The Soul and the Brain

[NowAgnostic]

However, the difference in kind is a superficial difference in kind because it is assumed that this difference in kind is reached when a threshold is crossed. And the threshold, which is explained solely in terns of neurophysiology and brain complexity, assumes an underlying continuum. So, it is an improvement over the past, but it has a ways to go.

You’re assuming a priori a radical difference in kind. As you must, because Catholicism asserts an ontological “leap” from animals to humans. Therefore, anything which gets closer to there is an improvement ipso facto, regardless of whether any data supports it or not, or how much data is amassed in evidence against it.

The growing data from science actually supports not the Darwin’s difference in degree, nor the neo-Darwinian difference in kind that is superficial, a position implied in the conclusions or interpretations of many studies, but rather a difference in kind that is radical. If the sciences continue to make progress, scientists should begin to reach the latter conclusion.

Oh really. Let’s see this growing data from science. What data from science supports that this difference cannot be explained in terms of neurophysiology and brain complexity? Why have the researchers mis-interpreted the results of their studies?

What is implied by the distinction between a difference in kind that is superficial and a difference in kind that is radical makes your point moot. You are not talking about a radical difference in kind, which my interpretations assert between the mind of man and higher animals.

Why is the data better explained by radical difference in kind? You’re just throwing a lot of arguments by assertion around.

 

[NowAgnostic]

NowAgnostic,

I ask you to retract your accusation that I am lying. That is a very serious accusation to make.

Nope. You were lying, as I will document below.

You wrote

It might be suggested that the human brain is not only one that seeks and finds patterns, it also one that anthropomorphises. If you assume (even incorrectly) that other animals are capable of mentalization and abstraction, then you are less likely to be caught out and lose in any competition for survival. Don’t underestimate the abilities of your competitor is a valuable strategy for survival - of course this is sociobiology - that may or not be accurate - but it could account for this tendency in animal researchers and others

and then this…

Well…I’'m a psychologist (hence my interest in your research NowAgnostic) and I don’t find itinerant’s point as evidence of feeling threatened. That is a cheap shot and unmerited given the lack of evidence for a feeling of threat. I find it best to steer clear of armchair analysis of other posters

to which I responded

If you don’t like it, then you and itinerant should yourselves steer clear of armchair analyses of published researchers (projection and anthropomorphic identification), yes?. If you want to analyze, be prepared to be analyzed. Or, if you dish it out, you gotta be willing to take it, as we say in the US.

to which you then responded

I am surprised that you don’t see the difference between accusing another poster of feeling personally threatened and an intellectual discussion of the methodology and validity of a published study

implying that you were never playing armchair psychologist yourself and that your own posts had only to do with an intellectual discussion of methodology and validity. That, as shown above, is simply a lie.

BTW, the assumption that animals are capable of abstraction and conceptualization is itself a conceptualization. How, pray tell, is the “brain” doing this, as you claim, if the abstraction and conceptualization processes occur independent of brain?

You have switched to making peronal attacks and those need to stop for any discussion to take place. If you do not apologise and continue these attacks then I will not reply to you.

Oh boo hoo, poor me, I’m so “attacked”. Look, intellectual honesty is also a prerequisite for discussion. Reply or not, it’s your choice, but if you use more intellectual dishonesty I will continue to call you on it. Moreover, kettle, meet pot. You said this

Questioning whether a task is representative of the area referred to is absolutely legitimate. I’m very surprised that as a published author of neuroscience research you are unaware of this basic fact.

That’s of course a personal attack also, and a dishonest one, since my previous argument was not against the legitimacy of the question itself, but the fact that no evidence or argument was raised to support it. I said this:

They would be legitimate points, if a real argument were actually given, rather than simply a bare assertion. It is obscurantism, if no reason is given to think that the behavior actually was overinterpreted or that the tasks were not valid measures of abstraction or conceptualization; it’s an argument to ignorance.

So, implication that I was unaware the importance of representativeness of a task is simply another lie on your part.

I asked about your research because the thread considers Soul and Brain, not simply animal cognition and its relation to human cognition. Neuroscientific studies of human cognition is relevant to your argument.

Sure, I’ve authored or co-authored several studies on the neural correlates of intelligence, language, math ability, auditory processing, and so on. Now I’m sure itinerant will insist on a tortured interpretation in which all the brain is doing is making phantasms available, but that’s just like adding eccentrics and epicycles to me.

 

[NowAgnostic]

My opinion may not be worth much to some people on CAF, but I have reviewed the posts and can find nothing that would even remotely suggest that Fran65 was lying about anything. And there is no reason for her to lie. Hence, the accusation appears to me as malicious and completely unfounded.

The accusation is completely substantiated and documented below.

 

[Fran65]

I see your strategy. I stand by everything that I have said. You tempt me, sir, to enter further into your web. I refuse. I did warn you. I have nothing further to discuss with someone who uses personal attack as an alternative to reasoned argument.

 

[itinerant1]

You’re assuming a priori a radical difference in kind. As you must, because Catholicism asserts an ontological “leap” from animals to humans. Therefore, anything which gets closer to there is an improvement ipso facto, regardless of whether any data supports it or not, or how much data is amassed in evidence against it.

Oh really. Let’s see this growing data from science. What data from science supports that this difference cannot be explained in terms of neurophysiology and brain complexity? Why have the researchers mis-interpreted the results of their studies?

Why is the data better explained by radical difference in kind? You’re just throwing a lot of arguments by assertion around.

I can easily show that there is nothing a priori about my position. Your criticisms involving a priori and so on, reveal just how little you know outside of your narrow specialization.

I would very much like to discuss interpretations of the scientific data and show how that data better supports my position over yours, but based on what recently transpired in this thread concerning your problematic attitude, I opt to discuss this subject with almost anyone other than you.

 

[Touchstone]

I can easily show that there is nothing a priori about my position. Your criticisms involving a priori and so on, reveal just how little you know outside of your narrow specialization.

I would very much like to discuss interpretations of the scientific data and show how that data better supports my position over yours, but based on what recently transpired in this thread concerning your problematic attitude, I opt to discuss this subject with almost anyone other than you.

No need to wait on anyone else. If you have good arguments to bring, or data to analyze, the thread is wide open for you. If you have an easy way to show there’s nothing a priori about your position, that would be a small thing you could start with. Posts here get read by a lot of others than just those posting, or those you are contending with. So if it’s easy, have at it – no one’s stopping you. And we can see that you do support what you claim.

-TS