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On July 01 2013 22:39 DoubleReed wrote:Show nested quote +On July 01 2013 22:34 Tobberoth wrote:On July 01 2013 22:20 DoubleReed wrote:On July 01 2013 22:16 Tobberoth wrote:On July 01 2013 22:07 DoubleReed wrote:On July 01 2013 21:59 Tobberoth wrote:On July 01 2013 21:45 DoubleReed wrote:
The same person has multiple "perspectives" several times a day. I'm not saying you are wrong, but this sentence shows that your definition of "perspective" in this matter and mine are completely different. What I'm talking about is your individuality and your ability to experience things around you. While it evolves over time, you can definitely not have multiple of them. If your perspective is a changing, malleable thing then who's to say that the clones don't have the same perspective? It's the difference between shaping two identical pieces of clay into different shapes. Are they different pieces of clay before you shape? After you shape them? They don't have the same perspective because how would that ever work, suddenly you see the world from four eyes, at two different locations? It's impossible to compare to pieces of clay, since pieces of clay aren't councious, so they obviously lack the kind of perspective being talked about. Look, either perspectives can change or they can't. You can't have it both ways. If I clone a pen, and break the pen, then one pen is broken and one is not. Are they the same pen even though they're completely different? You clone a person but change his location. Sure, you've made change. But why does that count as a different perspective while the pen-cloning does not? Perspectives can change. Because the pen doesn't have a perspective. It's a dead item. The pen can't lose anything by being killed then recreated, because it's already dead. The pen can't wonder what makes it different from other pens, can't be nervous when walking into that teleporter. So? Eyes transmit pictures to the brain. Self-awareness and cognition are biochemical processes. It's not a "thing". It's a whole system of processes. The living or deadness of something depends on that.
Yes. Which is why I said, it's all about being more than the sum of its parts. You have a bunch of electric chemical shit in your brain which does nothing on it's own. Put it together and you get something which can be considered alive. But not only that... you get something which understands what it is and can think about this very process... which is completely 100% unique to THIS very process and can't be recreated, no matter how well the parts are copied, because this concept, for some reason, seems to be locked to this individual process.
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On July 01 2013 22:36 Prog wrote:Show nested quote +On July 01 2013 22:31 mcc wrote:On July 01 2013 21:08 Prog wrote:
Just a little input for the physicalist majority here. If you claim that consciousness is physical, then you have to explain what 'physical' means. Now you either define it by pointing to current physics, which is (as history showed) probably (partially) false or incomplete. Or you point to ideal physics, which we have no clue how it looks like. Either way, you have a problem. [Hempel's Dilemma]
The alternative is to define physical by paradigmatic objects, like 'everything that is needed to explain this toaster', but that is terribly vague too. As history shows physics have not been false for few hundred of years. It was just not accurate enough. All changes in physics in that time were discoveries that we are not correct in some special cases. So your point would be valid only in case that physics is inaccurate in the area that pertains to mental processes. That is most likely not the case as current physics is extremely accurate in that area, there is just no space for error significant enough in that area. Thus Hempel's dilemma is avoided as consciousness is not outside of current physics and that dilemma depends on that. All those objections remind me of this quote that perfectly shows relationship between science and philosophy(discipline, not subjective model of the world): Science meanwhile advances at its gradual pace, often slowing to a crawl, and for periods it even walks in place, but eventually it reaches the various ultimate trenches dug by philosophical thought, and, quite heedless of the fact that it is not supposed to be able to cross those final barriers to the intellect, goes right on. Phlogiston was just not accurate enough? Aether was just not accurate enough? I disagree. Those things just do not exist and physics claimed they did. There is nothing that ensures such mistakes not happening again.
The concepts that physics uses are not of absolute importance, the models and predictions are. Predictions of models with aether were very accurate, no matter if aether does not exist. But I would also like to point out aether was not really part of physical models used for prediction, it was just concept used externally to the model itself.
Phlogiston was before the period I meant.
You put too much attention to the story and words around physical models and not enough attention to the core, which is models and their predictions. Notice I was talking about accuracy of predictions when I replied to you, I did not talk about "truth". That was intentional.
