This is a failure to adhere to a rigorous definition of "system", — Metaphysician Undercover

You mean your typically esoteric definition? I wouldn't class that as a failure. It's important to have consensus in language. Adhere to that and you will make fewer communication errors. Since I introduced the word into the convo, you can take it as read that I mean it in the normal sense of interacting parts comprising a whole, not whatever arbitrary definition you insist upon after the fact.

Not necessarily, that's the point. When the apparatus is faulty, or in some way deficient in its capacity to be what it is supposed to be, it cannot be said to be a system. — Metaphysician Undercover

Yes, it is. It is a system in an undesirable state, but it is still a system.

This is because a "system" is an artificial thing designed for a purpose. — Metaphysician Undercover

That is extremely wide of the mark. A carbon atom is a system of fermions. It is neither artificial nor does it have a purpose, although it is certainly useful.

we cannot simply assume that the apparatus comprises a system — Metaphysician Undercover

Now we're getting too silly. Of course an apparatus is a system.

The latter.

You can't argue with a zombie. — Marchesk

You can. Just keep saying "Not brains!"

This is why we need a rigorous definition as to what constitutes an "observation". — Metaphysician Undercover

An observation is a recording of data about a system. That system cannot be a quark, or spacetime curvature, or someone's conscious experience in isolation, since none of these things exist in isolation. But I can observe the outputs of a technology that captures decay rates of pions, or the position of Mercury wrt the Earth and Sun, or the testimony of students as to whether they saw the man in the gorilla suit. Each of these are, according to respective theories, affected by the non-isolatable part: the colour charge of the quark, the curvature of space, the content of the humans' consciousness. If the theories are sound, those effects are discernible in the observations. Otherwise the theories are not sound.

It's clear that the arguments in the article are successful in removing from reasonable discourse qualia that are both ineffable and private. The reasonable folk who defend qualia have followed the only course open, which was to shift the definition of one or more of the concepts involved. — Banno

I don't think this is true. Dennett defines qualia according to a survey of literature, which is reasonable: unlike a lot of the current discussions on panpsychism (Pfhorrest's aside) and anti-physicalism proliferating atm, Dennett has the integrity to define what he is talking about. He cannot proceed under the broadest definition because that definition is too vague. So he looks to the lowest common denominators. But you and I and Dennett agree that the authors of this conception were wrong: qualia with these properties do not exist. So why on the one hand do we hold them as the authority on what qualia *are* and on the other dismiss their philosophy on the existential properties of qualia? In other words, if they can be *that* wrong, why do we accept their definition as accurate? Indeed, how can we accept a definition of a non-existent thing as authoratitive at all? I point this out because, as far as I can see, the keystone of the arguments for the non-existence / irrelevance of qualia is this diabolical quaternity of properties. It looks like a straw man.

If we define mind according to the misguided notions of dualists or panpsychists, we'd find that that too doesn't exist. Or if we define energy according to the hippy BS of new age insufferables, there's no energy either.

It just seems infinitely more useful to pin down what people actually mean by the word and describe that in terms of how the brain works than to forge a definition that is doomed to undermine far more interesting discussion. Yes, a wine-tasting machine is viable. Yes, there are people who will not accept that. But whatever the contents and properties of my consciousness pertaining to me taking a particular sip of a particular barolo, be it a singular sensation or a time-evolving one, be it a constant or state-dependent, be it a linear progression or an iterative one, be it pleasurable only for two years or forever, is still the thing I am referring to when I talk about that particular qualia, and that's what I would like to understand: it assuredly happens, so *how* does that happen? I am aware that most of that explanation has nothing to do with qualia and is a lot more similar to a wine-tasting machine, but how does this particular discerning, middle-class-alcoholic wine-tasting machine work?

That's a dubious proposition. I would say it is more of an assertion than an observation. — Metaphysician Undercover

A computer can be programmed to assert that it thinks. Doesn't make it so. Descartes was starting from what he knew for sure, which is that he thinks.

But I see from your discussion with Luke, that you are free and easy as to what qualifies as an "observation". — Metaphysician Undercover

Precisely as much as the empirical sciences. We cannot put spacetime curvature under a microscope: we infer it from indirect evidence, i.e. observations of its effects. This is actually true of all observations. You have no direct observation of your chair: it is all interpretations of effects.

But of course they are only detecting what they are designed to detect, and everything else goes right past them. So they cannot be claimed to be making valid "observations". — Metaphysician Undercover

We use such machines all the time, and class an observation to be a reading of their outputs.

