Materialism - Devastator of Scientific Method! / Observer Delusion

[Hlafordlaes]

It's not really a question of learned knowledge. I would simply ask you the following, not as questions to debate so much, but as a way of self-assessing...

Are you fundamentally OK with a selfless reality? The proposition is fine? It's no longer too shocking and you don't feel defensive mental posturing coming in? You don't need to re-frame neuroscience to reverse-engineer an experiencer?

If not I would say you're there.

Let me put it this way: I am fine with the facts. But a selfless reality, if defined as one in which there is no driver in the seat, and what is taken for the driver is mere sensation, then for me there is no material difference between driver and no driver. Behavior and brain scans remain the same. Question of philosophical interpretation.

ETA: However, as already stated way back, consciousness is transient, and relies on memory to reconstitute when interrupted. There is nothing mysterious, no surviving meta-self that transcends physicality, and what is taken as self is not a permanent ongoing phenomenon, not even during life.

 

[Nick227]

This question is posed by whom, in what discipline? What is exactly meant by "actually observing it?" Are we speaking of a little man?

I guess I mean, if what's in front of me right now is a neural representation, is anyone actually seeing it? Is it actually being seen? Or is it simply there?

Notice I do not need an observer, there is no requirement to seek one. The search you and others make is one of a rational narrative imposing its criteria on empirical science. And that is not a function of who authors what; the field is full of people exceeding the remit of the facts.

Yes, this is true. It is an attempt to get empirical science to substantiate a rational narrative. However, if what is empirically valid accounts for a phenomena in a way that this notion of a conscious agent can be seen not to exist... surely this can affect thinking and behaviour?

 

[Nick227]

Let me put it this way: I am fine with the facts. But a selfless reality, if defined as one in which there is no driver in the seat, and what is taken for the driver is mere sensation

or mere useful illusion?

, then for me there is no material difference between driver and no driver. Behavior and brain scans remain the same. Question of philosophical interpretation.

Well, it didn't remain the same for me. Behaviour, I mean. I don't have brain scans. I found I could more observe thinking, without being compelled to assume the presence of a thinker, and thus act upon it.

ETA: However, as already stated way back, consciousness is transient, and relies on memory to reconstitute when interrupted. There is nothing mysterious, no surviving meta-self that transcends physicality, and what is taken as self is not a permanent ongoing phenomenon, not even during life.

Can't argue with that.

 

[Nonpareil]

Just to remind you... you have yet to produce one shred of experimental evidence for an observer.

Asked and answered multiple times. You do not understand what you are asking for or what form the proof of it takes.

You have stated that observers do not exist. The obvious counterproof would be presentation of an observer, which I have done: you are an observer.

There are only two possible answers to this: either you do not exist, or you fail to meet the definition in some way. Obviously the former doesn't work, because you demonstrably do exist. You seem determined to argue the latter, but you have failed to do so in any sort of coherent manner.

You state that if you "look under the bonnet", the observer stops existing. But it doesn't. The human brain still gathers and interprets information about its surroundings at a neural level. That is, in fact, pretty much the point of all those neurons. It's what they do. All that happens when you start studying the human brain at such a level is a look at the mechanics behind it all, not a sudden vanishing of the behavior. It manifestly still does happen. Observation still goes on, and thus an observer still exists.

This argument, and the reason I mentioned particle physics as a comparison earlier, is analogous to looking at the individual bits in a computer and concluding that there is no such thing as software.

You also make some statement about there only being the "sense" of an observer, but this is completely incoherent, as you cannot have a sensation without something experiencing that sensation, and sensation is observation.

You have also attempted to redefine "observer" in some way that you have, as of yet, failed to make plain or prove the merits of. The only things that I have been able to tease out of your vague, non-forthcoming personal definition is that it includes a requirement for objectivity and, presumably, awareness of unconscious processing, for no apparent reason. This is nothing but semantics and is pointless on the face of it.

None of the arguments you have put forth have any merit whatsoever. They all utterly fail to address the central issue, misunderstand the concepts in play, don't think through their own implications, and are usually quite pointless as well.

And, as of the last few pages, they are also quite repetitive.

 

[Hlafordlaes]

Nevertheless, when I read Graziano's ideas of phenomenal consciousness being essentially the brain's own model of attention, something does click for me.

