ISHAR of Deepak Chopra and Rome Viharo

[barehl]

We present evidence, summarize it when we can, and offer the supporting/critiquing sources to our users. Our position is that more information is a good thing, that open-minds are better than closed ones, and that rather than insisting on an exclusive dichotomy of orthodoxy v. mind-body, we bring the two together under the banner of inclusive, evidence-based science.

I looked over your website, but can't say that I agree with your description. What you talk about is similar to Maxwell's Demon. Physicists knew that perpetual motion machines didn't work and that there was no type of machine that could deliver free energy. But then you had Maxwell's thought experiment in 1872. It didn't move physics or science forward. It didn't do anything practical. It provided nothing in terms of theory or explanation. It only existed because until Shannon's information theory in 1948 there was no simple refutation of it. The things on your website are similar. Except for a few on the fringe, consciousness is assumed to be solely a brain phenomenon. This assumption is based on boilerplate common sense such as the fact that rocks and plants exhibit nothing that can be considered reasoning. All reasoning organisms have brains. But your site doesn't seem to deal with this point honestly. Rather than mentioning rocks or plants it asks:

"To what extent are animal minds different from human minds?"

If you are limiting the scope to only things with brains then you've pretty much already made the assumption that dualism is false, regardless of how you dress it up. It would be like if I claimed that a computer program was not related to processors but was actually some separate, mystical function. And then for some strange reason the only examples of a running program that I could mention all involved processors.

I'm aware that cognition does not seem to be explainable in terms of computational theory, but this is where you draw an imaginary line:

"... while others offer cognitive theories of consciousness whereby conscious mental states are reduced to some kind of representational relation between mental states and the world.

Could an appropriately programmed machine be conscious?"

So, you've already made the assumption that either the computing theory of mind is true or dualism is true. However, both can be false. Consciousness can potentially be explained by a theory that is not limited to language theory or dualism. But this is not dealt with honestly:

"The two broad, traditional and competing theories of mind are dualism and materialism (or physicalism). "

These are not competing. All evidence, experience, theory, and testing supports materialism. The only thing dualism has in its corner is that like Maxwell's demon there is yet no published theory that easily refutes it. You have a section on dualism, a rather large section, but no equivalent section for materialism. Why is that? And, your claim that you represent both sides can be falsified with your own sites artificial limitations on balance. You explain every type of dualism you can think of and then:

"Materialists are aware of these dualist replies and sometimes invoke Ockham's razor and the importance of metaphysical simplicity in arguments to the best explanation. (See Churchland, 1988, p. 28). Other materialist responses will not be considered here."

But even for the arguments you allow, you constantly use false equivalence:

"The relationship between consciousness and brain processes leaves the materialist with a causal mystery perhaps as puzzling as that confronting the dualist."

You also include things like this:

"Another argument for dualism claims that dualism is required for free will."

You don't even mention that Dennett disagrees with this argument or that almost everyone does as well. Where is the balance?

 

[jsfisher]

I've addressed aspects of our functionality elsewhere...

That would be one of the reasons I didn't ask about ISHAR's functionality.

What we don't do:...

Nor did I ask about what you don't do.

I think I've been pretty patient and accommodating on this forum, despite encountering numerous insults, mockeries, and general hostility.

Nor did I challenge your level of accommodation, nor did I cast insults.

The question I asked was about your relevance. You claim to do things; what impact can you show for those things you do?

I am asking about outcomes, not simply outputs (or worse, merely inputs).

For similar reasons I will not be sharing the names and/or contact information of our collaborators

That's fine, but then your claim to have any becomes vacuous.

Part of ISHAR's purpose is to provide a safe place for researchers to explore controversial ideas. That matters more than correcting insinuations that we are lying in some way.

How would that possibly work? Science in secret isn't science.

...
Which is to say, I now doubt anything I could say or show here would make much of a difference. I have seen little evidence that evidence matters as much as assumptions.
I'd love to be proven wrong.

