Dualism is intuitive

[Batman Jr.]

Parsimony doesn't allow me to keep adding surplus things like a 'soul' to what appears to be a reasonable explanation for how the system works. I see it 'you' and 'me' as a simulation that is integral to that brain, and yes the interconnections with its body and sensory organs. Within the simulation, the illusion of self and sensory input and transparent integration of will to operate motor functions is complete.

More parsimonious theories are good for the pragmatic aspect of science, but it would be wrong to deny the existence of something based solely on the fact that it is by definition undetectable and should not appear in a context of only verifiable assertions. To include such disbelief in a proposition would be just as unnecessarily complicating as belief. As I said before, of monism and dualism, no one shall win out in their long-fought philosophical war.

Originally posted by evildave
You may as well tell me that electrons are actually sentient little demons, and integrated circuits are cities for them to live in. If you push too many demons into a city, they rebel and destroy it.

Perhaps this is true so long as the sentient demons are required to adhere to what is known of electrodynamics, though it is really irrelevant. Irrelevancy is the true reason we favor parsimony in science, and not because anything that is not testable is nonexistent. It is also for the reason that throwing extra junk into the proposal may cause difficulty later on in the evolution of our understanding of the particular field of study to which the proposal applies. Suppose that we somehow were able to gain the ability to find evidence for the sentience of the electron. Pre-empting this evidence with aversion to the idea created by our misconceptions of the importance of parsimony would certainly not be healthy to intellectual progress as pre-empting disproof against electron sentience with unfounded belief would have a similarly negative effect on the human race's accumulation of scientific knowledge.

Agnosticism on the currently undetectable, it seems to me, must be the advised route to take.

 

[evildave]

Primarily, the soul "exists" insofar as the simulation exists, if you decide to call it a "soul".

Supernatural, or post-mortem survival properties of this 'soul'? Not demonstrated.

Processes the 'soul' is said to accomplish that are not theoretically accomplished by the biological systems it appears to be composed of? Not demonstrated.

'Chilly Willy' as a living, breathing entity, independant of animator/voice talent? Not demonstrated.

 

[Batman Jr.]

Processes the 'soul' is said to accomplish that are not theoretically accomplished by the biological systems it appears to be composed of? Not demonstrated.

Thought processes can be explained away by the brain, but what about the actual perception of those thought processes? We cannot tell what other thinking beings are actually perceiving, in that we can only know our own awareness (everyone else, as I have said before, could be a p-zombie). With only one person verifiably aware, how can perception possibly be expected to be tied to any other phenomenon or construct, let alone our biology?

 

[evildave]

If they're not 'perceiving', then they're processing.

What is a person 'perceiving' who has damage to their visual cortex, and know there's light/dark, and shapes are moving in front of them, but can't recognize or seperate any of it?
http://serendip.brynmawr.edu/bb/blindsight.html

When someone who's suffering from synesthesia has senses bleeding into each other, and smells colors, hears tastes, etc. because of chemical imbalances and some 'shorting' in thier brains, what are they perceiving?
http://web.mit.edu/synesthesia/www/synesthesia.html

 

[Batman Jr.]

If they're not 'perceiving', then they're processing.

What is a person 'perceiving' who has damage to their visual cortex, and know there's light/dark, and shapes are moving in front of them, but can't recognize or seperate any of it?
http://serendip.brynmawr.edu/bb/blindsight.html

When someone who's suffering from synesthesia has senses bleeding into each other, and smells colors, hears tastes, etc. because of chemical imbalances and some 'shorting' in thier brains, what are they perceiving?
http://web.mit.edu/synesthesia/www/synesthesia.html

What we perceive is not the same as the actual perception. Aside from that, just because someone evinces a behavior which appears to be reflecting a certain perception does not mean that other person is actually experiencing anything of the like. Remember that we can only link outwardly expressed behavior and inwardly manifesting perception within ourselves, so it's difficult to say that just because someone says they are, for example, sad or are acting so, that they actually perceive sadness in the same way that I would—that is, if those others perceive at all—is dubious.

