Materialism - Devastator of Scientific Method! / Observer Delusion

[JoeMorgue]

The amount of effort people put into trying to prove they don't exist stopped bordering on silly a long time ago. It has now fully invaded silly and set up a puppet government.

What's the big "gotcha" here? That the concept of "self" isn't a single, definite concrete thing but a term applied on a practical level to a collection of thought processes inhabiting a physical body that can be broken down into individual parts in greater and greater degrees? Okay. And?

I mean do people really expect "I don't think I actually exist" to be taken seriously?

Arguing that you don't exist sorta invalidates any arguments you are making, wouldn't you say? No wait you can't say because you don't exist. So you never said it.

 

[Aridas]

You're saying that behaving as though an observer exists means it exists?

To answer that phrasing, taken as it is, not necessarily, much as the very limited scenario that would be required for it to not be the case is a bit eyeroll-worthy to bring up. To answer a question that you might have been actually asking if that question was asked honestly, if something behaves as though it actually is an observer, that certainly counts as evidence that it meets the criteria required to accurately call it an observer. Frankly, it's quite unreasonable to claim that we should just ignore such evidence, as you seem to think that we should when you tell us, apparently without any real basis, that observers are merely unexamined assumptions, unsupported by evidence. Naturally, valid evidence might maybe be able to be presented to the contrary, in any particular instance, but if you think about it even a little carefully, you'll find that disproving all observers to another would be an inherently self-defeating venture, because for another to be convinced by whatever argument, they would have to be an observer for the argument to mean anything.

There is no difference between the sense of there being an observer and being an observer.

At last check, there certainly can be. The former could count as a potential additional property of the latter or a false notion of some theoretical being that was not an observer. In practical usage, there's not much, though.

Unfortunately, for that to work, you are going to need a God! It doesn't matter how complex the brain is, it can't revoke monism.

Again, why are you invoking monism like that? All it's really sounding like is that you're invoking something that you simply don't understand.

Natural selection cannot create an actual observer. It's a physical impossibility unless you want to go back to dualism.

And this just goes back to the ever present need for you to... define "observer." Otherwise, the only valid way that this can be taken is that, despite your protests to the contrary, you seem to think that an "observer" requires some non-physical element, which would be known as a "soul" by more than a few others. Either way, under a materialist's definition, observers certainly can exist under materialism and trying to demand something not material to be the case for it to be an observer is inherently nonsensical. As it should be, frankly, given the nature of the word "observer."

One brain is aware of the illusion. The other isn't. The first has more options because it isn't just locked into objective awareness, reinforcing itself through constant referral to thought. It can utilize objective awareness but it's not dependent on it.

In today's increasingly stress-orientated world, this probably creates a survival advantage.

The second brain will likely react to the notion that there is "something it doesn't have" because it is so locked in its programming loop. It can't step outside objective reality. All it can do is tell itself stories about how objective reality is all there is, and can you prove this or that to me, trying to prove to itself that this illusory and artificial mode of interpreting perception is the only way there is!

I don't feel like dissecting this right now, honestly. Not least because it sounds like pointing out things that should probably be considered relevant would cause you to retreat further back into religion/blind faith mode. So with that, I'm done for now.

 

[asydhouse]

The sense exists. The observer doesn't.



How can you detect observation that is distinct from processing?

You really are fretting about nothing. You are chasing your tail.

Why are you so hung up on "the observer" as if it has to be a "thing"? To myself, I appear to be living my life and having experiences. It doesn't matter to me if my apparent self is just an afterthought of my brain's subsystems, a summation narrative that brings it all together into a cohesive (sometimes and sort of) juggling and dancing "consciousness". If that is the reality instead of a little gnome of "self" sitting behind my eyes, it doesn't change a thing about my experience or the meaning of my experience.

That's because I am convinced that the universe is not a god, there is no disembodied spirit or mind, nor telepathy, and I fully accept that any "meaning" in my life is of my own making, and I am fully committed to that. The universe makes more sense to me without immortal "observers" and all the other forlorn tatters of religion masquerading as "new age" hopes for magic.

Ironically, you seem to have trapped yourself in an imaginary box, and you are whirling in place fighting yourself. All you have to do is stop spinning, and step out, in any direction!

Relax! Enjoy your apparent life!

 

[Nick227]

I'm sorry, it appears you are replying to someone else's post. Your reply is not addressing what I asked you. Please read the post again and address what is being asked to you. Let me put it in a different way: Suppose what you propose is true: there is no such thing as an observer. Great. Now what? What difference does your conclusion make, when it comes to actually doing science? Give a concrete example of how your conclusion changes science. Please, no general answers or hypotheticals. Please use a specific example of a scientific experiment, to demonstrate in what way would the results change.

