[Ethos_]

Bravo, Bravo,................excellent work Cheryl j.

[dlorde]

Very good summary, Cheryl.

If you don't mind, I'd like to keep a version of it for future use in debates & discussions with advocates of external consciousness.

[DonQuichotte (OP)]

Folks :

It never fails to amaze me how the people sharing the same thoughts via their similar underlying a-priori held beliefs , are inclined to agree with each other ,no matter what ,  while rejecting the views of other people who happen not to agree with them : that's a form of confirmation bias .
If you wanna avoid the latter , you will have to be open to all views out there on the subject , not just stick to your own that seem to be confirmed by people who do think like you do .

[DonQuichotte (OP)]

Confirmation Bias, Ethics, and Mistakes in
Forensics:


“The eyes are not responsible when the mind does the seeing.”
- Publilius Syrus

Introduction:

Confirmation bias is when people observe more, give extra emphasis to, or
intentionally look for evidence that would validate their existing beliefs and
expectations and are likely to excuse or completely ignore evidence which could
reject their beliefs. As such, it can be seen as a type of bias in gathering and
analyzing evidence. 1 Although some might disagree, this type of bias does not
exclude scientists who pride themselves on their objectivity.

Scientist and researchers have recognized for centuries that bias influences
human thought and behavior. In 1620, a philosopher named Francis Bacon found that
once people adopt an opinion, they will look for anything to support and agree with
that opinion. Bacon also noted that it is a “peculiar human tendency” to be more
moved by positives than by negatives. 3 In 1852, a journalist named Charles Mackay
stated “When men wish to construct or support a theory, how they torture facts into
their service!” 3 However, in spite of all the previous work on bias, a study completed
in 1959 by psychologist Peter C. Wason was considered by most as the beginning for
much of the work on confirmation bias. “Confirmation bias is perhaps the best
known and most widely accepted notion of inferential error to come out of the
literature on human reasoning.” 4
To begin this study of biases, ethics, and mistakes, there are a few questions
that need to be asked.
1. Should irrelevant information or opinions about a case be shared with the
analyst prior to examining the evidence? Does confirmation bias limit itself
only to verifications?
2. In reviewing other analysts’ work, is there an analyst that is correct 99.9% of
the time? Is there an analyst with consistent errors? Is their work reviewed
the same?
3. Would there be more time spent on a verification from another agency, a
coworker, or a supervisor? Are the same criteria for verifying used for
everyone?
4. When a print is identified, is there ever a question of identity prior to turning
the case in for verification? What if, after matching the latent print to the
suspect, it was found that the DNA in the case did not match the suspect?
Could that information make an analyst question his or her results? Could that
information make an analyst change the results?
5. What if another examiner with more experience asked for a tough latent print
to be verified? Surely, a more experienced examiner would not make a
mistake. If there were questions about the print or the identification, would
they be asked? What if an acceptable answer were not given? Would the
identification be verified anyway? What if pressure were applied to verify?
6. What if an identification is found in a serial rapist case and the police need this
match as probable cause to arrest? Now the identification that needs to be
verified was made at 5pm on Friday afternoon and the verifying analyst has
unchangeable plans for 5:30pm that he/she had been waiting on all year?
Does he/she feel pressure? Is the analyst that is asking for verification always
right? If the latent is tough, is the time taken for verification or is the analyst’s
word taken for it?
These questions should have helped to get the reader on track to see how
easily bias, carelessness, and ethics can enter into the decision-making process.
Bias is everywhere; it is the very fabric with which most people clothe
themselves in daily. It is in politics, science, medicine, media, research, and almost
everything that requires thought. Once this bias is realized, awareness of it makes us
start to second-guess ourselves, not just in forensics but also in everyday life.
Everyone is biased to some extent, some of us more than others. There are several
ways that bias can enter our lives. For example, we read an article and form our
opinion on the topic of that article. How do we know the author of the article is telling
the truth? It should be evident that we cannot research every subject and know the
truth on everything in our lives. Perhaps Rutherford D. Rogers said it best: “We’re
drowning in information and starving for knowledge.”
For this reason, we want to believe what people tell us. We almost find it
necessary to accept a person’s word, because we are overrun with information on a
daily basis. However, in order to take a person’s word, we have to trust that person to
begin with. All of us must trust to a certain extent because we know we cannot do it
all ourselves. We have to focus on the importance of knowing the truth and search for
it ourselves.
Becoming emotionally involved in a case can also allow bias to enter the
analysis of the scene or evidence. The more our emotions are involved with a belief,
the easier it is for us to disregard details and opinions that may have a tendency to
challenge that belief. 5 An example of this would be at a crime scene where one
becomes emotionally involved because of the information obtained from the
investigating officer and then uses that information to determine how the crime scene
