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J R
climber
bend
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Have we already proved we can trust the ideas and concepts derived or formed from our thoughts, or what we believe to be one's conscious thought and recollection?
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healyje
Trad climber
Portland, Oregon
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Not even wrong...no matter how many times that bubble wand is waved.
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jgill
Boulder climber
The high prairie of southern Colorado
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Sycorax's father was a reputable academic philosopher. Ignore her at your peril.
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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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I was a high school student at Claremont HS, we hung out at the Claremont colleges and stole computer time, I was 16 years old at the time... I did take Calculus at the local community college (Citrus?)
My undergraduate degree was from UCBerkeley, my MA, MPhil and PhD all from Columbia University. I did research at both places, in experimental particle physics.
I post-doc'd for a couple of years and then taught at UMass/Amherst for about 8 years, then moved to LLNL.
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MikeL
Social climber
Southern Arizona
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Hi, Jgill:
My mistake, and apology. (Thanks for setting me straight.)
I realized I was wrong on the number of permutations (3!); I meant to get back to my post to correct it, but there was that game last night (and pizza and beer!).
I would have thought that the number would be 4! (if “upside down” constitutes another dimension), but with your post, it now appears to be = 4! X 2. Is that how you thought of it?
Like you I guess, I’m working on / generating expressions of what I’m seeing, although I can’t say what “seeing” is experientially (exactly, that is). It’s where my interests lie these days.
MH2:
I see the light. ;->
Jim:
Thanks! Cool. I like your thought / expression about the image on the black plywood. Ya’ gotta appreciate street art. “Art for art’s sake” seems highly laudable to me—you know, for experience purposes.
I’ve been wanting to start up some kind of discussion group in the area where I live among anyone who considers themselves a practicing artist (e.g., in painting, sculpture, quilt-making, writing, performing arts, woodworking, whatever) to discuss the creative urge, where it occurs, and what arises from it. When I talk to “artists” about their work, what I invariably hear are descriptions of technique. It reminds me of talking with practicing-science folk (including engineers): “Here’s what I did, how I did it, what the findings are.” Instead, IMO, what’s interesting is where visions come from, what vision is, how it expresses itself in us. One can have all the technique in the world, yet express just about nothing.
The experience I’m having making paintings and objects has become increasingly interesting. It seems to be some kind of un-articulable, symbolic dialogue . . . with what I can’t say. I begin with some idea, even a full-on plan, but as soon as I start to build or create what my mind (or heart) has envisioned, a mysterious process starts to show up. It’s a kind of non-verbal dialogue (e.g., a projection, eduction, mutual causality): a created artifact provides sensory data that gives rise to insights which encourage change to the artifact. The creation in turn re-creates the creator: it’s a feedback loop.
Yesterday afternoon we had a neighbor over for a drink before the game who has been running a contemporary art gallery. Broaching the above subject, I got the distinct sense that she sees the art she’s dealing in terms of the monetary value rather than the experience of it: a merchant. What the heck do I know. My favorite literature professor reported that Shakespeare was simply a hardworking playwright, rather than “an artiste.” :-|
I must be idealistic. It's my mind.
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Largo
Sport climber
The Big Wide Open Face
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Topic Author's Reply - Feb 6, 2017 - 09:37am PT
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Ed, I don't remember us trying to share computer time together but I was always trying to mooch time from the computers they had at Harvey Mud (Pomona didn't have much at that time) to do analysis on the EEG and qEEG stuff we were running. Impressive academic achievements. Don't know where I got the idea that you studied at Berkeley, maybe because we only say each other in passing. Too bad, really. We could have had some fun.
And John, I'm not sure where you got the idea that modern philosophy is some far out den of pipe smokers waxing large about vague and distant thoughts having little to do with the real world. Most of modern philosophy is applied, tending to hard core logic, or very proscribed discussions per specific topics that is rigorously vetted by peers. My analogy to math was not my own, or that philosophy is doing quantifications, considerd by many to be more "real" or authentic (by quantifiers) than other modes of inquiry - it was only to underscore that the fact that both fields offer material that is vital to strictly practical concerns. Systematic logic, a major branch of philosophy, had been instrumental in the development of many fields.
I mentioned earlier that any model of mind based on experiential content, the stuff that mind presents to awareness will always fail. That's why informational theory will never provide an overall theory that is comprehensive.
The categorical error most people make in appraising the 1st person studies is to think the work is about content. Some of it is, but the more crucial work is not, that is, no one is trying to do science without instruments. The study is about awareness itself, which is not a state. States arise WITHIN awareness, but that is not disclosed from a 3rd person vantage. But this is a big topic and it takes a lot of unpacking. For now, remember what IS empirical about the 1st person: it is private. No one can directly access either the experiential content of the awareness of same in another subject. Only the subject can. And so in one sense our interior lives exist behind closed doors. An Identity Materialist can rant about brain states being identical with experiential states, but few believe this - we can easily see why.
