[QUOTE=bIgFaTwOrM12;44292435]The idea that a person's mind is purely the result of physical attributes is [B]equally imaginative[/B], it is not like you can really base such a claim off of any evidence without first assuming that the mind is purely physical.[/QUOTE]
This isn't true at all, especially that they could be somehow equally imaginative. Surely it is more rational to assume that any substructure of the physical world is subject to the same physical laws that all other observed substructures are? If you can explain a phenomenon with mechanisms that are known to exist, how can it be "equally imaginative" to invent completely unfounded and unverifiable mechanisms to explain it (that happen to be more emotionally appealing)?
We can assume with decent confidence that consciousness is entirely emergent from a structure subject to the same physical laws as the rest of reality unless there is some observation that provably contradicts those physical laws.
[QUOTE=Ziks;44292558]This isn't true at all, especially that they could be somehow equally imaginative. Surely it is more rational to assume that any substructure of the physical world is subject to the same physical laws that all other observed substructures are? If you can explain a phenomenon with mechanisms that are known to exist, how can it be "equally imaginative" to invent completely unfounded and unverifiable mechanisms to explain it (that happen to be more emotionally appealing)?
We can assume with decent confidence that consciousness is entirely emergent from a structure subject to the same physical laws as the rest of reality unless there is some observation that provably contradicts those physical laws.[/QUOTE]
How can we if we barely even understand how it works in relation to the brain? The idea that the mind is a product of physical mechanism is nothing more than an expression of naturalism, what other reason is there to assume the mind is an emergent property?
[QUOTE=bIgFaTwOrM12;44292725]How can we if we barely even understand how it works in relation to the brain? The idea that the mind is a product of physical mechanism is nothing more than an expression of naturalism, what other reason is there to assume the mind is an emergent property?[/QUOTE]
From my perspective there is plenty of capacity in the 85,000,000,000 neurons in the human brain with each approximating a sigmoid activation function for what we experience as consciousness to arise. We don't know exactly how they must be configured for sentience to emerge, but ignorance doesn't mean we should invent untestable mechanisms to explain it (God of the Gaps etc).
In one of our lectures on artificial neural networks a little while ago the lecturer constructed a simple feed-forward neural network with 12 virtual neurons arranged in two columns of 6. Each neuron in the first column received inputs from the Fourier transform of a given sound recording, and each neuron in the second column received inputs from each neuron in the first column. The network was then given a set of around 50 voice samples from 6 of us in the lecture that day, and was taught using a back-propagation connection strength updating mechanism to fire a specific neuron in the second column for each of the people that had given a voice sample.
The network took a few hundred milliseconds to learn from the test data to fire the right neuron for each student with absolute accuracy, and maintained that accuracy when introduced to new samples that it hadn't been taught from.
If 12 heavily abstracted artificial neurons connected in a trivial way can learn to differentiate between the voices of 6 people, it's far from a leap of faith to assume that 85,000,000,000 biological neurons with all the added nuances of organic chemistry are capable of storing an abstracted internal model of the environment, parsing and generating natural language, anticipating future percepts with reasonable accuracy based on previously recorded observations, and operating a muscle-based effector system.
[QUOTE=Ziks;44292949]From my perspective there is plenty of capacity in the 85,000,000,000 neurons in the human brain with each approximating a sigmoid activation function for what we experience as consciousness to arise. We don't know exactly how they must be configured for sentience to emerge, but ignorance doesn't mean we should invent untestable mechanisms to explain it (God of the Gaps etc).
In one of our lectures on artificial neural networks a little while ago the lecturer constructed a simple feed-forward neural network with 12 virtual neurons arranged in two columns of 6. Each neuron in the first column received inputs from the Fourier transform of a given sound recording, and each neuron in the second column received inputs from each neuron in the first column. The network was then given a set of around 50 voice samples from 6 of us in the lecture that day, and was taught using a back-propagation connection strength updating mechanism to fire a specific neuron in the second column for each of the people that had given a voice sample.
The network took a few hundred milliseconds to learn from the test data to fire the right neuron for each student with absolute accuracy, and maintained that accuracy when introduced to new samples that it hadn't been taught from.
If 12 heavily abstracted artificial neurons connected in a trivial way can learn to differentiate between the voices of 6 people, it's far from a leap of faith to assume that 85,000,000,000 biological neurons with all the added nuances of organic chemistry are capable of storing an abstracted internal model of the environment, parsing and generating natural language, anticipating future percepts with reasonable accuracy based on previously recorded observations, and operating a muscle-based effector system.[/QUOTE]
The most basic processing of sensations from external stimuli isn't exactly the kind of mind we are talking about here though. Besides, I could talk about how the parts of the brain devoted to processing visual stimuli alone are fairly substantial, yet the functions they carry out are hardly a substantial part of what we would call the conscious experience.
This is also not a case of god of the gaps as I believe that a duelist view is the best explanation(not simply assuming it because we don't know), the reason I mention the fact that we know very little about the mind pertaining to the brain is to remind you that the naturalistic standpoint is hardly the best one at the present time.
