Mind/Brain Identism
Has science proven that the mind and the brain are identical? Not according to British scientist Raymond Tallis. Below is a link to a talk he gave at the "Neuroscience Panel Discussion" in the U.K. (To those forum members suffering from ADD...the "YouTube" video is only seven minutes long).
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Seg8kjc6Z84
Raymond Tallis is a self-professed atheist who eschews materialistic interpretations of the mind. He employs the term "neurotheologists" to describe those scientists/philosophers who assume that the mind and the brain are identical. The primary neurotheologist is apparently Daniel Dennett. See link below for the article entitled "The Ardent Atheist" by Andrew Brown, published in "The Guardian."
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2006/apr/29/philosophy1
"Scientists animated by the purpose of proving they are purposeless constitute an interesting subject for study." - Alfred North Whitehead
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Well, you should. There is no materialistic interpretation of QM that can account for the collapse of the wave function.
"Scientists animated by the purpose of proving they are purposeless constitute an interesting subject for study." - Alfred North Whitehead
Holy shit, dude.
That's right, the only response left in my arsenal is "holy shit, dude". You've exhausted my capacity to address this insanity. I will argue again that this may be your raison d'étre here on these message boards: to flabbergast and bemuse even those who long ago gave up arguing in earnest against a battery of intellectual cream pies and squirting flowers. You've created a wall of treacherous images, and given us a fountain as an altar for our gas hearts.
Saint Will: no gyration without funkstification.
fabulae! nil satis firmi video quam ob rem accipere hunc mi expediat metum. - Terence
Strange how a stroke blocks a 'nonmaterial consciousness', could it be strokes produce invisible undetectable force fields?
People who think there is something they refer to as god don't ask enough questions.
Mirror neurons do NOT CAUSE consciousness. That's the whole point. Unless you can provide the necessary and sufficient causes of consciousness (assuming that they exist), then you have not proven that consciousness is physical. Also, you haven't proven that free will is illusory. So, the mirror neurons are not really relevant.
Actually, he has. The title of his book is "Consciousness Explained."
I said LIBERTARIAN free will. It's not compatible with physical determinism. And until you can demonstrate proof that it is illusory, then you haven't proven anything.
Yes, it was. Both you and Daniel Dennett deny libertarian free will. And you haven't been able to establish the necessary and sufficient causes of consciousness. Therefore, you haven't established that it is physical.
"Scientists animated by the purpose of proving they are purposeless constitute an interesting subject for study." - Alfred North Whitehead
And you haven't been able to establish the necessary and sufficient causes of consciousness. Therefore, you haven't established that it is non-physical.
When you say it like that you make it sound so Sinister...
Nature is the only state of existence, ergo consciousness can only be material.
People who think there is something they refer to as god don't ask enough questions.
I still don't understand your demands that we disprove free will. What is the motivation behind them? Even if one of us agrees with you that free will exists, you respond with demands that they disprove free will. I just don't get it. For that matter, can you demonstrate that libertarian free will exists? It seems evident to me that free will is not libertarian in nature. Demonstrate that the compatabalist view of free will is illusory. See how I too can make demands that you can't possibly answer?
"You say that it is your custom to burn widows. Very well. We also have a custom: when men burn a woman alive, we tie a rope around their necks and we hang them. Build your funeral pyre; beside it, my carpenters will build a gallows. You may follow your custom. And then we will follow ours."
British General Charles Napier while in India
And of course you have proven nothing. So let's get back to serious comment.
To repeat, the discovery of mirror neurones has provided a vital clue in developing an improved model of the processes that give rise to consciousness in the brain. Therefore mirror neurones are extremely relevant. Are you even casting doubt on the existence of mirror neurones - "(assuming that they exist)" ???
Each new such discovery adds support to the proposition that consciousness is generated by the brain, by purely physical processes. You think that is irrelevant??? What comparable counter evidence have you to present?
That is a book title, and Dennett acknowledges it may be seen as overstating his claim.
Wikipedia: "An explanation is a set of statements constructed to describe a set of facts which clarifies the causes, context, and consequences of those facts."
New Oxford Dictionary: "a statement or account that makes something clear".
That is NOT the same as a claim to "know the ultimate nature and origin of" consciousness.
In the last sub-section of his book "Consciousness Explained, or Explained Away?", he says
Actually you didn't. That is the first time you have used the word "LIBERTARIAN" in this thread, as far as I can find.
I am not trying to "prove' anything, in the strict sense, merely trying to demonstrate that there is a solid case for the naturalistic nature of consciousness and the subjective experience of "free will".
You certainly have not come close to proving your case.
The statement you underlined in the original response was
"Exercising choice" is not the same as "Free will", let alone the libertarian kind. Even computers can be described as "exercising choice". Deciding between two or more alternative actions is fundamental to any information processing device or system.
Dennett has established a good case for a naturalistic, ie non-dualistic, explanation for both consciousness and our experience of free will. That's all any honest student of such a complex and subtle issue can hope to do.
