And also 'neuromania', the belief that we are our brains.

The mind isn’t something that’s maintained solely by the brain. The brain is, course, a necessary condition of having any kind of mind. In order to be conscious – particularly in the rich way we are conscious - and behave in the complex way we do, we of course need to have a brain in some kind of working order. Treating patients who have suffered from brain damage from stroke has underlined again and again over the years how everything – from basic sensation to the most exquisitely constructed sense of self – depends on normal brain function. But, the mistake is to assume that living a normal human life, is being a brain in some kind of working order. It seems to me, the fundamental error is confusing a necessary condition – having a brain that’s working OK – with a sufficient condition; that a brain working OK is actually the whole story of our consciousness, our behaviour and our decisions, and so on. I think separating the necessary from the sufficient conditions is very important indeed.

There are several reasons for defending this separation. First of all, there’s a logical error at the very heart of the mind/brain identity theory. It is the muddle of thinking that, if A is correlated with B, then A is caused by B. So, if my experience of a certain sort correlates in a very rough way with neural activity of a certain sort, then my experience is caused by that neural activity; that’s the first mistake. The much more important mistake is to say, not only is it caused by that neural activity, but it is identical with it. So, there’s a conceptual muddle at the heart of the neural theory of consciousness. You might object, well, if consciousness isn’t identical with brain activity, is it just floating in the air? Not at all. Increasingly, I think even mind/brain identity theorists have acknowledged that a brain is actually embedded in, and inseparable from, a body. That body isn’t just a sort of optional extra that it would be if we subscribed to a computational theory in which mind was simply the software of the brain. More than that, that body itself is inseparable from an environment. This is where we go back to the very nature of consciousness; consciousness is profoundly relational. Consciousness, in the philosophical jargon, has about-ness; it has intentionality. So, if I look at something, the thing which I look at, or my experience of looking, is an experience that is about something; it is about an object that is quite separate from the act of looking. I think it is very important to appreciate that, that there are at least two players in every conscious experience. Only one of the players can be plausibly located in the brain and even that is problematical.

...If my seeing an object were simply identical with neural activity in my occipital cortex, then it would be very difficult to see how my experience of the object could be about the object itself. When I look at say, a glass over there, I see something that is other than my seeing, that is other than my experience of it. I ascribe to it a reality that goes beyond what I’m currently experiencing. That is absolutely central to consciousness, whether it is consciousness of objects, on a very basic level, or indeed, at more complex levels, consciousness of other people, or indeed, consciousness of the society in which we live. So, consciousness is profoundly and irreducibly relational. The neural theory of consciousness tends to see only one of the relata – neural events. What is missing is an explanation of how it is that my conscious experiences are always, and often explicitly, about something other than themselves. — Raymond Tallis

And also 'neuromania', the belief that we are our brains. — Wayfarer

Some agenda behind a position like that...

Some agenda behind a position like that... — ZzzoneiroCosm

It sounds like some version of Bridgeman's operationalism combined with Skinner's behaviorism in order to establish Rand's direct realism as a law of nature.

Hard to say, on this side of the curtain.

Which one of these definitions do you think includes imagination?

Which one of these definitions do you think includes imagination? — Garrett Travers

the state or fact of having being — ZzzoneiroCosm

Language is tricky because it's an extremely complex emergent phenomena, so it's not easy to describe what is going on with any great deal of certainty.

That said, it doesn't seem like a particularly tough case for physicalist models. We know that sensory organs record incoming information about the world. This information is then procesed and refined, so that it makes a coherent enough picture of the world that an animal can get by as respects fulfilling its biological needs. This information is also compressed and stored for use in various memory systems.

The flow of incoming information is ceaseless, and the amount of information in the world is huge, so a major task here is filtering the information to bring out the salient details (e.g., the human VC has special areas designated for recognizing faces) as well as error correction (e.g., papering over the blind spot where the optical nerve enters the eye). Even then, only a small amount of the information can be coded and stored for future use. This enters long term memory.

