My point is simply that science is a form of human thinking about the world. Science happens in the human mind. It is dualist by nature. Therefore a logical form of scientism would include due reference and respect to the human mind as the home of science.

A scientist who doesn't trust the human mind's capacity to understand the universe would drop science altogether, and try bar tending instead. Therefore, all scientists actually trust the human mind quite a lot, even those who are not consciously aware that they do.

You can't say 'oh, there it is, what is that, I will go and look at it.' It's not an object of cognition, but the subject of experience. — Wayfarer

Of course it's an object of cognition. I have a model of what it is and how it works. I can examine that model and check it against other models such as my model of the substrate I assume it is within (neurons).

When you have a thought, an experience, a sensation, this doesn't occur to you as an object, obviously. If a rock hits you, then the rock is an object, but the pain it causes you is not an object. Isn't that obvious? — Wayfarer

Not at all. I can model the pain as an activity in neural circuits. It's seems quite clearly like an object to me.

And you can't say 'well, that pain I feel is actually not pain, it's really the firing of c-fibres.' — Wayfarer

That's what pain is, from one perspective.

Let someone fasten a paperclip to your earlobe and have you say that. — Wayfarer

I don't see why that would cause me any difficulty.

Pain is irredemiably first-person. You can't see pain, or weigh it or measure it, only feel it, and only you know how bad that pain is. — Wayfarer

No. Other people can know how bad my pain is, as well as measure it. I can't think why you would image weighing it has any bearing on the matter, but it definitely can be measured.

A scientist who doesn't trust the human mind's capacity to understand the universe would drop science altogether — Olivier5

Why? In fact, this is disingenuous because I see it's already been asked and answered. A scientist does not have to trust all thoughts in order to trust any thoughts. They do not have to assume all the universe is understandable in order to assume some of it is.

As such there's absolutely no reason a scientist is compelled to trust their first feelings about their mind.

I can model the pain as an activity in neural circuits. It's seems quite clearly like an object to me. — Isaac

Well, if yet make the distinction between felt pain and the concept of pain, there’s really no point discussing it.

Well, if yet make the distinction between felt pain and the concept of pain, there’s really no point discussing it. — Wayfarer

So basically if I don't start out agreeing with you there's no point in discussion. Interesting approach.

A scientist does not have to trust all thoughts in order to trust any thoughts. They do not have to assume all the universe is understandable in order to assume some of it is. — Isaac

Not completely or all thoughts, of course. But a scientist must believe in the capacity of the human mind to understand something about the world. Otherwise he is in the wrong business. Science is fundamentally dualist. It's about minds trying to understand things.

But a scientist must believe in the capacity of the human mind to understand something. — Olivier5

Of course. Again, I don't see anyone denying this.

It's not that you disagree with me, it's that what you're saying is not amenable to reason. I say 'the experience of pain and the knowledge of the physiology of pain are different'. If you say they're not different, how could any argument prevail? How could it ever be proven that 'an idea of pain' and 'a pain' are different things, to one prepared to deny it?

Let someone fasten a paperclip to your earlobe and have you say that.
— Wayfarer

I don't see why that would cause me any difficulty. — Isaac

No, it wouldn't cause you difficulty, it would cause you pain. But apparently that can also be denied, for the sake of prevailing in an argument, which is why it's not worth arguing.

Incidentally, by 'paperclip' I mean, one of those larger sprung metal clips used to hold sheaves of paper together, that exert force.

I know, you keep failing to see things. Even when you deny the reality of your own thoughts, you fail to see the contradiction. I think your condition is related to the blind spot problem I was alluding to upthread: minds unable to see minds. The problem of poor reflexivity.

'the experience of pain and the knowledge of the physiology of pain are different'. If you say they're not different, how could any argument prevail? How could it ever be proven that 'an idea of pain' and 'a pain' are different things, to one prepared to deny it? — Wayfarer

Similarly, if you say they are different how can Isaac's argument prevail? This is precisely where reasoned arguments are needed.

If starting from different premises makes reasoned arguments useless, people would have never agreed on anything.

Usually what you do when the other party has radically different premises is you try to show contradictions in their approach and show them that your position suffer from no such contradictions.

Therefore, all scientists actually trust the human mind quite a lot, even those who are not consciously aware that they do. — Olivier5

I don't know why people keep repeating this. Yes, minds exist. No, they're not immaterial. That's the position.

