What is "Mind?"

Discussion Topic

Return to Forum List

This thread has been locked

Messages 8501 - 8520 of total 22307 in this topic

<< First | < Previous | Show All | Next > | Last >>

MH2

Boulder climber

Andy Cairns

Apr 17, 2016 - 07:50am PT

I like the flimflam defense in debate,

Clearly. Your claim that we are remarkably far from an explanation of consciousness has no other defence.

jogill

climber

Colorado

Apr 17, 2016 - 09:37am PT

We all become philosophers after a few beers, although rigorous science becomes less of an option.

paul roehl

Boulder climber

california

Apr 17, 2016 - 11:02am PT

Clearly. Your claim that we are remarkably far from an explanation of consciousness has no other defence.

Take a painting... a famous one, the Mona Lisa say. What science can do and tell us very specifically and accurately is the nature of the pigments through chemical analysis, even perhaps where those pigments came from, the wavelengths of color they produced, the structure and make up of the panel upon which those pigments are bound and the type of binder and brushes used by the artist. All very interesting, meanwhile poor "Mona" remains but an unattended mystery, her meaning and the meaning of her background, what appears to be a reference to the Dolomites, go unobserved and unexplained though we have "hard" scientific knowledge of the painting

I see a similarity here to the advances of neuroscience. Ask a neuroscientist what is the actual experience of the taste of chocolate in the individual consciousness and see what they say. I can't imagine any competent neuroscientist declaring they are any where near an understanding of that experience.

eeyonkee

Trad climber

Golden, CO

Apr 17, 2016 - 12:04pm PT

Hey, thanks for this, sycorax.

In light of philosophy's five branches: logic, ethics, aesthetics, epistemology, and metaphysics, I disagree.

That's perfect! It seems clear that it is specifically philosophy's pursuit of metaphysics that is the issue. As far as logic, ethics, aesthetics, and epistemology I, and I would have to assume, most scientists have no problem with these as legitimate fields of study for philosophy. Metaphysics, not so much. The ancients, for one, did not understand evolution, and that changes everything. Without a good understanding of evolution, any theory of mind is just mental masturbation. By the way, understanding evolution is well within the capacity of the average intelligence (like mine).

I want to state my belief in the obvious. This should be the default theory of mind. We are products of evolution. Mind is a product of evolution. Mind, as we know it, is on a continuum with that of animals (I just reminded my cat, however, that we're WAY ahead).

Largo's navel-gazing and Paul's apologies for classical (metaphysical) philosophy and Jan's calls for inclusiveness of competing metaphysical ideas are not up to the task of being reasonable substitutes for the default hypothesis, in my opinion.

jgill

Boulder climber

The high prairie of southern Colorado

Apr 17, 2016 - 12:51pm PT

As far as logic, ethics, aesthetics, and epistemology I, and I would have to assume, most scientists have no problem with these as legitimate fields of study for philosophy

OK with me. Especially if they incorporate modern scientific accomplishments that might have a bearing.

BASE104

Social climber

An Oil Field

Apr 17, 2016 - 12:51pm PT

To back up a little, scientists must be ethical to do good work. The temptation to fudge data in order to keep your grant going or to claim a false discovery is just as great as it is in many other fields of human endeavor.

I've seen it. I've seen geologists draw up bullshit prospects that have an extremely low chance of success, merely because they can sell it. After they run through one group of investors, you find some new ones. They make tons of money off of dry holes by promoting the leasehold cost. How that works is you lease a ton of mineral rights. You pay, say, 50 bucks an acre and give a 1/8 royalty. When it is sold to investors, it is at 200 bucks an acre, and another 1/16 or the royalty is carved out for the player. Historically, geologists all get 2% of what they find, but in these acreage flips, sometimes millions of dollars change hands. Even if you drill a dry hole, you will make a ton of money. These type of guys don't worry as much about economically finding oil and gas. They look for wild ideas that they can SELL. It is almost impossible to make money investing in oil and gas unless you are a partner, and everything is done on a "heads up" basis. That means that there are no promotes. Real costs are shared among all parties. Income is also evenly shared. I work a lot for a guy who does everything heads up.

