[DonQuichotte (OP)]

Links for free ebooks on the subject removed by myself ,since no one here seems to deserve them: no more free links for free ebooks thus.

[cheryl j]

There might be some sort of more fundamental ,and totally different form of causation underlying the laws of physics themselves , such as some sort of formative causation, not necessarily that morphic resonance of Sheldrake :

http://www.amazon.com/Morphic-Resonance-Nature-Formative-Causation/dp/1594773173

And there might be a rhinoceros living in my basement, but if I have no evidence that there is, why would I keep running down stairs to check?

If you require science to prove the non-existence of things for which it has no evidence, you are requiring it to disprove an infinite number of propositions, an infinite number of times. 

[cheryl j]

Here's an  interesting article on Qualia  if anyone is so inclined. (It is rather long, though.)  The clinical cases provide food for thought. Bonus fun experiments - relocate your nose.

Three Laws of Qualia -- What Neurology Tells Us about the Biological Functions of Consciousness, Qualia and the Self
by V. S. Ramachandran , William Hirstein

http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.127.8130

[alancalverd]

I'm appalled at your laissez-faire attitude to pachyderms. I sincerely hope you don't have children. What sort of mother would leave the house without checking for rhinosceri, hippopotami and other dangerous beasts (including nonmaterial ones) in the basement?  Or does your babysitter tote a gun and a bottle of holy water?

[dlorde]

Here's an  interesting article on Qualia  if anyone is so inclined.
...
Three Laws of Qualia -- What Neurology Tells Us about the Biological Functions of Consciousness, Qualia and the Self
by V. S. Ramachandran , William Hirstein

Thanks for that Cheryl, very interesting (I edited the link to point to the pdf document itself).

[DonQuichotte (OP)]

There might be some sort of more fundamental ,and totally different form of causation underlying the laws of physics themselves , such as some sort of formative causation, not necessarily that morphic resonance of Sheldrake :

http://www.amazon.com/Morphic-Resonance-Nature-Formative-Causation/dp/1594773173

And there might be a rhinoceros living in my basement, but if I have no evidence that there is, why would I keep running down stairs to check?

If you require science to prove the non-existence of things for which it has no evidence, you are requiring it to disprove an infinite number of propositions, an infinite number of times.

What are you talking about , sis ?

I would really appreciate it very much , if youn would try to think before responding, simply because you're not making any sense whatsoever ,while misunderstanding my words beyond any recognition  .

I said , since reality as a whole cannot be just physical or material, so, there might be some more fundamental and totally different forms of causation out there that might be underlying the laws of physics themselves : non-physical forms of causation at that , since physics and chemistry alone are just one single side of reality , and since the non-physical or mental that's irreducible to the physical ,is more fundamental that matter can ever be .

Non-physical or mental forms of causation  that are still unknown to the materialistic physical science : science proper might discover those mental forms of causation, when science will cease to be materialistic , and hence  when science will be open to the mental side of reality as such .

[DonQuichotte (OP)]

I'm appalled at your laissez-faire attitude to pachyderms. I sincerely hope you don't have children. What sort of mother would leave the house without checking for rhinosceri, hippopotami and other dangerous beasts (including nonmaterial ones) in the basement?  Or does your babysitter tote a gun and a bottle of holy water?

[/quote]

Ho,ho : stop your silly wild speculations , cowboy :
I was just talking about the fact that reality cannot be just material or physical , and hence physics and chemistry are just one single side of reality , and a less fundamental one at that than the mental side of reality :
As a human being : you are both body and mind = your physical body is not all what there is to you , even though you do sound to me like some sort of a soulless  heartless insensitive  zombie haha , kidding : your non-physical or mental side does also exist = you are a whole inseparable package = physical body and non-physical soul = any  scientific attempts to try to explain you ,so to speak,  as a human being , must try to do just that by approaching both of your own inseparable dimentions  thus as a whole package : the physical and mental ones = to try to explain you, so to speak , as  a human being , as a living organism , just via one sigle dimention of you , just in terms of physics and chemistry is not only an idiotic absurd surreal ...you name it ....attempt , but it is also and mainly an unscientific   attempt to do so  .

Comprende , amigo ?

[DonQuichotte (OP)]

Here's an  interesting article on Qualia  if anyone is so inclined. (It is rather long, though.)  The clinical cases provide food for thought. Bonus fun experiments - relocate your nose.

Three Laws of Qualia -- What Neurology Tells Us about the Biological Functions of Consciousness, Qualia and the Self
by V. S. Ramachandran , William Hirstein

http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.127.8130

[/quote]

Come on, be serious : consciousness or qualia can be explained by laws , similar to  those of Newton ? haha : just in terms of physics and chemistry ?

