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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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Sep 17, 2018 - 07:34am PT
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actually, I have stated over and over again my wonder that science works even though it is done by humans...
I fully acknowledge that humans action is not rational, and not objective.
You seem to ignore me, assuming I have a "naive" view. I find you to be rather resistant to the idea that scientists have figure this out too, and have been figuring out ways to avoid "human bias."
The statement that our experimental methods are limited is an expression of "fact" and the recognition that this limitation necessarily makes the theories that organize the empirical body of empirical knowledge provisional, is quite an advance.
It also provides a means for determining how "objective" we're being.
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WBraun
climber
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Sep 17, 2018 - 08:28am PT
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One might say that science always wrong in that it never comes to any claim that is accurate, final, or complete.
That is NOT true.
You really do not have a complete understanding of the whole.
That is why I've said you are a Mayavadi philosopher, which is an extremely dangerous consciousness ......
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Largo
Sport climber
The Big Wide Open Face
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Topic Author's Reply - Sep 17, 2018 - 09:10am PT
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MH2. Everyone has first assumptions. The trick is to become aware of them because they limit our POV and tend to organize our thinking and investigation in ways that support our current views, as opposed to discovering new information.
The thing about first assumptions is that they often operate so globally and at such a basic level we are not entirely aware of them
For instance, John suggested that my first assumption was that there will never be sentient machines. But this is way down the road from my first assumptions. For example ...
Because the study of mind is so prone to being seen through first assumptions, particularly in terms of what people consider "real," students of mind are in wide agreement that their definitions of "reality" will greatly prefigure how their investigation will unfold.
Mind students are in general agreement that our fist assumptions about reality are described in two basic ways: One, reality is all that we see and might eventually see and/or measure (pending future experiments), and two, reality is all that we see (and eventually might see and measure) and all we experience. That is, reality is every damn thing, INCLUDING our experience.
I am with the second view. We know that consciousness was not engineered, and that it is a natural phenomenon. It follows that if you wanted to "create" consciousness, you'd have to replicate the entire milieu in which it exists, since it is inseparable from that milieu.
Searle pointed out the difference between replication and duplication with various thought experiments. Basically, replication is NOT duplication in terms of our efforts to knock-off or "duplicate" natural forces and phenomenon. That is, we can replicate a fire on a computer, but it ain't gonna burn down the neighborhood.
Though the metaphor is not ideal, one mind dude said that trying to replicate consciousness is like trying to replicate the weak attraction. It is not theoretically impossible, but you'd have to replicate the entire universe from which the weak attraction arose and in which it finds play. And it's absurd to believe a clone universe could exist inside or alongside or parallel with the existing universe.
Of course this t-bones into another first assumption: that consciousness is mechanically "produced" (AKA, mechanitus). Yet there is no trace of phenomenological sentience in any objective functioning of dancing neurons or collection of brain regions arranged just so, in this complex array, etc. The Mill Experiment showed this 350 years ago: consciousness is not sense data we can observe and directly measure.
The default here is the train wreck of Identity Theory - that brain states and phenomenological consciousness are identical. So here you looped right back to conflation to safeguard a first assumption. The relationship between brain and mind are undeniable. Same goes with the relationship of any natural phenomenon to reality. But that's different than saying a piano and a Chopin nocturne are selfsame.
The advance in mind studies often come through the general agreement of those close to the work about apparent dead ends, which can direct the adventure down more fruitful paths of exploration.
At bottom, my sense of it is that many hold a first assumption that Identity Theory is in some way fundamentally true - pending future experiments. The challenge is you cannot bridge the apparent threshold between brain (observable) and mind (not observable) with scientific language (measurements) as it is generally employed. Case in point: emergence. No one can directly measure the "sentience" believed by some to "emerge" from mechanical brain function. Simply put, once you leave dancing neurons, you're no longer doing strict science (measuring), but have jumped over to inductive reasoning, moving from specific neurological activity to a generalized conclusion that (for example) mind is an output. But you cannot measure that output directly - unless you backslide once more into Identity Theory, that what you are measuring IS mind itself. Few serious mind students are satisfied with this position - most of us can see why.
