What is "Mind?"

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Ed Hartouni

Trad climber

Livermore, CA

Oct 22, 2015 - 08:41am PT

Honestly, I have introduced nothing new here and have only put forth ideas that are part of the standard discussions per the death of staunch materialism.

you discussions of physics are every bit the same as someone who has read everything written and watched everything shot about climbing, but has never actually climbed themselves...

to wit, you have no experience with this physics you are reporting... you have only read about it.

The most important class I had related to learning and understanding quantum mechanics was the advanced undergraduate lab. The experiment on the spectral line splitting of Rubidium by magnetic fields made a largely theoretical topic come alive.

Later, repeating the various important experiments, especially the Stern-Gerlach experiment, built a crucial "experiential" basis for understanding these things you can only speculate on.

Your arguments claiming "the death of staunch materialism" are weak, and they are rather irrelevant to address the proposals for a physical explanation of "the mind." Your lack of experience leads you into semantic traps in quite predictable ways... and your appeals for more "explanation" to help you claim you are not trapped have the same result as that someone we mentioned above, totally lacking any experience climbing, arguing with someone who has decades of climbing experience.

While your arguments "are not new," they aren't necessarily correct, and the subtleties of this are lost on you. But then again, the NYTimes doesn't quite get it right either...

Sorry, Einstein. Quantum Study Suggests ‘Spooky Action’ Is Real.
By JOHN MARKOFF OCT. 21, 2015

jgill

Boulder climber

The high prairie of southern Colorado

Oct 22, 2015 - 10:53am PT

You set the howler up. You knock the howler over

Excellent research, Dingus!

You have nailed the Wizard of No-thing!

"A potential weakness of the experiment, he suggested, is that an electronic system the researchers used to add randomness to their measurement may in fact be predetermined in some subtle way that is not easily detectable, meaning that the outcome might still be predetermined as Einstein believed."

Randomness can be elusive.

Largo

Sport climber

The Big Wide Open Face

Topic Author's Reply - Oct 23, 2015 - 11:38am PT

Rather than rail against what I am saying on principal, why not dig into the thick of it and correct any of the ideas that you feel are incorrect.

I say subjectivity is unlike any other phenomenon in reality, that all other examples are objects. If you disagree, give examples.

I say that any example of "emergent functions" you can list will always be an object begetting an object, or something we can directly measure. If you believe otherwise, give examples.

I have pointed out that reductionism - the Golden Fleece of those clinging to a mechanistic/materialistic view of reality - must not stop at the meta level of things but rather you need to keep going down. And the further you go, the more the "stuff" has no universal definition or known quality and increasingly becomes "known" only as a math construct, not some objective "thing."

I say the world of fixed things and objects is highly suspect, that it might be the case that there are only qualities - i.e., there is no such "thing" as a photon, there is only luminosity.

I and many others say subjectivity and objectivity are vastly different phenomenon. Ed said that if you ant to know QM you need to get down to the experiential to really understand it. I agree with this. It also works the same way with subjectivity. If you want to know about the subjective you need shut up and stop calculating and directly explore that realm. Fruity says this is not the standard neuro model and I say the standard neuro model does not look at subjectivity in and of itself, but rather it looks at objective functioning and guesses and speculates about the subjective. If you disagree, tell us wh (making sure not to conflate objectivity with subjectivity).

Sam Harris, Fruity's High Lama, said that subjectivity is not reducible to objective functioning. What he means - in part - is that when you reduce, you will at some time stop talking about subjectivity in and of itself and will only be talking about an object (the brain). To claim that you are talking about both at the same time can only be accomplished by conflating objective and subjective. If you believe differently, show us how.

If you see straw men in these observations, show us where.

While I am accused of harping on the same points, the same can be said for the daffy points of materialism that keep getting repeated here over and over.

Perhaps the greatest delusions of all is the belief that all phenomenon in reality are objects. Most people have no idea that the "world" they experience is not "out there" and "it" does NOT remain the same as their brains and sense organs tell them, as though reality was a kind of fixed world that men past, present and future walked though as one might walk through a diorama. This is not remotely the case. While most people rail against the idea that subjectivity plays a creative role is reality formation, it is an idea worth exploring.