was committed, what needs to be collected, and what needs to be processed.
Knowing what confirmation bias is and how it can affect your objectivity should
make one rethink how to conduct day-to-day activities.
Laziness is another way bias can affect our opinions. The application of
laziness to forensics is when we allow other people to do the thinking for us, resulting
in a loss of objectivity and a desire to learn, thereby steering our preference toward
supporting rather than refuting. However, we should not support the identification of
a print without challenging the validity of the opinion. An opinion on a verification
should never be made by taking the word of the original examiner. As Arthur Bloch
stated “Don’t let your conclusion be the place where you got tired of thinking”
The last way that bias can affect our opinions is by grouping with people that
think like us or have the same beliefs. People tend to group with others that share the
same beliefs, because associating with people who do not share the same beliefs
would require that person to think of a way to defend their beliefs. For this reason, it
is better to spend more time with people who challenge our beliefs or opinions,
because this will have a tendency to keep a person thinking, by having them process
information instead of accepting information. This is an important part in learning to
overcome bias, because when a person searches out all possibilities, it will be easier
for that person to give an unbiased opinion.
Why does confirmation bias occur?
Confirmation bias occurs when we lose our ability to be objective. The reason
that confirmation bias is so common is because, mentally, it is easier to deal with. 6
Studies of social judgment show that when people are in favor of a certain belief, they
tend to seek out evidence and interpret information that follows their beliefs by giving
positive evidence more weight than it deserves. 3 On the other hand, they do not look
for or even reject information that would disprove their beliefs by giving less weight
to negative evidence. This does not mean that we completely ignore negative
information, but it does mean that we give it less weight than positive information.
This is usually accomplished by leaving out, altering, or diluting any of the negative
observations. 3 This is exactly what happened in the case Robert Millikan, who won
the Nobel Prize in physics, for his research on finding “the electric charge of a single
electron.” Millikan only reported a little more that half (58) of his (107) observations,
excluding from the publication the observations that did not fit his hypothesis. 7
If we can only see one possible explanation of an event, then we tend not to
interpret data as supportive of any other alternate explanation. There are others who
tend to be so strongly committed to their position that they even disregard
interpretations or explanations of others. 3 However, it is important to note that if our
conclusions are based on solid evidence and objective experiments, then our
tendencies to overweigh evidence based on our personal beliefs should not affect us
as a general rule. 6 But, if we start overlooking evidence that refutes our conclusions,
then we lose our objectivity and cross over to subjectivity, based on our preconceived
beliefs.
Most people would admit that they do not like to be wrong. It is part of our
human nature to argue in favor of our beliefs, even when confronted with
contradictory evidence. Evidence that confirms our theories are typically easier to
deal with cognitively, which is why we prefer supporting evidence instead of
evidence which may refute our claims. It is easier to think of a reason to support our
claims than to think of a reason that might contradict them. This is mainly because it
is difficult to think of a reason why we might be wrong. 5 Bias can penetrate our
objective thoughts and challenge or even change our conclusions. 5
The effects of confirmation bias
The main difference between confirmation bias and other biases is that
confirmation bias consistently keeps us floundering in deceit by preventing us from
seeing the truth. 5 We might ask ourselves, what is the truth? Is the truth what we see
or what we believe we saw, what we hear or what we thought we heard, what we read
or how we interpret what we read? The truth is what it is, but it has to be sought out.
Those who take things at face value, without checking on the validity, are setting
themselves up for disaster.
When one objectively assesses evidence that leads to an unprejudiced
conclusion, as opposed to constructing a case to rationalize a previously drawn
assumption, an obvious difference can be seen. In the first instance, one takes a
holistic view of the evidence and arrives at a conclusion that is based on an objective
evaluation. In the second, one is selective with the evidence that is gathered and
discards other evidence that seems to disagree with the supported position. 3 This is
not to suggest that someone would intentionally mistreat evidence; one may interpret
or select evidence along with one’s beliefs without necessarily being aware of a bias.
3 This would be consistent with an investigator’s not collecting evidence at the crime
scene because it does not fit his/her theory on how the crime happened.
However, some research has discounted the likelihood of people intentionally
seeking to prove rather than falsify their hypotheses. 4 There is evidence to support
that confirmation bias does not arise from a longing to confirm, but rather from
people not thinking in openly negative terms. The basis of this phenomenon has been
argued as cognitive breakdown and not motivation: “Subjects confirm, not because
they want to, but because they cannot think of the way to falsify. The cognitive
failure is caused by a form of selective processing which is very fundamental indeed
in cognition – a bias to think about positive rather than negative information.”

