Materialism - Devastator of Scientific Method! / Observer Delusion

[marplots]

I don't think a sense of self is rare at all.

A monkey sees a tiger and shouts out his alarm call. Other monkeys respond by climbing higher into the trees. A dog flinches when you raise your hand, anticipating getting smacked. Lots of examples, not only of observations, but reactions that suggest the observation is about "me." I'm not just worried about tigers and getting smacked, I'm trying to prevent those things from happening "to me."

Now, whether that "me" is the fully-developed, human style "me" being argued against, I cannot say. But it sure seems like there's more going on here that needs explaining. Even if it's tossed away as "just instinct," that only means that a sense of self could be instinctual in some animals.

 

[Belz...]

Because under materialism it's just a processor.

Still an observer.

 

[godless dave]

No, a "someone" means an I - a sense of a user or persisting self. We say "I observe". I mean the term in the context in which it's used.

A standard defence (from the memeplex!) is to try and reverse-engineer by verbal means some form of observing self, which is compatible with materialism. People say - Uhm, but what if the body is the observer? Well, how about the brain? Come on, there's got to be a way I can wriggle out of this! Some verbal trickery, surely.

How is that verbal trickery? Human brains have evolved to interact with the environment, including the ability to observe and model that environment.

 

[Dancing David]

Because that is not what it is. Emergents are not observed by the processing system that generates them. There is not a place in the brain where observation is taking place. A triangle is not observed by the three matchsticks arrayed to form it.

Wow, so just a bad analogy is all you have?

The sense organs generate sensations, sent through nerves to the brain areas taht create perceptions.

None of which keeps them from being observations, and due to the invalid nature of some perceptions instruments can be helpful.

So how exactly does the fact that Rutherford used perceptions to see the scintillation on the screen when alpha particles scattered from the target nullify the fact that it was an observation.

Please elucidate the train of reasoning that says the perception of scintillation's observed numbers varying dependent upon the scattering angle of the emitter and the target is not an 'observation'.

 

[Paul2]

Perhaps the issue here is the difference between an observer ontologically/metaphysically and an observer considered operationally.

It seems to me that science only needs a observer operationally to work.

 

[tsig]

Fair point. It wasn't a great example.




The only alleged observer I've heard about is the human one. So I can't say there's some kind of majority here.

I would say that consciousness is most certainly emerging from, or intimately associated with, highly complex physical systems. Absolutely. And, in a sense, the observer is an aspect of this consciousness. But what I'm pointing out is that the way the observer emerges is via illusion, trickery.

So, it might be, as you point out, mega-handy for all sorts of things. There's no doubt it would be hugely favoured. But it doesn't in reality exist.

Yes, it does.

Argument by assertion is easy.

 

[tsig]

No, a "someone" means an I - a sense of a user or persisting self. We say "I observe". I mean the term in the context in which it's used.

A standard defence (from the memeplex!) is to try and reverse-engineer by verbal means some form of observing self, which is compatible with materialism. People say - Uhm, but what if the body is the observer? Well, how about the brain? Come on, there's got to be a way I can wriggle out of this! Some verbal trickery, surely.

The way I see it, if you really want to wriggle out of it, you can. For a start you can say - well, if materialism asserts that there can be no observer, then how can there be a materialist? True enough. It's a back door, but of course then you're left in a loop.

I prefer to just examine the concept directly as it manifests.

By your argument the hilited does not exist.

 

[Fudbucker]

Why can a sufficiently complex processor not in principle observe the material it processes? That would be a useful attribute for a processor to possess.

Any processor, no matter how advanced, is simply an arrangement of switches regulating electron flow.

How can a collection of switches do anything other than switch on and off? It would take an outside observer to infer anything beyond switching behavior (i.e., some emergent property) in any computational device. I'll give you an example:

Take two sentences:
1. Obama is president.
2. maaOb si isperednt.

Both contain the exact same letters, both contain the same amount of information, yet one is meaningful and one isn't. Only an outside observer can assign meaning. An arrangement of on/off switches is no different.

 

[marplots]

Any processor, no matter how advanced, is simply an arrangement of switches regulating electron flow.

How can a collection of switches do anything other than switch on and off? It would take an outside observer to infer anything beyond switching behavior (i.e., some emergent property) in any computational device. I'll give you an example:

Take two sentences:
1. Obama is president.
2. maaOb si isperednt.

Both contain the exact same letters, both contain the same amount of information, yet one is meaningful and one isn't. Only an outside observer can assign meaning. An arrangement of on/off switches is no different.

I think you have it backwards. The meaning is captured in on-off switches, so long as the switches themselves have a context. The statements you list are different because they trigger different switches when I read them. This is just like when a sensor on my skin feels "hot." The meaning of the message is that that switch only turns on when "hot" is around.

In my view, "assigning meaning" is merely flipping one set of switches rather than another.

 

[Nick227]

How is that verbal trickery? Human brains have evolved to interact with the environment, including the ability to observe and model that environment.

For me you're still implying a dualism with your last half sentence. Absolutely we've learned to interact with the environment and responding to visual cues is a big part of that. But you don't need an observer for most of that. You only need an observer for thought-based processing or communication relating to the interaction. So the brain constructs the sense of there being one, as previously mentioned. But it's not real under materialism, merely that the sense of there being one is useful for some tasks.

 

[Nick227]

By your argument the hilited does not exist.

Its existence is usage dependent, is what I said.

 

[Nick227]

Perhaps the issue here is the difference between an observer ontologically/metaphysically and an observer considered operationally.

It seems to me that science only needs a observer operationally to work.

You mean you have to consider context and function? If so I agree.

