Materialism - Devastator of Scientific Method! / Observer Delusion

[Nick227]

And no the scientific method does not need to address primal causes, it covers those things which are open to investigation, primal cause does not appear to be open for investigation.
.

Personally, I'd be pretty surprised if time existed outside of the workspace

 

[Mojo]

Personally, I'd be pretty surprised if time existed outside of the workspace

Outside the workspace it's usually time and a half.

 

[marplots]

Well, you can take that position. But then are you saying that millions of Christians are actually making God real? If everyone was a Christian then would God be real?

It depends. If I am omniscient, I can readily tell what's real and what isn't and all my beliefs ought to be true. But that's not the condition I find myself in. I can't step beyond my own sense of what's true to claim anything other than my own beliefs. Same with God. If Christians had anything stronger than their own beliefs, they'd probably present them and we wouldn't be using God as a good example.

We do have examples of things "becoming real" to the extent belief in them is popular. Money is a good one, since I only value it because I believe others value it, and thereby it becomes valuable. Patriotism is in the category too. Lots of "isms" become real because people believe in them.

It's hard to even talk about this stuff, because in order for any examples I give to have any force, you have to already agree they are examples of real things. I don't think I could give an example of something which wasn't real that you believe is real (or vice versa), because your belief, for you, trumps mine.

Is God real for Christians? They say he is. If you asked me, I'd say the opposite. In that sense, God is less real than potatoes, since almost everyone believes potatoes are real (even if they aren't).

The belief is real. And the behaviour associated with the belief is real. But it is a belief based on an untested assumption. As time goes by so the brain may get very attached to this belief and the associated behaviour. Maybe it can hardly even imagine life without this belief. Maybe it just totally takes it for granted - just how life is.

That's true, but does it help? I do the same thing for true as well as false beliefs. In fact, the only way I came to understand there were things such as false beliefs is because I switched sides. Other than that, I wouldn't have any basis to think I could ever be mistaken.

So what happens when a new guy comes to town and says "hey guys, there's actually no ogre in the basement. it's just empty." ?

Stone him.

Why? Because there is an intrinsic value in everyone agreeing on some set of "facts," beyond the actual reality (whatever that means) of those facts. The battleground isn't so much what's real, but what most of us believe. With luck and a good method, these might be close to the same thing.

In civilized countries, we institutionalize those who propose (and believe) in radically different realities. The yardstick is how well (or poorly) they function in the reality we generally take to be correct. Someone who has a fringe belief but who can hold a job and isn't violent we leave alone. Someone who has very radical beliefs we lock up. We say it is for their protection and ours.

I don't hold much hope for traveling back in time and trying to explain electronics to Pythagoras.

 

[Nick227]

If the relevant bits are outside the sack of meat, then they're probably not doing much perceiving.

Calling Mojo memeplex... you need an upgrade, man. At least run 2.0, then you could start wittering on about feedback loops, or equal ontological rights for all emergent phenomena. Because I don't know what you're running up there but... dearie me

 

[Nick227]

It depends. If I am omniscient, I can readily tell what's real and what isn't and all my beliefs ought to be true. But that's not the condition I find myself in. I can't step beyond my own sense of what's true to claim anything other than my own beliefs.

Well, that's not true in this case. You can pluck up the courage to actually look in the basement. Of course, it's possible you end up as a nice entree for the ogre, but hey there's a risk associated with most meaningful progress.

 

[marplots]

Well, that's not true in this case. You can pluck up the courage to actually look in the basement. Of course, it's possible you end up as a nice entree for the ogre, but hey there's a risk associated with most meaningful progress.

Oh yes, that's true. One's beliefs can be tested against other beliefs we hold. For example, I tend to believe the evidence of my senses over things I've learned indirectly - I look and no ogre is there.

On the other hand, if both beliefs are strong (I really, really trust the person who told me about the ogre), I might construct some third explanation which allows me to keep both - the ogre snuck away when he heard me coming.

 

[Nick227]

'Yep, perhaps integrated information theory is correct and it is just a matter of complexity between the cross
communicating sub-routines.'

The problem with this is that when too many things are considered conscious then the concept starts to lose its
meaning, because it means too much. It becomes redundant and should be left out of the theory altogether.

Well, I looked at Tononi's original abstract for IIT. I mean, dear god, even I can pull that apart. It's just awful. You can tell this guy's a psychiatrist. I mean it's really bad. Do people actually believe this stuff? So much assumption.

Dan Dennett must just shake his head. What can it be like to have cracked it a quarter of a century ago and then have to witness your so-called peers coming out with this nonsense, er slash insanity? And loads of people believing it? Of course there's nothing it's like to be Dan Dennett but still...

 

[Dancing David]

I'm thinking that the "self is an illusion" gambit equally invalidates any claim to perception, evidence or experience, scientific or otherwise.