You certainly have not proved he is totally mistaken, merely that you don't agree with him and his (and my) perceptions of the issues.
Favorite oxymorons: Gospel Truth, Rational Supernaturalist, Business Ethics, Christian Morality
"Theology is now little more than a branch of human ignorance. Indeed, it is ignorance with wings." - Sam Harris
The path to Truth lies via careful study of reality, not the dreams of our fallible minds - me
From the sublime to the ridiculous: Science -> Philosophy -> Theology
Just to clarify, I was using the phrase "exercise my will" to refer to the action of making a choice, which even computers do. The argument should be about what 'determines' the choice we make. I want to pin Paisley down on just what he sees as governing that choice. I see the cumulative effect of our relevant memories, perceptions, mood, attitudes, etc, as determining our choices, and we can then argue about what those various words refer to. Paisley simply makes the vacuous claim of "(libertarian) free will".
Favorite oxymorons: Gospel Truth, Rational Supernaturalist, Business Ethics, Christian Morality
"Theology is now little more than a branch of human ignorance. Indeed, it is ignorance with wings." - Sam Harris
The path to Truth lies via careful study of reality, not the dreams of our fallible minds - me
From the sublime to the ridiculous: Science -> Philosophy -> Theology
In such a discussions, people are usually being advised to wait. It can take years at least, more probably decades for the scientists to find a proof for one side or the other. Until then, it's a stalemate.
The scientific side won't surrender without an objective, repeatable evidence of a personal experiences, and the psychic side won't surrender without having the scientific side adress their personal experiences, which they can't, because it's not the scientists' personal experience.
This needs a few of geniuses with great authority and diplomatic skills. The truth, I believe, lies somewhere in a consensus of these two semblant opposites.
Beings who deserve worship don't demand it. Beings who demand worship don't deserve it.
Correction, no one here has presented scientific evidence that proves beyond a reasonable shadow of doubt that free will is illusory.
"Scientists animated by the purpose of proving they are purposeless constitute an interesting subject for study." - Alfred North Whitehead
And you haven't presented any evidence to even make a reasonable case for the assertion that our first-person experience 'proves' that it isn't illusory.
Whereas we have presented a strong case that that experience is explicable in similar naturalistic terms to every other thought process.
Your concept of free will is not even a sufficiently coherent concept to be capable of either proof or disproof. 'Choice' as such is exercised by everything from computers to insects.
What we claim is illusory is the attributes of 'free will' you have in mind that distinguish an act of 'free will' from a 'ordinary' choice between alternatives actions based on relative strength of competing influences. You have yet to clarify what these are so we can address the issue.
Favorite oxymorons: Gospel Truth, Rational Supernaturalist, Business Ethics, Christian Morality
"Theology is now little more than a branch of human ignorance. Indeed, it is ignorance with wings." - Sam Harris
The path to Truth lies via careful study of reality, not the dreams of our fallible minds - me
From the sublime to the ridiculous: Science -> Philosophy -> Theology
Our first-person EXPERIENCE of free will is EMPIRICAL because it arises out of EXPERIENCE. That's the definition of EMPRICISM.
And our first-person experience of free will does not contradict scientific evidence because there is NO scientific evidence that proves that free will is illusory - nothing, niente, zilch, NADA!
I have already explained how the mind influences the brain - it's called free will! And you have just validated my explanation by presupposing free will in order to freely reply to my previous post! Now, to continue this discussion any further would be an exercise in futility. Why? Because you cannot have a rational discussion with an individual who insists that we are nothing more than "robots with consciousness!" Sorry, but I will not debate this point with you any longer. This would require me to enter into your irrational world and I'm not about to do that. I value my sanity too much!
"Scientists animated by the purpose of proving they are purposeless constitute an interesting subject for study." - Alfred North Whitehead
Sorry, bloviated verbiage doesn't cut the muster here. In order to score a point, you will have to make one. I don't see anything in your foregoing post that remotely qualifies as a counter-argument.
"Scientists animated by the purpose of proving they are purposeless constitute an interesting subject for study." - Alfred North Whitehead
It's only an oxymoron if you define naturalism to be interchangeable with materialism.
"Scientists animated by the purpose of proving they are purposeless constitute an interesting subject for study." - Alfred North Whitehead
Both materialism and dualism are metaphysical positions, not scientific theories that make predictions. That being said, if dualism is true, then it stands to reason that some things (e.g. the exercising of free will) may not be wholly predictable in theory. And, of course, the evidence of human behavior would seem to bear this out.
"Scientists animated by the purpose of proving they are purposeless constitute an interesting subject for study." - Alfred North Whitehead
"Has science proven that the mind and the brain are identical?"
Let me answer that question for you.
of course not!
Science doesn't prove theories, science disproves theories.
and a 7 minute video about how science can't prove that the mind is the brain seems like a waste of 7 minutes to me and a huge waste of time for Mr. Tallis's research.