If there's a need to communicate with someone, where's the problem if my mind constructs a user illusion to assist this? There's no problem.

But then if I start believing that this user illusion is actually real... then in some situations I'm going to run into trouble!

This type of self, a mental self, is a memeplex. It crawls into the brain, metaphorically, and succeeds in convincing it that it's the mind's owner. The squatter starts behaving as a landlord. And it offers stuff. Hey dude! it says. You want get laid? I can help. You want to communicate? I'm your man! You want to know truth? Well... uhm, how about more sex instead?

 

[godless dave]

For me you're still implying a dualism with your last half sentence. Absolutely we've learned to interact with the environment and responding to visual cues is a big part of that. But you don't need an observer for most of that. You only need an observer for thought-based processing or communication relating to the interaction.

Or modeling for the purpose of planning ahead or testing scenarios.

So the brain constructs the sense of there being one, as previously mentioned. But it's not real under materialism, merely that the sense of there being one is useful for some tasks.

In what way is it not real? Why can't something observe and model something that it's part of?

I can write computer code that tells the processor to look at the code it's running and change that code, and that's just a computer.

 

[Fudbucker]

I think you have it backwards. The meaning is captured in on-off switches, so long as the switches themselves have a context. The statements you list are different because they trigger different switches when I read them. This is just like when a sensor on my skin feels "hot." The meaning of the message is that that switch only turns on when "hot" is around.

In my view, "assigning meaning" is merely flipping one set of switches rather than another.

How is meaning "captured in on-off switches"? And how do switches have a context? Doesn't it take some outside observer who's capable of assigning meaning and viewing things in context to say that switch pattern X-Y-Z is meaningful while pattern A-B-C is just noise? Do you think the switches could assign meaning to themselves? How would that work?

 

[marplots]

How is meaning "captured in on-off switches"? And how do switches have a context? Doesn't it take some outside observer who's capable of assigning meaning and viewing things in context to say that switch pattern X-Y-Z is meaningful while pattern A-B-C is just noise? Do you think the switches could assign meaning to themselves? How would that work?

By captured, I'm saying that meaning isn't "assigned" at all, but embodied. So, for example, the pixels you are reading are a type of on/off switch which produces a pattern that is meaningful, whether or not anyone reads it. The meaning is the pattern itself, whether we recognize it as triggering another pattern or whether it seems random.

If the objection is then that to be meaningful, the pattern has to be "meaningful to me" then it seems the "me" is introduced after the pattern has been created, not before. But that's fine, so long as we start the argument by saying we only want to address things that are meaningful (cause some response) to a particular type of observer. It's just that doing so takes us away from the general case and forces the tautology - an observer is needed because that's what I'm allowing meaningful to mean.

 

[The Man]

How is meaning "captured in on-off switches"? And how do switches have a context? Doesn't it take some outside observer who's capable of assigning meaning and viewing things in context to say that switch pattern X-Y-Z is meaningful while pattern A-B-C is just noise? Do you think the switches could assign meaning to themselves? How would that work?

Actually it just takes a program or wiring. Pattern X-Z-Z starts subroutine or cycle Q while A-B-C triggers noting or perhaps an alarm state. Switches that can rewire themselves can alter that wiring and thus can create and alter associations. In a neurological sense it works as pathways that get utilized often tend to reinforce while those that don't get used tend to deteriorate.



https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synaptic_plasticity

 

[Kid Eager]

Actually it just takes a program or wiring. Pattern X-Z-Z starts subroutine or cycle Q while A-B-C triggers noting or perhaps an alarm state. Switches that can rewire themselves can alter that wiring and thus can create and alter associations. In a neurological sense it works as pathways that get utilized often tend to reinforce while those that don't get used tend to deteriorate.



https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synaptic_plasticity

Complex monitor-control loops in particular do the same thing. Control actions in each subordinate loop are trying to optimize sub-processes for a result controlled and measure by the master loop.

 

[The Man]

Complex monitor-control loops in particular do the same thing. Control actions in each subordinate loop are trying to optimize sub-processes for a result controlled and measure by the master loop.

Yep, I thought about a link to reinforcement learning for the program control side of this but decided to just stick with the neurological end as the master loop would be considered an outside observer to the subordinate loop.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reinforcement_learning

Perhaps here we have the disconnect, the outside environment acts as an external observer (again at least in the material sense). Reinforcing some actions and deterring others. One might step in front of a car expecting the driver to stop. A reliance on the drivers "self" controlling the encounter. Physically though, car generally beats person so without that reliance it is inadvisable.

 

[Fudbucker]

By captured, I'm saying that meaning isn't "assigned" at all, but embodied. So, for example, the pixels you are reading are a type of on/off switch which produces a pattern that is meaningful, whether or not anyone reads it. The meaning is the pattern itself, whether we recognize it as triggering another pattern or whether it seems random.

If the objection is then that to be meaningful, the pattern has to be "meaningful to me" then it seems the "me" is introduced after the pattern has been created, not before. But that's fine, so long as we start the argument by saying we only want to address things that are meaningful (cause some response) to a particular type of observer. It's just that doing so takes us away from the general case and forces the tautology - an observer is needed because that's what I'm allowing meaningful to mean.

So suppose all intelligent life in the universe vanished. Would books still be meaningful? Would art? How would brushstrokes of paint on canvas embody meaning?

We've covered this ground before in the "world of the simulation" discussions. I'm in the camp that a simulation of a tornado is meaningless without someone to give it meaning. Without someone to observe it, it's just pixels flashing on and off.

 

[Belz...]

Its existence is usage dependent, is what I said.

That makes no sense.