I’m holding out for the discovery that no matter how hard we try, how far the technology specializes, we’re not going to be able to probe the mass of concentrated neurons looking for the one, or the interconnected plurality, that tells me why I crashed the car. — Mww

We all are, that's the beautiful journey :)

It was one of those iOS typos, where I mis-typed the word and iOS corrected it to the wrong word, which I only noticed when I re-read it. — Wayfarer

Autocorrect is actually the devil

I wish it was that simple. (Actually coming to think of it, I wish everything in life worked as well as software.)

Thanks for engaging.

I was very impressed by your: You can use reason to justify reason of course. What you cannot do logically is use reason to debase or disprove reason.
I have copied it to my notes, I hope you dont mind.
I will not debate this further at the moment.You should have a theory in front of you, so you can attack the weakest points. I hope to put something together soon, so perhaps we can continue this then.

I originally misunderstood what you meant. I think I get it now and can respect your aversion. I'll talk to the admins and see if I can post something somehow in a non confrontational way such that it can be ignored. :smile:
I'm of the impression there is a convergence from many fields around this Information and consciousness issue. IIt and GW have been around for quite a while, Physics and science are probing, Chalmers is pushing for a science of consciousness, so I think it will be mainstream some time this century:cry:
I have an interpretation of it, but I do not know how much of it I can say is mine. I'll compare If / once I put something together. From an idealists perspective one arrives at integrated information naturally - if everything is reducible to information, then so must consciousness be! - figuratively speaking.

That's putting it strongly. Whether scientific ideas correlate to reality is tested. The idea can be wrong, there's no obvious difference in terms of their ideas. But well-tested ideas, yes, are thought to describe something about reality to some (presumably higher than previous) level of approximation. — Kenosha Kid

The approximation clause is present in (almost) all formulations of contemporary scientific realism. The situation is the same as that of a study that has established that the only cause of train delays is the poor condition of the rails, but it cannot predict exactly which train and how long it would be delayed. The anti-realist insists that there are also some ghosts on the line.

Einstein, who didn't believe in ghosts, introduced the same clause in the relationship of Pythagoras' theorem with reality. He knows that its formulation is an ideal that only works in reality as part of a particular mathematical-deductive system and added rules of correspondence between formal and real entities.
Heisenberg and Russell - in a phase of their philosophy - also defended the reality of mathematics. But Heisenberg was more evasive, and Russell spoke of a mathematical reality as "subsistent" that is not exactly the same as the reality of the world.
I believe that, with relativity and quantum mechanics in sight, strict mathematical realism is impossible. Strict mathematical realism = mathematics describes factual reality.

↪Mww Thanks for engaging.

I was very impressed by your: You can use reason to justify reason of course. What you cannot do logically is use reason to debase or disprove reason. — Pop

Sebastian Rodl, — Wayfarer

Err. I wrote this, not Mwww, but thanks for the appreciation all the same. :-)

Overall, I do agree that science is becoming more holistic and less materialistic, — Wayfarer

Science is not more or less materialistic because the concept of matter is not scientific. It is true that many interpretations of quantum mechanics are not mechanistic. They introduce chance as a component of the described reality. What this reality is is not clear. But the idea that consciousness is a component of quantum reality is only held by two or three eccentric physicists.

It’s very simple. Seeing implies looking, looking implies someone who looks, and that observer is never part of the picture. — Wayfarer

Thinking implies someone who thinks and that someone is never part of the thought. — Isaac

I know the idea may seem strange to common sense, but I am nothing more than what I am feeling or thinking. If you take away my feelings, my sensations and my thoughts, I am left as an empty space. I am strictly nothing. Only a vector towards future.

there are no meaningful non-scientific questions. — Kenosha Kid

Surely that must be false. Moral questions, for instance, are not scientific but still meaningfull.

