There are many here who will defend the claim that ideas are merely neurological states. — T Clark

For the purposes of objective scientists, that claim may be acceptable. But philosophers are more interested in the subjective meaningful aspect of Ideas. For example, neurologists, back in the 60s, discovered that touching a probe to a specific area of a conscious brain could elicit a "complex but specific" idea (image or feeling) of Jennifer Anniston or Grandmother. As far as the brain-surgeon was concerned, that single neuron evoked a single idea. But it was never that simple.

Exciting a single neuron triggers a cascade of signals that propagate throughout the brain & body, seeking out other neurons that have been associated with that cell in the past. Related ideas may include the cedar scent of grandma's house, or her smiling eyes, or the sound of her voice, or a Christmas present. What I'm saying is that "neuron states" are holistic & multivalent --- and so are concepts & feelings. Consequently, the connection between stimulus & response is not so simple.

That's because a multivalent mental image is not a one-to-one correspondence to a single neuron. So, the simplistic Mind/Brain Identity theory, while serviceable for neurosurgeons, does not answer philosophical questions about the ontology of Mind, its functional relationship to the body, and the epistemology of Meaning. It's also not very helpful for inferring how another person feels about a particular objective situation. However, the emerging field of Integrated Information Theory is beginning to piece-together the reductive sub-components of Consciousness into a holistic understanding of Mind in its comprehensive context, including physical & functional aspects. :nerd:


The grandmother cell, sometimes called the "Jennifer Anniston neuron", is a hypothetical neuron that represents a complex but specific concept or object. It activates when a person "sees, hears, or otherwise sensibly discriminates" a specific entity, such as their grandmother.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grandmother_cell

Excitatory neurotransmitters cause the signal to propagate - more action potentials are triggered.
https://www.khanacademy.org/test-prep/mcat/organ-systems/neuron-membrane-potentials/a/neuron-action-potentials-the-creation-of-a-brain-signal

The identity theory of mind holds that states and processes of the mind are identical to states and processes of the brain.
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/mind-identity/

Integrated Information Theory :
Initially proposed by Giulio Tononi in 2004, it claims that consciousness is related to a certain kind of information, the realization of which requires physical, not merely functional, integration,
https://iep.utm.edu/integrated-information-theory-of-consciousness/

There are many here who will defend the claim that ideas are merely neurological states.
— T Clark
For the purposes of objective scientists, that claim may be acceptable. But philosophers are more interested in the subjective meaningful aspect of Ideas. — Gnomon

I don't want to get into this again. You and I've beaten it back and forth enough. I was responding to @lll and all I said was that there are many people who believe that ideas are merely neurological states, e.g. our late lamented friend @Garrett Travers.

I don't want to get into this again. — T Clark

I was not criticizing you, but the "claim" that you were noting. Sorry, if that was not obvious. :yikes:

All things in formation in the physical world have a potential counterpart in our brain. — EugeneW

Good point! The brain creates a model (analogy or counterpart) of the real world. Unfortunately, some posters seem to confuse the model with the terrain, or the terrain with the model, or the neuron with the idea. In this thread, the terrain is physical Reality & neuronal Brain, while the model is meta-physical Ideality & noumenal Mind. :smile:


This quote comes from Alfred Korzybski, father of general semantics: “A map is not the territory it represents, but if correct, it has a similar structure to the territory, which accounts for its usefulness”. To sum up, our perception of reality is not reality itself but our own version of it, or our own “map”.
http://intercultural-learning.eu/Portfolio-Item/the-map-is-not-the-territory/
Note -- the mental image of a real thing has a similar structure, in the sense of analogy or metaphor, but is not identical with the neurons that evoke that mental pattern.

Note -- the mental image of a real thing has a similar structure, in the sense of analogy or metaphor, but is not identical with the neurons that evoke that mental pattern. — Gnomon

Righdijo! Look at a dreaming person. There are patterns of storms and atomic bomb explosions, or strange memories of sunlit streets running around on their neuron network, but the dream is something entirely different.

I was not criticizing you, but the "claim" that you were noting. — Gnomon

I understood that.

