This is disgusting [modified]
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Erroneous to whom? The discussion is mind. Not God. And whether it is solely a physical component and whether there can only be physical components. You cannot provide empirical evidence that there is only a physical component to mind. And you cannot provide empirical evidence that a being such as the concept of God represents does not exist. Its a fool's quest.
This statement is false
Ask a general question, get a general answer. You asked generally about beliefs. Yes, some beliefs are erroneous. A schizophrenic may believe that they are the King of England. This belief is not correct.
Synaptrik wrote:
You cannot provide empirical evidence that there is only a physical component to mind.
I absolutely can, and it's suggested by Ravel's posts - that there are discrete aspects of what we would consider personality affected in a predictable way when that part of the brain is lesioned. That the complexity of the brain is consistent with the complexity of human behaviour. Etc. All of that is certainly empirical evidence. It's nice, however, that because you, from your vast worldly experience, have decreed that the pursuit of a genuine understanding of human behaviour and personality is a 'fool's quest.' I'll give that opinion all due consideration.
- F
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Fisticuffs wrote:
it's my guess that there is absolutely no empirical evidence that anyone could produce that would convince you
Sounds familiar.
Gary Kirkham Forever Forgiven and Alive in the Spirit "Truly, truly, I say to you, he who hears My word, and believes Him who sent Me, has eternal life, and does not come into judgment, but has passed out of death into life. Me blog, You read
So I'm right? Because I could certainly offer a bunch of criteria for what I would accept as empiric evidence for God; for instance, rigorous studies suggesting that miraculous healings can occur when appealing to one deity but not another, based on the widely-held belief that God answers prayers.
- F
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Ravel H. Joyce wrote:
You surely don't really believe that
I believe anyone who thinks they've got it all figured out shows a paucity of imagination.
Ravel H. Joyce wrote:
You can't just say that something undetectable exists, is intrinsically tied to clumps of neurons and violates numerous laws of physics by prompting uncountably many nerve impulses, just because
Nor can you say it doesn't, just because. An absence of proof is not an absence of truth.
Ravel H. Joyce wrote:
You also can't criticise me because I don't believe you.
I can do anything I want along those lines, but you probably need to take any criticisms I offer, or that anyone else offers, a little less seriously.
Jon Smith & Wesson: The original point and click interface
Oakman wrote:
paucity
You love that word.
Oakman wrote:
I believe anyone who thinks they've got it all figured out shows a paucity of imagination.
I don't think I've got it all figured out. But I do think I'm closer to doing so than someone completely incapable of accepting that they might be wrong. And before you say anything, no, I'm not too stubborn to recognise that I might be wrong about something - it just takes more than empty rhetoric to convince me.
Oakman wrote:
Nor can you say it doesn't, just because. An absence of proof is not an absence of truth.
I can say that it almost certainly doesn't exist, at least not in the way that these guys are talking about. It being there would violate just about every law of nature that I can think of; entire fields of science would have to be completely reformulated. Why would I favour or give equal ground to that idea when I could go with the one consistent with the anatomy and physiology of the brain?
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Can you prove that you are not really dreaming this experience? Empirically? Leave some mystery to life. Not everything has to have a rational explanation. There's a proverb, Sufi I think, that suggests that if you remove all of the falsities from your reality, you might find yourself left with nothing. Take it as you will.
This statement is false
Synaptrik wrote:
Can you prove that you are not really dreaming this experience? Empirically?
No. That's because the question is formulated in such a way as to be unfalsifiable.
Synaptrik wrote:
Leave some mystery to life. Not everything has to have a rational explanation. There's a proverb, Sufi I think, that suggests that if you remove all of the falsities from your reality, you might find yourself left with nothing. Take it as you will.
So you think I should cloak myself in fantasy and ignorance? The Auroras are beautiful; they're even more beautiful when you know how they work.
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Synaptrik wrote:
Your sig is.
My sig is what?
