Chaos Magic

annnnoid said:
Wallowing in desperation are we? You’re beginning to sound pathetic.

You’re both wrong.
The director of cog sci at university college London says so.
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[citation needed]

I’d be happy to show the emails to anyone at JREF who wants proof that Pixy and Argent don’t know what they’re talking about. That Pixy and Argent fabricate facts and manipulate evidence. They’re clearly dated and they clearly have Rees email address on them and they clearly include all the statements written in my post…word.…for….word.

Deal with it.
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You do realise that even if Rees said exactly what you claim he said, you are still wrong?

I won’t bother asking for a citation for your claim Pixy.
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Citation has already been given multiple times.

Here's the abstract: http://www.cell.com/neuron/retrieve/pii/S0896627308009586
Here's a quick summary for the layman: http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2008/12/soon_well_be_reading_your_mind.php
Here's the full original paper: http://www.scribd.com/doc/8857889/V...ombination-of-Multiscale-Local-Image-Decoders
Here's a Youtube video showing it working in real time:

Your credibility vanished a long time ago. No citation needed. When it comes from you, we already know it’s a waste of time.
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Your opinion as to my credibility doesn't change the facts. We're still right, and you're still wrong.
 
Unfortunately…’ignore’ only functions when I’m not signed in. What a shame. As it stands, there’s only one on that list now. Norseman actually presented some reasonable posts, so I took him off. You’re the only one left Argent. You’re there because you’re utterly worthless (amusing…but still utterly worthless)…and you lie.

As I said Argent….I’d be happy to show the emails to anyone at JREF…then everyone will see who is the liar. I don’t expect anyone to care…but if it ever comes to a question of who is the liar…I have proof. What do you have?

Thought so.

You’re like a little school-boy who’s been caught out and simply can’t handle it. What a shame.

As for your desperate attempt at a rebuttal Pixy. I’m not even going to waste my time on it. Read the thing. EXTREMELY simple conditions, EXTREMELY simple results, won't work for just about any other modality, doubt it will work for visualization / cognition / memory, time consuming, subject has to fixate on the test image for 12 seconds, serious limitations….and somehow from this you claim it’s possible to extrapolate to that huge list I presented?!?!?!?!?? Is that seriously the best you can do??????

You are a joke Pixy.

You think Rees wasn’t aware of exactly that kind of result when we discussed this stuff. He lives right in the middle of one of the biggest cog sci research centers in the world. Do you honestly think he’s not fully cognizant of what an fMRI is capable of?


This discussion is now over.
 
annnnoid said:
As I said Argent….I’d be happy to show the emails to anyone at JREF
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Go ahead then.

As for your desperate attempt at a rebuttal Pixy. I’m not even going to waste my time on it. Read the thing. EXTREMELY simple conditions, EXTREMELY simple results, won't work for just about any other modality, doubt it will work for visualization / cognition / memory, time consuming, subject has to fixate on the test image for 12 seconds, serious limitations….and somehow from this you claim it’s possible to extrapolate to that huge list I presented?!?!?!?!?? Is that seriously the best you can do??????
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Did you have a point here?

We can read images out of the visual cortex using fMRI, which you said we can't do. We can do that because the visual cortex retains a one-to-one representation of the image falling on the retina. Other parts of the brain contain progressively more abstract representations of the image, and we need correspondinly more subtle approaches to interpret those representations.

Similar situations apply to the other senses.

This is, of course, entirely to be expected given what was already known from earlier studies in neuroscience and psychology, exactly in alignment with what we've been saying, and supports rather than undermines the position of materialism and computationalism.

I really don't understand why you think there's a problem. If those were Professor Rees' words, then he was advising caution in interpreting the results of recent research, not making any sort of absolute statement.

Can we read your mind? No.

We can read simple, high-contrast images out of your visual cortex, right now.
We can get a good general idea of your emotional state, right now.

I'm not sure where work on the other senses is up to right now; visual perception is the big thing, but there is similar work going on in hearing as well.

We'd welcome the original emails, posts, or other statements from your sources. Go right ahead.

The thing is, if they are actual neuroscience researchers, you'll find that their positions coincide with ours, because we arrived at our positions by following neuroscientific research. Sure, they'll know more about this than we do. But we know perfectly well that they're not going to support the existence of libertarian free will, because such a thing is a physical impossibility.

You think Rees wasn’t aware of exactly that kind of result when we discussed this stuff. He lives right in the middle of one of the biggest cog sci research centers in the world. Do you honestly think he’s not fully cognizant of what an fMRI is capable of?
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I know perfectly well that he does. So?