That which is found to have evidence and be repeatable, is illusory evidence and repeatability. That which is believed without evidence, is illusory belief without evidence.

Still doesn't excuse "woo", be it chakras, homeopathy, reiki, auras, or belief that crystals do things by being around, other than attract dust.

It depends upon the definition of self, as long as you stick to an organic body, it is not an illusion. Things like 'mind' however....

 

[Dancing David]

This perception is occurring in this sack of meat at this time. Not some other sack of meat. That is ownership.

Who owns who?

 

[Nick227]

Same with God. If Christians had anything stronger than their own beliefs, they'd probably present them and we wouldn't be using God as a good example.

In the post-Dawkins world, The Observer has become the new God. An untested belief system prayed to daily.

 

[Kid Eager]

Does materialism spell the end for scientific method? I've been pondering this question for some time. It looks like this...

* At least 99% of modern scientific research into the brain points directly to it being the sole source of consciousness. Pretty much every aspect of conscious experience has now been tracked to brain activity.

* Consciousness emerges from brain activity. It's what neural processing actually looks like, actually is.

* If the brain is the source, or foundation, for consciousness then there cannot actually be an observing self. Though it's a pervasive and convincing phenomena it can't be real, or we'd be back in dualism. If we tell a materialist that they're going to be painlessly and instantaneously killed, and replaced with an identical copy, in theory they should be OK with it. It seems like something is going to be lost - them - but materialist logic dictates that this cannot be so in reality.

* This seeming presence of an observing self is likely therefore some highly favoured illusion resulting from millions of years of selective pressure. It's useful primarily for evolutionarily favoured tasks - finding food, shelter, sex, and avoiding predators.

* If selfhood is merely a highly favoured illusion then what does this say about some of the cornerstones of scientific method, principles and techniques used to determine the truth about things? Surely perspective is finished. Objectivity must be in quite some trouble if there is in reality no subject. Separation - got to be an illusion. Distance - sounds dubious. These concepts, so much the bare bones of our daily existence, must just be artifacts of our hunter-gatherer past, not reflections of reality. Even empiricism, perhaps not blown away, but surely weakened now.

Materialism - could it spell the end of science?

Nick

We appear to have fallen down an extremely deep and fuzzy philosophical rabbit-hole, praying to Saint Dennet, being pelted with strange phraseology and word use, and being endlessly watched by "The Observer" as we descend.

I thought I'd simplify things by returning to the original question and say "no". There's nothing in the thread that would indicate thus.

 

[MRC_Hans]

In the post-Dawkins world, The Observer has become the new God. An untested belief system prayed to daily.

Mmmm. Another one who imagines that if they use a sophisticated vocabulary to say nothing, they are somehow making sense.

Hans

 

[marplots]

In the post-Dawkins world, The Observer has become the new God. An untested belief system prayed to daily.

It's a handy idea though. If we can agree there is an authority (and this might be a method) that reaches beyond each of our own relative points of view, then we can both use it as something to appeal to. It's not just me asserting X, it's God, or science, or whatever holds sway.

There's nothing particularly alarming or underhanded about it. I try to find out some root idea we both share, and then, to convince you, try to connect my idea to this shared framework. Of course, you get a chance to do the same.

And, you know, if that fails, we can still try to murder each other.

 

[The Man]

In the same way that noticing that the man in the black suit actually has a rabbit up his sleeve. If you can watch an illusory sense of self being constructed, in this case through attending to thought narratives, and then deconstructed, you no longer believe in an observer.

Ah so “If you can watch…” then “you no longer believe in an observer”. Heck, even if you don’t or can’t watch you can still “no longer believe in an observer” and at least that maintains some semblance of self-consistency.

If that's your reality, then that's your reality. If you search your subjective awareness and find an "I" then great.

Exactly “great”, so one can examine the assumption and still find an “I”, thus the “I” doesn’t come from an unexamined assumption as you asserted.

I'm saying there's no observer of it. Observation is more tricky.

No, only “more tricky” if one wants to just be self-inconsistent.

In using language, from early childhood, we learn to tie these words together, to the point where it seems that observation must mean the existence of an observer. It doesn't.

“language, from early childhood,”?!? The words are tied together by their etymology and root meaning. All of which predate our “early childhood” considerably


http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=observation

http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=observer

http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=observe

Yes, absolutely we have a sense of those things and yes they are highly necessary to function well and get needs met. This infers only that they are favoured not that they are necessarily real.

Oh now “absolutely we have a sense of those things” before it was just an “illusory sense of self being constructed”. In what sense is a sense that we absolutely have “illusory”? A far as senses go just having the sense makes it really a sense, while again the source of that sensory information may be misattributed.

It is constructed in language, yes. And those parts are functioning, yes.
But this does not mean that the illusion they create has ontological validity.

Well, technically it is constructed in the brain as information processing (neurological impulses), language being just one aspect of that and again it is the information and processing that has “ontological validity” even if its source can at times be misattributed.