What can it really mean to detect, when knowledge of having doubted is given immediately from it. It is impossible to doubt without doubt being known as that which has occurrence. There is no need for the one to test for the other.

No different than saying a spinning wheel detects its own roundness. It spins because it is round, it couldn’t spin if it wasn’t. Being round is a necessary condition for wheel spinning, hence, if there is spinning, roundness is necessarily given. There is no requirement or admission of detection. — Mww

Does a spinning wheel know it is round? If not, where is the detection? Granted, yes, the act of doubting necessitates the mind that does the doubting. That this is not true of being round means the analogy cannot hold.

However, I can detect the roundness of the spinning wheel with the same mind that is aware that it thinks.

In the same way, I know I doubted because I doubted; I couldn’t know I doubted without having doubted. That which is known about is a necessary condition for knowing; upon doubting, knowledge of doubt follows necessarily, without requirement or admission of detection. — Mww

I think you meant "I couldn't doubt without knowing I have doubted"? I don't know how difficult it would be to design a doubting AI, but it doesn't seem beyond the realm of possibility. For us, yes, we cannot doubt and not be aware if it, unlike, say, breathing. This doesn't seem problematic. The route between fact and knowledge of it can be short or long.

What are you on about? If you disagree with the Wikipedia definition of "mind" that I quoted, feel free to spell out where you disagree.

If you don't want to explain what you meant by "in principle" or to discuss it further, that's fine. — Luke

FFS, forget it. Your bizarre responses are, as the past has taught me, beyond my skill to negotiate.

OK, this is a good start. By what means does one "detect" the mind. — Metaphysician Undercover

The 'I think' of the cogito is an observation. It is an empirical fact that I think, albeit limited to one observer and one object which is why it would not make a good test for presence of mind. A better one would be to take something like an optical illusion, discount those that identify the sought image straight away (which would deal with AIs too), and look for evidence that subjects can, upon immediately seeing the unsought image, figure out how to see the sought image. That's as good an indicator of mind as any, encapsulating as it does self-awareness, motivation, memory, doubt, and algorithmic thinking.

Of course, you could game this with AI too, but height is still a good test for adulthood notwithstanding the occasional kid on another kid's shoulder wearing a trenchcoat and fake beard.

Doesn't empirical verification require direct observation? — Luke

No, as I've pointed out with orthodox examples several times.

It doesn't require any special definition. — Luke

You've been on this site for a while now. Is your impression that we're unanimous?

As Descartes made abundantly clear, the reality of one's own mind, at least, is what is described as an apodictic truth, 'apodictic' meaning 'cannot reasonably be doubted', for the simple reason that doubt requires a mind capable of doubting. — Wayfarer

I agree, but knowing that I have doubted is a detection.

I’m asking how do you verify a mind or mental states? — Luke

Ah. If you read a bit further down, I point out that there are many things we cannot observe directly (such as quarks, Higgs bosons, spacetime curvature) but rather through their effects. The empirical criterion is not hurt by this. Really, all observed things are detected by their effects.

So there are two possibilities here: 1) the mind is not detectable directly or indirectly, in which case we have no justification for claiming it exists; 2) it falls under the purview of physicalism.

A simple (to write down) verification would be to choose something that the mind does, take a sample of people, and test whether that property is present. What that is will greatly depend on how you define 'mind'. I would go for a series of tests where people have the opportunity to 'change their mind', i.e. something where they can override a more automatic response. That would obviously be no good for a panpsychist who believes everything has mind, because they define the word differently.

What about the distinction between mind/matter or mental/physical? Is there such a distinction, or do minds/mental states not exist? — Luke

I'm not sure what you're asking. One can distinguish between a house and a mouse in physicalism, also between a living human and a corpse. Physicalism is a monism insofar as it holds that there is only one *kind* of thing: physical things. That doesn't entail there being only one fundamental thing. If you're asking about dualism, again physicalism is a monism: you can't derive a contradictory pluralism from it. That would be like asking how I explain God in my atheism... I don't need to do that.

So a physical architect's brain and hand produces plans for a house, and the plans are physical, but there is no house. A natural way of talking would be to say that the builders will realise the architect's plans when they build the house that is imagined. — unenlightened

One kind of structure is that which encodes information. In this instance, we know that the information -- the design of the house -- is encoded physically by an immediately physical (motor) process, so the information is also encoded in the deliberate sweeps of the arm. We know that those arm movements are caused by a great many physical (electrical) signals from the brain which cause muscles in the arm to contract and relax, and those signals also encode that information. And finally we know that one thing the brain definitely does in addition to sending signals is physically encode information (such as long term memory in the cerebral cortex).

