Are spirits stupid?

[_Tarski]

Tarski wrote:
OK, its time to tell you my little story so you can stop thinking I have never considered the alternative position.

Thanks for sharing this. Sound like a true conversion experience. You now seem to be religiously trying to convert others to think the way you think -- to see the light you are now seeing. Others, however, have had their individual conversion experiences, especially many who have had NDEs. They believe they have seen the light -- literally. I see no problem in your sharing your experience and letting others make a decision based upon the evidence you provide. What I have felt, however, and perhaps wrongly, is that you were not allowing others their conversion experience. It was either your way or the highway. Please correct me if I have misinterpreted your intentions.

I am telling you that the assumption that I never consider the arguments or read anything from the consciousness as immaterial side is not only wrong it is wildly wrong. I was steeped in it. I almost defined myself by it.

The next step is to get down to the question. There exist many many models of how the brain accomplishes perception conception formation and manipulation self-model construction and even models that show why we must have this perception of our own consciousness. You have seen one such model outlined. Dennett CE book is one long outline of another.

Now, give me just one model of how immaterial spirit (whatever that may be!!) helps explain any aspect of consciousness.
What happens? What is it, what is it doing? Is it even an "it"?
I need something to grab onto. At least a brain has structure, impulses, connections to eyes, and ears. It has a language center, concept formation center (frontal cortex) etc. For example "The temporal lobes are responsible for hearing, memory, meaning, and language. They also play a role in emotion and learning. The temporal lobes are concerned with interpreting and processing auditory stimuli."
Neurologists didn't just make that up.

[_SeekerofTruth]

Tarski wrote:
So basically, just like me (or a former me), after thinking about and feeling about and meditating about and reading about "immaterial consciousness or spirit", you have nothing that explains anything about thinking and feeling. It doesn't explain how brain damge rduces the ability to use concepts, how som drugs can intensified experience, or how we need the brain to see, to think, how brain damage can change any aspect of consciousness and even one by one remove those aspects.

I do not deny you your experience. I am simply asking you to respect the experiences of others. Is there any possibility that you may be wrong? I have allowed the possibility that I can be wrong. If the NDEs of some individuals are valid (even one) this would invalidate all that you are saying.

[_Tarski]

Tarski wrote:
So basically, just like me (or a former me), after thinking about and feeling about and meditating about and reading about "immaterial consciousness or spirit", you have nothing that explains anything about thinking and feeling. It doesn't explain how brain damge rduces the ability to use concepts, how som drugs can intensified experience, or how we need the brain to see, to think, how brain damage can change any aspect of consciousness and even one by one remove those aspects.

I do not deny you your experience..

Part of my point is that what one experiences subjectively has very little to do with what the actual truth may be.

I am simply asking you to respect the experiences of others.

I didn't realize that is all you wanted. I thought it was a scientific or philosophic debate about consciousness and its immateriality and connection to some notion of "spirit".

Is there any possibility that you may be wrong?

That's a given.
But until I get some details about how spirit functions or what it is (still just a word that conjures ghosts to me) then I can't comment on how I might be wrong.

See above post--I think we posted at the same time.

[_asbestosman]

And what does hypercomputation allow? Can you demononstrate?

It allows for the computation of some things that turing computers cannot compute. Just google it up and see for yourself.

Surely, this is just more materialism. It should remain just as puzzling to Seeker how any kind of matter (more refined) or any kind of computation could produce his subjectivity.

I'm not sure I believe that it produces that subjectivity.

Actually, I'm not sure if consciousness is possible on a regular turing machine. I'm also not sure that it's impossible on a turing machine. Roger Penrose seems to think that human intelligence surpasses turing machines and offers what he thinks is proof. I find his proof (about intuiting mathematical truth) to be unconvincing, but on the other hand, I have not seen a proof that such intuitions are really possible on turing machines I myself hope that they are possibe because I like to dream about artificial intelligence on computers being able to do more humanlike things.