Everything you said also makes sense from a materialist perspective. Except the "it is dualistic by nature" bit. Which is the only bit that doesn't follow from anything you said.

Yes, minds exist. No, they're not immaterial. That's the position. — khaled

If minds matter, then mental events are important and potentially effective. They are not necessarily illusions or mere noise. The role of neuroscience is therefore to use mental events as a way to investigate how come mental events are so useful and powerful, and how we can make them even more so. The role of neuroscience is not and can never be to replace minds with another "realer" reality. Isaac does not even understand what his job is all about.

If minds matter, then mental events are important and potentially effective. They are not necessarily illusions or mere noise. — Olivier5

Why do you seem to think the only materialist in the world is Dennett? No one here has called minds an illusion or mere noise.

The role of neuroscience is therefore to use mental events as a way to investigate how come mental events are so useful and powerful, and how we can make them even more so. The role of neuroscience is not and can never be to replace minds with another "realer" reality — Olivier5

So where is the part where this becomes a critique of materialism? Or is it not?

No one here has called minds an illusion or mere noise. — khaled

I asked why we find it so hard to accept that our subjective feeling of it might be different from the reality of it. — Isaac

Well I won't speak for him, and I can't see how what you quoted translates to "minds are an illusion" (which he explicitly denied before) but you don't actually seem to be arguing against materialism so bye.

I am actually arguing against materialism, aka the idea that ideas don't exist.

Good luck!

Thanks. It's a pretty obvious point I am making. Either people can see the obvious or they can't. Luck has nothing to do with it. The critical factor is the amount of prejudice and belief invested by the audience in their monist nonsense.

Or, will you get home and find it's already this time next year...?

I'm still waiting for Derren to come on the radio and demonstrate that the whole of the last few years has been a massive trick. "Did you all really believe that Donald Trump could become president of the US and then preside over a viral pandemic that's straight out the plot of at least six post apocalypse films?... Even I thought I'd gone too far on this one..." — Isaac

I'd been airing the idea that we'd snap out of it in the Lowry Theatre and it'd be 2020 with no pandemic. It seems a very him thing to do :rofl:

What would be the case if part of the information each step received was the fact that it's neighbour had been studied by the step to it's left and will be studied by the step to it's right. That doesn't defy any self-study because this still all counts as information about the previous step. If also it were to learn that the previous step learnt this about the step before that... Then let's say one of the algorithms in a step was to make a Bayesian inference about where its data came from and went to... Would it not derive the exact system you described despite being a part of that system? — Isaac

I suppose, getting quantum on yo ass, if each subsystem is an ideal state-measurer, then each would be in a state (ignore superposition) of having measured a particular state of the previous subsystem.

Subsystem 1 is in state |1>
Subsystem 2 is in state |measured |1>>
Subsystem 3 is in state |measured |2>> = |measured |measured 1>>

and so on. But even in this ideal situation, all you really get at the end is something equivalent to the state of the first subsystem. You'd still need to report on that somehow which is supposed to be subsystem 2's job.

And that's the point really. If subsystem 2 is doing anything other than reporting on the state of 1, that needs reporting somehow. If it's doing two things, it's really two subsystems, one of which is reporting on itself which it can't because a subsystem is still a system (recursion).

The map idea is the closest, since it reports on the function of the system as a whole, which is how cacheing works anyway.

I have a subjective feeling my consciousness is really special, consistent and impenetrable to investigation. Scientists tell me it's actually just neurons firing. All hell breaks loose.

That's the matter I find interesting. — Isaac

Yeah, this. I'm fascinated by it. There's these no-go areas with no obvious reason to not go there, in fact really compelling reasons to go there. Life is short, why die not knowing what you even were, let alone about the universe you existed in?

All those arguing for mind being material and the unreliability of subjectivity are really saying they don't trust their feelings and perceptions they instead trust the "interpretations" and speculations of the theory of matter.

Well that's on them. I'm sure in their personal life they don't take an MRI scanner and a textbook on research around to check and verify their partners reactions...

They don't see it fully because they are in thrall and intimidated by science.

They lead a double life!

@Olivier5

I don’t want data contributed exactly because it isn’t part of the process.
— Mww

Why would it matter? — Isaac

It must be obvious I consider metaphysics a purely first-person architecture. As such, I don’t want data contributing to my metaphysical system for which I hold no responsibility. How would I trust my knowledge, if there were external influences on it not included in the constituency of the system?
—————

We've just established the investigation is post hoc, so externally derived data about it isn't going to disrupt the process we're investigating, that's already happened and we're simply gathering data about it. — Isaac

Deriving data by third-party investigation of a system’s use, seems to be something different....