Well, for your info : any given sane average person does experience the fact that consciousness is non-physical , and hence escapes any laws of physics .

Ramachandran ? hahah  ( This scientist 's work is so interesting and fascinating that it is a complete waste that he tries to misinterpret it , just in materialistic mechanistic terms ,unfortunately enough )  , Dennett  haha  ...come on , be serious : those are the very embodiement of what 's really so wrong about science today = they are the core embodiement of that toxic false orthodox dogmatic materialistic secular religion in science , in the sense that the "mind is in the brain , memory is stored in the brain ..." : tragic-hilarious,in the sense that 'everything = nothing " can be explained just in terms of physics and chemistry ,including the mind or consciousness  .

That lunatic Dennet  even says that consciousness as such might not exist , that we might all be just zombies taking the illusion of consciousness for real ....

How lunatic  and zombie  can that weirdo ever be ...pathetic : taking his own materialist atheist belief assumptions for granted without question as science , no wonder that  the current mainstream "scientific world view " is materialist= false  : no wonder that irrational dogmatic fanatic atheist believers such as Dennett , Dawkins ...are just fanatic secular -religious  believers ,trying to 'fight ' against their other religious fanatic "reflections in the mirror " out there .

[RD]

That lunatic ... How lunatic ... weirdo ...pathetic

Current verbal-abuse statistics for DonQuichotte ...

Since joining this forum DonQ has posted the insult idiot* six times , stupid* five times, "fool" ( meaning idiot) five times , "lunatic" five times,  "genius" (sarcastically) eight times, "pathetic" (sarcastically) five times, "bullshit" five times and "moron" once,

[ Given DonQ's ideas of what is normal I'm not counting "weirdo" as an insult : from him it's a compliment ]

The frequency of DonQ's insults indicates the quality of his argument.

[ Surely there's a niche sadomasochistic forum out there where people would welcome your verbal-abuse Don ?  ].

BTW
DonQ has used the word "materialist" over 40 times and “irrational” 13 times.
[ it's clear you’re obsessionally flogging a dead horse here Don ].

[ * = wildcard ]
 

[RD]

ACCEPTABLE USAGE POLICY - By registering to use this forum you agree to abide by the following regulations.

 1. Keep it legal

We are all bound by law, and we cannot host material that contravenes the law.  This means we cannot, amongst other things, host material that is obscene, that constitutes harassment,  that promotes terrorism, that is racist, or that constitutes a breach of copyright.

Like posting links to pirate copies of ebooks.

2. Keep it friendly

Do not use insulting, aggressive, or provocative language.

Repetitive use of words such as “stupid” “idiot” “moron” “pathetic” sounds like insulting language to me.

5. Keep it a discussion

•The site is not for evangelising your own pet theory.

Repeatedly mentioning a the same topic, “materialist”,  (40+ times), sounds like evangelising to me.

[cheryl j]

Come on, be serious : consciousness or qualia can be explained by laws , similar to  those of Newton ? haha : just in terms of physics and chemistry ?

Why is that so laughable? Regardless, of how you believe qualia are generated, should it be impossible to say what they do, or do not do; when they occur  and when they do not? Is there no rational statement, no consistent observation, one can make about them at all?

Well, for your info : any given sane average person does experience the fact that consciousness is non-physical , and hence escapes any laws of physics .

A person may perceive electricity as non-physical as well, because he cannot see electrons or voltage. Without a microscope, he cannot "experience" the microorganisms that are making him ill. Do these things exist?

Ramachandran ? hahah  ( This scientist 's work is so interesting and fascinating that it is a complete waste that he tries to misinterpret it , just in materialistic mechanistic terms ,unfortunately enough )  , Dennett  haha  ...come on , be serious : those are the very embodiement of what 's really so wrong about science today = they are the core embodiement of that toxic false orthodox dogmatic materialistic secular religion in science , in the sense that the "mind is in the brain , memory is stored in the brain ..." : tragic-hilarious,in the sense that 'everything = nothing " can be explained just in terms of physics and chemistry ,including the mind or consciousness  .

That lunatic Dennet  even says that consciousness as such might not exist , that we might all be just zombies taking the illusion of consciousness for real ....

Actually, in the article, Ramachandran disagrees with Dennett on certain things, and gives some explanation why we are not unconscious zombies, or how one would not expect the results he gets in certain experiments, if we were.

