On Consciousness

[PixyMisa]

Since comp.lit has been defined as a position earlier

Defined as a position that no-one holds. Which makes arguing against it rather pointless, no?

 

[PixyMisa]

That is BS. You could say the same about anatomy: The "see it to understand it" philosophy is such nonsense, who needs to open up a body to see what is going on in there when we already know!

And in fact you don't need to see anatomy to understand it. It may help, but it is certainly not required.

 

[PixyMisa]

David, where is Mercutio when we need him? He was good at critical analysis of the kind of sophistry seen in this thread.

Light the Juliet-shaped beacon!

 

[tensordyne]

That much is clear. You have preconceived notions of experience. This is hurting you in this debate.

The experience of sensation has no notions, preconcieved or otherwise, attached to it, beyond the recognition of existence of same. That is all I require.

Again, you are wrong. You're simply exposing your unwillingness to challenge your perceptions, which is the most anti-science thing you can possibly have.

It would be unscientific of me not to be willing to challenge my ideas (not perceptions), but as the topic is about the unscientific philosophy of PixyMisa, I think I will keep things on track here. All forms of observation are important to science. If taking a drug leads to repeatable findings across a wide set of individuals about some aspect of the experience of taking it, then Scientists should learn it!

Science is about predicting phenomena associated with the experience of sensation. Imagine we all wake up tomorrow in a different world, that acted in a way very different than the world we live in now. What would be important to doing science in that world? You would need to observe things (sensation, observation, consciousness). You would need a mind to be able to figure things out. You would need more than just your self to report findings to. You need a method of communicating. You need that the entities you are reporting to have roughly similar sensations as you so that you can understand each other. { Just a digression }

Or just take away all books and start from scratch with a solid understanding of the scientific method. Hmm, I wonder what the first thing you will do? Perhaps observe things in a kind of general way (when you are on a drug like DMT you might just start off observing things too at first). I mean, like PixyMisa I have a hunch it is all in your head but how do you know until you do it? Maybe you wake up inside the 'real' reality when you take DMT and realize the world we live in now is some kind of lesser copy.

On another front, I am perfectly willing to consider the computationalist ideas. In fact, I did, and I found that they are lacking in certain regards, especially as to how the experience of perception is thought about, which is to say, it is not thought about.

 

[PixyMisa]

It would be unscientific of me not to be willing to challenge my ideas (not perceptions)

And yet, you don't.

but as the topic is about the unscientific philosophy of PixyMisa

Have you stopped beating your wife yet?

 

[tensordyne]

And in fact you don't need to see anatomy to understand it. It may help, but it is certainly not required.

Is it required if no one else has ever seen internal anatomy? Is it required if I want to be all science-uppity and check that what someone is telling me about human anatomy is correct?

 

[tensordyne]

MIT Introduction to Psychology[/url]. Free download of the entire lecture series, covers human visual perception in considerable depth. And it's brilliantly presented.

Thank you for the link.

 

[PixyMisa]

Is it required if no one else has ever seen internal anatomy?

Definitely useful. The study becomes awkward and messy otherwise.

However, once someone has seen it and characterised it, while it doesn't hurt to verify the observations now and then, you can learn from what we already know rather than throwing it all out and starting from the beginning.

Indeed, it is much more productive to start with what we already know rather than throwing it all out and starting from the beginning. You don't do that unless you already understand what is known and have demonstrated that there is a problem with it.

As I pointed out earlier, Zeuzzz's approach to psychoactive drugs is anti-scientific nonsense for two reasons: First, taking the drug can only give you information on the drug's interaction with your brain, not into the Universe at large as he would have it; and second, if you take a psychoactive drug, by definition that affects your judgement, so any conclusions you draw from your experience are suspect.

 

[PixyMisa]

Thank you for the link.

You're welcome! I post that link in pretty much every thread relating to brain and mind; the lectures are very informative and the lecturer (Jeremy Wolfe) is wonderfully engaging.

In the first lecture you have to get past about 15 minutes of routine administrative stuff - they recorded the entire session, so you hear him organising handouts and class signups and so on - so either stick with it or fast-forward a bit.

 

[tensordyne]

That is the precise opposite of what I said. Here are you mistakes: 1) I said "feel", not "see", but you know that. 2) Seeing something doesn't tell you how it works. This is why we have a methodology called science, because the previous ones, which also involved looking at stuff, didn't work.