And PPSP, while we argue and bicker on this thread, know all of your friends here are thinking about you and your father.

JL

High Fructose Corn Spirit

Gym climber

Oct 23, 2015 - 01:24pm PT

In good faith you watch David Eagleman's The Brain (2015) airing on PBS right now, airing one episode every week. Two already aired.

http://video.pbs.org/program/brain-david-eagleman/

beginning with Ep 1: What is Reality?

and then we'll talk, we'll have a basis.

Unless or until it's just more of the same - a thousand times over on your part - disrespectful ridicule of the science by you and naive pointing out by you, by a science ugnostic, that a solution (mechanistic) to the hard problem remains elusive. (No duh.)

.....

Nyad-Shermer
http://www.wsj.com/articles/just-keep-swimming-1445618407

cintune

climber

The Utility Muffin Research Kitchen

Oct 23, 2015 - 01:57pm PT

when you reduce, you will at some time stop talking about subjectivity in and of itself and will only be talking about an object (the brain). To claim that you are talking about both at the same time can only be accomplished by conflating objective and subjective. If you believe differently, show us how.

It doesn't reduce to the brain, it reduces to the transfers of electrical energy and chemical information that take place there. Those are processes, not objects. Pretty much every one of your points can be similarly dismissed due to their flimsy logic and bully rhetoric. And they still all lead nowhere, except maybe down the street to the local sangha. More effective maybe to put up a sign with an arrow and see who shows up just out of curiosity. The browbeating pseudoscience ain't doing the trick.

jgill

Boulder climber

The high prairie of southern Colorado

Oct 23, 2015 - 03:04pm PT

Most people have no idea that the "world" they experience is not "out there" and "it" does NOT remain the same as their brains and sense organs tell them, as though reality was a kind of fixed world . . . (JL)

It would be good if this conversation were to move into the 21st century rather than being mired in Kantian discourse from the 18th century time and time again. OK, assume one accepts that subjectivity, being, mind, etc. cannot be objectified and that even attempting to rigorously define them is an effort in that direction, where do you go from here? It appears that your arguments in essence are that only by Zen or some similar meditation can one "understand" or "realize" these terms.

You are very evangelical.

You can tell me where I have gone astray.

WBraun

climber

Oct 23, 2015 - 03:14pm PT

HFCS -- "To anyone who's actually had several years of neuroscience - hello, that's me"

Bullsh!t !!!!

You're only a sock puppet, anonymous coward.

Until you sign your real self to it you have no credibility .....

High Fructose Corn Spirit

Gym climber

Oct 23, 2015 - 03:58pm PT

sock puppet, now. lol

you're the number one reason this thread isn't taken seriously.

grats.

I double facepalm at the thought of what YOUR posts would look like - and to the depths they'd sink - were you anonymous.

Largo, seriously, if you'd ever want to have a more serious exchange, you'd first have to address this child adult lapdog/syco of yours.

WBraun

climber

Oct 23, 2015 - 04:24pm PT

I'm not anonymous.

But you are and exhibit the classic cowardice evasion again and again.

You will never take any responsibility for anything you say.

It's easy to remain a coward.

You just project your bullsh!t evasion onto the world outside of your own cowardice self as usual.

You even need others to speak for you shows even more cowardice.

Give it up .... it's ovah fo fruitcakes.

High Fructose Corn Spirit

Gym climber

Oct 23, 2015 - 04:46pm PT

speaking of responsibility, etc, one wonders how you can even post what you do and not be ashamed when nine out of ten others would be.

utterly no redeeming value whatsoever

anyways, basta.

MH2

Boulder climber

Andy Cairns

Oct 23, 2015 - 06:32pm PT

Werner is by several yardsticks the most solid person posting here, though you might need to know him beyond this thread to realize that.

HFCS is a negative in the STI.

JL, reduction is not about looking for smaller and smaller stuff to explain the bigger stuff. It is about finding the simplest set of rules that explain the world we see. One of the motivators is aesthetic. The beauty of simplicity.