There are many here who will defend the claim that ideas are merely neurological states. — T Clark

OK, perhaps. But will one of them speak up?

It's like the memes of Dawkins. He made them selfish and in control of human behavior because he has no better memes himself. — EugeneW

Perhaps you are being unfair to Dawkins. The selfishness of genes is just an anthropomorphic trope for self-replicating pieces of code that don't care if they persist or not.

The meme theory is foggy and speculative in comparison. 'Be fruitful and reproduce' seems like a successful meme. This idea might cause its 'hosts' to reproduce and teach the idea to their children. It's not clear how useful the meme theory could be.

Didn't know there was an anti-metaphysics brigade, but it seems inevitable, from a yin-yang point of view that is. The duet, however, isn't pleasant to the ear or the soul, unless of course I'm missing something (critical). Perhaps it's an acquired taste :vomit: $\rightarrow$ :yum: (give it time, she'll come around).

So, science is enemy #1 for metaphysics. Metaphysics, its domain, is empirically empty; what it studies is not observable, the clearest proof of that being the strain of logic employed viz. (exclusively) deduction and not induction.

True to its purpose, metaphysics investigates the necessity/possibility of scientific paradigms; it isn't just content with a description of nature like science, it strives to discover the rationale, the logic, the formal cause of reality as it were and mayhaps that'll become our springboard for uncovering reality's final cause (telos), then on to God, the creator.

Too, metaphysics isn't clear about what existence means, yet science claims only the physical exists. That's like someone who doesn't know what blue means and claiming the sky is blue. :chin:

Furthermore, for science has as a fundamental premise change, that it is real and happens. Metaphysics isn't so sure (vide Parmenideans). Here too, a joke at our own expense: How can someone who's unsure whether souls are real or not go on to measuring and doing calculations on souls?

Then space and time, metaphysical points of interest that are taken for granted in science. There are, last I checked, (mathematical) paradoxes that are veritable logic bombs, ready to detonate randomly in crowded places, threatening the very conceptual foundations of spacetime (vide Zeno of Elea).

Science is ahead of metaphysics, but it cheats in a manner of speaking for it begins its run midway and not at the starting line where metaphysics is. If science continues in this rather ignoble manner, it might regret taking such a rash decision.

Perhaps you are being unfair to Dawkins. The selfishness of genes is just an anthropomorphic trope for self-replicating pieces of code that don't care if they persist or not. — lll

Then why don't call them altruistic?

Then why don't call them altruistic? — EugeneW

If memory serves, Dawkins almost used a title like that. The 'altruism' of the individual gene-carrying organism (the greenbeards) is the 'selfishness' of the gene (the one that encodes greenbeardedness). It's possible that 'selfish' was chosen as more titillating.

science is enemy #1 for metaphysics. — Agent Smith

Popular myth. Properly speaking, it’s indifferent to the subject. It’s up to metaphysics to accommodate the empirical discoveries of science, which it ough not to have trouble doing.

Popular myth. Properly speaking, it’s indifferent to the subject. It’s up to metaphysics to accommodate the empirical discoveries of science, which it ough not to have trouble doing. — Wayfarer

:ok: Science does use Occam's broom though, the issues that don't suit their cause are conveniently swept under the rug or is it that they bury their heads in the sand?

Too, metaphysics isn't clear about what existence means, yet science claims only the physical exists. — Agent Smith

Hi. The bolded part doesn't seem quite right to me. Perhaps the 'physical' is too readily equated with that which we can be scientific or objective or unbiased about. Is the frequency of various words used on Twitter something physical ? Perhaps one can emphasize the mechanics of storage and transmission, but it's more intuitive and convenient to think of them as tokens that can be uncontroversially counted. It's also easy to make predictions that can be uncontroversially evaluated afterwords for their accuracy or lack thereof. When you say 'science claims...,' you seem to be making 'science' into a metaphysician.

If he loves the truth so much, he should have called them altruistic. These little wookers exist for our use only. They come in handy to conduct evofruction.

