Let's talk Neuroscience

[Shirtless Crackhead]

I'm perfectly sober you dense sumbitch.

 

Dick heads like yourself are asserting there's some burden of proof for proving that reality is real.

 

The way I see it, the impetus is on the other foot. Because we have no reason, other than the conceptual "possibility" that it's not, to think otherwise.

[exogen]

I'm perfectly sober you dense sumbitch.

 

If your sober, then act like it. And if your going to resort to namecalling it would help if you actually represented my postion correctly, don't you think?

 

Dick heads like yourself are asserting there's some burden of proof for proving that reality is real.

 

I am not saying anything that, your saying that I'm saying that.

 

 

The way I see it, the impetus is on the other foot. Because we have no reason, other than the conceptual "possibility" that it's not, to think otherwise.

 

Again, your misrepresenting my position. If you want to call me names, fine, have fun, but at least take the time to get the position your saying is silly correct instead of putting up straw men.

 

Edit: If you don't want to talk metaphysical than you shouldn't use metaphysical terms like *materialism," in that metaphysical sense when your talking about neuroscience or science generally.

Edited June 15, 2013 by exogen

[Shirtless Crackhead]

There's no more certainty in a metaphysical than there is in a physical.

 

If everything we experience could be VR, then the experience itself could be VR.

 

There's a reason why I disdain philosophical metaphysics.

 

When I refer to materialism, I'm referring to the idea that we don't need non-physical explanations for reality. The "hard-problem" of consciousness stems from our naivety on the nature of the human brain, not an issue with consciousness being/not being part of physical reality. We also have every reason to assume there is a mechanistic explanation, however uncomfortable that makes us feel.

 

Sure it's "possible" that it's not mechanistic, and we'd be wrong to assume so. But we have no inclination to operate on that assumption, because it is just that, an assumption. We are constrained all the time, with regards to metaphysical discussion to the parameters our pattern-seeking mammalian brain leaves us with. There's a billion assumptions in philosophy, and you don't seem to mind them at all. We assume that reality is causal, that it has to function in a "logical" fashion, when for all we know, it doesn't have to. Maybe some people are vat-minded philosophical zombies, maybe some of us are living in a VR reality, maybe we co-existing in a phase state of the quantum wave function. Who knows?

 

We clearly do not gain ground by trying to hash out wild-eyed ideas based on things we cannot test and cannot grasp. We can however operate on physical explinations of "natural" (assuming it's natural, I suppose) phenomenon.

 

One thing that bugs the ever-loving shit out of me, is this idea that if we were brains in vats, it would somehow change what we would be concerned with. The depth of my annoyance seemed to have missed you last time I brought this up. If we exist in a VR universe, then that is our reality, until we figure out how to break threw the "fourth wall" as it where. But the idea that assuming we are in reality, that we experience reality (albeit subjectively through imperfect neural processing units) is somehow a mistake, is fucking laughable. "This" the world you and I experience on a day-to-day basis, is our reality, whether we like it or not, the "Truth" of that "reality" is totally over-ridden by the practical extent that "This" world we live in, is the world we live in, so it's the one we must contend with.

 

I think that when philosophers chime in with "hurr durr but brain in a vat" they are just proposing doubt for little more than their own intellectual entertainment. While I recognize the usefulness of such thought experiments at times, they don't have the ground to criticize physical science nor the ground to throw ad hoc theories like quantum consciousness around like they know what they're talking about.

 

Sound sober enough for you?

 

Cunt.

[exogen]

There's no more certainty in a metaphysical than there is in a physical.

 

Well, if I understand your correctly here,

 

I agree with it insofar as there is no more certainty in the idea that there exists a physical world, than there is in the idea that there isn't one. That's what I have been saying.

 

What I am not sure you see are the implications of what that statement means.

 

If everything we experience could be VR, then the experience itself could be VR.

 

I don't see what your saying at all here. You didn't provide an inference, but what I think you might be trying to get at is falacious. If you could show the inference I could adress it.

 

 

There's a reason why I disdain philosophical metaphysics.

 

Well then you should distain materialism. The irony here is that the very sort of reasoning that is required logically, to justify that position, is the very same sort of reasoning you "distain."

Edited June 15, 2013 by exogen

[Shirtless Crackhead]

Well, if I understand your correctly here,

 

I agree with it insofar as there is no more certainty in the idea that there exists a physical world, than there is in the idea that there isn't one. That's what I have been saying.

 

What I am not sure you see are the implications of what that statement means.

 

My statement on certainty does not a two-way street maketh. We deal with some sort of reality on a regular basis, spare me the bullshit over capital R "Reality" because reality is, we're in the reality we deal with. There's far less doubt on that reality, then ones we propose in our heads as concepts.