As to how refined spirit matter might do something that physical matter cannot, I speculate that it may either have a special connection to another spirit oracle of sorts, or perhaps spirits can fit into smaller dimensions and thus pack more matter closer together in special ways to allow for hypercomputation (what if there were infinity dimensions thus allowing each spirit atom to beat most just a few atomic lengths away from all the others?)

[_SeekerofTruth]

Tarski wrote:
I am telling you that the assumption that I never consider the arguments or read anything from the consciousness as immaterial side is not only wrong it is wildly wrong. I was steeped in it. I almost defined myself by it.

The next step is to get down to the question. There exist many many models of how the brain accomplishes perception conception formation and manipulation self-model construction and even models that show why we must have this perception of our own consciousness. You have seen one such model outlined. Dennett CE book is one long outline of another.

Now, give me just one model of how immaterial spirit (whatever that may be!!) helps explain any aspect of consciousness.
What happens? What is it, what is it doing? Is it even an "it"?
I need something to grab onto. At least a brain has structure, impulses, connections to eyes, and ears. It has a language center, concept formation center (frontal cortex) etc. For example "The temporal lobes are responsible for hearing, memory, meaning, and language. They also play a role in emotion and learning. The temporal lobes are concerned with interpreting and processing auditory stimuli."
Neurologists didn't just make that up.

In a sense you are asking the impossible. If it is impossible to explain what it would be like to be a bat, which is a physical animal, how can one be expected to explain what it is like to be a spirit? Scientists may be able to explain the working of the bat brain and how the interior colliculi may be involved in echo location, but they will probably never be able to describe what it is like to be a bat.


http://members.aol.com/NeoNoetics/Nagel_Bat.html


While many Mormons will disagree, I consider spirit to be immaterial. Science can only measure matter. How can you realistically expect direct scientific evidence for the existence of spirit? Simply because science cannot measure something, such as spirit, does not necessarily mean that it does not exist. For example, subatomic strings and Bohm's implicate order.

Not to toot my horn, but I got my Ph.D. in physiological psychology. I was with the Dept. of Anatomy and Brain Research Institute at UCLA. I have operated on and recorded EEG and single cell activity in numerous mammalian brains. I have taught classes in neuroanatomy and brain function. I have done neuromodeling myself and I have seen many models come and go, including my own. Along the way, I have seen too many exceptions to the common views of brain function and what it can do to be able to state emphatically, as some neuroscientists and philosophers do, that the brain is the only possible explanation for human consciousness. You seem to dismiss psi phenomena out of hand. That is your choice. But I include them in the overall equation. Maybe I am naïve in doing so, as you seem to imply. Only time will tell.

[_Tarski]

Tarski wrote:
I am telling you that the assumption that I never consider the arguments or read anything from the consciousness as immaterial side is not only wrong it is wildly wrong. I was steeped in it. I almost defined myself by it.

The next step is to get down to the question. There exist many many models of how the brain accomplishes perception conception formation and manipulation self-model construction and even models that show why we must have this perception of our own consciousness. You have seen one such model outlined. Dennett CE book is one long outline of another.

Now, give me just one model of how immaterial spirit (whatever that may be!!) helps explain any aspect of consciousness.
What happens? What is it, what is it doing? Is it even an "it"?
I need something to grab onto. At least a brain has structure, impulses, connections to eyes, and ears. It has a language center, concept formation center (frontal cortex) etc. For example "The temporal lobes are responsible for hearing, memory, meaning, and language. They also play a role in emotion and learning. The temporal lobes are concerned with interpreting and processing auditory stimuli."
Neurologists didn't just make that up.

In a sense you are asking the impossible. If it is impossible to explain what it would be like to be a bat, which is a physical animal, how can one be expected to explain what it is like to be a spirit? Scientists may be able to explain the working of the bat brain and how the interior colliculi may be involved in echo location, but they will probably never be able to describe what it is like to be a bat.


http://members.aol.com/NeoNoetics/Nagel_Bat.html


While many Mormons will disagree, I consider spirit to be immaterial. Science can only measure matter. How can you realistically expect direct scientific evidence for the existence of spirit? Simply because science cannot measure something, such as spirit, does not necessarily mean that it does not exist. For example, subatomic strings and Bohm's implicate order.
.