 

[Filip Sandor]

Shermer's quote:

Hallucinations of preternatural beings (ghosts, angels, aliens) are sensed as real entities, out-of-body and near-death experiences are perceived as external events, and the pattern of information that is our memories, personaltiy, and "self" is sensed as a soul.

It's interesting to note that there is some disharmony in Shermer's logic or it is incomplete, at best. I think a little mental twister is appropriate to illustrate the problem here...

If what Shermer says is true and the pattern of information that correlates to a brain is not perceived by the brain itself then how do we know if the pattern of information we perceive, when we read his theory, correlates to our own brain and not some other brain?

I'm sorry if that's too complicated, it's obviously lacking some information.

 

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

Filip said:
If what Shermer says is true and the pattern of information that correlates to a brain is not perceived by the brain itself then how do we know if the pattern of information we perceive, when we read his theory, correlates to our own brain and not some other brain?

Can you reword this? I'm not sure what you're trying to say.

~~ Paul

 

[Filip Sandor]

Can you reword this? I'm not sure what you're trying to say.

~~ Paul

Paul,

Shermer's theory doesn't make sense.

According to his theory there is a specific correlation between certain brains and certain patterns of information, but he doesn't show how to derive what information correlates to what brain. Furthermore, his is assumption that the brain can't perceive itself doesn't shed light on anything either. How can someone be self-aware if they aren't capable of perceiving themselves??

I don't know how it even got printed in Scientific American...

 

[evildave]

What we perceive is not the same as the actual perception. Aside from that, just because someone evinces a behavior which appears to be reflecting a certain perception does not mean that other person is actually experiencing anything of the like. Remember that we can only link outwardly expressed behavior and inwardly manifesting perception within ourselves, so it's difficult to say that just because someone says they are, for example, sad or are acting so, that they actually perceive sadness in the same way that I would—that is, if those others perceive at all—is dubious.

Well, there's the problem. When one person says "Being stabbed through the foot with a piece of rebar really, really hurts.", you might say that's subjective. If you are tenth in line waiting to have your foot impaled on rebar, witnessing the reactions and reports of the other people, all the same: "That really, really hurts", do you concede that rebar through the foot probably isn't a good idea or do you say "Hey, how do I know what YOU or those other eight people are really feeling? I can't know for sure this will hurt me."

At some point, something like science enters into it. You can believe that losing your eyeballs will not make YOU go blind, but scooping out your eyeballs to 'see' would be foolish.

 

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

Filip said:
According to his theory there is a specific correlation between certain brains and certain patterns of information, but he doesn't show how to derive what information correlates to what brain. Furthermore, his is assumption that the brain can't perceive itself doesn't shed light on anything either. How can someone be self-aware if they aren't capable of perceiving themselves??

He is not saying that we don't have self-awareness, which is what you seem to be arguing about. He is simply saying that the brain cannot perceive the technicalities of its own operation. Therefore we tend to attribute conscious thoughts to external stimuli, rather than the internal events that we don't notice.

~~ Paul

 

[Batman Jr.]

Well, there's the problem. When one person says "Being stabbed through the foot with a piece of rebar really, really hurts.", you might say that's subjective. If you are tenth in line waiting to have your foot impaled on rebar, witnessing the reactions and reports of the other people, all the same: "That really, really hurts", do you concede that rebar through the foot probably isn't a good idea or do you say "Hey, how do I know what YOU or those other eight people are really feeling? I can't know for sure this will hurt me."

At some point, something like science enters into it. You can believe that losing your eyeballs will not make YOU go blind, but scooping out your eyeballs to 'see' would be foolish.

Alright then. Show me a concise proof that all behavior reflecting a certain perception in the self reflects the same difference in perception in other people. I surmise that you won't even get to the point where there is a net change in perception at all in another person. Actually, let me take it a step further. You can't even prove that there is a conscious, self-aware mind behind any other living, thinking thing.

As for your scenario with the foot-stabbing, this is all I see proven from that:

1) Stabbing someone in the foot consistently causes the behavior normally, for me, associated with pain.