[QUOTE=bIgFaTwOrM12;44293061]The most basic processing of sensations from external stimuli isn't exactly the kind of mind we are talking about here though. Besides, I could talk about how the parts of the brain devoted to processing visual stimuli alone are fairly substantial, yet the functions they carry out are hardly a substantial part of what we would call the conscious experience.[/QUOTE]
Perhaps you experience a far more complex form of conscious than I do. As far as I can tell the core functionality required is the mechanisms I described, a concept generator system that uses previously stored concepts to derive new ones, and a malleable evaluator system that assesses the newly generated concepts and stores the ones deemed to fit some criteria. Under this model the internal monologue you hear in your head when thinking is just the stream of concepts that are stored, and the ones that are discarded (because the evaluator system deemed them incoherent / non-valuable) you have no awareness of because they aren't stored in memory to be recollected.
Obviously the particular internal model storage format, generator and evaluator systems are unknown, but I don't see how they could be infeasible given the amount of grey matter we have to work with.
85,000,000,000 is huuuge.
[QUOTE]This is also not a case of god of the gaps as I believe that a duelist view is the best explanation, the reason I mention the fact that we know very little about the mind pertaining to the brain is to remind you that the naturalistic standpoint is hardly the best one at the present time.[/QUOTE]
But while the naturalist explanation is incomplete (we haven't worked out exactly which configurations of neurons are important yet), the dualist one is even more so. How do we rigorously describe this special mode of existence that our consciousness exhibits? What core components does it contain, and what are the exact relationships between them? What mechanism does it use to transfer information to conventional entities existing in our reality, without violating conservation of energy? If quantum indeterminacy is somehow used, surely these quantum events critical for consciousness are no longer completely probabilistic if some specific outcomes are forced by this special consciousness mechanism?
And biggest of all, how do we experimentally verify any potential answers to any of those questions?
I don't see how dualism could be favoured by anyone who didn't require it to be true for emotional or religious reasons. It makes the same mistake as all other supernatural beliefs by introducing unnecessary complexity and unfalsifiable assumptions.
[editline]19th March 2014[/editline]
Also I used to be a dualist too; until I learnt more about neural networks, became aware of the colossal scale of the human brain, analysed the nature of thought and dispelled my emotional preference for it to be true.
[QUOTE=InfoWarrior;44287823]Well i believe that conciousness can be seperated from body. Since i have done astral traveling i have gone outside of my body and can walk around in the 4th dimension. [url]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Astral_plane[/url][/QUOTE]
What does that have to do with my question? I want to know what people think "consciousness" looks like. If they are constantly in contact with it, surely they can describe it.
[QUOTE=Ziks;44293201]Perhaps you experience a far more complex form of conscious than I do. As far as I can tell the core functionality required is the mechanisms I described, a concept generator system that uses previously stored concepts to derive new ones, and a malleable evaluator system that assesses the newly generated concepts and stores the ones deemed to fit some criteria. Under this model the internal monologue you hear in your head when thinking is just the stream of concepts that are stored, and the ones that are discarded (because the evaluator system deemed them incoherent / non-valuable) you have no awareness of because they aren't stored in memory to be recollected.
Obviously the particular internal model storage format, generator and evaluator systems are unknown, but I don't see how they could be infeasible given the amount of grey matter we have to work with.[/QUOTE]
That is of course assuming that the process you illustrated with your lecturer's presentation is at all translatable to abstract concepts. Yet assuming that it was, it would befit a more static view of the nervous system that we had before the discovery of neuroplasticity would it not? The mind would work strictly within the structure it has available to it, yet the mind actually has an effect on the structure of the brain.
[QUOTE]85,000,000,000 is huuuge.[/QUOTE]
[IMG_THUMB]http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/f/fb/Ventral-dorsal_streams.svg/1024px-Ventral-dorsal_streams.svg.png[/IMG_THUMB]
Above is an image of just how much of the brain is devoted to delivering an image that you can recall and think about. Being able to see things and apply some form of identification to them is hardly a huge part of the conscious experience, yet a very substantial part of the brain is devoted to just that. With this knowledge I don't consider the size of our brain alone a convincing reason for why consciousness could by purely physical.
[QUOTE]But while the naturalist explanation is incomplete (we haven't worked out exactly which configurations of neurons are important yet), the dualist one is even more so. How do we rigorously describe this special mode of existence that our consciousness exhibits? What core components does it contain, and what are the exact relationships between them? What mechanism does it use to transfer information to conventional entities existing in our reality, without violating conservation of energy? If quantum indeterminacy is somehow used, surely these quantum events critical for consciousness are no longer completely probabilistic if some specific outcomes are forced by this special consciousness mechanism?[/QUOTE]
Well what components of consciousness allow us to experience and what mechanism allows it are essentially the same thing. Simply put though, I do not know and I do not think an explanation is necessary to reasonably believe that there is an explanation for consciousness beyond physicality. However, while the naturalist perspective does have a guess as to what physical structure the mind is contained in, it does not have an explanation for what mechanism allows for it either. It is essentially on the same ground as the dualist view in terms of what we know and what assumptions we must make to get there.