Without evidence for an entity, what is the reason for believing in it? One at least needs it to have a clear definition/description and a detailed role in explaining what we can measure (think quarks).
Now in the case of spirit, do we have anything like that?

1. What are the posited basic characteristic of spirit--don't just define the porblem away by say "spirit has the property of being conscious" or something like that. that's like asking how sleeping pills work and answering that thety have a "virtus dormativa" (power to induce sleep)
2. Having given the clarifying posited simple fundamental properties of spirit, how do those enter into a detailed explanation of consciousness and qualia?

In fact, I would, for the sake of argument, allow you to just make something up! In other words, what could it be, even in principal, that would explain those aspect of consciousness that to you seem to think so far beyond what a material system can accomplish.

Make a toy model. No proof needed. Just make the meaning of the words clear and let it have explanitory power (simple assumptions lead to answer more difficult question like how one might explain how a TV works or how heat can be explained by the motion of molecules. Those actually make one understand something and give a sense of enlightenment.
Do a flow chart with some boxes and arrow but don't include a "miracle box" with magic powers. Make every step clear to an unbiased epistemic peer.
I want to feel like "oh! that's what spirit could be and how it could step by step solve this mystery of subjectivity"

So far I don't even know what the word spirit means, and I am unclear on what immaterial could mean outside of it being something abstract the number Pi or democracy or information. Does it occupy space? Is it nowhere? Is it discrete or continuous? Is it "in" a brain" Does it have parts? What rules could it obey at the bottom level?

[_SeekerofTruth]

Tarski wrote:
Without evidence for an entity, what is the reason for believing in it? One at least needs it to have a clear definition/description and a detailed role in explaining what we can measure (think quarks).
Now in the case of spirit, do we have anything like that?

1. What are the posited basic characteristic of spirit--don't just define the porblem away by say "spirit has the property of being conscious" or something like that. that's like asking how sleeping pills work and answering that thety have a "virtus dormativa" (power to induce sleep)
2. Having given the clarifying posited simple fundamental properties of spirit, how do those enter into a detailed explanation of consciousness and qualia?

In fact, I would, for the sake of argument, allow you to just make something up! In other words, what could it be, even in principal, that would explain those aspect of consciousness that to you seem to think so far beyond what a material system can accomplish.

Make a toy model. No proof needed. Just make the meaning of the words clear and let it have explanitory power (simple assumptions lead to answer more difficult question like how one might explain how a TV works or how heat can be explained by the motion of molecules. Those actually make one understand something and give a sense of enlightenment.
Do a flow chart with some boxes and arrow but don't include a "miracle box" with magic powers. Make every step clear to an unbiased epistemic peer.
I want to feel like "oh! that's what spirit could be and how it could step by step solve this mystery of subjectivity"

So far I don't even know what the word spirit means, and I am unclear on what immaterial could mean outside of it being something abstract the number Pi or democracy or information. Does it occupy space? Is it nowhere? Is it discrete or continuous? Is it "in" a brain" Does it have parts? What rules could it obey at the bottom level?

On the one hand I can understand your frustration but on the other I see that you just don't get it. How can you expect someone to describe the ineffable? By definition, the ineffable cannot be put into words. Does this mean that someone cannot have an ineffable experience? Would you deny them that? Spirit is immaterial. Something immaterial cannot be accurately described in physical terms. People make an attempt to do this, but they always come up short. The closest we can come, as far as I know, is with consciousness. Each of us knows what it is to be conscious but it is impossible to put that experience accurately into words. We can say something to the effect that it is like this or like that. One thing is certain, to say that it is brain function doesn't begin to do it justice.

As I see it, you are expecting people to jump through a hoop that it is physically impossible to jump through and then you are ridiculing them for not doing so.