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On July 01 2013 22:43 Tobberoth wrote:Show nested quote +On July 01 2013 22:39 DoubleReed wrote:On July 01 2013 22:34 Tobberoth wrote:On July 01 2013 22:20 DoubleReed wrote:On July 01 2013 22:16 Tobberoth wrote:On July 01 2013 22:07 DoubleReed wrote:On July 01 2013 21:59 Tobberoth wrote:On July 01 2013 21:45 DoubleReed wrote:
The same person has multiple "perspectives" several times a day. I'm not saying you are wrong, but this sentence shows that your definition of "perspective" in this matter and mine are completely different. What I'm talking about is your individuality and your ability to experience things around you. While it evolves over time, you can definitely not have multiple of them. If your perspective is a changing, malleable thing then who's to say that the clones don't have the same perspective? It's the difference between shaping two identical pieces of clay into different shapes. Are they different pieces of clay before you shape? After you shape them? They don't have the same perspective because how would that ever work, suddenly you see the world from four eyes, at two different locations? It's impossible to compare to pieces of clay, since pieces of clay aren't councious, so they obviously lack the kind of perspective being talked about. Look, either perspectives can change or they can't. You can't have it both ways. If I clone a pen, and break the pen, then one pen is broken and one is not. Are they the same pen even though they're completely different? You clone a person but change his location. Sure, you've made change. But why does that count as a different perspective while the pen-cloning does not? Perspectives can change. Because the pen doesn't have a perspective. It's a dead item. The pen can't lose anything by being killed then recreated, because it's already dead. The pen can't wonder what makes it different from other pens, can't be nervous when walking into that teleporter. So? Eyes transmit pictures to the brain. Self-awareness and cognition are biochemical processes. It's not a "thing". It's a whole system of processes. The living or deadness of something depends on that. Yes. Which is why I said, it's all about being more than the sum of its parts. You have a bunch of electric chemical shit in your brain which does nothing on it's own. Put it together and you get something which can be considered alive. But not only that... you get something which understands what it is and can think about this very process... which is completely 100% unique to THIS very process and can't be recreated, no matter how well the parts are copied, because this concept, for some reason, seems to be locked to this individual process.
But that isn't just true for living or conscious things. It's not unique at all. It's just as true for the pen, where rearranging the parts or putting under extreme heat breaks it. It's true for everything. Every molecule, every atom, every cell, every organ has context that cannot be changed without losing something.
Molecules are not just the sum of their atoms. Cells are not just the sum of their molecules. Organs are not just the sum of their cells. You are not just the sum of your organs.
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yes it is as far as we know.
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On July 01 2013 10:12 aksfjh wrote:
As far as we can tell, yes. Although, one hopes there is more to it than that.
Wait, Neo's real?
Also, if the mind is NOT physical, then other things like religion and supernatural could be proven far easier. Yet science tends to point in the other direction. One thing that can be said is that ideas of all kinds come from not understanding something, and the brain is one.
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On July 01 2013 22:50 mcc wrote:Show nested quote +On July 01 2013 22:36 Prog wrote:On July 01 2013 22:31 mcc wrote:On July 01 2013 21:08 Prog wrote:
Just a little input for the physicalist majority here. If you claim that consciousness is physical, then you have to explain what 'physical' means. Now you either define it by pointing to current physics, which is (as history showed) probably (partially) false or incomplete. Or you point to ideal physics, which we have no clue how it looks like. Either way, you have a problem. [Hempel's Dilemma]
The alternative is to define physical by paradigmatic objects, like 'everything that is needed to explain this toaster', but that is terribly vague too. As history shows physics have not been false for few hundred of years. It was just not accurate enough. All changes in physics in that time were discoveries that we are not correct in some special cases. So your point would be valid only in case that physics is inaccurate in the area that pertains to mental processes. That is most likely not the case as current physics is extremely accurate in that area, there is just no space for error significant enough in that area. Thus Hempel's dilemma is avoided as consciousness is not outside of current physics and that dilemma depends on that. All those objections remind me of this quote that perfectly shows relationship between science and philosophy(discipline, not subjective model of the world): Science meanwhile advances at its gradual pace, often slowing to a crawl, and for periods it even walks in place, but eventually it reaches the various ultimate trenches dug by philosophical thought, and, quite heedless of the fact that it is not supposed to be able to cross those final barriers to the intellect, goes right on. Phlogiston was just not accurate enough? Aether was just not accurate enough? I disagree. Those things just do not exist and physics claimed they did. There is nothing that ensures such mistakes not happening again. The concepts that physics uses are not of absolute importance, the models and predictions are. Predictions of models with aether were very accurate, no matter if aether does not exist. But I would also like to point out aether was not really part of physical models used for prediction, it was just concept used externally to the model itself. Phlogiston was before the period I meant. You put too much attention to the story and words around physical models and not enough attention to the core, which is models and their predictions. Notice I was talking about accuracy of predictions when I replied to you, I did not talk about "truth". That was intentional.
