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Materialism - Devastator of Scientific Method! / Observer Delusion

NotEvenWrong said:
I peeked into your other thread to get a better idea of what you are talking about, and maybe this has been addressed, but this (from the first post):



doesn't seem to follow. Why do you think the brain cannot cause an "observing self"? Wondering if you're getting at something like this(?):

According to materialism, matter (and its interactions, and possibly other physical phenomena -- i.e. physicalism -- are primary). Mind is secondary and caused by material interactions. Therefore mind is an epiphenomenon. This is called epiphenomenalism in philosophy of mind. By definition an ephiphenomenon cannot affect the primary phenomenon (in this case, mind cannot affect matter). Therefore since the mind doesn't actually DO anything (and cannot do anything according to the materialism view of consciousness (or observer)), doesn't cause anything, and cannot interact with anything downstream, it doesn't actually exist. i.e. the only consistent view from a materialist is that "self" is an illusion and isn't real. Is that what you're trying to say?

Of course then materialism can say epiphenomena are real, they just don't actually interact with anything or do anything and aren't (directly) measurable... but that seems to contradict how most (all?) materialists define "real" and "exist".

I don't have a strong opinion either way and perhaps there is an obvious way out of this; I'm just wondering if that's what you're trying to argue...
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At this point, who knows. Nick introduced "God" into the discussion, then berated people for responding to that. His description of the brain as observer seems to obviate his claim that there is no observer, and so on.

What the point is, well, you tell me.
 
I feel like he may be conflating observer in terms of quantum mechanics and observer in terms of philosophy of mind. I don't quite understand what he's getting at yet either.
 
It just sounds to me like one can focus the brain to observe it's own performance and be cognizant and aware of it's actions, habits and patterns.

Call it what you will.
 
abaddon said:
Your notional observer, which you claim does not exist, is indistinguishable from what the brain actually does.
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Yes, it's an aspect of what the brain does. A very tiny aspect. That's to say it creates the sense of there being an observer.

But look, do you agree no one experiences neural processing? Yes? Does this affect neural processing? No, it doesn't.

This sense of there being an observer, this observer illusion, is at best merely a binding agent to hold forms of neural representations together. This is about the only actual possible function I can see for it, aside of it presenting one easy format through which to communicate about neural representations.
 
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Ron_Tomkins said:
I think you're confusing two things: Yes, it is true that individual subjectivity gets in the way of perceiving the world as it objectively is.
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Ron,

No one is perceiving. It's an illusion. Useful for communication, but not real. Now... where is objectivity without a limited subject?
 
Nick227 said:
Yes, it's an aspect of what the brain does. A very tiny aspect. That's to say it creates the sense of there being an observer.
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And that is different from an actual observer in what way?

Nick227 said:
But look, do you agree no one experiences neural processing? Yes? Does this affect neural processing? No, it doesn't.
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Nope. Because we can detect what is observed.

Nick227 said:
This sense of there being an observer, this observer illusion, is at best merely a binding agent to hold forms of neural representations together. This is about the only actual possible function I can see for it, aside of it presenting one easy channel by which to communicate.
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Unevidenced claim is unevidenced.
 
NotEvenWrong said:
I feel like he may be conflating observer in terms of quantum mechanics and observer in terms of philosophy of mind. I don't quite understand what he's getting at yet either.
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I think the postulate is that because we don't understand how subjective experience works in the brain, it can't possibly have a naturalistic observation.
 
Ron_Tomkins said:
Also, Nick, I should let you know that you're doing a classical behavior that a lot of posters do here, where they start opening threads where they're basically repeating the same philosophy. You don't need to do that. It would be better if instead of opening thread after thread to try to convince us of your personal philosophy,
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Hi Ron, I'm not opening thread after thread. Usually I do one or two a year. I just felt that the original motivation behind the Devastator one was a bit in the way. I'm actually sincerely interested in evaluating how a No Observer model of consciousness might be. And you never know when something interesting might come up. Nick
 
godless dave said:
I think the postulate is that because we don't understand how subjective experience works in the brain, it can't possibly have a naturalistic observation.
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One thing I'm pointing out is that trying to understand subjective experience as neural behaviour is unlikely to get too far if you're proceeding from the assumption that there must be an observer of conscious experience.

You are inevitably going to be left with explanatory gaps, or a general feeling of dissatisfaction with any theory, because you're trying to get the theory to prove something which doesn't actually exist!
 
In a nutshell: An eyeball cannot see itself, therefore sight is an illusion and the visible world cannot be assumed to exist as seen. Also therefore, homeopathy because reasons.
 
IanS said:
No, we want you (I asked you) to produce evidence showing that human beings do not exist.



It's your claim (apparently). So ... where is your evidence showing humans don't exist?
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The OP's assertions seem to be based on solipsism. Can someone with knowledge of philosophy comment? Seems like if you want to discount the scientific method there's no need to pass through materialism on your way there. Thanks.


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ferd burfle said:
The OP's assertions seem to be based on solipsism. Can someone with knowledge of philosophy comment? Seems like if you want to discount the scientific method there's no need to pass through materialism on your way there. Thanks.


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Certainly, there is a hefty dose of solipsism in there. What it means? Not even the OP is able to express it.
 
NotEvenWrong said:
According to materialism, matter (and its interactions, and possibly other physical phenomena -- i.e. physicalism -- are primary). Mind is secondary and caused by material interactions. Therefore mind is an epiphenomenon. This is called epiphenomenalism in philosophy of mind.
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Not Even Wrong... just to mention that not many people take epiphenomenalism seriously these days. Certainly it does't represent the major body of materialist thought on consciousness.
 
Nick227 said:
One thing I'm pointing out is that trying to understand subjective experience as neural behaviour is unlikely to get too far if you're proceeding from the assumption that there must be an observer of conscious experience.

You are inevitably going to be left with explanatory gaps, or a general feeling of dissatisfaction with any theory, because you're trying to get the theory to prove something which doesn't actually exist!
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So... it seems like you are saying that, according to materialism, things like qualia don't actually exist. So trying to explain qualia in terms of neurons and their interactions (a material foundation) won't get very far since according to materialism qualia don't exist in the first place?

I think you still may need to show that materialism implies qualia cannot "actually exist". It could be an epiphenomenon, for instance.
 
Nick227 said:
One thing I'm pointing out is that trying to understand subjective experience as neural behaviour is unlikely to get too far if you're proceeding from the assumption that there must be an observer of conscious experience.
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Why?
 
abaddon said:
Certainly, there is a hefty dose of solipsism in there. What it means? Not even the OP is able to express it.
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Solipsism means that only you exist. I'm saying the opposite! It's what Dave Chalmers terms Type A Materialism.
 
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Nick227 said:
Not Even Wrong... just to mention that not many people take epiphenomenalism seriously these days. Certainly it does't represent the major body of materialist thought on consciousness.
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Strawman. Nobody brought it up but you. Same as "god" was not in the discussion until you brought it up.
 
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