Perhaps if you provided some evidence of ISHAR's relevance, you might gain a different perspective.

 

[Loss Leader]

I just don't see it providing a service that professional scientists can't find elsewhere.

It does offer some "interdisciplinary" approaches, where the conservative scientist might find work outside of her field that intersects in some way. However, the vast amount of the time, "interdisciplinary" means a connection with philosophers and spiritualists doing little science but writing articles with really big, sciency words.

I join in questioning the site's usefulness (which could, I suppose, be easily demonstrated by page views or other hard statistics).

It really appears to be little more than a tiny Spirituality/Duality wiki with editors who all agree with each other instead of competing with the larger Wikipedia editorial crowd. But since "the wisdom of crowds" is the entire concept behind Wikipedia, I am pretty sure this site provides less wisdom and more prejudgments.

 

[barehl]

But since "the wisdom of crowds" is the entire concept behind Wikipedia, I am pretty sure this site provides less wisdom and more prejudgments.

I can safely state that the counter arguments to dualism are not complete nor do they represent general consensus from people in the several fields including philosophy, neurology, behavioral psychology, and computer science.

There is a fairly robust argument against free will that involves agency but this doesn't lead to dualism, rather (like Harris' arguments) it merely suggests a lack of free will. Similarly, pushing the computing theory of mind would also argue against free will rather than suggesting dualism. Without offering a mechanism which would allow dualism to break cause and effect, dualism functions as nothing more than wishful thinking in response to a genuine unknown.

 

[Loss Leader]

I can safely state that the counter arguments to dualism are not complete nor do they represent general consensus from people in the several fields including philosophy, neurology, behavioral psychology, and computer science.

... Without offering a mechanism which would allow dualism to break cause and effect, dualism functions as nothing more than wishful thinking in response to a genuine unknown.

These two thoughts seem at odds with each other.

In any case, none of it has to do with my criticism that the site's paper index is far less useful to professionals than existing resources. The sites encyclopedia entries are also far less consistent with the "wisdom of the crowd" than the more crowded Wikipedia.


ETA: Sorry, thought I was responding to a comment from the site's owner. Didn't loo closely enough.

 

[barehl]

These two thoughts seem at odds with each other.

How are they at odds?

 

[Garrette]

How are they at odds?

I didn't post what you are responding to, but I had the same reaction. Perhaps Loss Leader was confused as I was by you stating first:

"...the counter arguments to dualism are not complete nor do they represent general consensus..."

but then launching into what appears to be a demonstration of how dualism is unfounded while materialism is not.

I admit, though, that I am not well versed on the subject and could be reading it wrongly.

 

[Loss Leader]

I didn't post what you are responding to, but I had the same reaction. Perhaps Loss Leader was confused as I was by you stating first:

"...the counter arguments to dualism are not complete nor do they represent general consensus..."

but then launching into what appears to be a demonstration of how dualism is unfounded while materialism is not.

I admit, though, that I am not well versed on the subject and could be reading it wrongly.

Ditto


(Except for the humility. I own none of that.)

 

[barehl]

I didn't post what you are responding to, but I had the same reaction. Perhaps Loss Leader was confused as I was by you stating first:

"...the counter arguments to dualism are not complete nor do they represent general consensus..."

but then launching into what appears to be a demonstration of how dualism is unfounded while materialism is not.

I admit, though, that I am not well versed on the subject and could be reading it wrongly.

Ditto

I'm sorry for the confusion. Maybe I should have phrased it like:
...the counter arguments to dualism that are given on the ISHAR website are not complete nor do they represent general consensus...

More robust arguments against dualism do exist but are not listed on the ISHAR website. This was an objection to the claim that the ISHAR website is balanced or unbiased. It seems instead that they are willfully engaging in straw-man tactics by listing only the weaker arguments against dualism to create the illusion that these are equal positions. I can see now that it could have been viewed that I was referring to Wikipedia instead of the ISHAR website.