Sure you can say that Mr. Tallis has a theory otherwise but until he disproves that the mind and the brain are one I'm not going to believe in the mind as an extra entity.
Wow i feel like this parallels another issue.... hmmmmmm
And you haven't established that ultimate reality is actually, well, PHYSICAL (probablility waves and geometrical points in space-time are mathematical abstrations, not actual things running roughshod in the void).
Incidentally, in my worldview, I don't have to establish the necessary and sufficient causes of consciousness. I take consciousness to be a brute fact of existence. However, on the materialist view, it's an accident of evolution. And yet, the materialists on this forum (as demonstrated in a previous thread) could not explain why consciousness was naturally selected by evolution in light of the fact (at least, on the materialist view) that it (consciousness) is not causally efficacious (no free will...no causal efficacy) and therefore it cannot confer any survival benefit. IOW, they could not explain why a "stimulus-response system" evolves from a "robot without consciousness" to a "robot with consciousness."
"Scientists animated by the purpose of proving they are purposeless constitute an interesting subject for study." - Alfred North Whitehead
It seems that Paisley means by 'free will' our basic impulse to action, our 'intent' to 'do something'.He still has yet to describe exactly what he understands by the 'free' part of 'free will'.
This statement honestly does not make sense to me.
I honestly don't quite see the relevance of the word 'freely' there. What would be a "non-free" response? Or does Paisley assume that without 'free will' we would not reply at all, or be able to summon up the 'will' to reply?
Clarification, please, Paisley, so we assess your 'challenge'.
Favorite oxymorons: Gospel Truth, Rational Supernaturalist, Business Ethics, Christian Morality
"Theology is now little more than a branch of human ignorance. Indeed, it is ignorance with wings." - Sam Harris
The path to Truth lies via careful study of reality, not the dreams of our fallible minds - me
From the sublime to the ridiculous: Science -> Philosophy -> Theology
Science was founded under metaphysical dualism. This is a historical fact. Of course, science was initially limited to the physical domain (as opposed to the mental).
Just because something is parsimonious does not necessarily make it true. Moreover, materialism is not the only form of metaphysical monism. In addition, the subjective is not directly observable from the third-person or objective perspective. Evidently, scientific study of subjectivity is off-limits based on principle number three.
Incidentally, the motive to change the term "materialism" to "physicalism" is simply a semantical ploy (not unlike the compatibilist attempt to redefine free will). Why? Because materialism was invalidated by the theory of relativity and QM. And I think you're deceiving yourself to think otherwise.
Yes, there has. The human sciences (psychology and sociology) are considered to be sciences.
No, when science decides to enter the domain of the mental, then all bets are off. There is no reason to give materialism a privilege position over dualism.
I see. I don't think materialism and dualism are on equal footing. Dualism (although it has its problems) has more going for it than materialism.
Sorry to burst your bubble, but I can assure you that the Copenhagen interpretation of QM (the standard intepretation) does not say that nature is fundamentally and wholly physical. And I have already demonstrated that this notion that atheistic materialism somehow holds sole ownership rights to the scientific method is patently false.
"Scientists animated by the purpose of proving they are purposeless constitute an interesting subject for study." - Alfred North Whitehead
True, I haven't, but then again I am not asserting that it is, merely that there is no evidence for any sort of supernatural or 'non-physical' aspect of such. Furthermore, the mathematical models are only that, models. Just because we have as of yet not discovered how the particles or waves or what have you actually work, but merely have models to abstractly predict how they work, does not mean that they are those models.
This would be like saying that a ball, thrown into the air, is a mathematical abstraction as we cannot determine the single point that it will land at, as we will never have all of the variables to so fine of a degree that we can plug them into an equation. Instead we will be able to determine that it will most likely land in 'this general area'. No matter how precise our measurement tools become we will never be able to calculate the end resulting position of every single atom and piece of atom in the ball.
This has been explained to you numerous times, as such I will not waste my time on it further.
So when confronted with a problem which is beyond our current technology to solve your solution is simply to throw your arms up in the air and shout "that's just the way it is!"?
Have fun with that.
Actually, I think they have, I think you just blatantly ignored it. To continue the relentless torture of the equine carcass however, here is why I think consciousness evolved;
Consciousness allows introspection and thus the ability to evaluate potential actions before they are taken. In short, without consciousness there is no ability to plan, or whatever ability to plan exists it is extremely handicapped. Compare an untrained rabble with no leader to a seasoned fighting force led by Temujin. Guess which one wins (assuming all other aspects are equal).
Consciousness would have begun as simply a memory storage area that could be referrenced. Comparisons between the current situation and the memory would have been made, and the animals with the best 'comparing' areas would have dominated. Comparing Memories to other memories would have been a simple evolutionary step if not already present in the original module, and eventually a 'hard drive' area would have had to have been allocated to store these comparisons long term instead of just in the 'RAM' This would have been an inperfect consciousness however, only able to compare memories, piecing them together like a collage instead of drawing their own pictures.
