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Dingus McGee
Social climber
Where Safety trumps Leaving No Trace
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Aug 30, 2017 - 02:51pm PT
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MikeL,
to the point. Yes, Dr Damasio has used a scalpel on some faulty brains and likely did some authored research about those surgeries? But academicians you say, have made comment about his choice of brains to work on as a discredit to his theory of consciousness as if the gentleman could not think about anything other than faulty brains when making this theory of consciousness of normal people. Pointless. It seems to have much of a rebuttal you would have to show that his theory of consciousness[which I have linked] is based on how faulty brains work and is in fact a faulty theory because of that. Do your cognitive research papers? show this?
Analogously suppose a structural engineer gets into demolition of buildings and submits an article on how bridges could be built better. Your line against him would be he does not know anything about building good bridges because he just tears 'em down. Is this the substance academic thinking?
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okay, whatever
climber
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Aug 30, 2017 - 03:15pm PT
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"Would you think that the study of anything should be based on outliers, problems, errors, and mistakes?" Amen to John Gill's remark that this approach can be quite productive. That's the story behind modern physics, really... relativity and quantum mechanics were born out of subtle "outliers, problems, errors, and mistakes", that some intelligent people picked up on, and tried to resolve. The story continues, but it's the stuff that doesn't fit into current theory that drives us to better and subtler understanding, once the "head slap", shall we call it, occurs.
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MH2
Boulder climber
Andy Cairns
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Aug 30, 2017 - 04:28pm PT
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While at the University of Chicago I sat in on a lecture for med students.
The speaker began with the story of the The Three Princes of Serendip.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Three_Princes_of_Serendip
The speaker told his audience that, if they performed an experiment and 99 out of 100 of the results came out as they expected, they should pay the most attention to the result that did not fit.
One of his examples was David Bodian.
David Bodian's major work was on polio vaccines, but he also developed a staining technique that was useful to neuroanatomists. Bodian had prepared specimens for microscopy by a standard technique. One of many specimens looked different. Bodian was a careful person and he went back and checked. He found that a penny (or a dime) had fallen out of his shirt pocket into the jar from which the anomalous specimen came.
In the 1930’s, David Bodian developed a silver staining recipe that was easier and more consistent than earlier methods (Bodian, 1936). The Bodian stain has a high affinity for neurofilament proteins (Gsmbetti et al., 1981; Phillips et al., 1983), and Bodian staining can be used to trace individual axons through thick tissue section with a light microscope (e.g. Katz and Lasek, 1981).
from
From Research to Manuscript: A Guide to Scientific Writing
Michael Jay Katz
Springer Science & Business Media, Jan 21, 2009
It can pay off to give more attention to the unlikely than to the expected, but maybe only if you have the time, energy, and motivation.
Pilgrim's Progress?
On A list of phrases loosely related to the word advance
is found:
Two steps forward, one step back.
http://www.phrases.org.uk/cgi-bin/phrase-thesaurus/wide.cgi?w=Advance
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MikeL
Social climber
Southern Arizona
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Aug 30, 2017 - 05:42pm PT
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Dingus,
I'd say it’s highly unusual that a theory of how things work is based *primarily* on failure. Usually, I’d say, theories are assumedly built on how things work properly or well. Even a structural engineer coming up with a theory of the basis of failures is relying upon a positive theory (albeit perhaps intuitively) of how things should work properly.
In my own field, there is a field of study called “change management.” It’s littered with studies of how often change management practices don’t go well, and for that, it appears that no one seems to be sure how it goes well (instead). The same could be said for theories and studies of leadership. We think we know much about poor leadership, but when it comes to effective leadership, that area of study probably has 10 different theories competing for dominance. Apparently, it can’t be defined or stipulated--at least not very well.
Think about it: coming up with a theory of how things work properly based upon how things don’t work is questionable, wouldn’t you say?
As to Okay, Whatever’s and John Gill’s thoughts about outliers and failures, I would argue that those data points are used to fine-tune positive theories of phenomena, not negative theories. Those outliers and aberrations are used to fine-tune positive theories.
