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eeyonkee
Trad climber
Golden, CO
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May 10, 2016 - 09:21am PT
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Interesting that you non-science types didn't seem to get my point that my first person viewpoint is utterly comprised when I have Alzheimer's or I am hallucinating. Like I said, easily explained my science. Maybe one of you can explain how this works in your worldview.
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BASE104
Social climber
An Oil Field
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May 10, 2016 - 10:42am PT
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No human being can ever achieve an objective point of view because no such thing exists
Hmmmm. I agree that we are helplessly subjective creatures.
Where I disagree is the word "ever."
To get around our subjective experience we use devices. Where before you could only say that something was "long" or "short," now you can pull out a tape measure and say, 131.6 centimeters. If you have your own tape measure, you can open it up to 131.6 centimeters and see exactly how long the other person is saying. We have found ways to get around the subjectivity in certain cases.
Then look at the Hubble Space Telescope. Same thing, in a way.
It is called Technology, John. We do have ways to objectively quantify some things. Not all, of course, but some. The computer you are typing on is not a unique snowflake. It was built on a production line and there are many just like it.
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jogill
climber
Colorado
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May 10, 2016 - 12:04pm PT
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The Central Limit Theorem has never been proven (MikeL)
"For a theorem of such fundamental importance to statistics and applied probability, the central limit theorem has a remarkably simple proof using characteristic functions." (Wiki)
You might want to hitch a ride with JL on that spaceship headed for Hilbert space.
;>)
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jgill
Boulder climber
The high prairie of southern Colorado
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May 10, 2016 - 03:08pm PT
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I short-changed MikeL:
The central limit theorem has never been proven. It’s another one of those assumptions that statisticians make. Of course, the theory stands up to consensual reason, but that doesn’t mean that it is true (MikeL)
Boy, when we wander off our home reservations tragedy ensues.
;>)
I'm sure I would screw up just as badly were I to pontificate about management practices.
JL is more robust than any of us!
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High Fructose Corn Spirit
Gym climber
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May 10, 2016 - 03:11pm PT
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JL is more robust than any of us!
lol
only his number one beau would say that
"Oh he's so yummy!"
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MikeL
Social climber
Seattle, WA
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May 10, 2016 - 05:49pm PT
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Jgill: I'm sure I would screw up just as badly were I to pontificate about management practices.
Ha-ha. You should be in my class today.
Anyone who has ever been in an organization can report their own experiences--and they are relevant. They are data. Good management practices survey them regularly, talk with them, and management WITH them.
P.S. I know a little bit about statistics, although I don't rely upon them as much as I used to. We used to call them "statrickstics." They can lie and be valid, you know?
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MikeL
Social climber
Seattle, WA
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May 11, 2016 - 08:00am PT
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eeyonkee: Interesting that you non-science types didn't seem to get my point that my first person viewpoint is utterly comprised when I have Alzheimer's or I am hallucinating. Like I said, easily explained [by] science. Maybe one of you can explain how this works in your worldview.
You’re confusing explanation with what you are talking about.
Say what Alzheimer’s disease IS. Say what hallucinations ARE. What ARE you talking about? Aren’t you talking about consciousness? Say what THAT is.
Explanations involve abstractions, models, hypotheses, stories, narratives.
How can you be reasonably sure of HOW a thing works if you can’t be sure of (or pin down) WHAT a thing is to begin with?
Perhaps it doesn’t matter WHAT you are talking about, hmmmm?
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splitter
Trad climber
HighwayToHell
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May 11, 2016 - 08:55am PT
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Man's brain is, after all, the greatest natural resource. - Karl Brandt
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eeyonkee
Trad climber
Golden, CO
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May 11, 2016 - 09:20am PT
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Good one, MikeL. Always enjoy your illuminating posts.
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splitter
Trad climber
HighwayToHell
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May 11, 2016 - 09:23am PT
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Many ideas grow better when transplanted into another mind than in the one where they sprang up. - Oliver Wendell Holmes There comes a time when, indeed, "It is better to give than to recieve." So, don't bogart them ideas, homies! ;)
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MH2
Boulder climber
Andy Cairns
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May 11, 2016 - 09:38am PT
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How can you be reasonably sure of how a thing works?
Through study of what it does when interacting with other things.
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jstan
climber
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May 11, 2016 - 03:00pm PT
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Jgill: I'm sure I would screw up just as badly were I to pontificate about management practices.
My experience in management persuaded me we, as a rule, have it exactly ass backward.
Problems should move downward in an organization.
The solutions to those problems should move upward.
An example. A new requirement was imposed by upper management on my area. So I roughed out a way we might meet that (admittedly silly) requirement. At a combined staff meeting for both departments I described the idea I had. One of the staff said ( in front of the combined staff mind you)
"Stannard. You are out of your f...ing mind!" I replied, "OK. What is your suggestion?"
He then proposed a method that would work easily. I looked around the room and asked, "Any one have a problem with that?" No one did. So I said to him, OK You have the job."
(I have never been able to pass up opportunities to be a sneaky bastard.)
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Largo
Sport climber
The Big Wide Open Face
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Topic Author's Reply - May 11, 2016 - 04:29pm PT
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To get around our subjective experience we use devices.
---
A device doesn't have a conscious perspective, or any perspective, BASE. No one is arguing that an EEG doesn't record objective data. But the EEG doesn't have a third-person conscious perspective. It just records data. These are two different topics.