In order to compress this information, the full range of sensory data isn't recorded. When people are asked to remember details of past events, we see the same areas of the brain being used that are used to process new incoming data. An upside of the data compression here is that the computational power used for memory can also be used for projecting the future.

So, based on past events, we can envision future ones. This obviously has huge adaptive value, since an organism can use information about the environment it previously obtained to solve new problems. Since DNA is a mechanism for storing information about the enviornment, cognitive systems represent somewhat of fractal reoccurence of the same pattern at a higher level. Language might be another such occurrence.

Projecting the future isn't unique to humans. I'll often see my cats gauging the length of a jump they intend to make, trying to judge if they can stick the landing.

Language is a way to code information for retrieval. Language makes it easy to share information. It makes sense why it would provide adaptive advantages.

Deriving meaning from language is something that has to be learned. Children don't learn to speak or read if isolated from interaction. So it requires physical stimulus, which is a good indicator it is physical in nature. That damage to the language focused areas of human brains impedes or outright halts language production is another data point for a physical origin.

Language lets us abstract symbols from their referents. "The big yellow dog," doesn't need a referent, it can be drawn up from past experience. However, the information about referents certainly seems to be coming from external objects, because language is very good at referring to external physical objects. When you ask for the salt shaker, there isn't confusion about how your words can apply to a physical object.

Second, information in every form we've studied turns out to be physical. Physical information cannot be created or destroyed. If human language was somehow a violation of this principal, we should see something physically unique going on in humans as respects their energy output relative to intake (or maybe not if the meaning is non-physical).

However, if the meaning isn't physical, it seems hard to explain how it could refer to physical things so well, or how physical things like other people or dogs can meaningfully and consistently respond to language and find physical referents based on it.

Codes aren't unique to conciousness, so panpsychism shouldn't have a huge bearing here whether it exists or not. DNA codes for protein structures (and not a specific protein, but an abstract recipe for building myriad copies of a protein) but DNA isn't sentient. Self-replicating silicon crystals show a similar talent at a much lower level of complexity.

DNA is normally seen as a code that stores information about the enviornment. Sensory data is obviously quite similar. I'm not sure how language diverges meaningfully, except that its human users have the computational power and talent for identifying synonymity to also use language for all sorts of predictive and artistic functions too.

Language seems like a harder problem for dualists than physicalists to me, and not really that much harder for a physicalists than an idealist.

So, before humans existed, force did not equal mass times acceleration? This is something that only exists when it is recognised by humans? — Wayfarer

That's not what I said.

Objects are only strictly defineable in relation to subjects. What humans consider objects, is conditioned by the kind of creatures that they are. — Wayfarer

Creatures are objects.

Furthermore, science itself depends in rational abstractions, mathematics and also all kinds of hypothetical entities and forces. Do numbers exist? If so, in what sense, and why does mathematics work so brilliantly? — Wayfarer

Rational abstractions come from sensory date of the objective world. Numbers do no exists, they are human symbols used to map the patterns of reality. There's correspondence there. That's why it works. Which is what the scientists were saying in your article.

Furthermore, scientists can't claim to know that the universe is material, as the nature of matter itself is unknown. — Wayfarer

This isn't true, and it is in fact an argument from ignorance.

and science relies on rational abstractions and models which are themselves not physical. — Wayfarer

The abstractions themselves are not physical, but if they cannot track with physical representations, then they don't work. Like string theory, or your article on quantum mechanics that can't account for independent observational measurement.

Physics itself has demolished the idea that there is an objective reality, same for all observers. — Wayfarer

This is next-level fabrication, no such thing has occured. This study does not in any way indicate such a thing. It simply highlights a paradox in quantum mechanics, which has never been well understood in the first place. This is a textbook argument from ignorance to try and build your case. This is the actual study and it is exclusively highlighting the quantum measurement problem, which is observer dependent, and whose calculus has no solution. It does not claim there's no objective reality. That's nothing more than publisher hype to get you to read and share. "The facts remain," is a statement of objectivity, by the by.
https://arxiv.org/pdf/1902.05080.pdf

Language seems like a harder problem for dualists than physicalists to me, and not really that much harder for a physicalists than an idealist. — Count Timothy von Icarus

The essential feature of language is intentionality or aboutness. You might say, no, its essential feature is communication; but what do we communicate about? Physical (among other kinds of) things, right?