This can all become a giant mind-f*#k unless you have also sorted out the categorical difference between objective and experiential, which the mind fellowship has done a pretty fine job of making clear, and to which most are in agreement. If you haven't made this distinction, the boneyard of Identity Theory is basically your only option, or else you adopt Dennett's Folly: Mind is an illusion, which is widely considered logically incoherent, for reasons that are pretty easy to grasp.
If for no other reason than to quickly review what's at the bottom of this thread (first assumptions), consider watching the following (listed below) VERY SHOT videos that A) posit the challenges of categorizing objective and subjective (aka, the mind-body problem), and B) the reasons (for and against) for positing the objective and experiential as distinct natural phenomenon. This dovetails nicely into the what most mind students consider to be the next philosophical challenge, which is to closely explore what those differences are - which is where Nagel comes into the picture in a big way.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cOgDDXihfR4
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gZy3Ky9y_fg
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6co-s6LqC0k
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MH2
Boulder climber
Andy Cairns
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Sep 17, 2018 - 11:31am PT
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The Mill Experiment showed this 350 years ago: consciousness is not sense data we can observe and directly measure.
Is that an example of what the mind fellowship has made clear? If so, re-examine your assumptions about what an experiment is.
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Largo
Sport climber
The Big Wide Open Face
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Topic Author's Reply - Sep 17, 2018 - 11:56am PT
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Is that an example of what the mind fellowship has made clear? If so, re-examine your assumptions about what an experiment is.
A common retort. Perhaps you missed the "thought experiment" part. The rejoinder is, feel free to explore the mill (or the brain, in this instance) and conduct a proper experiment ("perform a scientific procedure - pull a measurement - to determine something"). That is, pull a subjective measurement off the parts of the mill or the brain.
Whatever measurement you pull will, perforce, be off objective parts. Claiming that those measurements ARE measurements of subjectivity itself irrevocably lands you in the boneyard of Identity Theory. Claims that it doesn't require specifically demonstrating WHY it does not, and no has been able to do this.
That's the whole point. If nothing else, adventures in mind have basically forced people's hand: You either accept that the experiential is a "real" phenomenon in Nature, or you conflate the experiential with the objective and say they are the same "thing" (identity theory). Or offer some version of Identity Theory Lite, releasing the investigation from having to deal with the experiential straight up.
Again, if you argue that there are other options to those denying "real" status to their experiential lives, such an argument ("a reason or set of reasons that an idea is right or wrong") is meaningful only if you list what those options/reasons might be.
Of course many have pushed this argument further. Most end up endorcing the belief that ideas are not "real." (The proposition that ideas/information are not physical but are nonetheless real led to identity theory.) The majority of mind students agree that this is a default position for Type A physicalism (only the physical is "real"), and that it falls apart in the world we actually live in.
For example, consider the mythical unicorn. A unicorn does not physically exist, but few would deny that the idea and artistic representation of a unicorn ins found in countless texts and throughout folklore, NOT as a physical object (drawings of same notwithstanding), but as an idea. (many physicists fluent in the mind adventure are quick to point out that the material basis for physicalism is not at all what most people think it is)
Again, most mind students acknowledge that when a Type A physicalist says, "That's not real," what they actually mean is, "The unicorn is not a physical object we can measure."
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Ward Trotter
Trad climber
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Sep 17, 2018 - 03:08pm PT
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A couple weeks ago I got the results of an DNA submission.
99.7% of me is white European: mostly haplotypes common throughout the British Isles, but also France and Germany and Scandinavia.
The 0.3 % ?
Haplotypes common in North Africa/ Middle East 0.2%
0.1 % Sub-Saharan Africa , mostly Nigeria
Several months prior to these revelations, under the influence of a strong compulsion I bought the djembe drums shown in the photo.
In the ensuing weeks I became an expert-- once even awaking a neighbor. These djembes seemed to take on a magical dimension. So I went with it " nothing the matter with a little 'magical realism'. " I told myself.
I soon began to imagine these drums being inhabited by the very men who made them from the giant tropical trees, and had poured their very spirit into the making. I call the larger drum "Lumbasu" the smaller drum "Enkede".