This discussion is now over.
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What discussion?
 
I don't think I've ever seen a poster write so many rants directed at posters they claim to have on ignore. It rather makes me wonder whether the word means what you think it means.
 
annnnoid said:
‘Ignore’ is a great idea. I should have used it a long time ago.
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I can't help feeling that's a somewhat defeatist, escapist attitude - small children stick their fingers in their ears and chant "na-na-na-na, I can't hear you", but adults really ought to cope better. If you put people you don't agree with on ignore, it defeats the point of the forum...

YMMV.
 
annnnoid said:
...I’d be happy to show the emails to anyone at JREF…
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Yes please - if you don't feel they can be posted on the forum, please forward them via pm. Your communication with Rees would be particularly welcome.
 
annnnoid said:
Unfortunately…’ignore’ only functions when I’m not signed in. What a shame. As it stands, there’s only one on that list now. Norseman actually presented some reasonable posts, so I took him off. You’re the only one left Argent. You’re there because you’re utterly worthless (amusing…but still utterly worthless)…and you lie.

As I said Argent….I’d be happy to show the emails to anyone at JREF…then everyone will see who is the liar. I don’t expect anyone to care…but if it ever comes to a question of who is the liar…I have proof. What do you have?

Thought so.

You’re like a little school-boy who’s been caught out and simply can’t handle it. What a shame.

As for your desperate attempt at a rebuttal Pixy. I’m not even going to waste my time on it. Read the thing. EXTREMELY simple conditions, EXTREMELY simple results, won't work for just about any other modality, doubt it will work for visualization / cognition / memory, time consuming, subject has to fixate on the test image for 12 seconds, serious limitations….and somehow from this you claim it’s possible to extrapolate to that huge list I presented?!?!?!?!?? Is that seriously the best you can do??????

You are a joke Pixy.

You think Rees wasn’t aware of exactly that kind of result when we discussed this stuff. He lives right in the middle of one of the biggest cog sci research centers in the world. Do you honestly think he’s not fully cognizant of what an fMRI is capable of?


This discussion is now over.
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Which discussion? All you have done is rant and rave with a remarkable mixture of ignorance and arrogance.
 
annnnoid said:
There are actually well-known metaphysical objections to the existence of free will, but you haven’t even managed to reference any of those.
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I believe I mentioned C D Broad's essay "Libertarianism" earlier. I have brought this essay up a few times in this forum over the years, mainly because it is the only place I have ever seen where someone has actually attempted to define what libertarian free will is.

I don't believe that you have defined it or cited anyone who has.

In the past I have also cited Hume's point in "A Treatise of Human Nature":

According to my definitions, necessity makes an essential part of causation; and consequently liberty, by removing necessity, removes also causes, and is the very same thing with chance.​

I recall that Kant makes a similar point in "A Critique of Practial Reason" putting it more explicitly than Hume, that an action that is determined is not free and an act that is random is not will.

He goes on to outline what he believes is a way out of the problem but then says that he also foresees that his way out would probably involve great difficulties of it's own.

I have been quite surprised to hear you line Kant up on your side of the fence - I can't agree that he was any convinced supporter of libertarian free will.

By the way, although Mandela was fond of saying "I am the master of my fate: I am the captain of my soul." he did not originate the lines, that was William Ernest Henley.

Personally I don't see the contradiction between "I am the master of my fate" and reductionist mind theories. As I said before if the brain is a physical object then would expect it to play a causal role in the physical world.

[edit]My recollection of Broad's essay title was faulty, it is called "Determinism, Indeterminism and Libertarianism". Online here
 
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annnnoid said:
Then I’m sure you’ll find what follows equally amusing.

Just for your enlightenment Pixy…I reviewed the entire situation with Rees point by point…including both your and Argents idiotic claims. He flat out rejected both of them as utter nonsense (…his specific words were “I’ve personally never made such claims and I know of no scientists anywhere in the world who have or would”…). I asked him specifically about a range of conclusions and observations he and other researches had made in various papers. They clearly describe the current state of brain decoding. He explicitly wrote or approved every one of them. They all came directly from him. They’re all in my previous post. None of them agree with either your position or Argents.

Rees is the director of the cognitive science department at university college London. You’ve dismissed Kant, Hegel, Descartes, and Plato (and Argent has dismissed what is regarded as the foundation of the civilized world and human nature). Are you gonna dismiss Rees as well?
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annnnoid said:
Wallowing in desperation are we? You’re beginning to sound pathetic.