But the idea that consciousness is a component of quantum reality is only held by two or three eccentric physicists. — David Mo

If they thought about it in those terms, they would indeed be eccentric. But they don’t posit consciousness as ‘a component’. It’s the condition for making an observation, and in the case of some of the fundamental experiments of quantum physics, the outcome is observation-dependent. That’s the only sense in which observation is a factor, not in the sense of some ‘spooky mind-stuff’ (again.)

I am nothing more than what I am feeling or thinking. If you take away my feelings, my sensations and my thoughts, I am left as an empty space. I am strictly nothing. Only a vector towards future. — David Mo

You’re not seeing the way that your thinking conditions even what you consider to be ‘nothing’. The mind is what provides the framework within which all such judgements are made; you can’t ‘take away the mind’ and still have anything whatever to say. What we generally do, is imagine the vast empty universe with no humans in it; but even that conception is still fundamentally human.

Chalmers is pushing for a science of consciousness, — Pop

I don't think Chalmers' stuff has anything to do with science. I don't think a subjective science is possible. I don't think his "logical" experiments prove anything. We can pit Blade Runner replicants against Chalmers' zombies and we're not out of science fiction. It's simple philosophy camouflaged by four terms that sound to science.

Sorry about that - very impressive.

ut they don’t posit consciousness as ‘a component’. It’s the condition for making an observation, and in the case of some of the fundamental experiments of quantum physics, the outcome is observation-dependent. — Wayfarer

The collapse of the wave function creates reality whilst it is measured. And according to Wigner this is because an observing mind intervenes. I think Von Neumannn is going the same way. True, they are very eccentric and few physicists take them seriously. For very reasonable unscientific reasons.

The mind is what provides the framework within which all such judgements are made; you can’t ‘take away the mind’ and still have anything whatever to say. — Wayfarer

Try to explain what the mind consists of without using terms referring to feelings, sensations and thoughts. You can't. As I said, the mind is nothing substantial, but a vector, a trend, a project. Of course, without it there would be no project. But it is nothing substantially speaking, I insist.

Or is your point that this is an example of a meaningless question, as evidence that there are no meaningful unscientific questions?

To be perfectly honest, I do not know. I do remember once being amongst a relatively high number of people who bandied around terms like "mental imagery" and "visual experience" as if they were pervasive elements of sight, and then someone pointed out to me that my use of those terms was theory laden, and the theory with which it was laden was not common sense and was based on presumptions not evidence.

There is a metaphysical tenet that says images are the schemata of our representations, the real as things given to us, or merely thought, as things might appear to us if they were real. This is clear, when we consider, e.g., the tickle between the shoulder blades. First is the sensation of a presence, then the image of something from experience which the tickle might represent (a bug, a hair) or from mere thought (a ghost, your friend playing a trick on you).

Is there an argument for this tenet? Perhaps there is mental imagery involved in my recalling how my shoe ended up tied, but that does not entail that mental imagery is involved as I watch my hands manipulate the shoe strings. Note that I am not denying that there is something called mental imagery, nor that it might be problematic from a philosophical or scientific perspective. I am merely posing the question of what arguments or evidence there is for what you claim to be their ubiquity.

Just to reiterate, by "scientific question" I mean a question whose eventual answer is a scientific one.

Just so I don't have to reread the thread from page 1 can you define what you take the phrase "a scientific answer" to mean? Can scientific questions have non scientific answers as well as scientific ones? E.g. take the question "Why am I asking you these questions?" Under one way guessing at what you mean by "scientific answer" you might mean by a scientific answer one that is steeped in physiology, neurology, cogntive science etc etc. On the other hand there is the answer "Because I am generally curious about what you might mean". The latter would seem to be a non scientific answer, although that rests on assumptions about what you mean by "a scientific answer", but in all cases it seems to be a perfectly respectable one for all that, and it is also, as it happens, true.

Even thoughts take up space some where...

So the materialism must include our mind objects as well.. because they exist..and therefore have placements in existence..