2) If I am stabbed in the foot, I can bet on that behavior of which I speak appearing in me. Hence, pain. However, I still don't know what actually happens to the others. Additionally, my fear would be based partially on past experiences of having been hurt in similar, albeit not as extreme, fashions, as well as inbuilt instinct against bodily injury.

And for the eye-scooping, well, I already have the freedom enough to manipulate my eyes so that I can realize that I need them to see, so I'd have a substantial bias. And again, though I don't know what perceptive changes, if any, occur when someone else gets their eyes removed, I do know there is a scientifically identifiable pattern for blind behavior in those individuals. It is this behavior that I shall relate to my perceptions, but it must be understood that I can never directly relate my perceptions with another's.

 

[evildave]

So, why is it not reasonable to assume that if you know that YOUR eyes are necessary for vision, it is reasonable for other people's eyes to be necessary for vision, and that if YOUR foot should stay intact that other people's feet should?

Although you can never have a direct experience of their exeperiences, you can make adequate projections about theirs, based on your own experiences, and very good projections based on an impartially gathered composite of experience.

Interview 10/10 people who've had a hunk of rebar through their foot, or eyeballs popped out, and they will not recommend it. Of course with a large enough sample, there could be people who are masochists, but they will be in a tiny minority.

No, you can never tell for sure that the green you see is the green they see (unless one of you is color blind and sees green as brown), but you can bet the experience will be consistent. Show the both of you the same basic colors, red, green, blue, etc. and you will both call them out the same.

Either of you may favor different colors for different reasons. I would not (based on any profile or test) try to assess whether you like fudge better than carrot cake after observing your preference in colors, but your preference for one or the other can be deduced readily enough from your behavior. Whether chocolate tastes to you like liver tastes to me, I have no clue, but have us call out 'sweet' versus 'salty' versus 'spicy', and we will call them the same. Whether we taste 'the same basic thing', the things are consistent.

Yes, there are problems with judging by behavior. If you are conscious, yet 100% paralyzed and unable to emote or react to any stimulus, it is entirely possible you could be declared 'brain dead' and have your life support pulled, if someone doesn't connect an EEG and read it right.

 

[Batman Jr.]

So, why is it not reasonable to assume that if you know that YOUR eyes are necessary for vision, it is reasonable for other people's eyes to be necessary for vision, and that if YOUR foot should stay intact that other people's feet should?

Isn't it a little more than an assumption for you if you say that dualism is demonstrably false based upon experiments monitoring behavior?

Originally posted by evildave
No, you can never tell for sure that the green you see is the green they see (unless one of you is color blind and sees green as brown), but you can bet the experience will be consistent. Show the both of you the same basic colors, red, green, blue, etc. and you will both call them out the same.

I can only correlate my own perceptions to my actions. I have no experience directly observing other's perceptions, so I couldn't say that they are necessarily consistent with their behaviors. And on an even more fundamental level, there is nothing to suggest that another even possesses the ability to be self-aware in the first place, because, after all, we are just really fancy computers that can be explained away with the laws of physics. There's no "mind" required. In order to say—getting back to the main reason we're having this discussion—that the brain causes self-consciousness, you would have to first show that there is always a mind wherever a properly equipped brain is found, and you can't really do that for the reasons we've been talking about. Who knows what results a study examining brain/mind correlation would yield were it logically possible to carry out. Even if the results were to show a strong correlation, though it would do much to strengthen the case for monism, there is always the possibility of some other, undetectable phenomenon. But the truth is that we can't even get to that point, so we're practically blind when it comes to the field of ontology.

 

[Filip Sandor]

.... there is nothing to suggest that another even possesses the ability to be self-aware in the first place, because, after all, we are just really fancy computers that can be explained away with the laws of physics. There's no "mind" required ....

Hi Batman Jr.,

I'd just like to start off by saying that I do agree with your point of view about there not being enough evidence for monism.

The most common problem I find in debating the idea of dualism with physicalists is that non-physical things cannot be defined in physical terms and a physicalist's conceptual frame-work doesn't allow for the idea of a non-physical phenomena. If all possibilities are exhausted to no avail and no conclusive evidence can be found physically explaining the apparent 'gaps' that exist in monism then the physicalist can only answer by pleading that some day, somehow there will be a solution - regardless of any logical contradictions.