The need to be able to evaluate the causes and results of different actions would have led to the evolving of the 'why' center of the brain, where an animal would have been able to determine 'why' climbing up into the trees with your recently slain gazelle would have helped. This would have added an entirely new aspect to the consciousness property as the animal could now finally begin to understand the world in abstract concepts, thus being able to plan for things which it had no memory of and imagine completely new scenarios instead of just cutting up memories and scrapbooking them together. Just as with the comparison of memories to memories, eventually the 'why' portion of the brain would have turned inward, and thus, because it thought, it was.
Consciousness was born.
Consciousness is of course here defined only as the ability to examine one's own thoughts, it is not defined as the ability to have 'choosen differently if they did it again' as this ability does not exist. It is given to you the task to prove free will exists, and your first person accounts are meaningless because they don't even say anything of the sort. All your first person account proves is that you thought you had free will. By your logic, my first person account of the invisible dragon on Alpha Centauri must be prooven positive, despite any other evidence to corroborate it. Free will does not exist. Or rather, if it does, there is no evidence for it, as collecting evidence for it would require the ability to 'rewind time' and test it out to see if, having gone through the exact same motions 100 times, the person still took the same action. Furthermore, given that the ability to rewind time would be necessary in order to view the effects of Free Will, Free Will effectively does not exist until this ability does.
Call me when you get a time machine.
You will also need a magical suit that prevents any aspect of yourself from interracting with existence in any way shape or form.
Good luck.
When you say it like that you make it sound so Sinister...
We have already been over this. Now I am certain that you are just playing stupid. These conversations run around in circles. This is officially a duplicate thread of "The Blind Spot of the Materialist Worldview" thread. You are recycling the same arguments from that one.
Let's see a sample of what I am talking about:
http://www.rationalresponders.com/forum/16981?page=1
In other words the mathematical abstractions are the way we describe the things the are in the void; but the abstractions are not the things in the void themselves. Yet again: math is a language used to describe these things; yet it is not the things themselves.
You bring up the same points again and again, only to have them shot down again and again. Should we just respond to your repeated arguments by copying our previous responses to them? I think I'm starting to understand what HisWillness means by you flabbergasting us with your posts.
"You say that it is your custom to burn widows. Very well. We also have a custom: when men burn a woman alive, we tie a rope around their necks and we hang them. Build your funeral pyre; beside it, my carpenters will build a gallows. You may follow your custom. And then we will follow ours."
British General Charles Napier while in India
I use this technique to read minds.
After eating an entire bull, a mountain lion felt so good he started roaring. He kept it up until a hunter came along and shot him.
The moral: When you're full of bull, keep your mouth shut.
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Beings who deserve worship don't demand it. Beings who demand worship don't deserve it.
Actually, you are making an assertion. You are asserting (at least implicitly) that the mental is physical (i.e. that the mind is numerically identical with the brain). This has not been proven. It's just an assumption. And your assumption has no privilege status over the alternative.
Quantum indeterminism has nothing to do with the inability to make precise measurements.
Good, because you clearly don't understand the nature of quantum indeterminism.
I believe materialists of the atheistic persuasion play the same game - i.e. they make the argument that the physical is simply a brute fact of existence that does not ultimately require an explanation. Surely, in the spirit of fair play, you will allow me the same luxury.
Computers (hardware and software) can process input data, make evaluations, formulate plans, and implement strategies. For example, the chess program that runs on my PC accomplishes all this and does this without consciousness.
My computer has memory. It has a hard drive and it has read-access memory. No consciousness required.
Comparisons, memory, asking why questions....my chess program can do this. No consciousness required.
You clearly failed to account for why a "SENTIENT stimulus-response system" was naturally selected over an "INSENTIENT stimulus-response system." Why? Because you failed to recognize that there is nothing a "robot WITH consciousness" can do that a "robot WITHOUT consciousness" cannot. Based on the mechanical, nonteleological worldview that is atheistic materialism, consciousness is not causally efficacious.
You presuppose free will in practice even if you deny in theory. Even Richard Dawkins will acknowledge this truism.
Okay, have it your way. Free will does not exist. I trust that you will not be offended if or when I refer to you as a "robot with consciousness."
"Scientists animated by the purpose of proving they are purposeless constitute an interesting subject for study." - Alfred North Whitehead
You fundamentally misunderstand quantum mechanics.
"You say that it is your custom to burn widows. Very well. We also have a custom: when men burn a woman alive, we tie a rope around their necks and we hang them. Build your funeral pyre; beside it, my carpenters will build a gallows. You may follow your custom. And then we will follow ours."
British General Charles Napier while in India
Arguing with Paisley is like arguing with Eliza. At first you think you might actually get somewhere, but then you realize it just talks in circles and never actually answers anything.
Paisley is a good name. It's like that swirling pattern on a tie. It just goes around and around and makes you vaguely ill just looking at it.
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I understand enough to know that quantum indeterminacy has nothing to do with experimental errors in measurement.