Hi. The bolded part doesn't seem quite right to me. Perhaps the 'physical' is too readily equated with that which we can be scientific or objective or unbiased about. Is the frequency of various words used on Twitter a physical issue? Perhaps one can emphasize the mechanics of storage and transmission, but it's more intuitive and convenient to think of them as tokens that can be uncontroversially counted. It's also easy to make predictions that can be uncontroversially evaluated afterwords for their accuracy or lack thereof. When you say 'science claims...,' you seem to be making 'science' into a metaphysician. — lll

I can tell you this: no amount of arguing for the existence of the nonphysical is going to persuade science to change its mind on what can exist (only the physical - matter & energy). You're just begging the question I'm afraid.

I can tell you this: no amount of arguing for the existence of the nonphysical is going to persuade science to change its mind on what can exist (only the physical - matter & energy). You're just begging the question I'm afraid. — Agent Smith

That still doesn't sound right. I do find it plausible that many working scientists consider their biological or sociological work to be in principle but not in fact reducible to the dance of 'mattergy,' but some scientists are religious and must therefore have a larger ontology, however articulated or not.

It's also not clear that a 'bottom layer' is necessary for a scientific worldview. I can imagine several being used alternately, each an imperfect map that may complement the others. I can imagine a first-rate sociologist who never bothers with a bottom layer and knows nothing of physics or chemistry. The Church-Turing thesis comes to mind. In some contexts, the 'grain' of the medium in or through which a pattern appears might just be a distraction best ignored. For instance, we rather seamlessly switch between written and spoken language. Linguistic studies that also don't distinguish seem quite plausible to me (and might also include sign language, and so and and so and.)

My thirty peaches of sliver are on there being no gods or afterlife, if that chunk of context helps.

Science does use Occam's broom though, the issues that don't suit their cause are conveniently swept unde — Agent Smith

Deep question. William of Ockham was one of the first and most influential of the nominalists. Nominalists were those who dispute the reality of universals; nowadays we can barely understand what that debate was about. But anyway, his objection to the proliferation of entities was part of his criticism of the (scholastic) realists (those who believed universals were real). It’s an arcane dispute, although one which I find very interesting.

Anyway, more to the point - there’s a good Wikipedia entry on the ‘Conflict Thesis’ - on the supposed conflict between religion and science. I’ll leave you to peruse that, but also note that ‘the conflict thesis’ is to all intents assumed to be true by the Dawkins of this world - you know, backward, Bronze-age dogmatic superstition v cutting edge, up-to-date, scientific reason.

But a nice counter-example to that, is the figure of Georges Lemaître, the Belgian Catholic priest who first formulated the Big Bang theory of cosmology (although of course he didn’t call it that, his original paper was on the ‘primeval atom’, it got that name from a dismissive remark by Fred Hoyle, who never accepted it.) Lemaître was a brilliant scientist, but also a devout Catholic. But get this. His theory was at first universally resisted on the grounds that it sounded too much like creation ex nihilo (more or less Hoyle’s objection to it, but there were many others who felt the same.) In fact it sounded so much like it that in the 1960’s the Pope began to say that science had ‘discovered’ the proof of divine creation. Lemaître was acutely embarrassed by this - whilst he was a devout Catholic, he firmly believed in what Gould described as the ‘non-overlapping magesteria’ of religion on science. He prevailed upon the Pope’s science advisor to gently suggest to His Holiness that he not proclaim this idea, which the Pope respectfully observed thereafter. (And you won’t find too many Catholics, I’d wager, who would basically tell the Pope to shuddup already.)

So this idea that science ‘proves’ or ‘shows’ anything about religious mythological accounts is really the product of a great misunderstanding - to be fair, on both sides of the divide. But Aquinas himself always insisted that there could be no real conflict, and I think that understanding ought to prevail.

If he loves the truth so much, he should have called them altruistic. These little wookers exist for our use only. They come in handy to conduct evofruction. — EugeneW

To me he makes a pretty good chase that, among odor thinks maybe, we are moist row boats or dank blow pots or draping what chew chew drains.

I like 'wookers.'

I don't quite get it, why would Lemaître dissuade the Pope from endorsing the Big Bang Theory as a vindication of the doctrine of creatio ex nihilo?