It's also worth pointing out that, artistic license and self-aggrandisement aside, it's unlikely that the original information ever came fully formed in the brain. The architect likely took an iterative approach, and refined what she saw on the paper. I would be sceptical of anyone telling me that they imagined the whole building exactly then drew it out. Same goes for any other creative act. Even the greatest geniuses, like Mozart and Beethoven who did not need more than pen and paper to write entire symphonies and requiems, will have used that pen and paper as a means of not having to imagine the whole work.

The best case, it seems to me, is the one you are making where if it affects something physical than it is physical. Which ends up, it seems to me replacing properties with relations. — Coben

Aye, although I think that is what properties are. The charge of a particle is its coupling to everything, likewise for mass, spin, etc. The position is its position wrt everything else, likewise momentum, energy, etc. The properties of something are given by what it does, and nothing does things to itself. In turn those properties define what that something is. Consciousness is a something that definitely does things -- we are all familiar with that and those things include physical effects.

And it's not just the exotic things like quarks that are exotic since everything is made up of exotic stuff that is not physical in the way we used the word about things like rocks and chairs and as opposed to spiritual or ideal. — Coben

Sure. And it's perfectly understandable why back then we categorised things as physical and non-physical. But it's also not surprising that these older ideas have become refined. Some people still make that distinction, for instance between physical (matter, energy, information, etc.) and material (when taken to mean only massive bodies). It's probably not a huge surprise that new age hippy dippy people talk of energy in much the same way that others talk of supposed non-physical things, like energy is the mystical side of the physical coin.

Further we must assume that all that matters is the impingement on things that we already consider physical (despite whatever we my have found out about their make-up). — Coben

Physicalism assumes physical things exist, which is a reasonable, uncontroversial assumption. For instance, if no physical thing existed, why would we not use the word 'physical' with a different meaning? A non-physical electron still distinguishes itself as a physical electron does (otherwise we're not talking about this human-yielding universe at all) so why would we call it something else. If we assume even only a single physical thing exists, then the argument I gave suggests that all things are either physical or meaningless.

But real seems more appropriate. — Coben

The physicalism argument essentially makes them synonyms. Everything real is physical and vice versa.

Now granting that the ducks are physical, is the row physical? Do I have 4 physical things - 3 ducks and a row? Or 3 physical things - the ducks in a non-physical row? — unenlightened

That's a nice easy one. If the row of ducks was a row plus three ducks, then if I remove each duck one by one I should be left with just the row, right? ;)

A row of ducks is a physical thing comprised of other physical things, in the same way you are comprised of cells, cells are comprised of atoms, and atoms are comprised of electrons, protons and neutrons. A hydrogen atom is not an atom plus a proton plus a neutron. That would be double counting a system and its constituents.

What happens if I add a duck? Is it a row of ducks plus a duck, or just a larger row of ducks? Well, what happens if I add a proton to a lithium atom? Is it still an atom? Yes: it is a system of electrons protons and neutrons, which we call atoms. Is it still a lithium atom? No. Why? Because we call atoms with three protons lithium and those with four protons beryllium. So a row of three ducks plus a duck is a different row of ducks.

No. For the umpteenth time, I'm asking what observable difference is between conscious and unconscious processes are. — Harry Hindu

So why are you challenging the idea that humans learn things at all?

It's basically where it occurs in the brain. See my and Isaac's lengthy and somewhat off-topic discussions on the Strawson v Dennett thread for examples. Reactions to visual stimuli, for instance, consist of chains of processes with feedback loops that evolve and dwindle according to factors like attention and memory. Some of those we are not conscious of, some we are. The difference comes down to the function of the bit of the brain running the process. For instance, much of our motor control, including what we call 'muscle memory', occurs in the cerebellum, which does not run conscious processes. That is, you can stick a knife in someone's cerebellum such that they struggle to walk without affecting their consciousness one iota.

Personally, I agree with you although I think that many of a scientific persuasion would like to claim that there path is the most accurate and valid. — Jack Cummins

I would agree with them too. I have come across people who treat scientific theory as if it had come via divine revelation, but I think most of us would agree that theory is a refinement of representation for what science might feasibly represent, not perfect, but a good enough and improving story to treat as if it were the case... for now.

