Brain, Mind & Neuroscience

[Viviphilia]

You’re pleading that a designer is so complex he cannot be responsible for his behaviour.

Self organizing systems are known to emerge out of simplicity. The requirement that complexity requires previous complexity can only lead to infinite regress. Personally, I think you’re better off arguing for a simple designer than trying to assert that complexity requires design.

You can call it what you like! Occam’s Razor disposes of that mistake.

Are you seriously trying to appeal to the law of parsimony to argue for an unnecessarily complex solution?

 

[tonyrey]

It’s OK, I can wait until you regain consciousness.

Don’t worry, I can wait for you to regain your sense of proportion.

Test for concussion - does patient use made-up words like subnatural?

Test for confusion - does Christian say prayers to a natural God?

Now you’ve come round you appear to realize your battle is lost – that knowledge cannot but increase and wipe away old worn out false philosophies.

Now you’ve regained your sense of proportion you are shattered to discover your war is won - but, alas, it’s a Pyrrhic victory. To your horror you have finished up in the camp of the sceptics, materialists and non-believers!

In the real world outside CAF, those pesky privileged particles have done far more to combat mental illness in the last 60 years or so than all the supernaturalists since the beginning of time.

In the real world outside the realm of particle-worshippers the substitution of those pesky privileged particles for God has done far more than anything else to drive **particular **people to **particular **despair and **particular **suicide because they were deceived into thinking their **particular **lives were **particularly **valueless, **particularly **meaningless and **particularly **pointless in a **particular **universe which just happens to exist for no **particular **reason or no **particular **purpose.

 

[tonyrey]

Self organizing systems are known to emerge out of simplicity. The requirement that complexity requires previous complexity can only lead to infinite regress. Personally, I think you’re better off arguing for a simple designer than trying to assert that complexity requires design.

I know you’re better off arguing for a rational source of existence rather than an irrational, fortuitous concourse of atoms.

Self-organizing systems cannot be known to emerge out of simplicity because they are recognised by a system which is not self-organised - unless you believe a person is self-organised!

Are you seriously trying to appeal to the law of parsimony to argue for an unnecessarily complex solution?

Are you seriously trying to appeal to the law of parsimony to argue for a multitude of atomic particles?

BTW Have you told anyone you’re not responsible for your behaviour?

I don’t suppose you’ve had to appear in court!

 

[levinas12]

I like talk of “emerging” because “emerging” has an “event” quality.

At some point in the past, “disclosure” happened. What this means is that there is a history to “meaning” itself. You could say that, at the some point in the past, “meaning” happened.

Of course, the next question is: “to whom” did “meaning” happen? But the “to whom” and “meaning” happened at the same time.

But how was there a time before meaning? “Past”, “present” and “future” are themselves meanings. So how can we say, “at some point in the past”?

O, what a strange history this is that describes the beginning of “meaning”.

You may say, wait a minute, what about the dinosaurs and all the rest.

Well, if “meaning” hadn’t happened, then would “there” be dinosaurs? How can you have dinosaurs without the “meaning” of dinosaurs?

Something to ponder.

 

[Sair]

I like talk of “emerging” because “emerging” has an “event” quality.

At some point in the past, “disclosure” happened. What this means is that there is a history to “meaning” itself. You could say that, at the some point in the past, “meaning” happened.

Of course, the next question is: “to whom” did “meaning” happen? But the “to whom” and “meaning” happened at the same time.

But how was there a time before meaning? “Past”, “present” and “future” are themselves meanings. So how can we say, “at some point in the past”?

O, what a strange history this is that describes the beginning of “meaning”.

You may say, wait a minute, what about the dinosaurs and all the rest.

Well, if “meaning” hadn’t happened, then would “there” be dinosaurs? How can you have dinosaurs without the “meaning” of dinosaurs?

Something to ponder.

One way to think about meaning, a way I’ve kind of settled into fairly recently, is that meaning is a function of the relationships subsisting between entities. This might seem obvious, but I think because we are so used to dealing in the concepts of things and experiences, we consider meaning in much the same light - as a relationship between concepts, that can exist in the absence of more concrete phenomena. That leads to the notion that we could, for example, somehow “see” in the absence of eyes, or “think” in the absence of a brain - never really appreciating that the meaning of sight and thought actually depend upon the existence of the organs involved in these processes. It is only by taking the concepts already established by the experiences produced by our faculties of sight and thought that we can appreciate the figurative meaning of statements like, “A blind man sees the world more clearly,” or “My computer thinks in literal terms.”