[QUOTE]And biggest of all, how to we experimentally verify any potential answers to any of those questions?[/QUOTE]
Why is this biggest of all? What I am trying to do is show how the dualist view is equally reasonable as the monist view. In fact, it would be more in favor of the monist view if the mind could be completely experimentally verified in every facet.
[QUOTE]I don't see how dualism could be favoured by anyone who didn't require it to be true for emotional or religious reasons. It makes the same mistake as all other supernatural beliefs by introducing unnecessary complexity and unfalsifiable assumptions.[/QUOTE]
I do not see how someone could favor the monist view without being inclined towards naturalism. Also I fail to see how this is unnecessarily complex, you can only make that claim if you yourself have an explanation for where consciousness could come from.
[QUOTE=Muggi;42321757]Death truly is the final frontier. I'm not religious, and I don't believe in life after death, but that's the thing isin't it? We will most likely never find a scientific way of discovering lies on the other side of the river Stygx if you will, because there is no way we can reliably test for a afterlife.
However, even if it is the last great mystery, it's a mystery we will all eventually get the answer to... I'm just hoping it will be a while before I find out what death is all about.[/QUOTE]
we are constantly advancing in science, along time ago if some one said i was going to make a machine that could fly they would have laughed about it and claimed it impossible, now air travel is one of the leading forms of quick transportation from point a to point b because it is a straight route. more to the point of this thread, I have no idea what comes after death how ever i dont believe it is the "end" there are many theories about "the big bang theory" and one of which is that there was an earth before, some how it was destroyed and then eventually put it self back together again and it is an endless loop. there was a famous scientist (I sincerely apologize i was in high school when my science teacher told us the multiple theories so i do not recall his name.) but this famous scientist ended up committing suicide because every discovery he would make he swore on his life he had made before and it ended up driving him mad. Like i said before i have no idea what happens after death (if anything.) and this thread is just a bunch of people come together spitballing ideas. back to the things said in earlier posts, if there are "ghosts" and they are "energy" then it would make sense if we could smell them or feel them, I don't know if you have ever been near a large electrical powerplant.etc but it is almost like you can feel the electricity in the air, last i checked electricity was a form of energy and can be effected by different frequencies. much like the sound from a stereo, essentially all a speaker is, is a magnet and electricity forcing a piece of cloth to vibrate at different rates by rapidly changing frequencies. so maybe if "ghosts" are made of energy then maybe (theoretically speaking.) if the ghost of a mass murderer was in the same room as you would you be able to feel the foul energy? once again i am not going to pretend that i know the answers my only comment to you muggi would be give it a little time, chances are in the next 20 some years science will have progressed enough that we can actually find the answer (while still living) whether or not that answer will be open to the public? your guess is as good as mine, the answer could be catastrophic. for instance if you lived you died and that was it and we all found out about it then who would work? who would waste their time busting their ass in an office when they could be out living, finding "true love" all that other mushy crap... and with that, i rest my extremely vague case.
(i havent slept in about a week so please excuse any stupidity you may find in this post.)
[QUOTE=bIgFaTwOrM12;44294393]Why is this biggest of all? What I am trying to do is show how the dualist view is equally reasonable as the monist view. In facet, it would be more in favor of the monist view if the mind could be completely experimentally verified in every facet.[/QUOTE]
Because science is how we discover and learn about the world, it's not reasonable in the least if I say "every living being is moved through space by invisible, non-material puppet strings" and not provide at least a SHRED of evidence of that being the case.
A huge facet of science is fallibility, one's hypothesis needs to be able to be proven wrong, or any old person could make up stuff and pass it off a truth (which an uncountable number of pseudoscience peddlers and cranks do).
Neuroscience has shown that there cannot be a change in the mental state of a person without a change in the state of their brain; when you feel sad neurons fire in one section, and when you see something delicious more fire. If dualism is the case, wouldn't we see people that can feel angry or happy without a brain scan showing anything? Or maybe it's that dualism falls into another pseudo-scientific pitfall, that it doesn't predict anything substantial.
Prediction refers to the ability of an hypothesis to make an accurate forecast about what will happen under specific conditions. In order to test an hypothesis a scientist makes a prediction based on the hypothesis. If the result of the experiment is in accordance with the hypothesis' predictions then the hypothesis has not been disproved. The scientific method is built upon repeated iterations of this process.
Hypotheses which are not able to make such testable predictions are plain pseudoscience.
In truth, neuroscience at this time cannot definitely say where the mind arises, since the brain is so unbelievably complex that we're still mapping out the damn thing, but so far all signs are pointing to it being a purely naturalistic thing, since science fundamentally doesn't bother with the supernatural because any attempts to define causal relationships with the supernatural are never fruitful, and result in the creation of scientific "dead ends" and God of the gaps-type hypotheses. To avoid these traps scientists assume that all causes are empirical and naturalistic, which means they can be measured, quantified and studied methodically. But as we discover new technologies and truths, I have no doubt that we will eventually and fully understand our brains
[QUOTE=bIgFaTwOrM12;44294393]
[B]Simply put though, I do not know and I do not think an explanation is necessary to reasonably believe that there is an explanation for consciousness beyond physicality. [/B]
[/QUOTE]
Thank you for finally, after months and months of debates, finally admitting you have no requirements for proof or evidence and will accept anything you personally find preferable as truth.
