Subjectivity and Science

Nick227 said:
I'm not saying it happens to someone else, merely that the notion that these thoughts, doings, sayings and experiences have possession cannot be validated. They happen. The idea that they happen to someone is a mental construct. It is the result of using a mental filter to sort data.

Without the filter, everything is still happening but it's no longer happening to anyone. This idea of a limited experiencer is entirely notional.

Nick
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There is no evidence that would falsify the notion that it is not locally limited. Therefore it is a scientific theory and there is no evidence to the contrary.

The local limitation of personal experience is falsifiable. What evidence do you have to flasify it?

The idea of the filter seems to be hovering over the heaps again.
 
articulett said:
I don't understand Bodhi either. And I've long had Martillo on ignore... so I only read his incomprehensible blurbs when he appears in other posts.

I don't care rather materialism makes assumptions or not-- I just want to know what the hell someone else has proposed that is different and what are assumptions go with those. To me, non materialists discussing consciousness are like creationists discussing evolution. They are poking at something robust, hoping to kill it-- because they do not want it to be true, but they never offer anything better while implying that they secretly "know" of some better explanation.

I think they never propose their alternative, because they know it would stink next to the established mode. It's useless except as a meme to make them feel like they know something while knowing nothing at all.
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What I want is outcomes, like I've been asking for over the past few pages. What is the real-world consequence of any of these "alternative viewpoints."

It is like that Matrix movie, which I think a bunch of the woosters think is a documentary. Morpheus says that the world Neo knows isn't the real one, and it is simply a digital construct. But then, and this is the important part for the woosters to pay attention to, Morpheus shows Neo evidence, and there are differences in the way Neo interacts with the world once he knows it isn't real. He can do all sorts of nifty crap... where's Nick's nifty crap?

Where's ANY of the nifty crap, or even mildly amusing differences between the world that science proposes, and whatever it is that Nick, and Martillo, and Bodhi, and all the rest of them claim?
 
Bodhi Dharma Zen said:
Partially agree, but I would like to comment that "science" is a collection of methodologies, not a body of beliefs. Secondly, "subjectivity" is not even well defined, how can we apply the scientific method to something we can't define?

There are strong correlates between specifics aspects of what we call consciousness and the brain. Things are going good, but are far from completed.

Another way to put it is that we can't make sense of "subjectivity" because it is not something you can see "from the outside" (to put it in every day terms). But this one is difficult to tackle by our materialists friends.
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There is a definite correlation between bains and sensation...insert miracle here...therefore experience is caused by the brain.

:D
 
Nick227 said:
For sure these things arise as a result of the body's interactions with the world around it. But why is there identification associated with them? Why does your mind consider these things "my thoughts," "my sensations," etc, and not "David's thoughts," "David's sensations?" The word "David" performs the labelling function that you're writing about.

Nick
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There is the body, within the body are thoughts, emotions, sensation and habits.

It is in the world. that is all. No identification except in the common usage of an individual body.

You still haven't presented evidence that experience is not limited to an individual body.

The word david is a thought, can you show it to me apart from an neural network?

Platonic dualism?
 
Dancing David said:
Paging Jeff Corey...paging Jeff Corey... paging Jeff Corey....

Paging Mercutio...paging Mercutio...paging Mercutio...

This is more dualism, you can measure personal experience directly, you are a flaming dualist. The validity of the measure is another issue.
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A flaming dualist... I thought so. But they always do the mumbo jumbo semantic thing and then tell you they aren't dualists. It reminds me of creationists who claim not to be creationists and theists who claim not to be theists. I used to fall for that stuff thinking there was something wrong with my interpreting. But then I found my sig article and realized where the actual communication problem was coming from. I'm understanding all the other posters except the ones dissing materialism just fine. But I wonder if the "non-materialists" (for lack of a better word) understand each other?
 
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Bodhi Dharma Zen said:
I think this need a rephrase, here let me fix it for you:

"Pixy, your answers are straightforward, you shoot as fast as is possible, but the sad thing is that your answers are utterly irrelevant to the point that it is being made."

