And if we take this definition at face value, it also collapses... because you seem to be saying that a processor observes its processing? Is this what you're saying, Nonpareil?
Materialism - Devastator of Scientific Method! / Observer Delusion
- Thread starter Nick227
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And if we take this definition at face value, it also collapses... because you seem to be saying that a processor observes its processing? Is this what you're saying, Nonpareil?
No, marplots, mind away! It's fine. But present something empiric. Just redefining processing as observation is, I submit, pointless. And I'm confident you can see that.
I can't present anything empiric because that would depend on an observer and an observation. I didn't get that far yet.
Nonpareil
The Terrible Trivium
The very next line:
Someone here is very confused.
I have already told you: the gathering and processing of sensory data into a coherent image of your surroundings.
I would say "read" again, but at this point, it's fairly obvious that you aren't simply ignoring what I say, but completely failing to understand it.
Reading is not your issue. Your egotistical insistence that your incoherent non-definitions are in any way correct, your labeling of any attempt to tell you that they are wrong as "desperate", your inability to appreciate the inherently pointless and semantic nature of your argument, and your out-of-hand dismissal of perfectly cogent points raised against you all make it very clear what the actual problem is.
You didn't come here to have a discussion. You didn't even come here to make an argument. You came here to preach, and show off something that you think makes you very smart, and you don't give a damn what the actual facts in the case are.
Sorry, Nick. But the dictionary exists, and is not on your side. Neither, come to it, are basic logic, neuroscience, or even semantics, and no amount of your insistence to the contrary will change that.
Nonpareil
The Terrible Trivium
No.
I would go into more detail about how the actual answer to such a question is "not necessarily", and how such a thing is possible but not necessarily easy and not in any way required, but at this point I have lost much of my interest in indulging you.
Especially when it comes to answering "gotcha" questions that actually fail to get anything at all.
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Porpoise of Life
Illuminator
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It's like arguing with someone who claims driving exists, but cars don't.
When you point at the car they'll shake their head and say that wheels aren't a car, an engine isn't a car and neither is a frame.
There's no physical embodiment of 'carness' in that puzzling combustion-to-rotation-to-friction machine.
Then when you ask why that's neccessary, what their operational definition of a car would be, or how this apparent lack of cars would impact the world of transportation, they just laugh at you and start from square one.
When you point at the car they'll shake their head and say that wheels aren't a car, an engine isn't a car and neither is a frame.
There's no physical embodiment of 'carness' in that puzzling combustion-to-rotation-to-friction machine.
Then when you ask why that's neccessary, what their operational definition of a car would be, or how this apparent lack of cars would impact the world of transportation, they just laugh at you and start from square one.
As far as I know, this whole idea of the brain, or a part of the brain, as an observer was widely recognised as delusional a good two decades ago.
Francis Crick took a lot of flack for his version of it in 1994. See S.3 in the linked piece for an example. I suppose, after that, other neuroscientists wanted to avoid the ridicule so they no doubt had someone proofread for similar errors. I seem to recall that Susan Blackmore also covered this extensively in Consciousness - An Introduction. But I think I've given my copy away to charity!
Francis Crick took a lot of flack for his version of it in 1994. See S.3 in the linked piece for an example. I suppose, after that, other neuroscientists wanted to avoid the ridicule so they no doubt had someone proofread for similar errors. I seem to recall that Susan Blackmore also covered this extensively in Consciousness - An Introduction. But I think I've given my copy away to charity!
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Yes. It is!
It's just that in this instance neither the car nor the driving exist.
No, it doesn't. I've given a neural description of how the brain creates the sense of there being an observer. It's a jolly handy illusion, and one that allows me to communicate why it is an illusion.
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Well, excuse my skepticism then, Nonpareil. You say you have evidence but you're not going to present it! How would you respond if someone told you they have evidence for God but just weren't going to present it because they'd lost interest?
Nonpareil
The Terrible Trivium
Cited source: a list of criticisms hosted on a personal website, apparently created and written entirely by...
...no one particularly qualified.
Color me surprised.
Nonpareil
The Terrible Trivium
Quite in the same way I have responded to you, really.
The lack of self-awareness in your statements is astonishing. As is your apparent complete lack of memory concerning posts presenting the evidence you keep demanding less than a page ago.
So we've moved away from: Materialism - Devastator of Scientific Method?
Well, OK. I do recall reading that Crick took flack for the observer issue, and was fairly sure that I'd read this in Susan Blackmore's excellent introduction to consciousness. Like I said I couldn't find it on my shelf, so I just googled for it. I'll have a little scout around. I think she interviewed Crick in her Conversations book. Maybe it's in there.
eta: no it's not!
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Just to mention, you still haven't presented one shred of empiric evidence for an observer, Nonpareil. All you've done is describe brain activity in a way that it could be termed observation.
What I've done is given what is, I submit, a valid neural explanation for the apparent phenomenon of observation, demonstrating that it is not what it seems. And pointed out that even if we look at the emergent level there still is no observer, merely the sense of one and the behaviour as though there were one. Two things which are highly favoured.
As to thinking I'm super-clever... to be honest I thought pretty much all neuroscience from the last 2 decades had given up on finding an observer in the brain as an utterly delusional enterprise. I didn't think it was anything particularly new or original. But there are obviously still enclaves of entrenched belief in skeptic forums like this one, just as there are enclaves of evolution deniers in the southern US.
Well, to be honest, I'd love to discuss this subject. Trouble is, it requires more people that recognise that there is no observer. And there does seem to be a lack of such on this forum. It's a bit like trying to debate the implications of, say, Darwinism on brain development with a group of hardcore Christians. You can't really get very far, as they keep insisting it's all done by god.
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Nonpareil
The Terrible Trivium
...Which is exactly the point. That is observation.
Which makes the system performing that action an observer.
BTW, I did actually try and start a thread called the Observer Delusion, as I felt this was more what was being discussed, but it got merged. I'd have been happy to keep going with this second one as I did mention that I wasn't clear as to how much scientific method was devastated. The neural representation issue was clear for me, but the observerless one not so much, though I'm still pondering this.
Ron_Tomkins
Satan's Helper
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Which goes to show how this is nothing but pointless semantics game, which has no connection with reality, since both cars and drivers do exist
Yes, you've described the system in such a way that it could be called an observer.
But what I'm pointing out that if we examine this system scientifically, at both a neural and an emergent level, no observer actually exists.
Yet, you don't seem to accept this; can't produce any evidence to refute it; and just prefer to stick with describing it as an observer anyway!
I'm saying that this is not science, it's fanaticism.