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On July 01 2013 13:14 Djzapz wrote:Show nested quote +On July 01 2013 13:12 D10 wrote:
We cant say for certain at this point, but unless we can discover things later on that prove otherwise, there certainly is more to the mind than simple chemicals and electrical charge. You're saying that we should prove that there is nothing else. It's impossible to prove a negative. To support your viewpoint, you should bring evidence that there exists something external to the brain that plays a role... but there's no evidence of any such thing. Essentially all you've got is our lack of a perfect understanding of the human brain through science, but that's thin.
but what we DON'T know about the brain is > than what we DO know about the brain. So....using your logic...who's viewpoint is thin? i provided links already, there are theories as to quantum mechanics operating in our brain. It's really not that farfetched. If we've managed to do it in a lab, why should it be impossible for nature to have figured out its own biological way?
edit: im out for the night, interesting topic though, hopefully i find some more comments on this tomorrow. night all :D
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One question.
Where do atheists/scientists get the concept of freewill(randomness)=possiblity of God, no freewill(deterministic)=no God?
There's no such thing as free will in theology.
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On July 01 2013 12:10 LegalLord wrote:Show nested quote +On July 01 2013 12:06 HeavenS wrote:On July 01 2013 11:58 LegalLord wrote:On July 01 2013 11:41 farvacola wrote:I'll just throw up this very interesting critique of physicalism a la a revised look at the Mary's Room argument (otherwise known as the knowledge argument). The long and short of it is that the contours of our conscious experience as we currently understand it not only implies a non-physical component of experience, it requires it. What RoboDennett Still Doesn’t Know If you throw a tennis ball, a dog will be able to run to where it lands and catch it before it lands. The trajectory of the ball is modeled by some not-so-simple calculus, but a dog knows well enough where it lands (with margin of error of maybe half a dog's mouth) intuitively. In the same sense, colors are a very useful shortcut that allows us to explain a complicated mess of facts. We take shortcuts because the world is a complicated mess and our processing power can't keep up. Those are natural processes. Poorly understood, but natural nonetheless. yes you are correct, i thought perhaps you were implying our brains to be fully deterministic. as for your other post, i agree on the color part, not so much the dog example. colors are "shortcuts" our brain creates in order to distinguish light of different wavelengths, that is correct. however, for the dog example, just because the trajectory problem can be solved using calculus, does not directly imply that the dog is intuitively performing these calculations. there are more than one way to solve that trajectory problem. the dog does not intuitively know where it will be, it is simply following the instructions of its brain "take note of where ball is, reduce distance between ball and yourself until you catch it." its a different way of solving the same problem. but i get what you were trying to say. I believe I heard somewhere that human eyesight predicts the trajectory of everything it sees 0.1 seconds or so into the future (that is, you "see into the future" with your eyes). That seems like multistep calculus to me, assuming that dogs do that. Show nested quote +On July 01 2013 12:08 Moa wrote:On July 01 2013 12:07 LegalLord wrote:On July 01 2013 12:02 Djzapz wrote:On July 01 2013 12:01 LegalLord wrote:On July 01 2013 12:00 farvacola wrote:On July 01 2013 11:58 LegalLord wrote:On July 01 2013 11:41 farvacola wrote:I'll just throw up this very interesting critique of physicalism a la a revised look at the Mary's Room argument (otherwise known as the knowledge argument). The long and short of it is that the contours of our conscious experience as we currently understand it not only implies a non-physical component of experience, it requires it. What RoboDennett Still Doesn’t Know If you throw a tennis ball, a dog will be able to run to where it lands and catch it before it lands. The trajectory of the ball is modeled by some not-so-simple calculus, but a dog knows well enough where it lands (with margin of error of maybe half a dog's mouth) intuitively. In the same sense, colors are a very useful shortcut that allows us to explain a complicated mess of facts. We take shortcuts because the world is a complicated mess and our processing power can't keep up. The experience of colors and the estimated trajectory of a ball are entirely different things. How so? I'm not sure what exactly you mean by this. The trajectory of a ball is always the same whereas the experience of colors is subjective? If you knew all the initial conditions about the viewer, I don't think it's that unlikely that you would perfectly predict the reaction. If you were omniscient you would be omniscient. Since we're not, eyes are a "good enough" approximation tool.
seems more likely to me that the mind would use some sort of probabilistic, inductive method to do it. most systems on earth on complex, and exhibit high degree of nonlinearity, it is impossible to predict many (important) outcomes in social, biological, and economic phenomena with equations, since even the smallest degrees of measurement error will spin out of control. even physics exhibits subjectivity to some degree (heisenberg uncertainty), it just doesn't happen to affect our predictions in physics by much.
