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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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Oct 21, 2011 - 04:31pm PT
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The program is not the computer...
...nothing startling there.
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High Fructose Corn Spirit
Gym climber
-A community of hairless apes
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Oct 21, 2011 - 05:44pm PT
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The Law just says that 1st person experience is not entirely reductive to 3rd person functional modeling.
Compare:
(a) Neurosciences say that 1st person experience is... entirely reductive to 3rd person functional modeling.
(b) Neurosciences say that 1st person experience is... entirely reductive to causality, mechanisms of action, physics and chemistry.
Clearly, (a)and (b) are different - at least to the trained thinker. Whereas (a) is dubious if not false, (b) is by and large true. In other words, the leading push in the sciences now is that 1st person experience (mind, consciousness, sentience) reduces to physics, chemistry, signal transduction, circuit functions, brain states.
In different terms, the "leading push" in the neurosciences is that mind incl consciousness is 100% "obedient to" (ref: Ed Wilson) causality or 100% "obedient to" physics and chemistry, however you prefer to say it.
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High Fructose Corn Spirit
Gym climber
-A community of hairless apes
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Oct 21, 2011 - 06:02pm PT
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To use a Frank Luntz line, the simple truth is...
The overwhelming lines of circumstantial evidence... from both (a) everyday and historical experience and (b) modern neuroscience... all point to (1st person) experience as mechanistic output from brain circuitry.
That's head and shoulders above the rest as the most reasonable model to go forward with in one's "practice" of living in this modern century.
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Largo
Sport climber
The Big Wide Open Face
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Topic Author's Reply - Oct 21, 2011 - 06:04pm PT
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What you're missing with your trained mind there fruity is what has already been settled in "Mind" studies - and that, for the tenth time, is that every last engineering and biochemical model pertains to functioning, is describing functioning, and attempts in some camps to build ever more modern and effective processing machines.
Put differently, from a 3rd person objective perspective, there is no empirical evidence of experience in matter whatsoever - how could there be, when experience is not itself a materialist thing in the normal sense off the world. The only way to thieve your way past this fascile truth is to break a Law of Mind and claim that the map (matter) is the territory (experience). And there is absolitely no evidence that this is so. None.
That mind is intimately related to the meat brain is self evident. But entirely beholden to it in a bottom up casual sequence is a theory that borders on Frankenstein and lightning bolts.
JL
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High Fructose Corn Spirit
Gym climber
-A community of hairless apes
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Oct 21, 2011 - 06:09pm PT
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there is no empirical evidence of experience in matter whatsoever
Agree. This is a nuanced topic. (b) in my previous post addresses a different issue.
The very thing you're addressing is exactly what leads to the passion that in turn leads so many to study neuroscience including myself.
Again, it is a nuanced topic. Might be too difficult, too nuanced, to discuss on a public forum, I don't know.
re: the "trained thinker" comment - that was just a take off the common "trained eye" trope - trying to keep it fresh. Nonetheless "experience and training" are important in mind-brain studies just as they are in climbing as of course you know.
....
To be clear, my stance is the Sam Harris stance. We may never be able to know "what it is like to be something" but that doesn't preclude applied sciences (or people or groups) from choosing the mechanistic (causal) model (aka the "mind-brain model" or on this thread, aka the "meat-brain model") - again, based on loads and loads of circumstantial evidence - as the most reasonable model - as part of crucial decision making - with which to go forward in the "practice" of living when it comes to how life works such that both individuals and social groups have a workable modern standard, so necessary in today's world at least some say.
.....
But entirely beholden to it in a bottom up causal sequence is a theory that borders on Frankenstein and lightning bolts.
With all due respect, not even. It is the lead model in today's neuroscience, e.g., at all top medical schools (e.g., Stanford, Harvard, etc.).
.....
P.S.
Just 50 years ago, any "trained eye" would've been extremely challenged to explain to anyone (e.g., my grandma in Kansas) in meaningful terms what "software" was or just how versatile it could be in all its glory - potentially - after rounds upon rounds of development (just as we experience it today) when mated with its sibling hardware. Food for thought - though it's just a loose metaphor.
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MikeL
climber
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Oct 21, 2011 - 06:52pm PT
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HCFS channeling Dennet: "The 'reasons' that we invoke are reasons that are not represented in the mind of God nor are they represented anywhere until they're represented by the biologists that figure them out"
That makes biologists gods.
"Objects cannot be represented (known) until we represent them."
Oh, brother.
Derrida, Foucault, Lacan were right.
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High Fructose Corn Spirit
Gym climber
-A community of hairless apes
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Oct 21, 2011 - 07:02pm PT
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That makes biologists gods...Oh, brother.
Clearly you didn't get it.
Maybe it's your own ideology getting in the way?
