Materialism - Devastator of Scientific Method! / Observer Delusion

[Mojo]

Areas of the brain that assign relative importance to streams of processing information. Those deemed most important are amplified and propagated across multiple networks.

What deems them important?

 

[Nick227]

What deems them important?

Neural assemblies devoted to this task. They pattern-match ongoing representations against pre-existing stored schema that are calibrated for their effectivity to accomplish evolutionarily-derived aims.

 

[MRC_Hans]

I'm pointing out that the distinction is not a priori, merely the result of adaptation.

Evading the question. OK, your problem.

No! You are still assuming an observer behind the eyes, someone that is seeing.

The brain is the observer.

You can't have a point of observation in monist materialism. It's a physical impossibility. The brain merely constructs neural representations to suggest to itself that a point of observation exists, again because of the adaptive advantage offered.

The point is not the issue. That's just optics. The brain processes the information. It observes.

And the brain of the scientist is the same! It proceeds from assumptions.

Science is about confirming the assumptions.

But, you are just playing with words. You are a troll.

Hans

 

[tsig]

Neural assemblies devoted to this task. They pattern-match ongoing representations against pre-existing stored schema that are calibrated for their effectivity to accomplish evolutionarily-derived aims.

OMG electric motors don't exist. There are electric fields that induce rotation to a shaft that outputs torque but "motor' is just a memeplex!

Electrical engineers remain undevastated.

 

[Mojo]

Areas of the brain that assign relative importance to streams of processing information. Those deemed most important are amplified and propagated across multiple networks.

"There is too much of this damned deeming." - Lord Mildew in Travers v. Travers (unreported). See Herbert (A. P.): Codd's Last Case (1952) at p. 80.

 

[annnnoid]

No. I am not saying this. I'm saying no observer of mind exists. That this is a highly favoured illusion.

I saying that under monist materialism there simply cannot exist a point of observation.

How, exactly, does monist materialism conflict with the concept (or the reality...or the reality of the concept) of 'a point of observation'?

 

[zorbathegeek]

Quote:
"You can't have a point of observation in monist materialism. It's a physical impossibility. The brain merely constructs neural representations to suggest to itself that a point of observation exists, again because of the adaptive advantage offered."

But not everyone sees it that way.

 

[tsig]

Quote:
"You can't have a point of observation in monist materialism. It's a physical impossibility. The brain merely constructs neural representations to suggest to itself that a point of observation exists, again because of the adaptive advantage offered."

But not everyone sees it that way.

Welcome to ISF. It's a tradition to welcome new posters.

 

[Aridas]

No! You are still assuming an observer behind the eyes, someone that is seeing. You can't have a point of observation in monist materialism. It's a physical impossibility. The brain merely constructs neural representations to suggest to itself that a point of observation exists, again because of the adaptive advantage offered.

You realize that this attempt leaves you wide open to criticism, still, I hope? After all, "seeing" isn't and wasn't being regarded as a magical phenomena in the first place, which is what you keep effectively trying to claim that others are treating it as when you argue like this. You keep trying to invoke the Cartesian theater (with no person there) when that was something of a parody from the start and is not even remotely definitive of what counts as an observer. "That light isn't actually red, it's just got a wavelength of 675 nm" seems to be what you've actually got. As for points of observation for seeing, specifically, most of us have two areas. The receptors inside the eyes, which are, in fact, just slightly behind the face.

What can be seen by examining both of these aspects of phenomenal reality is that there is a huge amount of adaptively-advantageous construction going on. And it is so effective that the brain simply assumes that this is how things are. It assumes that this perspective is a priori, not constructed. And the brain of the scientist is the same! It proceeds from assumptions.

And? Even if we agreed with you, for you to actually make a meaningful point here, you would need to show which relevant assumptions to your claims are actually wrong. As it stands, I just wonder how you can justify bouncing around so much and trying to throw together things like this. Just about anyone who knows about how eyes actually work should be forced to conclude that the brain is processing the input to construct what we actually see. Your revelation isn't even remotely a revelation, quite frankly.

We tend to look at the discovery of neural correlation and say things like - OK, great. But how do you get from that to me actually seeing?

Rather, why would you actually ask that in the first place? Neural correlation is a fine tool, but not one that's directly relevant to that question. It's a bit like looking at a map of how densely populated a region is and then asking how the people there reproduce.

[/I] Or - but my life is so vivid and intense how can mere neural activity create that?

Why would you invoke an obvious argument from incredulity in the first place?

 

[BadBoy]

Nick227, I think you are approaching this in the wrong way. Instead of philosophizing, try approaching the issue from a scientific perspective. i.e. Science has to stop working in some unexpected way, or rather your hypothesis needs to make some definite prediction that can be tested. In the meantime as long as science keeps working, e.g. helping us to live longer healthier lives, discover gravity waves (as predicted), etc. etc, then there your ideas will go nowhere, and are probably wrong. Stop trying to force that square peg into a small round hole.

I still maintain if there was a significant difference between what we observe to be real, and actual reality, the human race would have died out long ago, as would probably every other life form on the planet.

 

[truethat]

Good point. But as far as I'm aware that is not the case. Olaf Blanke famously induced and studied OOBEs, and people saw parts of their bodies that would not be visible with the normal locus. I admit I don't know whether he, or various other scientists who've been involved in this area, tested to see if the dissociated perspective was genuinely perceived, or rather mentally fabricated from the body schema or whatever.



Well, if the actual locus can shift, then perspective would be seen to be non-veridical. So, what we've been measuring with our yardsticks would not really be coherent, rather an anomaly of the evolution of neural representation.



But there is no actual psychological self. There is not actually anything the word "my" applies to. It's a useful illusion.

