Are spirits stupid?

[_ludwigm]

http://books.google.com/books?id=cxYFw ....

Please break or hide that long URL. It makes the page unreadable.

I can comment it, You could fix it.

[Guest]

OK, I have a minute before everyone else wakes up...

An interesting article in TIME appeared in 1996 called, "Can Machines Think?" McGinn (along with Nagle, Chalmers et. al) is one of the leading scholars who disagrees with Dennett.

McGinn doesn't mean that subjective experience is literally a miracle. He considers himself a materialist, if in a "thin" sense. He presumes there is some physical explanation for subjective experience, even though he doubts that the human brain--or mind, or whatever--can ever grasp it. Nevertheless, McGinn doesn't laugh at people who take the water-into-wine metaphor more literally. "I think in a way it's legitimate to take the mystery of consciousness and convert it into a theological system. I don't do that myself, but I think in a sense it's more rational than strict materialism, because it respects the data." That is, it respects the lack of data, the yawning and perhaps eternal gap in scientific understanding.

These two "hard" questions about consciousness--the extraness question and the water-into-wine question--don't depend on artificial intelligence. They could occur (and have occurred) to people who simply take the mind-as-machine idea seriously and ponder its implications. But the actual construction of a robot like Cog, or of a pandemonium machine, makes the hard questions more vivid. Materialist dismissals of the mind-body problem may seem forceful on paper, but, says McGinn, "you start to see the limits of a concept once it gets realized." With A.I., the tenets of strict materialism are being realized--and found, by some at least, incapable of explaining certain parts of human experience. Namely, the experience part.

Dennett's book has been dubbed "Consciousness ignored" or "Consicousness explained away" by his academic critics because he essentially dismisses what most scholars consider to be the biggest hurdle: human experience. He doesn't resolve the problem by dismissing it and they aren't buying into his chrade, even if anti-religionists prefer to.

Seekeroftruth is not talking out of his butt. From what I can tell, he seems to be the only person here who is up to date on the current debate in scholarship.

And I am shocked that Sethbag would say thoughts can be measured. Really? In what way? The way something is placed on a scale and you see the thing move but can't see what it actually weighs? What unit of measurement are used to measure thoughts?

In computers we can see the data flow in an organized way. A digital file of the movie Titanic will contain a certain configuration of 1's and 0's, consisting of millions. Every time that exact configuration is set in whatever computer system, you will always get Titanic. We can measure the voltage of the logic gates used to produce the digtal input and we can measure the frequency of information flow.

In the brain, all we can do is take imaging scans and see a fantastic light show and pretend correlation equals causation. That's like astronauts orbiting the planet at night looking down at the east coast as the sun sets and watching lights flicker on an off. "Yep, there must be something going on in that part of the country"!

But how are thoughts measured? Say a subject is asked to think of a redwood tree sitting on a hill? Can we reproduce that thought by measuring it? Don't be so naïve. All we can do is observe what part of the brain lights up. But will all brains light up in the same way in the same area all of the time? No. Because the brain is the powerhouse of our emotions just the same. How do we know it isn't an emotional reaction we are watching? We don't even know what the data consists of (it certainly isn't binary) and Dennett's appeal to mysterious memes jumping from brain to brain, is laughable.

Here is a recent article discussing the point I think seeker is making. And he is not the one forwarding "BS." You guys are just too eager to read into the available evidence, something that simply isn't there: http://www.world-science.net/othernews/080219_conscious

Try­ing to un­der­stand what cre­ates con­sciousness—the sense of be­ing alive and aware—is one of the all-time most ex­as­per­at­ing prob­lems in sci­ence. The key stum­bling block: even if one knew every brain mech­an­ism un­der­ly­ing con­scious­ness, there would still be no ap­par­ent way to see or meas­ure the ac­tu­al pro­duc­tion of con­sciou­sness. For now, many re­search­ers fig­ure they may as well just do the best they can in un­rav­el­ing those phys­i­cal mech­an­isms.

I can only sit back and roll my eyes when I see you guys pretending everything can and will be explained in a materialistic paradigm, or even worse, a functionalistic one. We have the technology to analyze matter at its most basic form; we can dissect the anatomy of atoms and even slice them. Yet, human consciousness remains an utter mystery because what we observe in the brain boggles our minds. Comparing us to computers is typical of a functionalist, but essentially ridiculous. To suggest zombies or robots must also be conscious simply because they might function like humans, is really indicative of just how desperate the Functionalist position is getting.

[Guest]

Schmo wrote:
Prove it.

You asked for an example, not proof.

Now you're grasping at straws. There's nothing subjective about a drunk swerving all over the road and running other people into ditches. I have objectively witnessed this very thing happening. We have laws prohibiting such behavior and huge penalties for it because it is widely acknowledged that alcohol affects your consciousness.

How about a better example: why do people lose their consciousness when under the influence of an anesthetic?

I’m not certain that I have an answer that is satisfactory to myself, let alone to you. There are some issues with self-awareness that I do not fully understand, but I will make an attempt at an explanation. First, I assume you are aware that there are various components of general anesthesia. One component is the immobilization of the body; the other is the loss of consciousness. Not everyone under anesthesia becomes unconscious but since they are completely immobilized they appear to the anesthesiologist to be unconscious. An analogous situation is the locked-in syndrome caused by brainstem damage in which a person is completely immobilized but conscious.

When a person becomes unconscious that person no longer has a self-identity. As that person becomes conscious again that self-identity returns. This seems to happen when a person is anesthetized as well as during sleep, as you previously mentioned. However, it can also happen for unexplained reasons, such as with dissociative identity disorder (multiple personality) and dissociative fugue. In the first instance, a person appears to switch from one identity (self-awareness) to another, often but not necessarily under hypnosis. In the second instance, a person forgets who he or she is and may assume a completely different identity that can last for months, even years. That person is unconscious to the first personality, but conscious to the second personality.