[DonQuichotte (OP)]

The above can be summarized just as follows :
Confirmation bias ...= goes also perfectly for materialists ,and for those experiments you mentioned mainly ...
Way to go, scientist .
Objectivity in science is a myth , Mr.

Confirmation bias is certainly a potential risk where results are borderline - which is why the scientific method has been constantly enhanced to try and eliminate it. These experiments were peer-reviewed and replicated by many different researches around the world, all aware of the dangers of confirmation bias and other errors (as indicated in the links I posted, the experimental designs have been tightened since the original work, and more recent technology, e.g. fMRI, has put it beyond all reasonable doubt). The results are not borderline or ambiguous, they are clear, consistent, and unambiguous.

To claim confirmation bias, you'll need to demonstrate where it could occur in all these unequivocal results. As it is, it looks like you're still clutching at straws to dismiss results that contradict your beliefs. That is the hallmark of crackpottery or delusion.

I think it was Will Rogers who said, 'When you find yourself in a hole, quit digging'.

See the relevant excerpt i have just posted regarding confirmation bias :

Look, I see that , as follows :
Those experiments were so suggestive and explicit that they can be compared to how external stimuli or sensory -"input" get sent to the brain through  the sensory organs via nerve cells ,and then afterwards conscious perception of those external stimuli takes it over from there .
Since the mainstream 'scientific world view " assumes
a-priori that "the mind is in then brain, or that the mind is just brain's activity ". then, scientists all around the world would just have to try to confirm that a priori held "scientific ' assumption empirically .
In the particular case of those experiments you mentioned , i think, personally, that they were designed as to confirm the mainstream 'scientific world view " on the subject of brain and mind ,to the point where those experiments were suggestive and confirmatory , in the sense that the subjects under "investigation " were told to perform particular decisions-making via specific instructions on how to perform them .
Those specific instructions went through the subjects' in question sensory -"inputs " to their brains first , that's why those scientists who were conducting those suggestive experiments through their suggestive confirmation bias ,in the above mentioned sense ,that's why they detected neurons' firings before those subjects were aware or conscious of their decisions.

[Ethos_]

Folks :

It never fails to amaze me how the people sharing the same thoughts via their similar underlying a-priori held beliefs , are inclined to agree with each other ,no matter what ,  while rejecting the views of other people who happen not to agree with them : that's a form of confirmation bias .
If you wanna avoid the latter , you will have to be open to all views out there on the subject , not just stick to your own that seem to be confirmed by people who do think like you do .

I'm very confident Sir, that you have your own group of individuals that can lend support to your common beliefs, or more appropriately; YOUR FAITH

To do nothing more than continue to repeat something you can't demonstrate with evidence IS EVIDENCE that your opinions are nothing more than FAITH. And FAITH will get you nowhere in a science forum.

[DonQuichotte (OP)]

Did you at least try to read my relevant posted excerpts on the subject ? Guess not .

I have read the excerpts you posted. I was waiting for you to show what aspects of consciousness  quantum mechanics explains, but so far you haven’t, other than to suggest that they are somehow linked.

It appears you are  trying  to insert the immaterial and possibly God into physical reality and consciousness using quantum mechanics as a bridge. 
Regardless of what questions quantum mechanics might raise about deterministic mechanisms, it doesn’t explain anything specific about consciousness, or offer any possible answer to the questions you have repeatedly ignored or treated dismissively in the last 48 pages, including dlorde's most recent one concerning brain activity occurring before conscious awareness.  The only way your interpretation or refutation of that experiment makes any sense is if you are implying that consciousness exerts a backwards causal effect or, as dlorde suggested, you conclude that immaterial consciousness acts before you are conscious of it , which suggests “two consciousnesses” – one that acts before one is aware of it, and without ones consent. You are not able to explain the flaw in the design of the experiment other than to claim it must be flawed because of who designed it.