This statement right here can not be rebuked or taken away from you, you made it and you clearly, clearly outlined here is proof you actually don't care about evidence or proof.
[QUOTE=xZippy;44292165]What is your goal in this thread? Are you waiting for people to come in and state "well I mean an afterlife is possible" just to argue it?[/QUOTE]
Uh no, after all the arguing I would expect people to at least finally realize that afterlife is not in fact possible.. by any reasonable thought anyway. Or that afterlife is just a synonym for death, and we know practically everything about it.
[QUOTE=bIgFaTwOrM12;44294393]That is of course assuming that the process you illustrated with your lecturer's presentation is at all translatable to abstract concepts. Yet assuming that it was, it would befit a more static view of the nervous system that we had before the discovery of neuroplasticity would it not?[/QUOTE]
As far as I am aware the majority of neuroplasticity involves pruning / creating / reinforcing synaptic connections, which is precisely what an artificial neural network models during the learning phase. With ANNs the learning is usually triggered externally by a supervisor system (although unsupervised learning mechanisms exist for ANNs and are apparently pretty effective, but I don't know much about how they work) where the network is essentially given the experience of pleasure if its outputs are deemed correct by the supervising system, and experiences a negative emotion equating to pain otherwise. The brain uses a mixture of supervised and unsupervised learning mechanisms, where the release of hormones that reinforce / weaken synaptic connections are controlled by both malleable internal structures (like positive reinforcement neurotransmitters being released when you are satisfied by something you achieved) and more rigid external ones (like pain receptors triggering negative reinforcement neurotransmitters / eating food triggering positive reinforcement).
So essentially ANNs aren't static as you seem to believe, in fact the whole point of them is that they can autonomously update their structure through emotional feedback just as a biological brain does.
[QUOTE]yet the mind actually has an effect on the structure of the brain.[/QUOTE]
As do ANNs using an unsupervised learning algorithm. Also I don't think you want to be arguing that the physical systems in the brain are capable of more functionality than an ANN, as surely that would support my position?
[QUOTE][IMG_THUMB]http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/f/fb/Ventral-dorsal_streams.svg/1024px-Ventral-dorsal_streams.svg.png[/IMG_THUMB]
Above is an image of just how much of the brain is devoted to delivering an image that you can recall and think about.[/QUOTE]
Which is understandable, given the sophistication of our visual recognition system and how important vision is for us as a species.
[QUOTE]Being able to see things and apply some form of identification to them is hardly a huge part of the conscious experience, yet a very substantial part of the brain is devoted to just that.[/QUOTE]
I disagree, as to me it seems that vision plays a huge role in how we experience our environment, our actions within that environment, and how we internally reason; for many people (including me) being able to visualise something makes it far easier to understand.
[QUOTE]With this knowledge I don't consider the size of our brain alone a convincing reason for why consciousness could by purely physical.[/QUOTE]
I'm not sure I follow your logic here, could you elaborate? Even if there are only 50,000,000,000(!!!) neurons left after excluding all the ones that deal with interpreting percepts, that seems more than enough to me for consciousness to be implemented. Surely we should assume (at least, it is most helpful to assume as we can analyse it experimentally) that consciousness is purely physical until we know for certain otherwise? Just because you intuitively feel that consciousness is special and you can't personally think of the particular set of permutations of the 50,000,000,000 spare neurons from which consciousness would arise absolutely doesn't mean consciousness is physically impossible.
[QUOTE]Well what components of consciousness allow us to experience and what mechanism allows it are essentially the same thing. Simply put though, I do not know and I do not think an explanation is necessary to reasonably believe that there is an explanation for consciousness beyond physicality. However, while the naturalist perspective does have a guess as to what physical structure the mind is contained in, it does not have an explanation for what mechanism allows for it either.[/QUOTE]
But at least if we work under the assumption that the mind is purely physical it is possible to eventually discover exactly what those mechanisms are, or otherwise prove that our assumption was incorrect and a supernatural element is required. Why just immediately give up and say "consciousness cannot be explained as a physical mechanism" when you must admit that you (and I, and the rest of humanity) understand very little of the capabilities of the actual physical components of the mind? It is disappointing that Levithan, HumanAbyss and I have to explain how obviously useless it is to assume that an unfalsifiable and unprovable hypothesis is correct when a falsifiable (i.e., scientific) but unproven alternative exists.
[QUOTE]It is essentially on the same ground as the dualist view in terms of what we know and what assumptions we must make to get there.[/QUOTE]
Really, really not true. The naturalist hypothesis claims that the main thing we don't understand is what particular configurations of neurons and neurotrasmitter secretion / receptor systems are required for consciousness. While we understand how an individual neuron functions pretty well, the full system of 85,000,000,000 neurons involves far too many non-local relationships between its components for us to currently understand it, but it may be understood in the future. The dualist hypothesis just basically bluntly says that it's supernatural, that it involves some completely unknown alternative form of existence with unknown properties and so from which no testable predictions can be made.