Lemaître faced opposition even from scientists like Fred Hoyle, that should've been a big hint as to the utility of Lemaître's discovery in putting Christian belief on a firm footing.

It seems The Big Bang Theory had no takers on either side of the conflict (science vs. religion). For a moment there (coupla years perhaps) it fell between two stools.

Later...science gave its nod of approval to Lemaître's astounding discovery, and the Pope should've immediately grabbed the opportunity to reconcile at least astronomy with Christianity, religion generally speaking. That ship hasn't sailed (yet). What are the Popes waiting for? They must have bigger fish to fry like pro-choicers in the US or something.

Returning to the OP's concerns vis-à-vis anti-metaphysics, Occam seems to have been pro-science or anti-metaphysics; Occam's rule (do not multiply entities beyond necessity) is quite popular among scientists I hear.

To me he makes a pretty good chase that, among odor thinks maybe, we are moist row boats or dank blow pots or draping what chew chew drains. — lll

You gut an attractive means to xpress, my friend! Makes one read twice at least: "moist row boats or dank blow pots or draping what chew chew drains" Like I said, a most welcome light in dark philosophical times! For that already your comments are attractive to read! Regardless if I agree or not. And you have only started...

Like I said, a most welcome light in dark philosophical times! For that already your comments are attractive to read! Regardless if I agree or not. — EugeneW

Thank a grin, my friend. I know we don't see high to high on Dawkins, but that doesn't need to mess up a fun conversation. It'd actually be less fun if we agreed on everything.

It'd actually be less fun if we agreed on everything. — lll

Areed! Disagreement is like an ideal pencil sharpener.

I don't quite get it, (why) would Lemaître dissuade the Pope from endorsing the Big Bang Theory as a vindication of the doctrine of creatio ex nihilo? — Agent Smith

Because he felt that the science should stand on its own two feet. I think it's an important principle to understand. A scientific thesis has to have empirical evidence, whereas the idea of divine creation could never be subject to that. The 'big bang' theory might suggest that, but it can never be empirically proven. It's outside the bounds of empiricism for reasons that ought to be obvious.

There's a passage from Augustine that's often quoted in this context. I confess to not having read the entire work, or really much of Augustine's writing at all, but this quote stands on its own, I think:

Usually, even a non-Christian knows something about the earth, the heavens, and the other elements of this world, about the motion and orbit of the stars and even their size and relative positions, about the predictable eclipses of the sun and moon, the cycles of the years and the seasons, about the kinds of animals, shrubs, stones, and so forth, and this knowledge he holds to as being certain from reason and experience.

Now, it is a disgraceful and dangerous thing for an infidel to hear a Christian, presumably giving the meaning of Holy Scripture, talking nonsense on these topics; and we should take all means to prevent such an embarrassing situation, in which people show up vast ignorance in a Christian and laugh it to scorn. The shame is not so much that an ignorant individual is derided, but that people outside the household of faith think our sacred writers held such opinions, and, to the great loss of those for whose salvation we toil, the writers of our Scripture are criticized and rejected as unlearned men.

If they find a Christian mistaken in a field which they themselves know well and hear him maintaining his foolish opinions about our books, how are they going to believe those books in matters concerning the resurrection of the dead, the hope of eternal life, and the kingdom of heaven, when they think their pages are full of falsehoods and on facts which they themselves have learnt from experience and the light of reason? Reckless and incompetent expounders of Holy Scripture bring untold trouble and sorrow on their wiser brethren when they are caught in one of their mischievous false opinions and are taken to task by those who are not bound by the authority of our sacred books. For then, to defend their utterly foolish and obviously untrue statements, they will try to call upon Holy Scripture for proof and even recite from memory many passages which they think support their position, although they understand neither what they say nor the things about which they make assertion. — St Augustine

How much creationist nonsense would be cut off at the knees by this passage?

:clap: The excerpt was well worth my time! Thanks! G'day mate.