Gary Kirkham Forever Forgiven and Alive in the Spirit "Truly, truly, I say to you, he who hears My word, and believes Him who sent Me, has eternal life, and does not come into judgment, but has passed out of death into life. Me blog, You read
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Fisticuffs wrote:
it's my guess that there is absolutely no empirical evidence that anyone could produce that would convince you
Sounds familiar.
Gary Kirkham Forever Forgiven and Alive in the Spirit "Truly, truly, I say to you, he who hears My word, and believes Him who sent Me, has eternal life, and does not come into judgment, but has passed out of death into life. Me blog, You read
Gary Kirkham wrote:
Sounds familiar.
How very open-minded of you. This is what religious extremism is made from.
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Gary Kirkham wrote:
Sounds familiar.
How very open-minded of you. This is what religious extremism is made from.
Ravel H. Joyce wrote:
How very open-minded of you.
How does that make me closed-minded? He made a statement to me that I have made to people like you, therefore it sounded familiar.
Ravel H. Joyce wrote:
This is what religious extremism is made from.
:laugh:
Gary Kirkham Forever Forgiven and Alive in the Spirit "Truly, truly, I say to you, he who hears My word, and believes Him who sent Me, has eternal life, and does not come into judgment, but has passed out of death into life. Me blog, You read
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Jesus loves you, why do you keep rejecting Him?
Gary Kirkham Forever Forgiven and Alive in the Spirit "Truly, truly, I say to you, he who hears My word, and believes Him who sent Me, has eternal life, and does not come into judgment, but has passed out of death into life. Me blog, You read
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So what is it? If it's not matter, then why is it so strongly affected by chemicals and yet completely undetectable? If I were to take a clump of neurons and carefully, one by one, wire them together like they are in the brain, at what point do they have a mind?
Ravel H. Joyce wrote:
If it's not matter, then why is it so strongly affected by chemicals and yet completely undetectable? If I were to take a clump of neurons and carefully, one by one, wire them together like they are in the brain, at what point do they have a mind?
On the other hand, if some particular arrangement of matter can generate a mind, why not some other arrangement of matter? What is so magical about neurons and chemicals? You are still left with the essetial issue of what are the precise physical components necessary to produce a conscious mind. If a neuron can be conscious, why not a rock? And if two neurons are required to produce consciousness, where does the mind actually exist? In the neurons? In the chemicals passing between them? In the electrons passing through them? In the electro-magnetic fields generated? Where the hell is it?
Chaining ourselves to the moral high ground does not make us good guys. Aside from making us easy targets, it merely makes us idiotic prisoners of our own self loathing.
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Gary Kirkham wrote:
I am not convinced that the "mind is simply the sum of the chemical reactions occurring in your body."
Just out of curiosity - hypothetically speaking, what evidence would you require to be convinced of this?
- F
The association between physical properties and mental states does not prove anything one way or another beyond the fact that we experience consciousness in association with certain physical parameters. There is absolutely no scientific theory that explains the conscioius state sufficiently that we could, for example, reliably duplicate it in some other physical form. And if the mind is purely a mechanistic phenomenon, one would assume that it would be fairly easy to explain in purely mechanistic terms given our current understanding of the physics and chemistry underlieing organic processess.
Chaining ourselves to the moral high ground does not make us good guys. Aside from making us easy targets, it merely makes us idiotic prisoners of our own self loathing.
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Ravel H. Joyce wrote:
If it's not matter, then why is it so strongly affected by chemicals and yet completely undetectable? If I were to take a clump of neurons and carefully, one by one, wire them together like they are in the brain, at what point do they have a mind?
On the other hand, if some particular arrangement of matter can generate a mind, why not some other arrangement of matter? What is so magical about neurons and chemicals? You are still left with the essetial issue of what are the precise physical components necessary to produce a conscious mind. If a neuron can be conscious, why not a rock? And if two neurons are required to produce consciousness, where does the mind actually exist? In the neurons? In the chemicals passing between them? In the electrons passing through them? In the electro-magnetic fields generated? Where the hell is it?