In fact cognitive science has the slight edge here in that third parties can contribute some data here without their examination forming a part of the process — Isaac

....than third-party’s contribution of data, which makes explicit data not connected to the system being investigated. The first is not an issue, the second is, asked and answered by the above.

Nevertheless, I understand the ramifications. It is the case that sometimes third-party investigations reveal a physical discrepancy in the mechanics of the system, and sometimes even a rational article the system hadn’t presented to itself, re: “I never thought of it that way”. Even so, when presented with this missing piece, the system must still incorporate it into the compendium of its extant conditions, re: its relevance must still be understood by the system. If it isn’t, it has no power and thus cannot amend the system.

“....Deficiency in judgement is properly that which is called stupidity; and for such a failing we know no      remedy. A dull or narrow-minded person, to whom nothing is wanting but a proper degree of understanding, may be improved by tuition, even so far as to deserve the epithet of learned. But as such, persons frequently labour under a deficiency in the faculty of judgement, and it is not uncommon to find men extremely learned who in the application of their science betray a lamentable degree this irremediable want....”

Kinda funny, really. Here we have you, an intelligence in one regard, and me, an intelligence in another, duking it out in a dialectical free-for-all.....with an onlooker claiming we’re both exhibiting a deficiency in judgement, you for mine, me for yours, neither of us improved from the other’s tuition, making us both stupid. Perhaps, in best-case scenario, we’ve each gained from each other, making the onlooker eat his words.
————-

Something's not being a science doesn't seem to me to have any bearing on whether science can investigate it. — Isaac

Science is an empirical study, or, a study under necessarily empirical conditions. There is absolutely no empiricism in cognitive metaphysics, it being entirely a rational study under the auspices of logic alone.

Sports aren't themselves a science either, but science investigates them. — Isaac

Yes, but herein, science investigates the manifestation of the sporting activity...what makes a sportsman deficient, hence to improve it. What makes a person a sportsman, better yet, a good sportsman....is not a science, but a psychological investigation, which is not an empirical science. At the extreme, me calling that sportsman a farging cheater, winning all the damn time, either immediately manifests as me being merely jealous due to my incompetency, or he actually does cheat, in which case I have found him out. Both metaphysical deductions. Amendable to mediate psychological investigation, sure, but....er....post hoc.
—————

you will find I don’t use the term “mind”. As far as I’m concerned, in the context of this discussion, all I need to talk about is the human cognitive system and its constituency.....
— Mww

I read this the requisite three times...still nothing I'm afraid. Any chance of a re-phrasing? — Isaac

Substitute any occurrence of mind, with reason.
————-

I am aware of the external world simply from being affected by it.
— Mww

It doesn't follow that you are aware of all that you are affected by. If I knocked you unconscious and then shaved your eyebrows off you would have been affected by the outside world but not aware of it. — Isaac

You have caused an effect, but not an affect. Affect presupposes awareness; how could I say I was affected if I never sensed that which affected me? Even if something happened to me, I still couldn’t say it had an affect, if I never knew about it. So I wake up, notice missing eyebrows.....now I am affected.

If I am unaware, the system that discerns conscious activities, is useless. Being unaware makes explicit no sensation, which eliminates every single downstream constituent of the system which follows from it. This emphasizes the previous stipulation, whereby the input to the system is not part of it, while still being absolutely necessary for it.

“....For how is it possible that the faculty of cognition should be awakened into exercise otherwise than by means of objects which affect our senses....”

Bad example, really. If there’s no mirror, or it’s my day off and I have no outside contacts, I, at least temporarily, might not know I’m missing my eyebrows. Hence.....for the duration of such temporality, their being missing has no affect. But I see your point.
—————

I don’t need mind to tell me there is something in my visual field.
— Mww

You absolutely do. Absent of a mind all you have is a chaos of staccato signals, which tell you nothing, not even if there's something. — Isaac

Mostly correct, insofar as all I would have is signals which tell me nothing......except that there are signals. So, yes, I am informed of something. But those signals would be there irrespective of my reception of them, iff I grant the reality of the external world, which I, personally, do.