Surely that must be false. Moral questions, for instance, are not scientific but still meaningfull. — Olivier5

So they context of that was questions formulated into a mutually-comprehensible schema, such as phenomonology, that made both philosophical and scientific sense. Without doubt you can form moral questions without possible scientific answers outside such a schema.

And according to Wigner this is because an observing mind intervenes. I think Von Neumannn is going the same way. True, they are very eccentric and few physicists take them seriously. For very reasonable unscientific reasons. — David Mo

Winger won a Nobel, and Von Neumann is said to have been one of the greatest mathematicians of the 20th century. Maybe few physicists would know what taking them seriously means. After all we can’t expect them to, few of them are actually philosophers.

it is nothing substantially speaking, I insist. — David Mo

Modern realism, generally, has the conceit that it can see the world ‘as it really is’, as if there were no observer. If the lesson of 20th century physics is anything, it is that this is not the case. This was the basis of the debates between Bohr and Einstein that ran for decades (as recounted in this book). And I don’t believe Einstein’s staunch scientific realism won the day. That’s why there are still so many books about the topic subtitled the ‘battle for the soul of science’ or the ‘battle for reality’.

I do remember once being amongst a relatively high number of people who bandied around terms like "mental imagery" and "visual experience" as if they were pervasive elements of sight, and then someone pointed out to me that my use of those terms was theory laden, and the theory with which it was laden was not common sense and was based on presumptions not evidence. — jkg20

It was probably an incorrect use of terminology on my part (I'm not a cognitive neuroscientist). I just meant whatever the visual cortex does. No spooky "third eye" nonsense intended or anything like that.

Just so I don't have to reread the thread from page 1 can you define what you take the phrase "a scientific answer" to mean? Can scientific questions have non scientific answers as well as scientific ones? E.g. take the question "Why am I asking you these questions?" Under one way guessing at what you mean by "scientific answer" you might mean by a scientific answer one that is steeped in physiology, neurology, cogntive science etc etc. On the other hand there is the answer "Because I am generally curious about what you might mean". The latter would seem to be a non scientific answer, although that rests on assumptions about what you mean by "a scientific answer", but in all cases it seems to be a perfectly respectable one for all that, and it is also, as it happens, true. — jkg20

Yes, I don't mean an answer that needs a particle accelerator and complex of fizzing beakers and tubes. "How was the Earth created?" is a scientific question with a scientific answer. Most of that answer is historical, that is: given the known physical laws involved, we reverse-engineer similar possible histories that led to the Earth's formation. "Why did I crash the car?" is, I would guess, a scientific question, with more emphasis on the historical than on the laws of physics.

The "why did I...?" questions are likely going to depend on scientific understanding of mental states in order to have scientific answers, if they do indeed have scientific answers. Likewise "Because I am generally curious about what you might mean". This wouldn't be an additional answer, just a way of answering at a higher level. I would want to know why you are generally curious. Not everyone will take up the point. What is the different between you and others? Again, it will take us to history, cognition, neurology, etc.

I know the idea may seem strange to common sense, but I am nothing more than what I am feeling or thinking. If you take away my feelings, my sensations and my thoughts, I am left as an empty space. I am strictly nothing.

Until someone thrusts your finger into boiling water. You forgot to take away your body.

So if someone takes away your feelings, sensations, thoughts and your body (brain), I would agree with you, that you are strictly nothing.

Let's say you are watching something extraordinary like a pig flying, then you accidentally put your finger in boiling water. I doubt you would have any thoughts about it, all your thinking would be occupied with trying to believe that you were really looking at a flying pig. Your body would take care of its finger while your mind was preoccupied. It is not your mind, or your thoughts, which is looking after your finger.

visual cortex

There could be sighted creatures without visual cortexes, at least that seems possible. So even if you just meant by "mental imagery" "whatever goes on in the visual cortex", you still do not have something that need always be involved in sight. Anyway, that to one side, I am still not clear what you mean by a scientific answer. You've indicated what you do not mean, but not what you do mean.

"How was the Earth created?" is a scientific question with a scientific answer.