How can you seperate models and concepts? A model without any concept is just empty and provides no knowledge whatsoever. Every model is created and interpreted based on concepts. That is pretty much the standard objection against structural realism. There are examples in physics that point to this inseperability. Stathis Psillos put it prominently forward by looking at Maxwell: http://users.uoa.gr/~psillos/PapersI/102-Dialectica-1995.pdf
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On July 01 2013 22:31 mcc wrote:Show nested quote +On July 01 2013 21:08 Prog wrote:
Just a little input for the physicalist majority here. If you claim that consciousness is physical, then you have to explain what 'physical' means. Now you either define it by pointing to current physics, which is (as history showed) probably (partially) false or incomplete. Or you point to ideal physics, which we have no clue how it looks like. Either way, you have a problem. [Hempel's Dilemma]
The alternative is to define physical by paradigmatic objects, like 'everything that is needed to explain this toaster', but that is terribly vague too. As history shows physics have not been false for few hundred of years. It was just not accurate enough. All changes in physics in that time were discoveries that we are not correct in some special cases. So your point would be valid only in case that physics is inaccurate in the area that pertains to mental processes. That is most likely not the case as current physics is extremely accurate in that area, there is just no space for error significant enough in that area. Thus Hempel's dilemma is avoided as consciousness is not outside of current physics and that dilemma depends on that. All those objections remind me of this quote that perfectly shows relationship between science and philosophy(discipline, not subjective model of the world): Science meanwhile advances at its gradual pace, often slowing to a crawl, and for periods it even walks in place, but eventually it reaches the various ultimate trenches dug by philosophical thought, and, quite heedless of the fact that it is not supposed to be able to cross those final barriers to the intellect, goes right on.
extraordinary claim needs extraordinary proof. if you really believe that... hm... how would one call a science believer beyond logical reason like you? is there a name for this?
imagine the perspective of an ant, how narrow it is. we as humans believe to have a so much broader and more objective perspective. but what if...... WHAT IF..... our perspective was as limited as an ant's? if we had so little grasp on "the whole", that we could never possibly understand it, just like an ant will never do rocket science.
just saying...