As almost any reader of this thread might recognize, saying what things aren’t is so very much easier than saying what things are.
I’d like to see if anyone got anywhere with only a study of failure. If one is only studying failure, then how is it that they know what it is that they are studying? Isn’t there at least an implicit assumption made of what a thing is and how it works as a basis for comparison?
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MH2
Boulder climber
Andy Cairns
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Aug 30, 2017 - 06:14pm PT
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As almost any reader of this thread might recognize, saying what things aren’t is so very much easier than saying what things are.
Are those the only choices you see?
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jgill
Boulder climber
The high prairie of southern Colorado
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Aug 30, 2017 - 09:12pm PT
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Large parts of this thread are devoted to negative theory. Over and over we hear that awareness or consciousness or sentience are not physical processes. But if so, what are the alternatives?
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WBraun
climber
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Aug 30, 2017 - 09:32pm PT
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A large part of this thread is negative outdated defective theory that there is NO soul and everything is only mechanistic.
Such narrow minded trenched old fogies with no life left in em ......
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jgill
Boulder climber
The high prairie of southern Colorado
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Aug 30, 2017 - 10:05pm PT
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Fumes from Cattail Pond getting to you, eh? Heady vapors there.
Keep paddling and hold your breath.
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Dingus McGee
Social climber
Where Safety trumps Leaving No Trace
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Aug 31, 2017 - 04:30am PT
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MikeL,
I do not disagree with your theories of change management etc. but I would say that your stance and the applicability of them to Damasio's theory of consciousness [TOC] completely lacks evidence that Damasio's TOC is based on defective brains. Evidence? If so please state some evidence.
Damasio profession has two discrete aspects. 1. He teaches neuroscience & brains surgery at a university and 2. he does neurosurgery at a hospital. In other words he is both a MD that teaches and also is a MD that practices surgery.
Let's get to the Specifics, Damasio is the topic, not change management. Your are trying to argue that his TOC has to be faulty because he has done surgery/research on defective brains -- which is his expertise 2. He also has expertise 1. which is a form of academia that is specifically related to brains.
He likely has just as good of credentials in normal brain theory as you do plus he knows something about working on the meat. It seems you are suggesting this gentleman is so incompetent that he cannot remember faulty brain workings from normal brain workings? I say nonsense!
I would say that the link I posted is about one TOC and not a SOC [speculation on consciousness]. After all he does have some evidence of how normal brains parts are integrated.
If there is speculation going on about his TOC it is yours.
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MikeL
Social climber
Southern Arizona
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Aug 31, 2017 - 06:46am PT
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Dingus: Your [sic] are trying to argue that his TOC has to be faulty . . . .
This is a misreading. I’m not saying it’s faulty. I’m saying it has a weakness as a data-gathering and -analysis process.
(And, hey . . . weren’t you the one who was arguing earlier that credentials are not important or irrelevant?)
What I like about Damasio’s work (and what others have thought his most significant contribution has been) is his supposition of somatic markers.
I also think his work supports an embodied or grounded cognition view of thought, experience, and the senses. (Both theories, BTW, undercut a purely mechanical view of mind as only brain.)
My little research stream on metaphors used both ideas to explain why “climbing” works as a metaphor in business studies (. . . because people can “feel” an experience in their bodies of “as-if” or simulated climbing even though they have never climbed anything at all).
Damasio’s work also ties-up with my understanding of tantra meditation techniques with visualization techniques in sports (which is documented). Paul Ekman’s (facial presentation of emotions, and as an interpreter for HHDL), Joe Navarro’s (body language), and Eric Goffman’s (the presentation of “face” in fateful acts) works also links up with these notions. What people think and believe come largely from what they feel, . . . that the body (beyond the brain) has a great deal of influence on how beings think and see. Rationality is not quite what it seems.
These are all theories, and there is some evidence to support linking them into a grander view. But, ultimately, they cannot be the whole truth with a capital “T.”