I'd be happy to hear your true and non-toxic, non orthodox-dogmatic-materialistic-secular,  interpretation of  Ramachandron's findings, and how he should have interpreted his results.  I asked you earlier about hallucinations, and how they would be generated by the immaterial consciousness, but you declined to discuss it.

[RD]

I asked you earlier about hallucinations, and how they would be generated by the immaterial consciousness, but you declined to discuss it.

I asked something similar about optical illusions, but no explanation was forthcoming. 

[dlorde]

In that article, Ramachandran & Hirstein are saying qualia provide data for choice, are irrevocable (you can't change how they feel) and require short term memory. For example, when touching a hotplate, there is a reflex withdrawal - no choice, no memory required, no qualia involved; but shortly after, the pain quale is experienced, which allows a choice of response to be considered. This suggests qualia are generated to give meaning to the input; the meaning arises from the associations triggered by the qualia, and it is this meaning that allows the selection of appropriate response (choice). So if a quale of pain triggers associations of reward in some context, it will have a different meaning than if it triggers associations of failure, and so the response will likely be different.

To be more speculative: The article also emphasises the multiple levels of feedback throughout the processing chain, so it also seems to me possible that the meaning(s) associated with a quale may modify the experienced quale through this feedback (bear in mind that a quale is not a 'thing', but just a generic label for a sensation). In other words, the same input may generate different qualia over time, depending, not just on the situational context, but also on feedback from the results of the choices made, which change the associated meaning, which in turn changes the qualia (e.g., you no longer feel that particular input as pain, or you feel it as a different sort of pain). So a particular quale is irrevocable, but not necessarily the consistent result of a particular input stimulus.

[DonQuichotte (OP)]

Come on, be serious : consciousness or qualia can be explained by laws , similar to  those of Newton ? haha : just in terms of physics and chemistry ?

Why is that so laughable? Regardless, of how you believe qualia are generated, should it be impossible to say what they do, or do not do; when they occur  and when they do not? Is there no rational statement, no consistent observation, one can make about them at all?

".... that qualia are different from other brain states in that they possess three functional characteristics, which we state in the form of ‘three laws of qualia ’ based on a loose analogy with Newton’s three laws of classical mechanics......"

To try to explain the mental in terms of physics and chemistry , in terms of physical laws ,or to try to reduce the mental to just the latter is just an extension of the materialist false conception of nature .Absurd .

Well, for your info : any given sane average person does experience the fact that consciousness is non-physical , and hence escapes any laws of physics .

A person may perceive electricity as non-physical as well, because he cannot see electrons or voltage. Without a microscope, he cannot "experience" the microorganisms that are making him ill. Do these things exist?

Have you ever been slightly electrocuted ?

All i am saying is that consciousness is non-physical , as we all experience it to be , in total contrast with materialism which reduces consciousness to just biological processes .

Ramachandran ? hahah  ( This scientist 's work is so interesting and fascinating that it is a complete waste that he tries to misinterpret it , just in materialistic mechanistic terms ,unfortunately enough )  , Dennett  haha  ...come on , be serious : those are the very embodiement of what 's really so wrong about science today = they are the core embodiement of that toxic false orthodox dogmatic materialistic secular religion in science , in the sense that the "mind is in the brain , memory is stored in the brain ..." : tragic-hilarious,in the sense that 'everything = nothing " can be explained just in terms of physics and chemistry ,including the mind or consciousness  .

That lunatic Dennet  even says that consciousness as such might not exist , that we might all be just zombies taking the illusion of consciousness for real ....

Actually, in the article, Ramachandran disagrees with Dennett on certain things, and gives some explanation why we are not unconscious zombies, or how one would not expect the results he gets in certain experiments, if we were.

I'd be happy to hear your true and non-toxic, non orthodox-dogmatic-materialistic-secular,  interpretation of  Ramachandron's findings, and how he should have interpreted his results.  I asked you earlier about hallucinations, and how they would be generated by the immaterial consciousness, but you declined to discuss it.

Grosso modo :
Well,  i said many times , that the material or the physical is just one single aspect or 1 single part of the whole pic , the mental is the other part , the mental that's more fundamental than the physical or the material, and hence physics and chemistry are just one single aspect of the whole pic , and a less fundamental part at that ,so, there might be some sort of formative or other totally different forms of causation out there which might be underlying the laws of physics themselves :

See , for example , how epigenetics have been refuting the materialist mechanistic neo-Darwinian view of the world ,regarding inheritance : acquired characteristics get passed on from generation to generation :
Darwin himself by the way was a convinced Lamarckian ,in the sense that he did accept that kind of inheritance , while even trying to deliver some theories to explain just that : the materialist neo-Darwinians such as Dennett , Dawkins ...do reject that Lamarckian view of evolution and inheritance , obviously .
See the following on the subject :

[DonQuichotte (OP)]

The mind is not in the brain, memory is not stored in the brain ...and hence qualia is not  in  the brain .
It's the other way around in fact : the brain is in the mind, and the body is in the mind  .
The non-physical mind does affect the physical brain ,and vice versa ,how ? : that remains to be seen ...
The mind is more fundamental than matter can ever be , so, the mind might be underlying the laws of physics , not the other way around .