The other questions your theory can’t explain, and actually contradicts, even with quantum mechanics appended to it, include the following:

If consciousness is immaterial, why is conscious experience not invulnerable to brain damage, disease, genetic defects, mind altering drugs or intoxicants,  aging, etc. If the brain is just the instrument that receives sensory information from the world and executes action, why would damage or altering brain structures or biochemistry change the subjective experience of consciousness? Your answer has been that like a broken radio, the brain is not receiving consciousness properly, but I’ve pointed out several reasons why this explanation doesn’t work with the following examples:

There are two kinds of impairment that result in patients not being able to see objects in half of their visual field. One is caused by a lesion in the optic nerve. The other is caused by a lesion in a part of the brain called the visual associative cortex, that materialists say processes visual information and produces the visual experience. Although both patients cannot see objects in part of their optical field, the patient with optic nerve damage is conscious of it - he will complain "Hey, doc, I can't see anything on my left side! What's up with that?"

The patient with a lesion in the visual associative cortex does not ask this question. He doesn't know he cannot see an object in that part of the visual field, and he doesn't experience a blind spot there. The patient's brain no longer has an area responsible for processing what is going on in that area of the visual field - it ceases to exist consciously. The patient does not complain, because the part of the brain that might notice or complain is incapacitated, and no other part takes over.

So what? you say. In your interpretation, in either case, it's "like" a broken TV set. The real "you" or the non- local consciousness is out there in outer space somewhere, unaffected. But the implications of this are  absurd –is the real immaterial consciousness aware of the lesion in the associative visual cortex?  Is it disrupting the non-local immaterial consciousness in any way? Is the immaterial consciousness  frustrated or annoyed by the lack of information in his visual field? It's odd that the immaterial, unaffected consciousness can't communicate any of this back to the receiver in anyway. From the  point of view of your brain or body, and your own conscious experience,  the non local immaterial consciousness might as well not even exist because it isn’t accessible without specific kinds of brain activity.

 Here are more examples that can be explained by neuroscience but not by non-local immaterial consciousness:

 A lesion in the lateral frontal lobes produces deficits in sequencing. The patient is unable to plan or multitask. Orbital frontal lesions result in a loss of the ability to judge right and wrong. A lesion in the left temporal lobe or Wernickes area destroys a person's ability to comprehend written or spoken language, although he can still, himself, speak normally. When these types of brain damage occur, can the immaterial non-local form of your consciousness still perform these tasks? Again, it must be quite frustrating for the non-local consciousness when his robot like receiver on Earth can't! He's up there multitasking and sequencing properly, making moral judgements, but that silly body on Earth isn't doing what he wants!

If memories are not stored in the brain, why are they unavailable to subjective conscious experience when the brain is damaged?  If  memories are part of the immaterial consciousness, why should memories fade at all?
Some specific examples:
Memories have been localized to even individual neurons in the brain, although researchers did not expect it. Researchers have also been able to erase or create memories in laboratory animals.

One lady in a medical study who suffered a stroke  could not identify or remember the names of fruit. Her intelligence, vocabulary and memory seemed normal in every other respect, and she could identify other common house hold objects - a spoon, a hammer, a chair, a toaster, a tooth brush. But bananas, apples, oranges, or any other kind of fruit were all gone from her memory.

Another woman had brain surgery for an aneurysm. She said she felt normal, the only thing she noticed afterwards was that she could no longer tell time from a dial face clock. She could from a digital clock, but not the kind with the numbers in a circle and big and small hands, that she had understood since she was five years old.
 
What are hallucinations? How are they explained in terms of an immaterial consciousness?
I can explain hallucinations if the qualia of consciousness is generated by the brain itself - for example, the hallucinations that result from temporal lobe seizures.  But how would the immaterial consciousness create a hallucination and at the same time mistake it for reality? Again, you can't blame it on the brain as a faulty receiver, because according to you, conscious experience isn't generated or experienced in the brain. If Obama is not inside the TV, then neither is your hallucination of Obama in the TV.

 The only way one can tell qualia of sensation from hallucinations is by applying rational thought processes if one is able. Say for example, I hallucinate there are five or six baboons running about my living room. I see them. I hear them. Perhaps I even feel one of them brush against my leg and I jump out of the way. But reason tells me, “I live in Canada. It is highly unlikely baboons have gotten into my house. Perhaps it was those wild mushrooms I ate.”  I may doubt whether the qualia are “real” or are qualia from hallucinations, but if the hallucination is generated by my brain chemistry, it won’t go away simply because I have done that - I won’t stop seeing the baboons. If the hallucination is generated by my immaterial consciousness, it should vanish instantly as soon as I negate its reality (thanks to my ample supply of free will.)