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United States24702 Posts
On July 01 2013 14:10 KingAce wrote:
One question.
Where do atheists/scientists get the concept of freewill(randomness)=possiblity of God, no freewill(deterministic)=no God?
There's no such thing as free will in theology.
I'm not sure I agree with your characterization of atheists or scientists (not that you can actually accredit all of them with one particular view). I don't think freewill can be summarized as randomness, although there may be a relationship (at best).
Whether the universe's next state can be uniquely determined by full knowledge of this state, or not, does not necessarily tell us anything about the existence of God.
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If something exists outside the brain, what is it made of? Do we have to rethink the standard model of physics to incorporate ethereal consciousness?
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United Kingdom13775 Posts
On July 01 2013 14:17 dreamsmasher wrote:Show nested quote +On July 01 2013 12:10 LegalLord wrote:On July 01 2013 12:06 HeavenS wrote:On July 01 2013 11:58 LegalLord wrote:On July 01 2013 11:41 farvacola wrote:I'll just throw up this very interesting critique of physicalism a la a revised look at the Mary's Room argument (otherwise known as the knowledge argument). The long and short of it is that the contours of our conscious experience as we currently understand it not only implies a non-physical component of experience, it requires it. What RoboDennett Still Doesn’t Know If you throw a tennis ball, a dog will be able to run to where it lands and catch it before it lands. The trajectory of the ball is modeled by some not-so-simple calculus, but a dog knows well enough where it lands (with margin of error of maybe half a dog's mouth) intuitively. In the same sense, colors are a very useful shortcut that allows us to explain a complicated mess of facts. We take shortcuts because the world is a complicated mess and our processing power can't keep up. Those are natural processes. Poorly understood, but natural nonetheless. yes you are correct, i thought perhaps you were implying our brains to be fully deterministic. as for your other post, i agree on the color part, not so much the dog example. colors are "shortcuts" our brain creates in order to distinguish light of different wavelengths, that is correct. however, for the dog example, just because the trajectory problem can be solved using calculus, does not directly imply that the dog is intuitively performing these calculations. there are more than one way to solve that trajectory problem. the dog does not intuitively know where it will be, it is simply following the instructions of its brain "take note of where ball is, reduce distance between ball and yourself until you catch it." its a different way of solving the same problem. but i get what you were trying to say. I believe I heard somewhere that human eyesight predicts the trajectory of everything it sees 0.1 seconds or so into the future (that is, you "see into the future" with your eyes). That seems like multistep calculus to me, assuming that dogs do that. On July 01 2013 12:08 Moa wrote:On July 01 2013 12:07 LegalLord wrote:On July 01 2013 12:02 Djzapz wrote:On July 01 2013 12:01 LegalLord wrote:On July 01 2013 12:00 farvacola wrote:On July 01 2013 11:58 LegalLord wrote:On July 01 2013 11:41 farvacola wrote:I'll just throw up this very interesting critique of physicalism a la a revised look at the Mary's Room argument (otherwise known as the knowledge argument). The long and short of it is that the contours of our conscious experience as we currently understand it not only implies a non-physical component of experience, it requires it. What RoboDennett Still Doesn’t Know If you throw a tennis ball, a dog will be able to run to where it lands and catch it before it lands. The trajectory of the ball is modeled by some not-so-simple calculus, but a dog knows well enough where it lands (with margin of error of maybe half a dog's mouth) intuitively. In the same sense, colors are a very useful shortcut that allows us to explain a complicated mess of facts. We take shortcuts because the world is a complicated mess and our processing power can't keep up. The experience of colors and the estimated trajectory of a ball are entirely different things. How so? I'm not sure what exactly you mean by this. The trajectory of a ball is always the same whereas the experience of colors is subjective? If you knew all the initial conditions about the viewer, I don't think it's that unlikely that you would perfectly predict the reaction. If you were omniscient you would be omniscient. Since we're not, eyes are a "good enough" approximation tool. seems more likely to me that the mind would use some sort of probabilistic, inductive method to do it. most systems on earth on complex, and exhibit high degree of nonlinearity, it is impossible to predict many (important) outcomes in social, biological, and economic phenomena with equations, since even the smallest degrees of measurement error will spin out of control. even physics exhibits subjectivity to some degree (heisenberg uncertainty), it just doesn't happen to affect our predictions in physics by much.