Everybody should once in a while engage in some magical realism.
It makes life so much more interesting.
BTW the dog is likely 100% Scottish Border Collie.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Djembe
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Largo
Sport climber
The Big Wide Open Face
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Topic Author's Reply - Sep 17, 2018 - 05:09pm PT
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That's crazy, Ward. Almost exactly my profile, though I have a dash more Africano in me. Better get my drum on.
Also, Bernadette, the climbing ranger out at Josh, took a fall and got all busted up (critical) and there's a fund that got started so kindly throw down for one of the tribe. She's a wonderful person.
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jogill
climber
Colorado
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Sep 17, 2018 - 05:26pm PT
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"Leibniz’s mill argument, then, relies on a particular understanding of perception and of material objects. Because all material objects are complex and because perceptions require unity, material objects cannot possibly perceive. Any representation a machine, or a material object, could produce would lack the unity required for perception. The mill example is supposed to illustrate this: even an extremely small machine, if it is purely material, works only in virtue of the arrangement of its parts. Hence, it is always possible, at least in principle, to enlarge the machine. When we imagine the machine thus enlarged, that is, when we imagine being able to distinguish the machine’s parts as we can distinguish the parts of a mill, we will realize that the machine cannot possibly have genuine perceptions."
Hmmm . . .
But I find monads pleasing.
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Don Paul
Social climber
Washington DC
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Sep 17, 2018 - 05:34pm PT
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By the way, if anyone likes to play with fractals you can get the Mandelbulb 3D program for free. Fun to play with but the animations can take weeks of computer time to render. This jogill fractal was just a simple photoshop.
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jogill
climber
Colorado
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Sep 17, 2018 - 08:49pm PT
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"Fractal" has a specific mathematical definition that does not apply here. The quasi-symmetries are pleasing, though. Fractals are generated by iterating a single function, usually. My creations arise from iterating a sequence of different functions f1of2of3o...fn(z) at each step. I wrote a BASIC program years ago that iterates at points in the complex plane and computes moduli for each point, assigning a color to that pixel. Then sometimes I manipulate the color and shading of the image in Photoshop, as here.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infinite_compositions_of_analytic_functions
But thanks for noticing!
My latest:
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MH2
Boulder climber
Andy Cairns
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Sep 17, 2018 - 09:02pm PT
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Perhaps you missed the "thought experiment" part.
That's because you did not include it. You wrote, "the Mill Experiment showed..."
At best, the Liebniz Mill attempts to show what can't be found. It is much more interesting to consider what could be found.
As Largo said:
The relationship between brain and mind are undeniable.
If we overlook the grammar, there is a good question here: what we can learn about that relationship?
Liebniz had a preconception about what "mechanical" parts could accomplish. What massively interconnected neurons can accomplish is still an open question. It is premature to rule out subjectivity, unless you begin with that premise.
Thought experiments will not be definitive. You need to do the real work.
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Jan
Mountain climber
Colorado & Nepal
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Sep 18, 2018 - 06:15am PT
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It seems from the last illustration that jgill has made his way from Eastern symbology to Ephesis and now to the modern age. The proverbial serpent trying to make its way through a fractured world. Or is it that the cursed serpent has fractured our world once again?
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MikeL
Social climber
Southern Arizona
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Sep 18, 2018 - 07:14am PT
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Duck: You really do not have a complete understanding of the whole.
Without a doubt. Duality is what I see, but no longer completely. Conventionally, science has not been able to state the truth yet. On the other hand (and this is what I think you’re pointing to), there is truth. It just can’t seem to be articulated fully, accurately, or completely. Not you. Not me. Not my teacher (who admits he cannot help but lie).
My dear Ed,
I appreciate everything you say (other than the naive part). What rubs me wrong is the sense that I get from folks here that science and the people who practice it are somehow immune to the biases and hidden agendas that people complain about in every other field of study or practice: e.g., religion, politics, medicine, engineering, parenthood, the law, economic enterprises, art, etc. People are *always* complaining how the people in those areas are serving themselves and pursuing hidden agendas and doing terrible things to other people. . . yet, scientists and science are somehow noble, unbiased, and almost beyond reproach because of its values and its approach to solving the problems it tackles. I mean, really.