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On July 01 2013 22:43 Tobberoth wrote:Show nested quote +On July 01 2013 22:39 DoubleReed wrote:On July 01 2013 22:34 Tobberoth wrote:On July 01 2013 22:20 DoubleReed wrote:On July 01 2013 22:16 Tobberoth wrote:On July 01 2013 22:07 DoubleReed wrote:On July 01 2013 21:59 Tobberoth wrote:On July 01 2013 21:45 DoubleReed wrote:
The same person has multiple "perspectives" several times a day. I'm not saying you are wrong, but this sentence shows that your definition of "perspective" in this matter and mine are completely different. What I'm talking about is your individuality and your ability to experience things around you. While it evolves over time, you can definitely not have multiple of them. If your perspective is a changing, malleable thing then who's to say that the clones don't have the same perspective? It's the difference between shaping two identical pieces of clay into different shapes. Are they different pieces of clay before you shape? After you shape them? They don't have the same perspective because how would that ever work, suddenly you see the world from four eyes, at two different locations? It's impossible to compare to pieces of clay, since pieces of clay aren't councious, so they obviously lack the kind of perspective being talked about. Look, either perspectives can change or they can't. You can't have it both ways. If I clone a pen, and break the pen, then one pen is broken and one is not. Are they the same pen even though they're completely different? You clone a person but change his location. Sure, you've made change. But why does that count as a different perspective while the pen-cloning does not? Perspectives can change. Because the pen doesn't have a perspective. It's a dead item. The pen can't lose anything by being killed then recreated, because it's already dead. The pen can't wonder what makes it different from other pens, can't be nervous when walking into that teleporter. So? Eyes transmit pictures to the brain. Self-awareness and cognition are biochemical processes. It's not a "thing". It's a whole system of processes. The living or deadness of something depends on that. Yes. Which is why I said, it's all about being more than the sum of its parts. You have a bunch of electric chemical shit in your brain which does nothing on it's own. Put it together and you get something which can be considered alive. But not only that... you get something which understands what it is and can think about this very process... which is completely 100% unique to THIS very process and can't be recreated, no matter how well the parts are copied, because this concept, for some reason, seems to be locked to this individual process.
There is nothing unique about this "process", and I don't see why you say it can't be recreated. The process of an animal surviving in the wild and us thinking about the meaning of life is basically the same. We have information, we analyse it, we do an action depending of the analyse. Nothing mystical about it.
I think it is safe to say that one day, we will be able to write computer AI that imitate perfectly the though process of the brain. will those AI have a "soul" ?
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On July 01 2013 23:07 DertoQq wrote:Show nested quote +On July 01 2013 22:43 Tobberoth wrote:On July 01 2013 22:39 DoubleReed wrote:On July 01 2013 22:34 Tobberoth wrote:On July 01 2013 22:20 DoubleReed wrote:On July 01 2013 22:16 Tobberoth wrote:On July 01 2013 22:07 DoubleReed wrote:On July 01 2013 21:59 Tobberoth wrote:On July 01 2013 21:45 DoubleReed wrote:
The same person has multiple "perspectives" several times a day. I'm not saying you are wrong, but this sentence shows that your definition of "perspective" in this matter and mine are completely different. What I'm talking about is your individuality and your ability to experience things around you. While it evolves over time, you can definitely not have multiple of them. If your perspective is a changing, malleable thing then who's to say that the clones don't have the same perspective? It's the difference between shaping two identical pieces of clay into different shapes. Are they different pieces of clay before you shape? After you shape them? They don't have the same perspective because how would that ever work, suddenly you see the world from four eyes, at two different locations? It's impossible to compare to pieces of clay, since pieces of clay aren't councious, so they obviously lack the kind of perspective being talked about. Look, either perspectives can change or they can't. You can't have it both ways. If I clone a pen, and break the pen, then one pen is broken and one is not. Are they the same pen even though they're completely different? You clone a person but change his location. Sure, you've made change. But why does that count as a different perspective while the pen-cloning does not? Perspectives can change. Because the pen doesn't have a perspective. It's a dead item. The pen can't lose anything by being killed then recreated, because it's already dead. The pen can't wonder what makes it different from other pens, can't be nervous when walking into that teleporter. So? Eyes transmit pictures to the brain. Self-awareness and cognition are biochemical processes. It's not a "thing". It's a whole system of processes. The living or deadness of something depends on that. Yes. Which is why I said, it's all about being more than the sum of its parts. You have a bunch of electric chemical shit in your brain which does nothing on it's own. Put it together and you get something which can be considered alive. But not only that... you get something which understands what it is and can think about this very process... which is completely 100% unique to THIS very process and can't be recreated, no matter how well the parts are copied, because this concept, for some reason, seems to be locked to this individual process. There is nothing unique about this "process", and I don't see why you say it can't be recreated. The process of an animal surviving in the wild and us thinking about the meaning of life is basically the same. We have information, we analyse it, we do an action depending of the analyse. Nothing mystical about it. I think it is safe to say that one day, we will be able to write computer AI that imitate perfectly the though process of the brain. will those AI have a "soul" ?