Chaining ourselves to the moral high ground does not make us good guys. Aside from making us easy targets, it merely makes us idiotic prisoners of our own self loathing.
Stan Shannon wrote:
On the other hand, if some particular arrangement of matter can generate a mind, why not some other arrangement of matter? What is so magical about neurons and chemicals?
I see no particular reason why not. It's just that neurons are so good for it. And, uh, pretty much everything is made of chemicals - that's what's so magical about them.
Stan Shannon wrote:
You are still left with the essetial issue of what are the precise physical components necessary to produce a conscious mind.
Yes, I am.
Stan Shannon wrote:
If a neuron can be conscious, why not a rock?
A neuron isn't conscious. Consciousness is a process arising from the interaction between neurons. Many neurons.
Stan Shannon wrote:
And if two neurons are required to produce consciousness, where does the mind actually exist? In the neurons? In the chemicals passing between them? In the electrons passing through them? In the electro-magnetic fields generated? Where the hell is it?
I have actually said this before, but the mind isn't like a tumour that just sits there. It's akin to asking where the light is in a light bulb.
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Ravel H. Joyce wrote:
How very open-minded of you.
How does that make me closed-minded? He made a statement to me that I have made to people like you, therefore it sounded familiar.
Ravel H. Joyce wrote:
This is what religious extremism is made from.
:laugh:
Gary Kirkham Forever Forgiven and Alive in the Spirit "Truly, truly, I say to you, he who hears My word, and believes Him who sent Me, has eternal life, and does not come into judgment, but has passed out of death into life. Me blog, You read
Gary Kirkham wrote:
How does that make me closed-minded? He made a statement to me that I have made to people like you, therefore it sounded familiar.
Ah, OK. You weren't very clear. I thought you were referring to the prejudice that you undoubtedly harbour against cognitive neuroscience.
Gary Kirkham wrote:
Laugh
Seriously.
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The association between physical properties and mental states does not prove anything one way or another beyond the fact that we experience consciousness in association with certain physical parameters. There is absolutely no scientific theory that explains the conscioius state sufficiently that we could, for example, reliably duplicate it in some other physical form. And if the mind is purely a mechanistic phenomenon, one would assume that it would be fairly easy to explain in purely mechanistic terms given our current understanding of the physics and chemistry underlieing organic processess.
Chaining ourselves to the moral high ground does not make us good guys. Aside from making us easy targets, it merely makes us idiotic prisoners of our own self loathing.
Stan Shannon wrote:
The association between physical properties and mental states does not prove anything one way or another...
It is certainly highly suggestive, though.
Stan Shannon wrote:
There is absolutely no scientific theory that explains the conscioius state sufficiently that we could, for example, reliably duplicate it in some other physical form.
It takes a supercomputer to emulate a mouse brain. It's not something you can just write an algorithm for and stick it in a pocket calculator.
Stan Shannon wrote:
And if the mind is purely a mechanistic phenomenon, one would assume that it would be fairly easy to explain in purely mechanistic terms given our current understanding of the physics and chemistry underlieing organic processess.
It's not a complete mystery, you know. There is a great deal that we DO know about the brain. But more work is still needed. I have faith.
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Stan Shannon wrote:
On the other hand, if some particular arrangement of matter can generate a mind, why not some other arrangement of matter? What is so magical about neurons and chemicals?
I see no particular reason why not. It's just that neurons are so good for it. And, uh, pretty much everything is made of chemicals - that's what's so magical about them.
Stan Shannon wrote:
You are still left with the essetial issue of what are the precise physical components necessary to produce a conscious mind.
Yes, I am.
Stan Shannon wrote:
If a neuron can be conscious, why not a rock?
A neuron isn't conscious. Consciousness is a process arising from the interaction between neurons. Many neurons.
Stan Shannon wrote:
And if two neurons are required to produce consciousness, where does the mind actually exist? In the neurons? In the chemicals passing between them? In the electrons passing through them? In the electro-magnetic fields generated? Where the hell is it?