Frankly I think most of science should go on hold until we can better understand the principal instrument we're using to investigate - the human brain. The lack of an observer and the increasing liklihood of non veridical perception need to be factored in before we carry on mindlessly doing science in our current manner.

Neuroscience budgets up about 100 times. Space exploration and particle physics down to zero.

In the past neuroscience hadn't got to the point where it could cast huge doubt on scientific method. We had Buddhism and Plato's cave but there was nothing firm. Now we're there. The brain has to come first before we continue.

 

[Nick227]

Have you tried using the word "turtles" in your answer?

This has nothing to do with infinite regress. You are still trapped in assuming that there must be an observer. No observer equals no IR.

First find evidence for your observer then you can create these arguments. I won't wait up!

 

[Kid Eager]

This has nothing to do with infinite regress. You are still trapped in assuming that there must be an observer. No observer equals no IR.

First find evidence for your observer then you can create these arguments. I won't wait up!

Nice shell game you've got going here, but it still doesn't help homeopathy.

 

[tsig]

Frankly I think most of science should go on hold until we can better understand the principal instrument we're using to investigate - the human brain. The lack of an observer and the increasing liklihood of non veridical perception need to be factored in before we carry on mindlessly doing science in our current manner.

Neuroscience budgets up about 100 times. Space exploration and particle physics down to zero.

In the past neuroscience hadn't got to the point where it could cast huge doubt on scientific method. We had Buddhism and Plato's cave but there was nothing firm. Now we're there. The brain has to come first before we continue.

How does the lack of an observer affect gravity?

 

[asydhouse]

Frankly I think most of science should go on hold until we can better understand the principal instrument we're using to investigate - the human brain. The lack of an observer and the increasing liklihood of non veridical perception need to be factored in before we carry on mindlessly doing science in our current manner.

Neuroscience budgets up about 100 times. Space exploration and particle physics down to zero.

In the past neuroscience hadn't got to the point where it could cast huge doubt on scientific method. We had Buddhism and Plato's cave but there was nothing firm. Now we're there. The brain has to come first before we continue.

Nonsense!

Should all art also cease to be made and experienced also? Should we give up engaging with cuisine and just forage for raw plants to eat instead? Should we stop caring about what clothes we wear, or indeed should we simply cake ourselves with mud, which dries to create a wonderfully insulating protection for the skin?

Such actions would be as useful as giving up science so that all of our efforts can be put into studying our consciousness, or our brains, or whatever the hell it is you think we all should be doing instead of carrying on with all the manifestly successful activities we have been doing.

These are not rhetorical questions, by the way. I'd really like to know what you have to say, and why you think that, about these questions I have just posed to you.

Nothing I've read from you makes any sense, as you say one thing and then just pluck supposed consequences out of the air without any logical connection, as when you originally claimed that the lack of an object called a "self" meant that there was no separation between brains.

You just make a gesture towards setting up a question, and use it as an excuse to introduce unsupported arguments, and pretend that you have justified your assertions.

 

[The Man]

the sense of being an observer is the thought or feeling "I am an observer", a thought or feeling with content of being an observer;
while being an observer is being an observer.
another example . . . "I am a rich man" vs being a rich man.
So, who's having and aware of the thought "I am the observer"?

Well the observer is, but we can only establish the observer in retrospect with a thought or feeling "I am the observer" - but the thought is not the observer - we can not establish the observer directly, the observer is inferred.

Correct, "the thought is not the observer". However, being aware of the thought establishes that at least that thought has been observed and thus establishes an observer. The observer is established directly by, well, observing even if it just observing the thought "I am the observer". Similarly simply observing the thought "I am not an observer" still establishes an observer observing that thought.

 

[Hlafordlaes]

There is nothing weird about observers and observations. When attention is directed inwardly, we have subject as object, and both taken together become identity, self. Not all animals can do this, and the most visible way to show this ability is via the mirror test.

A possible way to produce an AI that is aware might be to have it conclude what robots are, including the concept of processing, then have it identify itself in a mirror as a member of the class, then have it observe its own movements to show a relation between its own routines and external events, then ask it to examine what drives those movements in terms of processing. Perhaps it may conclude subject is object and have a revelation of sorts.

 

[Ron_Tomkins]

The lack of an observer and the increasing liklihood of non veridical perception need to be factored in before we carry on mindlessly doing science in our current manner.

Ok, again: Lets say a scientist factors it in. Then what? How does that affect his process of doing science at all? You still haven't provided any specific examples of how would a scientist's results change once they factor in that there is no observer.

