BM Brain Theory vs. Neuroscience

[GrahamH]

The problem of SE is a philosopher's problem. Not a metaphysics problem, a philosopher's.

What philosophy must do is search out the problem's domain. It's assumptions must be looked at. They hardly ever are. The assumptions are always in the opening volley.

It is a little like a Zeno's Paradox. The way the problem is thought about creates the problem. The solution is to correct the thinking, not to conclude that motion is impossible, which is what LI is doing.

[SpeedOfSound]

The problem of SE is a philosopher's problem. Not a metaphysics problem, a philosopher's.

What philosophy must do is search out the problem's domain. It's assumptions must be looked at. They hardly ever are. The assumptions are always in the opening volley.

It is a little like a Zeno's Paradox. The way the problem is thought about creates the problem. The solution is to correct the thinking, not to conclude that motion is impossible, which is what LI is doing.

They keep saying that science hasn't solved the problem and it's their fucking problem to begin with. They made it up and have had 3000 years to talk about and still no fucking progress. They can't even tell us what the hell they mean by consciousness except to give us synonyms for it.

3000 years and they are still talking out of their asses.

Fuck! :pissed:

Then they come back and have the fucking gall to claim that our not solving THEIR issue is evidence for THEIR bat-shit crazy solutions.

And yes. You got that right. It's the same thing.

[The Dagda]

No, the problem is a problem caused by the erroneous assumptions giving rise to the hypothesis that there is a physical cause for consciousness or that brain activity (object) can be subjective experience.

The fact that this problem has been predicted for many years as a critical flaw in the physicalist model, and that here we are today, still stuck on the same problem, does show evidence in favour of an alternative model.

What are those erroneous assumptions and how can you show them to be so?

Who exactly is still stuck on this problem and what do a bunch of philosophers from the days when we believed in vital life forces and solid matter have to do with our thinking today?

Let's not appeal to authoritI here. Particularly those assholes.

Everything you have said in this thread is axiomatic LI. If but one of youir assumptions is worng the house of cards would come tumbling down, we don't have to attack your logic the foundations are non existent.

@SOS: in science a resort to authority is not only valid it is required to state your sources to avoid plagiarism. Philosophical principles do not apply to the scientific method. You are right though philosophers take their lead from scientists these days, see Hilary Putnam, Daniel Dennet et al, all couch there theories in solid science. I'd give it a whurl couldn't hurt unless you are a post modernists who fears science like LI appears to be.

[SpeedOfSound]

...

You have my handle on one of LI's quotes.

[SpeedOfSound]

And we know the experience is mental because we know it as a result of our mind's construction of a representation within our mind; we only experience this mind-made representation.

Let's start simple. How do you demonstrate what you claim here?

[Little Idiot]

I don't think Little idiot is going to get much out of Penrose's work, at least nothing scientific.

I was hoping he would at least understand Godel and Tarski. That all happens in the first 20 minutes. I am having a great deal of trouble listening to where Penrose goes next with the result.

Godel shows a formal symbolic language can be used to create 'truth statements' which are true, (created in that language) that can not be proved by that language. Right?

P1. There are statements in all symbolic languages which are not provable in that language.
P2. But humans can tell that they are true.
C1. Computation based on a formal languages can never fully imitate human understanding.

[Little Idiot]

The fact that I can be so confident about what neroscience can and can not demonstrate is suporting evidence for my model of 'absolute reality'.

Despite my lack of neuroscience, I am sure that this simply can not be demonstrated,

The physical model can not explain the change over from physical brain activity into subjective mental experience.
This is refered to as the thing to thought gap.

The mental model does explain the thing to thought gap with ease, which the physical model can never do.

A physical model can only assert that the brain causes awareness 'somehow' and can never establish how or why certain configurations of matter (brains) produce subjective experience.

We simply can not show how 'simple organic chemicals can produce life' nor can we show how 'complex structures produce subjective experience'

Remember the other day when I kept asking what problem you were trying to solve? This thing-to-thought gap is the problem I think. Or at least it's the one you guys like to bandy about lately like a picture of a kid riding a dinosaur.

But you cannot 'demonstrate' these absolute statements that you're making.

I am making the statements based on my metaphysical position. How, other than by establishing the metaphysical position, could I demonstrate that "there is no way for neuroscience to demonstrate <its erroneous claim>"
It can be shown as a fact upto the current time, if no demonstration has been presented; I think there is no such demonstration.