I have actually said this before, but the mind isn't like a tumour that just sits there. It's akin to asking where the light is in a light bulb.
Ravel H. Joyce wrote:
Consciousness is a process
Is it? Who says?
Ravel H. Joyce wrote:
arising from the interaction between neurons. Many neurons.
How many? Why would the number be important? Does consciousness suddenly 'emerge' when you have 683,234 neurons plus 1? If a billion neurons can be conscious, why not two? Does a house fly have a mind? It has a brain after all.
Ravel H. Joyce wrote:
It's akin to asking where the light is in a light bulb.
No, its akin to asking how the light got into the light bulb in the first place.
Chaining ourselves to the moral high ground does not make us good guys. Aside from making us easy targets, it merely makes us idiotic prisoners of our own self loathing.
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The association between physical properties and mental states does not prove anything one way or another beyond the fact that we experience consciousness in association with certain physical parameters. There is absolutely no scientific theory that explains the conscioius state sufficiently that we could, for example, reliably duplicate it in some other physical form. And if the mind is purely a mechanistic phenomenon, one would assume that it would be fairly easy to explain in purely mechanistic terms given our current understanding of the physics and chemistry underlieing organic processess.
Chaining ourselves to the moral high ground does not make us good guys. Aside from making us easy targets, it merely makes us idiotic prisoners of our own self loathing.
The simple fact is that consciousness (alertness as a function of the brainstem, awareness as a function of the cortex) and complex behaviour (cortical) is well explained by the physical properties of the brain. It's really easy to posit that OOH THERE'S SOMETHING ELSE... SOMETHING MAGICAL AND YOU CAN'T PROVE OTHERWISE and leave it at that like the good armchair pseudo-scientist you are but that doesn't make any difference to anyone, doesn't aid in understanding human behaviour, and doesn't help anyone in any way. Good for you! And another resounding "good job" on discreetly moving your goalposts to impossibleville so that it's not just necessary to have a good enough understanding of the brain to conclude that the brain sufficiently explains the "mind" but somehow scientists also have to REPLICATE it in a lab setting. Ahh, memories of creationist logic. Take ten trillion neuronal connections and replicate it in a lab. Yeah, THEN I'm sure you'll accept without question that there's no secret/magical/invisible mind beyond the brain. Sure. Besides, the onus is on you to demonstrate your hypothesis. In science (as you well know), demonstration is the responsibility of the proponent, because you can do what you just did and make it impossible to sufficiently demonstrate a negative. You say the brain isn't everything, so what are the testable properties of the "mind" that remain after a lesion and are INCONSISTENT with the emergent properties of the neurons lost by the lesion? Go ahead.
- F
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Ravel H. Joyce wrote:
Consciousness is a process
Is it? Who says?
Ravel H. Joyce wrote:
arising from the interaction between neurons. Many neurons.
How many? Why would the number be important? Does consciousness suddenly 'emerge' when you have 683,234 neurons plus 1? If a billion neurons can be conscious, why not two? Does a house fly have a mind? It has a brain after all.
Ravel H. Joyce wrote:
It's akin to asking where the light is in a light bulb.
No, its akin to asking how the light got into the light bulb in the first place.
Chaining ourselves to the moral high ground does not make us good guys. Aside from making us easy targets, it merely makes us idiotic prisoners of our own self loathing.
Stan Shannon wrote:
Is it? Who says?
How about we call it a 'thing that happens'?
Stan Shannon wrote:
How many? Why would the number be important? Does consciousness suddenly 'emerge' when you have 683,234 neurons plus 1? If a billion neurons can be conscious, why not two? Does a house fly have a mind? It has a brain after all.
The exact number probably doesn't matter overly. It's a qualitative function depending not strictly on number but how intricately they can interconnect. Obviously with more neurons there are more connections. In the human brain there is something like 100 billion neurons, each one being able to connect to about 7000 other neurons. The number of synapses is in the order of hundred trillions to quadrillions. That's a LOT of pathways, and certainly hints at how something as complicated as consciousness could arise.