1) Feel has many meanings. Sensation, idea and feeling (as in sad, happy, etc.) are the most common, I would imagine. Since feeling is just a complex of sensations then that is related to sensation as well.

2) Experiencing something does not tell us how to predict anything, that is true. If you do not ever experience a given thing that is no good for science either. I am all for the scientific method.

No it doesn't, unless you understand how feelings work.

Ergo ? It doesn't even remotely follow from the previous statement.

Let me take it that you meant feel, as in feeling happy, sad, etc. That is useful scientific information to garner about a drug as far as how it makes you feel when you take it. If you mean feel as in the experience of sensation, again, scientifically important.

Your feelings about a drug, no, not scientifically relevant.

More relevantly: feelings can be broken down into a chain of chemical reactions in the body. I notice your comment above does not negate what you quoted.

Maybe it is just all the posts but I am not sure what you are referring to by writing "negate what you quoted". Not sure what it is I quoted and why it is relevant.

The idea of chemical reactions is part of the abstract model called Chemistry. That model helps us to come up with various predictions we can test against observation. That is the point of every model. It is not to say what is absolutely out there, it is to make predictions we can test against. Science is about Epistemology, not Ontology!

No, it's a concept you want to keep, but that has been shown to be obsolete. Trust me, it wasn't easy for me to let go of it, either.

Did you not read the sections piggy wrote? The current well respected workers in the field of cognition do not follow computationalist ideas. I will go with them. I figure they know more than a gaggle of internet posters. Maybe that is just me.

The concept of experience of sensation is part of the bedrock of science, it is called observation. I am not going to give up the idea of experience of sensation because some yahoo online says it is verboten.

An interesting mantra.

It seems to be the first words that have ever pierced the seemingly impenetrable ideological fortifications of computational litteralist thinking (comp.lit). Even PixyMisa succumbed to a straight up and down question in the affirmative (of course PixyMisa had to add in the computational clap-trap to the answer, but that is a given I suppose).

I don't understand your question.

It was three questions, each of which should be pretty easy to answer.

Poisoning the well is so fun !

Call it like I see it.

 

[steenkh]

Hmm. I do not see how recognizing that experience of sensation is it's own concept calls into question physics as a discipline in any way. You would just have a physics of brain cells and a physics of how the experience of sensation works. It is still physics.

And yet you claim that the experience of red is more than data processing?

There is nothing more to the experience of sensation than the experience of sensation as far as concepts go. We have five types of experience of sensation even though we have many more than just five senses.

What I do not want is the phenomena of experience of sensation being replaced, clandestinely or otherwise, by various people who have ideas about how the experience of sensation works (or other philosophies, such as that the same implicitly does not exist, as seems to be the case with comp.lit).

I think you put too much in the term "experience". Obviously, a lot happens when you perceive "red": You might note a specific hue which might or might not be represented as a property to the general data structure in the brain for "red" which is now attached to the data structure of whatever object you were looking at. The brain knows that the group of neurons where the red object was registered is connected to the visual system, which is why when you think about it, a picture forms in your mind, which is another complex data structure that the brain works with. It is possible that the mind follows links to the language centre and obtains the English word "red". If you are a baby, you might not get this result

I cannot see that there is more to "red" that cannot be explained by your own recursive thinking about your experience, and possibly following links to old memories connected to "red". Rocketdodger described this very well, although you dismissed his idea, but I do not think you took the effort to understand it, which is a pity.

If you did think seriously about it, perhaps you could explain more detailed what it is by the experience of "red" that cannot be described by being aware that you are seeing red?

 

[tensordyne]

You're welcome! I post that link in pretty much every thread relating to brain and mind; the lectures are very informative and the lecturer (Jeremy Wolfe) is wonderfully engaging.

In the first lecture you have to get past about 15 minutes of routine administrative stuff - they recorded the entire session, so you hear him organising handouts and class signups and so on - so either stick with it or fast-forward a bit.

The above is why I always thank people for giving referrences. There is a good chance of learning something new but even if you don't chances are you will make someone else happy for giving the link.

The other reason is that it is polite. I highly recommend the same for everyone out there.

 

[Roboramma]

David, where is Mercutio when we need him? He was good at critical analysis of the kind of sophistry seen in this thread.

Yeah, he is particularly missed in threads like this one.

 

[Belz...]