"Scientists animated by the purpose of proving they are purposeless constitute an interesting subject for study." - Alfred North Whitehead
Can you elaborate on that?
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I find paisley patterns (fractals) to be hauntingly beautiful. These psychedelic images are what many contemplatives experience during altered states of consciousness.
"Scientists animated by the purpose of proving they are purposeless constitute an interesting subject for study." - Alfred North Whitehead
Would you like it if they were not what many contemplatives experience during altered states of consciousness?
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You are just repeating that incorrect statement. Apparently you misunderstand enough to be so confused as to not know that quantum indeterminacy means that there is a limit to how accurate some measurements can be.
Quick test to make sure you are as wrong about this as I think you are:
Are you claiming that there is no limit (assuming we have good enough lab equipment, let's say that you have near perfect lab equipment that is far better currently available technology) to how accurately you can measure an electron's position and momentum simultaneously? I'm not talking about technological limits here, I'm talking about quantum indeterminacy physically preventing any instument, regardless of how well made it is, from being able to simulatneously measure an electron's position and velocity to any degree of accuracy. So, do you think that you could measure both of those properties of an electron simultaneously to any degree of accuracy if you had good enough instruments in one experiment?
"You say that it is your custom to burn widows. Very well. We also have a custom: when men burn a woman alive, we tie a rope around their necks and we hang them. Build your funeral pyre; beside it, my carpenters will build a gallows. You may follow your custom. And then we will follow ours."
British General Charles Napier while in India
Quote the post where I assert that the mind is numerically identical to the brain.
Ever hear of the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle?
And you clearly don't understand the nature of metaphors.
Oh, and if I am misunderstanding Quantum Mechanics, then explain my misunderstanding to me.
Ummm, no? What do you mean "the physical is simply a brute fact of existence"? Of course it is a fact of existence, as evidenced by the fact that every thing we have ever discovered has been a part of the physical universe. As for; "that does not ultimately require an explanation" That is simply bullshit. Perhaps you remember this thing called the Large Hadron Collider? Remember how it was exploring the initial universe just after the Big Bang? We don't know what happened 'before' the Universe, but we are working on it and as such do not say anything about pre-universal existence other than 'it might have been this, possibly' or 'it could have been this.... maybe'.
So No, we don't, and I will not afford you the luxury of doing this.
If you want to continue to contend this point and insist that we do, provide examples and prove it.
Actually your Chess program cannot plan, and most certainly cannot ask the question why. Chess programs function by having a massive reservoir of potential game boards with calculated 'optimal movements' for each of them, and then choosing which one it thinks might be best based almost entirely on the current board setup(*1), your history of past moves, and statistical analysis of how slight variations in the chess board can change the outcome, as well as statistical analysis of what a person, having gone through the history of moves that its opponent has, will generally do next. This is also how you beat a chess program, by shifting from plan to plan so rapidly and seemingly without purpose, that it sputters and cannot place your previous moves and board arrangement into its memory of example games.
Here's an experiment to prove this;
Step 1; Take a chess program, and widen the board by 1 row in each direction. Then add pawns as needed, and shift the pieces outside of the Bishop out while pushing both sides back 1 space. Then and An Entirely New Piece called the Archer, which can take any piece except a Rook or Knight from two squares away without moving, cannot move while doing so, and can move like a King when not attacking. Do not change any aspect of the AI code.
Step 2; Watch your beloved Chess program whimper and Die.
Even if your chess program is more dynamically built than the version I posted above, it will still not be able to account for the 'taking at range' thing and will treat the archers like Kings, almost completely useless, if it sees them at all. The Extra Rows will really throw it off too, again, if it even sees them at all.
This is why in the video game 'Sword of the Stars' and its latest expansion and patch, the AI cannot research techs that have been added via player made mod, the AI functions are hardcodded, and even though SotS has an AI that can dynamically shift its research and production weight based on what ships its opponents are fielding, These actions are all just statistics, planned out and forumlated by a human programer well before the game was first played.
To be sure, AI is advancing. The Robots that can teach themselves how to walk are a step in the right direction, however even that is so vastly limitted it doesn't qualify, because the code to run the motors was still programmed by a human. What we will need is a robot with a simple program that simply fires electrical pulses down its different pathways, logging what happens. All of the numbers will have to be equation based to allow them to continue without end, and it will require a lot of time and space as well as some spare bodies to repair damage, but this will be a step in the right direction, but still not yet conciousness.
Another example is the AI in a freeware game version of Risk called Conquest. The AI is fairly good, but this is because Conquest, and Risk, are ultimately extremely simple. Compare the AI in Conquest to the AI in Hearts of Iron 2. Despite HoI2 being at its most basic the same concept of Risk, the AI in HoI2 sucks, and the developers know this, hence why they give the AI 'cheats' such as being able to see every unit, because the AI cannot 'guess'. The AI in HoI2 cannot, for instance, conduct decent naval invasions because it just cannot plan its way towards having the right number of transports. It also cannot use Nuclear Weapons because of the same limitation.
