Materialism - Devastator of Scientific Method! / Observer Delusion

[MRC_Hans]

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.

Except that it is wrong. We do have a sense of self, and since there is no other meaningful description of self than just that feeling, it is, per definition, real.

Hans

 

[JoeMorgue]

Exactly. People are acting like "science" doesn't already perfectly understand that consciousness isn't a physical thing and throwing it back in its face to prove some point that was never claimed otherwise.

I don't know were people are getting the idea that "science" thinks that everything that isn't a concrete physical object doesn't exist. Concepts of processes (which for the upteenth billionth time is all that consciousness is by any rational definition), perception, emergent processes, and other concept which aren't literal "things" are all easily understood within the scientific method.

Going up to "science" and going "Pfff. Consciousness? That isn't real! It's not like you scoop out a person's consciousness and weigh it!" and dropping the mic like you've just disproved some cherished core of it's essence is silly.

Outside of silly pedantic hair splitting the idea that something that is not physical can't be "real" within a scientific methodology is... like all the wrong.

 

[Nick227]

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."

And I'm saying that that is nonsense. My position would be that the sentence "The brain is programmed to behave as though life is happening to someone" is actually comprehensible to most people and means just what it says. Though I would agree that using the term consciousness or awareness in place of life is actually a better option to get things more clear.

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.

What others have posted in the past is up to them. This is what I'm saying... No woo. No soul. No spirit. And absolutely no observing self.

Either way, to generally point out, likely again, why you're failing so badly to convince any posters here.

Aridas,

Do you believe that someone is reading this post? That there is an observing self called Aridas that is doing the reading?

If you answer No, then all cool. What are we really discussing?

If you answer Yes, then hopefully you can get a glimpse of what materialism is up against here. Instinctual Blindness.

 

[Nick227]

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.

No, that's not what I'm saying. I'm not denying the validity of any perceived phenomena. I'm pointing out that the observer does not actually fit into any category of conscious phenomena.

If we use Ned Block's terms, phenomenal consciousness and access consciousness, I'm saying that this observer does not exist in either. What exists is the sense that it exists. What exists is the belief that it exists. What exists is the behaviour as though it exists.

The observer is akin to an unexamined assumption.

For most purposes, social and survival purposes, this does not matter. Having the belief and behaviour of an observer, or an experiencer, are fine. Just believing and behaving a certain way can get the job done.

But when you try to establish the actual veracity of scientific method you need to take into account the actual absence of an observer. It means that objectivity does not actually exist. There are no actual subject-object boundaries because there is no actual subject.

 

[Nick227]

Except that it is wrong. We do have a sense of self, and since there is no other meaningful description of self than just that feeling, it is, per definition, real.

Well, this would all be just great and wonderful, bar at least 3 problems...

* an observing self cannot exist under monist materialism. You are thrown straight into dualism, at least property dualism.

* various researchers have pointed out just how the brain creates a sense of personal self via illusion - see Dennett and Blackmore particularly

* the construction of this sense of an observer can be subjectively witnessed. So your position becomes rather like that of a small child insisting that rabbits can materialise out of thin air, because he's attending a magic show. Once you can spot that the magician has a rabbit up his sleeve, the magic is over.

 

[The Man]

Here we go again with the same self-contradictory nonsense.

But when you try to establish the actual veracity of scientific method you need to take into account the actual absence of an observer. It means that objectivity does not actually exist. There are no actual subject-object boundaries because there is no actual subject.

Lack of a subject does not eliminate objectivity it eliminates subjectivity. Again subjectivity is something various testing standards such as calibration, double blind and reproducibility attempt to reduce.

* the construction of this sense of an observer can be subjectively witnessed. So your position becomes rather like that of a small child insisting that rabbits can materialise out of thin air, because he's attending a magic show. Once you can spot that the magician has a rabbit up his sleeve, the magic is over.

No subjects means nothing can be “subjectively witnessed”. Your position remains simply and explicitly self-contradictory.

Again claiming to witness the construction of the rabbit inside the hat means that it wasn’t up the magician’s sleeve. You are still confusing, now perhaps deliberately, the illusion (how the rabbit gets into the hat) with the rabbit (the sense of self).

