What theory of consciousness do you like? — RogueAI

It is too soon for anyone to be justified in calling something a scientific theory of consciousness.

However, speculation plays an important part in how scientific understanding develops.

So while in my opinion the IIT crew is being pretentious in calling IIT a theory, I wouldn't call it pseuoscience, so much as speculative hypothesizing that serves a useful role in science.

But you haven't responded to the issue of you making arguments from ignorance. Why do you consider yourself competent to judge what the state of science should be at present? Surely it is not a matter of you considering yourself scientifically well informed. Right?

If there was progress to be made explaining consciousness, science would have made it by now. — RogueAI

This just shows your ignorance of the technological challenges in the way of gaining detailed information about neurological processes. So it doesn't do anything to dispel my impression, that all you have is an argument from ignorance.

The one data point that I think defeats physicalism (or makes it very unlikely), is the fact that I'm conscious. Physicalism cannot explain that and probably never will. — RogueAI

Can you provide any reason to think that you aren't making an argument from ignorance?

Argument from ignorance (from Latin: argumentum ad ignorantiam), also known as appeal to ignorance (in which ignorance represents "a lack of contrary evidence"), is a fallacy in informal logic. It asserts that a proposition is true because it has not yet been proven false or a proposition is false because it has not yet been proven true. This represents a type of false dichotomy in that it excludes the possibility that there may have been an insufficient investigation to prove that the proposition is either true or false.[1] It also does not allow for the possibility that the answer is unknowable, only knowable in the future, or neither completely true nor completely false.[2] In debates, appealing to ignorance is sometimes an attempt to shift the burden of proof.

My pee pee is big enough to fit inside two women at the same time. — Brendan Golledge

But I don't bother about more refinement of definitions about physics versus chemistry — Ypan1944

Seems important to bother with, in serious consideration of emergence.

Yes, you are right, but the chemical features of "heavy water" are exactly the same as "normal" water. The features you mentioned are just physical, not chemical. These physical aspects are not emergent (they are the direct result of the fact that it is a heavier atomic nucleus). The chemical features are indeed emergent, depending on the specific electron configuration. — Ypan1944

No the chemical properties are not exactly the same. For example, the pH of heavy water is 7.44 instead of 7.0.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heavy_water

For reactions between atoms or molecules, only the "outside" of an atom (i.e. the outermost electrons of the atom) plays a role. — Ypan1944

It seems that you were taught a simplistic version of chemistry.

Deuterium oxide, also known as “heavy water” or “deuterium water”, is the compound of oxygen and the heavy isotope of hydrogen, namely deuterium. It is called heavy water because its density is greater than H₂O and its chemical formula is D₂O. Deuterium contains a neutron and proton in its nucleus, which makes it twice as heavy as protium (hydrogen), which contains only one proton. Deuterium oxide is colorless and odorless liquid in normal temperature and pressure. Compared to ordinary water, its chemical characteristic is relatively inactive with specific gravity of 1.10775 (25 ℃), melting/freezing point of 3.82 ℃, and boiling point of 101.42 ℃. The hydrogen bond strength and degree of association between heavy water molecules are both stronger than that of ordinary water molecules...

https://www.isowater.com/what-is-deuterium-oxide-heavy-water/

The supposed "heat death" is an interesting issue. The heat death is the result of entropy which is the natural effect of the passage of time. "Entropy" refers to energy which is unavailable to the system, but cannot be shown to have escaped the system. So by the rules of the conservation law, that energy must still be within the system somehow, only not available to the system.

This leaves us with the question of, "what form could this energy have?". It is not "energy" as we know "energy", because "energy" is defined as the capacity to do work, and this energy is denied of that capacity. It is only "energy" because the law of conservation dictates that it must be conserved as "energy". — Metaphysician Undercover

Typically the form of energy, which shows up as entropic losses of a system, is in the form of heat. There is nothing all that mysterious about such heat energy. It simply becomes difficult to make any use of heat energy when all parts of a system are at nearly the same temperature.

Because you're not getting the distinction between an empirical theory and a metaphysical stance. — Wayfarer

I'm afraid that a lot of time spent in these sorts of dicussions has taught me to interpret statements like that as you sticking your fingers in your ears and saying, "La, la, la, I can't hear you!"