Articulett, not everyone who disagrees with materialism is a dualist, or believes in souls, or believe that because something is not explainable in scientific terms then is because science is "wrong".

That said, it is funny to read, over and over, how materialists are as woo as the ones they (think) they are educating! Things like "mind is already explained" are simply and utterly rubbish. Come on, and I'm appealing to your intelligence here, if a bunch of people say that they understand how an organism breathe (a function of the body, like, materialists say, mind is a function of the brain) then they should be able to make a working model of the breathing process.

Funny thing is that NOBODY in the world is able to even make a simplistic model of consciousness because (simply) no body has been even able to even make a good description of what is going to be modeled!

Now, NOTE that I'm not stating, at all, that there are not clear correlation with some of the things we call "consciousness" and brain functions. All the evidence shows that we are on the right track, so to speak, but.. and this is important, we can't simply state that we fully know what is going on BECAUSE that is to fall in woos territory.

Something that materialists are proud to do all the time ;)
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OH NO! The nine hundred pound gorilla has entered the room.

First I will place the napkin of "Materialism and Idealism are the same"

Then I will place the towel of "Isotropy" upon the napkin.

After that I will place the rug of "Falsification" over the towel.

Atop it all I will place the house plant of "Life is wonderful and a joy."


Gorilla, what gorilla?
 
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"fir" was actually a typo, not a pun, but I was thinking of that particular story as it happened in the forest, so it could be a Freudian slip.

I can't say I understand Nick either, but there's a lot of things I don't understand over here in Religion and Philosophy but that's why I'm here. My usual MO is to read a post and wait for one of those point by point deconstruction posts which I view as a translation and a basis to judge where I should put my time and effort into researching.

Nifty crap appeals to me too, sure, I've heard all about it, but I've never seen it. As far as I can tell people who claim access to this nifty crap have exactly the same problems and concerns as us non nifty crappers and many a time, when I've heard a "woo" complaining about something mundane, like poverty or health problems, I'm tempted to say...."Well....use your woo to fix it"

I figure it's a matter of degree when it comes to woo. Even I'm not 100% atheist just 99+% because I don't know for sure, I'll find out for sure when I die. I do tend to retreat and define myself as an apathetic agnostic when confronted with the argument that my atheism revolves around me having faith and I suspect there's similarities between that argument and the one we're seeing on this thread.

A wedge strategy...so to speak.
 
articulett said:
I don't understand Bodhi either. And I've long had Martillo on ignore... so I only read his incomprehensible blurbs when he appears in other posts.

I don't care rather materialism makes assumptions or not-- I just want to know what the hell someone else has proposed that is different and what are assumptions go with those. To me, non materialists discussing consciousness are like creationists discussing evolution. They are poking at something robust, hoping to kill it-- because they do not want it to be true, but they never offer anything better while implying that they secretly "know" of some better explanation.

I think they never propose their alternative, because they know it would stink next to the established mode. It's useless except as a meme to make them feel better subjectively.
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Articulett, not every people who believes that materialism is woo believes in nonsensical things. That said, it is easy to understand me if you read enough ;), but I apology for not being as explicit (sometimes) as I should be. Ok a very brief resume.

I do not believe in ghosts, nor souls, nor gods, mental powers, voodoo magic, that the consciousness is a tv signal, or can survive the body and so on.

That said, I do not believe that consciousness have been explained (come one, it hasn't even been DEFINED), that the world is made of matter, that science is a body of knowledge, that materialists are skeptics and so on.

I believe that science is a collection of methodologies, a set of tools, and I believe also that IT IS NOT an ontological position.

(I was about to point you now to a thread in which I have expressed better some of my views, but hey, its easier if I just paste it here) :)

1) All we have are beliefs, in the sense of "knowledge open to improvements" instead of "real" knowledge (the whole and only truth, the last word, absolute knowledge, whatever you like to call it).

2) Beliefs are based on theoretical frameworks (world views, cosmo-visions, cognitive stances). You can't have a clear belief unless its based on one. Lets draw a mini picture of two theoretical frameworks (note that they are just an oversimplified models); a) materialists believe that everything in the universe is material, nothing immaterial exists. b) spiritualists believe that what animates a body is a immaterial soul, that lives independently of the organism (a material body).