You’re both wrong.
The director of cog sci at university college London says so.
I’d be happy to show the emails to anyone at JREF who wants proof that Pixy and Argent don’t know what they’re talking about. That Pixy and Argent fabricate facts and manipulate evidence. They’re clearly dated and they clearly have Rees email address on them and they clearly include all the statements written in my post…word.…for….word.
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As someone new to this whole argument about "free will," I'd be keen to see those emails and determine whether the posters in question "don't know what they're talking about." PM is fine, or why not just post them in this thread? The guy's contact details are available in a 5 second google search; I'm sure he wouldn't mind.
 
annnnoid said:
You’re both wrong.
The director of cog sci at university college London says so.
I’d be happy to show the emails to anyone at JREF who wants proof that Pixy and Argent don’t know what they’re talking about. That Pixy and Argent fabricate facts and manipulate evidence. They’re clearly dated and they clearly have Rees email address on them and they clearly include all the statements written in my post…word.…for….word.
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I would also like to see your purported proof; so far all I've seen from you is the all too common mix of ignorance and arrogant ranting.
 
I have just received an e-mail from Professor Rees. However, he has asked me not to post it on an online forum. Take that as you will. annnnoid, if he ever reads this post, might start saying that I am lying. I'm not, even though I can't prove it without violating what Professor Rees has asked of me.

He did not answer my question about whether or not he received any communication from annnnoid (I suppose he might just like to keep his e-mail conversations private, so that's why he didn't tell me), but he did say that annnnoid is not fully correct.

annnnoid's list is, in some areas, generally correct. According to Professor Rees, in many areas of neurology, we don't know the limits of what we can do. Which is fine; I can accept that, and in fact I've never argued against that. I've only objected to annnnoid's claims that we cannot detect the things he has listed. But he does agree that neurological scans can "read minds" in specific cases, like the ones that Pixy and I brought up. We can't determine exactly what someone is thinking, but we can determine if they're thinking of a specific thing, or feeling a specific emotion - which is what Pixy and I have been saying all along. annnnoid is wrong in saying that emotions and visual data cannot be decoded.

So either annnnoid lied to us about e-mailing Rees - who does not disagree with what Pixy and I have said - or he lied to Rees about what we were saying, or he lied to us about the response. Which is it, I wonder?
 
annnnoid said:
How about I give you a few examples of things that are in no way shape or form detectable by any known scientific instrument.

Adoration, fondness, liking, attraction, caring, tenderness, compassion, sentimentality, Arousal, desire, lust, passion, infatuation, longing, Amusement, bliss, cheerfulness, gaiety, glee, jolliness, joviality, joy, delight, enjoyment, gladness, happiness, jubilation, elation, satisfaction, ecstasy, euphoria, Enthusiasm, zeal, zest, excitement, thrill, exhilaration, Contentment, pleasure, Pride, triumph, Eagerness, hope, optimism, Enthrallment, rapture, relief, Amazement, surprise, astonishment, Aggravation, irritation, agitation, annoyance, grouchiness, grumpiness, crosspatch, Exasperation, frustration, Anger, rage, outrage, fury, wrath, hostility, ferocity, bitterness, hate, scorn, spite, vengefullness, dislike, resentment, Disgust, revulsion, contempt, loathing, Envy, jealousy, torment, agony, suffering, hurt, anguish, Depression, despair, hopelessness, gloom, glumness, sadness, unhappiness, grief, sorrow, woe, misery, melancholy, Dismay, disappointment, displeasure, Guilt, shame, regret, remorse, Alienation, isolation, neglect, loneliness, rejection, homesickness, defeat, dejection, insecurity, embarrassment, humiliation, insult, Pity, sympathy, Alarm, shock, fear, fright, horror, terror, panic, hysteria, mortification, Anxiety, nervousness, tenseness, uneasiness, apprehension, worry, distress, dread.
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To which you replied:

Pure Argent said:
Everything you listed can be and has been detected by a myriad of scientific instruments.

Your ignorance is staggering.
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Why don’t we at least be clear about who’s lying about what. Typical Argent. Change the facts as you go along. We’ll see about the rest later.
 
annnnoid said:
To which you replied:

Why don’t we at least be clear about who’s lying about what. Typical Argent. Change the facts as you go along. We’ll see about the rest later.
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I've changed nothing. What are you babbling about now?

Oh, and am I not on your ignore list?

Oh, and are you going to produce the e-mails from Professor Rees who, for some reason, didn't ask you not to?
 
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