The study of atoms in the brain doesn't explain the redness of red;Materialism = FAKE

[Craig4]

Devhbd, let's imagine that we have 20 cancer patients. You give ten a placebo and ten a homeopathy cure. Let's then imagine that in both groups seven die and three go into remission. Then we do that over again and get roughly the same results. We do it again and again roughly the same results. There are variations as to remission between the groups but nothing significant.

Now let's imagine that we give ten cancer patients homeopathy and ten get a standard course of chemotherapy and radiation. The homeopathy patients die at the same rate as before but of the chemo/radiation patients 9 go into remission and one dies. Now we try that a few more times. Each time seven or eight homeopathy patients die and nine or ten patients getting chemo/radiation live. What would those results tell you about homeopathy as a cancer treatment?

 

[acbytesla]

Sadly DEVHDB is cherry picking Hawking. Hawking was basically saying that no theory is immune to revision. It's not immutable scripture.

A theory is not Truth with a capital T, not a rule, not fact, not the final word. You might think of a theory as a toy boat. To find out whether it floats, you set it on the water. You test it. When it flounders, you pull it out of the water and make some changes, or you start again and build a different boat, benefiting from what you’ve learned from the failure.

-Stephen Hawking

Hawking was doing what scientists do. Not arrogantly saying that anything is the final word. But providing the best explanation on the available information.

You mock me for my respect for a process that has created a world that is amazing. Think of a world without science. Men would still be crapping on the side of the road, iving in huts and tents and stoning children.

Now imagine a world without superstition.

Me, I'll take science

 

[d4m10n]

Do we know that subjective experience only arises in this way?

No, but the only good evidence we do have indicates the need for a physical substrate. There is around zero evidence of minds existing apart from brains.

 

[acbytesla]

No, but the only good evidence we do have indicates the need for a physical substrate. There is around zero evidence of minds existing apart from brains.

This conversation is beyond stupid. There are scientific theorems that nuclear reactors are based on. As well as billions of computers making trillions and trillions of calculations per second. There are 20,000 commercial flights per day and billions of passenger miles driven each day.

We only repeatedly demonstrate the powers and accuracy of science so many trillions of times each day it has become mundane and taken for granted. Sure, something could happen tomorrow that could make us revise those ideas.

In contrast, no meta-physical, no supernatural, no non-material theory has ever been demonstrated.

Science 10^{999999999999999999999999999999.....} Supernatural 0

 

[Dr.Sid]

This conversation is beyond stupid. There are scientific theorems that nuclear reactors are based on. As well as billions of computers making trillions and trillions of calculations per second. There are 20,000 commercial flights per day and billions of passenger miles driven each day.

We only repeatedly demonstrate the powers and accuracy of science so many trillions of times each day it has become mundane and taken for granted. Sure, something could happen tomorrow that could make us revise those ideas.

In contrast, no meta-physical, no supernatural, no non-material theory has ever been demonstrated.

Science 10^{999999999999999999999999999999.....} Supernatural 0

Supernatural: 0
Stupid: ∞

 

[Oystein]

Ah, another qualia thread....

Yes. The interesting thing here is that the OP, after 30 own posts, has not yet used the word "qualia". It appears the OP doesn't know what they are talking about.

 

[acbytesla]

I never understand this pathetic attempt of dismissing science. Really people?

It's like religious people forget that the scientific approach doesn't care what you believe in. It only cares what can be demonstrated. Is it testable? Is it reliable? What can it teach us?

The Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica, the Mécanique Céleste and On the Origin of the Species are not sacred texts. There are mistakes in all 3. Scientists don't ignore the mistakes and pretend that these inspired books are irrefutable.

I don't pray to my chemistry text book, the microscope or the telescope. But one can learn more from any of these three items than all the religions combined.

 

[Dr.Sid]

I never understand this pathetic attempt of dismissing science. Really people?

It's like religious people forget that the scientific approach doesn't care what you believe in. It only cares what can be demonstrated. Is it testable? Is it reliable? What can it teach us?

The Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica, the Mécanique Céleste and On the Origin of the Species are not sacred texts. There are mistakes in all 3. Scientists don't ignore the mistakes and pretend that these inspired books are irrefutable.

I don't pray to my chemistry text book, the microscope or the telescope. But one can learn more from any of these three items than all the religions combined.

I guess people just fear death. They grasp for any chance for eternal life, even if it was hell. One thing is to accept science as something useful. That's simple. But accept life on Earth as meaningless finite concurrence of circumstances, that's whole another thing.