 

We do exist in a physical reality, regardless of the "Truth" of it, the "truth" is we have a reality that has extremely useful physical explanations. Even if "this" reality is not "Real" it doesn't change that inside of it, the physical explanations carry weight.

 

I'm not sure you've ever caught the implications of what I've been trying to tell you for a very long time.

 

I don't see what your saying at all here. You didn't provide an inference, but what I think you might be trying to get at is falacious. If you could show the inference I could adress it.

 

If the conscious mind could be more or less a captive to a virtual reality it assumes is real, then the conscious mind might be part of the virtual reality and assumes itself to be real. You cannot safely assume you are yourself "Real" no more than you can assume reality is real or whatever else you want to assume.

 

Well then you should distain materialism. The irony here is that the very sort of reasoning that is required logically, to justify that position, is the very same sort of reasoning you "distain."

 

When I refer to materialism, I'm referring to the idea that we don't need non-physical explanations for reality. The "hard-problem" of consciousness stems from our naivety on the nature of the human brain, not an issue with consciousness being/not being part of physical reality. We also have every reason to assume there is a mechanistic explanation, however uncomfortable that makes us feel.

 

Sure it's "possible" that it's not mechanistic, and we'd be wrong to assume so. But we have no inclination to operate on that assumption, because it is just that, an assumption. We are constrained all the time, with regards to metaphysical discussion to the parameters our pattern-seeking mammalian brain leaves us with. There's a billion assumptions in philosophy, and you don't seem to mind them at all. We assume that reality is causal, that it has to function in a "logical" fashion, when for all we know, it doesn't have to. Maybe some people are vat-minded philosophical zombies, maybe some of us are living in a VR reality, maybe we co-existing in a phase state of the quantum wave function. Who knows?

 

We clearly do not gain ground by trying to hash out wild-eyed ideas based on things we cannot test and cannot grasp. We can however operate on physical explinations of "natural" (assuming it's natural, I suppose) phenomenon.

 

One thing that bugs the ever-loving shit out of me, is this idea that if we were brains in vats, it would somehow change what we would be concerned with. The depth of my annoyance seemed to have missed you last time I brought this up. If we exist in a VR universe, then that is our reality, until we figure out how to break threw the "fourth wall" as it where. But the idea that assuming we are in reality, that we experience reality (albeit subjectively through imperfect neural processing units) is somehow a mistake, is fucking laughable. "This" the world you and I experience on a day-to-day basis, is our reality, whether we like it or not, the "Truth" of that "reality" is totally over-ridden by the practical extent that "This" world we live in, is the world we live in, so it's the one we must contend with.

 

I think that when philosophers chime in with "hurr durr but brain in a vat" they are just proposing doubt for little more than their own intellectual entertainment. While I recognize the usefulness of such thought experiments at times, they don't have the ground to criticize physical science nor the ground to throw ad hoc theories like quantum consciousness around like they know what they're talking about.

 

Sound sober enough for you?

 

Cunt.

[exogen]

My statement on certainty does not a two-way street maketh.

 

Actually it does.

 

We deal with some sort of reality on a regular basis, spare me the bullshit over capital R "Reality" because reality is, we're in the reality we deal with. There's far less doubt on that reality, then ones we propose in our heads as concepts.

 

What it sounds like is your saying the reality we experience is more real, cause its right in our face, than other "Reality" (with a captial R) that we might be speculating about in our heads. I totally agree, and have been trying to make that point all along. I'm saying materialism is actually not in front of you in the sense that it is self-evident. And I'm saying that science can't ever demonstrate it to be true due to the method of science itself.

 

I would go on to ague (although I haven;t done so here), that the "reality" that we experience is "Reality" with a capital R. The question is, what kind of ontological claims can we make about our experience, if any at all? I think the reality we experience is the reality, but I don't think there is reason to think it is a material reality at all, nore to I think science shows even one bit of evidence that it is.

 

We do exist in a physical reality, regardless of the "Truth" of it, the "truth" is we have a reality that has extremely useful physical explanations. Even if "this" reality is not "Real" it doesn't change that inside of it, the physical explanations carry weight.

 

There is a diference in what is the case, that is, the Truth, and what we might believe or what could be the case for all we know. We can predict our experience, which inductively suggests that our experience follows some sort of regularity. I'm in agreement. But this bit about it being "physical," if what you mean by that is an ontological claim, cannot be established to be true to any degree of probablity no matter how accurate your predictions are. I have already explained why. For you to keep asserting it without dealing with my arguments is flawed.

 

 

I'm not sure you've ever caught the implications of what I've been trying to tell you for a very long time.