The kinds of narrative that fiction, for instance, is good at is not a tractable scientific problem. You can't arrive at whatever truth is in Dostoevsky's The Idiot by solving the wave equation or dissecting Dostoevsky. Even a deconstruction would likely be intractable, although would provide some insight.

When I was writing my first paper on quantum transport theory as a PhD student, my professor was always on about 'the story'. "What is the story we're telling here?" "This interesting nugget does not contribute to the story." Exactly the same sort of criticism you would get on a piece of fiction. (I used to be a member of Critique Circle too.) At first I took this as an issue of communication, but later realised that this is fundamentally what theorists are doing: creating and refining narratives that are constrained by data points and the necessity of being predictive and novel.

That doesn't belittle it in any way. Shakespeare was no less a genius than Newton. They just used the tools they had the best they could in the kinds of narrative-building that suited them. And there's no barrier to a story being true, or close enough to the truth to be useful.

All we're dealing with is your refusal to believe that there are non-physical effects or things. — Wayfarer

I didn't read past this first sentence. I have explained my reasoning as to why non-physical things are either contradictory or meaningless (the basis of my belief that non-physical things do not exist) multiple times, rather than just described my beliefs as you do (e.g. that psycho-somatic effects are non-physical, for which you provide no explanation). I anticipated pushback with more argument behind it, but that's not what's happening here. If you're sticking to the approach of repeatedly misrepresenting my position, which you've done four times in as many posts now, then I'm satisfied that said pushback is going to come from elsewhere if at all. I see no worth in repeatedly denying positions or approaches that I haven't taken.

If it's physical, how so? — Marchesk

It is physical in the same way everything else is: it can be observed directly or indirectly, and its properties couple to the physical properties of other things. A red ball rolls into my field of vision, and I am conscious of it. I hear someone call my name behind me, and I choose to turn around. What I can't do is put it under a microscope and study it, but that's also true of quarks, Higgs bosons, energy, entropy, spacetime curvature, etc. That's why the claim of non-physical consciousness is both absurd and unjustifiable. It's really a statement about _taste_.

Which is why psycho-somatic effects ought not to exist. — Wayfarer

This is not logically sound. This statement is based on the contradictory premises that there are no non-physical things and that psycho-somatic effects are non-physical. If you take the former seriously, the latter is ruled out and there is no contradiction. And vice versa, of course, although that has its own problems as I described above.

Sure, and applies to everything. Everything behaves in this way: it couples to physical properties and is directly or indirectly observable. And since this meets the criteria of the physical, everything is physical, and nothing is non-physical. That is why the postulate of a non-physical thing or property is absurd.

It might be a different story if those who believe in non-physical things could describe them better, explain how we can know they exist, how they can enter into causal chains, etc. But I imagine this would yield the same absurdity: they would find themselves talking about physical things but arbitrarily and incorrectly calling them non-physical.

:clap:

And the placebo is only considered an anomaly in medicine because of its apparently non-physical nature. — Wayfarer

It doesn't have an apparently non-physical nature. It has an apparently physical one according to the definition of 'physical' in this context. What we have instead is a rigid and irrational *belief* that it is non-physical.

It appeared to be what you had written. — Wayfarer

I gave a familiar example. I did not generalise from it in the way you claim.

Physicalism and empiricism are different principles. — Wayfarer

Yes. There's no contradiction there. Empiricism doesn't necessitate physicalism.

Besides there are vast areas of conjecture in current physics which are beyond empircal verification in principle, such as the multiverse conjecture and string theory. — Wayfarer

Yes, and these are frequently cited as unscientific for that reason. String theory might yet yield predictions, although it's not looking good. Multiverses could perhaps be inferred, but I doubt it.

Patients get sick, and are also sometimes cured, by what they believe. Placebos have a measurable affect on patients, even though they're physically inert. In those cases a psychological (mental) cause has a bodily (physical) effect. — Wayfarer

In the second case, the belief has an obvious physical cause. One could postulate, as in my description, that a non-physical mind might have such properties that they couple with physical properties such that it might be tricked by physical events into that belief. And further that it has additional non-physical properties such that that belief can be the non-physical cause of physical effects leading to healing. One again arrives at the problem: we have a supposedly non-physical thing indirectly observed through its physical effects and its physical causes, just like a physical thing. What distinguishes it as non-physical, other than sheer insistence?

The image in our eyes is identical to the image in a camera. — TheMadFool

Sufficiently similar, surely. The people seen through the window would be different, for instance. And the photograph is analogous to the restaurant, not the subjective image of the restaurant: it is the cause of the second, similar image.