You seem to be implying that language is not that hard a problem for physicalists; I cannot even begin to imagine a physical (causal, mechanical) account of intentionality, but then I am not highly trained in neuroscience. Can you offer a sketch of what such an account might look like?

the state or fact of having being — ZzzoneiroCosm

Being: existence

Thoughts don't exist, the brain does.

I was responding to this. There are "other things to it." A diagram showing a one way arrow from the brain to the heart is not an accurate picture of how the circulatory system works. Note, I did not write "the brain does not control heart rate," I said "plenty of other factors outside the brain," work to control heart rate. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Yes, multiple factors go into the brain being able to make the heart do its job, but it is in fact the brain doing so.

Correct. I didn't write anything to the contrary. It is, however, also true that the brain is an individual part of the body that is regulated by, and dependant on other parts of the body.

So for example, I said the ENS has a great deal of autonomy, not that it is autonomous. You shouldn't write off interest in the ENS as simply a series of wires for commands from the brain. It has helped us find out a lot about how the brain works and is an area neglected by neuroscience until more recently. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Then we agree. Yes, the ENS does have some automony, but that autonomy is itself neurologically dependent and works in tandem with brain, the brain being the leader of the operation, as the article I posted demonstrates. Again, the brain is the essence of everything that is human functionality: thoughts, feelings, actions, all directed by the brain.

Being: existence

Thoughts don't exist, the brain does. — Garrett Travers

Exactly what I expected you to say.

You've eliminated thoughts from your picture of the world. That's easy to do.

But thoughts exist. It's laughable to deny it.

Thoughts in some sense exist.




It's a desperate, extremist reductionism that assays to eliminate thoughts from its picture of the world.

There are multiple versions of reductionism.[2] In the context of physicalism, the reductions referred to are of a "linguistic" nature, allowing discussions of, say, mental phenomena to be translated into discussions of physics. In one formulation, every concept is analysed in terms of a physical concept. — ZzzoneiroCosm

That is describing a particular philosophy, not an accurate description of the term 'reductionism' in proper usage. I am not a reductive physicalist, and if you review their page on Stanford, you'll see that their philosophy has had some hicccups with science. I appreciate your effort, but this is irrelevant to what we're discussing.

It's a desperate, extremist reductionism that assays to eliminate thoughts from its picture of the world. — ZzzoneiroCosm

They do not exist. They are data formulations produced by the brain. The brain is the source of all thoughts, which remain exclusively within the individiual mental purview. Sorry....

Can I smack you in the face with an imaginary book?

They do not exist. — Garrett Travers

There's no point in going back and forth. We have a fundamental disagreement, and that's that.

It just seems hard to reconcile the brain's decisive causal priority with common medical problems, like defects in the pancreas resulting in a person behaving like they just slammed most of a fifth of vodka, or the role of the immune system is causing (versions of) schizophrenia. Anaphylaxis certainly seems to flow causally from the immune system, and since it can cause death, would represent about as large of a change in the brain as you can get.

There's no point in going back and forth. We have a fundamental disagreement, and that's that. — ZzzoneiroCosm

That's right. We have a disagreement. You believe thoughts are real, and I know they are imaginary. In fact, they're the definition of imaginary. Lot's of fun!

