contracycle

And has been repeatedly pointed out to you, they are indepenandalty reproducivble out of context by putting charged wires in people brains. Also, people become inexplicably imotle when you seperate the brain from the body. Why are these insufficient?

So you assert, without support, again.

You are willfully ignoring the evidence provided, and willfully refusing to explain why it is insufficient. And you also refuse to answer what basis you have for starting a non-physical explanation at all, which I only ask out of curiousity. But given these complete and serial failures, it's apparent to me that your "argument" is nothing of the sort, merely repetition of the dogma that it cannot be physical.

contracycle

You previously claimed:
Se have learned that you were wrong; that neonate animals do indeed have a tit-sucking instinct that precedes learning or the parseing of internal states. We thus see that behaviour can actually be described in terms of hard coding, in exxence, and that consciousness and decision are not required for all actions.

contracycle

And unsupported rejection. Throw me a bone here, at least explain WHY you think not.

Yes. See above; our experience is self-state monitoring.

Well for example, if you take certain drugs, they will stimulate the release of the endorphins your body uses in its normal enviromentally stimulated responses. We can directly intervene in the "mechanics of feeling" and induce them artificially.

Why do you pose a contradiction between the two? Why is a reaction to stimuli not a sensation?

I cannot, because the physical equipment (at whatever level) is in some way damaged and your brain has not had to construct a model of this data before. You are not equipped with suitable sensory metaphors, hence it will be meaningless. Thus, this scenario supports the physical basis of subjectivity and sensation.

Thr what and how are your brain creating ata models in its working space, proposing solutions to problems, and following logical paths it has previously "cut" or learned. The why is to stop us falling off cliffs, as initially mentioned.

contracycle

http://www.newscientist.com/hottopics/ai/

VivaHedone

Contracycle, just answer me one question: how, exactly, do electronic signals and chemical reactions create subjective experience. Its no good saying self-state monitoring, because that doesn't answer the question. How does the need for self-state monitoring or whatever actually produce a sensation from chemcial and electronic signals?

This shows that we are arguing at totally different levels. Yes, endorphins affect the chemicals and electron that cause sensation. But the question is: how do electrons and chemicals moving through the brain induce sensation?

Hmm, this is really hard for me to put into words, because on one level of course you're right. A sensation is a reaction to stmuli, when seen objectively. The stimuli cause electronic/chemical signals which create a sensation. But thats not what I mean: maybe it is better put as 'what is the experience created by the electrons and chemicals responding to stimuli'. And as you have conceded, you cannot define this experience.

boneyard bill

contracycle writes:

They are insufficient because they are irrelevant. They do not prove materialism in the slightest. Every other ontology would predict the same result.

If the brain causes sentient experience, then it stands to reason that sentient experience would end if the brain were destroyed. But that isn't what materialism claims. You ought to find out what the materialist position is before you try to defend it.

BB:
contracycle:
Once again you demonstrate that you don't even understand the position you are defending.

Materialism requires a reductive explanation because materialism makes a reductive claim. The materialism claims that everything can be reduced to and explained as either matter or a material process.

Contracycle:Since no evidence has been provided, I can hardly ignore it. And it is insufficient because you haven't offered any at all. There is only one piece of evidence here that is relevant and that is a reductive explanation for sentience experience. Of course, for you to understand why that is so, you would first have to understand the materialist position, but I see no evidence from this thread that you do understand it.

Contracycle:
Hardly. I didn't claim that we couldn't describe behavior in terms of instincts or automatisms. I said such a description does not explain the behavior. And yet, this is the only "explanation" that materialism has to offer. "It does it because it always does it." And this is supposed to a "parsimonious" explanation? Please. It's a parsimonious non-explanation.

posted by contracycle:

VivaH.
contracycle:
VivaH.:
contracycle:
If this final statement is supposed to rest logically, somehow, on any of the preceding statements; I must confess that I am totally at a loss as to how. Our understanding is not advanced by moving from a concrete understanding of something (such as sensations) to a more abstract and undefined concept.

Contracycle writes:

Yes. But you seem unable to grasp the fact that there is a difference between the "mechanics of feeling" and the feeling itself.

VivaH.:

contracycle:
That fact that you have to ask a question like this clearly shows that you don't know what the debate is all about. Before you can understand the anti-materialist position, you need to know the materialist one. It is clear that you don't know either.

For the record, a reaction to stimuli is a behavior. A sensation is a feeling. The materialist can explain the former but not the latter.

contracycle writes:

You just drove my malarky meter haywire with this one. This post is completely off the charts. Are you putting us all on? What, exactly, is a "sensory metaphor"? And what on earth does it have to do with anything we are talking about?

boneyard bill

Torben writes:

And what explanations don't appeal, ultimately, to some sensation we have or another? Everything we know comes through the senses. We are sentient creatures. If another creature exhibits behavior that we can relate to as similar to ours it is perfectly reasonable to assume similar causes.

And what is so ludicrous about materialist dogma is that they would find such an explanation perfectly suitable if they had a materialist explanation for sentient experience. So it is the dogma, not the reasonableness, that prevents thinking about these things in these ways.

The objection materialists have to such an explanation is that sentience plays a causal role in our behavior under this kind of explanation, and that is taboo for the materialist. But if they had a materialist explanation that wouldn't be the case. So the claim that it is anthropocentric really amounts to the claim that it isn't materialist.

But certainly, an anthropocentrice explanation is better than no explanation. And an "instinct" is simply no explanation at all.

VivaHedone

I have now posted The Human Brain, an attempt to show that subjective experience has no evolutionary purpose as it cannot have physical effect. This is therefore strongly linked to this thread.