If you do attribute hallucinations to the malfunctioning brain instrument, why is the immaterial consciousness unable to distinguish between the false qualia the brain produces, and the real qualia that it produces? Do both brain generated-qualia and consciousness-generated qualia have an identical “raw feel?” Why would the brain be capable of generating qualia, only when it’s malfunctioning, but be unable to, when it’s not. Or to use your tv anaology, how can a broken TV set create a tv program that doesn’t exist, but be unable to create one (only broadcast) when its working properly? It shouldn’t be able to at all, according to your theory, because TV sets don’t create programs, and brains do not generate qualia or conscious experience.

Some other questions to consider:

Why is consciousness developmental, and correlate with biological brain development if it does not require it?

Why does increasing mental ability or intelligence correlate with increasing brain complexity in nature if it doesn’t require it?

Carter says the “dependence of consciousness on the brain for the manner of its manifestation in the material world does not imply that consciousness depends upon the brain for its existence.” Regardless, if I can only experience my own consciousness through its “manifestation” by the brain, I am dependent on my brains existence and its operation for my subjective experience of consciousness either way. Without the brain, I would have no access to the non-local immaterial consciousness, even if it existed.

Popper and others say that new theories replace old theories when a new theory has better explanatory power. You are asking people to replace neuroscience, which explains many aspects of consciousness, but not yet everything, with a new theory that explains no aspects of consciousness. You claim that it will or might, in the future – which is precisely the claim you reject and you use to “falsify” neuroscience and materialism.

(Prior note :
The main issue here is that materialism is false , mainly because it cannot account for consciousness, regardless of whether there are non-materialist falsifiable theories of consciousness yet or not .
I just responded to dlorde on the subject of those experiments he mentioned .
Second : materialism is false , mainly because it cannot account for consciousness, and hence not "all is matter ", and therefore the mind is not in the brain, memory is not stored in the brain ....
As for hallucinations , they can be explained in almost the same way brain damage of specific areas of the brain and its implications for consciousness can be explained,in a non-materialistic way , in the sense that consciousness remains there anyway , it just misses its physical brain support it relies on in order to be translated , in this life at least  ...since body and mind are inseparable , in this life at least .
Third , since materialism is false , together with all its extensions such as "the mind is in the brain, memory is stored in the brain, life or the universe are mechanical ...we should try to come up with non-materialist falsifiable theories of consciousness .That there are none today does not mean there will be none tomorrow , and that does not make the fact go away that materialism is false : i do not see why you, guys , do try to link the 2 to each other ,i do not see why you somehow do think that since there are no non-materialist falsifiable theories of consciousness yet , then materialism must be not false : bizarre : materialism is false  , regardless of whether we do have non-materialist falsifiable theories of consciousness or not .)

Despite all that relatively detailed talk of yours , i do salute you for ,and i do appreciate very much indeed ,you seem not to have been able so far to understand  the meaning of the real issue here,i have been trying to "defend " ,as a potentially valid alternative to false materialism  :  dualism, in the sense that there might be some sort of unknown to science fields that do somehow mediate between the physical brain and body at one hand  ,and between the non-physical mental,at the other hand  .
Even modern physics have been dualistic ,in the sense that matter at its ultimate core or bottom is not just a matter of just material particles , but also a matter of waves ....
Even at the physical level, all physical interactions are mediated by fields via energy ...
I think that the physical brain and body do generate some internal and external fields , in almost the same way magnets  or electricity  ,for example, do : magnetic fields or electro-magnetic ones,within and without .
The non-physical mental side of reality might also generate non-physical fields within and without : that's how the physical brain and body do interact with the mental, i presume,via respectively physical and non-physical fields that do get extended  beyond them , i don't know for sure , who does in fact ?

The very existence of confirmation bias,for example,  is evidence enough for the fact that the mind of the observer does change the observed ,via the observer's a-priori held belief assumptions ,is evidence enough for the fact that the mind does have causal effect on matter , brain or body .
Not to mention the power of suggestion on the same subject of mind-body relationship,and the psycho-somatic phenomena  .
So,This world is made both of 2 totally different substances  : matter and the non-physical mental , matter that's also not just matter , so to speak, matter that might turn out to be not made of matter ,after all ,so to speak .
Second : The above does also mean that we do live in those both worlds or dimensions at the same time ,so, materialism is false , mainly because it can, obviously and per -definition,not account for the mental or for consciousness .

