Materialism - Devastator of Scientific Method! / Observer Delusion

[angrysoba]

Just keep repeating NO, tsig. I mean it's always worth a try - No, No, No. But look what happened to Amy Winehouse in the end. She should have gone with a yes.

Nick

Computer says, "No!"

 

[SusanB-M1]

I'm not saying it's defeated. I'm saying it needs to assess and compensate for evolutionary bias

Sent from my D5503 using Tapatalk

Surely it is far better to have a bit of, possibly unavoidable? bias, which tests and checking can resolve, than to have to stop advancementss in Science ?

 

[Mojo]

If our brains developed a sense of an observer existing, through evolutionary bias, then what does scientific method look like without this add-on ?

The same.

 

[Slowvehicle]

It's straight materialism. You can't have an observer. Do you look for an observer within the brain? No. So it has to emerge. Can it have actual reality? No, that would be dualism. End of story.

...and yet, "I" observe that "you" did not answer the question about "hard science"...

 

[Mojo]

Does materialism spell the end for scientific method? I've been pondering this question for some time. It looks like this...

* At least 99% of modern scientific research into the brain points directly to it being the sole source of consciousness. Pretty much every aspect of conscious experience has now been tracked to brain activity.

* Consciousness emerges from brain activity. It's what neural processing actually looks like, actually is.

* If the brain is the source, or foundation, for consciousness then there cannot actually be an observing self. Though it's a pervasive and convincing phenomena it can't be real, or we'd be back in dualism. If we tell a materialist that they're going to be painlessly and instantaneously killed, and replaced with an identical copy, in theory they should be OK with it. It seems like something is going to be lost - them - but materialist logic dictates that this cannot be so in reality.

* This seeming presence of an observing self is likely therefore some highly favoured illusion resulting from millions of years of selective pressure. It's useful primarily for evolutionarily favoured tasks - finding food, shelter, sex, and avoiding predators.

* If selfhood is merely a highly favoured illusion then what does this say about some of the cornerstones of scientific method, principles and techniques used to determine the truth about things? Surely perspective is finished. Objectivity must be in quite some trouble if there is in reality no subject. Separation - got to be an illusion. Distance - sounds dubious. These concepts, so much the bare bones of our daily existence, must just be artifacts of our hunter-gatherer past, not reflections of reality. Even empiricism, perhaps not blown away, but surely weakened now.

Materialism - could it spell the end of science?

Nick

Someone has been using exactly the same argument over on Edzard Ernst's blog, in order to object to the "hounding of homeopathy":

http://edzardernst.com/2015/11/more-very-bad-news-for-homeopathy/

 

[Mojo]

And, incidentally, there's already been a thread on substantially the same topic here:

http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showthread.php?t=125697

 

[Nay_Sayer]

or how about a TV show, where all the thinkers in the world have to fight it out until only one remains? Then we all accept what they believe. Or has that already been done?

Nah, we ought to just go with whatever ideas that pop in our head, No real need to test them in any way.

 

[Myriad]

Nick, what do you suppose these evolutionary biases are likely to be? Keeping in mind how evolution actually works.

Is it likely, for instance, that we evolved the ability to accurately perceive when a chasm is in front of us, or that we evolved a comforting illusion that there is no chasm even when there is? One of those perceptual traits would promote the ability to survive and reproduce, while the other would hinder it. Can you tell which is which? Of course you can.

Here's a more realistic example: it's more dangerous to fail to perceive enemy action against us, mistakenly attributing covert attacks as chance occurrences, than it is to mistake chance occurrences for covert enemy action. Therefore, one might expect that evolutionary adaptation has made us over-sentitive to patterns and intentions, causing us to sometimes perceive patterns where only chance occurrence exists, and to sometimes perceive intention where no intentional agency is acting.

These, though, are known biases; indeed, the entire foundation of scientific practice consists largely of acting in ways that counteract those biases, such as by performing controlled experiments, performing statistical tests for significance of results, and discounting intentional supernatural agency as an explanation for observed phenomena.

What biases did you have in mind? Can you give some examples?

 

[Myriad]

or how about a TV show, where all the thinkers in the world have to fight it out until only one remains? Then we all accept what they believe. Or has that already been done?

Well, that is a lot like the evolutionary process, which you assert has introduced cognitive biases. Why would you hypothesize that further simulating or intensifying that same process would reduce those biases?

 

[Nick227]

I would like to suggest more cooking shows. Not the scientific ones, but you know, the regular, non-sciency cooking shows.

Yes, that Heston, with his syringes and pipettes...

 

[Archie Gemmill Goal]

Does materialism spell the end for scientific method? I've been pondering this question for some time. It looks like this...

* At least 99% of modern scientific research into the brain points directly to it being the sole source of consciousness. Pretty much every aspect of conscious experience has now been tracked to brain activity.

* Consciousness emerges from brain activity. It's what neural processing actually looks like, actually is.

* If the brain is the source, or foundation, for consciousness then there cannot actually be an observing self. Though it's a pervasive and convincing phenomena it can't be real, or we'd be back in dualism. If we tell a materialist that they're going to be painlessly and instantaneously killed, and replaced with an identical copy, in theory they should be OK with it. It seems like something is going to be lost - them - but materialist logic dictates that this cannot be so in reality.

* This seeming presence of an observing self is likely therefore some highly favoured illusion resulting from millions of years of selective pressure. It's useful primarily for evolutionarily favoured tasks - finding food, shelter, sex, and avoiding predators.

* If selfhood is merely a highly favoured illusion then what does this say about some of the cornerstones of scientific method, principles and techniques used to determine the truth about things? Surely perspective is finished. Objectivity must be in quite some trouble if there is in reality no subject. Separation - got to be an illusion. Distance - sounds dubious. These concepts, so much the bare bones of our daily existence, must just be artifacts of our hunter-gatherer past, not reflections of reality. Even empiricism, perhaps not blown away, but surely weakened now.

Materialism - could it spell the end of science?

Nick

See! Stuff like this is why philosophers can't have nice things.

 

[Paul2]

You agree that if consciousness is purely a brain phenomenon then this must indicate a selfless reality?

So, everything is just happening, observed by no one. This is as near as we can get to a True statement here, as opposed to a socially useful one. Then it seems reasonable to me that our sense of perspective, of things being near or far, is just an artifact of evolution.

I'm not sure what I agree with yet, I was just asking for you to explain your reasoning as to why perspective is finished, etc., under the theory that the mind is just what the brain does, or is an epiphenomenon of the brain, etc.

Can you explain your reasoning?

Yes. I'd say to a degree. Mathematical principles shouldn't be under any threat, for example. But the sheer weight of value given by scientists and others to method must be weakened by the reality that there isn't actually a subject, an observer.

I don't see any fleshing out of your reasoning, just another statement of your claim. Can you explain why method would be weakened if there isn't an observer. And, don't you mean a non-material observer? Or are you allowing for a material observer when you say "observer?"

 

[Nick227]

OK. You're definitely conflating epistemology and ontology. Whether someone believes in Cartesian dualism or a strictly monist materialism says nothing about the validity of scientific realism or antirealism. You can be a monist who accepts, say, Daniel Dennett's "Multiple Drafts Model" and still believe in scientific realism.

I think even Dennett gave up on that one. But I take your point.

Such a person would say that while the "Mind's Eye" is indeed an illusion it is nevertheless an emergent property of real material things: namely neurons, and these real entities provide a (for the most part) faithfully recreated depiction of how the universe really is

Hold up there a little please. Consciousness, as a whole or in parts, is emerging directly from physical process, neuronal activity, agreed. However the mind's "I" is emerging from other emergents, and by cheating! Dennett coined the term "centre of narrative gravity" to describe how paying attention to a thought narrative constantly creates and reinforces the notion that there is some "I" that is being referred to. It's like... if you think of an blank space without a centre. Now, imagine circular motion in the space and hey, ho you have a sense of there being a centre in empty space.

The contents of consciousness may be faithfully accurate, though we don't know and I'm pointing in this thread to issues here. But they are at least emerging directly from physical process, as you say. The mind's "I" is not. It's a complete charlatan, albeit one hugely favoured.

In such a scenario we'd simply reinterpret the results of said method as being an approximation or construct of reality. The scientific method would still be useful even if we started to understand science as an invention of models rather than the discovery of truth since, you know, it seems to work pretty damn well. Atomic theory works and its predictive power is unmatched no matter if "atoms" are actually real.

I don't think science needs to be thrown out with the bathwater. But the effects of evolutionary psychology & biology need to be assessed and factored in.

 

[Nick227]

Surely it is far better to have a bit of, possibly unavoidable? bias, which tests and checking can resolve, than to have to stop advancementss in Science ?

I agree entirely.

 

[Roger Ramjets]

In this context, an observer.

So your 'observing self' is what, the conscious mind watching itself?

How so?

Are you asking how something could be self-aware without having a metaphysical component? Then I ask you - why should a metaphysical component be required?

Not really a good analogy for the sense of an observer. It's an illusion that developed for specific purposes,

what purposes, and why do you say it is an illusion?

and can corrupt data interpretation for others.

Huh?

Sent from my D5503 using Tapatalk

Oh now I get it - you're a bot!

 

[tsig]

See! Stuff like this is why philosophers can't have nice things.

Esp if they are made out of materiel.

 

[Jules Galen]

* If the brain is the source, or foundation, for consciousness then there cannot actually be an observing self. Though it's a pervasive and convincing phenomena it can't be real, or we'd be back in dualism.

Goo-goo nonsense babble. I don't know what this means - and neither do you. But from this nonsense you leverage some mighty strange conclusions.

 

[Nick227]

Nick, what do you suppose these evolutionary biases are likely to be? Keeping in mind how evolution actually works.

[cut]

These, though, are known biases; indeed, the entire foundation of scientific practice consists largely of acting in ways that counteract those biases, such as by performing controlled experiments, performing statistical tests for significance of results, and discounting intentional supernatural agency as an explanation for observed phenomena.

Yes, we use double blind studies and look for reproducibility of results, ideally from different researchers. We do this to try and remove subjective bias.

It's great, but the next layer of bias that will need to be assessed and dealt with is now on the horizon. And it's not so subjective, more the opposite. From evolutionary biology & psychology we learn of instinct blindness. The fact that human brains developed instinctual reactions to certain stimuli through selection pressure, over a long period of time, means two things. 1) they're pretty much all the same, and (2) their perceptual and cognitive systems are fundamentally instinctual, though mental capacities to override instinct have more recently emerged.

What biases did you have in mind? Can you give some examples?

Consider separation. Seems pretty reasonable, huh? I mean I'm here and well, the laptop is just there. Oh, the wall's over there. Until we remove the subject, I, out of the scenario. Now everything is just object. Everything looks the same but the sense of hard boundaries is dispersing. It's more like a TV screen. Now, a masked gunman has just walked into the room! Ah good, hard boundaries again, instinctual responses override this non-dual spaciness. Glad I learned to fight. That's him dealt with. You get the idea?

Perception, distance - I mean they look real. And in any situation where the brain's instinctual response to danger (or other favoured stimuli) is triggered they will seem real as hell. But that guy measuring the distance between those two points, well that's just an action taking place! Where's the real significance?

The significance of scientific method is weakened when the illusion of there existing an observer is seen through. Great, guys. We measured the distance and checked the time. And now, er, we know more about relationships within an erroneous perception of space. Uhm, great.

For tasks with evolutionarily-derived significance, staying alive, reproducing, of course science is wonderful. Determining truth... well maybe. Maybe not.

 

[ehcks]

Yes, we use double blind studies and look for reproducibility of results, ideally from different researchers. We do this to try and remove subjective bias.

It's great, but the next layer of bias that will need to be assessed and dealt with is now on the horizon. And it's not so subjective, more the opposite. From evolutionary biology & psychology we learn of instinct blindness. The fact that human brains developed instinctual reactions to certain stimuli through selection pressure, over a long period of time, means two things. 1) they're pretty much all the same, and (2) their perceptual and cognitive systems are fundamentally instinctual, though mental capacities to override instinct have more recently emerged.



Consider separation. Seems pretty reasonable, huh? I mean I'm here and well, the laptop is just there. Oh, the wall's over there. Until we remove the subject, I, out of the scenario. Now everything is just object. Everything looks the same but the sense of hard boundaries is dispersing. It's more like a TV screen. Now, a masked gunman has just walked into the room! Ah good, hard boundaries again, instinctual responses override this non-dual spaciness. Glad I learned to fight. That's him dealt with. You get the idea?

Perception, distance - I mean they look real. And in any situation where the brain's instinctual response to danger (or other favoured stimuli) is triggered they will seem real as hell. But that guy measuring the distance between those two points, well that's just an action taking place! Where's the real significance?

The significance of scientific method is weakened when the illusion of there existing an observer is seen through. Great, guys. We measured the distance and checked the time. And now, er, we know more about relationships within an erroneous perception of space. Uhm, great.

For tasks with evolutionarily-derived significance, staying alive, reproducing, of course science is wonderful. Determining truth... well maybe. Maybe not.

The entire purpose of the scientific method was removing those biases. They're already gone. For instance, it's not a human measuring distance. We don't use the actual length of a foot for feet anymore. We use real measurements, such as the distance a photon travels in a vacuum over a period of time. Human bias does not change that. Nothing changes that.

If my wall is three meters long, it is always three meters long, regardless of which human observes it.

 

[Nick227]

So your 'observing self' is what, the conscious mind watching itself?

[cut]

what purposes, and why do you say it is an illusion?

Please see earlier post here

Oh now I get it - you're a bot!

Well, of course a bot would have little trouble with this issue. I mean, even a bot running on a Sinclair ZX out of 1980 could probably do the job pretty good. Because a bot doesn't have a billion years of selection pressure blocking it from internalizing certain key realizations about the nature of a personal self.

The instinct to survive is of course massively favoured. To survive a physical threat, damn right we want the instinctual side of our brain to kick in and do whatever's necessary to keep our body alive.

But what about a threat where physical death is not even on the horizon, but rather ego death. Where the mind's sense of personal selfhood appears to be threatened, but not the body. Could our defences distinguish between the two? I don't think so. Can you internalize the statement "I don't exist" fully and without any defensive response - thought-based or otherwise kicking in? Have a look.