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

Just to pretend that I know what I am talking about, I will copypasta some quotes, this time by a certain Mr. Chalmers, for I know you love me doing so. :D

“Materialism is a beautiful and compelling view of the world, but to account for consciousness, we have to go beyond the resources it provides.”
― David J. Chalmers, The Conscious Mind: In Search of a Fundamental Theory

“How does the water of the brain turn into the wine of consciousness?”
― David Chalmers

Go and read “Materialism and qualia: The explanatory gap" [Pacific Philosophical Quarterly 64:354-61, 1983]” and try to enlighten yourselves.

Food for thought.

:eek:
 
Pixel42 said:
It's just the usual "Science doesn't know everything, therefore it's fine for me to wilfully ignore what it does know".

We know the Earth is not flat, and we know homeopathy does not work. Sorry if either fact upsets some ignorant people, but that's just tough.
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I like that - a nice neat and concise statement.
 
Always happy to hear what Mr Chalmers has to say about the dominant watery substance in the utterer's domain.
 
The "wine of consciousness." How cool and refreshing it sounds. Amid the fatuous life of getting and spending, putting the sickle to the perilous grain, draining to the dregs the bitter sauces of love, (and all that jazz), I thirst for the draught of understanding at last; the label is fancy and the glass a soothing shade of green, but someone has handed me the bottle empty.
 
bruto said:
The "wine of consciousness." How cool and refreshing it sounds. Amid the fatuous life of getting and spending, putting the sickle to the perilous grain, draining to the dregs the bitter sauces of love, (and all that jazz), I thirst for the draught of understanding at last; the label is fancy and the glass a soothing shade of green, but someone has handed me the bottle empty.
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Nominated!:thumbsup:

For the pure poetry.

Hans
 
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devhdb said:
Just to pretend that I know what I am talking about, I will copypasta some quotes, this time by a certain Mr. Chalmers, for I know you love me doing so. :D

“Materialism is a beautiful and compelling view of the world, but to account for consciousness, we have to go beyond the resources it provides.”
― David J. Chalmers, The Conscious Mind: In Search of a Fundamental Theory

“How does the water of the brain turn into the wine of consciousness?”
― David Chalmers

Go and read “Materialism and qualia: The explanatory gap" [Pacific Philosophical Quarterly 64:354-61, 1983]” and try to enlighten yourselves.

Food for thought.

:eek:
Click to expand...

I'd like to savor a lower hanging fruit first:

On your opening post, the title, I'd like to know (I asked you before, but perchance you missed it):

1) How do you qualify your statement "The study of atoms in the brain doesn't explain the redness of red"?

2) How does your alternative explanation (which you presumably have) explain it better?

Re #1: First of all, be aware that you are trying to substantiate a negative. In itself a hopeless task. Or, if your point is that such studies do not currently yield such an explanation, do you claim that things only exist after science has explained them?

Hans
 
Darat said:
What has that got to do with expecting English to be able to describe "redness"?
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Colorspace | Description of Red
RGB|Red 255, G 0, B 0
CMYK|C 0, M 1, Y 1, K 0
HSL|H 0, S 100, L 50
HunterLab| L 6.10856753359401 A 78.96233161759665, B 29.794252423892623
English| "Red"
 
devhdb said:
Just to pretend that I know what I am talking about, I will copypasta some quotes, this time by a certain Mr. Chalmers, for I know you love me doing so. :D

“Materialism is a beautiful and compelling view of the world, but to account for consciousness, we have to go beyond the resources it provides.”
― David J. Chalmers, The Conscious Mind: In Search of a Fundamental Theory

“How does the water of the brain turn into the wine of consciousness?”
― David Chalmers

Go and read “Materialism and qualia: The explanatory gap" [Pacific Philosophical Quarterly 64:354-61, 1983]” and try to enlighten yourselves.

Food for thought.

: eek :
Click to expand...

Go ahead and quote the part where Chalmers accounts for consciousness. Also quote the part where Chalmers names the metaphysical framework that accounts for consciousness.
 
Darat said:
And as ever those folk who come out with " can't explain red to a blind person" are decades behind with their knowledge. We are now indeed able to "describe" sight to a blind person.

Here is just one example

*I can't include the url since I'm a new poster, so you'll have to go to the post#70 for it.*
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devhdb, I don't think you ever responded to this. Or if you did I missed it, and could you please point out the post #?

At any rate, this seems pretty devastating to your argument. You seem to be challenging us to describe the "experience of seeing red" to a blind person. Well, we did that. And you appear to be doing it in a way that suggests that if we can't, that will somehow validate your position. Well we can, so wouldn't that therefore suggest the opposite?

I'm wondering if you are now willing to abandon the position you took in the op.
 
devhdb said:
“How does the water of the brain turn into the wine of consciousness?
― David Chalmers
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Here, Chalmers is begging the question. Turning water into wine is a miracle. Chalmers is assuming something miraculous happens, and then complains that materialism doesn't account for the miracle.

The other possibility is that there is no miracle for materialism to explain. Maybe the water turns to wine through entirely material processes.

Chalmers needs to stop assuming it's true, and actually show that it's true.

