Why we shall have to wait for a real biography of Stephen Hawking

_{Denyse O'Leary

January 14, 2012

Books of interest, Cosmology, News}

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In a review of Kitty Ferguson’s Stephen Hawking, Ed Lake “examines how Stephen Hawking gets the world to sit up and take notice” (Telegraph, January 12, 2012):

When he speaks, as he has this week on his 70th birthday, the world takes notice. That’s partly down to his distinguished career but, let’s not be squeamish, partly because his motor neurone disease and voice synthesiser have made him a convenient symbol for the life of the mind. That aura of mystical detachment doesn’t quite stand up to examination, however. “Was it just an accident that he always seemed to come up with attention-getting statements whenever public and media attention appeared to require a boost?” asks Kitty Ferguson in her starry-eyed biography. As one of Hawking’s assistants told her: “He isn’t stupid, you know.”

One starts to suspect that his real genius may be for judging the appetites of the public.

Well, how about the appetites of self-conscious urban elites – people who feel knowing about “imaginary time” and space wormholes, who could not point to and name a single star visible in their own region.

Indeed, there’s so little that’s dark or sad about her Hawking, the effect is almost sinister. Perhaps he really is just a permanently upbeat and sunny chap. On the other hand, …

On the other hand, that’s highly unlikely. Such people exist, to be sure, but they don’t think, say, or do the things Hawking has. Which is why we shall have to wait for a real biography of Stephen Hawking.

Stephen Hawking at 70: What would revolutionize our understanding of the universe