[_Tarski]

Tarski wrote:
Without evidence for an entity, what is the reason for believing in it? One at least needs it to have a clear definition/description and a detailed role in explaining what we can measure (think quarks).
Now in the case of spirit, do we have anything like that?

1. What are the posited basic characteristic of spirit--don't just define the problem away by say "spirit has the property of being conscious" or something like that. that's like asking how sleeping pills work and answering that they have a "virtus dormativa" (power to induce sleep)
2. Having given the clarifying posited simple fundamental properties of spirit, how do those enter into a detailed explanation of consciousness and qualia?

In fact, I would, for the sake of argument, allow you to just make something up! In other words, what could it be, even in principal, that would explain those aspect of consciousness that to you seem to think so far beyond what a material system can accomplish.

Make a toy model. No proof needed. Just make the meaning of the words clear and let it have explanitory power (simple assumptions lead to answer more difficult question like how one might explain how a TV works or how heat can be explained by the motion of molecules. Those actually make one understand something and give a sense of enlightenment.
Do a flow chart with some boxes and arrow but don't include a "miracle box" with magic powers. Make every step clear to an unbiased epistemic peer.
I want to feel like "oh! that's what spirit could be and how it could step by step solve this mystery of subjectivity"

So far I don't even know what the word spirit means, and I am unclear on what immaterial could mean outside of it being something abstract the number Pi or democracy or information. Does it occupy space? Is it nowhere? Is it discrete or continuous? Is it "in" a brain" Does it have parts? What rules could it obey at the bottom level?

On the one hand I can understand your frustration but on the other I see that you just don't get it. How can you expect someone to describe the ineffable?

Oh no. Here we go.

By definition, the ineffable cannot be put into words.

So all that has to be explained is why you can't put something into words? That's not an ability but a deficit. So do you really think a lack of ability can't be explained by the brain. You can't imagine how a physical thing could fail to be able to do something. That's an odd position.

Does this mean that someone cannot have an ineffable experience?

But where is the mystery in this inability? My computer can't say damn thing about the information going into it either.

Would you deny them that? Spirit is immaterial.

Well I am pretty sure that ineffable and immaterial are two totally different concepts. Is this just the non sequitur that I think it is?

Something immaterial cannot be accurately described in physical terms.

Well if you can't accurately describe it in any terms then I submit that you don't know what you are talking about.

People make an attempt to do this, but they always come up short. The closest we can come, as far as I know, is with consciousness. Each of us knows what it is to be conscious but it is impossible to put that experience accurately into words. We can say something to the effect that it is like this or like that. One thing is certain, to say that it is brain function doesn't begin to do it justice.

So far I have two words that are both myterious (to you) and therefore somehow explain each other (spirit and consciousness).

They must do this explaining behind our backs because since they are ineffable we are mute.

We are better off thinking about consciousness as a set of abilities that allow us to navigate, speak about and be in functional contact with the world and our own bodies. The difference with some of these abilities is that we can hinge action policies on them. These are the conscious ones. Read about the training of people to recover from blind-sight in CE for this omportant insight on the difference between unconcious information processing and conscious processing.

As I see it, you are expecting people to jump through a hoop that it is physically impossible to jump through and then you are ridiculing them for not doing so.

So you have nothing. That's fine I won't demand you do the impossible (make any sense of your claim that consciousness is immaterial and must be related to "spirit"). My only question is why you don't realize that this utter lack of ability to say what you are talking about is evidence that you are confused.

Did you know that there is even a neural model of why color qualia is felt to be ineffable?

Cortical Feedback and the Ineffability of Colors:

http://psyche.cs.monash.edu.au/articles ... harlow.pdf

[_SeekerofTruth]

Tarski wrote:
So all that has to be explained is why you can't put something into words? That's not an ability but a deficit. So do you really think a lack of ability can't be explained by the brain. You can't imagine how a physical thing could fail to be able to do something. That's an odd position.

But where is the mystery in this inability? My computer can't say damn thing about the information going into it either.