It's a metaphysical claim about the limits on neuroscience. Its not a claim made from within science about the validity of a model.

So you flat out admit that the problem you think your metaphysics solves so well is a result of your metaphysics.

More than a problem to solve you use it as your 'evidence'.

So your conclusion is your initial assumption.

Nice job.

No, the problem is a problem caused by the erroneous assumptions giving rise to the hypothesis that there is a physical cause for consciousness or that brain activity (object) can be subjective experience.

The fact that this problem has been predicted for many years as a critical flaw in the physicalist model, and that here we are today, still stuck on the same problem, does show evidence in favour of an alternative model.

What are those erroneous assumptions and how can you show them to be so?

Who exactly is still stuck on this problem and what do a bunch of philosophers from the days when we believed in vital life forces and solid matter have to do with our thinking today?

Let's not appeal to authoritI here. Particularly those assholes.

The assumptions that physical brain activity can be subjective experience, which is based on the assumption that there is a physical cause for consciousness.
They are metaphysical assumptions, shown by the metaphysics I guess.
All neuroscience is stuck at the problem, when we dirine stuck at the problem along the lines of 'can not properly explain'

[Little Idiot]

So you flat out admit that the problem you think your metaphysics solves so well is a result of your metaphysics.

More than a problem to solve you use it as your 'evidence'.

So your conclusion is your initial assumption.

Nice job.

No, the problem is a problem caused by the erroneous assumptions giving rise to the hypothesis that there is a physical cause for consciousness or that brain activity (object) can be subjective experience.

The fact that this problem has been predicted for many years as a critical flaw in the physicalist model, and that here we are today, still stuck on the same problem, does show evidence in favour of an alternative model.

Sos is right, you are guilty as charged. You assume ontological significance for subjectivity and then go on to argue that, because it has a different ontology, it can't be physical. There is no cast-iron argument that shows consciousness must be non-physical. If there were I think you would be using it now, not merely pointing out that neuroscience hasn't account for the whole thing yet.

Does your 'model' account for all the evidence of neurology? Or do you claim it doesn't need to, because "it's all mental"?

There is no simple cast iron argument. If there were the debate would not be as old as the hills.
To understand this most subtle point requires one to at least be open to the posibility that the physical world appearing to our senses is only a mental experience (which I think most of us agree with) and that therefore we have no validity in assuming the physical is primary. (which few of us are prepared to consider).

Yes my model accounts for neurology.

[GrahamH]

I don't think Little idiot is going to get much out of Penrose's work, at least nothing scientific.

I was hoping he would at least understand Godel and Tarski. That all happens in the first 20 minutes. I am having a great deal of trouble listening to where Penrose goes next with the result.

Godel shows a formal symbolic language can be used to create 'truth statements' which are true, (created in that language) that can not be proved by that language. Right?

P1. There are statements in all symbolic languages which are not provable in that language.
P2. But humans can tell that they are true.
C1. Computation based on a formal languages can never fully imitate human understanding.

Could you give an example?

[Little Idiot]

The problem of subjective experience is not a neuroscience problem. NS can and is showing us how we think, feel, enact and use consciousness. How we imagine, how we dream, how we remember. How all those things can go wrong. It is doing a damned good job of demonstrating how neurons do all of this.

Many of these are subjective experiences.

The problem of SE is a philosopher's problem. Not a metaphysics problem, a philosopher's.

What philosophy must do is search out the problem's domain. It's assumptions must be looked at. They hardly ever are. The assumptions are always in the opening volley.

NS can however teach us about our assumptions. They are in the way we think and this IS a science problem.

So science CAN inform philosophy. LittleIdiot does it every time he mentions that everything we know about things OUTSIDE our minds are representations.

Objection, just to clarify; I have never said we can experience things outside our mind. I say our experiences are representations. The physical world is outside our body, internal to our mind.

I offer the same evidence to show that everything we know ABOUT our minds are representations.

Subject to the same skepticism. Though I can show you, I believe, that they we should be even more skeptical about what we think about our minds from introspection.

All experiences, of external-to-body worlds or internal-to-mind imaginations are representations.
All IM-experiences are subject to errors in interpretation errors of the IM.

[Little Idiot]

I don't think Little idiot is going to get much out of Penrose's work, at least nothing scientific.

I was hoping he would at least understand Godel and Tarski. That all happens in the first 20 minutes. I am having a great deal of trouble listening to where Penrose goes next with the result.