Good for Richard Dawkins, as I have my own oppinions and do not rely on appeals to authority I don't particularly care.
Furthermore, prove that I presuppose free will in practice, and provide examples.
Not really no. Why would I?
Oh, and I thank you for conceeding defeat so quickly, but I don't play to win.
1: Itonically enough, human chess Grand Masters might work this way too. This is less a flaw in consciousness as it is a flaw in the ultimately simplistic strategical nature of chess. Hence why you don't get this in SotS. This is also how those 'Chess Puzzles' that I hate so very much work.
When you say it like that you make it sound so Sinister...
No. It is impossible to measure both the electron's position and momentum simultaneously. The more precise (or accurate) the measurement of the electron's position the less precise (or accurate) the measurement of the electron's momentum. This is Heisenberg's "uncertainty principle." Nature is fundamentally indeterminate (at least on this score).
"Scientists animated by the purpose of proving they are purposeless constitute an interesting subject for study." - Alfred North Whitehead
Wikipedia to the rescue. I'm glad that you have at least gone from "Quantum indeterminism has nothing to do with the inability to make precise measurements" to "It is impossible to measure both the electron's position and momentum simultaneously. The more precise (or accurate) the measurement of the electron's position the less precise (or accurate) the measurement of the electron's momentum." We're making some real progress here. There are actually many other properties that don't commute. Just throw properties that you are interested in measuring into the commutator and see if they commute or not. Either I misread your statements, or you went to google and found the correct answer. Either way, QM rocks.
I'm not sure that I catch your drift there.
"You say that it is your custom to burn widows. Very well. We also have a custom: when men burn a woman alive, we tie a rope around their necks and we hang them. Build your funeral pyre; beside it, my carpenters will build a gallows. You may follow your custom. And then we will follow ours."
British General Charles Napier while in India
What does this mean for you, saying " Nature is fundamentally indeterminate "?
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Due to Heisenberg Uncertainty and Chaotic non-linear feedback loops, yes of course Nature has a level of intrinsic unpredicatability.
The level of intrinsic uncertainty in any predictive model can, in principle, be calculated. For weather events, it grows rapidly as we try to extrapolate further into the future, mainly due to Chaotic effects rather than Quantum Uncertainty, the reality behind the emblematic 'Butterfly Effect'. At the other extreme, the paths of the major planets can be predicted with great precision over millennia, although there are many gravitationally interacting systems which can display chaotic behaviour, such as systems of three bodies with similar masses, which are not predictable under many conditions.
Within the window of uncertainty, nature follows strictly 'deterministic' laws, with a statistically pure random factor of uncertainty smearing out the predicted results.
Favorite oxymorons: Gospel Truth, Rational Supernaturalist, Business Ethics, Christian Morality
"Theology is now little more than a branch of human ignorance. Indeed, it is ignorance with wings." - Sam Harris
The path to Truth lies via careful study of reality, not the dreams of our fallible minds - me
From the sublime to the ridiculous: Science -> Philosophy -> Theology
I think there is some kind of miscommunication here. I still stand by my statement that "quantum indeterminacy has nothing to do with experimental errors in measurement."
"Scientists animated by the purpose of proving they are purposeless constitute an interesting subject for study." - Alfred North Whitehead
Level of unpredictability or indeterminism?
Saying that something is unpredictable does not necessarily imply indeterminism. For example, the so-called "Butterfly Effect" may be unpredictable for all practical intents and purposes, but it only has the appearance of randomness. It is strictly deterministic.
Chaos theory is a strictly deterministic theory; quantum theory is not.
"Scientists animated by the purpose of proving they are purposeless constitute an interesting subject for study." - Alfred North Whitehead
Do you say you think there is some kind of miscommunication here for some special reason?
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I used the term unpredictability as that is the best description of what we see, with minimum extraneous implications.
I quite from the Wikipedia article on QM:
I agree with this. So QM is a combination of deterministic processes and random ones. I see no need for any other categories. 'Indeterminism' has other connotations which do not appear to apply to QM - 'random' best describes those aspects of QM which are not strictly deterministic. They certainly appear to be the best examples we have of purely random processes, based on how well they fit all statistical tests for 'pure' chance.
The alternative ideas posit 'hidden variables', which to a first approximation assume a deterministic but chaotic process underlying QM effects, IOW it is assumed that nature is entirely deterministic, and all examples of apparent randomness are due to chaotic effects arising from non-linear feedback, giving rise to 'butterfly effect' extreme sensitivity to initial conditions.
Favorite oxymorons: Gospel Truth, Rational Supernaturalist, Business Ethics, Christian Morality
"Theology is now little more than a branch of human ignorance. Indeed, it is ignorance with wings." - Sam Harris
The path to Truth lies via careful study of reality, not the dreams of our fallible minds - me
From the sublime to the ridiculous: Science -> Philosophy -> Theology
What's does the term "indeterminism" connote that the following terms or expressions do not : "not strictly deterministic," "purely random processes," and "pure chance?"