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2009-08/afri-nss082509.php
I think small step Euler is a good way to think of how we understand trajectories.
As for chaos systems: wouldn't you agree that we're not intuitively especially good at them?
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On July 01 2013 13:26 HeavenS wrote:Show nested quote +On July 01 2013 13:14 Djzapz wrote:On July 01 2013 13:12 D10 wrote:
We cant say for certain at this point, but unless we can discover things later on that prove otherwise, there certainly is more to the mind than simple chemicals and electrical charge. You're saying that we should prove that there is nothing else. It's impossible to prove a negative. To support your viewpoint, you should bring evidence that there exists something external to the brain that plays a role... but there's no evidence of any such thing. Essentially all you've got is our lack of a perfect understanding of the human brain through science, but that's thin. but what we DON'T know about the brain is > than what we DO know about the brain. So....using your logic...who's viewpoint is thin? i provided links already, there are theories as to quantum mechanics operating in our brain. It's really not that farfetched. If we've managed to do it in a lab, why should it be impossible for nature to have figured out its own biological way?
First of all, they're hypotheses, not theories. In the world of science, there are hypotheses on pretty much anything you can imagine. The vast majority tends to be quite insubstantial and will never get off the ground.
Also, quantum theory is a branch of physics. The hypotheses you linked in your previous post would still make the brain entirely physical with nothing beyond the natural processes going on inside it.
Moreover, the same principal properties would apply to the brains of other mammals, or indeed any species in general.
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2deep4u.
User was temp banned for this post.
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On July 01 2013 14:24 SnipedSoul wrote:
If something exists outside the brain, what is it made of? Do we have to rethink the standard model of physics to incorporate ethereal consciousness?
Its a safe assumption to assume that the standard model will have to be "rethoght" a few times before our generation dies out
But when you stop to think that we exist in a universe that is essentially made of energy, and mass is just a small part of it, I dont think its really outlandish for our mind to have some sort of energetic metaphysical component that is not currently measurable by our understanding of biology and physics
I wouldnt be surprised if contiousness was the result of this metaphysical construct interfacing with reality from the inside of a human body, and the body acted in many times as a constraint of contiousness.
Why would it happen ? I dont know, my personal theory is that there are neurological devices that allow for the "energy" necessary for complex cognitive hability, memory, personality traits, etc.. etc.. to aggregate on the brain over time, and over ones lifetime this energy in this vessel creates the result of what we perceive as a person.
I have been trying to think of a way to prove/disprove my theory but so far nothing worth putting on a research has came up.
So im just focusing on trying to study the existance of ESP atm.
They are interesting subjects, and the fact that im an enthusiast make me biased, but I honestly think that when we think we are energy perceiving energy, it doesnt seem so far fetched for me.
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The brain = the mind.
It's the same thing, just under a different description.
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On July 01 2013 14:10 KingAce wrote:
One question.
Where do atheists/scientists get the concept of freewill(randomness)=possiblity of God, no freewill(deterministic)=no God?
There's no such thing as free will in theology.
No where, theism and theology are outside the realm of knowledge and expertise of atheists and scientists
As a whole ... I mean, you can always be an atheist with an opinion, one that was previously faithful, one that has theological education or a scientst too for that matter, but as a matter of classification, your avg atheist shouldnt be bothering to think the fine tunes of predestination and manifest destiny on a christian centric religious world view.
Might as well start criticizing all religions, and you will certainly find ones where theres free will and no free will.
