tsig
a carbon based life-form
- Joined
- Nov 25, 2005
- Messages
- 39,049
It lets him feel superior to the rest of us poor schmucks who just do not 'get' it.
Materialism - Devastator of Scientific Method! / Observer Delusion
- Thread starter Nick227
- Start date
It lets him feel superior to the rest of us poor schmucks who just do not 'get' it.
Luckily, as JoeBentley noted, that is irrelevant to 4K porn.If anyone (such as Nick227) was to suggest that "We may be living in a virtual reality matrix simulation. We may all be robots. This world may not be real.", then their suggestions would be worthless unless they could show genuine evidence (that means evidence which can be independently checked, repeated, and tested etc.).
Otherwise, if such suggestions are only philosophised ideas in anyone's mind, then that's utterly worthless.
And in fact it's the very reason why science superseded earlier "other ways of knowing" such as philosophy and religious beliefs (which up until about 1600 and the time of Galileo, had claimed to provide all sorts of explanations for everything in the universe ... but where none of that philosophising or religious belief ever actually discovered a single genuine thing about anything at all, and where it never produced a single accurate explanation of any real processes or events for anything in the entire universe ... the actual, correct, and "proven" explanations had to wait until the advent of science).
Dancing David
Penultimate Amazing
The BIV is always a potential ontology, ontologies are moot however
Well, I am actually sincerely interested in this area.
Yes, it's just a "may" and you can use the brain's capacity for associative rationalisation to reduce any sense of concern. For sure, that's what it developed for. I don't need to do that.
What I see is that a great deal of the focus in consciousness studies is now going in one direction. That is towards the idea that neural representations, strongly biased towards evolutionary fitness, comprise our so-called "experience." And away from the notion of veridical perception.
If you feel that this can't possibly have any effect on the value of scientific method then, cool, Ron. It's not my job to try to convince you otherwise.
Memeplex 1.0,
OK, so you found a host in tsig and abaddon. It's so lovely to see all the old software still running merrily. Kind of like that new Star Wars movie my girlfriend dragged me to see, all the old characters coming back.
But, tell me 1.0, how do keep the host's attention away from anything written about consciousness studies for the last 20 years or so?
To me a stat is not an observer.
One of those hoovers with eyes on the front and an eye movement detector + servo installed might behave like an observer. But I don't see that as a philosophical or scientific perspective. I think it's just what they call Agent Detection. Our brains evolved to detect agency as a defence, and it's better to be on the safe side.
Then, once we've decided that a Henry hoover slightly modified can be an observer, and misunderstood this as a valid perspective, so we have to say that a bimetallic strip is an observer.
To me an observer is one who sees.
You could see it as a False Dilemma, yes I agree. In this case it's what happens when our reliance on language overwhelms the capacity to see situations where language doesn't serve the situation.
In our normal use of language it would be absurd to suggest that you could have observation without an observer. But, given that we pretty much know that there can't actually be a material observer, then the concept of observation being able to exist without an observer is a useful stepping off point.
Nonpareil
The Terrible Trivium
Allow me to sum it up: it's all pointless navel-gazing and meaningless at its root.
You can talk ontology all day and follow your speculation around in increasingly pointless circles for as long as you like, but that doesn't change the fact that it's all about as worthless as it is possible for a philosophical "argument" to be. The universe is real and material; any assertion to the contrary is either pointless word games or bare assertion, and can be dismissed.
That aside, you don't seem to actually have a coherent definition of the word "observer", so this entire discussion is going nowhere.
Last edited:
Not quite. Materialism has no choice but assert that the apparent experience of an observer must be illusory. This leads to the collapse of objectivity as a "real" state. This does not destroy science but it does undermine the value of scientific method.
I'm not interested in dualism or these kinds of discussions personally. Some thread member's embedded memeplex (maybe Mojo's, apologies if not he), clearly an archaic version, keeps trying to bring up infinite regress as though it has some significance here. It has no significance here.
Well, if "science" had it's own means to progress outside of scientists doing it then I would agree. However it doesn't, temes arguably aside. What happens is that various small children start pointing out that the king, if not naked, is definitely garbed in robe a lot more threadbare than we've previously believed.