Thus, when we speak of the “meaning” of dinosaurs, say, we tap in to our mental constructs that represent dinosaurs (or at least the reconstructions and interpretations of them in museums, books and more recently, animated documentaries - some of which are beautiful works of art in their own right), and of the idea of these (sometimes enormous) animals that existed in a world devoid of any creatures like ourselves. But what would dinosaurs mean to us if we had no such reconstructions as our point of reference? What could they mean if they had never existed? Moreover, what could they mean if we had not the wherewithal to look at drawings or animations of dinosaurs and understand that these refer to animals that lived long before we existed?

Meaning has many layers, but without an objective or experiential basis to which we might refer, it seems to me that meaning cannot obtain, since it depends upon reference.

 

[Sair]

In the real world outside the realm of particle-worshippers the substitution of those pesky privileged particles for God has done far more than anything else to drive **particular **people to **particular **despair and **particular **suicide because they were deceived into thinking their **particular **lives were **particularly **valueless, **particularly **meaningless and **particularly **pointless in a **particular **universe which just happens to exist for no **particular **reason or no **particular **purpose.

Um…who told such people that their lives and feelings had cosmic significance in the first place? Who taught them to look beyond the here and now for meaning in their lives? Who insisted that they were privileged creations of a personal god? I think you’ll find that any depression resulting from an appreciation of the truth of naturalism is first and foremost the result of the destruction of a cherished fantasy…

 

[Sair]

That’s a nice insight – could it be summarized as saying form is not the starting point as was sometimes thought but instead emerges as the end point, or is that reaching too far?

Actually, I don’t think that’s reaching too far at all, as a summation of the point of view I’m attempting to elucidate. I’ve come to consider that this is actually the fundamental difference between the naturalist and supernaturalist concepts of reality - the latter assumes pre-existing forms towards which nature strives; the former (ha - I see the potential for punning here…) sees form as the result of nature just doing its thing.

Agreed, the explanation for how we think doesn’t alter the meaning of what we think (unless there’s an illogical prejudice against us being part of Creation of course ).

Of course it doesn’t. We do think, regardless of how the process works. The problem comes when those who believe thought is a supernatural faculty assume that thought will lose all its experienced properties if we find a naturalistic explanation for it.

Made good sense to me.

Thanks!

Yes, programmed a version myself like all good geeks. For me there’s a spiritual wonderment in how simple recursion leads to the fluid world of Life but also to the infinite patterns of fractals (youtube.com/watch?v=WAJE35wX1nQ is a nice zoom on the Mandelbrot set).

Getting misty eyed, must be time to walk the dogs.

Sweet. I think I will have to do some Life exploring for myself. I did have a good friend back in my university days who had a thing for fractals - I kind of wish I’d appreciated their significance back then…

 

[Sair]

“spiritual”? You are obviously in the wrong department if you think that word will make any impact on your interlocutor and it could well rebound on you for having the audacity to use it…:blackeye:

Actually, I was lucky enough to be present at the 2010 Global Atheist Convention here in Melbourne, at which Ian Robinson, president of the Rationalist Society of Australia, posited that spirituality is - and he used the analogy of spiritous liquors, being distilled and purified forms of alcohol - the pursuit of the essence of what humans are and how we work, how we experience reality and fit into it. That is the kind of spirituality to which I feel drawn - not the kind that posits our “true” existence as beyond our worldly existence…

 

[levinas12]

Meaning has many layers, but without an objective or experiential basis to which we might refer, it seems to me that meaning cannot obtain, since it depends upon reference.

What makes possible the “comparison” of our beliefs, statements, etc with “what is the case”?

Or how is “what is the case” first available to us so that we can make the comparison?

.

 

[levinas12]

These are philosophical questions about “disclosure”, about what makes “disclosure” possible.

I am prescinding from science or the scientific method (although science is a form of disclosure).

I’m looking for something that is more primordial than science.

Something that is even more primordial than the practical “perception” at work in everyday life.

You can call it “ontological” disclosure, because it involves the “fact” that things “are” - but calling it “ontological” is confusing because this primordial disclosure precedes ontology, metaphysics, etc.

Somehow we are “familiar” with “being” from the git-go. That’s why we can “refer” to things in the world - in the most ordinary, pre-scientific contexts. We already have “access”.