I find it disconcerting that you, an apparently rational person, can claim with confidence that the two hypotheses are equal. One is a useful assumption that can be experimentally verified or refuted when it is complete, and the other is entirely useless and invokes the existence of some exotic form of existence despite the possibility of a natural explanation existing.
[QUOTE]Why is this biggest of all?[/QUOTE]
Because without it we have no means for determining the rationality of the hypothesis, so it is useless.
[QUOTE]What I am trying to do is show how the dualist view is equally reasonable as the monist view.[/QUOTE]
To be blunt you are not succeeding at this at all. I'm sure you find your own arguments convincing, but all I can see is God of the Gaps (or rather, Supernatural Mechanism of the Gaps) which I had assumed you would know was an argumentative fallacy.
[QUOTE]In fact, it would be more in favor of the monist view if the mind could be completely experimentally verified in every facet.[/QUOTE]
The monist view claims that it can, but we don't know which particular configurations need verifying yet for testing an explanation of consciousness. That being said, we have already experimentally verified that a great deal of other emergent phenomena of the brain are because of its physical structure by analysing the behaviour of individuals that have experienced brain damage to specific cerebral regions, or the change of external behaviour / internals experience to volunteers receiving stimulation to particular regions from electrodes.
[QUOTE]I do not see how someone could favor the monist view without being inclined towards naturalism.[/QUOTE]
What would have been useful is if you could have described how you perceived the dualist view to be rationally favourable to dispel my assumption that it is due to an emotional or religious bias. If I am inclined towards naturalism it is because it is fairly obvious to me that a testable explanation is preferable to an unfalsifiable one until only unfalsifiable explanations remain. If we all just did the easy thing of assuming that whatever explanation is emotionally favourable is correct regardless of the actual state of reality you'd expect the majority of the planet to believe that they existed for a reason and were created by one or more super powerful sentient beings that will always watch over them and love them, and that when people die they just go to some kind of paradise where they can see all their deceased loved ones again.
[QUOTE]Also I fail to see how this is unnecessarily complex, you can only make that claim if you yourself have an explanation for where consciousness could come from.[/QUOTE]
Naturalist: the atomic component parts are known to exist, but we don't know which configurations are important.
Dualist: let's invent a whole new mode of existence specifically for consciousness to reside in, which can interact with classical existence through some unknown mechanism and we don't know anything about how consciousness is implemented within that special kind of existence either.
Which involves the most unproven complexity?
-redo
[QUOTE=Bogart Shears;44303009]many quantum physicists now are saying that you in-fact have to live after death, because your consciousness, the quantum potential for thought, never goes away.[/QUOTE]
Care to name a few of those quantum physicists so we can check their credentials? Pretty much everything you just said is pseudo-science quackery, so I'd be very surprised if any respected quantum physicists believe what you described.
[editline]20th March 2014[/editline]
Ah Deepak Chopra, of course.
[QUOTE=Ziks;44303129]Care to name a few of those quantum physicists so we can check their credentials? Pretty much everything you just said is pseudo-science quackery, so I'd be very surprised if any respected quantum physicists believe what you described.
[editline]20th March 2014[/editline]
Ah Deepak Chopra, of course.[/QUOTE]
I second this request for a source. I know Roger Penrose has some "interesting" ideas on quantum mechanics and consciousness, but even his supporters admit he is well in the minority.
Deepak Chopra is very far from an authority on quantum mechanics.
-redo
[QUOTE=Bogart Shears;44303330]Many may have been an overstatement: It's not "pseudo-science quackery", how arrogant can you be? Stuart Hameroff, Sir Roger Penrose, and Lawrence Krauss are three I know off hand[/QUOTE]
Hold on, Lawrence Krauss? Can I get a source on that?
[editline]20th March 2014[/editline]
[QUOTE=Bogart Shears;44303330]What is this, are you trying to be witty?[/QUOTE]
Chopra has quite a reputation for peddling pseudo-scientific healing techniques to the uneducated by attaching words like "quantum" to non-functional products or services.
[editline]20th March 2014[/editline]
Stuart Hameroff is also not a quantum physicist.
[QUOTE=Bogart Shears;44303330]Of course it's the minority, because it asks questions most labs aren't funded to ask
Deepak is a spiritual man, sure, but his work is respected throughout the world in it's own right, though he's not a 'physicist'[/QUOTE]
I don't agree with him and I think his views are irritatingly pseudoscientific, so I don't respect his work. He's not an authority, and his opinions really carry no weight to me.
[QUOTE=Ziks;44303354]Hold on, Lawrence Krauss? Can I get a source on that?[/QUOTE]
Once again seconded. Penrose I mentioned, but I don't believe Krauss until I see a source.