Please get back to us when you can at least agree with yourself or if self-contradiction is just your goal, then own it.

 

[Nick227]

[emoji14]opcorn1

As good as the "beam me up, scotty" debate?

 

[Myriad]

No, that's not what I'm saying.

That's not what who is saying?

You consistently refer to some entity (in this particular case, one that is apparently capable of saying things) you call "I." When called on it you say it's merely a linguistic convention.

Okay, then explain how that linguistic convention applies. Use as many words as necessary to explain exactly what you actually do mean when you say "I."

 

[JoeMorgue]

This is getting more and more dangerously close to solipsism.

"You doesn't exist" doesn't make any kind of sense on any level. It's one of those inherently broken concepts that shouldn't be able to survive it's own creation.

I think what's happening is people are trying to "Straw Vulcan" the entire concept of science by claiming it can't deal with a linguistic non-definitive concept like personal identity which is, again, like all the wrongs.

 

[The Man]

This is getting more and more dangerously close to solipsism.

"You doesn't exist" doesn't make any kind of sense on any level. It's one of those inherently broken concepts that shouldn't be able to survive it's own creation.

I think what's happening is people are trying to "Straw Vulcan" the entire concept of science by claiming it can't deal with a linguistic non-definitive concept like personal identity which is, again, like all the wrongs.

Well as I noted before depersonalization, the sense of standing outside yourself, is something one can experience.

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

Cannabinoids being a class of compounds that can result in such sensations.

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

It is also a defense mechanism.

On the less clinical and more sociological or philosophical side the denial of self is thought to lead to more empathy and connection to both others and the universe as a whole.

However and still, it does nothing against the scientific method as removing the influence of the self as well as other non-relevant subjective influences (like say the location of the experiment or the particular set of equipment used) is part of the experimental process.

 

[tsig]

Well, this would all be just great and wonderful, bar at least 3 problems...

* an observing self cannot exist under monist materialism. You are thrown straight into dualism, at least property dualism.

* various researchers have pointed out just how the brain creates a sense of personal self via illusion - see Dennett and Blackmore particularly

* the construction of this sense of an observer can be subjectively witnessed. So your position becomes rather like that of a small child insisting that rabbits can materialise out of thin air, because he's attending a magic show. Once you can spot that the magician has a rabbit up his sleeve, the magic is over.

This is what I am getting from your posts:

"Matter cannot produce thoughts which are immaterial."

Why you think science rules out a 'you', is still a mystery.

 

[Dancing David]

It's not necessary for it. It's necessary to attribute significance to it.

The sole criteria for significance of the scientific method is that it can measure the accuracy of a theory.

Objective awareness - the subject-object perspective - emerges from a non-dual base as the mind attends to thought narratives. It's a platform, essentially, from which one can create perspective and make pronouncements.

More bad theory on your part, it is a by product of the way teh brain works, no foolish meta philosophy needed.

It's very useful, but it's not real.

I think you interpretation of words is overly idiomatic.

Science is a fine tool for fiddling around with things to make life better. But a line is crossed when scientists assert that objectively evaluated strategies are inherently more useful than subjectively evaluated ones. This is because the significance attributed to objective evaluation relies on an illusory construct to be meaningful.

More crap that science doesn't say, the problem is you want to defend irrational ideas and when someone actually tries to discuss the basis for the use of treatments that are irrational and not evidence based, you ignore them.

Such treatment may have comfort value and palliative value

 

[Dancing David]

Joe,

So, you're saying there's a place in the brain where a pale blue circle appears? Yes? That pale blue circle that seems to be present is actual neural activity? This is what you're saying, yes?

[qimg]http://mesosyn.com/mental8-11a.gif[/qimg]

Where else would they appear, do you have any evidence of sensation and perception absent a brain.

Somehow I doubt you don't care to read research on perception , do you?

If you I am sure there is mention of it

 

[JoeMorgue]

This is what I am getting from your posts:

"Matter cannot produce thoughts which are immaterial."

Which is silly since it's basically arguing that a thing can't create a process.

Again this is all like arguing that a computer, which is a physical thing, can't run a program because a program is "immaterial."