[cheryl j]

".... that qualia are different from other brain states in that they possess three functional characteristics, which we state in the form of ‘three laws of qualia ’ based on a loose analogy with Newton’s three laws of classical mechanics......"

To try to explain the mental in terms of physics and chemistry , in terms of physical laws ,or to try to reduce the mental to just the latter is just an extension of the materialist false conception of nature .Absurd .

Again, there's nothing inherently materialistic about observing what qualia do or do not do, when they are present and when they are not - unless, you believe (and I suspect you do) that the immaterial has no mechanisms, follows no laws. In which case, then every conceivable experiment is invalid, or at best inconclusive. Ironically, that includes any hypothetical experiment about any aspect of the immaterial, since one would have no way of knowing how other aspects of the immaterial might influence the experiment or manifest themselves that day. Your model predicts that everything is unintelligible, including the model itself. That's why your argument is irrational.

[cheryl j]

In that article, Ramachandran & Hirstein are saying qualia provide data for choice, are irrevocable (you can't change how they feel) and require short term memory. For example, when touching a hotplate, there is a reflex withdrawal - no choice, no memory required, no qualia involved; but shortly after, the pain quale is experienced, which allows a choice of response to be considered. This suggests qualia are generated to give meaning to the input; the meaning arises from the associations triggered by the qualia, and it is this meaning that allows the selection of appropriate response (choice). So if a quale of pain triggers associations of reward in some context, it will have a different meaning than if it triggers associations of failure, and so the response will likely be different.

To be more speculative: The article also emphasises the multiple levels of feedback throughout the processing chain, so it also seems to me possible that the meaning(s) associated with a quale may modify the experienced quale through this feedback (bear in mind that a quale is not a 'thing', but just a generic label for a sensation). In other words, the same input may generate different qualia over time, depending, not just on the situational context, but also on feedback from the results of the choices made, which change the associated meaning, which in turn changes the qualia (e.g., you no longer feel that particular input as pain, or you feel it as a different sort of pain). So a particular quale is irrevocable, but not necessarily the consistent result of a particular input stimulus.

I also liked the part about qualia distinguishing real from imaginary, that if beliefs, ideas, memories, etc had qualia as vivid as those associated with perception, it would be impossible for the brain to distinguish between the idea of a monkey sitting in a chair and an actual one; thinking about eating a meal would seem equivalent to actually eating it.


"Therefore (real perceptual) qualia are protected; they are partially insulated from top-down influences....
....At the same time, however, you occasionally need to run a virtual reality simulation using less vivid qualia generated from memory representations in order to makeappropriate decisions in the absence of the objects which normally  provoke those qualia. The memories one normally evokes in this case are not fully laden with qualia; they have qualia which are just vivid enough to allow you to run the simulation. Ifthey possessed full-strength qualia, again, that would be  dangerous; indeed that’s called a hallucination. Presumably that’s what happens in temporal lobe seizures;some mechanism has gone awry, and the virtual reality simulation has now become like real sensory input. The simulation loses its revocability and generates pathological qualia."

[DonQuichotte (OP)]

".... that qualia are different from other brain states in that they possess three functional characteristics, which we state in the form of ‘three laws of qualia ’ based on a loose analogy with Newton’s three laws of classical mechanics......"

To try to explain the mental in terms of physics and chemistry , in terms of physical laws ,or to try to reduce the mental to just the latter is just an extension of the materialist false conception of nature .Absurd .

Again, there's nothing inherently materialistic about observing what qualia do or do not do, when they are present and when they are not - unless, you believe (and I suspect you do) that the immaterial has no mechanisms, follows no laws. In which case, then every conceivable experiment is invalid, or at best inconclusive. Ironically, that includes any hypothetical experiment about any aspect of the immaterial, since one would have no way of knowing how other aspects of the immaterial might influence the experiment or manifest themselves that day. Your model predicts that everything is unknowable, including itself. That's why your argument is irrational.

[/quote]

Come on, be serious : consciousness or qualia can be explained by laws , similar to  those of Newton ? haha : just in terms of physics and chemistry ?