When people linked to genetic science say that there is only a 3% difference between man and chimpanzee, they show an ignorance about the validity of knowledge of genetics. Between human intelligence and animal intelligence there is a global difference that only appears in real experience and anyone can attest to that. — Rafaella Leon

Or maybe they're speaking about the 3% difference between human DNA and chimpanzee DNA, them being geneticists and all.

That is what I've been asking this whole time -- how human beings learn things. How is a scribble about unconscious processes, and what is the observable difference between conscious processes and unconscious processes? — Harry Hindu

Iirc you were asking about how an unconscious mental process could feed into a conscious experience. We just ended up at how humans learn anything at all by a regression of lazy 'Why?'s. Since there's no end to that, and I have good reason to believe that humans learning things is not something you doubt, I'm drawing a line there. It is sufficient to accept that humans can learn within the scope of this question. (A different matter if the thread were about, say, child development.)

I only doubt that we can learn things based on what you have said, not what I have said. You are the one that can't explain the difference between conscious and unconscious processes. If what you said works for you, then good for you. — Harry Hindu

Oh, I can explain it. I just can't learn it for you. We have reached an impasse: I shan't embark on a lengthy post describing how human beings learn things without a sign of good faith from you that this is a serious conversation, and you can't provide a sign of good faith, presumably because you have none. That, as far as I see it, is that.

The problem which I see with relativism itself is that it can be seen as implying that we all have different perspectives and there can be no way of discerning truth at all. — Jack Cummins

There are many houses. Does this imply that my partner and I live in different houses? You speak of culture. Two people with the same culture will probably have more closely correlated views than two people from conflicting cultures. I am pro-choice. Catholics and Midwesterners generally aren't. On the other hand, my viewpoint also differs from people of the same culture. I have a stronger belief in the importance of personal responsibility than my partner, who is far more sympathetic toward murderers and rapists than I am.

Relativism allows, but does not enforce, different positions on the same thing.

I prefer the idea of pluralism, which suggests competitive rather than necessarily equal truths, because it has less of a reductive slant towards comparisons — Jack Cummins

Relativism also allows for unequal truths. Relativism in postmodernism is often accused of levelling the playing field but it doesn't. Nothing is immune from deconstruction: any text has its biases and hidden assumptions. That does not make such flaws equal. One finds far more fault when deconstructing, say, Julie Burchill than one does deconstructing a Nature or Science paper, and the assumptions and biases of the latter are less controversial and easier to discern.

'The idea that science and religion are enemies is false: they concern distinct, if overlapping, spheres of human experiences. But the presumption has proved extremely hard to overcome.' — Jack Cummins

The idea expressed here that religion has its domain of enquiry and science has its own sort of makes the enmity inevitable, especially when one side is expansionist and the other authoritarian. Science inevitably ends up expanding into what religion considers its turf, be it the positions of the planets and the sun, the origin of the Earth and mankind, or moral truths. Of course, not all religions are authoritarian, and not all are equally likely to conflict with science.

Is there one which is the ultimate in terms of establishing truth? — Jack Cummins

I don't think so. Storytelling is extremely better suited to refining our moral truths than any future Grand Theory of Everything. One must choose the right tool for the job. Also, it's all mythos really. We construct narratives to make sense of the world. Science is just a lot more constrained insofar as it has to fit data and make predictions.

Everything you said is to be doubted because you can't explain the observable difference between conscious processes and unconscious processes. In other words, you have no idea what you're talking about. — Harry Hindu

As I said, you can't logically doubt that we can learn things and at the same time ask questions expecting to learn my viewpoint, or expect me to discern your meaning. You're obviously not ashamed to appear completely self-contradictory to defend an invalid position, but no one is obliged to lower themselves to that level. It's reasonable to expect a certain minimum degree of rationality on a philosophy forum.

Unless I'm wrong, in which case do explain how the inability to acquire data is consistent with asking questions expecting data, after which I'll furnish you with the apology you are due and the answer you requested. I shan't hold my breath.

So to believe in the soul is to be creationist? — Wayfarer

That is not a logical inference.

I'll state the physicalist argument for your consideration.

1. To exist -> To be perceivable [Has to be true for physicalism]
2. To be perceivable -> To exist [True]
3. To exist -> To be physical [??? necessary for 4]
4. To be perceivable -> To be physical [from 2, 3 and necessary for 5]
Ergo,
5. To exist -> To be physical [Physicalism] — TheMadFool

Trouble is, this is not the argument for physicalism. I've seen something like this before, again in a proof of circularity in physicalism. Did you perchance write a paper on this?