True, but the tradeoff for any "hidden variables" alternative (e.g. Bohm's pilot wave version) is nonlocality.
"Scientists animated by the purpose of proving they are purposeless constitute an interesting subject for study." - Alfred North Whitehead
As I pointed out above, randomness is not a fundamental problem. It does seem to have been demonstrated that a conscious 'observer' is NOT required for wave-function collapse, so entanglement/nonlocality is the most problematic aspect of QM currently.
Favorite oxymorons: Gospel Truth, Rational Supernaturalist, Business Ethics, Christian Morality
"Theology is now little more than a branch of human ignorance. Indeed, it is ignorance with wings." - Sam Harris
The path to Truth lies via careful study of reality, not the dreams of our fallible minds - me
From the sublime to the ridiculous: Science -> Philosophy -> Theology
What does that suggest to you?
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aiia wrote:
I love it when people don't have a clue but write anyway.
Aiia is saying (if I'm reading it correctly) that if Paisley is correct, a "non-material consciousness" should not be affected by anything that happens to the brain.
Strokes affect the brain and also affect consciouness (conscious-awareness as Paisley defines it). So either the strokes produce something that can affect the "non-material consciousness" or consiousness is a property of the physical brain.
"I do this real moron thing, and it's called thinking. And apparently I'm not a very good American because I like to form my own opinions."
— George Carlin
Okay. Just for the sake of clarity, are you claiming that the mind is separate and therefore not identical with brain?
Yes. And it is the basis for quantum indeterminacy.
Quantum indeterminacy has nothing to do with errors in measurement.
Correction. Materialism is a metaphysical position, not a scientifically validated fact. Indeed, the prevailing scientific evidence (i.e. quantum mechanics) does not support materialism.
This is simply promissory materialism. The assumption is the the universe has a material cause. "Just wait...and we will provide you with one."
And I will not afford you the luxury of simply assuming that consciousness is physical. Prove it!
I think you're missing the point here. On the materialistic worldview, the mental is completely reduced to information processing. If you cannot reproduce a "robot with consciousness," then obviously your worldview is lacking. IOW, to argue that "asking why" is not a mechanical process is to argue against materialism!
Because this is the logical conclusion of materialism.
I play to win! And the fact is that you just lost because you were not willing to accept that the worldview of materialism reduces you to nothing more than a "robot with consciousness" (an organic robot with consciousness, of course).
"Scientists animated by the purpose of proving they are purposeless constitute an interesting subject for study." - Alfred North Whitehead
And if consciousness is simply reduced to the processing of sensory data, then we should be epistemically justified to state that thermostats are consciously-aware.
"Scientists animated by the purpose of proving they are purposeless constitute an interesting subject for study." - Alfred North Whitehead
*sniff, sniff*
Ah, I love the smell of thread necro in the morning.
No, of course not. Given that there is no evidence that such is the case I do not believe it is the case. I maintain that my ultimate answer to the question of whether the brain is identical to the mind is simply 'I don't know, but it certainly seems like it comes from the brain.' Until there is actually some evidence for the existence of some non-physical aspect to the mind, I will not believe in it. Simply stating that the current physical interpretation cannot explain something and therefore proves that there is a non-physical element is nothing more than a supernaturalism of the gaps argument. Remember, disproving one hypothesis does not automatically vindicate another, to claim that it does is to invoke a false dichotomy.
Before you whine at me that I am just using a 'physicalism of the gaps' argument, I would like to point out that I am not asserting that because the supernatural description does not explain everything, which granted it doesn't as it explains nothing but merely dodges the question, this proves a physical cause. I think the mind is likely an emergent process of the physical brain because damage to the later can and does affect the former, irreversibly, and in ways that make sense based on the mind being a property of the brain, but don't make sense based on the idea of the mind being channeled through the brain, as were this the case we would not see the loss of specific memories or aspects of personality. Furthermore we would not see the ability to influence a person's choice based on physical substances.
I have a request at this point which I am fairly certain you will blatantly ignore; if the mind is a non-physical entity that is simply channeled through the brain, then explain chemical addictions and their ability to make someone choose to continue taking whatever substance they are addicted to.
Indeed it is, now this becomes funny when placed next to your next line;
You then go on to quote the wikipedia page, which reads;
What makes this funny is that you still don't understand the nature of metaphor. I grow weary of explaining it to you, however to put it as simply as I can, the ball was nothing more than a metaphor. The fact that we will never be able to determine the exact precise landing spot of the ball does not mean that the ball does not have an exact precise landing spot, merely that we cannot determine it. Likewise, I see no reason to suspect that because we can only represent the aspects of the universe described by quantum mechanics as probability distributions and possible states, that these aspects are thus nothing more than probability distributions themselves. If you contend that this is the case, explain yourself and prove it.