The big gas field I found was drilled heads up. No costs were inflated to investors, because there were only 5 partners, and all but one were other geologists. We didn't even carve out overrides to me, the generating geologist. I paid the same bills that the partners paid.

It is a very honest way to do things.

I usually make at least 5 grand to do the wellsite geology. I'm the one who examines the samples, keeps the chromatograph running to look for gas shows, and evaluates the logs, deciding whether to run pipe or plug the well. 24 hours per day. I know how to isolate a 6 foot interval and run a drillstem test over that zone. I can look at the pressures and tell if it is a good reservoir or not. It is high pressure, because 60% of a well's total well cost happens after you decide to make it a producer. You have years to decide whether or not to drill it. You have about 12 hours to decide whether or not to case and equip the well. I'm brutally honest. I've gotten into many arguments with company management. They want to make a producer. It might produce, but from the pressure data, I can tell how much it will make before we even run casing. Casing point decisions are super high pressure. If you ignore something, you can miss out on millions. If you set pipe on a piece of crap well, you will lose that completion money, and whatever the well loses a month. Not all wells make money.

I'm proud that I have done much of my business this way. The one time I was in an acreage promote, I made 90 grand sucking off the investors. It had already been carved out. I got a small percentage of the leasehold promote.

Amoral and unethical behavior is all around us. Humans do not always tell the truth. They are not always moral or ethical. It is a personal thing, to make the decision to be moral and ethical.

It is harder to fake mathematics and physics, because they are repeatable, but the test of a petroleum geology question is one base largely on economics and profit. The test is a very expensive well, and the cost of the leasehold.

Somehow, when big money is staring you in the face, some people are just compulsively crooked. I worked with a guy like that once. He is worth millions, or was until his production income crashed. I assume that he can't make his bank payments now. It couldn't have happened to a better guy. Now that hundreds of geologists are out of work, he teaches seminars on how to do it on your own. That baffles me. I've considered attending, and speaking out about what he has done. I'm too introverted for that, though.

Oddly, he has a good reputation among many. We had a difference of opinion on risk, though, and I told him so. Result: Dry hole. I knew it before we drilled it. They placed the well in the wrong place.

He took me on to map this certain area. Later, when the big companies were looking at fracking in Kansas, I took a very lucrative 1 year consulting job. I was successful in preventing them from drilling, so that was a success. The companies that did drill up there were not successful.

It was a simple matter of permeability. I had hundreds of hard data points showing it wouldn't work as a horizontal play, and told them so without emotion or prejudice. I consider it more important to be moral and ethical than being rich, although they did pay me a lot for my input.

BASE104

Social climber

An Oil Field

Apr 17, 2016 - 02:08pm PT

I should add that ethics is an important question. One that governs the way we treat other people throughout our lives.

I think that good ethics have been already defined, so not much research is necessary. Like Philosophy, it has been done.

The only exception to my statement that Philosophy is dead is what has changed since Plato: Technology. Facing this flood of new technology ridden world does raise ethical questions. For instance, in this medium, it is easy to insult people compared to a face to face. It goes much further, if you think about it. Any new philosophy should be about that, because that is what has changed.

I see a lot of that going on here. Largo is as guilty as anyone. He's hurled plenty of insults. His are just more clever. They are still personal insults. Insults should not be necessary. What we are all after is a search for truth, in all forms, and if we behaved that way, there would be kindness. Buddhists are big on kindness, and from them we could all learn something.

We still have wars. We still have vast gulfs in beliefs between different tribes of humans. I for one would look forward to a one world government. No reason to spend trillions of money on weapons and arms. That money is embezzled not only from us, but from our progeny.

The idea of war is foreign to me. I can't see a use for it. It was necessary to stop Hitler, but knocking of Sadaam Hussein has actualy left the country in fragments. We failed in that war. We should have just captured him, his main circle, arrested them and left. Imposing a western style democracy there has repeatedly failed.

MikeL

Social climber

Seattle, WA

Apr 17, 2016 - 05:47pm PT

We are products of evolution. Mind is a product of evolution.

Ho boy.

WBraun

climber

Apr 17, 2016 - 05:53pm PT

The idea of war is foreign to me.

All while the gross materialists, modern scientists, are constantly at war with their own selves due to poof fund of knowledge of their own selves.