Why is that so laughable? Regardless, of how you believe qualia are generated, should it be impossible to say what they do, or do not do; when they occur  and when they do not? Is there no rational statement, no consistent observation, one can make about them at all?

".... that qualia are different from other brain states in that they possess three functional characteristics, which we state in the form of ‘three laws of qualia ’ based on a loose analogy with Newton’s three laws of classical mechanics......"

To try to explain the mental in terms of physics and chemistry , in terms of physical laws ,or to try to reduce the mental to just the latter is just an extension of the materialist false conception of nature .Absurd .

Well, for your info : any given sane average person does experience the fact that consciousness is non-physical , and hence escapes any laws of physics .

A person may perceive electricity as non-physical as well, because he cannot see electrons or voltage. Without a microscope, he cannot "experience" the microorganisms that are making him ill. Do these things exist?

Have you ever been slightly electrocuted ?

All i am saying is that consciousness is non-physical , as we all experience it to be , in total contrast with materialism which reduces consciousness to just biological processes .

Ramachandran ? hahah  ( This scientist 's work is so interesting and fascinating that it is a complete waste that he tries to misinterpret it , just in materialistic mechanistic terms ,unfortunately enough )  , Dennett  haha  ...come on , be serious : those are the very embodiement of what 's really so wrong about science today = they are the core embodiement of that toxic false orthodox dogmatic materialistic secular religion in science , in the sense that the "mind is in the brain , memory is stored in the brain ..." : tragic-hilarious,in the sense that 'everything = nothing " can be explained just in terms of physics and chemistry ,including the mind or consciousness  .

That lunatic Dennet  even says that consciousness as such might not exist , that we might all be just zombies taking the illusion of consciousness for real ....

Actually, in the article, Ramachandran disagrees with Dennett on certain things, and gives some explanation why we are not unconscious zombies, or how one would not expect the results he gets in certain experiments, if we were.

I'd be happy to hear your true and non-toxic, non orthodox-dogmatic-materialistic-secular,  interpretation of  Ramachandron's findings, and how he should have interpreted his results.  I asked you earlier about hallucinations, and how they would be generated by the immaterial consciousness, but you declined to discuss it.

Grosso modo :
Well,  i said many times , that the material or the physical is just one single aspect or 1 single part of the whole pic , the mental is the other part , the mental that's more fundamental than the physical or the material, and hence physics and chemistry are just one single aspect of the whole pic , and a less fundamental part at that ,so, there might be some sort of formative or other totally different forms of causation out there , non-physical ones at that , which might be underlying the laws of physics themselves :

See , for example , how epigenetics have been refuting the materialist mechanistic neo-Darwinian view of the world ,regarding inheritance : acquired characteristics get passed on from generation to generation :
Darwin himself by the way was a convinced Lamarckian ,in the sense that he did accept that kind of inheritance , while even trying to deliver some theories to explain just that : the materialist neo-Darwinians such as Dennett , Dawkins ...do reject that Lamarckian view of evolution and inheritance , obviously .
See the following on the subject :

[DonQuichotte (OP)]

In short :

Science must start looking for non-physical forms of causation, or for non-physical or mental phenomena , that are still unknown to science ,  that might or must be underlying the laws of physics themselves , by rejecting reductionist materialism .

Then, and only then, will science or biology , in this case , be able to explain epigenetics , morphogenesis , birds' homing ..........and most of the rest , hopefully .

Untill then, science will just continue to try to explain "everything = nothing ", just in terms of physics and chemistry alone , the latter that cannot account for life fully , let alone its evolution, emergence or origins , let alone that physics and chemistry can account for consciousness ....
Evolution itself , matter itself , life itself ,and most of the rest that cannot be just physical, material or biological thus .

The mind , the mental or the non-physical is  way too primordial and fundamental than matter can ever be , the mental that's irreducible to the physical or to the material .
The mental that's the most fundamental side of the  whole pic of reality as a whole = there is nothing 'supernatural " in it : the non-physical mental is thus ...normal = that's just the other side of the whole pic =the more fundamental one than the physical or material side of the whole pic,  the mental that might be underlying the material or physical  side of the whole pic = physics and chemistry , the laws of physics are a way less fundamental side of the whole pic thus .

[cheryl j]

When science thus will realise and acknowledge the fact that reality as a whole is not just physical or material , including evolution, the mind or consciousness , and the rest , including matter itself (see modern physics regarding the latter )

It's really a shame that you don't share some of your ideas about chaos theory, observers, causality etc. on the physics forum. They don't know what they are missing.