I hang out with some lawyers, I’m meeting with a bunch of doctors these days, and I converse regularly with spiritual teachers, and I hear and see all sorts of questionable heuristics, singular points of views, and values that are arguable. In my view, all of them (yeah, even spiritualism, Werner) have “issues” ideologically, conceptually, literarily, procedurally—especially so when one adds “the human factor” into the mix.
In my view, anyone who is not questioning almost anything they read or hear is in a state of delusion. I’d say we should all be thinking and feeling for ourselves. We could all admit that none of us have the answer; we could just enjoy what seems a divine play for what it is.
(Back to Werner, nonduality seems to be a means to the enjoyment of that play.)
Be well.
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Ward Trotter
Trad climber
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Sep 18, 2018 - 08:06am PT
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Also, Bernadette, the climbing ranger out at Josh, took a fall and got all busted up (critical) and there's a fund that got started so kindly throw down for one of the tribe. She's a wonderful person.
I met her at the entry station once, wonderful energy and great smile, great vibe.
I will do what you say.
Training day at the acrylic gymnasium. I'll mention her name more than once.
My avatar photo was taken over in the Lost Horse area where Bernadette was hurt. A climber is more likely to get hurt scrambling on the walk-off over there than the roped climbing itself.
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Largo
Sport climber
The Big Wide Open Face
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Topic Author's Reply - Sep 18, 2018 - 09:26am PT
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What massively interconnected neurons can accomplish is still an open question. It is premature to rule out subjectivity, unless you begin with that premise.
This, IMO, is a misrepresentation of the challenge. It misrepresents because it ignores the strikingly obvious: You cannot directly observe phenomenological experience. All you can observe are the moving physical parts.
When you build your first assumptions on this simple, incontrovertible truth, you are on solid ground. If you build your first assumption on the fairy tale that "future experiments" will disclose that the experiential itself IS observable and measureable, you start in peat moss for obvious reasons.
The only recourse to gripping Type A physicalism "at any cost" like this is to default into the boneyard of Identity Theory.
Ain't no way around it. If you believe otherwise, demonstrate same.
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jogill
climber
Colorado
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Sep 18, 2018 - 10:51am PT
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"When you build your first assumptions on this simple, incontrovertible truth, you are on solid ground. If you build your first assumption on the fairy tale that "future experiments" will disclose that the experiential itself IS observable and measureable, you start in peat moss for obvious reasons."
John, you grip your POV with a bulldog-like fervor. It's better to keep an open mind, for paradigms may shift dramatically at some future time, allowing an overview, a revelation that we cannot now imagine. What you and I see as categorical differences between subjective and objective may be an illusion.
Leibniz made wonderful contributions to mathematics, but the mill experiment was not a philosophical masterpiece.
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jogill
climber
Colorado
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Sep 18, 2018 - 04:37pm PT
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For Jan. More of the "serpent":
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Jan
Mountain climber
Colorado & Nepal
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Sep 18, 2018 - 06:20pm PT
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I like this one even better up close. Now it reminds me of the sea snakes I used to run into while snorkeling in Okinawa. Deadly poisonous but very shy. You are a veritable art gallery to yourself, John.
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MH2
Boulder climber
Andy Cairns
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Sep 18, 2018 - 07:56pm PT
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Largo,
Take the quote posted by John Gill:
The mill example is supposed to illustrate this: even an extremely small machine, if it is purely material, works only in virtue of the arrangement of its parts. Hence, it is always possible, at least in principle, to enlarge the machine. When we imagine the machine thus enlarged, that is, when we imagine being able to distinguish the machine’s parts as we can distinguish the parts of a mill, we will realize that the machine cannot possibly have genuine perceptions.
Go back and think this over. If you "enlarged" atoms, as Liebniz proposed for his didactic purposes, would such a machine, if it is purely material, be able to do photosynthesis? How would it perform what happens when photons are given two slits to pass through?
The reference to the Mill thought experiment shows a perspective preserved in the peat.
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WBraun
climber
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Sep 19, 2018 - 06:59am PT
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All Gill's photos look like chocolate is being made .....
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