Isn't that enough? The fact that thought can have similar effects to practical physical enaction is meaningful to me. — Pantagruel

You had said there were "unique" features, so I was curious as to support for this uniqueness.

Brain scans of Buddhist monks exhibit a variety of unique features, including enhanced neuroplasticity. — Pantagruel

Can you provide a reference?

The article Buddha's Brain: Neuroplasticity and Meditation says, "When the framework of neuroplasticity is applied to meditation, we suggest that the mental training of meditation is fundamentally no different than other forms of skill acquisition that can induce plastic changes in the brain."

If someone claims to have mathematical knowledge it can be demonstrated. Can the same be said of someone who claims to have mystical knowledge? — Fooloso4

This touches on my interest in intuition, understood as deep learning in neural networks. It seems to me that there are two seperate issues involved.

1. Having demonstrable knowledge.
2. Having an explanation for that knowledge.

Though I haven't done any meaningful degree of study of the history of explanations for intuition, my impression is that intuition has been mysterious and subject to being explained in supernatural or mystical terms until the 1980s, when the beginnings of a neuroscientific basis for understanding intuition were developed.*

Given that intuition has been (and probably still is for most) such a mystery, it seems understandable to me that people often have practically demonstrable knowledge while often being mistaken in their beliefs as to the basis of that knowledge.

* The second wave blossomed in the late 1980s, following the 1987 book about Parallel Distributed Processing by James L. McClelland, David E. Rumelhart et al., which introduced a couple of improvements to the simple perceptron idea, such as intermediate processors (known as "hidden layers" now) alongside input and output units and used sigmoid activation function instead of the old 'all-or-nothing' function. Their work has, in turn, built upon that of John Hopfield, who was a key figure investigating the mathematical characteristics of sigmoid activation functions.[2] From the late 1980s to the mid-1990s, connectionism took on an almost revolutionary tone when Schneider,[4] Terence Horgan and Tienson posed the question of whether connectionism represented a fundamental shift in psychology and GOFAI.[2] Some advantages of the second wave connectionist approach included its applicability to a broad array of functions, structural approximation to biological neurons, low requirements for innate structure, and capacity for graceful degradation.[5] Some disadvantages of the second wave connectionist approach included the difficulty in deciphering how ANNs process information, or account for the compositionality of mental representations, and a resultant difficulty explaining phenomena at a higher level.[6]

The current (third) wave has been marked by advances in Deep Learning allowing for Large language models.[2] The success of deep learning networks in the past decade has greatly increased the popularity of this approach, but the complexity and scale of such networks has brought with them increased interpretability problems.[7]

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Connectionism

Go there! It's more interesting than most stuff on here currently. — creativesoul

I was hoping you would start the thread. :wink:

I'm better at riffing off things others have said. It's not clear to me how I would start such an OP without it becoming much too long and meandering.

I'm moving this discussion back to this thread where it is more appropriate.

...But they insist nevertheless that at the end of the day such items are physical, or at least bear an important relation to (or supervene on) the physical.
-SEP

That is what I'm disputing. But it doesn't mean that I believe that evolution or the Big Bang didn't occur, or that the Universe is not as science describes it, or other empirical facts. There's no need for me to do that. — Wayfarer

Again, I brought up young earth creationism as an example of science denialism, not to say that you have the same view as a YEC. There are all sorts of science denialism, such as AGW denialism.

It seems that you are avoiding looking at, whether the following statement of yours is indicative of science denialism.

There is no scientific evidence for physicalism. — Wayfarer

I fully accept the established facts of evolution and cosmology. — Wayfarer

Evolution and cosmology were examples pertinent to young earth creationism cases of science denial.

Do you still deny that there is scientific evidence for physicalism?

Moreover, were consciousness perceivable then the philosophical problem of other minds would not be a problem of any kind. — javra

"The philosophical problem of other minds", seem to me to be more a problem that some people have that is caused by philosophy rather than something to be taken very seriously.

Yes, we can't very reasonably say we perceive other minds, but I certainly have plenty of good reason to think that I recognize other minds. I.e. that minds have recognizable signatures. Don't you have good reasons to think so as well?

