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Quote from: cheryl j on 19/10/2013 23:29:25There's a weird recursiveness about consciousness, where brain states generate thoughts but those thoughts seem to effect the next brain state that generates the next thought. That's quite reasonable if thoughts are the patterns of activation of neurons across the brain. Each pattern of activation will trigger the next (although the patterns are dynamic, so the transitions are continuous). The difficulty many people have is in grasping that thoughts are these patterns of neural activation flowing across/through the brain, they're not something separate that causes neural activity, and they're only 'caused by' neural activity in the loose sense that a wave is 'caused by' water; waves are a patterns of water movement, and thoughts are patterns of neural activity. Douglas Hofstadter discusses recursion and consciousness at length in his book 'I am a Strange Loop', where one of his themes is the use of feedback to generate complexity (e.g. video feedback, where the camera points at the screen showing its own output). I see the emergence and interaction of patterns of neural activation in the brain as analogous to the emergence of interacting patterns in Conway's Game of Life, where the individual units are static, with binary states, but the emergent patterns of their composite activities have emergent structure and interaction (oscillators, spaceships, etc). As if to emphasize the potential of such emergent complexity, these GOL patterns can themselves be used to emulate the GOL itself and as a logic language to create construct universal Turing machines (programmable computers) and computer/constructors that can be programmed to replicate themselves.If a system with such simple rules and limited degrees of freedom as GOL can generate multiple levels of emergent complexity, to the extent that it can generate replicators and emulate anything computable, it seems less surprising that a system with many more degrees of freedom and more complex rules can, given a suitable environment and couple of billion years of selection pressures, evolve structures like mammalian brains.
There's a weird recursiveness about consciousness, where brain states generate thoughts but those thoughts seem to effect the next brain state that generates the next thought.
Quote from: DonQuichotte on 19/10/2013 21:00:28Are any beliefs for that matter material ? Where are they then ? can you touch them, see them....capture them for us ...put them under the microscope , scanner ...can you measure them, observe them , test them , verify falsify them, reproduce them ... put them in the lab ...?When you do , tell me then ...You have been invited many times to tell us what you believe, but never did: Were they too material? You've blown off half your brain cells deriding scientists' materialist beliefs, now you say beliefs aren't material. Tell us your beliefs and I'll show you your materialism.
Are any beliefs for that matter material ? Where are they then ? can you touch them, see them....capture them for us ...put them under the microscope , scanner ...can you measure them, observe them , test them , verify falsify them, reproduce them ... put them in the lab ...?When you do , tell me then ...
That's 1 of the reasons , i guess, why God blessed us with minds hearts and souls
Quote from: DonQuichotte on 20/10/2013 18:16:52 That's 1 of the reasons , i guess, why God blessed us with minds hearts and souls What? When? How? How do you know?
Just explain to me then how thoughts or consciousness are generated by the neurochemical activity of the brain ....Ludicrous .
If consciosuness , thoughts ...are just neuro-chemistry , then, please , do catch them for me , so i can see them or how they look like = pueril non-sense .
How do you deduce all that from the neuro-chemistry of the physical brain then ? Right , via the materialist magic in science of course , silly me .
Quote from: DonQuichotte on 20/10/2013 18:25:51Just explain to me then how thoughts or consciousness are generated by the neurochemical activity of the brain ....Ludicrous .Did I mention neurochemistry? If you didn't understand the explanation the first time, you could try thinking about what was actually said, rather than taking fright at the reflection of your own projected misconceptions. Otherwise, I'm afraid you may be better off focusing on mysticism, or theology, where that kind of thing doesn't make much difference.QuoteIf consciosuness , thoughts ...are just neuro-chemistry , then, please , do catch them for me , so i can see them or how they look like = pueril non-sense .Yup; you clearly failed to grasp any of it... 'Whoosh!', as they say. QuoteHow do you deduce all that from the neuro-chemistry of the physical brain then ? Right , via the materialist magic in science of course , silly me .It wasn't deduced from neurochemistry. I can only hope, for your sake, you weren't being serious.
I did not read your stuff ,to be honest , i must admit , sorry, i just took a quick glance at it , while assuming that you , as a reductionist , would only come up with materialist magical stuff , that's all .I will try to read your stuff ,later on :Can you summarize for me , in few words , what you were trying to say via all those links of yours ?
The whole is not the sum of its parts , silly :This is yet another silly unscientific kind of mechanistic reductionism in science in relation to life or brain processes at least , in the sense that one can try to reverse -engineer the brain or life , in order to understand and explain how they might work : that mechanistic reductionist approach might and does work , sometimes , regarding machines , but not regarding living organisms that are , obviously, no machines ,as Sheldrake said in his "Science Set Free ..." book : Living organisms that do inherently intrinsically possess self-organizing , self-replicating , self-sustaining ,self-maintaining ....flexible and adaptative creative qualities , no human- made machine ever can be able to match, not even remotely close thus , no matter how sophisticated or advanced it might ever be .
Why don't you address or rather dare to engage my earlier allegations then first ?
