Materialism - Devastator of Scientific Method! / Observer Delusion

[IanS]

Joe,

Who, in this thread, is saying that science isn't going to figure it out? Take a look. I can't see anyone saying this, though maybe I missed something.

What I'm saying is that science hasn't got there yet. Which, if you care to actually read studies and keep up to date, is what all the scientists are saying also.

Go and actually read something or watch the annual Tucson Science of Consciousness conference on YouTube or whatever. No one is saying we've got it all figured out.

There are lots of problems which science has not yet "fully" solved (whatever "fully" might reasonably mean to anyone). We don't yet know precisely how the first transitions occurred from what we might call "non-living" to "living" (the distinction may in fact be mostly semantic anyway). Though there are plenty of quite sophisticated potential explanations that are matters of current research. And similarly, we don't yet have a really solid explanation of how the inflationary stage of the Big Bang occurred, though again there are plenty of papers in the physics research literature describing how that might have arisen through inescapable random field fluctuations (a so-called "universe from Nothing", where "nothing" does not mean the total absence of absolutely everything, because that now appears to be physically impossible in quantum field theory).

So there are always countless areas of research where someone could quite uselessly complain that "that science hasn't got there yet". That's a completely worthless complaint.

However, what science can do, and what it does all the time, is to conduct research in all these areas, and slowly step-by step as we get more observations, and more data, and more explanations etc. etc., eventually science constructs a reasonable working "hypothesis" that many in a particular field will agree with or largely agree with .... and then eventually after a great deal more work in countless other related fields, we end up with enough confidence in the tested hypotheses, that one particular explanation becomes a "theory". That's how science makes steady, careful, accurate progress in genuinely explaining how anything really works (at least, that is the way educated experts agree upon the "correct" explanation).

But if you mean that "science has not got there yet" for an explanation of whatever is supposed to be meant by a word like "conciousness", then the very first thing you should note is that it's not an area of hard-science. It's not a problem in physics, chemistry or maths, where really accurate explanations are presented in very highly refined "theories", such as QM or QFT or GR. Ideas about something called "conciousness" are presumably the sort of things studied in what theoretical physicists would probably regard as rather more speculative areas or less precise areas of fringe sciences concerned with brain function or human development or whatever (none of which is my field of science ... but I'm just saying that ideas about conciousness, whilst that seems to have been a fascination of philosophers for hundreds if not thousands of years, is very far removed from the more rigorous areas of mathematical physics that are attempting to explain the Big Bang and the origin of the universe etc.).

None of which shows how the methods of science have somehow been "devastated" by some philosophical word-argument.

 

[MRC_Hans]

Nope. Which reinforces my point.

It does? Tell me, what exactly IS your point?

So, you're saying that there is a qualitative difference between conscious and non-conscious processing at a neural level? Or what exactly? How are conscious and non-conscious processing distinguished at a neural level?

AFAIK, they take place in different parts of the brain, but I'm not a neuroscientist. Read up on the suject if you wanna know.

How come you demand that everybody else explain everyting exactly, while I have asked you several times what your claims really ARE, and you keep ignoring it?

Hans

 

[MRC_Hans]

Reading and response are taking place inside the brain, as far as I know. This does not mean that the brain is a "someone"

Then what do you claim 'someone' IS?

Hans

 

[Nick227]

AFAIK, they take place in different parts of the brain, but I'm not a neuroscientist. Read up on the suject if you wanna know.

I have. They don't know. This is what I'm telling you.

* The brain is not a someone.

* We don't know how consciousness emerges from brain activity (if indeed emergence actually is what's happening)

* You know precisely jack about consciousness research.

 

[Nick227]

Then what do you claim 'someone' IS?

Hans

There is no someone. It's an illusion.

 

[JoeMorgue]

There is no someone. It's an illusion.

You really expect a little meaningless Zen Koan like this to "devastate" the entire concept of how science operates?

What do you mean there is "No someone?"

Just because something is a concept and not a concrete physical thing with dimensions and mass doesn't mean it's a Woo concept that science isn't compatible with.

 

[Nick227]

You really expect a little meaningless Zen Koan like this to "devastate" the entire concept of how science operates?

It undermines the value and authority of science.

And, you're right, "devastates" is stating it a bit strong. Fair enough. I actually used the word "undermines" for the thread on the Skeptics Society forum, but here I put it out differently.

 

[calebprime]

 

[Aridas]

Sure, I have no problem with that. At least, the rest of the body plays a significant role in shaping the 'someone'. OTOH, people who have lost the practical use of most of their body still seem to remain roughly the same 'someone', whereas people who have lost most of their brain function do not. So I would still hold that the brain is the absolute protagonist here.

