I challenge you: your best alternate to materialism

[doronshadmi]

Stop right there. If that's true then ALL of your posts should be in AAH. They are not, therefore you are wrong. Or is that just "my" logic ?

Take a bird and cut the feathers that allow it to fly, you do not eliminating it, but you prevent its natural ability to fly.

 

[Tommy Jeppesen]

Brain scanner.

This has been talked about in countless other threads. I am not a neurologist and don't pretend to be one, but we are already at the point where we can read basic thoughts given advanced enough equipment. We can determine what colors someone is thinking of, what emotions certain images give rise to, whose face a subject is imagining. There is absolutely no reason to believe that, given enough time and resources, we can't completely map the brain and produce a scanner which has perfect fidelity.

Thought processes are not easily described or quantified by laymen.

This does not mean that they cannot be quantified.

So, when you get up in the morning you get your brain scanned, because otherwise you don't know how you think and feel and before brain scanning humans couldn't know what the sentence "I like the color green" meant. You only know how you think and feel by looking at a brain scanner?!!

 

[Nonpareil]

So, when you get up in the morning you get your brain scanned, because otherwise you don't know how you think and feel and before brain scanning humans couldn't know what the sentence "I like the color green" meant. You only know how you think and feel by looking at a brain scanner?!!

We both know this is not what I am arguing, and it does not follow from any of my posts. What is your point?

 

[Belz...]

Take a bird and cut the feathers that allow it to fly, you do not eliminating it, but you prevent its natural ability to fly.

And that's you in a nutshell: style over substance; rhetoric over content. Instead of actually addressing my point, such as agreeing with it or countering with a logical, rational response, you go with nice-sounding platitudes.

 

[Belz...]

So, when you get up in the morning you get your brain scanned, because otherwise you don't know how you think and feel and before brain scanning humans couldn't know what the sentence "I like the color green" meant. You only know how you think and feel by looking at a brain scanner?!!

Your brain IS a brain scanner.

 

[Tommy Jeppesen]

But they feel special to me !

Cut it out, Belz... If you feel something, it is not the same as seeing and you don't experience the world only through sight! It is a straw man to claim that because I claim that feelings are real, that I claim they are special. Your line of thinking is as bad as:
P1: Science can't explain all aspect of reality.
C: God!!!

P1: Feelings as feelings about processes in a given brain and body are real. (Not to be confused with emotions.)
C: They are special.

P2 in the latter deduction BTW is that any claim to feeling is woo! That is not sound!

I hope you can do better than that, because in short your thinking is in part an induction error and bad judgment of what makes a skeptic a skeptic. Not all of us skeptics are scientific skeptics.
P1: I am a scientific skeptic.
C: All skeptics are scientific skeptics or they are really woo-believers.

With regards

 

[Tommy Jeppesen]

We both know this is not what I am arguing, and it does not follow from any of my posts. What is your point?

You don't understand all of reality only through objective observation and objective testing.

 

[MRC_Hans]

Hi Nonpareil
How does "I like the color green" look like?

It looks like neurins conncting the experience of green with something preferable.

What kind of observation as through sight can you give for something you like?

What is that supposed to mean?

Now the words - "the real world" - what does real look like and do you observe real?

Yes. Using proper observation methods, we observe real and only that.

Come on - what does "I like" look like - how do you see "I like"?

Are you in doubt about how you observe that you like something?

Hans

 

[MRC_Hans]

You don't understand all of reality only through objective observation and objective testing.

You understand some by inference, but all is based on observation.

Hans

 

[Tommy Jeppesen]

Your brain IS a brain scanner.

No, your brain is also a brain scanner, but not just a brain scanner. Stop doing binary true and false for everything.

You: Is the brain only a brain scanner; yes or no! If you answer in any other way, you are a woo-believer, because I say so!
Me: Could you learn to think otherwise???

 

[Tommy Jeppesen]

You understand some by inference, but all is based on observation.

Hans

Not all observation is seeing.

 

[MRC_Hans]

Not all observation is seeing.

Anybody claimed it was?

Hans

 

[Tommy Jeppesen]

Yes. Using proper observation methods, we observe real and only that.

Hans

So how do you observe that? You have made a subjective rule for the word real, because all versions of real is abstract and not observable through observation.

 

[MRC_Hans]

So how do you observe that? You have made a subjective rule for the word real, because all versions of real is abstract and not observable through observation.

Elucidate, please.

Hans

 

[Tommy Jeppesen]

Anybody claimed it was?