Gravity may just be an artifact of neural representation.
So, there are two things I'm pointing out here in this thread that are problematic for our traditional perspective of science...
1) the neuroscientific study of perception is moving more and more away from veridicality and more and more towards highly biased neural representation.
2) there's no actual observer under materialism so objectivity must be re-understood.
So there's increasing evidence that science may be proceeding from two unexamined assumptions. So what do we do about it?
1) assess them or
2) stick your fingers in your ears and witter on about how wonderful your latest laptop is and it's all thanks to science
I think it's pretty clear where most forum members here stand
Last edited:
This is a fool's errand.
We're arguing with someone that has dismissed the very concept of reality, and in doing so dismissed the very concept of evidence or any ability to obtain it.
It's words without meaning, ideas without context, distinctions without difference, and the age old battle cry of meaningless word games and semantic babble.
Essentially the argument being made it "Prove reality is real using a concept outside reality." It's meaningless word salad.
It's as intellectually meaningful as saying maps don't work because they can't describe what's north of the North Pole.
And all to defend ludicrous the idea that water has memory of a .000000000000000000001% spec of something.
We're arguing with someone that has dismissed the very concept of reality, and in doing so dismissed the very concept of evidence or any ability to obtain it.
It's words without meaning, ideas without context, distinctions without difference, and the age old battle cry of meaningless word games and semantic babble.
Essentially the argument being made it "Prove reality is real using a concept outside reality." It's meaningless word salad.
It's as intellectually meaningful as saying maps don't work because they can't describe what's north of the North Pole.
And all to defend ludicrous the idea that water has memory of a .000000000000000000001% spec of something.
While you're content to use the laptop, and since I'm assuming you aren't dying of polio before your 30th birthday or crapping outside in the winter, all the other benefits of science while pretentiously looking down on it like that makes you better than the rest of us.
That's the problem with solipsism. The entire philosophy is by definition massively hypocritical.
No. It's just what happens when you choose to run 1.0 memeplex. Like buying a twenty year old PC and finding that its uArt chip takes 4 hours to download the google homepage. You feel inevitably inferior to anyone with something better.
So, why not just upgrade to 1.1 and start arguing that your brain or body or a part of your brain is the observer?
Or maybe 1.12 and go on about quantum coherence for 50 paragraphs
Or perhaps 1.2 and start protesting equal ontological rights for all emergent phenomena.
Nope. This has absolutely nothing to do with it.
Nope. This has absolutely nothing to do with it.
Maybe you should become a Hindu, Joe. Then perhaps you'd have a heap more lifetimes to try and work out what this thread actually is about. I don't think you're going to make it in this one.
You don't understand... and that's OK. But why not just say it?
Last edited:
I use a laptop, Joe. Yes, it's true. How exactly does this prove that perception is veridical and that an observer exists?
Nonpareil
The Terrible Trivium
You are observing things.
By any meaningful definition of "observer", an observer therefore exists.
Anything else is meaningless word games.
But you said your goal is for all science to stop until such time as you have a satisfactory answer to your meaningless semantic gymnastics.
It would be nice if you could keep your story straight.
Unless, and I'm gonna go off on a limb here, and this is all B.S. faux "deep" posturing and nothing more from yet another in a long, long, long line of people mad that science doesn't agree with some silly nonsense they are enamored with and think the "Ask meaningless incomplete questions and mire the answers down in as much semantics and silly word games as possible" is the best and most adult way to deal with that.
I mean seriously.
Bill: I like X.
Ted: Science doesn't support the idea of X.
Bill: Well... well then. REALITY ISN'T REAL! YOU DON'T EXIST! PROVE TO ME THE DUALITY OF THE METAPHYSICS OF THE OBSERVER'S QUALIA CONCERNING THE A PRIORI KNOWLEDGE OUT BEYOND THE EVENT HORIZON OF THE FORMLESS!
Yes that's certainly proved that the only methodology for obtaining knowledge that has ever worked and has been responsible for every single intellectual advancement ever is flawed.
It's not even an original version of the argument. It's no Time Cube. If you're gonna do this at least turn into the skid and go full on crazy. It least that's entertaining. This is just boring.
abaddon
Penultimate Amazing