 

Maybe, or maybe you haven't adressed very subtle points about scientific epistemology.

 

 

If the conscious mind could be more or less a captive to a virtual reality it assumes is real, then the conscious mind might be part of the virtual reality and assumes itself to be real. You cannot safely assume you are yourself "Real" no more than you can assume reality is real or whatever else you want to assume.

 

But what do you mean by "real" here? If by "real" you mean "physical" then your reasoning from the VR hypothisis is correct, because yes, it is possible that everything could be part of the simulation, including the mind itself. I don't dispute that, and I kind of was assuming you and I were on the same page in that regard as that being an implication, or one of the possiblities when we conciderthe VR hypothisis.

 

When I refer to materialism, I'm referring to the idea that we don't need non-physical explanations for reality. The "hard-problem" of consciousness stems from our naivety on the nature of the human brain, not an issue with consciousness being/not being part of physical reality. We also have every reason to assume there is a mechanistic explanation, however uncomfortable that makes us feel.

 

You seem to want to lump me in with people that think that there is a physical reality, and also a non-physical one (dualism). I don't believe there is a physical or a non-physical one, because I think those distinctions are falacious. And a mechanistic explanation doesn't make me feel uncomfertable at all. If materialism turned out to be true (although science could never prove it) I wouldn't be swayed. I used to be a materialist to about 99% myself.

 

 

Sure it's "possible" that it's not mechanistic, and we'd be wrong to assume so. But we have no inclination to operate on that assumption, because it is just that, an assumption. We are constrained all the time, with regards to metaphysical discussion to the parameters our pattern-seeking mammalian brain leaves us with. There's a billion assumptions in philosophy, and you don't seem to mind them at all. We assume that reality is causal, that it has to function in a "logical" fashion, when for all we know, it doesn't have to. Maybe some people are vat-minded philosophical zombies, maybe some of us are living in a VR reality, maybe we co-existing in a phase state of the quantum wave function. Who knows?

 

We would be wrong to assume so. But materialism is actually one of those to add to the list of "for all we know possiblities." You just don't seem to see that because you confuse the emperically predictive value of concepts with ontology in fact. Science needs the latter, not the former.

 

Materialism is an ontology and like any ontology it requires an epistemological justification to suffiently warrent belief.

 

the VR "possiblity/argument" is really just a usefull intuition pump (to barrow D.C. Dennitt's term) to draw out concepts that we might not be focused on. What it demonstrates is that materialism is equally a possiblity along with other ontologies, like the VR hypothisis.

 

The implication of that is that it points out that what science is doing is giving us predictions about the world we experience, and predictions only. But WHY those predictions work, is something you seem to mistake for the truth of the ontology that might be atrributed to the theory, but need not be. We can still have the scientific theory without making any ontological commitments (just like we could if we knew for certain that we were in some VR simulation and materialism was false), and rightly so.

 

 

One thing that bugs the ever-loving shit out of me, is this idea that if we were brains in vats, it would somehow change what we would be concerned with. The depth of my annoyance seemed to have missed you last time I brought this up. If we exist in a VR universe, then that is our reality, until we figure out how to break threw the "fourth wall" as it where. But the idea that assuming we are in reality, that we experience reality (albeit subjectively through imperfect neural processing units) is somehow a mistake, is fucking laughable. "This" the world you and I experience on a day-to-day basis, is our reality, whether we like it or not, the "Truth" of that "reality" is totally over-ridden by the practical extent that "This" world we live in, is the world we live in, so it's the one we must contend with.

 

But there are things that annoy me too, but it doesn't help when people have disagreements to just fight each other when there is a disconnect. If it turned out that we could know if we were brains in vats I would agree with you that our everyday lives wouldn't change. AND we would still be doing science and making more technology and learning more about how our experience behaves. I just wouldn't go arround making ontological claims that can't, and never have been be justified by science.

 

You think that science shows that our experience is phsyical, at least to such a high degree of probablity that it would be foolish to entertain other "possiblities."

 

I'm saying that your mistaken for the reasons given.

 

 

 

I think that when philosophers chime in with "hurr durr but brain in a vat" they are just proposing doubt for little more than their own intellectual entertainment. While I recognize the usefulness of such thought experiments at times, they don't have the ground to criticize physical science nor the ground to throw ad hoc theories like quantum consciousness around like they know what they're talking about.

 

Sound sober enough for you?

 

Cunt.

 

But see, I'm a big proponent of science. I don't know why you keep lumping me in with these other folks.

 

The BIV sort of argument is important to my interests only because it uncovers certain assumptions that often go unnoticed, and that are mistaken. It interests me for two reasons. First I think we should recognise the Truth, whatever it is always, which makes me first and foremost, a skeptic. Second, I think that there is a solution to the problem over ontology, and what BIV sort of arguments do is takes us a step closer to solving it once we acknoledge what it is showing us.