You show a huge lack of understanding of the materialist view.

You are the one who claims there are phenomena that are not physical. You are the one who needs to back up your claims. Saying that subjectivity is not a thing takes you nowhere. Why is subjectivity beyond physical description?

crankster

Trad climber

No. Tahoe

Oct 23, 2015 - 07:28pm PT

You are wrong. HFCS is a rational human being.

Psilocyborg

climber

Oct 23, 2015 - 08:56pm PT

lol @ the betas in this thread

High Fructose Corn Spirit

Gym climber

Oct 24, 2015 - 07:26am PT

Thanks, Crankster.

...is by several yardsticks the most solid person posting here,

Umm, this is not YOS maintenance or rescue, this "here" is the mind thread.
Nonetheless, as the saying goes: There's no accounting for taste. Ain't that the truth.

"HFCS is a negative in the STI." -mh2

Thank you.

"You show a huge lack of understanding of the materialist view..." mh2

MH2 is a negative in the STI.

.....

Y'all have a good one!

WBraun

climber

Oct 24, 2015 - 08:51am PT

cintune -- "it reduces to the transfers of electrical energy and chemical information that take place there"

Consciousness is not electrical energy and chemical information.

The gross materialists just make up sh!t as they go along and then brow beat their poor fund of knowledge as science.

The bottom line while you are masquerading science as pure bullsh!t you still are in the camp
of the anonymous so called neuroscientist coward who's afraid and yourself being total hypocrites .....

zBrown

Ice climber

Oct 24, 2015 - 09:04am PT

What is "Mind"?

I certainly do not know, but thankfully one can change it.

Quantum theory is bizarre. Difficult to grasp for even some of the leading researchers in the field, a single object can exist in more than one state at once. A particle can have two different positions, orientations, and charges at the same time, but will only explicitly reveal one of the states once it has been observed or measured.

...

Einstein dismissed the idea of quantum entanglement as a kind of “spooky action at a distance,” and largely left it alone in his work. A new experiment from researchers at the Delft University of Technology in Holland suggests that the idea may be more of a reality than we once thought.

Gonna have to wait for Ed to weigh in here (Dr. not Mister).:)

http://www.babwnews.com/2015/10/einstein-proved-wrong-by-quantum-entanglement/

jstan

climber

Oct 24, 2015 - 09:36am PT

Back in the last century when I was taking courses in QM I experienced all of the perplexity expressed above. But after Feynman's Robb Memorial Lecture covering all of the natural processes subject to Quantum Electrodynamics, it got clear what nature is doing.

Would any of us not want to live all the possible lives in order to decide which we preferred? This is a subject of continuing debate even here on ST. Well, if the total energy in an object is small enough, that is precisely what nature does. In going from a situation A to a situation B, a particle or process goes by all possible paths and all at the same time. Be cool if I could do the same, but I am just too fat.

I would take this a little further. This thread has 8000 posts. We even have individuals who post every thing they can think of. Self contradictory stuff even. Well they and this thread are simply going from A to B by all possible paths. All while we say we are looking for the one unique answer.

Ideas don't have any fat.

zBrown

Ice climber

Oct 24, 2015 - 12:55pm PT

^It is becoming clearer. Thanks.

cintune

climber

The Utility Muffin Research Kitchen

Oct 24, 2015 - 03:16pm PT

cintune -- "it reduces to the transfers of electrical energy and chemical information that take place there"

Consciousness is not electrical energy and chemical information.

Okay, then, so what is it then? Just a straight answer would be fine.

The gross materialists just make up sh!t as they go along and then brow beat their poor fund of knowledge as science.

I don't think "brow beat" means what you might think it means. What's so bad about gross materialism anyway? And science doesn't make up sh#t. At least good science doesn't.

The bottom line while you are masquerading science as pure bullsh!t you still are in the camp of the anonymous so called neuroscientist coward who's afraid and yourself being total hypocrites .....

My ID is in my profile. But you've never heard of me by any name, so that hardly matters. Please explain the hypocrisy.