Well, since your definition of a scientific question is one with a scientific answer, that becomes almost tautologous. I presume you meant to say something substantial, but what the substance is I cannot figure out unless you fill out what you mean by the phrase "a scientific answer".

There could be sighted creatures without visual cortexes, at least that seems possible. So even if you just meant by "mental imagery" "whatever goes on in the visual cortex", you still do not have something that need always be involved in sight — jkg20

I wasn't posing an example that involved sight generally. The example was more specific. This is starting to feel a little like sophistry tbh.

Well, since your definition of a scientific question is one with a scientific answer, that becomes almost tautologous. I presume you meant to say something substantial, but what the substance is I cannot figure out unless you fill out what you mean by the phrase "a scientific answer". — jkg20

A scientific answer is an answer the requires, in principle, only understanding consistent with current or future established empirically-verified scientific models of reality. I'm anticipating the question "What is a scientific model in this context?" whose answer will yield another "What is a scientific X in this context?".

What seems impressive to me is how any scientist would think that human rationality can be dismissed as mere noise or an "epiphenomenon", without dismissing the whole of science, a product of human rationality, as mere noise or an "epiphenomenon" as well. Logic, anyone?

Any scientific theory attempting to solve the brain-mind problem needs to be able to account for the possibility of its own emergence in a human mind or several, as a theory that correctly solves the brain-mind problem. Otherwise the theory contradicts its own existence.

In other words, a correct scientific (human) theory about the human mind must assume that the human mind is capable of producing correct scientific theories...

It's called compatibilism. In this view, minds exist for a reason: because they can solve complex problems involving far more considerations than your basic fight-or-flee response. Consciousness allows to place under consideration not just present stimuli and past memories but also deductions of consequences, and hence planning about the future. It's very useful.

We have minds because we need them, including for science.

What seems impressive to me is how any scientist would think that human rationality can be dismissed as mere noise or an "epiphenomenon", without dismissing the whole of science, a product of human rationality, as mere noise or an "epiphenomenon" as well. Logic, anyone? — Olivier5

It is not the scientist's view that explaining something is the same as dismissing it. A non-materialist may well, due to prejudice against material systems, think it "dismissed", but naturally a materialist would not. As Richard Feynman said, understanding something on another level only increases its beauty.

But the other part of this is interesting, albeit not limited to considerations of consciousness. A scientist may well accept that a human life is a pretty meaningless accident in the scheme of things, and that all human life is a blip in an ambivalent universe. On that scale, I usually find that either scientists would agree that their endeavours are as meaningless as anything else they might fill their time with, or else yield to poetics about the universe being able to learn about itself. This both overshadows and undermines any difficulty a scientist might have in justifying their particular specialisation of emergent material behaviour.

In other words, a correct scientific (human) theory about the human mind must assume that the human mind is capable of producing correct scientific theories... — Olivier5

This wouldn't be science. A theory cannot be proven and is not considered correct; it is considered fit or unfit. The criterion is empirical validation. If it is not testable, it is not scientific.

If it is not testable, it is not scientific. — Kenosha Kid

But surely if it's irrational and illogical, it's not science either.

A scientist may well accept that a human life is a pretty meaningless accident in the scheme of things, and that all human life is a blip in an ambivalent universe. — Kenosha Kid

That's one point of view. I go with Omar Khayyam instead: the stars and planets are less wise than you are.

But surely if it's irrational and illogical, it's not science either — Olivier5

I don't think that makes sense. If reason and logic are emergent phenomena, than their modes are reasonable and logical. It doesn't become unreasonable or illogical by lieu of how it emerged.

A house made of bricks is not unhousable just because it is made of bricks.

That's one point of view. I go with Omar Khayyam instead: the stars and planets are less wise than you are. — Olivier5

The stars are hotter than I am, so what?

There is a metaphysical tenet that says images are the schemata of our representations.....

