many people had the knowledge or education to challenge the creation story in Genesis?.... "

"Ah, but today there is debate. Despite the creationists in our midst, most modern people would as soon entertain a serious discussion about Adam and Eve as a discussion about goblins or witches—also once common beliefs...."

" Today, no competent biologist, zoologist, geologist, etc., denies evolution. That is progress, fast progress."

"Many religious people don’t believe in hell (or the devil) anymore."

Please read the article for the full discussion.

http://www.secularhumanism.org/libra...down_21_2.html

Fiach

Tercel

Well Fiach, if that's what you want to think, then so be it. If you could stop spamming the thread that'd be good too.

This doesn't show the Dualistic Hypothesis wrong. It merely shows that there is no scientific evidence that it is right. They are very different things. Btw, there can still be evidence for the dualistic hypothesis over the materialistic hypothesis in the form of being skeptical that the materialistic hypothesis is sufficient to explain consciousness.

For me at least, it's the other way around: I believe in God because I accept a dualistic hypothesis.


Clutch.
As insulting and obnoxious as usual I see. Very little of that deserves a reply.

Given the similarity between the two hypotheses being considered here, I can imagine no single scientific test or series of tests that lie even remotely close to our current technology that could be performed to determine which hypothesis is true.

Yes.

Yes. So on the day when you can construct a human brain from the ground up repetitively, improve it, and have complete and utter knowledge of how every tiny bit works (In short when we can do to human brains what we can do to computers now) get back to me. I'll then admit I was wrong: For I predict that such a day will never come. But even if you're right I expect to be long dead before that day comes...
In the meantime if you and Fiach would like to come back to earth and realise you don't yet actually have that evidence you keep claiming, that would be much appreciated.

Wyz_sub10

Clutch and Tercel,

Please cool the personal stuff. Confine your arguments to the ideas and not the individuals.

Thank you.

Lobstrosity

Now why would they do that when they do have the evidence they're claiming? There's more direct evidence for a materialistic basis of consciousness than there is for dark matter and dark energy, yet no one is out there arguing for a dualistic hypothesis of the cosmos. I don't see people proclaiming that it's really God's hands that are driving matter apart in the universe and messing with gravity. There is absolutely nothing in our current understanding of physics that even remotely hints that consciousness can't be produced by naturalistic processes. On top of this, there is copious evidence as to which areas of our brains produce different aspects of consciousness. Combine the two and you have a great naturalistic explanation for consciousness in a field that's growing leaps and bounds every year. Add in forays into artificial neural networks and it becomes clear that the complexities evident in consciousness can quite reasonably be duplicated by neuronal assemblies. The dualistic hypothesis just doesn't fit in anywhere beyond the realm of fantasy at this point. You can't exclude a dualistic hypothesis because it's designed to be intangible, but that doesn't mean anyone should actually believe it just because it can't be excluded.

Here is the crux of your argument:
(1) You claim that you don't think physics can explain consciousness.
(2) You also claim to know what consciousness is because you possess it.

I'd argue that these two claims are quite faulty. First and foremost, how much physics do you actually know? What level of education in physics have you received that allows you to make any informed statement as to what is and is not physically possible? You may have engaged in countless arguments on the topic, but this is no substitute for keeping abreast of the latest published research, nor is it a substitute for learning what is truly already known about the subject. Secondly, it is not valid to postulate an understanding of the mechanics of consciousness just because you have consciousness. You have years and years of experience using a computer, but you could never build one. You have no idea what mechanisms are behind the behavior of your computer just from using it. Or another example: You have used your eyes your entire life, and yet you haven't a clue how they actually work. If it weren't for the fact that scientists could artificially duplicate the human eye, you might very well be putting forth a dualistic hypothesis for vision, claiming that you understand vision because you can see and that you just don't see any way that physics could be behind such a marvelous, wondrous thing as sight.

We have explained countless complex, wondrous things naturalistically. Today it's clear that physical processes can be responsible for such things, but in the past I can guarantee you that people like yourself were clamoring that only a supernatural explanation could suffice. If past experience has taught us anything, it's not to jump the gun and rush off to the easy supernatural way out. If the rest of the biological processes in our body can be rooted in physics, then why can't our consciousness (I'm not sure you realize just how complex and yet just how physical the rest of the biological processes in our bodies really are)?