 

[inocente]

“spiritual”? You are obviously in the wrong department if you think that word will make any impact on your interlocutor and it could well rebound on you for having the audacity to use it…:blackeye:

I didn’t know the Church has a puritan wing. I take it you hold that spirituality can only be observed from behind stained-glass windows (after safely removing the stained-glass of course, too many bright colors in one’s life can only lead to mischief).

 

[inocente]

Don’t worry, I can wait for you to regain your sense of proportion.

Steady there, when you got up all the blood rushed to your head and finding nothing there rushed straight back again.

*Test for confusion - does Christian say prayers to a natural God? *

Test for concussion – does poster go off-topic at the drop of a hat?

Now you’ve regained your sense of proportion you are shattered to discover your war is won - but, alas, it’s a Pyrrhic victory. To your horror you have finished up in the camp of the sceptics, materialists and non-believers!

Skeptics, materialists and non-believers, as they are called by people sitting in Starbucks lamenting the lack of spirituality of those not sitting in Starbucks.

In the real world outside the realm of particle-worshippers the substitution of those pesky privileged particles for God has done far more than anything else to drive **particular **people to **particular **despair and **particular **suicide because they were deceived into thinking their **particular **lives were **particularly **valueless, **particularly **meaningless and **particularly **pointless in a **particular **universe which just happens to exist for no **particular **reason or no **particular **purpose.

Defeated boxers often claim “we woz robbed”, you’re still concussed and can be forgiven for writing abject nonsense.

 

[Sair]

These are philosophical questions about “disclosure”, about what makes “disclosure” possible.

I am prescinding from science or the scientific method (although science is a form of disclosure).

I’m looking for something that is more primordial than science.

Something that is even more primordial than the practical “perception” at work in everyday life.

You can call it “ontological” disclosure, because it involves the “fact” that things “are” - but calling it “ontological” is confusing because this primordial disclosure precedes ontology, metaphysics, etc.

Somehow we are “familiar” with “being” from the git-go. That’s why we can “refer” to things in the world - in the most ordinary, pre-scientific contexts. We already have “access”.

I’m not entirely sure I follow, but this kind of seems like a reification of existence as a thing in itself, somehow “apart” from things that exist. Existence, I would think, is rather a necessary condition for anything that might follow - so it doesn’t seem that there should be something distinct and significant about our ability to “recognise” existence.

 

[tonyrey]

Steady there, when you got up all the blood rushed to your head and finding nothing there rushed straight back again.

Test for concussion – does poster go off-topic at the drop of a hat?

Skeptics, materialists and non-believers, as they are called by people sitting in Starbucks lamenting the lack of spirituality of those not sitting in Starbucks.

Defeated boxers often claim “we woz robbed”, you’re still concussed and can be forgiven for writing abject nonsense.

You’re still confused, can be forgiven for thinking philosophy is abject nonsense and would be more at ease on a forum for scientific sceptics.

 

[tonyrey]

I didn’t know the Church has a puritan wing. I take it you hold that spirituality can only be observed from behind stained-glass windows (after safely removing the stained-glass of course, too many bright colors in one’s life can only lead to mischief).

I take it you hold that spirituality can only be observed - but not experienced - by the neuroscientific eyes of a unphilosophical sceptic…

 

[prodigalson2011]

“It seems to me that the fact we have free will is axiomatic. It is self-evident that I control my own thoughts. Further, brain imaging supports my argument. We can see that the brain’s electrical signals are not chaotic, but are in fact orderly and fire in sequence with thought. So much so, that scientists can almost determine what you are thinking about simply by looking at the electrical signals the brain is emitting. These signals do not originate from a central source interaction, they cover the whole brain. They simply spring into existence in sequence with the thought processes of the person being observed.” - Michaelsuede, Libertarian News

Many neuroscientists seem to have gone into the business of scientific eisegesis. Studying brain activity simply cannot equate to studying the mind.

 

[levinas12]

I’m not entirely sure I follow, but this kind of seems like a reification of existence as a thing in itself, somehow “apart” from things that exist. Existence, I would think, is rather a necessary condition for anything that might follow - so it doesn’t seem that there should be something distinct and significant about our ability to “recognise” existence.

It is hard to follow.

Because we take granted our ability to “refer”.

Philosophy majors worry about such.

And, I agree, there is a temptation to reifiy “being” because we are so oriented to “beings”.

Yet there is a distinction at work. You might call it the “thereness” of things.