Maybe you didn't read my posts well enough. I already stated that even a synthetic being would have a soul by my definition of the concept.
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On July 01 2013 23:05 beg wrote:Show nested quote +On July 01 2013 22:31 mcc wrote:On July 01 2013 21:08 Prog wrote:
Just a little input for the physicalist majority here. If you claim that consciousness is physical, then you have to explain what 'physical' means. Now you either define it by pointing to current physics, which is (as history showed) probably (partially) false or incomplete. Or you point to ideal physics, which we have no clue how it looks like. Either way, you have a problem. [Hempel's Dilemma]
The alternative is to define physical by paradigmatic objects, like 'everything that is needed to explain this toaster', but that is terribly vague too. As history shows physics have not been false for few hundred of years. It was just not accurate enough. All changes in physics in that time were discoveries that we are not correct in some special cases. So your point would be valid only in case that physics is inaccurate in the area that pertains to mental processes. That is most likely not the case as current physics is extremely accurate in that area, there is just no space for error significant enough in that area. Thus Hempel's dilemma is avoided as consciousness is not outside of current physics and that dilemma depends on that. All those objections remind me of this quote that perfectly shows relationship between science and philosophy(discipline, not subjective model of the world): Science meanwhile advances at its gradual pace, often slowing to a crawl, and for periods it even walks in place, but eventually it reaches the various ultimate trenches dug by philosophical thought, and, quite heedless of the fact that it is not supposed to be able to cross those final barriers to the intellect, goes right on. extraordinary claim needs extraordinary proof. if you really believe that... hm... how would one call a science believer beyond logical reason like you? is there a name for this? imagine the perspective of an ant, how narrow it is. we as humans believe to have a so much broader and more objective perspective. but what if...... WHAT IF..... our perspective was as limited as an ant's? if we had so little grasp on "the whole", that we could never possibly understand it, just like an ant will never do rocket science. just saying...
The ant doesn't have abstract thinking, we do. I am not saying for sure we can understand everything, but we have yet to reach our limits. And as far as beliefs go, I believe we can understand everything given enough time and data.
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On July 01 2013 19:59 marconi wrote:
I think some people here need to experience psychedelics. Otherwise we all gonna turn into "biological computers".
True true. Nothing like five dried grams to shed some new light on this peculiar question ^^
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On July 01 2013 20:37 Tobberoth wrote:
I disagree, I think there's a very clear line when you're concious enough to realize your individuality and when you're not. Since we are humans, we have no idea what other kinds of conciousness there are. You say different animals have different level of counciousness, but you obviously can't know that. Maybe they just think in emotions like hunger, pain etc.. maybe they don't think at all and act like computers. We can't know this, because our experience is always 100% locked to ourselves, which is my whole argument from the start.
That's not true. Humans do experiment on animals and do know some things about them. A simple one (which relates to self-consciousness) is the mirror experiment used to test the ability of the animal to recognize itself in a mirror. Some animals are able to do it, others don't and that proves different degrees of intelligence.
The point is that there isn't such thing as consciousness. It is just a product of intelligence which is just complex brain work.
Being aware of our individuality is just a higher level of thinking which is the consequence of a more evolved brain and more informations stored with memory.
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On July 01 2013 23:28 RedFury wrote:Show nested quote +On July 01 2013 20:37 Tobberoth wrote:
I disagree, I think there's a very clear line when you're concious enough to realize your individuality and when you're not. Since we are humans, we have no idea what other kinds of conciousness there are. You say different animals have different level of counciousness, but you obviously can't know that. Maybe they just think in emotions like hunger, pain etc.. maybe they don't think at all and act like computers. We can't know this, because our experience is always 100% locked to ourselves, which is my whole argument from the start. That's not true. Humans do experiment on animals and do know some things about them. A simple one (which relates to self-consciousness) is the mirror experiment used to test the ability of the animal to recognize itself in a mirror. Some animals are able to do it, others don't and that proves different degrees of intelligence. The point is that there isn't such thing as consciousness. It is just a product of intelligence which is just complex brain work. Being aware of our individuality is just a higher level of thinking which is the consequence of a more evolved brain and more informations stored with memory.