EDIT: I should also say that Damasio’s work (remember, he’s studied brains with certain injuries) reported that people could not make meaningful decisions in their everyday lives. They could calculate and know how to do things, but their decision making was often paralyzed or incapacitated because they saw or experienced no emotional import.
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MH2
Boulder climber
Andy Cairns
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Aug 31, 2017 - 07:48am PT
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Antonio Damasio studies people who have brain injury partly because he is an MD who tries to treat patients who have suffered such injury.
He has bolstered his scientific reputation by contrasting his own insight with the wrong thinking that preceded it. That is not unusual. However, when you become a news item as Damasio has, the people who report about you may choose to emphasize that contrast, as in, "For decades, biologists spurned emotion and feelings as uninteresting." That is debatable. Darwin took an interest in emotions. Probably many other biologists as well.
but a good article aside from that:
http://www.technologyreview.com/s/528151/the-importance-of-feelings/
It is no great insight that people make decisions based on emotion and feelings as well as reason.
Damasio has provided many illustrations of the varieties of blunted emotion and feeling that accompany certain kinds of brain injury, and looked into the details of how decision-making can be affected.
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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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Aug 31, 2017 - 08:29am PT
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when you are doing scientific research it is common to take the phenomenon you are studying and alter it to see what changes. That is standard operating procedure, especially for a complex system.
A lot of genetics is done by altering the genetic material and then seeing the response to this alteration.
One can view it as "damaging" the system, but the behavior of the system after the "damage" can reveal how that system depends on the functioning of those "damaged" parts.
"Damage" is not the word a scientist would use, and in the context of this conversation (and Largo has also invoked it) the study of a "damaged" brain is discounted, at least as it pertains to an "undamaged" brain.
The ethical considerations of intentionally damaging a brain to do science prevent this activity, at least in humans. It is an ongoing issue for studies using animals, with considerable constraints being put on those studies; some consider this to be insufficient, others overly restrictive.
But in terms of scientific study, altering the human brain in an irreversible manner is not allowed. That brains are "damaged" by various traumas is well known, and the scientific study of these traumas, and the results of them, on the individual is certainly a part of medicine, and it is not a stretch that these observations are useful in considerations of the question "what is mind."
What MikeL and Largo and others have essentially said is that there is no valid data that informs that question, that there cannot be any data that does so in principle. Their collective argument is that "mind" is not something that can be described that way.
However, they somehow feel the need to justify this position in some evidentiary manner, though using the description "damaged" as a pejorative term to exclude a very broad set of observations pertinent to the question seems a bit disingenuous.
This is not a modern argument. At least one of the arguments made by the Inquisition against Galileo was that the evidence provided by observations made by a telescope were not trustworthy. That argument went something like this: light is truth, the optics of a telescope alters light (by bending its path), altering the light alters the truth, therefore, images seen in a telescope (like that moons that orbit other planets) cannot provide a truthful example on which to base the heliocentric theory of the solar system.
That is, using a telescope "damages" light, therefore one should discount those observations when studying the universe.
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jgill
Boulder climber
The high prairie of southern Colorado
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Aug 31, 2017 - 11:54am PT
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What MikeL and Largo and others have essentially said is that there is no valid data that informs that question, that there cannot be any data that does so in principle. Their collective argument is that "mind" is not something that can be described that way
That pretty much says it all for that side of the argument. I'm glad MikeL introduced negative theory from the social sciences, something I had not considered.
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Dingus McGee
Social climber
Where Safety trumps Leaving No Trace
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Aug 31, 2017 - 03:23pm PT
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Thanks MH2 for the link to Damasio on The Importance of Feelings.
A lot of interesting ideas in that short paper.
During the action program of fear, a collection of things happen in my body that change me and make me behave in a certain way whether I want to or not.
We must separate the component that comes out of actions from the component that comes out of our perspective on those actions, which is feeling. Curiously, it’s also where the self emerges, and consciousness itself.
Mind begins at the level of feeling.
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WBraun
climber
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Aug 31, 2017 - 03:42pm PT
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things happen in my body that change me and make me behave
Who is the "my" and the "me"
That is the crux .......