Now, it may be said mind is that which grants such reality, but that’s a different argument, consisting of ontology rather than cognitive metaphysics, which is an epistemological investigation. Again, I don’t care that there is something (chaotic signals); I want to know if that something is this or that (red, or, bacon, or, gunfire).
————-

What is "Honey-Do time"? — Isaac

Honey, do take out the trash, please?; Honey, do mow the lawn, please?; Honey, do the dog-poop pickup, please? Etc, etc, etc.........

Question: Is mind also nonphysical? If I see triangular objects (nonphysical things) popping out of a machine (the brain), there must be something triangular in that machine (the mind must be nonphysical). — TheMadFool

I used to go by Functionalism (https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/functionalism/), and then Epiphenomenalism (https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/epiphenomenalism/).

That's either very depressed and self deprecating or you meant symmetric? — fdrake

Yeah! Thanks for letting me know. I owe you one. G'day!

I used to go by Functionalism (https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/functionalism/), and then Epiphenomenalism (https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/epiphenomenalism/). — Corvus

I'll read those links if I can. :up:

The only difference then between this metaphysics and cognitive science seems to be that that we make the assumption all this happens in a brain (a good assumption, I think). — Isaac

I think the proper metaphysician grants the assumption. I certainly do, myself. Everything human happens because of the brain. Neither discipline knows the exact means by which the brain does what it does, but to say it doesn’t permits absurdities. Your system has the advantage of dispelling absurdities by experimentation in compliance to natural law, whereas my system can only argue against them in conformity to logical law. Which ventures a subtlety in itself, insofar as humans were logically endowed long before they were scientifically inclined.

In truth, all I got going for me is, “...I can think what I please, provided only I do not contradict    myself; that is, provided my conception is a possible thought, though I may be unable to answer for the existence of a corresponding object in the sum of possibilities....”

They lead a double life! — Protagoras

Yes, they put themselves in what Bateson called a "double bind", i.e. a self-contradictory injunction, which is actually dangerous for one's mental health as it can lead to schizophrenia.

Another point I was wondering was, if Einstein's brain had been exactly replicated, and transplanted into another person, would it then wake up a person with Einstein's identity? (with all the memories, personalities, and knowledges of him).

Subsystem 1 is in state |1>
Subsystem 2 is in state |measured |1>>
Subsystem 3 is in state |measured |2>> = |measured |measured 1>> — Kenosha Kid

Why not:

Subsystem 1 is in state |1>, which includes a (imprecise, approximate) measurement of Subsystem 2
Subsystem 2 is in state |2>, which includes a (imprecise, approximate) measurement of Subsystem 1

We have two brains (left and right) and only one mind. It could be that our two brains work as mirrors to one another, thus creating a mise en abyme called consciousness. Just an idea.


An optical mise en abyme

It's not that you disagree with me, it's that what you're saying is not amenable to reason. — Wayfarer

That is a disagreement, obviously. I'm clearly not going to hold a position I think is unreasonable.

How could it ever be proven that 'an idea of pain' and 'a pain' are different things, to one prepared to deny it? — Wayfarer

Show the existence of one without the other. If every time I experience a pain, some particular pattern of neurons fires in my brain what possible reason would I have to refer to them as two separate things? If each time I see my dog, I smell my dog, I don't go around assuming there are now two entities - the smell of my dog and the sight of my dog. It's one entity which can be detected by either smell or sight. Pain is one thing which can be detected either by interoception or fMRI (for example).

No, it wouldn't cause you difficulty, it would cause you pain. But apparently that can also be denied — Wayfarer

Who's denying it will cause me pain?

Even when you deny the reality of your own thoughts — Olivier5

Where have I denied my own thoughts are real. Honestly, this is getting ridiculous both of you. I don't deny the existence of something by denying your preferred exposition of it's properties.

The role of neuroscience is not and can never be to replace minds with another "realer" reality. — Olivier5

Who said anything about replacing minds? There's this common theme here where a person cannot take a physicalist position on anything without being caricatured as a guileless member of some cult trying to turn us all into machines. The question cognitive science is trying to answer is that of how the mind works (neuroscience is trying to answer the question of how the brain works). It is a question without a current answer, no-one is 'replacing' anything, we're filling in gaps. Are you claiming that you already know how your mind works, do you think your own guesswork is somehow privileged and should be sacrosanct?

It could be that our two brains work as mirrors to one another, thus creating a mise en abyme called consciousness. — Olivier5

It could be, yes. If only there were thousands of highly trained individuals who had decades of time and experience to put to finding out via careful experimentation that they could then publish in a series of papers and books so that people like you could read them and find out...