Thus it is impossible to say with certainty that when a person is anesthetized or asleep that that person is no longer self-aware. They may appear to be unaware to an outside observer and even to the person who is asleep or anesthetized, but self-awareness may continue to exist at some other level.

This is about the best that I can do at an explanation at this time. Take it for what it’s worth.

[_Roger Morrison]

Dart, thanks for the link. It added purpose to the reason for the seach to understand "consciousness". The discussion of which is to a very 'lay' person such as i, often seems pointless, if not all B...S...?? OTOH, i have often wondered, consciously, which comes into mind first: feeling or thought? "I think it's cold, (outside) i'll put on a sweater." "I feel cold, i think i'll put on my jacket." "I hate, i'll kill!" "I feel sorry, i'll help."

IF thought precedes the deed. What part does feeling play in that chain-reaction? Conscious? Unconscious? Relevant to this discussion?? Roger

[_SeekerofTruth]

Tarski wrote:
Because this is total b***s***.

You apparently have a closed mind and think you know all the answers, so why are we having this conversation?
Anyone who resorts to expletives has already lost the debate.

Apparently one answer you do not have is how to fix the link.

[_SeekerofTruth]

Tarski wrote:
LOL
Has science also failed to show that dreams are not real also?

NDE and OBE are the similist thing to explain in terms of brain. They are hallucinations pure and simple. The do not even occur when the subjects think they do becuase the memory of when (the neural timestamp) is also faulty. No surprise since the brain is under extreme durress usually.

By the way, I have had an OBE or two. Cool, realist etc. But since I am not stupid I don't think it is real anymore than my dreams are real.

If you would let me, I could produce an OBE in you in a matter of seconds by doing something directly to your brain. It would be dramatic and life changing and you would be unharmed (except emotionally).

Mine was spontaneous in case you are wondering.

Again, I suspect Persinger is much more knowledgeable on this than you, but he realizes the limitations of what he is doing and allows, if I recall correctly, for the existence of spirit. Why are you unable to do the same?

Still waiting for you to describe how the brain produces self-awareness.

[_dartagnan]

Roger,

If I start thinking about my childhood and at some point remember a time when my dog died, the emotion of sorrow ensues. It comes after the thought, does it not?

The examples you provided ("I feel cold, I think I'll put on my jacket." "I hate, I'll kill!" "I feel sorry, I'll help") deal with feelings-action, not thoughts-feelings.

[_SeekerofTruth]

Dartagnon wrote:
Seekeroftruth is not talking out of his butt. From what I can tell, he seems to be the only person here who is up to date on the current debate in scholarship.

Thanks. I was beginning to think that I was a lone voice in the wilderness, or something like that.

[_Tarski]

Tarski wrote:
LOL
Has science also failed to show that dreams are not real also?

NDE and OBE are the similist thing to explain in terms of brain. They are hallucinations pure and simple. The do not even occur when the subjects think they do becuase the memory of when (the neural timestamp) is also faulty. No surprise since the brain is under extreme durress usually.

By the way, I have had an OBE or two. Cool, realist etc. But since I am not stupid I don't think it is real anymore than my dreams are real.

If you would let me, I could produce an OBE in you in a matter of seconds by doing something directly to your brain. It would be dramatic and life changing and you would be unharmed (except emotionally).

Mine was spontaneous in case you are wondering.

Again, I suspect Persinger is much more knowledgeable on this than you, but he realizes the limitations of what he is doing and allows, if I recall correctly, for the existence of spirit. Why are you unable to do the same?

Still waiting for you to describe how the brain produces self-awareness.

Oh now its self-awareness?
OK, do you have the patience to read it?
Read the whole thing:
http://www.scholarpedia.org/article/Self_models

http://ase.tufts.edu/cogstud/papers/cognition.fin.htm

http://ase.tufts.edu/cogstud/papers/quinqual.htm


Look you are hypnotized by something tha has no depth. You are like a person that denies that heat can be the random motions of molecules.


TruthAvoider: How could heat be mechanical? It can't!

Tarski: Why not?

TruthDenier: Its obviously not just mechanical. It is one continuous thing, nothing like moving parts.

Tarski: But that's just the way we learned to think about it before we knew that is was mechanical?

TruthDenier: I agree that there are molecules moving but that doesn't explain the heat. Where is the the heat? If you look at the molecules you just see them moving but the hotness, the heat is obviously missing. Its so obvious. Do you deny that there is heat in a glowing piece of charcoal?

Tarski: You are hypnotized by an intuition of folk physics. Heat is not really a continuous fluid-like thing. It just seems that was from our gross perspective.

TruthDenier: You still haven't explained how heat itself could be mechanical! (Keeps repeating this every so often)

Tarski: Read this statistical mechanics book and think about it.

TruthDenier: Just tell me.

Tarski: *sigh*


The Feeling of What Happens: Body and Emotion in the Making of Consciousness -Damasio

Brief Tour of Human Consciousness: From Impostor Poodles to Purple Numbers
by V. S. Ramachandran

[_Tarski]

Now that I have given you an essay and references about seff-awareness and subjectivity,
can you tell me how "spirit" explains anything? As far as I can tell it is so far just a word. How can that help? What is it? How does it work, what does it do? How?

Your trading myster for mystery. Sifting the literature for ghostbuster research and repeating denials does not elevate "spirit" from a mere word to a structured concept with explanitory power!!!

Where is the beef?