Feedback loops do not give an "I" validity in the context of being an observer.

Again as stated a feedback loop enables self-observation and so gives self-observation “validity”.

You don't feel threatened? Fair enough. That's how you are.

Well, I’ve certainly been threatened and have felt threatened at times but someone just trying to insult me doesn’t even come close.

However, perhaps you could try a little experiment. Please walk down the street to your nearest pub or bar. Go in there and say to someone "You're a complete idiot". Then, if they act defensively in any way recommend that they visit the nearest mental health clinic. Feel free to do this enough times for results to be statistically valid and report back.

Have you forgotten what your assertion was? It wasn’t that people might act defensively if insulted it was that…

“the instinctual part of the brain that's programmed to respond defensively to threats... it can't distinguish between a physical threat and an ego threat.”

So to do your experiment you would have to threaten people’s egos, threaten them physically and then see if they can distinguish between those threats. I don’t recommend you try it under uncontrolled conditions.

I'm willing to bet you have some bruises. (Unless, perhaps, it's the case that you're a 6'6" ex military type.)

Heck, even “6'6" ex military” types bruise (including their egos).

My point is that ego threats are usually treated much the same way as physical threats.

While people responding in kind (ego defense for ego threat and physical defense for physical) ain’t always the case generally people can identify different types of threats (as well as non-threats) and respond accordingly. There can also be a bit of crossover as someone might use a physical threat (feint a punch) as an ego threat by seeking a physical response (get you to flinch).

Maybe for you there are no ego threats and when you observe inside you find an actual "I" there, doing stuff and observing.

Maybe for you “when you observe inside you find” you just aren’t, well, “observing”. However that is simply being self-inconsistent.

 

[The Man]

'Does "too many things" having say energy and/or momentum make those concepts start to lose their meaning?'

No, but if I decide to introduce a new concept that's exactly the same as energy but I call it Zook, does that mean that I've discovered a new
law of nature, the law of the conservation of Zook?
If consciousness is just information organization, why have the extra concept at all? It can't actually mean anything, otherwise the first premise
is contradicted. So consciousness, following this theory, cannot be anything else than a synonym for information organization.
Hence, like Zook, it's redundant.
('too many things' wasn't a very good expression; Sometimes people use undefinable predicates that apply to anything soever, like 'all things are of God'.
Consciousness should be removed from the theory because it is just a synonym. 'all things are of God' is either trivial or meaningless.)

Again it is not just a synonym, just as there are different values and directions for energy and momentum there are also many different ways to organize and process information. Consciousness seems to be a particular kind of self-referential information processing.

Should we do away with the Dewey Decimal system, binary, how about hexadecimal or just stacking flooders on a floor as they are all just different ways of organizing information?

'It was addressing a question posed by the poster that was quoted, an aspect of actually having a discussion.'

I was meta-arguing

Hence the clarification about an actual discussion. Similarly just taking a couple of sentences out of context and not addressing the points made also isn’t actually having a discussion. Though, feel free to ‘meta-argue’ if it helps you process and organize the information.

 

[TheAdversary]

'Consciousness seems to be a particular kind of self-referential information processing.'

I argue that this is always an infinite regression, a sophisticated version of the Homunculus argument.
the 'Self-referential' part is where the regression occurs, if you actually try to write the program.
That's why I'm not convinced until you can show me the source code for something like this.

 

[TheAdversary]

Actually, I do agree that 'self-referential' seems to be an essential component of the peculiar phenomenon we call
'consciousness'.

 

[Fudbucker]

Well, I looked at Tononi's original abstract for IIT. I mean, dear god, even I can pull that apart. It's just awful. You can tell this guy's a psychiatrist. I mean it's really bad. Do people actually believe this stuff? So much assumption.

Dan Dennett must just shake his head. What can it be like to have cracked it a quarter of a century ago and then have to witness your so-called peers coming out with this nonsense, er slash insanity? And loads of people believing it? Of course there's nothing it's like to be Dan Dennett but still...

True genius is never appreciated in its time. I'm sure they'll look back and regard Dennet as the Einstein of consciousness, but for now we'll continue to soldier on exploring other theories.

 

[TheAdversary]

Memeplex 3.12.4 r12 BEGIN
If consciousness is just information organization of a peculiar, self-referential, kind,
and you can't write an actual program for this, then that's the contradiction that shows
that the first premise is false, if we hold that writing such a program ends in contradiction; turns out to be
impossible.
If the source code is not delivered on this, the materialists have not all-overthrown, as they falsely advertise.
Memeplex 3.12.4 r12 END

 

[TheAdversary]

+Fudbucker I regard Dennett's theories as beneficial delusions, containing lots of truth. And giving lots of impulse
to fields like AI that produced lots of cool stuff, but in the end there's the Homunculus in your recursion(s).
You can understand the brain better of you ignore consciousness, but you can't explain it away.