-redo
[QUOTE=Bogart Shears;44303009]On this note, no technically, as the quantum level of energy flowing through the axons can not be "shut down", it just disperses back into the universe, and many quantum physicists now are saying that you in-fact have to live after death, because your consciousness, the quantum potential for thought, never goes away. That's why so many people say "yeah I was floating around the OR/hospital when I died on the table, able to look around, see other rooms, and talk to the universe(god), then was shoved back into my body when I was revived". There's a lot of shit around it to look into but it's the whole "Buddhism/energy frequency/god is love" idea. I'm a Buddhist myself and have seen through meditation
Hi, I'm the new kid
[editline]20th March 2014[/editline]
[URL="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=erSd5xep30w"]This is a really neat video about quantum consciousness [/URL], body-computer stuff[/QUOTE]
You're mistaken to try writing in such a manner upon consciousness, which is presently not understood very much, and which is still largely regarded as being a difficult, and perhaps truly unsolvable, subject. Firstly, this quantum [i]hypothesis[/i], unlike what you've advanced with much naivety, has not been received warmly in the scientific community: of consciousness, it says nothing which can be verified; for an after-life, we struggle once again wit this problem, that its conclusions have always omitted evidence; and, as all your points made from imagination rather than reason, there is no reason to believe them.
Secondly, your source, Deepak Chopra, is reputed by all academics to be a hack. If all of your sources are people of credentials similar to is, whose ugly pseudo-philosophy venerates superstition, then you should surely not be surprised when we dismiss, without effort, your 'arguments'.
So let's recap. You said:
[QUOTE=Bogart Shears;44303009]many quantum physicists now are saying that you in-fact have to live after death, because your consciousness, the quantum potential for thought, never goes away.[/QUOTE]
Then we asked for some names, and you named literally no quantum physicists. I'll give you credit for naming a couple of cosmologists though (that's physics, so you were in the right ballpark), although Krauss almost certainly doesn't believe in what you stated.
-redo
[QUOTE=Bogart Shears;44303682]Would you have felt better if I said "some physicists"? I'm not sure why such hyperbole emerged, maybe I'm excited[/QUOTE]
I would be much more accommodating of your claims if they were believed by a significant number of individuals that were actually well versed in the relevant fields, not just academics from unrelated disciplines spouting unfounded spiritual trite and invoking "quantum" to exploit misconceptions the general population has of quantum mechanics.
[QUOTE=Bogart Shears;44303593]The "opinions" don't have to, they're reproducible to yourself if you meditate and actually look within without bias (which is hard for most people to wrap their heads around, tyvm society) so they're still real, whether you believe them or not. Or watch that video. The universe is entirely subjective, we know that (electron double slit?). "The universe is only the way it is because we observe it", consciousness is how the universe exists. If it weren't observed, it wouldn't act the way it does. You can hypnotize a man too see through an object and read things, no? That object is not a part of his universe because his brain has been tricked into making it so [Remember Me, much?]
And frankly I'm looking all over the net and I'm not sure why Krauss came to mind, I thought I read something that he was a part of a while ago but *dink* my memory is shit, I slipped. I assumed it could be him because physics is his faculty.[/QUOTE]
You're blurb about the double slit meaning the universe is subjective and is created by consciousness is a very inaccurate representation of quantum mechanics.
-redo
[QUOTE=Bogart Shears;44303682]Aaaah, so you know everything about everything then? I'm glad, you should speak to world leaders and tell them how the universe functions.[/QUOTE]
No, I've not asserted anything which is necessarily connected to your interpretation, that I 'know everything about everything'. As you've not referenced from me anything particular, I cannot write further against you on this point.
[QUOTE]Wait, nobody knows anything, everything is a theory based on mathematical and physical properties, interpreted by individuals then picked up by peers because it sounds alright to them. Nobody knows why or how consciousness exists.[/QUOTE]
This is not entirely true. I know, without dependency on "a theory based on mathematical and physical properties", that all bachelors are unmarried. As for what remains of your claim, not much can be said, but that philosophers have cultivated and refined a system of knowledge comfortable to human reason--that is, we have evidence, by which some beliefs are lifted above others.
[QUOTE]When I link a hypothesis, what "I believe about life after death" as someone with a spiritual and physical understanding (not religious, I don't follow a book, I work empirically, so yeah I've proved it to myself through meditation and quantum properties), you say "no you can't believe that, you're wrong"? He's not my source, it's one video that explains the idea interestingly. Oh wait did you watch it?[/QUOTE]
I have no reason at all to trust your testimony.
[QUOTE=Bogart Shears;44303793]Hammeroff proposed it, not me. Of course they're not believed yet, there's no funding going that way and it's not in science's biggest interest, maybe because there are 'pressing' matters like an earth that is dying to deal with. Sure we have colliders to explain the physical (which isn't solid) universe, science is happening, but in different fields. Are you a physicist? Do you run a lab? All you would know is what you read of other's work, too, so what do you know for yourself? I report what I hear, you report what you hear. I merely have an idea about life after death that is seemingly backed by some properties of energy, an idea that I've validated through reflection on my own time, so I'm here to talk about it.[/QUOTE]
It really, really isn't backed by "some properties of energy". Hammeroff isn't even a physicist but an anesthesiologist, why trust his opinion in regards to quantum physicists when it differs so greatly to the consensus held by those that actually study the field?