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On July 01 2013 11:04 sc2superfan101 wrote:Show nested quote +On July 01 2013 11:03 casuistry wrote:On July 01 2013 11:01 travis wrote:On July 01 2013 10:57 SergioCQH wrote:On July 01 2013 10:53 travis wrote:On July 01 2013 10:51 Galaxy1again wrote:
If it exists in this universe, then it is physical, and that's the bottom line. yes case closed thats a good way of thinking "i've decided it to be true and will examine it no further!" What's there to examine? This is a definition. If it exists, it is physical. If it's metaphysical, then it doesn't exist. You're free to reject the definition, but that doesn't invalidate it. so our experiences don't exist? because mine definitely do. If your experiences exist, they are physical phenomena. If they are not physical phenomena, they do not exist. Okay, you've stated that. Now provide your back-up. That's the problem with these arguments. People toss out platitudes as if they are actual arguments. A conclusion without a premise has roughly the same use as an asshole on an elbow and makes as much sense as a soup sandwich.
Functional MRI scans detect responses to emotions and stimili within the brain.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12030820
As well as altered imaging in say, bipolar disease.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20374146
Therefore are physical.
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Nikk
United States63 Posts
On July 01 2013 14:45 D10 wrote:Show nested quote +On July 01 2013 14:24 SnipedSoul wrote:
If something exists outside the brain, what is it made of? Do we have to rethink the standard model of physics to incorporate ethereal consciousness? Its a safe assumption to assume that the standard model will have to be "rethoght" a few times before our generation dies out But when you stop to think that we exist in a universe that is essentially made of energy, and mass is just a small part of it, I dont think its really outlandish for our mind to have some sort of energetic metaphysical component that is not currently measurable by our understanding of biology and physics I wouldnt be surprised if contiousness was the result of this metaphysical construct interfacing with reality from the inside of a human body, and the body acted in many times as a constraint of contiousness. Why would it happen ? I dont know, my personal theory is that there are neurological devices that allow for the "energy" necessary for complex cognitive hability, memory, personality traits, etc.. etc.. to aggregate on the brain over time, and over ones lifetime this energy in this vessel creates the result of what we perceive as a person. I have been trying to think of a way to prove/disprove my theory but so far nothing worth putting on a research has came up. So im just focusing on trying to study the existance of ESP atm. They are interesting subjects, and the fact that im an enthusiast make me biased, but I honestly think that when we think we are energy perceiving energy, it doesnt seem so far fetched for me.
What do you mean by energy? Energy is not a thing, its simply a tool for describing the relationship between mass and momentum (ie conservation of energy, E^2 = Mo^2c^4 + P^2c^2 etc). It makes no sense to say the universe is "made of energy" or that energy exists in any literal sense.
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On July 01 2013 15:00 Nikk wrote:Show nested quote +On July 01 2013 14:45 D10 wrote:On July 01 2013 14:24 SnipedSoul wrote:
If something exists outside the brain, what is it made of? Do we have to rethink the standard model of physics to incorporate ethereal consciousness? Its a safe assumption to assume that the standard model will have to be "rethoght" a few times before our generation dies out But when you stop to think that we exist in a universe that is essentially made of energy, and mass is just a small part of it, I dont think its really outlandish for our mind to have some sort of energetic metaphysical component that is not currently measurable by our understanding of biology and physics I wouldnt be surprised if contiousness was the result of this metaphysical construct interfacing with reality from the inside of a human body, and the body acted in many times as a constraint of contiousness. Why would it happen ? I dont know, my personal theory is that there are neurological devices that allow for the "energy" necessary for complex cognitive hability, memory, personality traits, etc.. etc.. to aggregate on the brain over time, and over ones lifetime this energy in this vessel creates the result of what we perceive as a person. I have been trying to think of a way to prove/disprove my theory but so far nothing worth putting on a research has came up. So im just focusing on trying to study the existance of ESP atm. They are interesting subjects, and the fact that im an enthusiast make me biased, but I honestly think that when we think we are energy perceiving energy, it doesnt seem so far fetched for me. What do you mean by energy? Energy is not a thing, its simply a tool for describing the relationship between mass and momentum (ie conservation of energy, E^2 = Mo^2c^4 + P^2c^2 etc). It makes no sense to say the universe is "made of energy" or that energy exists in any literal sense.
Ok then, imagine that by energy i mean things that dont have matter, but can interact and be perceived with matter, such as radio, electromagnetic waves, etc..
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What else?
If you think about 'physical' as everything accessible to objective observation the emptiness of the question is revealed.