 

That doesn't make me scientifically ignorant. On the contrary, it demonstrates my appriciation for science, and acknowledging truthfully what it can and cannot do without being dogmatic.

 

If you disagree about scientific epistemology, cool, I'm open to rational discussion. That's anything but dogmatic.

[Shirtless Crackhead]

http://i.imgur.com/nEjdGpv.png

 

I'm done talking to you.

[exogen]

In case you ever decide to act like an adult and unblock me Raor and enterian an argument that runs contrary to your own, here is my summary of the way I see things.

 

1. There is a difference between a scientific theory being supported by, or compatible with, empirical evidence (verifiablity) via the predictions of the theory, and that theory itself being falsifiable. I’m saying that materialism is empirically unfalsifiable.

 

2. You counter me by saying that at least currently, physical explanations work very well. The only thing you could mean by “work” in a scientific context is if those physical theories have predictive value. You point out, that they have predictive value of a high degree, and therefore we should not entertain anything else until we get something that predicts stuff better. Materialism works, so why switch right?

 

3. Empirically predictive value isn’t the same as ontological confirmation.

 

4. I’m saying that we could make those same predictions in VR. Let’s call it the VR hypothisis. A world that isn’t physical is indistinguishable from a world that is, experimentally speaking Hence materialism is unfalsifiable. It makes no difference if this is a thought experiment. The point is there is no way to scientifically test competing ontologies in this case, which makes materialism, along with the VR hypothisis, unfalsifable.

 

5. Falsifiablity is a criterion of science, therefore materialism doesn’t belong in it untill a way can be shown to falsify it.

 

You will probably want to return me to “2” at this point. You think verifiability can determine ontology when it can’t. That’s why science also uses falsifiability as one of its criteria. So I return you to “3” and the rest.

 

Or you might harp on "5" and claim that there might be some way to make materialism falsifable one day. i'm saying if we go deeper into this you will find that even in principle, you can't do that. But even if for the sake of arguments sake we granted that, it still means that right now, currently, materialism isn't scientific.

 

In regards to "3" emperical verifiablity can never achieve ontological confirmation because the data can always be ontologically reinterpreted to fit that data. That's why falsifiablity is important in the scientific method. The problem with materialism is that alternative theories (like VR) can explain the same data with funtionally idential results - equivelant predictive value.

 

In regards to the VR hypothisis itself it is really not so far fetched even for the materialist. The materialist is forced to recognise that consciousness and experience in general isn't the actual world one is interacting with but a simulation of it, a representation, generated in the brain (somehow). So the real world is never emperically confirmed. So why does it have to be a "real" world i.e. the brain and the rest of the so called physical matter, to do the simulation? Some more recent theories in physics are starting to talk about information, analogous to ones and zeros as being the fundimental unit of reality. Information itself can be described as being more fundimental that spacetime effectively rulling out materialism as a theory. "matter would be merely an emergent property of something more fundimental, be it information in this case or who knows what. So the VR hypothisis isn't even much a rational strech at this point, like you try to make it out to be. Even theories like Biocentricism, new as they might be, present rational alternatives to the standard materialist dogma. theories may be entrenched for a time, but as Thomas Khun noted in his book The Scientific Revolutions, theories go through paradigmatic shifts.

 

The idea of VR matters for the falsifiablity criteria because VR is a consequence of materialism being true. If materialism is true, then our experience must be virtual. But then if our experience is virtual (we are stuck in virtual reality), how do we know that materialism is true in the first place? We could say it explains the VR i.e. our experience. But aside from saying that it fits the data we have no way to confirm it. It's not so much a problem of induction as it is a problem of the model itself being circular. It explains experience with what we can't experience, but when we say it "explains" experience all we mean here is that we have a set of ideas, or theories, that "fit" the data as being on possible explanation. but the nature of that explanation is such that it allows for alternatives. How would we test those?

 

The implications for neuroscience and consciousness follow accordingly.

Edited June 17, 2013 by exogen

[ManintheArmor]

A little far from the topic, but related and useful.

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=36HquPzdxf4

 

Also related.

 

Edited September 24, 2013 by ManintheArmor

[Shirtless Crackhead]

Jacque Fresco is pretty fucking odd, he lives in a fantasy world were human beings are all just bad because they don't have enough.

[Py687]

The first video should be basic stuff for anyone who's taken college-level bio or psych.

 

That free will video, eh. Free will can't be scientifically proven, but it really depends on how you operationally define it.

[Shirtless Crackhead]

Pretty much, ya.