Isn't the performative contradiction rather obvious?

Yep. The autonomous workings of the mind are often neglected here in this forum, as are considerations/accounts of how simple thought begins and complex thought becomes autonomous. — creativesoul

Yes, a topic I am quite interested in. It would be a good thread topic I think.

I could no longer resist. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Yes! Give in to the nerd side.

Congrats, I guess. But as the Kwisatz Haderach this doesn't seem that special to me. — Count Timothy von Icarus

:rofl:

Ha ha! The researcher is not a bad person. But the researcher is BEING a bad person currently. — Chet Hawkins

So perhaps the monkey's behavior arises from evolved instincts conducive to training conspecifics not to be bad persons?

Why do so many make moral propositional statements if they are not truth-apt? — Chet Hawkins

Could the answer to your question be, "Because we share instincts, to some degree, with our capuchin cousins?"

I've often considered this. Are we missing some sort of esoteric oral tradition that justifies Plato's claim that philosophers are not fully trained until age fifty, or is it all just obscurantism to add mystique to "philosopher king?" — Count Timothy von Icarus

I'd suggest something more like, "It tends to take a substantial amount of life experience for humans to recognize and weed out naive intuitions sufficiently to reach the point of being philosophically interesting." I.e. it's just an aspect of human nature.

You have demonstrated that you have no interest in discussing the judgement by which something is labeled as evidence, not even agreeing with me that a judgement is required to label something as evidence. Discussion is pointless. — Metaphysician Undercover

I don't know with any precision how you think of "judgement" in this context, but it seems unlikely to me that your view of what happens in such scenarios as seeing John approaching is a matter of consciously making judgements.

The discussion we had awhile back, about the ability to read text with scrambled letters, is of relevance. It seems more likely to me that you recognize John approaching as a matter of subconscious pattern recognition, rather than as a matter of conscious judgement. Just as the neural networks in our brains yield fault tolerant recognitions of words, other neural networks in our brains yield fault tolerant recognitions of people.

Why think, "judgement is required to label something as evidence", is true? (As opposed to, " We subconsciously categorize perceptions as evidence for seeing John approaching, when perceptions sufficient to trigger the relevant pattern recognition has occurred.)

A relevant anecdote... Early in my first semester at college, I came back to my dorm room and recognized my roommate 'Dan', said, "Hi.", (to which 'Dan' responded as he typically did) and sat down to read.

However, I had a nagging sense that something was off. I looked up at 'Dan' and he had an amused smile for no reason apparent to me, but I couldn't figure out why something seemed off, so I went back to reading. Still I was bothered and looked up again, at which point 'Dan' introduced himself as Dave, Dan's identical twin.

It seems to me that in that case I had intuitive recognition of evidence that it wasn't actually my roommate that was in my dorm room, even though I had no conscious recognition of what that evidence was. What role (if any) do you think "judgement" played? And why not think that we can have recognition of evidence without judgement?

I myself try to refrain from sarcastic or ad hominem criticisms. Although I did notice recently that I was compared to a young-earth creationist for questioning what I call 'common-sense physicalism' (i.e. the idea that the mind can be understood through neuroscience). — Wayfarer

That is self aggrandizement.

You were compared to a YEC for claiming there is no scientific evidence for the view you are opposed to. See your statement that directly lead to the comparison:

There is no scientific evidence for physicalism. — Wayfarer

'There is no scientific evidence for evolution.'

'There is no scientific evidence for the earth being billions of years old.'

See the science denialist pattern?

You flatter yourself by referring to yourself as "questioning".

Why do so many make moral propositional statements if they are not truth-apt? — Chet Hawkins

Why does the monkey throw the cucumber, if the researcher is not a bad person?

'Before' is a concept. — Wayfarer

A deepity?

What is your point?