Try: That makes biologists discoverers. Or: That makes biologists explainers. Explainers of how life works according to science. Or, explainers of their discoveries. Words and language what they are, once you have an explanation by a mind (biologist or not) you have a "reason." - "Gods?" Hardly. Silly rabbit.
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MikeL
climber
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Oct 21, 2011 - 07:22pm PT
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I wouldn't place a lot of stock in neuroscience to empirically define the mind or consciousness. Things are still pretty philosophical at those levels.
The same holds true for cognitive science and AI. After 45 years of work, they don't have all that much to show for themselves about either idea as well. Operational AI presents very brittle models that focus on decisionmaking, and cognitive science is still stuck on complex computer metaphors (but a few researchers are returning to James--see Jesse Prinz, Barsalou, Lakoff, Pechner, Zwaan, even Damasio). (Careful though: James was a Christian.)
Largo, Antonio Damasio offers relevant ideas on your question if you care about a neuroscientist's point of view.
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High Fructose Corn Spirit
Gym climber
-A community of hairless apes
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Oct 21, 2011 - 08:26pm PT
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The use of the word "Fruity" brings up old memories... Who uses that term, not me...Are you fruity? What Gives?
You know, sometimes you really are out to lunch, a thread post isn't always directed your way, and sometimes it is hard defending your "atheism" the way you write.
Kindergarten stuff mixed in with the other. Tedious. Time for a sabbatical, perhaps.
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WBraun
climber
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Oct 21, 2011 - 08:36pm PT
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... biologists explainers. Explainers of how life works according to science.
As far as "Life" goes modern science is a complete failure.
Just pure guessing and mental speculations with no clue.
Completely lost .......
Modern materialistic education is the slaughterhouse of the soul.
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High Fructose Corn Spirit
Gym climber
-A community of hairless apes
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Oct 21, 2011 - 08:49pm PT
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Yes, there are savvy Americans and out to lunch Americans. There are savvy climbers and out-to-lunch climbers. There are savvy Dems and out-to-lunch Dems. Atheists, too. ;)
.....
EDIT to ADD: 6:15p
lol !
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Spider Savage
Mountain climber
The shaggy fringe of Los Angeles
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Oct 22, 2011 - 11:29am PT
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The brain is simply a lump of matter, it does not have independent power with which to act.
Consciousness must first exists.
You guys have it backwards.
(from Werner, a page or two back)
TRUE!
You'll not find the mind in the physical universe, only it's products.
The "mind" as most people think of it is simply a storage/calculator.
The being is consciousness and "I" never dies.
Matter, energy, space, are all the products of our own considerations and agreements.
The evidence of this is all around and proof is in the application of this data.
But, this information is a game killer, so please, go back to trying to figure it out.
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wack-N-dangle
Gym climber
the ground up
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Oct 22, 2011 - 11:53am PT
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I seem to kill a number of threads, so let's see what happens. Not that I have the answer, or need the last word.
I see patients being treated for schizophrenia, and other psycoses on a semi-regular basis. The apparent function of their mind certainly varies with their medications. Pharmaceutical companies have also created a large industry using specific molecules that have biochemical effects on our brain, and perhaps "mind".
Unicellular organisms begat multicellular organisms. Animals with neural nets begat animals with brains. Animals with brains lived collectively, developed the ability to communicate, and act co-operatively. Some of those organisms developed "language". Somewhere in that simplified history, self-awareness, and something called the human "mind" began. Given how things went in the past, the human "mind" will cease to exist in about 2 million years.
Was there a neanderthal "mind"? Will there be a "mind" after homo sapiens? When will it quantitatively change to an extent that the homo sapiens "mind" no longer exists? It will end eventually.
I never existed, I grew, and my consciousness began. It was simply a process inherent to the biological process of human development. I will die eventually, my individual "mind" and consciousness will no longer exist.
If you are talking about the "mind" as something other than a biological process, you may as well be talking about god. Also, there is a developing field currently called evolutionary psychology you may miss out on.
Finally, I think Werner typed something about the heart being in the head. That seems more like wisdom, not science, but a good complement to it. His thought appears to address a different concept of "mind" and "consciousness". It is less definable but certainly very human and rooted in a collective experience. Are we evolved to invent "god"? It seems like we have done it repeatedly, in many wonderful and tragic ways.
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WBraun
climber
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Oct 22, 2011 - 12:56pm PT
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Then you are talking about something outside science and logic.
That's not true either.
Real science encompasses everything.
The gross materialists have mislead both themselves and Science itself.
Modern materialistic scientists are an insult to "Science".
They are the worst offenders of evolution .....
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Marlow
Sport climber
OSLO
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Oct 22, 2011 - 01:05pm PT
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WBraun's words may appear as if they are curved, but on the bottom and beyond there is a block and this block is connected to the main server of life which is another and even greater block, so it's just block on block and block n'head.
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wack-N-dangle
Gym climber
the ground up
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Oct 22, 2011 - 01:15pm PT
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^^^ Your quote makes more sense to me this way. Sorry if I am misunderstanding.