Godel shows a formal symbolic language can be used to create 'truth statements' which are true, (created in that language) that can not be proved by that language. Right?

P1. There are statements in all symbolic languages which are not provable in that language.
P2. But humans can tell that they are true.
C1. Computation based on a formal languages can never fully imitate human understanding.

Could you give an example?

You mean can I prove Godels theorem?
No, not easily. But I know a man who can.
You could ask XC if you wish. Or look it up online if you wish. Or just wathch the penrose clip SoS linked - its long but Godel comes up at the start, as SoS says.
He argues exactly this point.

[GrahamH]

So you flat out admit that the problem you think your metaphysics solves so well is a result of your metaphysics.

More than a problem to solve you use it as your 'evidence'.

So your conclusion is your initial assumption.

Nice job.

No, the problem is a problem caused by the erroneous assumptions giving rise to the hypothesis that there is a physical cause for consciousness or that brain activity (object) can be subjective experience.

The fact that this problem has been predicted for many years as a critical flaw in the physicalist model, and that here we are today, still stuck on the same problem, does show evidence in favour of an alternative model.

Sos is right, you are guilty as charged. You assume ontological significance for subjectivity and then go on to argue that, because it has a different ontology, it can't be physical. There is no cast-iron argument that shows consciousness must be non-physical. If there were I think you would be using it now, not merely pointing out that neuroscience hasn't account for the whole thing yet.

Does your 'model' account for all the evidence of neurology? Or do you claim it doesn't need to, because "it's all mental"?

There is no simple cast iron argument. If there were the debate would not be as old as the hills.
To understand this most subtle point requires one to at least be open to the posibility that the physical world appearing to our senses is only a mental experience (which I think most of us agree with) and that therefore we have no validity in assuming the physical is primary. (which few of us are prepared to consider).

Yes my model accounts for neurology.

I'm open to discussing 'its all mental' or 'its all simulation' or anything else. What it comes down to is which explains the most. We can't chase 'absolute reality' so we go for maximised explanatory power.

How much of neurology can you account for so far? How much of the physical brain has significance to the mind? What is happening in a split-brain patient? Why do we have brains at all? Our heads might as well be filled with cotton wool if they aren't doing the mind stuff, don't you think?

You mean can I prove Godels theorem?
No, not easily. But I know a man who can.

No, I just mean give an example that meets P1 & P2.

P1. There are statements in all symbolic languages which are not provable in that language.
P2. But humans can tell that they are true.
C1. Computation based on a formal languages can never fully imitate human understanding.

[Little Idiot]

I am not suggesting that it is conclusive evidence, just evidence, exhibit A.

Exhibit A;
For many years idealist thought has suggested that we will never find a phyical cause for consciousness, based on a metaphysical position.
Science has developed far beyond the expectations of the original claimants.
The claim still holds good.

One possible reasonable explaination is that the claim is based on sound metaphysical position.

Idealist thought is a metaphysical position that has no support. It arose as a result of the mind/body problem. It also uses the mind/body problem as evidence for it's metaphysics.

I toss Exhibit A in the trash as hearsay.

Listen to yourself in the above quote! You are offering the metaphysical position as a reasonable explanation for the metaphysical position!

There is no metaphysical position!

You are doing it to have a laugh, right?
You cant really not understand, can you?

O.K. one more time, just incase.
I do not suggest Exhibit A is proof. Nor (full) reasonable explaination.
I suggest its a small piece of evidence, no more.
And I mentioned it in passing as evidence - I seem to recall.

There is no metaphysical position!

WTF? dont you mean 'I think your metaphysical position is wrong' or something like that?

[GrahamH]

...
Listen to yourself in the above quote! You are offering the metaphysical position as a reasonable explanation for the metaphysical position!

There is no metaphysical position!

WTF? dont you mean 'I think your metaphysical position is wrong' or something like that?

I think he means that to take a position you must first have somewhere to stand.

[Little Idiot]

...
Listen to yourself in the above quote! You are offering the metaphysical position as a reasonable explanation for the metaphysical position!

There is no metaphysical position!

WTF? dont you mean 'I think your metaphysical position is wrong' or something like that?

I think he means that to take a position you must first have somewhere to stand.

We have experience, agreed?
We have subjective experience, agreed?
We experience our own thoughts and imaginations as ideas in our own mind, agreed?
We only know our experience of the physical world as content of our mind, agreed?