I can only imagine what would happen if 'physical science' actually attempted to build a logical framework of how non-physical phenomena relates to and works with physical phenomena? The only problem is that physicalists would have to abandon a stupid little pet theory that all things are physical in order to advance in studies of physical vs. non-physical phenomena.

I guess it is possible that maybe the underlying problem is how we define 'physical' vs. 'non-physical'... but then we risk a never-ending game of meaningless semantics, which doesn't lead us to any knew knowledge anyway and usually ends in the whole "nothing we perceive is actually real" which eradicates any concrete solution to anything.

 

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

Filip said:
I can only imagine what would happen if 'physical science' actually attempted to build a logical framework of how non-physical phenomena relates to and works with physical phenomena? The only problem is that physicalists would have to abandon a stupid little pet theory that all things are physical in order to advance in studies of physical vs. non-physical phenomena.

An assumption of science is that everything we can study is physical. Note the word assumption. In this context, it makes no sense to "abandon ... theory that all things are physical."

Here is the logical framework of how nonphysical phenomena relate to and work with physical phenomena: Find the nexus between the nonphysical and physical. The nexus must logically be physical in order for the nonphysical to have an observable effect on the physical. Now find the new nexus between the remaining nonphysical and the physical. Continue until done.

I guess it is possible that maybe the underlying problem is how we define 'physical' vs. 'non-physical'... but then we risk a never-ending game of meaningless semantics, ...

You are correct, sir.

~~ Paul

 

[evildave]

When you're thirsty enough, it doesn't matter to you that the water you find may be mere illusion, based on faulty assumptions that any experience is real at all. You drink. If you're hungry enough, the food is real enough.

I know exactly where any 'science' goes when it is based on nothing but a mass of assumptions and presumptions: nowhere. Garbage in, garbage out. If you begin deriving more than a trivial number of 'conclusions' based on untestable assumptions, then you go astray.

As you might guess, I'm a bit more materialistic.

By simply concentrating on the repeatable, science makes progress that is at least repeatable.

The world is real enough. Other people and animals are real enough. Even if it's all in my imagination, making the world a happier place should be a priority. I can't prove any of you exist, or have anything like experience at all, but I will grant you the courtesy of that assumption.

 

[Interesting Ian]

An assumption of science is that everything we can study is physical.

No, this is an assumption of Naturalism, and arguably physics.

Here is the logical framework of how nonphysical phenomena relate to and work with physical phenomena: Find the nexus between the nonphysical and physical.

Suppose there isn't one.

 

[Batman Jr.]

When you're thirsty enough, it doesn't matter to you that the water you find may be mere illusion, based on faulty assumptions that any experience is real at all. You drink. If you're hungry enough, the food is real enough.

I know exactly where any 'science' goes when it is based on nothing but a mass of assumptions and presumptions: nowhere. Garbage in, garbage out. If you begin deriving more than a trivial number of 'conclusions' based on untestable assumptions, then you go astray.

As you might guess, I'm a bit more materialistic.

By simply concentrating on the repeatable, science makes progress that is at least repeatable.

The world is real enough. Other people and animals are real enough. Even if it's all in my imagination, making the world a happier place should be a priority. I can't prove any of you exist, or have anything like experience at all, but I will grant you the courtesy of that assumption.

For the most part, I agree with you because questioning just about everything can leave a person completely incapacitated. It's just that when you're tackling questions like these that I think it's necessary to deconstruct things to a much greater extent than normal. My only criticism of you was your claim that dualism could be ruled out to a scientific certainty, which I reason not to be possible. I'm neither a materialist nor an immaterialist. I'm happy accepting that I just don't know.

 

[evildave]

Well, the test I proposed is sci-fi to an extent greater than most Star Trek watchers can comprehend.

 

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

I said:
An assumption of science is that everything we can study is physical.

Then Ian said:
No, this is an assumption of Naturalism, and arguably physics.

I think you may be assuming that by physical I mean ontologically physical. I do not. Science defines physical to mean those things that are, in principle, observable. It is an epistemological definition.

Science says nothing about ontology.

~~ Paul