Is there anything about the human mind that has no consequence outside of it? So that it can't be observed even in theory and thus free from scientific exploration even in theory?
Maybe the problem is that OP operates under a fundamental misunderstanding of science. Science isn't a particular view of reality. It's the description of reality as accessed through our shared experiences. Science doesn't require that these experiences (also called observations) be possible to be described by a small set of rules or laws. It certainly seems to be the case but if it's not, then it's not.
So is the whole of human experience the consequence of a small set of general laws? Probably. But if not, it's the consequence of a somewhat larger set of natural laws.
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On July 01 2013 14:10 KingAce wrote:
One question.
Where do atheists/scientists get the concept of freewill(randomness)=possiblity of God, no freewill(deterministic)=no God?
There's no such thing as free will in theology.
There are plenty of secular discussions about determinism vs chaos. Christian denominations have long debated the issue of predestination vs free will. Society as a whole falls somewhere in the middle - we broadly use the concept of free will in terms of law and morality and personal responsibility, but we also accept the possibility of more deterministic biological forces such as addiction.
Only militant atheists would bring this up as an issue specifically attacking religion. Only religious people going out of their way would bring this up as an issue specifically criticizing atheism.
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On July 01 2013 14:45 D10 wrote:Show nested quote +On July 01 2013 14:24 SnipedSoul wrote:
If something exists outside the brain, what is it made of? Do we have to rethink the standard model of physics to incorporate ethereal consciousness? Its a safe assumption to assume that the standard model will have to be "rethoght" a few times before our generation dies out
I don't see how that's anything close to a safe assumption. I certainly wouldn't bet any of my money against the standard model.
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On July 01 2013 15:00 MoonfireSpam wrote:Show nested quote +On July 01 2013 11:04 sc2superfan101 wrote:On July 01 2013 11:03 casuistry wrote:On July 01 2013 11:01 travis wrote:On July 01 2013 10:57 SergioCQH wrote:On July 01 2013 10:53 travis wrote:On July 01 2013 10:51 Galaxy1again wrote:
If it exists in this universe, then it is physical, and that's the bottom line. yes case closed thats a good way of thinking "i've decided it to be true and will examine it no further!" What's there to examine? This is a definition. If it exists, it is physical. If it's metaphysical, then it doesn't exist. You're free to reject the definition, but that doesn't invalidate it. so our experiences don't exist? because mine definitely do. If your experiences exist, they are physical phenomena. If they are not physical phenomena, they do not exist. Okay, you've stated that. Now provide your back-up. That's the problem with these arguments. People toss out platitudes as if they are actual arguments. A conclusion without a premise has roughly the same use as an asshole on an elbow and makes as much sense as a soup sandwich. Functional MRI scans detect responses to emotions and stimili within the brain. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12030820As well as altered imaging in say, bipolar disease. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20374146Therefore are physical.
It's not that easy though. The problem here is comparing correlation with causation. Just because the brain shows different patterns while processing emotions under different circumstances does not mean that the brain itself is the sole cause of said circumstances. Of course, we can even say that the physical operations of the brain are themselves determiners in the overall process of conscious thought, but nothing yet (to my knowledge) has provided evidence (much less proof) of a complete physical cause to human thought.
Think of the brain as a computer, and the person (soul) as the user. If the computer's hardware or software is messed up, the output (thoughts, actions, words, chemical reactions, etc.) will be messed up, even if the user (soul) is perfectly fine.
I'm kind of drunk (birthday tonight WOOT!), so if this doesn't make sense I'll have to post a deeper explanation tomorrow.
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The amount of philosophical ignorance in this thread is astonishing.
There's no free will in Theology? How can you say that?? Basically the problem of middle age philosophy is conciliating human free will and divine omniscience. Try to read Anselm, Duns Scoto, Ockham...
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On July 01 2013 15:14 Talin wrote:Show nested quote +On July 01 2013 14:45 D10 wrote:On July 01 2013 14:24 SnipedSoul wrote:
If something exists outside the brain, what is it made of? Do we have to rethink the standard model of physics to incorporate ethereal consciousness? Its a safe assumption to assume that the standard model will have to be "rethoght" a few times before our generation dies out I don't see how that's anything close to a safe assumption. I certainly wouldn't bet any of my money against the standard model.
Well it was just my opinion... should have phrased it better
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EPT
