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MH2
Boulder climber
Andy Cairns
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Thanks to yanqui for thoughtful and helpful contributions.
To a thread originating in a rhetorical question.
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Largo
Sport climber
The Big Wide Open Face
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Topic Author's Reply - Jun 8, 2017 - 01:39pm PT
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Curious thing about Ed is that he uses that faux academic, avuncular tone to pass on howlers as "facts," as though I can't get my data right.
Pulling things out of thin air, such as the fact that many if not a majority of philosophers of science were not themselves grounded in either math of physical science. Decartes, Wittgenstein, Godel, Whitehead, Russel, Putnam, Pascal, Lakatos, Field, Curry, Boole ... all of these philosophers were first mathematicians. The list in almost endless. Citing me on that is a fools pursuit, Ed. It's my wheelhouse. Philosophy of Science has long been dominated by scientists. Though I wonder why you would wish it wasn't (has the faint aroma of scientism - no?).
My sense is that you are outraged by the idea that philosophy might inform science about ANYTHING. This is probably a wise stance, but per the study of mind, discursive philosophy is crucial because without it, people will continue to probe processing thinking it is the same as sentience, or that the two are causally linked - though there is nothing to remotely suggest this is true. However expecting external quantifications and predictions to disclose what sentience is all about is about as silly as tossing a rose pedal off the lip of Half Dome and expecting to hear an echo.
The other misread on your behalf is that I was citing the fathers of QM (Copenhagen Interpretation etc) in some crazy attempt to vouchsafe an old school take on QM itself. Not remotely so. Not interesting. Not my field.
The reference to Bohr and his "consciousness is postulated" comment has to do with this insight above and beyond whatever tinkering he did in the lab. Your stance, apparently, is that all of the old thinkers were incorrect in some fundamental way since the science has since been radically updated. But the investigation of mind is different in many ways. My sense is that you are still struggling under the illusion that studying objective functioning and studying sentience are the same things. Ergo we need only study the most up to date neuroscience (objective processing) till sentience can be "explained" as the fruit of a mechanism. That inevitably leaves you with Chalmers Hard Problem, which is a trick question of a kind that nobody will ever answer because the basic assumptions are wrong.
Withal, Ed seems to hang his hat almost exclusively on the premise that trotting out accurate physical predictions is the gold standard that should and must be met per the study of mind. What do predictions predict if not the movement of measurable properties and phenomenon, the every changing flux of external objects and phenomenon. Never has a more hare-brained approach been wrangled to try and "explain" (mechanistically/causally) awareness. It can only derive from people hoping to know what an internal phenomenon is through quantifying an external object, believing that such an approach is the only viable way to "know" about anything, including consciousness.
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jgill
Boulder climber
The high prairie of southern Colorado
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. . . but per the study of mind, discursive philosophy is crucial because without it, people will continue to probe processing thinking it is the same as sentience . . .
You may think it crucial, and it may be, but so far it seems to me it has produced zilch beyond the contributions of Kant and a few other old-timers. Tononi's Phi function has not gotten us any further along, and the "Hard Problem" is just an expression. Not being a philosopher I could easily be mistaken, so tell me the error of my ways.
Btw, what's with the Ed hard-on? (sycorax)
Stunning in its brevity and content.
;>)
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MH2
Boulder climber
Andy Cairns
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try and still your thoughts for five minutes. Chances are pretty much 100% that you will lose your self-awareness in no time and wake up a little while later having been shanghaied by a thought without you ever consciously knowing it.
I have very few thoughts and far between. Quite a lot probably happens without my consciously knowing it. So? Tell me something I don't know.
And consciousness comes in all kinds of flavors, MH2. Not so with awareness. It remains the same phenomenon across the board. And note how you cannot effectively use figurative language to depict awareness as it is not "like" anything else in the universe. Unless you're a behavioralist.
If you tell me that awareness is not like anything else in the universe, you must have been much further afield than I have.
you cannot think or reason (thinking) your way to clarity in this regards.
Despite occasionally being characterized as an analytic thinker by people who don't know me, I am much more likely to bumble than to reason, and clarity is not a goal I care to reach for. Not lately, anyway.
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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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My sense is that you are outraged by the idea that philosophy might inform science about ANYTHING.
no, and perhaps to disagree with the witch, I actually do read philosophy, but it doesn't help with physics... I wouldn't bother arguing with sycorax about science, she doesn't known any... and has less than no interest in learning it, such a discussion would be a waste of my time. I appreciate her criticisms of my writing, at least she can contribute constructively there.
That philosophers may know something about science doesn't make them scientists, and scientists that philosophize don't always make good philosophers, there are few I can name. Maybe Largo could name the important contribution each of his mathematician/philosophers made to mathematics and then to philosophy, that would be an interesting list. And of that list, what of their philosophy was on the philosophy of science?