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Comments

Champignon:
1. Physical fatigue and intoxication affect our consciousness. 2. Anesthesia can make our consciousness disappear altogether. 3. Drugs that affect specific brain systems affect consciousness and behavior. Example: Parkinson’s patients given the drug L-DOPA often exhibit hypersexuality and gambling addiction. Discontinue the drug, and these behaviors cease. 4. Brain diseases and tumors can cause massive changes in personality and behavior, as in the case of a man who became a pedophile due to a brain tumor. When the tumor was removed, the pedophilia ceased. 5. Electrical and magnetic stimulation of the brain can alter consciousness, behavior, and even moral judgment.
From Wikipedia: "Chalmers is best known for his formulation of the notion of a hard problem of consciousness in both his book and in the paper "Facing Up to the Problem of Consciousness" (originally published in The Journal of Consciousness Studies, 1995). He makes the distinction between "easy" problems of consciousness, such as explaining object discrimination or verbal reports, and the single hard problem, which could be stated "why does the feeling which accompanies awareness of sensory information exist at all?" " I will take this fundamental distinction as the basis for my answer. All your examples are merely trivial examples of a simple fact that has been known for millennia: material stimuli affect consciousness. I will object to your point number 2: I don't believe that "anesthesia can make our consciousness disappear altogether". Consciousness goes through different states. We know that very well, because we daily pass through waking state, sleep and dream state. There is no evidence that anesthesia makes consciousness "disappear". It certainly changes the state of consciousness, and in the waking state we have no clear memory (in general) of what we experience in that other state. The same is true for many dreams, or for many states in sleep. But, with this important exception, I fully agree with your other points. Only, they do not mean what you believe they mean. There is no doubt that, in most states, and especially in the waking state, our consciousness perceives mainly the brain states. The brain is, after all, its main interface in the waking state. There is no surprise, therefore, that exactly as outer stimuli affect our consciousness, inner stimuli (brain states) affect it too. It would be silly to believe otherwise. But it is silly to believe that this is evidence that conscious experiences are generated by the brain. The brain just offers perceptions to consciousness, exactly like outer stimuli do. Your "points" that drugs, or electrical stimuli, can modify our states of consciousness, or our personality, are really trivial. The same is true of our experiences of the world. Do you really believe that all the philosophers who have believed ib an independent existence of consciousness were stupid, and you are intelligent? Do you really believe that they did know know, or had never experienced, the effects of alcohol? Your points are philosophically naive and totally irrelevant to the hard problem of consciousness. There is nothing in modern neurophysiology that, in that context, adds anything to the simple fact that if I pinch my arm I feel pain. Which is not news, after all...gpuccio_{January 15, 2012
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Champignon: re (in 2.2.3.2.9):
You’re glossing over the fact that materialism fits the evidence far, far better than dualism or idealism.
No, it does not. You have to consider the entire philosophical system, and in the context of my understanding of the nature and purpose of the material universe (based primarily on Conversations with God by Neal Donald Walsch, but also on Journey of Souls by Michael Newton, plus a number of other sources), my explanations of the evidence you cite make perfect sense. Furthermore, you continue to ignore the fact that the most basic of all phenomena, that which forms the context within which all other phenomena are experienced, namely consciousness, simply cannot be explained by materialism. This is your situation: you believe that the world is entirely material even though you have absolutely no idea how consciousness and qualia could "emerge" or "arise" from activity in the brain. You argue that this is just a question of time---eventually science will understand this phenomenon. In other words, you have faith that eventually the most basic and fundamental phenomenon of all will be explainable within the context of your philosophy, even though now neither you nor anyone else has the slightest clue how this could be possible. Your faith is touching. Just don't try to pretend that materialism fits the data better than any other option. Given that it cannot explain the most basic of all facts of existence, it clearly does not.Bruce David_{January 15, 2012
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I did not dispute the claim that it is honest. I disputed the claim that it was unbiased. Your reading seems even less unbiased. But I've made my point and I'll leave it there.Elizabeth Liddle_{January 15, 2012
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fest not featBantay_{January 15, 2012
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I think what you object to most about Jane Hawking'a book is what makes it good biographical material. It's honest, even brutally honest. It's a factual narrative, with information that can be verified by people still living who are part of the narrative, and does not involve a lot of emotional baggage. It's the last point that is almost painfully obvious, that she seems to go out of her way to keep it fact based, not a self-pity feat. This lends great credibility to her narrative, more than we can expect from Stephen himself, who obviously has a lot to cover up...which could explain his silence on the issue of his own infidelity.Bantay_{January 15, 2012
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Bruce,
So the “evidence” is explainable within the context of all three worldviews. Therefore, it doesn’t prove or disprove any of them.