The experience of sensation has no notions, preconcieved or otherwise, attached to it, beyond the recognition of existence of same. That is all I require.

I'm sorry, but I have no idea what you're talking about, now. DO you mean to tell me that you didn't understand my sentence ? The notion I was talking about is that the experience of seeing red is somehow different, in some way, to its functioning.

It would be unscientific of me not to be willing to challenge my ideas (not perceptions), but as the topic is about the unscientific philosophy of PixyMisa, I think I will keep things on track here.

I suggest that you have an unconventional idea of what science is, because whenever you say "unscientific" as a modifier for a noun, it doesn't seem to mesh with the definition that I'm using.

All forms of observation are important to science. If taking a drug leads to repeatable findings across a wide set of individuals about some aspect of the experience of taking it, then Scientists should learn it!

From the fact that observation is important, and indeed essential, to science, it doesn't follow that an observation, without proper control or method, will somehow yield an important truth, which is basically what Zeuzzz was arguing. Secondly, you mention repeatability, and that's the problem with hallucinogens: you can't sufficiently trust your experience or memory of the event to properly analyse the data you're getting, which is itself suspect. This is why an objective, detached analysis of what drugs is not only doesn't require that the scientist doing the research be taking drugs, but in fact it's a lot better if he or she doesn't, and instead lets other people do it and record the results.

Science is about predicting phenomena associated with the experience of sensation.

That's a very leading way to phrase it, which reveals your bias, in my opinion.

 

[Belz...]

The idea of chemical reactions is part of the abstract model called Chemistry.

It models reality. I'd give it more credit than you do. It's not just an abstract.

Science is about Epistemology, not Ontology!

And that's a good thing, seeing how ontology is a complete failure.

Did you not read the sections piggy wrote? The current well respected workers in the field of cognition do not follow computationalist ideas.

That was addressed by another poster.

The concept of experience of sensation is part of the bedrock of science, it is called observation. I am not going to give up the idea of experience of sensation because some yahoo online says it is verboten.

Machines can observe, so the distinction of experience and function that you made earlier continues to seem useless.

It seems to be the first words that have ever pierced the seemingly impenetrable ideological fortifications of computational litteralist thinking (comp.lit).

Please refrain from labeling your opponents. I'm getting tired of it. No one here is a litteralist of anything.

It was three questions, each of which should be pretty easy to answer.

And yet I just told you I have no idea what you mean. Could you clarify ?

Call it like I see it.

It is not a positive in a debate when you do it.

 

[Zeuzzz]

Dualists.

Let me clarify, I think you mean:

Physicists^wp.

 

[PixyMisa]

Let me clarify, I think you mean:

Physicists^wp.

Obviously not; you clearly don't understand what dualism actually means.

Tensordyne's statement was pure metaphysical dualism.

Wave-particle dualism in physics is not metaphysical dualism at all. Tensordyne, by analogy, would have light waves and photons as two distinct "kinds". In physics, they're different ways of looking at the behaviour of the same thing: Electromagnetic radiation is quantised.

 

[Zeuzzz]

Obviously not; you clearly don't understand what dualism actually means.

Tensordyne's statement was pure metaphysical dualism.

Wave-particle dualism in physics is not metaphysical dualism at all. Tensordyne, by analogy, would have light waves and photons as two distinct "kinds". In physics, they're different ways of looking at the behaviour of the same thing: Electromagnetic radiation is quantised.

Nope, the EM field is infinite in magnitude when considered a wave/field. Unless you apply a materialistic philosophy to it and ignore the wave properties.

 

[steenkh]

I might add that when we speak about experiences, the experience of red is perhaps not so obviously interesting as, say the experience of pain. When the brain gets an input of pain, it is not just registered as such, but a lot of biological mechanisms kick into action, such as withdrawal from the source of the pain, which is done largely autonomously without involvement of the brain. Signals are also sent to regulate certain hormones such as adrenaline, and this in turn provides even more feedback to the brain, all of which are part of the sensation of pain.

And none of it falsifies that the brain is a computer. It is not contrary to the computational model that there exists biological feedback that is not computationally derived. Even computers have autonomous systems regulating things like fan speed that in turn can be monitored by the computer and be part of its computations.

 

[PixyMisa]

Nope, the EM field is infinite in magnitude when considered a wave/field.

Nope.

Unless you apply a materialistic philosophy to it and ignore the wave properties.

As I've pointed out previously, what you are ignoring is reality.