Which also means that the material physical side of reality ,as it has been approached by all the physical sciences , is just one single part of the whole pic : who said that i have been dismissing the huge achievements  of all physical sciences on the subject ? Be serious, please .
All i have been saying is that science has been assuming that 'all is matter , including the mind " by reducing everything to just physics and chemistry , by trying to explain everything just in terms of physics and chemistry alone, thanks to materialism , by trying to explain everything just via one single side of the whole pic of reality : just via the material or physical side of reality .

And even the most physical science of them all, modern physics , has been showing to us that the mind has causal effect on matter , no matter how long you would be denying this fact we all do experience every single day of our lives via our own conscious decisions : see also the placebo effect , the power of suggestion , psycho-somatic processes ...

In short :

Materialism is false , mainly because it cannot , per definition, account for consciousness , and therefore  materialism must be rejected , and must be indeed replaced by another competitive  theory of nature with more explanatory power :

That there is still no non-materialist falsifiable theory of nature or theory of consciousness with more explanatory power , does certainly not mean that there will be none tomorrow , and that does not make the fact go away that materialism is ...false .

[DonQuichotte (OP)]

Folks :

It never fails to amaze me how the people sharing the same thoughts via their similar underlying a-priori held beliefs , are inclined to agree with each other ,no matter what ,  while rejecting the views of other people who happen not to agree with them : that's a form of confirmation bias .
If you wanna avoid the latter , you will have to be open to all views out there on the subject , not just stick to your own that seem to be confirmed by people who do think like you do .

I'm very confident Sir, that you have your own group of individuals that can lend support to your common beliefs, or more appropriately; YOUR FAITH

To do nothing more than continue to repeat something you can't demonstrate with evidence IS EVIDENCE that your opinions are nothing more than FAITH. And FAITH will get you nowhere in a science forum.

Since the materialist mainstream 'scientific world view " has been assuming that "all is matter ,including the mind " , then , most scientists cannot but try to confirm that "scientific  fact " = confirmation bias,and any given scientist who would try to prove that not "all is matter " would be automatically branded as a pseudo-scientist , a heretic , a charlatan , or worse , as it has been the case so far  .

I have been delivering a lots of material on the subject , that has been supporting my claims all along : that you did choose to ignore all thos tons of material i did post won't make that fact go away .

Besides, it is really extremely absurd bizarre , surreal ...to see a "man of faith " such as yourself defending materialism, ironically and paradoxically enough , materialism that does intrinsically and per -definition , exclude any existence of the immaterial realm out there in which you seem to believe  .

In short :
It is materialism itself that has been imposing itself as the "scientific world view " for so long now : that' s  been  just an act of faith that's not supported by any kind of evidence , otherwise , just tell me : what extraordinary evidence has materialism been delivering for its extraordinary claims regarding the nature of reality ?

Try to answer just that then, if you can = you cannot and nobodyelse can, simply because materialism is false , mainly thanks to the fact that materialism cannot account for the non-physical mental or for consciousness .

[DonQuichotte (OP)]

Yeah, right : i lack many things , i have many flaws ...

[]

that does not make the fact go away that materialism is false , and hence the mind is not in the brain , or the mind is not brain's activity

You wish. The evidence continues to accumulate consistent with a material explanation, and none whatsoever consistent with a non-material explanation. Can you even describe what evidence consistent with a non-material explanation would look like?

Sweet dreams , in your own materialist wonderland  delusion illusion hallucination , Alice :

What extraordinary evidence has materialism been delivering for its extraordinary claims regarding the nature of reality then , genius ?

See that confirmation bias post of mine here above : none can be more guilty of confirmation bias than materialists : read it carefully , and you might see yourself and your false outdated superseded 19th century old materialism reflected in it , cristal clearly .

Once again, that there are , in this time and age at least , no non-materialist falsifiable=scientific  theories of consciousness out there yet now , does not mean there will be none tomorrow ,and that does certainly not mean that all those non-materialist theories of consciousness or non-materialist theories of nature are necessarily all false , but , that does certainly not make the fact go away that materialism is false , mainly because it cannot ,per -definition, account for consciousness .

And the fact that the mental has causal effects on matter , and hence on the physical brain and body is an undeniable fact you do experience every single day of your own life via your own conscious decision making : see also the placebo effect , psycho-somatic processes that cannot be reduced to just physics and chemistry .

[DonQuichotte (OP)]

"The mind is in the brain " : what a silly joke =The whole universe is in our skulls ,in our messy soup of skulls = absurd .
The mind or consciousness that cannot be accounted for by brain activity  in fact , come on .
I am looking at my pc screen right now , while typing these lines , does that mean that what i see is just in my brain, not out there, in front of my very eyes  ? ridiculous ...

