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Materialism - Devastator of Scientific Method! / Observer Delusion

Myriad said:
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."
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There's no problem with using "I" to communicate. It's a well-established social convention. Problems only arise when you believe that there really is an "I" that is observing or experiencing.
 
tsig said:
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.
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Matter can and does produce thoughts. They're not being experienced by anyone.
 
Dancing David said:
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
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I was asking Joe what he thought of the issue of neon colour spreading, which along with related optical illusions, has been trotted out for ages to illustrate the issues with the persistent belief in an essentially veridical nature of perception. Is there a place in the brain where the illusion of colour is filled in for conscious experience? That's how it usually goes.

I didn't actually say what my opinion was.

Personally, I figure that the brain's attention management system must use some form or map or symbolic schema to assign relative importance to the multiple strands of ongoing visual processing. This is how it works out what needs to be broadcast (ie made conscious) to multiple modules. If we react to a piece of rope as though it's a snake, to my mind this means there's a map of the snake somewhere in the brain.

So, personally I'd say that visual perception is a mixture of two things -

1 - this internalized mapping and
2 - ongoing neural representation of external visual stimuli

That would explain neon colour spreading, necker cubes, and all this stuff.
 
Mojo said:
Who, or what, did the programming?
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Memes.

As the brain developed and increased its capacity to receive, store and transmit ideas, this being favoured, so it also developed certain artifacts of language.

One of these is the first person perspective - I

The sense of there being an observer or experiencer is essentially the work of a memeplex. Paying attention to thought creates the illusion of someone who is thinking, who is the thinker of the thought. No one is actually thinking, but paying attention to thoughts creates the sensation that someone is. It's an illusion, a constantly reinforced, unexamined premise.
 
Dancing David said:
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.:)
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Nevertheless, at this year's Tucson Science of Consciousness Conference, an on-the-spot poll by Dave Chalmers revealed that roughly 75% of attendees still believed in a Hard Problem.

I repeat, it is only skeptics who claim that it's all understood. I don't see scientists or philosophers doing this.

Hardline materialists like Dan Dennett and Patricia Churchland absolutely admit that there are still huge issues at an explanatory level.

You might think they're all idiots, David. You might be right. You might not. But it's clear that a majority of serious researchers in this area absolutely still recognise big issues.
 
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MRC_Hans said:
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
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Agreed. That's what I meant.
 
Nick227 said:
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.
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Nope, objectivity explicitly does not rely upon on "a subject". "a limited self" you say, as opposed to an unlimited self?

Nick227 said:
Subjectivity can, and does, exist without there being an actual limited subject. Objectivity cannot exist in this way.
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Ah subjectivity without a subject, who would have guessed.



Nick227 said:
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.
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Abnormal use of language doesn't change the contradiction, as we have already been through. Again if observation is not the concept you want to use then you should find a better word related to the concept you do want to use.

So you are now asserting an abnormal or inconsistent use of language, when before you asserted that was not the case?

Again, please get back to us when you can at least agree with yourself.
 
Nick227 said:
Nevertheless, at this year's Tucson Science of Consciousness Conference, an on-the-spot poll by Dave Chalmers revealed that roughly 75% of attendees still believed in a Hard Problem.

I repeat, it is only skeptics who claim that it's all understood.
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Nobody claims it's all understood. We just claim there's no reason to think it's not material.
 
Nick227 said:
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.
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Only because your definition of an observer is the dualistic definition, which, obviously does not exist under materialism. The materialistic definition, OTOH, exists just fine,

* various researchers have pointed out just how the brain creates a sense of personal self via illusion - see Dennett and Blackmore particularly
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Again, a question of definition. If you define a perception by the brain as illusion, then fine, but so what? We nevertheless do observe.

* 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.
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Nonsense.

Hans
 
Nick227 said:
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.
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You are actually quite wrong, here. Objectivity depends on repeatability, that is, no matter who is observing, the result is the same. Including when nobody is, such as when an instrument is doing the monitoring.

Hans
 
Nick227 said:
There's no problem with using "I" to communicate. It's a well-established social convention. Problems only arise when you believe that there really is an "I" that is observing or experiencing.
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Not clearly communicating what you mean is a problem in communication.

When I use this social convention and refer to "I," I refer to an entity that observes and experiences. When you use this social convention and refer to "I," what exactly do you mean by it?
 
Or as xkcd so rightfully put it "Communicating badly and acting smug when you aren't understood is not cleverness," a statement which should be branded backwards on the head of all philosophers so they have to read it every time they look in a mirror.
 
The only thing necessary to do science is providing experiments to test hypothesis, so that the result can be duplicated. Whether the subject performing such experiments has an immaterial consciousness or not, is irrelevant.
 
Mojo said:
Turtles all the way down, innit?
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There are no IR issues with memeplex creating an sense of observing self. The problems only come, if like Dan, you choose to insist that observation must mean there's an observer.
 
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MRC_Hans said:
Only because your definition of an observer is the dualistic definition, which, obviously does not exist under materialism. The materialistic definition, OTOH, exists just fine,
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Sure. If you're cool with a memeplex running your life. You can listen and believe its BS all day.

Again, a question of definition. If you define a perception by the brain as illusion, then fine, but so what? We nevertheless do observe.
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Perception is not an illusion. Perceiver is an illusion.

Just think about it for an instant, Hans. Look at whatever is in front of you right now. How do you know someone is looking at it? How do you actually know this? How would you prove it to, say, a machine intelligence that was demanding an answer that met its strict materialist criteria, whilst it held a gun to your head?
 
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