 

[acbytesla]

I guess people just fear death. They grasp for any chance for eternal life, even if it was hell. One thing is to accept science as something useful. That's simple. But accept life on Earth as meaningless finite concurrence of circumstances, that's whole another thing.

I get fearing death. Thats understandable. But life isn't meaningless. But the meaning of life does not come from outside. It comes from us. We have the freedom of choosing what life means.

I just don't get dismissing the gifts of science.

 

[Robin]

That comment was...random. The topic was the merit of a class of ideas, and how some of those ideas are given unearned respect simply because of their supposed cultural pedigree, not about how "interesting" one finds the subject matter. Those are not the same thing.

I disagree that they are given respect because of their pedigree. l think these are ideas that some find interesting and others don't.

 

[Sideroxylon]

If we are to attribute pedigree it is because of their place in the discourse and concept construction that has formed our worldviews.

 

[Roger Ramjets]

I just don't get dismissing the gifts of science.

But is it a gift, or a curse?

The problem with science is that it only deals with facts. This is an unacceptable limitation! Science tells me things that I feel cannot cannot be true - like that feelings are just an illusion and not really real. Then science sticks electrodes in my brain and proves it!

So I reject science, because if science is right then I have to accept what it tells me, which I can't because my feelings are telling me otherwise. I'll keep the technology that science makes possible though. If only science would stick to that, and stay out of my head!

 

[acbytesla]

But is it a gift, or a curse?

The problem with science is that it only deals with facts. This is an unacceptable limitation! Science tells me things that I feel cannot cannot be true - like that feelings are just an illusion and not really real. Then science sticks electrodes in my brain and proves it!

So I reject science, because if science is right then I have to accept what it tells me, which I can't because my feelings are telling me otherwise. I'll keep the technology that science makes possible though. If only science would stick to that, and stay out of my head!

Facts are a limitation? What does science tell you that you feel cannot be true? Science is merely a logical process that provides reliable information. And not once has anyone ever stuck electrodes into my brain. Can you be a little clear about what you don't like about science.

 

[The Norseman]

I guess people just fear death. They grasp for any chance for eternal life, even if it was hell. One thing is to accept science as something useful. That's simple. But accept life on Earth as meaningless finite concurrence of circumstances, that's whole another thing.

Is it though?


Is it more that people are inherently fearful of death to the point of grasping at fantasies or perhaps more that people are taught to be so?


I think that people in general, and most especially in the west, who have accepted as truth much of what the thinkers of the Enlightenment postulated; such thinkers who took on such religious baggage and unintentionally incorporated that into a secular or non-theistic structure that people now vastly underestimate how much that it still infects modern discourse and thinking even today.

 

[Ulf Nereng]

I wasn't aware that atoms in the brain were being studied. Are they different from other atoms? Does anyone have a link to such studies?

 

[acbytesla]

Is it though?


Is it more that people are inherently fearful of death to the point of grasping at fantasies or perhaps more that people are taught to be so?


I think that people in general, and most especially in the west, who have accepted as truth much of what the thinkers of the Enlightenment postulated; such thinkers who took on such religious baggage and unintentionally incorporated that into a secular or non-theistic structure that people now vastly underestimate how much that it still infects modern discourse and thinking even today.

I absolutely love science. Everyday some scientist is working on building better photovoltaics, better batteries, more productive agriculture, alternative energy sources, new materials and countless other inventions. Simply by applying our minds to the problems at hand we are working on making a better tomorrow.

 

[EHocking]

I wasn't aware that atoms in the brain were being studied. Are they different from other atoms? Does anyone have a link to such studies?

Perhaps he read about cognitive atoms in AI etc and mistakenly believes they were studying human brain atoms?

 

[The Norseman]

I absolutely love science. Everyday some scientist is working on building better photovoltaics, better batteries, more productive agriculture, alternative energy sources, new materials and countless other inventions. Simply by applying our minds to the problems at hand we are working on making a better tomorrow.

Well said!

 

[Steve]

I wasn't aware that atoms in the brain were being studied. Are they different from other atoms? Does anyone have a link to such studies?

Perhaps he read about cognitive atoms in AI etc and mistakenly believes they were studying human brain atoms?

Perhaps it’s connected to Asimov’s positronic brain. Those atoms must be different...... You know, positive atoms. Very different!

 

[David Mo]

I absolutely love science. Everyday some scientist is working on building better photovoltaics, better batteries, more productive agriculture, alternative energy sources, new materials and countless other inventions. Simply by applying our minds to the problems at hand we are working on making a better tomorrow.

Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb.

Science also makes bombs and gas chambers.
Don't substitute one myth for another.
Love people, not things.