Well I am pretty sure that ineffable and immaterial are two totally different concepts. Is this just the non sequitur that I think it is?

Well if you can't accurately describe it in any terms then I submit that you don't know what you are talking about.

So far I have two words that are both myterious (to you) and therefore somehow explain each other (spirit and consciousness).

They must do this explaining behind our backs because since they are ineffable we are mute.

We are better off thinking about consciousness as a set of abilities that allow us to navigate, speak about and be in functional contact with the world and our own bodies. The difference with some of these abilities is that we can hinge action policies on them. These are the conscious ones. Read about the training of people to recover from blind-sight in CE for this omportant insight on the difference between unconcious information processing and conscious processing.

So you have nothing. That's fine I won't demand you do the impossible (make any sense of your claim that consciousness is immaterial and must be related to "spirit"). My only question is why you don't realize that this utter lack of ability to say what you are talking about is evidence that you are confused.So you have nothing. That's fine I won't demand you do the impossible (make any sense of your claim that consciousness is immaterial and must be related to "spirit"). My only question is why you don't realize that this utter lack of ability to say what you are talking about is evidence that you are confused.

I interpret this as just another example of ridicule on your part. The inability to describe the ineffable is not limited to me. I have yet to read an adequate description from you of how the brain produces the experience of being conscious (e.g. conscious awareness and conscious thought). All you have done is state that the experience arises from brain function, referenced a model(s) of how this might occur, and said that consciousness is a set of abilities. A set of abilities is not the same as experience and a model will not necessarily function in reality. I submit that you cannot describe how the brain produces the experience of consciousness because the experience is ineffable. And it is ineffable because it has no material substance. You said you understand how it is done. Okay, I have an experience. How does the brain produce that experience? No models or might bes. Tell me in terms of the actual functioning of my brain how it is that I have an experience. For example, I am right now having the experience that I exist. How does the brain produce that experience?


Why do you suppose we generally enjoy having a conscious experience more if we are with someone than by ourselves? Is it not because we feel that they are somehow having the same experience we are having? Any attempt to describe the experience to each other using words or pictures is a poor substitute for having the experience together. For example, one of my sons and his family just got back from Zion's national park. They took numerous pictures which they shared with me. While it was nice of them to do this, in their showing the pictures to me I did not have the same experience that I would have had if I had been with them when they took the pictures. Likewise, individuals who have NDEs cannot adequately describe their experience of the spirit world because it is ineffable. You seem to ridicule their experiences, as well as any religious experience, for lack of physical evidence. Yet when I present physical evidence, such as statistically significant psi phenomena, you reject that evidence out of hand. If the spirit world should happen to exist, what physical evidence do you expect could be returned from there? Here is one person's comprehensive attempt at reconciling NDEs with science:

http://www.near-death.com/experiences/research08.html

Let's face it. You have converted to materialism and have decided that nothing outside of a material world can exist. Therefore, nothing a person says and no amount of evidence to the contrary will be convincing to you. In this respect you are no different from some Mormons who are equally as intransigent.

[_SeekerofTruth]

Tarski wrote:
Did you know that there is even a neural model of why color qualia is felt to be ineffable?

Cortical Feedback and the Ineffability of Colors:

ABSTRACT: Philosophers long have noted that some sensations (particularly those of
color) seem to be ineffable, or refractory to verbal description. Some proposed
neurophysiological explanations of this ineffability deny the intuitive view that sensations
have inherently indescribable content. The present paper suggests a new explanation of
ineffability that does not have this deflationary consequence. According to the hypothesis presented here, feedback modulation of information flow in the cortex interferes with the production of narratives about sensations, thereby causing the subject to assess as inadequate his or her own verbal descriptions of sensations.

Duh, "feedback modulation of information flow in the cortex." Explain that in terms of neuronal activity.

"...causing the subject to assess..." The brain of some individual? The brain is assessing itself? More likely the consciousness of the individual would assess the inadequacy of the verbal descriptions.