You're glossing over the fact that materialism fits the evidence far, far better than dualism or idealism. Consider just one of the points I raised, the effect of alcohol on consciousness. Under materialism, consciousness has a physical basis in the brain. Anything that disrupts brain function in the right way should therefore be able to affect consciousness. This is exactly what we see in the case of alcohol. Under dualism and idealism, consciousness is not dependent on matter. Therefore there is no reason that it should be affected by alcohol. The only way to rescue dualism and idealism is to make an unjustified, ad hoc, unfalsifiable assumption such as "God chose to make it look like consciousness is physically based, but it really isn't." The question should always be "Which hypothesis fits the evidence best?", not "Can I rescue my pet hypothesis by adding arbitrary, unsupported assumptions?"champignon_{January 15, 2012
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Elizabeth You demonized Jane Hawking when you said “Yeah, an ex-wife’s view is bound to be unbiased. Right.” This is just a tacit assumption that an ex-wife’s testimony is untrustworthy. This is both false and manipulative. You then call your view a “…self-evident truth?”
To say someone is biased is not to demonise them. To say an ex-wife is biased in her testimony regarding her ex-husband is indeed a self-evident truth. Actually a wife will also be biased. It's one of the reasons spouses are not called as witnesses in criminal trials (or used not to be). Anyone with a specific interest in a matter will be biased, and someone who has been "abandoned" as you call it, will tend to be biased unfavorably towards their ex-spouse. A spouse, or an ex-spouse, is not a disinterested witness.
As assumption is not a self-evident truth. The truth is, is that you haven’t read her book. You only googled the book and the best attack you can levy against it is basically the equivalent of a sound bite of a quote from her book…
The truth is that I read the book when it came out. I found fascinating, but also offensive, and the quote I gave was one of the things I found very offensive (however "honest"). I did indeed google it, as I no longer have the book, but it wasn't hard to find. Clearly I was not the only person to find it offensive.
““It was becoming very difficult — unnatural, even — to feel desire for someone with the body of a Holocaust victim and the undeniable needs of an infant.”” Isn’t this kind of honesty what should be present in a good biography? What offends you more…Her honesty, or that the above statement is true?
What I find offensive is that she should have written it about a living man.
By the way, she makes no excuses for her own indiscretion (affair), which is commendable.
I guess. That's not the "indiscretion" I blame her for.
However, it is apparent to me from her account, that he basically treated her like a door mat from nearly the wedding day onward….which I think is not the way you would want to be treated if you were in her situation. Her book is not an excuse for her actions, or his, but merely a narrative of what happened without emotional baggage attached to it.
It is certainly apparent from her account. That is my point. Whether it would be apparent from his, is not clear. He, at least, has had the discretion not to publicly opine one way or the other. AFAIK. I could be wrong. But even if true (and I wouldn't be surprised, as, contrary to your suggestion, I neither regard Hawking as a hero nor his ex-wife as a demon), it's irrelevant to the quality of his work as a scientist.
If anything, she is remarkably detached and fair. The reader is left to determine deeper insights, of which are many if you would take the time to read the book before commenting on it.
There is no way of knowing whether she is "remarkably detached and fair", because all we have is her account. Which, as I said, is bound to be biased. Not because she is a demon, but because it is, of its nature, a literally one-sided account. Stephen and Jane are not co-authors of that book.
If there is ever a biography that includes information about the character of Stephen Hawking, it should come from a person who knows him the most. Jane Hawking.
How do you know she "knows him the most"? What if what went wrong with their marriage was in part a failure on her part to understand him, not merely a failure on his part to understand her? Why should we assume that she alone has the authority to pronounce on (your words, not hers IIRC) the "origin of Stephen Hawking’s brutal pride and arrogance"?
Here’s a woman who literally wrote his papers, changed his undies, wiped his bum, carried him, wheeled him, fed him, talked with him, debated with him, helped him to have the notoriety that he enjoys today.
"Notoriety"?
If you are going to comment about Jane Hawking, I think you owe it to her to actually read her book first, then make your snarky comments if you can do so honestly.
A) I have read her book. B) I have apologised for my "snarky" comment, the snark in question having been directed not at Jane Hawking but at you. My view remains that to regard Jane Hawking's book as the last word on the moral standing of Stephen Hawking is unsound. At the very least, on one hand we have a woman who exposed her ex-husband's most intimate details, as well as her own disgust, to the public eye, while on the other hand we have a man who has, AFAIK, remained doggedly silent not only on the subject of his first ex-wife, but on the subject of his second. Good for him. Sometimes discretion is the better part of valour.Elizabeth Liddle_{January 15, 2012