Hans

For reference, I was speaking more directly about the effects of hormones, especially from malfunctioning glands, and similar things that more directly affect the brain's function and thus can directly affect who the someone is than I was than I was talking about the loss or lack of the practical use of however much of their body and how that can contribute to shaping who a person is.

 

[tsig]

Well, I've never said science can't explain it, or if I did then just in the temporal sense, as in it can't explain it right now. I can't be arsed reading all the posts but I don't recall anyone else saying that science can't ever explain consciousness. I've said science hasn't explained it yet.

I do feel it would help if you would actually read the posts instead of just reacting as though everyone is some mad alternative type. As I've pointed out to you... actually your arguments are more woo than that of any new-ager. You're making claims for science that no scientists are making.

To the Nick227 who doesn't think an "I" exists:

You really need to get together with the Nick227 who posted the above, I think you two need to talk.

 

[Aridas]

Utter rubbish.

Even if we rephrase as the brain is programmed to behave as though consciousness, or awareness, is happening to someone - what is so non-standard?

Do you not believe right now that there is someone reading these words? Is that a non-standard someone?

What, exactly, do you think "life" and "someone" are, really, if they are not arbitrary labels that we assign when particular sets of phenomena seem to be the case? For that matter, take another peek at what you actually quoted before trying to argue as if I claimed that the brain is not at all programmed to behave as though consciousness is happening to something. What I said is far more along the lines of "Even if that is true, that cannot help your case unless you're redefining things to mean something unknown, which would invoke other problems." Going further, the phrasing and what followed very strongly suggest that you're either trying to define life in a distinctly not useful way (as certain posters here have in the past when they've argued that having a soul is a requirement for "life" and that if we are just a collection of biochemical processes, we do not have life) or trying to define "someone" out of usefulness without any real regard for how it's actually being used in the cases that you're arguing against, as seems to be what you've been doing from the start.

Either way, to generally point out, likely again, why you're failing so badly to convince any posters here. "Someone," in context, generally just means a person. "Person" is, admittedly, a word that has been used in many ways in various cultures and times, but in relevant usage, can be effectively treated to be along the lines of a particular set of physical traits, given that the potential social aspects are fairly irrelevant here. When you are arguing that there is no someone, you're arguing that those physical traits are not the case. You've done so without any real attempt to say which of these physical traits are not actually the case, as far as I've seen, and just arbitrarily declared that we should accept that we should not call something a strawberry even if it has all of the relevant characteristics of what we call a strawberry and has been called a strawberry fairly ubiquitously in our experience. If you had solid reason why it was wrong to call it that based on the relevant characteristics, your case might actually have a chance, incidentally. You have nothing of the sort, though, based on what I've read of your arguments. Going past that, then, you're trying to use what we rather must consider to be a distinct misuse of the word to justify various conclusions that couldn't be supported by that even if we accepted that using your attempted redefinition had any value.

 

[JoeMorgue]

Going past that, then, you're trying to use what we rather must consider to be a distinct misuse of the word to justify various conclusions that couldn't be supported by that even if we accepted that using your attempted redefinition had any value.

It's sad and telling how many of these "(Insert philosophy here) proves that science doesn't work!" threads that we keep having rely on this, trying to wring some grand mystery of the universe out of some minor linguistic nuance.

There's no hidden message that reveals the answer to life, the universe, and everything in the fact that human languages developed on a practical, day to day level and therefore breaks down a little when we try to use it on certain esoteric topics.

 

[tsig]

It's sad and telling how many of these "(Insert philosophy here) proves that science doesn't work!" threads that we keep having rely on this, trying to wring some grand mystery of the universe out of some minor linguistic nuance.

There's no hidden message that reveals the answer to life, the universe, and everything in the fact that human languages developed on a practical, day to day level and therefore breaks down a little when we try to use it on certain esoteric topics.

Any sufficiently complex language can produce self contradictions. Philosophy uses these quirks of language to tie itself in nots.

 

[IanS]

It's sad and telling how many of these "(Insert philosophy here) proves that science doesn't work!" threads that we keep having rely on this, trying to wring some grand mystery of the universe out of some minor linguistic nuance.

There's no hidden message that reveals the answer to life, the universe, and everything in the fact that human languages developed on a practical, day to day level and therefore breaks down a little when we try to use it on certain esoteric topics.

In all of these threads where people try to present what they think are credible philosophical arguments trying to make some claim to a "different way of understanding" that some how transcends or trumps science (there are numerous such threads here), it seems to me that the philosophical side is constantly trying to use semantics, i.e. arguments based on the meaning of various words, and in fact often based upon what philosophers claim such words to mean, in order simply to claim that philosophy is either somehow superior to science for some realistic purpose or other, or to claim that science and scientists are somehow wrong & ignorant in what they are doing or in what they present as "Theories", on the basis that there are so-called "other ways of knowing" for which their philosophy apparently claims to be the master of all before it.