The mode of inquiry used in 1st person is not strictly deductive, and that's the rub. But as mentioned:
With deductive approaches the emphasis is generally about causality, while inductive approaches the aim is focused on exploring new phenomenon from a different perspective. Inductive approaches are generally aimed at qualitative concerns, while deductive approaches are generally quantitative. "Grounded theory" pioneered by Strauss, is an inductive approach often referred to in research literature which necessitates the researcher begin the investigation with a completely open mind without any preconceived ideas about what will be found. The aim is to work up a new theory based on the data.
An empirical ("based on, concerned with, or verifiable by observation or experience rather than theory or pure logic") find of the highest order, which changed modern psychology, and which was and could only be discovered through directly exploring 1st person material, would be Freud's discovery of the sub and unconscious mind.
It has been argued that this could have been postulated from brain states, but only by sentient beings who were aware. A pure 3rd person approach could in theory be carried out by a machine, and a machine sans awareness would have no reference point to mind or consciousness and would therefore never "find" anything in brain function to suggest anything but mechanical functioning. But because Freud's process was in large part inductive, a huge sample group was required and the concepts were worked up slowly, requiring massive peer review that continues today. Such is the nature of 1st person inquiries. They are not simple.
That's only one of countless examples. But no, 1st person inquiries are not suited to examine mechanical functioning. The fact that some believe that this is ALL that is going on does not make it so, though from a 3rd person vantage, that's what you are left with.
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High Fructose Corn Spirit
Gym climber
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re: "academic philos"
Hey let's not forget I was the among the first here (c: 2010) to "speak truth to power" show some courage (all right, balls) and "denigrate" "post-enlightenment" "academic philosophy" at this site for its "bouffant" otherwise puffery and bs, fecklessness and irresponsibility. (Much to the frustration of Mdboltr1, lol)
Fun case in point: The Omphalos Hypothesis
Anyone here want to deny that the Omphalos Hypothesis was once considered to be advanced philosophical theology. lol
We've come a long way, baby! Can't say it enough: Academic theist philos, imo, deserves all the criticism and ridicule it gets.
Here, let me include a Wiki link to the matter...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Omphalos_hypothesis
...to further wind up? lol... the crude, vulgar and pompous one (along w her fellow traveler or two) who, to say it again, really needs to start her own threads (to harbor her embarrassing nonsensical, anti-science, anti-men? posts) rather than soil this one.
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healyje
Trad climber
Portland, Oregon
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Circular indeed. Will check back in another thou or so given nothing has changed
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paul roehl
Boulder climber
california
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Anyone here want to deny that the Omphalos Hypothesis was once considered to be advanced philosophical theology. lol
Yes. and at one time reading the bumps on a persons head was considered advanced scientific theory. LOLEH!
Neither of those statements is much of an argument.
The real fallacy here goes back to the assumption that intelligence is simply information processing.
Such an idea is anemic in the face of any real epistemological understanding. The real question is what is knowing, or what is realization and then what is it that is doing that realizing? The idea, or problem being the antecedent nature of consciousness and its very mysterious nature. It's fascinating to see some in science, so confounded be the problem, as to declare consciousness as a realization of the self, simply an illusion... wonder what we'll think of that idea in a decade or two?
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Largo
Sport climber
The Big Wide Open Face
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Topic Author's Reply - Feb 6, 2017 - 11:13am PT
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Fruity, you need your own reality show. A kind of curmudgeon wind bag full of hayseed biases cherry picking the most egregious full in a field and painting the entire milieu with that brush. As though everyone calling themselves religious has a head full of silly myths and is a terrorist out to bugger your livestock or blow up Manhattan. We don't writ off all AI because of a few cranks claiming we will have a conscious, feeling machine by 2030. Nor can we diss all of philosophy by dint of dogma driven theologians. If, for example, you look at credible philosophical papers on subjects key to mind, such as emergence, supervenience, epistemic and ontological discussions, you will find excellent scholarly treaties involving historical oversight and cutting edge theories, logically presented. Not sure what you are reading but it sounds like pop fluff, and there's no virtue in trashing that. Like kicking a dead dog.
To put this whole discussion in a nut shell - no sober student of mind could doubt that objective processing is at the heart of the whole mind discussion, and plays a central role in the fact that we are conscious. The crux boils down to one phenomenon: awareness. Not WHAT we are aware of, rather the fact that we are aware at all. And how and why and all the rest. That's the linchpin of the whole thing. Any discussion tangential to this is not dealing with the central issue. Fact is, we KNOW awareness is a 1st person phenomenon. Efforts to try and find how it is also a 3rd person phenomenon should not be discouraged, but rather encouraged. But saying we shouldn't investigate both modes concurrently is to work directly against what we do know. Go ahead. Stick to the 3rd person investigation of external objects if you choose. No one is stopping you. But the train might leave without you...
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High Fructose Corn Spirit
Gym climber
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Excuse me, Largo...
Just to be clear, Paul and I are often on the same page, we just often like to pick at the differences. For eg, Paul posted...
There are remarkable numbers of stars and planets and potentials and we are clearly not the center of all existence but so what?