Thanks for bringing up the mirror experiment to counter my posts, even though I already brought the very same experiment up myself. The mirror experience tests for self-conciousness, it does not prove anything about different degrees of conciousness. We can't know anything about that, all we can test is whether or not something is actually self-concious (and the mirror experiment has been criticised for not even being all that great at testing that).
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On July 01 2013 10:15 travis wrote:
I don't understand what any of you are saying. Obviously your experiences aren't physical. We can't measure experiences, we can only measure their correlates.
yet
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if there is metaphysical conscience, is there also God?
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On July 01 2013 23:10 Tobberoth wrote:Show nested quote +On July 01 2013 23:07 DertoQq wrote:On July 01 2013 22:43 Tobberoth wrote:On July 01 2013 22:39 DoubleReed wrote:On July 01 2013 22:34 Tobberoth wrote:On July 01 2013 22:20 DoubleReed wrote:On July 01 2013 22:16 Tobberoth wrote:On July 01 2013 22:07 DoubleReed wrote:On July 01 2013 21:59 Tobberoth wrote:On July 01 2013 21:45 DoubleReed wrote:
The same person has multiple "perspectives" several times a day. I'm not saying you are wrong, but this sentence shows that your definition of "perspective" in this matter and mine are completely different. What I'm talking about is your individuality and your ability to experience things around you. While it evolves over time, you can definitely not have multiple of them. If your perspective is a changing, malleable thing then who's to say that the clones don't have the same perspective? It's the difference between shaping two identical pieces of clay into different shapes. Are they different pieces of clay before you shape? After you shape them? They don't have the same perspective because how would that ever work, suddenly you see the world from four eyes, at two different locations? It's impossible to compare to pieces of clay, since pieces of clay aren't councious, so they obviously lack the kind of perspective being talked about. Look, either perspectives can change or they can't. You can't have it both ways. If I clone a pen, and break the pen, then one pen is broken and one is not. Are they the same pen even though they're completely different? You clone a person but change his location. Sure, you've made change. But why does that count as a different perspective while the pen-cloning does not? Perspectives can change. Because the pen doesn't have a perspective. It's a dead item. The pen can't lose anything by being killed then recreated, because it's already dead. The pen can't wonder what makes it different from other pens, can't be nervous when walking into that teleporter. So? Eyes transmit pictures to the brain. Self-awareness and cognition are biochemical processes. It's not a "thing". It's a whole system of processes. The living or deadness of something depends on that. Yes. Which is why I said, it's all about being more than the sum of its parts. You have a bunch of electric chemical shit in your brain which does nothing on it's own. Put it together and you get something which can be considered alive. But not only that... you get something which understands what it is and can think about this very process... which is completely 100% unique to THIS very process and can't be recreated, no matter how well the parts are copied, because this concept, for some reason, seems to be locked to this individual process. There is nothing unique about this "process", and I don't see why you say it can't be recreated. The process of an animal surviving in the wild and us thinking about the meaning of life is basically the same. We have information, we analyse it, we do an action depending of the analyse. Nothing mystical about it. I think it is safe to say that one day, we will be able to write computer AI that imitate perfectly the though process of the brain. will those AI have a "soul" ? Maybe you didn't read my posts well enough. I already stated that even a synthetic being would have a soul by my definition of the concept.
I don't know where to go on that... If you are claiming that a computer (build from scratch by humans using physical/materials stuff) can have immaterial things ("soul") depending on the software he is using (AI), then i'm really confused about the point you are trying to make.
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I feel bad for sitting on the fence on this topic. The Matrix introduced me to the concept, and I have had at least formally encountered and researched on this topic sparingly for the last two years or so. But even after this fact, I really don't know. I admit that any desire to search beyond the material is romantic at best and foolish at worst. My only hope is that in the last remaining recesses of scientific knowledge, there might be hope at all that the mind is more than the sum of the brain. I recognize the "materialist" consensus and I would fully subscribe to it once it has been determined what fires the initial neuro signals. Anyone has an answer to this?