High Fructose Corn Spirit

Gym climber

Apr 17, 2016 - 05:56pm PT

"Ho boy"... etc etc etc...

Pay em no mind, eeyonkee. They're just blowin smoke.

Here I am just re-affirming what you already know: there's a whole world of true "science types" out there who would get your posts incl the last one immediately and perfectly.

What we're seeing on this thread I think are reflections of lives, decades worth in most cases, absent from science (absent from science reasoning, the science body of knowledge aka science edu, the science community). Participating in this thread has been quite insightful and telling, actually.

25 years ago I would've been embarrassed for country and for them. But since I've learned to just work through it. After all, it IS - all of it - the whole shebang - the good bad and ugly - nature's doings just as you said.

As I mentioned to someone else once upon a time, their posting - as naive and even ridiculous ("Ho boy") as it is - serves as an everyday reminder that these "actors" of the world (or of the game) are out there. So it has its place, I think. As actors in the gameplay ourselves it makes us more savvy.

Edit PS

We've got robots on Mars for Chrisakes. President Jimmy Carter no longer has brain cancer. I'd be sh#t out of luck without my corrective contacts and vulnerable to predators everywhere. So here is a toast to science in all her phases! also, a second toast, to strict causation where there is no supernatural forces extant let alone "above the law", a constraint - thank atheist God - that in fact makes all these incredible science wonders possible in the first place - even down to the microjoule and microsecond. Alright, done. :)

BLUEBLOCR

Social climber

joshua tree

Apr 17, 2016 - 05:58pm PT

Ho boy.

^^i know, right! it's along the same lines as the other side not believing man can effect the environment.

Do you feel like your standing in the middle of an 8 lane hwy with cars going 100mph in both directions?? Ha

MH2

Boulder climber

Andy Cairns

Apr 17, 2016 - 06:01pm PT

I can't imagine any competent neuroscientist declaring they are any where near an understanding of that experience.

Whose work have you looked at?

BLUEBLOCR

Social climber

joshua tree

Apr 17, 2016 - 06:02pm PT

Here I am just re-affirming what you already know: there's a whole world of true science types who would get yours posts incl the last one perfectly.

Perfectly wrong.

Show us some proofs pretty boy

WBraun

climber

Apr 17, 2016 - 06:03pm PT

What we're seeing on this thread are reflections of lives, decades worth in most cases, absent from real intelligence
by the so called mechanistic science only types who've boxed themselves into ignorance .....

paul roehl

Boulder climber

california

Apr 17, 2016 - 06:07pm PT

What we're seeing on this thread I think are reflections of lives, decades worth in most cases, absent from science (science reasoning, the science body of knowledge aka science edu, the science community). It's been quite insightful, telling, actually.

That's a fascinating analysis without a drop of evidence. Ironic for one claiming an education so steeped in the high, hard, gnostic methodology of the scientist. How on earth do you "know" who has and has not been absent from science beyond your interpretation of snippets of posts on this thread.

Ward Trotter

Trad climber

Apr 17, 2016 - 06:15pm PT

I for one would look forward to a one world government.

For the life of me I'll never understand such a sentiment. For one thing all a future tyrant and his gang would have to do in order to wield global despotism would be to take over just one government.

i will never understand that particular utopian ideal.it makes no sense to me. But then again what is rational about any type of Utopianism.? A quick glance at history illustrates their dangerous folly, and their mythology.

Climbed JT Friday in constant 40-50 mph wind gusts. First time I've had weighty gear blown right out of my hands.
Best route of the day: "Colorado Crack" ( FA 1975 B.Westbay J.Long H.Burton)
Even featured a few mild canyoneering-type moves to get into Conan's Corridor.

High Fructose Corn Spirit

Gym climber

Apr 17, 2016 - 06:19pm PT

without a drop of evidence.

Oh really?

Paraphrasing: The majority of stars one sees in the sky are long dead. (Paul R)

Ring a bell?

With all due respect, claims like this are a dead give away to general science acumen. In this case that covering astronomy.

Just as I've pointed out before, in the case of confusing a pitcher and a quarterback in sports talk. It would be worth a facepalm for many.