It just seems hard to reconcile the brain's decisive causal priority with common medical problems, like defects in the pancreas resulting in a person behaving like they just slammed most of a fifth of vodka, or the role of the immune system is causing (versions of) schizophrenia. Anaphylaxis certainly seems to flow causally from the immune system, and since it can cause death, would represent about as large of a change in the brain as you can get. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Hey, you're not going to get any pushback on that from me. There's still so much that is a mystery as far as topics of this nature. It's just, when you look at what is known as a matter of fact, what's there is what's there. Like, I can absolutely tell you what will happen to you if I give a 40mg XR capsule of amphetamine. Unless you've some contraindication, it isn't a question. I know what parts of the brain will light up, what will happen to your cognition, the change your conscious state will undergo. This is because of neuroscience and neuropharmacology, it's not a mystery. And what I'm reporting to you guys isn't just some opinion of mine, it's f'ing mainstream science. Trust me, things would seem a great deal cooler if there was some separation between mind and body, it's just, there's no evidence to suggest there is. Thus, I'm real adamant about this stuff, because, if this really is the case, that changes the nature of Ethics as a normative science forever. Which, is probably why I get so much pushback, to be honest.

That's right. We have a disagreement. You believe thoughts are real, and I know they are imaginary. In fact, they're the definition of imaginary. Lot's of fun! — Garrett Travers

Not exactly.

Your definition of existence excludes thoughts. Mine doesn't. I include thoughts in my definition of existence. Hardly an extreme position.

Your definition of existence excludes thoughts. Mine doesn't. I include thoughts in my definition of existence. Hardly an extreme position. — ZzzoneiroCosm

But, they only appear in your brain. How is that existing outside of your brain?

How is that existing outside of your brain? — Garrett Travers

Imagine an apple.

Is that apple somewhere in your brain?

In other words, this "platonism" of yours cannot be divorced from correspondence to the material world. — Garrett Travers

The correspondence is not with a material world, it is with an immaterial world, notice the correspondence referred to is with "data", not "a material world". The model is made to correspond with the data, hence "platonism". That's why I was insistent on asking you about your assumption of "laws". Laws are immaterial. When reality is reduced to 'that which corresponds with laws and mathematics', there is no longer anything material there, in that assumed reality, only information, data. That's the point Berkeley made, we can describe all of our observations without any need to assume "matter". The world consists of forms, and what we apprehend is information, not matter.

The fact which you don't seem to be grasping is, that "matter" was assumed to account for the aspect of reality which we cannot understand, i.e. potential. That's why it's a principle of mysticism. And being the part of reality which is unintelligible to us, it is the part which is not subject to laws, because laws are what is intelligible.

The correspondence is not with a material world, it is with an immaterial world, notice the correspondence referred to is with "data", not "a material world". The model is made to correspond with the data, hence "platonism". That's why I was insistent on asking you about your assumption of "laws". Laws are immaterial. When reality is reduced to 'that which corresponds with laws and mathematics', there is no longer anything material there, in that assumed reality, only information, data. That's the point Berkeley made, we can describe all of our observations without any need to assume "matter". The world consists of forms, and what we apprehend is information, not matter.

The fact which you don't seem to be grasping is, that "matter" was assumed to account for the aspect of reality which we cannot understand, i.e. potential. That's why it's a principle of mysticism. And being the part of reality which is unintelligible to us, it is the part which is not subject to laws, because laws are what is intelligible. — Metaphysician Undercover

You're too gone, dude. That article was specifically disagreeing with you. Data comes from sensory data of the material world. That's where the correspondence works, that's what they were saying. I'm moving on now.

Is that apple somewhere in your brain? — ZzzoneiroCosm

Yes. However, depending on how I wish to imagine this apple, it can change color, or shape, or species at will.

Yes. However, depending on how I wish to imagine this apple, it can change color, or shape, or species at will. — Garrett Travers

I mean the actual apple you're imagining. Can we cut open your brain and pull out the apple?

I mean the actual apple you're imagining. Can we cut open your brain and pull out the apple? — ZzzoneiroCosm

No.

No. — Garrett Travers

So if you cut open the brain, there's no apple.

So where is the apple? What is the location of the apple you're imagining?

So where is the apple? What is the location of the apple you're imagining? — ZzzoneiroCosm

It doesn't exist. It is a projection from my brain being produced from stored memory data in the hippocampus.

It doesn't exist. It is a projection — Garrett Travers

Do projections exist?

Do projections exist? — ZzzoneiroCosm

No.