Someone hitting with power from their wheelhouse might have an excellent batting average of .333, which means they whiff on 2/3s of their at-bats; Largo wouldn't admit to hitting less than 1.000, especially if I were the pitcher.
As far as Bohr and consciousness, he is confused by the so called "measurement problem" of the old quantum mechanics, a problem which may not exist. This is fundamentally a question of what it means to make measurements in the lab. It is not universally accepted by physicists that Bohr's "solution" to this problem has any basis in physics, and certainly measurements are made. These same ideas are pursued by Bohm, a continuation of work that de Broglie started, and what Bell though might be shown with his inequalities. Unfortunately for that line of thought, they are shown to be inconsistent with experiment, quantum mechanics is consistent.
So while you might continue to find value in the philosophical ideas that Bohm extended from his speculations on the physical universe, we now know these physical ideas are incorrect. From my point of view I am no longer interested in understanding Bohm, he was wrong.
these names may be unfamiliar to some
Niels Bohr
David Bohm
Louis de Broglie
John Stewart Bell
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jgill
Boulder climber
The high prairie of southern Colorado
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Maybe Largo could name the important contribution each of his mathematician-philosophers made to mathematics and then to philosophy, that would be an interesting list. And of that list, what of their philosophy was on the philosophy of science?
That would make an entertaining post, John.
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yanqui
climber
Balcarce, Argentina
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name the important contribution each of his mathematician/philosophers made to mathematics and then to philosophy
I'll get the ball rolling with the first dude on Largo's list.
Mathematics:
Cartesian coordinates: so fundamental to science these days, as evidenced by Ed's recent links to advances in neuroscience.
Descartes's rule of signs ... oops, that's two! So I'll stop here
Philosophy:
(The sound of a drum roll) that's right, you got it: mind/body duality! Important contribution or can of worms? Well, here we are, 400 years later, still talking about it, so I'll let you be the judge of that. I was never too good with vague references like "important contribution". At any rate, if you believe that citation metrics are a reasonable indication of importance, then mind/body duality has to be right up there with the New Testament, near the top of the list in the Western world.
Cogito ergo sum!
As a side note, a personal favorite of mine is Descartes's evil genius thought experiment. Whimsical, yet engaging.
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MikeL
Social climber
Southern Arizona
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Thanks, Jim, for your kind thoughts.
yanqui: I was never too good with vague references like "important contribution".
Me, too. The citation index would be a reasonable metric if one buys into the cultural beliefs.
We seem to be driven to “making contributions.” I think it was first a religious idea—you know, serving others as a practice and a sign of being-in-grace. The existentialists thought that man was nothing but for what he or she did. Simply thinking, feeling, or being seems to be completely selfish and narrow-minded. By golly, we have to be making a difference! How instrumental we are: if something can’t be used as a tool, as an instrument for manipulation, then it is irrelevant and wrong. The idea of sitting still and being quiet serves no purpose, and everything must have a purpose. Here we are running around, trying to find out who and what we are. We are almost always busy, and we feel proud about it. For what? To accumulate more material and psychological “goods?” If one isn’t pushing or pulling elements in the world around, then one is a slacker, useless, unimportant, irrelevant.
Take a break. Go somewhere and do nothing. Rest. Relax. Right now.
Can’t? I understand. There are so many things to do in the world! We have to save other people from themselves.
There is a world of a difference between doing things because one thinks they “matter” (funny, that word, huh?), and doing things because they are natural perfections of who and what one is. The former probably belongs to the bourgeois, while the latter can be a sign that one is in wu wei, consonant with the Tao, simply here-and-now with whatever shows up in front of one.
There’s no place one needs to go and nothing one needs to do. Both are empty.
(I think this counts as preaching, DMT.)
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Ward Trotter
Trad climber
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Take a break. Go somewhere and do nothing. Rest. Relax. Right now.
Sage advice.
Or you could just "kick it" at home:
Nothing like a bar-b-q on the weekend. Go for it. And it doesn't have to be expensive.
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yanqui
climber
Balcarce, Argentina
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But neither Descartes nor Leibniz are really philosophers of science.
In all fairness, in their day, science had yet to reach the overwhelming importance it holds today and I don't think they imagined it as something distinct that needed to philosophized about. In Descartes case, for example, he made no real distinction between knowledge, philosophy and science. He envisioned knowledge as a tree. The roots were metaphysics, the trunk physics and the branches, primarily medicine, mechanics, and morals (the three ms!) yielded the fruit of our knowledge. The uppermost part of the tree was “the highest and most perfect moral system, which presupposes a complete knowledge of the other sciences and is the ultimate level of wisdom".
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Dingus McGee
Social climber
Where Safety trumps Leaving No Trace
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Largo,
please establish or tell us how your view of mind is any more valid than how any of the rest of us readers perceive mind? Some evidence please.
Throw in all of scientific terms and mechanisms you please after the evidence.