And you need to stop quoting logical fallacies as if they're compelling arguments. Come back when you have something to prove the miracle other than just saying "it's a miracle!"
 
acbytesla said:
:thumbsup: People are playing with words. Proof is a math word, not a general science word. But that doesn't mean that science doesn't produce dependable repeatable results. So dependable that it has created a modern world that would look like magic two hundred years ago. I'm sitting here using a tablet computer that is millions of times more powerful than the computer on the spacecraft that carried men to the moon.

This is because of science, not because of some imaginary sky fairy.
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Exactly! Science does not seek to “prove” a thing. It seeks to discover reproducible observations, reproducible results that are independent of subjectivity. It next seeks to create hypotheses that help explain these observations; these hypotheses are then improved through a reiterative process of testing and modification or rejection. The better hypotheses that withstand these tests and continue to explain even new observations are often called theories.

The most wonderful part of science is indeed even the best theories are not viewed as proofs. Any theory is open to revisiting, further modification, or even dismissal when new results come along.

And that is why science is, like my smart phone, magic that works.

The irony is that “science doesn’t prove anything” is its strength, not its weakness.
 
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David Mo said:
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.
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Science is not a myth :rolleyes: I love lots of things by the way. I love art, the outdoors, literature, science, golf, sports in general and people. What I don't love are backwards superstitions.

As for bombs, the same science that created the bomb also created nuclear power, MRIs, nuclear medicine and countless other inventions. What we do with what we learn is up to us.

Gas chambers are a perfect example. The cyanide that is used in gas chambers is also used to make paper, textiles, and plastics. It is present in the chemicals used to develop photographs. Cyanide salts are used in metallurgy for electroplating, metal cleaning, and removing gold from its ore.

Fluorine is also a deadly reactive gas yet we wouldn't have the electronic industry without it. Electricity can be used to execute people too. Imagine the world without it.

The fact is science has made humans double their lifespans and vastly improve their quality of life. But I also can't argue against the fact that it is a double edged sword.

But hey, do you want to go back to the dark ages or use our minds to conquer the new problems we face?
 
I am such a materialist! To me it is so easy! Red is light within a certain range of wavelengths. We have 3 kinds of cone cells in our retinas that differ in their sensitivities to different wavelengths of light due to them having different molecules that react to different wavelengths of light; we can tell when we see red light based on which of these cones cells alter their electrical pulses when we look at the light.

Next these electric impulses from these cone cells travel up axons to impinge on other neural cells that receive yet other signals. The signals add or subtract to make these neurons change their own electrical pulses so that multiple signals and the programming built into the brain integrate into higher levels of image processing. BTW this programming is built into the during development by the DNA code and can be altered by development and prior signaling.

Ultimately these interactions of molecules, photons, and electrical signals are integrated at a high level so that we perceive an image of an object as red, as well as being able to deduce the shape of that object and, based on memory, what kind of object it is. No magic.

If one wants to discuss if I see red as the same mental picture you have of red, fine! Let me light up a joint (legal where I live) and we can spend all night thinking we are discussing something profound.
 
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carlitos said:
Colorspace | Description of Red
RGB|Red 255, G 0, B 0
CMYK|C 0, M 1, Y 1, K 0
HSL|H 0, S 100, L 50
HunterLab| L 6.10856753359401 A 78.96233161759665, B 29.794252423892623
English| "Red"
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It should be noted to DEVHDB that light does not consist of atoms, but waves and particles of photons. The beauty of red is that it is one of the two colors (the other being blue) that plants use in photosynthesis.

Not that I understood or cared about his point. (Don't believe he does either)

But maybe he should consider that the knowledge derived from science has determined that the best wavelengths of visible light for photosynthesis fall within the blue range (425–450 nm) and red range (600–700 nm). This has allowed humans to create the most productive farms on the planet that use 10 times less water than a traditional farm.
 
devhdb said:
“How does the water of the brain turn into the wine of consciousness?”
― David Chalmers
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Well, I shall avoid snide remarks about the water of Chalmer's brain. After all, everybody's brain is mostly water.

So, how does the water of the brain turn into the wine of consciousness?

Much like how the wine-maker turns water into wine:

It is grown in the sunlight of observation.
It is harvested with the wisdom of recognition.
It is fermented in the yeast of experience.
It is matured in the casket of inference.
It is savored in the taste of coordination.

Hans
 
carlitos said:
Colorspace | Description of Red
RGB|Red 255, G 0, B 0
CMYK|C 0, M 1, Y 1, K 0
HSL|H 0, S 100, L 50
HunterLab| L 6.10856753359401 A 78.96233161759665, B 29.794252423892623
English| "Red"
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Redness seems to be something other than a characteristic of a red object for Devhub.
 
MRC_Hans said:
Well, I shall avoid snide remarks about the water of Chalmer's brain. After all, everybody's brain is mostly water.

So, how does the water of the brain turn into the wine of consciousness?

Much like how the wine-maker turns water into wine:

It is grown in the sunlight of observation.
It is harvested with the wisdom of recognition.
It is fermented in the yeast of experience.
It is matured in the casket of inference.
It is savored in the taste of coordination.

Hans
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This has clearly turned into the poetry thread.

:thumbsup:
 
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