The above Chat GPT examples concern logical behaviourism rather than physicalism. — sime

ChatGPT
I apologize for any confusion. The top ten list provided earlier predominantly focuses on neuroscientific findings that align with physicalism rather than logical behaviorism. These findings highlight the connections between mental processes and the physical structures or activities of the brain. Logical behaviorism, which emphasizes observable behaviors as the primary focus for understanding the mind, is not as directly tied to the neural and physiological evidence outlined in the list. If you have specific questions about logical behaviorism or if you'd like information more tailored to logical behaviorism, feel free to ask!

https://chat.openai.com/share/c5d5be26-4ed6-461b-9dcd-bf6771ec9008

cop out. — Wayfarer

Sure, and if I had written something along those lines myself, you would have said it is too long.

An important scientific innovation rarely makes its way by gradually winning over and converting its opponents: it rarely happens that Saul becomes Paul. What does happen is that its opponents gradually die out, and that the growing generation is familiarized with the ideas from the beginning: another instance of the fact that the future lies with the youth.

— Max Planck, Scientific autobiography, 1950, p. 33, 97

https://chat.openai.com/share/db2ac20a-cb37-45cd-8f22-95e9

User
what scientific evidence supports the philosophical position in position in philosophy of mind known as physicalism

ChatGPT
Physicalism in philosophy of mind asserts that everything about the mind can be ultimately explained by physical processes. Scientific evidence supporting physicalism comes from various fields, such as neuroscience, cognitive science, and psychology. Neuroscientific studies, for example, demonstrate correlations between mental states and brain activity, suggesting a strong connection between the mind and the physical brain. Additionally, advancements in brain imaging technologies provide insights into how specific mental functions correspond to distinct neural patterns. While the debate continues, these scientific findings align with the core tenets of physicalism.

User
What are the top ten neuroscientific findings which support physicalism

ChatGPT
While it's challenging to pinpoint a definitive list of the "top ten" neuroscientific findings supporting physicalism due to the evolving nature of research, here are ten notable findings that contribute to the physicalist perspective:

Neural Correlates of Consciousness (NCC): Identifying brain activity patterns associated with conscious experiences supports the idea that consciousness is closely tied to specific neural processes.

Brain Lesion Studies: Examining how changes or damage to specific brain regions affect cognition and behavior provides evidence for the physical basis of mental functions.

Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI): Studies using fMRI reveal correlations between mental states and localized patterns of brain activity, offering insights into the neural basis of various cognitive processes.

Neuroplasticity: The brain's ability to reorganize itself in response to experiences and learning supports the idea that mental processes are rooted in the physical structure and function of the brain.

Electroencephalography (EEG) Studies: EEG allows researchers to observe electrical activity in the brain, helping to establish connections between specific neural patterns and cognitive processes.

Split-Brain Studies: Research involving split-brain patients demonstrates how distinct cognitive functions can be isolated to specific hemispheres, emphasizing the physical basis of mental processes.

Pharmacological Interventions: The impact of drugs on mental states provides evidence for the role of neurotransmitters and neural pathways in influencing cognition and emotions.

Brain Stimulation Studies: Applying techniques like transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) to manipulate brain activity supports the idea that altering neural processes can directly affect mental functions.

Genetic Influences on Behavior: Investigating the genetic basis of behavior and mental disorders highlights the connection between molecular-level processes in the brain and psychological traits.

Evolutionary Psychology: Examining how the brain has evolved over time to support various cognitive functions underscores the physical underpinnings of mental processes.

These findings collectively contribute to the growing body of evidence supporting the physicalist perspective in philosophy of mind.

Pretty typical religious science denial, with hoops to jump through thrown in. I'm not really interested in doing much more at this point than pointing out that people who deny there is any scientific evidence, for what are matters of scientific consensus, are mostly fooling themselves.

I can find young earth creationist to argue with all over the place. There are much more interesting discussions to spend my time on here.

There is no scientific evidence for physicalism. — Wayfarer

Do you seriously think there is no scientific evidence that minds are a result of physical neurological processes?

Even a lot of Christian fundamentalists don't go that far in their science denial. Of course you do reject evolution. Do you think there is no scientific evidence for evolution as well? How about heliocentrism?

Wayf, I have interacted with so many people who are in denial of scientific evidence in order to maintain their religious beliefs, that statements such as the quote above might as well be an announcement of invincible ignorance on your part.