[editline]20th March 2014[/editline]
[QUOTE=Bogart Shears;44303793]Then you explain it[/QUOTE]
[url=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decoherence]Quantum decoherence[/url] when the photon in superposition interacts with whatever measurement device you are using to see which slit it went through.
The usual misconception is that because an "observation" changes the outcome, we as observers are somehow special. However, a single photon detector works equally well as an observer.
[QUOTE=Bogart Shears;44303793]Then you explain it[/QUOTE]
The first problem with your claims is that what constitutes "measurement" is still an open problem in physics. Even so, only a small minority of physicists (Wigner was the famous one) hold that consciousness has anything to do with it. In a recent poll (note that it was also a small poll, sampling only 33 physicists, but it was given at a conference directly related to quantum mechanics' implications for the nature of reality) only 6% reported that they believed a consciousness observer was necessary in quantum mechanics. Not only are the claims that we "know" consciousness creates reality and reality is subjective inaccurate, it's not even really contentious among physicists. Most outright do not believe consciousness has anything to do with it.
Secondly, it makes no sense to claim that consciousness is how reality exists. Nature obeys laws, even when we're not observing it. [I]Especially[/I] when we're not observing it. In the absence of observation, the quantum state tells us everything there is to know about a particle, as far as we are aware, and we know the equations which the state obeys.
[QUOTE=Ziks;44298921]As far as I am aware the majority of neuroplasticity involves pruning / creating / reinforcing synaptic connections, which is precisely what an artificial neural network models during the learning phase. With ANNs the learning is usually triggered externally by a supervisor system (although unsupervised learning mechanisms exist for ANNs and are apparently pretty effective, but I don't know much about how they work) where the network is essentially given the experience of pleasure if its outputs are deemed correct by the supervising system, and experiences a negative emotion equating to pain otherwise. The brain uses a mixture of supervised and unsupervised learning mechanisms, where the release of hormones that reinforce / weaken synaptic connections are controlled by both malleable internal structures (like positive reinforcement neurotransmitters being released when you are satisfied by something you achieved) and more rigid external ones (like pain receptors triggering negative reinforcement neurotransmitters / eating food triggering positive reinforcement).
So essentially ANNs aren't static as you seem to believe, in fact the whole point of them is that they can autonomously update their structure through emotional feedback just as a biological brain does.
As do ANNs using an unsupervised learning algorithm. Also I don't think you want to be arguing that the physical systems in the brain are capable of more functionality than an ANN, as surely that would support my position?[/QUOTE]
Fair enough about neuroplasticity then, I probably should have considered what I was saying and precisely what ANNs were before mentioning it. However, to say that it only prunes/creates/reinforces synaptic connections is like saying an electrician merely solders/clips wires/redirects current, technically you are right, but that is reducing the process to its most basic form. If the mind is not purely physical and is capable of affecting the brain, then of course those effects would in their most basic form(disregarding molecular and atomic changes) be interactions between neurons within the brain, that is beside the point though. Through neuroplasticity, the mind can actually have an effect on the structure of the brain, this can be due to things like one's state of mind or even be the result of conscious effort to change. The fact that the brain can change in ways that are subject to the mind does not imply that it is the absolute source of the mind(though I by no means deny the fact that the brain can also have an effect on the mind).
[QUOTE]Which is understandable, given the sophistication of our visual recognition system and how important vision is for us as a species.
I disagree, as to me it seems that vision plays a huge role in how we experience our environment, our actions within that environment, and how we internally reason; for many people (including me) being able to visualise something makes it far easier to understand.[/QUOTE]
I think a lot of innately blind people would disagree that people who can see are somehow more conscious than them, whether it makes life a lot easier is beside the point, surely you don't disagree that they have an equally subjective experience as you do regardless of the loss of certain senses? My point with bringing it up though was that there is a big difference between a small system able to differentiate voices and even the most basic systems of the brain that collect and process information for us. So that is why I find brain size and the consideration of your artificial neural network unconvincing.
[QUOTE]I'm not sure I follow your logic here, could you elaborate? Even if there are only 50,000,000,000(!!!) neurons left after excluding all the ones that deal with interpreting percepts, that seems more than enough to me for consciousness to be implemented. Surely we should assume (at least, it is most helpful to assume as we can analyse it experimentally) that consciousness is purely physical until we know for certain otherwise?[/QUOTE]
What do you base this off of though? Why do you say that 50'000'000'000 neurons is surely enough to house the entirety of subjective experience? To me the extrapolation of the artificial neural network to this is simply going to far into speculation to actually be considered something more factual, not to mention it disregards the fact that the mind can control changes in the brain rather than being purely subject to the how the brain changes. I am also unsure of what you mean by your position being more helpful, surely the only helpful position to take when experimentally analyzing is one without presupposition and open to accepting facts, that in now way places monism above dualism.