What promotes this from funny to hilarious is that, if quantum indeterminacy is actually a fundamental aspect of the physical universe, which seems to be the case, then this allows at least some aspect of the universe to be 'random'. This was one weakness the pre-quantum universe contained, it could not be random, were one to know every variable and have a sufficiently powerful computer at their disposal, they could predict the entire course of the universe. With quantum indeterminacy your beloved free will can be explained as nothing more than the ultimate outcome of the fundamentally random nature of micro-physics and the random fluctuations in the paths of specific particles providing a random and thus unpredictable aspect to human will.
I fully expect that you will now try to state that I am actually arguing against Materialism and for a supernatural aspect of the universe. Given that the preceding sentence was the first time in this post I have used the word material, I think you might want to actually argue against something I have written instead of strawmanning my argument.
Furthermore, you would need to explain just why this 'random' aspect of the universe requires a supernatural aspect of the universe in order to exist.
Once again, had I actually mentioned Materialism once in the text you quoted, you might actually have a point, as I did not, you do not.
Once again, point out where I mentioned materialism Furthermore, even if you can, no it isn't. It is not stating anything besides possible hypothesis and then testing them, you know, exactly what science is all about. No where did they promise to find a physical basis of the universe, merely that they were looking into what the beginning was like so they could come up with better hypothesis of what it was. To be sure, they did kind of almost assume that there was a physical aspect to the beginning of the universe. But that is excused because science is required to do that because it by definition cannot measure the supernatural and therefore cannot study it. If you don't like this a welcome you to try and explain how the supernatural could be measured.
Amazing, you actually realized I was using the word Physical instead of Material. Regardless, here is the evidence that I use to state that it seems like consciousness is physical;
1: Brain Damage can hamper specific parts of a person's personality.
2: Brain damage can remove specific memories from a person.
3: Chemical Addictions.
Given this evidence in support of the mind being a physical property of the brain and the utter lack of evidence supporting the proposition that the mind is an ethereal entity completely removed from the brain, which explanation I agree with is quite simple to deduce.
Ultimately, if you have any actual evidence to support the idea that the mind functions as a non-physical separate substance or entity separate from the brain, I suggest you present this evidence.
Yes, the mental is completely reduced to information processing, in order for it to be consciousness the entity performing this information processing must be able to dynamically write its own programs, our computers cannot yet do this, I fail to see how this is a problem.
It's ironically hilariously amazing how quickly you have switched gears. The original point about computers was arguing against your assertion that modern computers should be conscious if consciousness does not require some phantasmal supernatural glob of soul, and my statement that modern computers are not sentient was not me stating that computers will never be sentient, merely that they are not sentient now because we lack the technology to produce fast enough computers on a small enough scale and with enough parallel circuits and that we lack the programming sophistication to create self programming computers. Come on dude, we've been working on this for only the past century, Nature has had the past 6.5 Billion years or so. Give us some time.
By your logic, the inability of a medieval alchemist to produce electricity would prove that lightning was thrown by Zeus. And actually I wasn't arguing that 'asking why' is not a mechanical process, I was stating that the computer systems we have are not currently conscious because they cannot write their own programming. This is not because they are fundamentally incapable of doing such, but merely because we do not have processors of such sophistication nor programs of such dynamic adaptability as to allow it. The ironic thing is that you state that I am arguing that we won't be able to create a conscious computer when I actually gave you an example of how we could create such a thing once the technology is advanced enough, leading me to suspect that your problem is not being unable to understand my arguments but being unable to understand the English Language.
A judgment which is wholly supported by your next statement.
I'm feeling nice, so I will walk you through this little conversation;
You ask if I would be offended if or when you referred to me as a "robot with consciousness". I responded with "Not really no. Why would I." Now, if we combine this and read it right after your statement, it would seem as if I were stating that I would not be offended if you referred to me as a 'robot with consciousness'. I then follow this up with a question of 'why would I?' When placed next to the preceding statements it seems fairly evident that I am asking why I would be offended.
You then state "Because this is the logical conclusion of materialism." Now, I'm assuming you mean being called a 'robot with consciousness' is the logical conclusion of Materialism, however this doesn't seem to follow the preceding statement. I didn't ask why you would call me a robot with consciousness, I asked you why that was a bad thing. Can you answer this question?
Congratulations on playing to win, shame you cannot. Once again, I level at you that you are illiterate. Given that you have been unable to recognize that I am not in any way unable to accept the status as a robot with consciousness.
TL/DR: You are illiterate. Good day Sir.
Sufferin Suchatash! My post is almost as long as one of DeludedGod's posts. See what you made me do!
When you say it like that you make it sound so Sinister...
No matter how much you repeat that tired lie, it is still not true. The material universe can be described on some level using QM. How is that not material exactly?
No matter how much you repeat this other equally tired lie, it is also still not true. Do I need to repost a link to a description compatabilism?
"You say that it is your custom to burn widows. Very well. We also have a custom: when men burn a woman alive, we tie a rope around their necks and we hang them. Build your funeral pyre; beside it, my carpenters will build a gallows. You may follow your custom. And then we will follow ours."
British General Charles Napier while in India