Yes, as far as we know, the brain creates the representation. The representation is the result of brain activity. Nevertheless it is useful to understand that assigning it ownership is just construction.



I'm just pointing out the facts of the matter. Many things that we take for granted about our visual field and other neural representations simply cannot be demonstrated to be a priori. They are being constructed by the brain to appear as they do, because there has been an adaptive advantage in them appearing this way.

I don't think most people in the thread actually understand what you are talking about. Hang in there. LOL

Here's something that I thought might be interesting in your questioning.

Blind Sight

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R4SYxTecL8E


http://www.consciousentities.com/experiments.htm

Another video Right around 7:20 they interview Graham Young about his Blindsight

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PpEpj-JgGDI

A Nova Transcript
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/transcripts/2812mind.html

 

[truethat]

Nick227, I think you are approaching this in the wrong way. Instead of philosophizing, try approaching the issue from a scientific perspective. i.e. Science has to stop working in some unexpected way, or rather your hypothesis needs to make some definite prediction that can be tested. In the meantime as long as science keeps working, e.g. helping us to live longer healthier lives, discover gravity waves (as predicted), etc. etc, then there your ideas will go nowhere, and are probably wrong. Stop trying to force that square peg into a small round hole.

I still maintain if there was a significant difference between what we observe to be real, and actual reality, the human race would have died out long ago, as would probably every other life form on the planet.

Why? And how exactly does that work for every other life form on the planet? Are we elevating plants to a Shyamalan epic these days?

 

[tsig]

Why? And how exactly does that work for every other life form on the planet? Are we elevating plants to a Shyamalan epic these days?

If our senses did not accurately reflect reality it would be hard to avoid walking off cliffs or being eaten by lions.

 

[truethat]

If our senses did not accurately reflect reality it would be hard to avoid walking off cliffs or being eaten by lions.

Try really hard to read what I said. How does this affect every OTHER LIFE FORM ON THE PLANET.

That means not just people. Once again, please do not interject yourself into a discussion between me and another poster if you are not going to even bother to read what was actually written.

 

[Porpoise of Life]

Try really hard to read what I said. How does this affect every OTHER LIFE FORM ON THE PLANET.

That means not just people. <snip>

Because other creatures would be eaten by lions or fall off cliffs too? (adjust as needed for creatures that aren't susceptible to falling and lion attacks)

Of course this only means that a mental model of the world has to function well enough to avoid dying before the creature can procreate, not that it has to be able to grasp some kind of capital t Truth.
Then again, if we are fundamentally impaired by our evolutionary history and biological makeup, and neither empiricism nor philosophising could help us, how would we ever know?
This is moving into the realm of solipsism.

 

[truethat]

Because other creatures would be eaten by lions or fall off cliffs too? (adjust as needed for creatures that aren't susceptible to falling and lion attacks)

Of course this only means that a mental model of the world has to function well enough to avoid dying before the creature can procreate, not that it has to be able to grasp some kind of capital t Truth.
Then again, if we are fundamentally impaired by our evolutionary history and biological makeup, and neither empiricism nor philosophising could help us, how would we ever know?
This is moving into the realm of solipsism.

Again, I'm assuming you guys don't include plants in this discussion of "every single other LIFE FORM on the planet."

Cyanobacteria are the most important and successful microorganisms on Earth

http://www.bbc.com/earth/story/20150211-whats-the-most-dominant-life-form

 

[The Norseman]

Again, I'm assuming you guys don't include plants in this discussion of "every single other LIFE FORM on the planet."



http://www.bbc.com/earth/story/20150211-whats-the-most-dominant-life-form

Why would plants and cynobacteria be left out? For a simple example then, take a flower which opens during the day and closes at night. If it couldn't detect properly what reality is (the sun is there now, now it's not, etc.) it could not reliably survive. If the plant could not reliably detect or react to reality, then the roots would grow haphazardly and randomly hit water, rather than roots growing deeper because there's more water located there.

That's all human beings are doing too -- responding to reality as reflected in our senses and feedback. Consciousness isn't necessary for this to happen.

 

[Mojo]

Again, I'm assuming you guys don't include plants in this discussion of "every single other LIFE FORM on the planet."

Well, it's kind of implicit in a discussion of reliable senses and whether they have survival value that we should only be considering organisms that can sense and respond. The particular phrase you're objecting to here is really just a bit of hyperbole, and latching onto it is to some extent missing the point. But, as the Norseman points out, plants are able to reliably detect at least some stimuli and react to them. Their leaves grow towards the light, their roots grow down.

In any case, Nick227 has said that he is quite happy to accept this sort of observation, or even science itself, as reliable for everyday purposes, such as aiding survival or "being used to make human needs more easier to fulfil". It's just when observation might tell him something he doesn't want to know, such as that homeopathy doesn't work, that he becomes concerned that observation is unreliable.

 

[tsig]

Again, I'm assuming you guys don't include plants in this discussion of "every single other LIFE FORM on the planet."



http://www.bbc.com/earth/story/20150211-whats-the-most-dominant-life-form

From the link:

Leaf cutter ants farm fungi as a food source and use a bacterial pesticide related to penicillin to improve the productivity of their farms, while herder ants keep herds of aphids so they can milk them for a sugary substance called honeydew.

Not only are their senses reflecting reality they enable them to shape it.

 

[JoeMorgue]

So it's been almost 40 pages now. Any arguments that aren't just:

1. Deny that the thing that is demonstratively doing the observer is "the observer" creating a meaningless semantic paradox where observations exists but nothing exists to observe them.
2. Silly word games
3. Meaningless semantics.
4. Just straight up denying that any understand of how the mind works or functions actually exist.