Is there an argument for this tenet? — jkg20

Maybe not so much an argument as a given condition in keeping with a particular epistemological theory. Mental imagery has been in the game from at least Aristotle, through Anscombe (1965), both as a necessary subjective reality or merely as overly zealous philosobabble. Descartes and Locke called images of perception ideas, Hume called them sentiments or passions. Kant changed the extant predominance of ideas into conceptions present in intuition as representations, changing images of perception into phenomena, relegating those kinds of images to memory. “Been there, done that” sorta thing, such that we know what a kitchen sink is without having one having to stand in front of one.

But that left conceptions without forms of their own (where is it you’ve been, what was it you did) so if somebody says “triangle”, and you need to bring up something that relates to it, and all you have is memory, which includes every triangle you’ve ever experienced...which one do you settle on to relate with? Because his experience of triangles will be different than yours, if you bring up a triangle of your experience, it is impossible to know your two meanings will correspond. And such correspondence is absolutely necessary, in order for the two of you to understand each other. Much simpler to just bring up the general notion “triangle”, any three sided figure enclosing a space, without having to bother with particular ones from memory. These become the form of conceptions, as mental images of the general form of a particular conception, and are the schema of that conception.

The a priori rationality behind all this hoop-la arises form the differences in kinds of perception. A triangle drawn on a piece of paper is as much a phenomenon as hearing the word representing “triangle”, but the triangle drawn has its sides arranged so must be intuited accordingly, but the triangle spoken qua triangle does not, its sides can be arranged in thought in accordance with the principle “a minimum of three intersecting lines is necessary to enclose a space”. Now the fundamental conception must be thought in common to both phenomena, drawn and spoken, but when conditional conceptions are missing, by which a general triangle becomes intuited as a specific triangle, the form of triangle itself, must lay in the conception and not the intuition.

As soon as you say, “I understand what a triangle is”, you’ve already brought up a mental image of one, otherwise you would have no means to justify such a claim. What you don’t do, is bring up the image Mrs. Grady put up on the fifth grade blackboard, because then all you’ve understood is THAT triangle, not any and all other triangles in general.

As for an supporting argument, I use this one (CPR B180, 181), one of the more significant antagonisms belonging to Wittgenstein, 1953, reinforced by Fodor, 1975, both of which took Kantian imagery into a place it was never supposed to be, because they related it to language, hence intentionality, whereas Kant intended it for nothing but the necessary means for the possibility of cognition alone.

“...In truth, it is not images of objects, but schemata, which lie at the foundation of our pure sensuous conceptions. No image could ever be adequate to our conception of a triangle in general. For the generalness of the conception it never could attain to, as this includes under itself all triangles, whether right-angled, acute-angled, etc., whilst the image would always be limited to a single part of this sphere. The schema of the triangle can exist nowhere else than in thought, and it indicates a rule of the synthesis of the imagination in regard to pure figures in space. Still less is an object of experience, or an image of the object, ever to the empirical conception. On the contrary, the conception always relates immediately to the schema of the imagination, as a rule for the determination of our intuition, in conformity with a certain general conception. The conception of a dog indicates a rule, according to which my imagination can delineate the figure of a four-footed animal in general, without being limited to any particular individual form which experience presents to me, or indeed to any possible image that I can represent to myself in concreto. This schematism of our understanding in regard to phenomena and their mere form, is an art, hidden in the depths of the human soul, whose true modes of action we shall only with difficulty discover and unveil. Thus much only can we say: "The image is a product of the empirical faculty of the productive imagination—the schema of sensuous conceptions (of figures in space, for example) is a product, and, as it were, a monogram of the pure imagination a priori, whereby and according to which images first become possible, which, however, can be connected with the conception only mediately by means of the schema which they indicate, and are in themselves never fully adequate to it."...”

Anyway.....food for thought as much as ridicule.

But surely if it's irrational and illogical, it's not science either
— Olivier5

I don't think that makes sense. — Kenosha Kid

What I am trying to say is: a scientific theory cannot contradict itself and still be worthy of the name "scientific".