:up:

So, science is enemy #1 for metaphysics. — Agent Smith

Science is the hypothetical-deductive empirical child (re: how transformations of states-of-affairs happen / can be caused to happen) of metaphysics' conceptual speculations (re: how things in general necessarily hang together in the most general sense); this is why Aristotle's writings are titled tà metà tà physikà biblía "the books after the books on physics" (i.e. categorical – ontological – criteria / interpretations of his Physika). There is no opposition; science and metaphysics are first-order "apples" and second-order "fruit", respectively. Speculations about other-than-nature (e.g. supernaturalia, impossible / merely possible worlds), however, are vacuous, even anti-science & pseudo-philosophical. To paraphrase Witty: they try to say things that, at most, cannot be said; such "meta-physics" are nonsense.

What can we speculate about without talking nonsense? To my mind, only ways of interpreting nature – mapmaking maps of the territory – without using "supernatural" (i.e. ontologically transcendent / impossible world) predicates. Science is, of course, only one way of interpreting nature which, though not without its problems and limitations, is the most probative, effective, reliable interpretive tool of nature we natural beings have developed so far.

And "beyond" science? Non-sciences such as poetry, music, politics, love, religion, fashion, cinema, community ... Or do we mean "beyond nature"? Isn't that the holy grail of metaphysics? Re: "life after life", "beyond space and time", "before the beginning" "disembodied consciousness" etc. :eyes: :monkey:

Wovon man nicht sprechen kann, darüber muss man schweigen. — TLP, prop. 7

Where language, a natural endowment, fails, Witty suggests, ineffable realities, if they are realities, can only be shown and not said with sense. Talking about what one cannot talk about with sense exhibits the same lack of integrity as claiming that one knows to be the case what one cannot know to be the case. Basically, metaphysics consists in conceptual speculations to the exclusion (as much as conceivable ~ Aristotle) of occult babytalk, glossolalia or mystagogy. Since Thales et al, 'Logos (ethos) striving like Sisyphus against his philosopher's stone to overcome Mythos (pathos)' is how I read the Greek tradition (pace Freddy).

:death: :flower:

Talking about what one cannot talk about with sense exhibits the same lack of integrity as claiming that one knows to be the case what one cannot know to be the case. — 180 Proof

Well put.

Since Thales et al, 'Logos (ethos) striving like Sisyphus against his philosopher's stone to overcome Mythos (pathos)' is how I read the Greek tradition (pace Freddy). — 180 Proof

What do you make of the notion that cognition is largely analogical? Here you have Logos striving like Sisyphus against a Mythos which includes that very Sisyphus. Is the transcendence of metaflora and fairytails an impossible point at infinity? I think (?) you agree that even mathematics is embodied and metaphorical.

Areed! Disagreement is like an ideal pencil sharpener. — EugeneW

Yes indeed, friend.

Usually, even a non-Christian knows something about the earth, the heavens, and the other elements of this world — St Augustine

Even a non-Christian? Is that knowledge meant for Christians only?

What can we speculate about without talking nonsense? To my mind, only ways of interpreting nature – mapmaking maps of the territory – without using "supernatural" (i.e. ontologically transcendent / impossible world) predicates. — 180 Proof

Like MWI, Calabi-Yau manifolds, supersymmetric strings, torsion tensors, and other supernatural nonsense?

Science is, of course, only one way of interpreting nature which, though not without its problems and limitations, is the most probative, effective, reliable interpretive tool of nature we natural beings have developed so far — 180 Proof

Rhetorical propaganda. You can do better 180booze. I have seen signs of intelligence in your words before, though scarcely.

Wovon man nicht sprechen kann, darüber muss man schweigen. — 180 Proof

On the contrary. We have to speak out.

What do you make of the notion that cognition is largely analogical? — lll

I think this is why careful, disciplined meta-cognition is indispensable for sound reasoning.

Here you have Logos striving like Sisyphus against a Mythos which includes that very Sisyphus. Is the transcendence+ of metaflora and fairytails an impossible point at infinity?

I wouldn't be a Spinozist (immanentist) if I thought otherwise. This is why I allude to Sisyphus' 'endless task'...

I think (?) you agree that even mathematics is embodied and metaphorical.

Yes, I very much agree with Lakoff & Johnson et al on this point.

Okay, lil D-Ker, be careful not to drown out here in the deep end ... :sweat: