Care to link me some of his coherent arguments on this thread?
The statement was a general one and not intended to apply specifically to this thread. tsig's posts tend to be rather forgettable due to lack of meaningful new content, either way, which makes me much less inclined to go out of my way to hunt them down.
Well, I do take a bit of a Zorro position with homeopathy. That is true. But that wasn't what originally inspired the thread actually.
Really? When you mentioned homeopathy originally, it quite sounded like you were saying that that was your motivation for actually starting this thread, which is what I was saying, rather than the inspiration for the content, which is what you're trying to use to disagreeing with that. Is there going to be a need to hunt down the post in question to verify?
I read
Mike Shermer's column in Sci Am a few months back on the Interface Theory of Perception and I thought he raises some good points but, you know, the guy is scared. I could feel it.
It seems that we have a difference of opinion when it comes to the feelings of the author, then. I'm not really sensing fear there. Notable doubt more than anything, really, about how accurate the theory is, while noting that there likely are bits of at least half-truth in it.
He's no fool and he can see what's potentially coming down the pipe towards science in general and skepticism specifically.
And it's quite hard to take this as anything more than an entirely unjustified leap of desire on your part for me, given the actual contents of the article. Unless, of course, you're actually talking about him knowing that people will likely try to use the theory in ways that are highly questionable at best to attack science and skepticism?
Well, I have been arguing two separate points and you are conflating them here.
And you've used them to try to support each other, at last check. I do, of course, admit the possibility of my error there, but it would be of rather limited value for your arguments.
The observer - you can't have an observer under monist materialism, simple as that. Because there's no place in the brain that can be termed "observer."
For there to be an "observer," why would it need to be a singular place that's notably more precise than the entire brain, given how interlinked the brain actually is, for much of how it works? Certainly, there are various parts of the brain that are much more focused on handling various specific operations, but such isn't either a requirement or a hard rule, at last check. As long as a set of systems is, in fact, meeting all the criteria that would qualify it to meet a definition, denying it the descriptive title in question is dishonest.
And no place that is outside the system under monism.
Sure, as long as "system" is allowing for sets of interacting systems that can be performing multiple functions.
You can redescribe system behaviour as observation
You say this like "observation" could be anything else, under
any paradigm. The exact nature of the system may vary greatly, depending on the paradigm, but for observation to actually qualify as observation in the first place, it's going to fundamentally be a kind of system behavior, however much the exacts would be dependent on the paradigm. There's honestly no way around that, which makes this line of your argument completely worthless, quite frankly. There's no "redescribing" going on in the first place.
and then conclude that the brain must be the observer,
If the brain is, in fact, a set of systems that performs the tasks that are required to meet the definition of "observer," then yes, the brain is an "observer" by definition. There's a limited weakness in that description there, of course, in that the gatherers of raw data, such as the eyes, are frequently not part of the brain. I generally don't like naming the brain, alone, as the observer for that reason, myself, though. However, such is on the level of a nitpick, which is why I barely touch on it in general when the subject isn't focused on such.
but this is not intellectually honest when trying to ascribe a material basis to a subjective phenomenon of this type.
As noted above, "observation" has to be system behavior of some kind, no matter the paradigm invoked. There's no way around it. The exact nature of the workings of the system behavior can vary from paradigm to paradigm, certainly. What it sounds like you might be meaning to invoke here is that concluding that materialism is right by basically assuming the conclusion is certainly not intellectually honest, which is true, but you would be getting that mixed up here with other concerns. It is entirely intellectually honest to acknowledge that something that qualifies as something may be described as that something, though.
There's no way out if you have a basic level of understanding and reasonable honesty. Least I've not seen one.
I happen to disagree, for reasons noted above. Reasons which, I might point out, you've completely failed to validly address as far as I've seen, despite repeated opportunities. It is, of course, possible that I do not remember such or missed such, but I do doubt it.
There are neuroscientists who clearly understand this, and there are others who clearly struggle. The depth and persistence of this illusion is to me a big reason why we don't make the progress we could with consciousness research. Scientists can be extremely intelligent, but that can actually be a problem in this field, if there is too much reliance on thought-based representations.
You say this... and it's also been discussed how the concept of an "observer" isn't actually scientific, but rather a separate matter of philosophy, and you seem to be trying to mix and match concepts that aren't actually analogous. With that said, if you have specific recommendations for ways to improve, the relevant scientists would quite likely be willing to take them under consideration.
Veridical Perception - so, is it veridical or is it just representation? Science is deciding, that's the reality. The more we study the brain the more the scale tips towards representation. If you want to say that doesn't potentially affect the reality of science... then you go ahead.
Sure. Given that science only really relied on representation of limited veridicality in the first place and never 100% veridical perception, science really isn't affected in any notable way. Science finding more specifics about already well known phenomena that strongly suggested that perception is at least partially representation long before there were specific theories that meaningfully included those phenomena is not at all going to meaningfully impact much in the way of science itself. Any actual impact would have had to occur with regards to the phenomena demonstrably existing in the first place, pretty much, and not with the specifics of how it may work.