We have the fortune of a remarkable consciousness and resulting intelligence through which we can realize a conceivable phronesis and the resulting eudemonia. Neither of which can survive if conceived as perfectly relative.
Nobody is scorning science except those at the limits of reason. However, scientism, which I would describe as the misapplication of scientific method to those things outside its (science’s) realm, is problematic.
There is a kind of nobility in human existence. To be confronted by an inevitable annihilation and all the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune that are as equally inevitable, to face those and make something decent out of it, to be ultimately an infinitesimal bit in an inconceivable space, how easy to become brutish and mean all in the name of evolutionary victory.
Our smallness in the face of the universe is all the more reason to pat ourselves on the back for our victory over circumstance.
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High Fructose Corn Spirit
Gym climber
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Hey this thread's worthy. Sure it's got its circularities but it's got more than that too. Above Paul (quote) reminds us (sometimes needed for reinforcement sake) that a phronesis (practical wisdom) and eudaimonia (welfare or wellbeing) are not (necessarily) out of reach.
Food for thought: bio-phronesis (or biophronesis)... practical life wisdom
...
Well, Paul, imo, one doesn't get any "real epistemological understanding" - otherwise modern, valid and accurate - without a few years study and immersion in information science, control theory and computers.
The real question is what is knowing, or what is realization and then what is it that is doing that realizing? The idea, or problem being the antecedent nature of consciousness and its very mysterious nature. It's fascinating to see some in science, so confounded be the problem, as to declare consciousness as a realization of the self, simply an illusion... wonder what we'll think of that idea in a decade or two?
Per you post, you seem like the ideal candidate for Dennett's latest book... From Bacteria to Bach and Back: The Evolution of MInds.
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WBraun
climber
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The phenomena of consciousness and complex form stand as insurmountable
obstacles blocking any attempt to capture the world by a quantitative theory.
To find a successful approach to understanding reality, we must
therefore depart from the mechanistic framework of modern science.
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High Fructose Corn Spirit
Gym climber
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(My edit's not working so I post anew.)
Per you post, you seem like the ideal candidate for Dennett's latest book... From Bacteria to Bach and Back: The Evolution of MInds.
Essential points:
(1) Competence (of systems) without comprehension
(2) Comprehension: a function of cultural evolution (a result of a build-up of a gazillion memes over literally millions of years)
Beta: Want epiphany or insight? Internalize points 1 and 2 till they sink in and stay put and don't flee.
A gazillion memes over millions of years is not something to dis. Their effects are something to wonder at and to be absolutely astonished by.
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High Fructose Corn Spirit
Gym climber
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As though everyone calling themselves religious has a head full of silly myths and is a terrorist out to bugger your livestock or blow up Manhattan.
You're back to caricature and hyperbole now. You're much more effective at getting your points across when you don't do this.
The rest of your first paragraph is good, to the point and valid.
Efforts to try and find how it [i.e., 1st person subjective] is also a 3rd person phenomenon should not be discouraged, but rather encouraged.
Which is precisely Dennett's passion. Get his book!
...
Anyone see Arrival yet?
It's got some thought-provoking ideas including one or two about time.
Hint: the palindrome, "Hannah". :)
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Largo
Sport climber
The Big Wide Open Face
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Topic Author's Reply - Feb 6, 2017 - 01:01pm PT
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However, scientism, which I would describe as the misapplication of scientific method to those things outside its (science’s) realm, is problematic.
I think, Fruity, that this is really the sticking point for you, insinuating that there IS no such thing as "outside of sciences realm."
And Fruity, what ever gave you the idea that I don't follow Uncle Dennett. Didn't I tell you I considered him the Elmer Fudd of mind studies? Of course I read it, and was disappointed at all the ranting about religion.
As a recent critic wrote: "He doesn't skirt the complications of theorising about religion: he sees the difficulties, marches bravely into the swamp and then - about half way through the book, at exactly the point where we're wondering how to reach firm ground - he stops, inflates a hot air balloon that's labelled "memes", climbs into it and floats away."
The problem with memes, as a component of mind studies, that it presupposes awareness. No awareness, no memes. You can conflate the two, but reader's will be forgiven for laughing.
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WBraun
climber
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There is Nonmechanistic Science.
The gross materialists can't wrap their brainwashed prisoner mechanistic minds around such a thing.
That is why they remain left behind on this planet as cave men fixed up in scientism ......
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High Fructose Corn Spirit
Gym climber
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Oh Largo, the book's not out till tomorrow.
Of course I read it, and was disappointed at all the ranting about religion.
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WBraun
climber
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Dennett denies the existence of consciousness. (he's insane)
That means Dennett doesn't even exist.
Just like fruit man above who remains anonymous and doesn't exist (what is the word for the meaning of this sentence?).
Totally ironic .......
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jgill
Boulder climber
The high prairie of southern Colorado
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Mike, there are 3!=6 arrangements of your three boards side by side and right side up. Each of these arrangements can have the boards right side up or upside down. Therefore there are 2X2X2=8 ways to display each arrangement by turning the boards upside down or right side up. Then 6X8=48 possibilities.
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