Hans

I don't really know, because you are not the rest of the "gang", but try answer this.
Are all version of empiricism observation through sight and testing? Have you checked?

BTW we can observe, doesn't hold for 1st person, because you are not a we for all aspects of reality

 

[Nonpareil]

You don't understand all of reality only through objective observation and objective testing.

You keep on using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.

"Objective observation" is the only kind of observation there is. If something does not have objective existence, you cannot observe it, by definition. It does not exist. Your interpretation of what you observe may be subjective depending on the way the question is framed, but the observation itself happens. It is objective.

"Objective testing" is redundant. "Subjective testing" is a nonsense phrase. Your interpretation of the test may be subjective depending on the way the question is framed, but the test itself happens. It is objective.

No, your brain is also a brain scanner, but not just a brain scanner. Stop doing binary true and false for everything.

No one is doing that. Stop trying to tell other people what they are arguing when you do not understand the definitions being used.

So how do you observe that?

The same way you observe literally anything else.

You have made a subjective rule for the word real

You not understanding the definition of "real" is not the same thing as making up rules.

because all versions of real is abstract

This is wrong.

 

[MRC_Hans]

I don't really know, because you are not the rest of the "gang", but try answer this.
Are all version of empiricism observation through sight and testing? Have you checked?

You are not really confusing 'sight' and 'observation' are you?

All empiricism is through observation and testing. I don't have to check, because that is the definition of empiricism. If it ain't through observation and testing, it ain't empiricism.

BTW we can observe, doesn't hold for 1st person, because you are not a we for all aspects of reality

No, I often have to trust the observations of others. That's the reason we have invented the system of peer reviewed publishing and independent confirmation.

Hans

 

[Myriad]

You don't understand all of reality only through objective observation and objective testing.

I do.

I don't experience all of reality through objective observation and objective testing. In fact, I don't experience anything that way. I experience everything by experiencing it, subjectively.

But objective testing and objective observation (which includes observation of others' accounts of what they have observed and tested) is the only way to understand any of the things I'm experiencing. "Pure experiencing" can have value but by itself it does not lead to understanding.

Experiencing thunder results in something like, "Loud noise! Danger! Run away!" which might have some survival value under primitive conditions.

With a small amount of understanding, we learn, "Thunder means danger of lightning. Hide away in places less exposed to lightning." That's more valuable knowledge, but you can only get there via objective testing of questions such as "Is the occurrence of lightning correlated to the occurrence of thunder?" and "Does thunder ever cause harm in the absence of nearby lightning?"

More advanced objective testing and observation leads to the deeper understanding that thunder is the sound generated by lightning, lightning is atmospheric electrical discharges, and structures can be protected from lightning using pointy metal rods.

There are experiences we don't yet understand, such as the experience of the divine. "Divine presence! Awesome! Worship!" But in that case, all attempts at objective observation and testing (e.g. the entirety of theology) have failed to produce any consistent understanding (hence, a million different religions), probably because we've been observing and testing the wrong things (e.g. the nature and wishes of the entity-that-is-present in the divine-presence experience, which will not be productive if there is no such entity). At that point, we can either denigrate understanding and be satisfied with the non-understanding of the pure experience (putting a good face on cowering from thunder), or engage yet deeper and more advanced objective testing and observation (such as brain scans).

 

[Belz...]

Cut it out, Belz...

No. I will continue to point out nonsense.

If you feel something, it is not the same as seeing and you don't experience the world only through sight!

How is that even a reply to what I said ? Here's my point: we are increasingly capable of explaining the entire process of consciousness, both as a mechanism, and in our ability to detect and decypher its numerous processes. This should help us conclude that there is nothing to consciousness but physical processes in material things. The insistence that there must be something else is emotion-based, nothing else.

It is a straw man to claim that because I claim that feelings are real, that I claim they are special.

It's a strawman to claim that this is what I've been doing.

I hope you can do better than that, because in short your thinking is in part an induction error and bad judgment of what makes a skeptic a skeptic.

No, because you, once again, do not understand what others are telling you.

 

[Belz...]

You don't understand all of reality only through objective observation and objective testing.

No, your brain is also a brain scanner, but not just a brain scanner. Stop doing binary true and false for everything.

Where did I say it is ONLY a brain scanner ? STOP adding content to my posts.

I also notice you've used the opportunity to dodge my point AGAIN. The point which was that you actually DO only know about your feelings and perceptions via scanning your brain.