How can we approach the objective reality out there via science through our consciousness then ? science that's just a human activity .

Our conscious representations of reality are in fact within and without , everywhere and nowhere = non-local .

Consciousness is in fact within and without : extends itself beyond our physical organisms,that's why we are able to deal with the world empirically and otherwise  .

Analogy ? : even if it is just a physical one, while consciousness is non-physical, non-local :
Mobile phones do have waves within and without : that extend beyond them .

[DonQuichotte (OP)]

Folks :
Materialism is false , regardless of whether we do have non-materialist falsifiable theories of consciousness or not .
That there are no non-materialist falsifiable theories of consciousness yet out there now, does not mean there will be none tomorrow .

You do behave and think as if since there are no non-materialist falsifiable theories of consciousness yet , then materialism must be not false : what kind of reasoning is this then ?

Materialism is false ,mainly because it cannot account for consciousness, and hence the mind is not in the brain, memory is not stored in the brain, life or the universe are not mechanical ...........and therefore materialism must be rejected by all sciences .

We should thus be looking for non-materialist falsifiable theories of consciousness ,basta .

I will not say : we should be looking for non-materialist falsifiable theories of consciousness , with more explanatory power ,simply because materialism has no explanatory power ,basta , materialism that's just a false conception of nature , no science , despite the fact that the materialist ideology has been taken for granted as "the scientific world view ": see the difference ? .

[dlorde]

... In the particular case of those experiments you mentioned , i think, personally, that they were designed as to confirm the mainstream 'scientific world view " on the subject of brain and mind ,to the point where those experiments were suggestive and confirmatory , in the sense that the subjects under "investigation " were told to perform particular decisions-making via specific instructions on how to perform them .
Those specific instructions went through the subjects' in question sensory -"inputs " to their brains first , that's why those scientists who were conducting those suggestive experiments through their suggestive confirmation bias ,in the above mentioned sense ,that's why they detected neurons' firings before those subjects were aware or conscious of their decisions.

In fact, that wasn't the case at all; quite the opposite. The researchers did expect to see causal effects entirely within the brain, but they were expecting to see an initial wave of neural activation in the frontal lobes and posteromedial corticies corresponding to the subject's conscious awareness of making the choice or decision to act, followed by a sequence of activations leading to motor cortex activity that would directly cause the action.

This sequence of conscious awareness of decision followed by activity resulting in action is intuitive and seems sensible; they had no reason to expect anything different. When they found prior activity well before conscious awareness, they were puzzled. They repeated the experiment several times with the same results before publishing. Other researchers were skeptical about the experimental quality and whether the prior activity was related to the voluntary decision at all, so in an attempt to expose any mistakes, they redesigned the experiment to reduce the possibility of error (the second link I posted) and replicated it. They got even clearer results, and it has subsequently been demonstrated that it is possible to predict the decision or choice made before the time when the subject says they were consciously aware they'd made it. Because these results were so unexpected, the experiments have been replicated in various ways with the latest technology, and the results are now widely accepted.

You may wish to try to explain these results in terms of the immaterial, but you can't just dismiss them as mistaken.

[dlorde]

... We should thus be looking for non-materialist falsifiable theories of consciousness ,basta .

How?   []

[DonQuichotte (OP)]

... In the particular case of those experiments you mentioned , i think, personally, that they were designed as to confirm the mainstream 'scientific world view " on the subject of brain and mind ,to the point where those experiments were suggestive and confirmatory , in the sense that the subjects under "investigation " were told to perform particular decisions-making via specific instructions on how to perform them .
Those specific instructions went through the subjects' in question sensory -"inputs " to their brains first , that's why those scientists who were conducting those suggestive experiments through their suggestive confirmation bias ,in the above mentioned sense ,that's why they detected neurons' firings before those subjects were aware or conscious of their decisions.

In fact, that wasn't the case at all; quite the opposite. The researchers did expect to see causal effects entirely within the brain, but they were expecting to see an initial wave of neural activation in the frontal lobes and posteromedial corticies corresponding to the subject's conscious awareness of making the choice or decision to act, followed by a sequence of activations leading to motor cortex activity that would directly cause the action.