Well, see, stated like that there is nothing wrong with the position. The wrong part is expecting a little man to have been there in the first place, so to speak. The real-time exercise of agency is what experientially is consciousness, but that is a mere trade of metaphor until such time as models such as Graziano's find ground in the physical workings of the brain. Until then, always a chance to have things ass backwards, in spite of things looking somehow good that way.

 

[Hlafordlaes]

I found I could more observe thinking, without being compelled to assume the presence of a thinker, and thus act upon it.

There are many little thinkers in the form of innate and learned heuristics; the brain is a great manufacturer of heuristics, both throw-away (chops for a video game) and permanent (bike riding). If you meditate (religiously or not), you will find there is a mental narrative always flowing by you can observe. This is constant output from an engine, or set of complex heuristics. Self is a set of them running and processing.

***

Musing... Imagine the first human who could assign symbolic codes to literal ones, and invented language. He/she started stringing code... and could never, ever stop again. I am cursed, he/she would/may have thought... and then cursed again for mentally verbalizing that, then on and on...

... and on until this thread(?).

 

[tsig]

Yes, there is, tsig. One iota of empiric evidence. 1230 posts and not one shred presented. Nada. Oaloo.

Personally, I think many God-botherers would have seen the error of their ways by now, if this discussion was God versus evidence. But you guys are really hardcore. You're absolutely unconcerned by the total lack of evidence. Maybe you should all move to Alabama and petition local government to ban neuroscience. Try and create a nice safe haven for yourselves, where science can't get in.

So if we don't agree with you we are god botherers? Your argument has deteriorated into insults. If you had any evidence you wouldn't have to use so many personal attacks.

 

[tsig]

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.

 

[Aridas]

How ever well intentioned I'm fairly sure that this approach is unlikely to work with our beloved HPC.

This is because several high profile figures, notably Chalmers and Searle but also many others, have repeated accused those proponents of creating a neurally valid definition of explaining consciousness away.

That's more than a little curious of a position, mostly in that anyone would pay it much mind. As a comparison, defining lightning, for example, by explaining the physical events that actually take place, is hardly "explaining lightning away." Explaining how it works neither stops it from happening, nor does it try to define it into non-existence. Explaining the mystery away, maybe, but that's not much of a real objection.

No, it is not. Unless you choose, against normal use of language, to define it as such. Observation, to me, refers to seeing. And an observer is one who sees. This is how I define.

The brain processes external stimuli into representations. Representations which are useful to help it fulfil its evolutionarily-derived objectives. This is not seeing. This is not observation. This is processing.

And anyway, the representations are not actually seen by anyone. There is merely the sense that they are.

How, exactly, do you propose that observation even can happen without processing in some form being involved, under any paradigm? And why, exactly, wouldn't the system, in whole or in part, doing that kind of processing be called an observer, with the note that it's understood that not all observers are the same, just like not all knives are the same, yet whatever their more specific name is, they're still knives? As it stands to others here, it just sounds like you're trying to invoke special pleading with regards to how observation is treated. So, I'll ask you directly. Why should we treat "observation" differently than all the rest of the things that we do? If we were to accept your logic, do you have any valid reason why we shouldn't extend that logic to the argument that "we don't walk, we just have reactions to stimuli sent to the legs" and similar things?

 

[Mojo]

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.

Which means, according to you, that we can't examine it scientifically.

 

[tsig]

Which means, according to you, that we can't examine it scientifically.

Yes, we're being told that because there's no observer science is bollixed and this can be proven scientifically.

 

[Mojo]

Well, yes, actually. It is. Observation is a process (in the case of humans, one which takes place in the brain, thus making it neural in nature). The observer is the system performing that process.

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, Nonpareil is saying that an observer is a system performing the process of observing. The processor, should it be part of that system, performs its processing, and this is part of the process of observing.

 

[Hlafordlaes]

I guess I mean, if what's in front of me right now is a neural representation, is anyone actually seeing it? Is it actually being seen? Or is it simply there?

The buck has to stop somewhere. In conscious agents, the choice to observe and the act of observing, that is, placing attention, is all that is needed. You do not require an infinite regress of independent observers.

The neural representation is not there in visual terms, it is there in neural terms, and 'seeing' it depends on it being constructed, that is all. There is no inner screen to watch; eyes get the original image data, the brain processes the data into a coherent form using experience (with possible errors), and you get a mental picture, which is not a physical image at all.

