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Materialism - Devastator of Scientific Method! / Observer Delusion

Nick227 said:
Remember I'm talking about a phenomenal observer, something that reinforces subject-object boundaries, something that can establish objectivity. Something that is not just 2 interconnected parts of the brain.
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Ah, at least something that resembles a definition that makes sense in view of most of your writing.

Fine, no problem: All our observations are subjective. If objectivity is your criterion for naming an observer, then in your vocabulary, there is probably none.

Guess what?

Science has been aware of this for at least a century. This is exactly why the scientific method has been developed to produce reliable results in spite of observer subjectivity.

Hans
 
Nick227 said:
It's not about the fallibility of human perception. It's about how the brain evolved to perform certain tasks effectively, and how it may not be suitable for others.

The brain is not in error. Humans are not in error.
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Then what, precisely, is it that you are on about? You are still utterly failing to make any sort of coherent point.

Nick227 said:
We knew about Bayesian predictive coding centuries ago?

We knew centuries ago that applying electrical stimulation to the temporo-parietal junction caused the locus of perception to shift?

We'd established a neural basis for neon colour spreading and necker cubes centuries ago?

Must have missed out on those bits in history, I guess!
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Not what I said. Actually read my posts before replying, thank you. It will save us all a lot of time.

Nick227 said:
The capacity to give a verbal report on the presence of phenomenal consciousness does not empirically demonstrate the existence of an observer.
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You exist.

You are an observer.

Your failure to understand what a proof is aside, you cannot deny either of these points without descending into incoherency.

Then again, that's never stopped you before.
 
MRC_Hans said:
Fine, no problem: All our observations are subjective.
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Well, they're verbal reports of a predictavely-coded, evolutionarily-engineered, neural representation designed to help us eat, kill, and have sex. Yes.

Science has been aware of this for at least a century. This is exactly why the scientific method has been developed to produce reliable results in spite of observer subjectivity.
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No. As I replied to Nonpareil this is not about observer bias. Please look back to this morning's posts.
 
Nick227 said:
On the neural level there is the dominant neural representation - the one that got amplified and broadcast - fame in the brain. Correct? That is a representation, not an observer.
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And this neural representation is created by - shock of shocks - observing the surroundings.

This is painfully simple stuff, Nick.

Remember I'm talking about a phenomenal observer, something that reinforces subject-object boundaries, something that can establish objectivity. Something that is not just 2 interconnected parts of the brain.

The capacity to give a verbal report on the presence of phenomenal consciousness does not mean that someone is looking.
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Ah. There's the inevitable descent into incoherent semantic games. I was wondering when it would happen.
 
Nonpareil said:
Not what I said. Actually read my posts before replying, thank you. It will save us all a lot of time.
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I read your post. This is not about observer bias. These three issues are not observer bias. You are simply wrong here.

You exist.

You are an observer.
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This brain exists and it has learned to process as though an observer exists. It's socially useful. But there is not really an observer.
 
Nonpareil said:
And this neural representation is created by - shock of shocks - observing the surroundings.
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No. This is not how the brain works. It is not observing. It is processing.

Higher order functions amplify one processing stream, that deemed most valuable. This is not observation.
 
Nick227 said:
I read your post. This is not about observer bias. These three issues are not observer bias. You are simply wrong here.
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As mentioned, this would seem to be due to your lack of coherence. If that is not your point, then you have failed to communicate effectively, as no one here has any idea what it is you actually mean.

This brain exists and it has learned to process as though an observer exists. It's socially useful. But there is not really an observer.
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In what way, then, would you argue that the brain fails to meet the definition of "observer"? Because if all you have is the aforementioned semantic games, your argument is not only incoherent, it is useless on the face of it, because your definition of "observer" is so esoteric and unrelated to the concept as generally applied as to be worthless.
 
Nick227 said:
Look, you can't just go around labeling a part of the brain "the observer" and claim this is science.

Creating a verbal report on the dominant neural representation is brain activity. It's not observation. That the brain can give a verbal report in this way actually demonstrates that epiphenomenonalism is wrong, but this is just an interesting aside.
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The hilight exposes the verbal trick being used here. Simply deny any evidence.
 
Nick227 said:
I read your post. This is not about observer bias. These three issues are not observer bias. You are simply wrong here.



This brain exists and it has learned to process as though an observer exists. It's socially useful. But there is not really an observer.
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The hilited is an observation therefore you are an observer.

Q, E. D.
 
There is no possible way to word the argument being made that isn't functionally reducible to:

"Due me carefully observing the universe I have come to the conclusion that there is no such thing as an observer which means there is no such thing as a conclusion."
 
Nick227 said:
Well, they're verbal reports of a predictavely-coded, evolutionarily-engineered, neural representation designed to help us eat, kill, and have sex. Yes.
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Verbal? Not necessarily.
And to eat, kill, and have sex, we need to observe our surroundings.


No. As I replied to Nonpareil this is not about observer bias. Please look back to this morning's posts.
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None of them explains how it is a problem for science. Actually, you haven't explained that at all.

Hans
 
tsig said:
The hilight exposes the verbal trick being used here. Simply deny any evidence.
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Essentially.

Nick is just playing the old semantic shell game. It's a bit of a running theme in discussions like this; annnnoid likes to equivocate between "any evidence, verified or not, that is reported or gathered by human beings" and "anecdotes" in order to try and assert that anecdotes are evidence, among other things.

It never works. Trying to substitute the phrase "gathering and processing sensory data in order to construct a neural representation of a given phenomenon" in place of "observing your surroundings", then redefining "observe" in such a way that it becomes utterly useless is one of the flimsiest arguments you could possibly make. It is nothing but pointless semantic games. Even if it is true, it means nothing; at absolute worst, we just come up with a new word to describe what the brain does.

It's like watching Don Quixote if he decided to tilt at dictionaries.
 
I'm still struggling to understand what the implications of Nick's philosophy would be if he had his way.

I mean, if we've been "doing it wrong" all this time... Would the planets in our solar system suddenly start flying around at random? Would galaxies fall apart? Would cigarettes start smelling like roses and cure cancer instead of potentially causing it? Would dogs give birth to cats? Would hydrogen become inert? Would combustion engines stop working?
 
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Nick227 said:
No. This is not how the brain works. It is not observing. It is processing.
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Hmm... If you're trying to be uselessly pedantic, why not just point out that it's the numerous cells responsible for a person's various senses that are actually doing the "observing"? In that case, the brain is just processing the signals from those cells.

Now what?
 
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Nonpareil said:
That would be because there aren't any.

It's useless semantic games at their purest.
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Nonpareil,

All you and others are doing is trying to reverse-engineer an observer from the activity of several parts of the brain.

You are actually the ones playing semantic word games.

In terms of actual neural reality what is happening is that one dominant representation is being amplified and broadcast across multiple brain areas, including the area that can create a verbal report. This is not one area of the brain observing another, however many games you like to play with language.

But I guess you are happy convincing each other that this argument is valid. And who am I to interrupt your fantasy world?
 
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