This sequence of conscious awareness of decision followed by activity resulting in action is intuitive and seems sensible; they had no reason to expect anything different. When they found prior activity well before conscious awareness, they were puzzled. They repeated the experiment several times with the same results before publishing. Other researchers were skeptical about the experimental quality and whether the prior activity was related to the voluntary decision at all, so in an attempt to expose any mistakes, they redesigned the experiment to reduce the possibility of error (the second link I posted) and replicated it. They got even clearer results, and it has subsequently been demonstrated that it is possible to predict the decision or choice made before the time when the subject says they were consciously aware they'd made it. Because these results were so unexpected, the experiments have been replicated in various ways with the latest technology, and the results are now widely accepted.

You may wish to try to explain these results in terms of the immaterial, but you can't just dismiss them as mistaken.

Since the materialist mainstream 'scientific world view " has been assuming that "all is matter , including the mind " , then most scientists would only try to confirm that "scientific " assumption they take for granted as science or as an empirical fact (Why should they question empirical facts like that , in the first place to begin with then haha ) ,otherwise they would be branded as pseudo-scientists or worse ,for daring to challenge  the current  " scientific world view " of the moment : confirmation bias can be applied to this case perfectly : see my post regarding confirmation bias .

Those experiments must be designed as to be so suggestive and confirmatory as to instruct the subjets of those experiments to take,so to speak,  those instructions via their sensory -"inputs " to their brains ....no wonder that those scientists  would detect brain activity , in this particular case , before the subjects in question could be aware of their actual conscious decision -making thus = very suggestive .

This might sound silly or insane ,but i can only speculate about this , since materialism is false , and hence the mind is not in the brain , or the mind is not brain activity : understand ?

In short :

Folks :
Materialism is false , regardless of whether we do have non-materialist falsifiable theories of consciousness or not .
That there are no non-materialist falsifiable theories of consciousness yet out there now, does not mean there will be none tomorrow .

You do behave and think as if since there are no non-materialist falsifiable theories of consciousness yet , then materialism must be not false : what kind of reasoning is this then ?

Materialism is false ,mainly because it cannot account for consciousness, and hence the mind is not in the brain, memory is not stored in the brain, life or the universe are not mechanical ...........and therefore materialism must be rejected by all sciences .

We should thus be looking for non-materialist falsifiable theories of consciousness ,basta .

I will not say : we should be looking for non-materialist falsifiable theories of consciousness , with more explanatory power ,simply because materialism has no explanatory power ,basta , materialism that's just a false conception of nature , no science , despite the fact that the materialist ideology has been taken for granted as "the scientific world view ": see the difference ? .

[Ethos_]

... We should thus be looking for non-materialist falsifiable theories of consciousness ,basta .

How?   []

I don't know about Mr. Don..........., but I intend to use my 5 senses. All of which can be used to measure and provide empirical evidence!!

You're not winning this argument Don......................

[DonQuichotte (OP)]

... We should thus be looking for non-materialist falsifiable theories of consciousness ,basta .

How?   []

Silly question :


It's a bit like saying : if one detects flaws in or unexplained anomalies or unexplained phenomena ...by classical physics , before the time of Einstein, then, there is no way to disocover the still unknown  at that time  future relativity theory discovery , or quantum mechanics .
New scientific discoveries through the evolutionary nature of science might deliver the answer to your silly question thus : only time will tell then .

[DonQuichotte (OP)]

... We should thus be looking for non-materialist falsifiable theories of consciousness ,basta .

How?   []

I don't know about Mr. Don..........., but I intend to use my 5 senses. All of which can be used to measure and provide empirical evidence!!

You're not winning this argument Don......................

You're not even using your own mind , silly , by paradoxically both defending materialism or the materialist mainstream  false  'scientific world view " while believing in the immaterial realm ,at the same time = a paradox = 2 mutually exclusive conceptions of nature .

It's not about winning either ....

[Ethos_]

... We should thus be looking for non-materialist falsifiable theories of consciousness ,basta .

How?   []

Silly question :


It's a bit like saying : if one detects flaws in or unexplained anomalies or unexplained phenomena ...by classical physics , before the time of Einstein, then, there is no way to disocover the still unknown  at that time  future relativity theory discovery , or quantum mechanics .
New scientific discoveries through the evolutionary nature of science might deliver the answer to your silly question thus : only time will tell then .

Are you insinuating that dlorde is incompetent by calling him silly??

I think you should apologize......................

[dlorde]

... This might sound silly or insane ,but i can only speculate about this...

'Nuff said []

[Ethos_]

... This might sound silly or insane ,but i can only speculate about this

What was it that someone said about hitting the proverbial nail on the head?