From what I understand, all of the pieces of evidence put forward for Physicalism are actually bits of evidence against other positions. — AmadeusD

I'm afraid this is indicative to me, of you not knowing much about the evidence. The scientific evidence is rather overwhelming. But then most people don't put a lot of effort into apprising themselves of the scientific evidence.

In other words I think the question of pessimism should not be bad faith dismissed as simply disposition, unless your view is that every claim should be dismissed for such reasons. — schopenhauer1

I don't see myself as dismissing claims as simply disposition, and I certainly hope not in bad faith. To me it just seems there is an awfully well evidenced case to be made for people having varying deeply ingrained dispositions.

A friend, colleague, and in many ways mentor of mine is highly pessimistic. His pessimism plays a big role (and he and I both recognize this) in him coming up with outstandingly high quality electronic designs, because he can't help considering every conceivable thing that might feasibly go wrong. I've learned a lot from him that has improved my design work far beyond the level it would be at, without him playing a role in my career.

I certainly don't dismiss the claims of a person, just on the basis of that person being disposed to pessimism. On the other hand, a claim that I should see the world, with the same emotional shadings as someone I am not, would sound like crazy talk to me.

Just curious, political and moral arguments for various sides are constantly defended and presented- why do you suppose there are still arguments made for various sides rather than people leaving it to “simply dispositions”? — schopenhauer1

I suppose one significant factor is that the dispositions of others are fairly invisible to us on superficial observation. I'd think most of us tend to assume that others share our dispositions until shown evidence to the contrary.

Just going to step in here noting that I have professionally trip-sat in the past and observed clinical psychedelic trials. — AmadeusD

Wow! That's some unusual career experience. :rofl:

Speaking of ridiculous...

https://www.cnn.com/2024/01/30/media/taylor-swift-super-bowl-right-wing-conspiracy/index.html

Unfortunately it doesn't seem as surreal to me these days in the US, as it would have seemed to me before 2016.

I found this fascinating and immediately understood. — Tom Storm

I don't get it, and would want to ask questions in order to have a better sense of where Vidal was coming from. It seems to me to be a matter disposition.

There are things I have done that I deeply regret, and I wouldn't want to 'do it all over again'. However, I think I'm just biologically disposed to appreciate the long strange trip humanity is on.

Yeah, many of them are just parroting the arguments without fully understanding them and are terrible. — Tom Storm

Yeah, it is usually more rhetorically effective script, than thought through position.

The best an atheist can say is that the logical absolutes work - it's a presupposition which can be continually demonstrated and there need be no additional presupposition to guarantee them. Particularly not god/s which has/have yet to be demonstrated as existing. — Tom Storm

I tend to go with a more "in your face" approach, in the (admittedly slim) hope of getting the presuppositionalist to question his presuppositions.

A recent convo I had:

Theist:
My question is how laws of logic are accounted for on an Atheistic worldview.

Me:
I suggest that there are no laws of logic, and that what we call laws of logic are actually incorrigible intuitions about how language tends to relate to reality. Such intuitions arise from pattern recognition which occurs in the neural networks of our evolved brains. The regularities of the universe, are what allowed for the evolution of the brains which our minds supervene on. Having some understanding of how brains work can lead to a lot of understanding of people’s minds, not least our own. From this perspective, your lack of understanding of minds seems a bit problematic, when you want to presuppose that an omniscient and omnipotent mind can exist for no reason.

Full thread.

In that case I got a more thoughtful response than I tend to expect from presuppositionalists.

I generally find presuppositionalists more sad than funny, because presuppositionalism is pure epistemic poison, that badly cripples the thinking of many who fall into it.

A God (defined as an omnipotent/omniscient being who intentionally created the world) provides a solution to all philosophical conundrums. If the world of metaphysical explorations can be considered a jigsaw puzzle, the "God" piece is a ball of putty that can be used to fill any empty space in the puzzle.

Naturalist philosophers have to do more work, since they don't have this handy fits-all puzzle piece. — Relativist

:100: :up:

Surely if you can make a judgement on anchovy pizza, you can make a judgement about life. — schopenhauer1

Sure, I place positive or negative values on things routinely, but I also recognize that the way I do so is idiosyncratic aspect of the way I am and not some general fact about human existence. I don't see how you think it can be justified to generalize about the subject as you seem to.