[QUOTE]But at least if we work under the assumption that the mind is purely physical it is possible to eventually discover exactly what those mechanisms are, or otherwise prove that our assumption was incorrect and a supernatural element is required. Why just immediately give up and say "consciousness cannot be explained as a physical mechanism" when you must admit that you (and I, and the rest of humanity) understand very little of the capabilities of the actual physical components of the mind?[/QUOTE]
When did I say anything about giving up? When have I stated that I am against scientific research? Also you could equally prove or disprove monism when researching with a dualist position as well, you seem to be arguing that the religiously inclined cannot engage in scientific research for some reason. I am completely open to admitting that I understand very little about neuroscience and I am glad that you are too, but because I see the mind as something more than a physical process does not mean I(or any others of similar world views) am against testing and further understanding the brain.
[QUOTE]The naturalist hypothesis claims that the main thing we don't understand is what particular configurations of neurons and neurotrasmitter secretion / receptor systems are required for consciousness. While we understand how an individual neuron functions pretty well, the full system of 85,000,000,000 neurons involves far too many non-local relationships between its components for us to currently understand it, but it may be understood in the future. The dualist hypothesis just basically bluntly says that it's supernatural, that it involves some completely unknown alternative form of existence with unknown properties and so from which no testable predictions can be made.[/QUOTE]
-and in the presence of the dualist mindset the purpose of the 85'000'000'000 neurons can still be studied and understood, just because I and others believe in an existence beyond physicality does not mean that the physical universe is any less testable. That testable physical existence can by studied to determine just how accurate my claims are as well, maybe the brain houses the entirety of the mind, maybe it doesn't. If it does, that strongly supports the monist view, if it doesn't, that strongly supports the dualist view. The two positions are essentially in the same place in terms of physical evidence for either.
[QUOTE]I find it disconcerting that you, an apparently rational person, can claim with confidence that the two hypotheses are equal. One is a useful assumption that can be experimentally verified or refuted when it is complete, and the other is entirely useless and invokes the existence of some exotic form of existence despite the possibility of a natural explanation existing.[/QUOTE]
I still do not understand what you mean by useful, the physical universe remains just as verifiable as it always has regardless of world-views. People are capable of studying regardless of worldview, unless they believe that the universe is not scientifically verifiable, but that is not my position or many others.
[QUOTE]Because without it we have no means for determining the rationality of the hypothesis, so it is useless.[/QUOTE]
Why do you assume I am trying to put dualism into science? I fully recognize that if dualism is true we cannot fully understand the mind and it is thus pointless to include something that cannot be tested in a process that is based on testing for precision in its results.
[QUOTE]That being said, we have already experimentally verified that a great deal of other emergent phenomena of the brain are because of its physical structure by analysing the behaviour of individuals that have experienced brain damage to specific cerebral regions, or the change of external behaviour / internals experience to volunteers receiving stimulation to particular regions from electrodes.[/QUOTE]
Perhaps I should have clarified what kind of dualism I am in favor of before starting this discussion, while there are several views on where the mind originates in reference to the body within the dualist view, it is the general consensus that the causal connection between mind and body is not one way and that they can both influence each other by changing. So these kinds of phenomena are to be expected under the predominant dualist view.
[QUOTE]What would have been useful is if you could have described how you perceived the dualist view to be rationally favourable to dispel my assumption that it is due to an emotional or religious bias. If I am inclined towards naturalism it is because it is fairly obvious to me that a testable explanation is preferable to an unfalsifiable one until only unfalsifiable explanations remain. If we all just did the easy thing of assuming that whatever explanation is emotionally favourable is correct regardless of the actual state of reality you'd expect the majority of the planet to believe that they existed for a reason and were created by one or more super powerful sentient beings that will always watch over them and love them, and that when people die they just go to some kind of paradise where they can see all their deceased loved ones again.[/QUOTE]
You are right, I have jumped into the discussion on the offensive and have not bothered to state why I am a dualist beyond my responses to your defenses of monism. At the moment I do not exactly have the time to compound all of my thoughts on the subject into a post, but I will certainly do so in the future.
[QUOTE]Naturalist: the atomic component parts are known to exist, but we don't know which configurations are important.
Dualist: let's invent a whole new mode of existence specifically for consciousness to reside in, which can interact with classical existence through some unknown mechanism and we don't know anything about how consciousness is implemented within that special kind of existence either.
Which involves the most unproven complexity?[/QUOTE]
Your description of the dualist view is extremely inaccurate, you are also pinning naturalism(an entire world view) against dualism(which is a component view of whatever world view might house it). It would be more accurate to refer to dualism as simply the belief that natural process cannot sufficiently explain human consciousness by the way.
In any case, the keyword in the statement that the above quote responds to is "unecessarily". You state that dualism introduces unecessary complexity, but have not explained why, you have even admitted that you yourself(as have I) know very little about the brain in relation to consciousness. To claim that the dualist view is unecessarily complex would imply that there is a known possible alternative.
I don't think arguments with you are going to be fruitful anymore for much of anyone. You have flat out admitted evidence and proof is secondary to what you think makes the most sense.
That's okay, just don't act like you have an equally well evidenced point of view.
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