Again - A device can only register stimulus according to how it was designed or programmed by a conscious human being from the first person perspective, because that's the only way consciousness exists. There is no conscious machine with a third-person perspective looking back at us "objectively." Nor is there any "objective" knowledge gathered by a machine, or any mind-independent anything. That's folk science.
And per the putative third-person objective perspective. An instrument only collects data, and it can't "give us" a conscious perspective of any kind. The data that it does provide us doesn't become "knowledge" till a conscious person downloads it.
Believing otherwise is a philosophical position. It is in no way empirical and is certainly not science. But you can spin on it forever if you don't understand the basic concept.
WH said it differently here:
Consciousness is never experienced in the plural, only in the singular. Not only has none of us ever experienced more than one consciousness, but there is also no trace of circumstantial evidence of this ever happening anywhere in the world.
That is, consciousness cannot be divided between here, where it is only in the first person, and somehow appropriated by some other agency or machine that, from from a mind-independent perspective different than our own, can render a strictly "objective" perspective from the third person perspective. Only a god can do that.
Anyone arguing against this fact need only provide an example of a conscious third-person perspective existing anywhere in the world.
Believe it - there ain't none.
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jgill
Boulder climber
The high prairie of southern Colorado
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May 11, 2016 - 04:31pm PT
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It's interesting that the Zen-sitters here describe one's "I" as an illusion of sorts, but when they talk about empty awareness or no physical extent or other mental-state outcomes of meditation they do not consider them illusions. This must be an act of faith.
Remind me: who is WH?
Good post, JL.
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Largo
Sport climber
The Big Wide Open Face
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Topic Author's Reply - May 11, 2016 - 04:37pm PT
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Werner Heisenberg.
And John G. brings up a great point per illusions, bore out in Dennett's claim (know as Dennett's Folly) that our experience of subjectivity is fatally flawed but that our sense of objectivity is beyond questioned, ignoring the fact that our only way of knowing the "real" universe is through first person consciousness itself.
First person is escapable only through dreamless sleep, anesthetic and death. Otherwise we are always in it. The silly belief that it is an illusion (because it is not an external object) is based on the philosophical belief that this pronouncement (about consciousness being an illusion) was or could be made from a third-person, mind-independent perspective, through which we could know, conclusively, that we are hallucinating or "only believe we are conscious." As Plank said, all of these beliefs postulate consciousness. That's the rub.
But far more interesting to me these days is the empirical adventure into what consciousness and awareness is from the meta level of consciousness itself, a process where the analytical mind finds full action, and something many have for centuries felt was impossible - like climbing El Capitan.
There is some exciting work being done in this regards and I'll share it with the group when I have a chance.
JL
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PSP also PP
Trad climber
Berkeley
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May 11, 2016 - 05:39pm PT
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JG said"It's interesting that the Zen-sitters here describe one's "I" as an illusion of sorts"
"I" is a conceptual construct. "I" before, or not attached to concepts(thinking ) is what WB would call big "I".
An interesting aspect of all this is you have to experience to get it. Understanding it is another ego oriented definition (concept) and thus way off the mark.
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MikeL
Social climber
Seattle, WA
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May 11, 2016 - 07:43pm PT
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eeyonkee: Good one, MikeL. Always enjoy your illuminating posts.
Well, maybe.
Whether it’s a dream, an illusion, an hallucination, or the effects of serious brain damage, what's the rubric (it seems to me) is not the content of the experience, but experience itself. It’s not the dream—but the dreaming. It’s not what you think is going on but the very indisputable fact that there is consciousness . . . yours, as a manner of speaking.
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jgill
Boulder climber
The high prairie of southern Colorado
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May 11, 2016 - 08:22pm PT
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"I" is a conceptual construct
Is one "self-aware" after the small "I" is suppressed? If so, it seems a contradiction of sorts.
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Largo
Sport climber
The Big Wide Open Face
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Topic Author's Reply - May 11, 2016 - 08:36pm PT
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"I" is a conceptual construct
Is one "self-aware" after the small "I" is suppressed? If so, it seems a contradiction of sorts.
I mentioned that the "Mind Project" was seeking to wrangle down what consciousness IS at the meta level, and it is through this investigation that a person can answer those questions (like John's above) for themselves. Once the data base gets built up the commonalities will start showing up. Without the questions grounded in direct empirical investigations, you end up just spinning in questions without getting any clarity about the questions themselves.
And per Mike's point, it's not that an illusion or a hallucination or "the truth" or God or any thing else should appear in our experience, but rather that we have experience at all, that ANYTHING presents itself. No one should be so wonky as to say we are not aware of content, "real" or otherwise. The existence of experience postulates consciousness, and whatever that may be is the issue of the mind project.
JL
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MikeL
Social climber
Seattle, WA
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May 11, 2016 - 08:47pm PT
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Jgill: Is one "self-aware" after the small "I" is suppressed?
This might be an improper expression. One doesn’t actually suppress the small “I” as it were. It’s more an issue of “adding to” . . . viz, implementing “and.” This is how improvisation and adaptation works. One adds to, not replaces.
You look at maybe one projection in your life. You focus, and in doing so, you tend to converge to one viewpoint. This is a sign of an analytical mind. Good on ya, but, . . . (you can fill-in the blanks).
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