Stan Shannon wrote:
No, its akin to asking how the light got into the light bulb in the first place.
OK, equally as ridiculous.
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The simple fact is that consciousness (alertness as a function of the brainstem, awareness as a function of the cortex) and complex behaviour (cortical) is well explained by the physical properties of the brain. It's really easy to posit that OOH THERE'S SOMETHING ELSE... SOMETHING MAGICAL AND YOU CAN'T PROVE OTHERWISE and leave it at that like the good armchair pseudo-scientist you are but that doesn't make any difference to anyone, doesn't aid in understanding human behaviour, and doesn't help anyone in any way. Good for you! And another resounding "good job" on discreetly moving your goalposts to impossibleville so that it's not just necessary to have a good enough understanding of the brain to conclude that the brain sufficiently explains the "mind" but somehow scientists also have to REPLICATE it in a lab setting. Ahh, memories of creationist logic. Take ten trillion neuronal connections and replicate it in a lab. Yeah, THEN I'm sure you'll accept without question that there's no secret/magical/invisible mind beyond the brain. Sure. Besides, the onus is on you to demonstrate your hypothesis. In science (as you well know), demonstration is the responsibility of the proponent, because you can do what you just did and make it impossible to sufficiently demonstrate a negative. You say the brain isn't everything, so what are the testable properties of the "mind" that remain after a lesion and are INCONSISTENT with the emergent properties of the neurons lost by the lesion? Go ahead.
- F
I agree. :) Except...
Fisticuffs wrote:
ten trillion neuronal connections
I heard 100 trillion at least. ;P
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I agree. :) Except...
Fisticuffs wrote:
ten trillion neuronal connections
I heard 100 trillion at least. ;P
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You're a biochemist, right?
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The simple fact is that consciousness (alertness as a function of the brainstem, awareness as a function of the cortex) and complex behaviour (cortical) is well explained by the physical properties of the brain. It's really easy to posit that OOH THERE'S SOMETHING ELSE... SOMETHING MAGICAL AND YOU CAN'T PROVE OTHERWISE and leave it at that like the good armchair pseudo-scientist you are but that doesn't make any difference to anyone, doesn't aid in understanding human behaviour, and doesn't help anyone in any way. Good for you! And another resounding "good job" on discreetly moving your goalposts to impossibleville so that it's not just necessary to have a good enough understanding of the brain to conclude that the brain sufficiently explains the "mind" but somehow scientists also have to REPLICATE it in a lab setting. Ahh, memories of creationist logic. Take ten trillion neuronal connections and replicate it in a lab. Yeah, THEN I'm sure you'll accept without question that there's no secret/magical/invisible mind beyond the brain. Sure. Besides, the onus is on you to demonstrate your hypothesis. In science (as you well know), demonstration is the responsibility of the proponent, because you can do what you just did and make it impossible to sufficiently demonstrate a negative. You say the brain isn't everything, so what are the testable properties of the "mind" that remain after a lesion and are INCONSISTENT with the emergent properties of the neurons lost by the lesion? Go ahead.
- F
Firstly, I'm no more a creationist than are you. But the simple fact of the matter is that there exists no theory which explains consciousness. There is no means of reducing the phenomenon down to more basic properties. We can explain every other phenonmenon of nature down to the level of the quark. But we cannot do that with what is going on in our own brains. No one can say "if I take property X and combine it with property Y, I will generate a conscious state!". There is no mathematical formula that defines it, no chemical equation which models it. Nothing. I fully support continueing scientific exploration into the the nature of the mind, but I will never accept any explaination that cannot explain the phenomenon in terms of more basic physical properties. How does a quark cause consciousness? That is what I want to know.
Chaining ourselves to the moral high ground does not make us good guys. Aside from making us easy targets, it merely makes us idiotic prisoners of our own self loathing.