I do see evidence of good fiction writer throwing in a little science now & then.
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MH2
Boulder climber
Andy Cairns
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Descartes is fascinating from many angles.
http://www.supertopo.com/climbing/thread.php?topic_id=1593650&msg=2454379#msg2454379
edit: from one of the links in the link
What was the idea that Descartes saw in a burning flash? He tells us that his third dream pointed to no less than the unification and the illumination of the whole of science, even the whole of knowledge, by one and the same method: the method of reason.
Eighteen years would pass before the world would have the details of the grandiose vision and of the "mirabilis sientiae fundamenta"-- the foundations of a marvelous science. Such as he was able to give them, they are contained in the celebrated "Discourse on the Method of Properly Guiding the Reason in the Search of Truth in the Sciences." According to Descartes, his "method" should be applied when knowledge is sought in any scientific field. It consists of (a) accepting only what is so clear in one's own mind as to exclude any doubt, (b) splitting large difficulties into smaller one, (c) arguing from the simple to the complex, and (d) checking, when one is done.
http://physics.weber.edu/carroll/honors/descarte.htm
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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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The citation index would be a reasonable metric if one buys into the cultural beliefs.
a few moments attempting to build such an index reveals the inherent difficulty of doing so...
cultural beliefs or not.
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MH2
Boulder climber
Andy Cairns
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I do see evidence of good fiction writer throwing in a little science now & then.
Ha ha, Dingus.
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MikeL
Social climber
Southern Arizona
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Ed: a few moments attempting to build such an index reveals the inherent difficulty of doing so...
Yes, of course. I use them myself, often. Every time I look and see what has garnered others to refer to them, I get a sense of how a certain group or faction is moving (forward?) or developing. I took a seminar from Lou Pondy, a giant in his field. He was dying, and we met at his death bed. It was quite an experience for the 6 of us lowly doctoral students. I took “organizational symbolism” from him that semester, and the entire experience was a treat. I moved from elation to great sadness almost weekly until he died at the end of the semester. Pondy said that the research game was like going to a party at someone’s 3-story victorian house. In some rooms there’d be lots of people arguing and yelling at each other, and in other rooms, there’d be 5-6 people in dialogue about this or that. In some rooms, there’d be one person, and in other rooms, there’d be no one. Lou said, “you pick” which party you want to participate in. What’s to your liking? I think at that point in my academic career, I began to follow my own lights, which eventually turned me to the Dark Side I guess. Even though I did, I was institutionalized in my doctoral program and the first 7-8 years of my career enough to continue to appreciate the academic lifestyle and all of its cultural trappings. I have a foot in that life and another foot in emptiness. (Good thing I don’t have any more feet, huh?)
Be well.
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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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Jun 10, 2017 - 10:27am PT
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the agony of the feet... I know it well.
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Largo
Sport climber
The Big Wide Open Face
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Topic Author's Reply - Jun 10, 2017 - 11:11am PT
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please establish or tell us how your view of mind is any more valid than how any of the rest of us readers perceive mind? Some evidence please.
That's the core of scientism: If you are not offering measurements or predictions, you are "fictionalizing." It's all or nothing. Facts (numbers) or fiction.
From what I have read and seen and heard, when most people use the word "mind," they use it in 1,000 ways to mean 1,000 things. Mostly, "mind" is used in reference to the mechanism believed to "cause" or source experience. When people go the other way and look at perception itself, it is generally in reference to WHAT we perceive. Otherwise we are left with awareness itself, and then people have to stop calculating, or hark back to the mechanism they believe sources awareness, since every other thing seems to work that way.
How so? Consider the promise of the reductionist is that the decomposition of causes into mechanisms might ground out in some basic, lowest-level causal notion that is primitive and so not analyzable into other causal mechanisms. However this belief violently confronts the widely touted absence of causation in the theories of fundamental physics: at very small size scales, classical conceptions of objects and properties no longer seem to apply, making it nigh impossible to point to mechanisms at work.
But pause for a second: Are you aware of reading these lines, as opposed to just registering an input, as the light sensor does in my back yard. If so, prove it. Not by what you DO, but prove you are aware in the first instance. Sans doing or acting or thinking etc.
There lies the rub for many, who understand "proving" as a set of axioms and predictions tied to a physical force or mechanism.
"Exploring" might be a better way of looking at the investigation of mind.
We can physically prove that our brain generates the content of our awareness. But proving we are aware of same, above and beyond what a machine registers, requires more than examination of an external object or phenomenon, which will only divulge content without an aware subject to vector off.
More later.
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MH2
Boulder climber
Andy Cairns
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Jun 10, 2017 - 12:09pm PT
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If you are not offering measurements or predictions, you are "fictionalizing." It's all or nothing. Facts (numbers) or fiction.
The request was for evidence. Not measurements or predictions.
Your own experience is not a thing we can contest.
Your insistence that we adopt your perspective is too like religion.
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