3) Our theoretical frameworks are always unfinished. they are like vast nets with holes on it (we might be unaware of some). When confronted by something that can't be explained by it we first try to repair it, as it is difficult to change it (its changing ourself, in a way).

3) Beliefs can (and should) be contrasted with facts. What constitutes "a fact" depends on the theoretical frame of reference, but still it can be defined as "that what is beyond opinions" (oversimplification again, I have noted that some of the posters like to take words by the letter, like Pixy).

3) Contrasting, correlating beliefs with facts its how we get confidence in our theoretical framework (or makes us doubt it and think in changing it). And its a difficult, often slow process.
 
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JoeEllison said:
Where's ANY of the nifty crap, or even mildly amusing differences between the world that science proposes, and whatever it is that Nick, and Martillo, and Bodhi, and all the rest of them claim?
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Of course I can't speak for the others, but In my case all I require are intelligent questions. You can read some of what I believe in my previous post.

Just please, take note, SCIENCE proposes NOTHING.
 
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Nobody is saying that consciousness is fully explained any more than evolution is fully explained. Nobody is claiming divine knowledge on the subject. Materialsim is the default position-- there is no supernatural anything until evidence suggests that there is. That's anti woo. Not being able to explain something fully is NOT woo (see: evolution)-- adding supernatural elements or fuzzy nothingness into the equation to facilitate understanding is. Moreover, it doesn't actually explain or facilitate the understanding of anything.

Materialism is more of a lack of a belief than a belief. There is no magic anything until the evidence shows otherwise. We can stop looking for magic, because we understand that if something wondrous exists, the evidence for it will accumulate. Science can't explain everything, but religion and philosophy and woo don't really seem to explain anything.

You dis materialists, but don't lay your differences on the table for equal examination. You are like the skeptics that come here claiming to be "skeptical of the skeptics". Fine, if that makes you feel good-- But to me, it's just like creationists dissing evolution-- it's a delusion that props up the ego of the deluded (SeeTom Cruise's Scientology video for a stellar example.)
 
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Bodhi Dharma Zen said:
Of course I can't speak for the others, but In my case all I require are intelligent questions. You can read some of what I believe in my previous post.

Just please, take note, SCIENCE proposes NOTHING.
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So what great thing do YOU propose and how are you different than materialists? And don't put little winking smilies in your post to me... it reminds me of hammegk. I'm intelligent; I understand words just fine. I only have trouble with those who really aren't making sense.
 
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articulett said:
You dis materialists, but don't lay your differences on the table for equal examination. You are like the skeptics that come here claiming to be "skeptical of the skeptics". Fine, if that makes you feel good-- But to me, it's just like creationists dissing evolution-- it's a delusional that props up the ego of the deluded.
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Yep, that's pretty much my take on it as well.
 
articulett said:
So what great thing do YOU propose and how are you different than materialists?
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Again, it is just attacks on other positions, not a statement of his own position, and how it differs in a practical way from what we accept.

In other words, still no nifty crap.
 
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articulett said:
Nobody is saying that consciousness is fully explained any more than evolution is fully explained. Nobody is claiming divine knowledge on the subject.
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Excuse me, but claiming it is already explained, or stating that it is not even a problem, is pure woo. And you might need to read again the good old Pixy.

articulett said:
Materialism is more of a lack of a belief than a belief. There is no magic anything until the evidence shows otherwise. We can stop looking for magic, because we understand that if something wondrous exists, the evidence for it will accumulate. Science can't explain everything, but religion and philosophy and woo don't really seem to explain anything.
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Wrong. Materialism is a belief system, and incomplete one. I prefer physicalism. On the other hand, a lack of believe is the stand of a skeptic. And again, I have to state that "science" and "materialism" are NOT synonymous!

It is funny how you also believe that religion, philosophy and woo are synonymous! Come on! materialism IS A PHILOSOPHY. Every world-view you can think of? yes! They ALL are philosophies!

I do agree in that religion doesn't explain anything at all, but I also reckon that some people simply need it.
 
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