Somehow, we are aware when something is “there” or “not there”, “present” or “absent”.
.
“Being there” and “not being there”, “presence” and “absence”, are internally related, like “north” and “south”. We only know about “being there”, “presence”, because we know about “not being there”, “absence”.

And this is a segue into Heidegger. He says we are familiar with the “there” of things, because we know that we are not always going “to be there”. It is awareness of our impending death that motivates awareness of the “there”, “presence”, “not being there”, “absence”.

Ah, the pleasures of philosophy.

Sorry for the digression.

.

 

[WillP]

“It seems to me that the fact we have free will is axiomatic. It is self-evident that I control my own thoughts. Further, brain imaging supports my argument. We can see that the brain’s electrical signals are not chaotic, but are in fact orderly and fire in sequence with thought. So much so, that scientists can almost determine what you are thinking about simply by looking at the electrical signals the brain is emitting. These signals do not originate from a central source interaction, they cover the whole brain. They simply spring into existence in sequence with the thought processes of the person being observed.” - Michaelsuede, Libertarian News

Many neuroscientists seem to have gone into the business of scientific eisegesis. Studying brain activity simply cannot equate to studying the mind.

I am afraid I disagree. I think modern neuroscience supports a reasonably hypothesis that we do not possess free will. See the work of Sam Harris, for example.

It may certainly seem as though we can freely choose. However, it is perhaps more accurate to say that in" making a choice" the intention to select one option over another is formed as a product of cerebrial functioning. Stated another way, there is no "ghost in the "machine’ as Decartes conceptualized.

 

[prodigalson2011]

I am afraid I disagree. I think modern neuroscience supports a reasonably hypothesis that we do not possess free will. See the work of Sam Harris, for example.

It may certainly seem as though we can freely choose. However, it is perhaps more accurate to say that in" making a choice" the intention to select one option over another is formed as a product of cerebrial functioning. Stated another way, there is no "ghost in the "machine’ as Decartes conceptualized.

I’m afraid I disagree. The issue of free will is not one that is really friendly to materialistic scientific inquiry. It rests in the field of philosophy, a field in which Mr. Harris is no more an expert than you or I. What he is doing is eisegesis: reading things into the science that are not there by virtue of anything other than his own prejudice. It enters the realm of scientism. Some scientists cannot accept the fact that there are some questions that just can’t be answered with a microscope. It is also worth noting that with a dismissal of free will also often comes a dismissal of traditional values. In other words, denial of free will is often a matter of self-interest. This, of course, would be considered an argument ad hominem if I were to claim this disproved their hypothesis, but I’m not doing that. I just think it’s healthy food for thought.

 

[WillP]

I’m afraid I disagree. The issue of free will is not one that is really friendly to materialistic scientific inquiry. It rests in the field of philosophy, a field in which Mr. Harris is no more an expert than you or I. What he is doing is eisegesis: reading things into the science that are not there by virtue of anything other than his own prejudice. It enters the realm of scientism. Some scientists cannot accept the fact that there are some questions that just can’t be answered with a microscope. It is also worth noting that with a dismissal of free will also often comes a dismissal of traditional values. In other words, denial of free will is often a matter of self-interest. This, of course, would be considered an argument ad hominem if I were to claim this disproved their hypothesis, but I’m not doing that. I just think it’s healthy food for thought.

Well, certainly, the study of “free will” is fraught with problems. There is no question that this is so. The mind “studying itself”, indeed, presents challenges inlike any other area of inquirey. Nonetheless, science is the only discipline which possess tools sufficient to tackle the issue ( i.e. honest observation, repeatable methodogies, peer review, for example). Philosophy lacks these tools, although I do not mean to demean the value of the reflective reasoning which philosophy supplies to the formation of any given hypothesis…

Thus, while a scientific study is onerous, it nonetheless is the only reliable means by which we will ever know or by which we can hope to know.

Further, even if we are not free in that classical sense to which your faith subscribes, I think the needs of society will continue to compel the punishment and correction of misdeeds and offenses, and, the means by which rights and obligstions are defined. In other words, I would not spend time worrying about the implications for the survival of civilization.

As a final note, I know Sam Harris to be a conscientious scientist. His orientation is soundly based in science as is his methodology. Although he reaches conclusions which are inconsistent with people of faith, I don’t thank doing so renders him prejudiced by any means. After all, wouldn’t it be unfair of me to suggest that your views are biased because you arrive at findings which depart from my own?