The physical (as in physicalism, as in the physical sciences) is that which is empirically verifiable in principle by definition. There is no difference between (1) and (5) without making the definition of 'physical' up for grabs, so the circularity is being introduced by hand.

The usual argument I'm aware of is reductio ad absurdum. Physical objects are those with purely physical properties, such as mass, charge, position, momentum, etc. Physical properties are couplings between objects. A change in the momentum of one body is brought about by the change in the momentum of another. The charge of one body that _causes_ the properties of another body to change is precisely the same property that allows the first body to change due to the second. Such correlated changes in the (directly or indirectly) observable properties of bodies are what physics is about.

We can consider additional, non-physical properties and bodies comprised purely or partly of them, but we have to understand what that means. A non-physical cause might have a physical effect, such as a non-materialist idea of free will leading to physical movement. A physical cause might have some non-physical effect, such as perhaps a creationist might think of emotional responses to physical stimuli as being an effect on the soul. Finally a non-physical cause might have a non-physical effect.

The first two are empirically eliminated, since either would breach conservation laws. E.g. if a non-physical cause could have a physical effect such as movement, physics wouldn't work at all: momentum and energy would not appear to be conserved. Likewise if a physical cause had non-physical effects. In addition, it's a contradiction. Supposing that a non-physical property could couple to a physical property such that the non-physical thing having the former could cause the physical thing to change, e.g. the proposed non-physical mind has the property of being able to induce the physical brain to send a signal to the left leg to make it move. What then makes that property non-physical? It is not unobservable any more than the curvature of spacetime or the colour charge of quarks: we can infer its presence from its effects. Such a non-physical property would be physical by virtue of what it does.

Which leaves non-physical causes of non-physical effects, neither of which can be observed directly or indirectly, subjectively or objectively since they are, by definition, purely unobservable things. We cannot speak of their properties since we have no insight into them. We cannot verify their existence. These are dismissed as redundancies.

The same goes for non-physical properties of otherwise physical things. If it is their physical properties that couple to the properties of purely physical things, then either the non-physical properties couple to those, making them physical, or else the non-physical properties do nothing at all, in which case why postulate them?

Its an effort to get you to back up your own statements. — Harry Hindu

I do not need to back up a claim that we can learn things from study. The claim is not seriously in doubt.

Imagine being burned at the stake as you keep telling yourself the pain is an illusion. — Marchesk

There are a number of subcultures and individuals who claim to be able to demonstrate just that. That said, I still maintain that walking barefoot over hot coals hurts like hell.

How does consciously observing scribbles on a page provide knowledge of unconscious processes? — Harry Hindu

Again, this is nothing but an infinite regress of childish 'Why?'. That we can learn about things we didn't witness is not in doubt in the scope of the question. That we can do so is sufficient to answer the question of whether we can, through study, have knowledge of brain function, including functions on the inputs to consciousness.

Asking questions stems from trying to understand others' bizarre statements. Why don't you just answer the questions? — Harry Hindu

You're asking about the possibility of something that, if not possible, would not allow you to ask questions about anything. It seems extremely moot to me.

Also I did answer the question by example. :roll: If you've ever read a nonfiction book, you have gained knowledge of things you never had conscious experience of. You do not experience Agincourt when you read about it, but you still acquire knowledge about it. Same goes for science. You can learn about things the brain does that we are not conscious of by study, research, education, reading out of interest, etc. I don't really get why this is where the conversation is going. It seems a tad basic.

How does one come to consciously know that they are unconscious of many processes occurring in the brain? :brow: It sounds like a meaningless contradiction to me. — Harry Hindu

Really? It seems odd to ask a question about it then, seeing as asking questions about something is a perfectly obvious means of learning about things you weren't conscious of. Have you ever, for instance, read a history book, or a science book, or a biography? You really do make the most bizarre statements.

Its nature remains unknown, and until it is discovered, it still remains a conjecture. — Wayfarer

Which is precisely what it is :up:

Minds don't process binary units. — Wayfarer

It does not follow that they don't process data, which they absolutely do. Analogue data is still data.

I first read about Michael Flynn's martial law petition today. Incredible stuff. He cites alleged restrictions on freedom of speech as a reason to criminalise the free press. Actually compares BLM protesters with slave owners with no irony. But I did learn that Abe was a bit of a Trump.