 

[Mojo]

And I'm saying that that is nonsense. My position would be that the sentence "The brain is programmed to behave as though life is happening to someone" is actually comprehensible to most people and means just what it says. Though I would agree that using the term consciousness or awareness in place of life is actually a better option to get things more clear.

Who, or what, did the programming?

 

[LarryS]

This is getting more and more dangerously close to solipsism.

Correct - and the driving reason why we are dangerously close to solipsism is because we can't find evidence of consciousness in the physical world, and lack an account of how consciousness emerges from the brain - what we do find is various degrees of complex behaviors which may or may not be attended by consciousness. No one here is claiming that consciousness does not emerge from the brain - but without an account of how consciousness emerges from the brain, a claim that it does is lazy and effectively useless. Currently the claim is: given a living brain, whir/whir/whir some magic/miracle occurs and voila consciousness emerges, and as long as the theory relies on woo, the threat of solipsism will always be there.

 

[Dancing David]

No, making a claim without even a working explanation is woo, or God does it

So there are perceptions, yes or no?
There are sensations, yes or no?
There are cognitions , yes or no?

The fact that neurologists and others use the term consciousness in a testable fashion all the time means what?



Now if I ask you to define consciousness, will it match the one neurologists use?

 

[JoeMorgue]

Correct - and the driving reason why we are dangerously close to solipsism is because we can't find evidence of consciousness in the physical world, and lack an account of how consciousness emerges from the brain.

That is, again, 100% across the board false.

It's seriously like people have just made a conscious (no pun intended) decision to ignore the entire science of neurology in the last... couple of centuries basically.

I'm sorta thinking Dancing David is on to something in that it's getting obvious that people aren't meaning the same thing when they say "consciousness."

There is no level of human mental functioning, regardless of what you want to call it, that our current scientific understanding doesn't have a fairly firm enough grasp on to make this level of philosophical hand wringing and hair splitting reasonable.

I'm seriously are people just using "consciousness" as some pseudo-science codeword for soul or spirit?

 

[Dancing David]

Correct - and the driving reason why we are dangerously close to solipsism is because we can't find evidence of consciousness in the physical world,

Um what?

how are we talking about it then?

and lack an account of how consciousness emerges from the brain

I suppose you don't read anything about neurology and brain functions, there is plenty of research into the sub parts of the rubric of 'consciousness'

Are you aware of it?

- what we do find is various degrees of complex behaviors which may or may not be attended by consciousness. No one here is claiming that consciousness does not emerge from the brain - but without an account of how consciousness emerges from the brain, a claim that it does is lazy and effectively useless. Currently the claim is: given a living brain, whir/whir/whir some magic/miracle occurs and voila consciousness emerges, and as long as the theory relies on woo, the threat of solipsism will always be there.

That is a great strawman, I suggest you just use PubMed to check one small area of 'consciousnesses'

'attention neurology'
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/?term=attention+neurology

You will see some general over view pieces but some very substantial focused studies on small aspects that are part of the word 'attention'



My point being this:

'consciousness' is a large rubric of a term that contains many sub parts, even in the medical definitions it will contains sub categories which are very broad, levels of arousal, attention, recall, orientation.

Now each area there are many sub areas, such as 'attention' which contains different stimuli, processing, memory, pattern matching, recall and expression.

So when someone says 'we don't have model of how the brain produces consciousness' the question then invariably becomes 'define consciousness' , we do have a very fair understanding of a single component like visual sensations becoming visual perceptions, but my guess is that the use of the word 'consciousness'

define consciousness that science does not have a model for please.

 

[Nick227]

Lack of a subject does not eliminate objectivity it eliminates subjectivity. Again subjectivity is something various testing standards such as calibration, double blind and reproducibility attempt to reduce.

No. Lack of a subject eliminates objectivity. Objectivity relies on not everything being an object. It relies on there being a limited self, a subject, which is observing objects.

Subjectivity can, and does, exist without there being an actual limited subject. Objectivity cannot exist in this way.

No subjects means nothing can be “subjectively witnessed”. Your position remains simply and explicitly self-contradictory.

No. It is self-contradictory only linguistically, as we've already been through. In the usual use of language, I agree that it makes no sense to say that there's observation but no observer. However, that is how it is, normal use of language regardless.