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Dingus McGee
Social climber
Where Safety trumps Leaving No Trace
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Aug 31, 2017 - 04:01pm PT
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WBraun,
things happen in my body that change me and make me behave
Who is the "my" and the "me"
That is the crux .......
The person in the interview is Dr. Damasio and that line is his reply.
So it follow that the "me" and "my" are Dr Damasio talking about himself.
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WBraun
climber
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Aug 31, 2017 - 04:14pm PT
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Damasio said; "My body"
He didn't say I am body
That means Damasio is not the body.
Nobody says I am the body.
Nobody says I am mind.
They say my mind.
Nobody says I am brain
They say my brain
Thus consciousness is the soul the living being within the body that is spiritual (anti-matter) and not material.
When someone says Me or I am they point to their heart and not to their head.
When someone does st000pid they point to their head.
Nobody says I am the car .......
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MH2
Boulder climber
Andy Cairns
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Aug 31, 2017 - 08:04pm PT
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Nobody says I am the car .......
How many self-driving cars have you met?
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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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the individual is not material?
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/biology-individual/
However we understand the concept of an organism (section 5) and whatever we think of the status of both groups (section 6) and genes (section 7) as biological individuals, biological individuality is a dynamic phenomenon that has changed over time. What biological individuals there are has changed over the 3.8 billion or so years of life on planet Earth, and the evolution of individuality itself has become a topic of discussion in the last twenty years or so (Dawkins 1982; Buss 1987; Maynard Smith and Szathmáry 1995; Michod 1999; Okasha 2011; Calcott and Sterelny 2011).
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Dingus McGee
Social climber
Where Safety trumps Leaving No Trace
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DMT,
I agree actually, the construct of 'me' and 'my' is not material. We're solid on that.
There is no color of white in the electro spectrum of wavelengths or rainbows. Yet we SEE & call some blends of wavelengths of red, blue and cyan white. But when seeing of one of the three wavelengths alone we see either red, blue or cyan. When all three colors come off an object the mind does not sort them out but says "white". Hence some kind of mental construct is going on?
Damasio,
The brain is vitally concerned with and tightly bound to the body. It is constantly receiving updates of its body image map from every corner of the body proper, initiating various changes, and then receiving the results of those changes in a tight resonance loop with the body that never ends, until death. And the most primal level of this resonance starts in the brainstem.
from theory of consciousness
The brainstem is heavily involved in generating the core self, but it isn’t the main show. Damasio hypothesizes that the main coordinator may be the thalamus, but all areas seem to participate, from the brainstem, the thalamus, and the cerebral cortex.
On top of the core self is the autobiographical self. This is the self that comes into existence as the organism lives its life. It is heavily dependent on memories, along with the projections it makes for the future.
Note the wording, tight resonance loop [energy -- electrochemical, electrical signals]. that is constantly going on within the structures [matter that stores current icon view of the "me"] until death. The loop plays over and over & over but we do not have a gateway in our brains to see this process nor do we have one to see the making of the color white.
The $ stops here. If you expect to see and feel this process as you would running you do in one sense but not another. When running we both see the anatomical structures [legs] in action and feel the movement of legs. But with the "me" structure we feel its action [me thinks such & such] but we do not see the structure moving or changing as we do the leg. We never will. Nor will we feel the molecular changes going on in the Krebs cycle of energy generation used to move the leg.
The changing going on of the state variables [memory housed by molecular patterns] of the "me" structure are 1. too small to see, 2. going on in a place we cannot see, 3. we do not have feeling for these molecules changing state [no sensory signals for molecular change only the patterns of them that the brain modules recognize ].
Is the "me" material? It is energy of very special signals ran through a very specific platform of molecules at almost cellular level. The "me" cannot be created by material alone but needs constant signals through the body and brain modules to refresh the "me" and that do end at death. Much like vision has a persistence rate so does the generation of me-ness.
A relevant question is, "Is the "me" matter & energy?"
An interpretation as above is Type A materialism which is logically incoherent. -- Largo
And we are still waiting for the reply of Largo to Ed's challenge of how is it "logically incoherent"
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