Here's one last joke though:Ironically, the God particle still can't explain why the Catholic Church has mass.
Our modern word "mass" ..., as used in physics, thus undoubtedly derived from the Latin massa, meaning originally a lump of dough or paste. As in the modern languages of today, so already in Middle English the term signified a lump in a more general sense, a conglomeration or aggregation of bodies. Such was also the meaning that the word had in the Latin for the Church.
Quote from: cheryl jIronically, the God particle still can't explain why the Catholic Church has mass.Cute. From Concepts of Mass in Classical and Modern Physics by Max Jammer, page 7QuoteOur modern word "mass" ..., as used in physics, thus undoubtedly derived from the Latin massa, meaning originally a lump of dough or paste. As in the modern languages of today, so already in Middle English the term signified a lump in a more general sense, a conglomeration or aggregation of bodies. Such was also the meaning that the word had in the Latin for the Church.
Ironically, the God particle still can't explain why the Catholic Church has mass.
Quote from: cheryl j Here's one last joke though:Ironically, the God particle still can't explain why the Catholic Church has mass.Cute. From Concepts of Mass in Classical and Modern Physics by Max Jammer, page 7QuoteOur modern word "mass" ..., as used in physics, thus undoubtedly derived from the Latin massa, meaning originally a lump of dough or paste. As in the modern languages of today, so already in Middle English the term signified a lump in a more general sense, a conglomeration or aggregation of bodies. Such was also the meaning that the word had in the Latin for the Church.
Quote from: DonQuichotte on 20/10/2013 18:02:42The whole is not the sum of its parts , silly :This is yet another silly unscientific kind of mechanistic reductionism in science in relation to life or brain processes at least , in the sense that one can try to reverse -engineer the brain or life , in order to understand and explain how they might work : that mechanistic reductionist approach might and does work , sometimes , regarding machines , but not regarding living organisms that are , obviously, no machines ,as Sheldrake said in his "Science Set Free ..." book : Living organisms that do inherently intrinsically possess self-organizing , self-replicating , self-sustaining ,self-maintaining ....flexible and adaptative creative qualities , no human- made machine ever can be able to match, not even remotely close thus , no matter how sophisticated or advanced it might ever be .Strange as it might seem, materialists are not in disagreement with you on this point. A reductionist hypothesis does not imply a constructionist one. The ability to reduce everything to fundamental laws does not imply the ability to start from fundamental laws and reconstruct the universe, or even a squirrel. Why does it not work the same backwards or forwards? Your answer is actually not that nature is self organizing, your answer is "God does it." A materialist would explain it differently, that the nonlinear mathematics of complex systems does not allow exact predictions of future states. A materialist does not see anything magical about the emergence of properties when you go from one level of organization to another, although you obviously do. I could give you dozens of examples of emergent properties, and dlorde could probably even give you better ones, but I doubt it would convince you that it is not a magic process. That doesn't prove consciousness is an emergent property, but it seems more likely to me, than "God does it", an explanation that also effectively ends any attempt at a deeper or more detailed understanding, at least scientifically. You repeatedly mention things like "emotions" or "memories" as being unexplainable with materialism. I sometimes wonder if you have ever bothered to think about what an emotion or memory or thought is. Even within your own conceptual framework of the brain as receiver of immaterial consciousness, I suspect you would have difficulty sorting various mental processes into either the "biological/brain/receiver box" or into the "immaterial consciousness from God box". But with your tendency to oversimplify and define things rather vaguely, it probably does not seem necessary.
... tl;dr ...
But , materialists cannot let go of their desperate attempts to try to prove their materialist belief assumptions to be "true " , regarding the origins , emergence ,evolution and nature of consciousness ,regarding their materialist conception of nature as a whole , through no-less than science , paradoxically , materialist belief assumptions they do deliberately sell to people as ...science , ironically paradoxically enough .
Well, one could apply your anti-materialist reasoning to almost every kind of change or transformation in science: Do not try to convince me that water, which is a liquid, can be transformed into ice, which is solid, through your magical materialist temperature change! No way, no how! You are obviously confusing materialism with science proper to think that sunlight is magically transformed via the strip tease of photosynthesis into the energy locked in bonds of glucose molecules, or that you can some how magically change this with mere chemical reactions inside cells in a way that allows you peddle a bicycle! The sun cannot peddle your bicycle! Can't you understand just that? Are you really that stupid? Unbelievable! You cannot possibly through your materialist reductionist magic explain how a tornado "emerges" from atoms of oxygen and nitrogen and carbon and hydrogen! And Mass that's just a matter of gravity. Have you ever been to the moon or to space ,to see how much "mass " you have left ? in comparison with yours on earth?
Quote from: cheryl j on 04/09/2013 04:44:54I honestly cannot understand how one can attack materialism and reductionism, blithely dismiss things like emergent properties and offer absolutely nothing better in terms of explanation of phenomena. You don't need such explanations if you have faith. Apparently it's beyond logic, reason, and science...
I honestly cannot understand how one can attack materialism and reductionism, blithely dismiss things like emergent properties and offer absolutely nothing better in terms of explanation of phenomena.