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On July 01 2013 23:04 Prog wrote:Show nested quote +On July 01 2013 22:50 mcc wrote:On July 01 2013 22:36 Prog wrote:On July 01 2013 22:31 mcc wrote:On July 01 2013 21:08 Prog wrote:
Just a little input for the physicalist majority here. If you claim that consciousness is physical, then you have to explain what 'physical' means. Now you either define it by pointing to current physics, which is (as history showed) probably (partially) false or incomplete. Or you point to ideal physics, which we have no clue how it looks like. Either way, you have a problem. [Hempel's Dilemma]
The alternative is to define physical by paradigmatic objects, like 'everything that is needed to explain this toaster', but that is terribly vague too. As history shows physics have not been false for few hundred of years. It was just not accurate enough. All changes in physics in that time were discoveries that we are not correct in some special cases. So your point would be valid only in case that physics is inaccurate in the area that pertains to mental processes. That is most likely not the case as current physics is extremely accurate in that area, there is just no space for error significant enough in that area. Thus Hempel's dilemma is avoided as consciousness is not outside of current physics and that dilemma depends on that. All those objections remind me of this quote that perfectly shows relationship between science and philosophy(discipline, not subjective model of the world): Science meanwhile advances at its gradual pace, often slowing to a crawl, and for periods it even walks in place, but eventually it reaches the various ultimate trenches dug by philosophical thought, and, quite heedless of the fact that it is not supposed to be able to cross those final barriers to the intellect, goes right on. Phlogiston was just not accurate enough? Aether was just not accurate enough? I disagree. Those things just do not exist and physics claimed they did. There is nothing that ensures such mistakes not happening again. The concepts that physics uses are not of absolute importance, the models and predictions are. Predictions of models with aether were very accurate, no matter if aether does not exist. But I would also like to point out aether was not really part of physical models used for prediction, it was just concept used externally to the model itself. Phlogiston was before the period I meant. You put too much attention to the story and words around physical models and not enough attention to the core, which is models and their predictions. Notice I was talking about accuracy of predictions when I replied to you, I did not talk about "truth". That was intentional. How can you seperate models and concepts? A model without any concept is just empty and provides no knowledge whatsoever. Every model is created and interpreted based on concepts. That is pretty much the standard objection against structural realism. There are examples in physics that point to this inseperability. Stathis Psillos put it prominently forward by looking at Maxwell: http://users.uoa.gr/~psillos/PapersI/102-Dialectica-1995.pdf
Easily, models can just predict output variables based on input variables using math. You need some input concepts and output concepts, but insides of the model can be purely math. Aether was purely internal concept. Model that provides accurate predictions provides knowledge (depends how you define it) no matter if there is any interpretation of it. It is better to have interpretation of that model, but it is not necessary and as modern physics shows the interpretations are becoming more and more suspect, most likely because we reached a point where we left areas of our mental ability to use concepts properly at all, so only math remains. Discovery that aether does not exist surprised physicists (some), but it had no effect on the model or equations. The only thing it showed was that interpretation and concepts behind the model were wrong. Model was still useful and accurate. The significance of the lack of aether was big for conceptual realm, not for the predictive realm.
As for the rest of your argument, please formulate it yourself, I am not going to read 50+ pages of potential nonsense.
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placebo effect is a proof of how mind can > matter. just give it some time to learn. knowledge is power.
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On July 01 2013 23:31 Tobberoth wrote:
Thanks for bringing up the mirror experiment to counter my posts, even though I already brought the very same experiment up myself. The mirror experience tests for self-conciousness, it does not prove anything about different degrees of conciousness. We can't know anything about that, all we can test is whether or not something is actually self-concious (and the mirror experiment has been criticised for not even being all that great at testing that).
I know you quoted it previously (answering the other guy). It does prove different degrees of (self-recognizing) intelligence not consciousness. Consciousness is just a subject of the act of thinking, which is merely brain work, and thus physical.
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EPT