That's not true either.
Real [wisdom] encompasses everything.
The gross materialists [pun intended] have mislead both themselves and [wisdom] itself.
Modern [purely] materialistic scientists are an insult to "[wisdom]".
They are the worst offenders of [human "progress"].....
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Largo
Sport climber
The Big Wide Open Face
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Topic Author's Reply - Oct 22, 2011 - 02:08pm PT
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If you are talking about the "mind" as something other than a biological process, you may as well be talking about god.
----
We've beaten it to death - most credible experts agree - objective information about functioning (bio processes) are NOT the same as experience. A rule of mind states that experience (1st person subjective) is not the same thing as 3rd person data. This is self evident to a child. So does it follow from the quote above that if we are talking about experience, we are talking about God?
Why bring God into it?
What is really said (to me) by that quote is that the author has no idea how to quantify or frame experience by the normal method of measuring used per 3rd person, material functioning. Rather than saying, "I have no idea how to even approach the subject, so I'll either deny it exists (there IS no 1st person subject experience) or say that experience is the exact equal of atomic activity." Neither position holds water.
The problem here is the same one repeated over and over, even by Fruity (don't drive him off, his voice is as crucial as all the others), that even the most diligent and studied investigation of matter gives no clue, whatsoever, that experience resides in the atoms.
JL
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go-B
climber
Sozo
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Oct 22, 2011 - 02:17pm PT
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Jimi Hendrix
"Room Full Of Mirrors"
I used to live in a room full of mirrors
All I could see was me
Well I take my spirit and I smash my mirrors
Now the whole world is here for me to see
I said the whole world is here for me to see
Now I'm searchin' for my love to be
Hey!!
Yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah!!!
Broken glass was all in my brain
Cuttin' screamin' crying in my head
Broken glass was all in my brain
They fall in my dreams cut me in my bed
Makin' love was strange in my bed
I said a makin' love was strange in my bed
Yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah!!!
All right
Ooo ooo
Yeah yeah yeah
Yeah yeah yeah
Yeah yeah yeah
No place stumpin'
No place far
Can't find the floor
No where at all
See nothing but sunshine
All around
Love comes shinin' over the mountains
Love comes shinin' over the sea
Love won't shine on my baby
Then I'll know who's exactly for me
LORD, I'll know who'll be for me
In the meen time, which is a groovy time
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Largo
Sport climber
The Big Wide Open Face
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Topic Author's Reply - Oct 22, 2011 - 02:24pm PT
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I should also add that I always have fun razing Craig because he's so stubborn. But I have known him since I was a teenager so my relationship with him is totally different than with most of the rest of you. But I really do have an interesting time on these threads. I only wish I had time to present a more systematic look at things. Maybe later. Just two hours ago I took my two daughters back to the airport. They're off, back to Venezuela. It was a great 1st person, subjective EXPERIENCE having them here the last few weeks.
And don't you dare dive Fruity off, or Marlow (get back in that corner), or Dr. Ed, etc.
JL
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MikeL
Trad climber
SANTA CLARA
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Oct 22, 2011 - 02:25pm PT
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Dr. F's thoughts are widely held.
All of us have been faithfully stubborn. We all have agendas and perspectives we think are right. (Look around here.) Thankfully, no individual or group has driven mankind off the cliff or held it back. What holds your progress back is you; what holds mine back is me.
Science will continue to make contributions, as will many other developments. It's another tool in our quiver.
As for "progress," we need to be clear about what we think constitutes progress. In the middle ages, scholars claimed that mankind would never achieve the greatness of Greek or Roman civilizations. "Progress," coming out of the Enlightenment, became bourgeois materialism, which was lamented by Rousseau, Locke, Hume, Nietzsche, Tocqueville, right up to the post-structuralists.
Do you mean technological progress, do you mean greater happiness, do you mean less hunger, do you mean fewer wars, do you mean more enlightened people, do you mean more material goods to buy and sell?
Maybe WB's mind is already where he wants it to be, maybe he needs a few more lifetimes to work on it, and maybe he doesn't have any mind at all (as described on this thread). The problem is that no one can know Werner's mind--and that might include Werner.
Progress and change are not necessarily positively correlated. But change happens constantly everywhere. There is nothing in the universe that does not change.
Transcending the physical is not the point; that particular idea is a mythical symbol that hides an important truth.
Conceptually, mind is not something that can be found as one would rationally expect it to be found. It's more elusive than that.
"We join spokes together in a wheel,
but it is the center hole
that makes the wagon move.
"We shape clay into a pot,
but it is the emptiness inside
that holds whatever we want.
"We hammer wood for a house,
but it is the inner space
that makes it livable.
"We work with being,
but non-being is what we use."
(Chapter 11, Tao te Ching)
There. Lao-tzu is pointing to mind right there.
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