Or to put it more simply - it's as if philosophy posters here (and it seems many philosophy lecturers, on YouTube at least) have had there proverbial noses bent severely out of joint by the success of science, and are trying to protect the academic subject of philosophy from being further superseded by science. And their method of trying to do that is to (a) make utterly infantile un-evidenced claims about such things as a "brain in a Vat" or about "reality being un-real", and trying to prop up such pathetically silly word-arguments by (b) attempting to fudge absolutely every conversation with a mass of gobbledygook semantics.

Meanwhile, and fortunately for everyone else on planet Earth (everyone except those particular types of philosophers), real research scientists rarely if ever waste their time getting into such nutty discussions about so-called "philosophy".

 

[MRC_Hans]

Meanwhile, and fortunately for everyone else on planet Earth (everyone except those particular types of philosophers), real research scientists rarely if ever waste their time getting into such nutty discussions about so-called "philosophy".

Really, I don't think this is jmuch so, outside of us armchair scientists and armchair philosophers bickering on internet forums.

Mostly it works so that philosophy gets the ideas, and science sorts the chaff from the wheat. Of course, those that happened to produce some chaff can get annoyed from time to time.

Hans

 

[MRC_Hans]

For reference, I was speaking more directly about the effects of hormones, especially from malfunctioning glands, and similar things that more directly affect the brain's function and thus can directly affect who the someone is than I was than I was talking about the loss or lack of the practical use of however much of their body and how that can contribute to shaping who a person is.

Quite agree. Pardon the fairly lame analogy, but while a computer's CPU is doing the central job, it depends on simple things like the cooling fan doing its job.

http://www.medical-jokes.com/all-the-parts-of-the-body-argued-over-who-would-be-boss/

Hans

 

[MRC_Hans]

Reading and response are taking place inside the brain, as far as I know. This does not mean that the brain is a "someone"

So what do YOU claim is 'someone'?

Hans

 

[MRC_Hans]

There is no someone. It's an illusion.

Who is the one having the illusion? Can a non-observer non-someone entertain an illusion?

Hans

 

[MRC_Hans]

It undermines the value and authority of science.

How? So it is something you refuse to call a someone doing the science. Fine, I think we can live with that.

And, you're right, "devastates" is stating it a bit strong. Fair enough. I actually used the word "undermines" for the thread on the Skeptics Society forum, but here I put it out differently.

Yeah, a bit of trolling,

Hans

 

[Paul2]

What, exactly, do you think "life" and "someone" are, really, if they are not arbitrary labels that we assign when particular sets of phenomena seem to be the case? For that matter, take another peek at what you actually quoted before trying to argue as if I claimed that the brain is not at all programmed to behave as though consciousness is happening to something. What I said is far more along the lines of "Even if that is true, that cannot help your case unless you're redefining things to mean something unknown, which would invoke other problems." Going further, the phrasing and what followed very strongly suggest that you're either trying to define life in a distinctly not useful way (as certain posters here have in the past when they've argued that having a soul is a requirement for "life" and that if we are just a collection of biochemical processes, we do not have life) or trying to define "someone" out of usefulness without any real regard for how it's actually being used in the cases that you're arguing against, as seems to be what you've been doing from the start.

Either way, to generally point out, likely again, why you're failing so badly to convince any posters here. "Someone," in context, generally just means a person. "Person" is, admittedly, a word that has been used in many ways in various cultures and times, but in relevant usage, can be effectively treated to be along the lines of a particular set of physical traits, given that the potential social aspects are fairly irrelevant here. When you are arguing that there is no someone, you're arguing that those physical traits are not the case. You've done so without any real attempt to say which of these physical traits are not actually the case, as far as I've seen, and just arbitrarily declared that we should accept that we should not call something a strawberry even if it has all of the relevant characteristics of what we call a strawberry and has been called a strawberry fairly ubiquitously in our experience. If you had solid reason why it was wrong to call it that based on the relevant characteristics, your case might actually have a chance, incidentally. You have nothing of the sort, though, based on what I've read of your arguments. Going past that, then, you're trying to use what we rather must consider to be a distinct misuse of the word to justify various conclusions that couldn't be supported by that even if we accepted that using your attempted redefinition had any value.

I think Nick227 is saying that the sense of self that humans have is an illusion.

But it's unclear how a cognitive concept like a sense of self can be an illusion when there is no outer objective reality to the concept to compare it to, which is what is needed to conclude that it's an illusion.

It's like saying a picture of an apple is an illusion because it's not really an apple.

I think that's what's going on.