Once again, introspection involves the subject placing attention on itself, so object becomes subject. Like standing before a mirror, this produces the illusion of one person observing and another observed, but it only takes one source to make the image and the observation. Same in the brain; we do not need a homunculus to watch a screen.

 

[Nick227]

You also make some statement about there only being the "sense" of an observer, but this is completely incoherent, as you cannot have a sensation without something experiencing that sensation, and sensation is observation.

Well, you are obviously happy with the way you describe brain activity and ascribe to it certain qualities. And I am not. That much hopefully we can agree upon.

It seems unlikely that you are going to change your position. And I find it highly unlikely that I will suddenly find framing brain activity a certain way as a valid means to assert an observer. That's that, really.

 

[Nick227]

Well, see, stated like that there is nothing wrong with the position. The wrong part is expecting a little man to have been there in the first place, so to speak.

Well, that is how it seems, I submit. It seems as though there is some self which is doing observing. So I think it's not unreasonable that we look there first, then upon discovering no little man, scratch our heads and ponder a bit.

The real-time exercise of agency is what experientially is consciousness,

Well, I would say that is self personally. The sense of a doer, an experiencer.

What I find intriguing is the idea that experiencing ourselves as agency may have arisen from the value of detecting agency around us first. Hyperactive Agency Detection - love it!

but that is a mere trade of metaphor until such time as models such as Graziano's find ground in the physical workings of the brain. .

Well, he's having a go at that. What I still find problematic in all this is ascertaining really where consciousness is taking place. If phenomenal consciousness is just neural representation, then presumably notions of space and time are actually essentially meta-space and time. I mean just where exactly is that emerging? Can we get tighter in than just "the brain?"

 

[Nick227]

There are many little thinkers in the form of innate and learned heuristics; the brain is a great manufacturer of heuristics, both throw-away (chops for a video game) and permanent (bike riding). If you meditate (religiously or not), you will find there is a mental narrative always flowing by you can observe. This is constant output from an engine, or set of complex heuristics. Self is a set of them running and processing.

Well, there is this sense of a moment when the allure of identification really comes up strong and somehow there is this "biting" into the thought. In that moment the thinker is created and the thought becomes my thought.

Rather like a dopamine hit, I often muse.

Musing... Imagine the first human who could assign symbolic codes to literal ones, and invented language. He/she started stringing code... and could never, ever stop again. I am cursed, he/she would/may have thought... and then cursed again for mentally verbalizing that, then on and on...

... and on until this thread(?).

Yes, it will not stop. Unless we kill all the brains. Or some force sweeps us internally and provides more pleasure than that of the bite into the thought.

 

[Mojo]

I guess I mean, if what's in front of me right now is a neural representation, is anyone actually seeing it?

The neural representation is part of the process of observing what is in front of you.

 

[Nick227]

So if we don't agree with you we are god botherers? Your argument has deteriorated into insults. If you had any evidence you wouldn't have to use so many personal attacks.

Well. There is this kind of delicious irony in the skeptic position. And it's hard for me to resist putting it out. All those years spent harrassing God-believers, not necessarily without warrant. But all the time doing that whilst harbouring their own unprovable belief in the core of their own minds.

I mean it is a delectable irony, is it not, tsig? Can you taste it also? At least a little taste?

Or is it all still just No, No, No! As I said to you right at the start... Amy said that and it didn't do her any good.

 

[Mojo]

If our brains developed a sense of an observer existing, through evolutionary bias, then what does scientific method look like without this add-on ?

What would be the difference between the scientific method as practised by beings with an "observer", and the scientific method as practised by beings with a "sense of an observer", or even by automata with neither? What difference would it make to procedures or results?

 

[Cl1mh4224rd]

Oh, hmm... I think, after all this time, Nick's basically arguing that there's no such thing as an emergent property (in materialism?). Every example he tries to give of... something... relies on a physical object.

Things like emotion won't exist in Nick's misconception of materialism, either, even though we can trigger an emotion and observe the related neural activity. Since there's no physical object that we can point to and say, "That's love," the emotion of love doesn't actually exist. And all of our intimate relationships have been seriously flawed by our ignorant insistence that "love" is actually a thing.

And since emotion obviously exists, then materialism must be... wrong? ****, I don't know. He's not making any sense.