The computer you are using right now to read this post, happened because of science. Not a single one of the scientists and engineers that made your computer possible had to account for any philosophical question of whether or not there is such thing as an observer. And yet, their science worked. They produced a functioning machine. Which is, in the end, the only thing science cares about: results. Not philosophical nor semantic ideas. Results. Neither the computer you're using, nor the fact that you are in fact reading (a.k.a perceiving) this post, would have been possible a) Without science, and b) Without an observer. Do you realize how moot your philosophical premise suddenly becomes, when bringing it down to earth and putting it in the context of the practical world we live in?

I have asked you thrice and by now, it is clear you're not going to provide any specific examples of how your premise applies in reality. I would say, in the future, if you ever want to seriously find out whether or not you're actually proposing an idea that has any actual validity/functionality in the real world, outside of the mere philosophical masturbation of semantics, that you take the time to ask yourself how your idea would actually affect the real world at all. If you can't imagine one single concrete example of that, you know you've got nothing.

 

[Paul2]

. . . . I would say, in the future, if you ever want to seriously find out whether or not you're actually proposing an idea that has any actual validity/functionality in the real world, outside of the mere philosophical masturbation of semantics, that you take the time to ask yourself how your idea would actually affect the real world at all. If you can't imagine one single concrete example of that, you know you've got nothing.

This.

 

[Mojo]

I would say, in the future, if you ever want to seriously find out whether or not you're actually proposing an idea that has any actual validity/functionality in the real world, outside of the mere philosophical masturbation of semantics, that you take the time to ask yourself how your idea would actually affect the real world at all.

You're going to have to persuade him that the real world exists first.

 

[Mojo]

This has nothing to do with infinite regress.

You seem to be claiming that we have an illusion of an observer rather than an observer. Is there an observer observing the illusion of the observer, or just an illusion of an observer observing the illusion of the observer?

 

[MRC_Hans]

Frankly I think most of science should go on hold until we can better understand the principal instrument we're using to investigate - the human brain. The lack of an observer and the increasing liklihood of non veridical perception need to be factored in before we carry on mindlessly doing science in our current manner.

Neuroscience budgets up about 100 times. Space exploration and particle physics down to zero.

In the past neuroscience hadn't got to the point where it could cast huge doubt on scientific method. We had Buddhism and Plato's cave but there was nothing firm. Now we're there. The brain has to come first before we continue.

Well, it's a good thing this is not your call, then.

Hans

 

[Nick227]

That's quite possible. When air and water vapor molecules behave as though a tornado exists, a tornado exists. An assemblage of parts that behaves like a car must in fact be a car.

OK. So if we strap an eye motion detector to the front of a Henry vacuum cleaner and have a servo jiggle it around to follow someone's gaze.... that's an observer? This is your argument, Myriad?

 

[Nick227]

Not sure, I'd have to defer to a neurologist to identify or eliminate processing in between the two.

Defer away. They've been trying to figure this one out for decades.

 

[Nick227]

{Vast amounts of quantum babble}

A population of genes can be an observer in the physics sense. Natural selection is the observation. The same information is copied onto different genes. Genes that have certain information are fit. Unfit genes aren't copied.

Still trying to reverse engineer an observer, Darwin?

God, those quantum/fractal memeplexes can't half go on a bit, can't they? I hope you still have enough energy left to fulfill your evolutionarily derived needs.

Why not trade it in for another model?

Here are the standard responses invoked when the observer is threatened...

1.0 - if there's no observer then who's writing this post, eh? Got you there, haven't I? Tsig is modeling this one.

1.1 - the observer is the brain. Or maybe the body. Or maybe just a part of the brain. The reverse engineering approach. Quite a few running this one here.

1.12 - the observer is 14 paragraphs of quantum babble that tries to suck the life out of any attack. Your current version.

1.2 - look, the observer emerges from conscious processing like all other phenomena. The equal ontological rights approach.

You pick. Or you could look for evidence of any observer

 

[Nick227]

Ok, again: Lets say a scientist factors it in. Then what? How does that affect his process of doing science at all? You still haven't provided any specific examples of how would a scientist's results change once they factor in that there is no observer.

One reality is that all this money we're spending on science may just be trying to formulate laws about how the brain constructs neural representations.

Many branches of science may in actuality be just unconscious approaches to neuroscience.

 

[Nick227]

You seem to be claiming that we have an illusion of an observer rather than an observer.

Yes

Is there an observer observing the illusion of the observer,

No

or just an illusion of an observer observing the illusion of the observer?

No