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Elizabeth You demonized Jane Hawking when you said "Yeah, an ex-wife’s view is bound to be unbiased. Right." This is just a tacit assumption that an ex-wife's testimony is untrustworthy. This is both false and manipulative. You then call your view a "...self-evident truth?" As assumption is not a self-evident truth. The truth is, is that you haven't read her book. You only googled the book and the best attack you can levy against it is basically the equivalent of a sound bite of a quote from her book... "“It was becoming very difficult — unnatural, even — to feel desire for someone with the body of a Holocaust victim and the undeniable needs of an infant.”" Isn't this kind of honesty what should be present in a good biography? What offends you more...Her honesty, or that the above statement is true? By the way, she makes no excuses for her own indiscretion (affair), which is commendable. However, it is apparent to me from her account, that he basically treated her like a door mat from nearly the wedding day onward....which I think is not the way you would want to be treated if you were in her situation. Her book is not an excuse for her actions, or his, but merely a narrative of what happened without emotional baggage attached to it. If anything, she is remarkably detached and fair. The reader is left to determine deeper insights, of which are many if you would take the time to read the book before commenting on it. If there is ever a biography that includes information about the character of Stephen Hawking, it should come from a person who knows him the most. Jane Hawking. Here's a woman who literally wrote his papers, changed his undies, wiped his bum, carried him, wheeled him, fed him, talked with him, debated with him, helped him to have the notoriety that he enjoys today. If you are going to comment about Jane Hawking, I think you owe it to her to actually read her book first, then make your snarky comments if you can do so honestly.Bantay_{January 15, 2012
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Where have I "demonized" anyone? I suggested, somewhat snarkily, that an ex-wife was bound to be biased. What is "demonizing" about that self-evident truth? You, on the other hand, talked about "Stephen Hawking’s brutal pride and arrogance" in contrast to "the resolve and perseverance of one classy lady, Jane Hawking". That sounds like "demonizing" on the one hand and hagiography on the other. As for "we don’t see Stephen making any public statements about abandoning his wife to run (wheel?) off with a nurse" - perhaps becauses he has more respect for his ex-wife's dignity than she has for his. Recall that she had a long-standing affair with a family friend, while she was still married to Stephen, and whom she eventually married. Recall also that she wrote: "It was becoming very difficult — unnatural, even — to feel desire for someone with the body of a Holocaust victim and the undeniable needs of an infant." Understandable, honest even, but not kind, IMO, to make a "public statement" about. And doesn't it put Stephen's "abandoning" of her in a somewhat different light? It was clearly an unhappy marriage, and she had a lot to bear. But then, so did he. And neither of them knew what they were in for when they embarked on it.Elizabeth Liddle_{January 15, 2012
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Jane writes in a rather emotionally restrained way, leaving the reader to experience their own emotional response to a factually reported style, without imposing her own emotional baggage, if any, on the reader. Neither you or Elizabeth have in any way indicated that you have actually read her book. Rather, it seems that Elizabeth is intent on defending her hero Stephen Hawking at all costs, even demonizing a virtuous, and persevering woman who voluntarily suffered and gave up her own interests in order to support his. By the way, we don't see Stephen making any public statements about abandoning his wife to run (wheel?) off with a nurse.Bantay_{January 15, 2012
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I was being snarky, though, I agree. And apologised. As it happens, I have read her book.Elizabeth Liddle_{January 15, 2012
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From your link:
Dr Liddle, As I said, I do not intend on entering this conversation, but your demonstrated lack of integrity forces a clarification. The physical phenomenon of information transfer was coherently described to you. That description was based entirely upon material observations. Over the course of months, and literally tens of thousands of words, you were unable to demonstrate a shortcoming in that description. You remain unable to this very day. Yet, here you are, again, wanting to imply that your failure was somehow tied to the description, when in fact, your issue was with the material evidence – and only the material evidence. You were wrong Elizabeth, flat out wrong. You are free to keep kicking the can down the road, but each time you do, you can do nothing but further demonstrate that material evidence is subservient to your ideology.
And yet again, Upright BiPed, we fail to understand each other and you misinterpret it as a lack of integrity on my part. I do not lie. I am honest. It is not valid to infer that because an "explainer" thinks s/he has coherently defined a concept to an "explainee" that continued querying of that concept by the "explainee" demonstrates "lack of integrity" on her part. I have several times pointed out that there is at least one hypothetical alternative to your interpretation: that you yourself have made an intellectual error, of which you remain unaware. That is in fact my view. However, I do not accuse you of "lack of integrity". That is because there can be no communication whatsoever without the assumption that the other party is posting in good faith. I post in good faith. I assume you do. I cannot continue to converse with you unless you do me the minimal courtesy of reciprocating that assumption.Elizabeth Liddle_{January 15, 2012
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Bantay
In fact, you could probably learn a few things from Jane Hawking, at the very least, how to conduct yourself without being snarky.
Jane Hawking must be a saint indeed if she can teach Lizzie how to conduct herself. I have never come across a another blogger who comes close to Lizzie for patience, humility and sheer hard work. She appears to read, take seriously and respond politely to almost anything - often from people who are vastly less well-informed and intelligent than she is. If Jane Hawking can teach Lizzie something about how to be engaging, forgving and graceful think what a vast amount she can teach Denyse!markf_{January 14, 2012
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champignon, re:
No faith required. The evidence is massive: 1. Physical fatigue and intoxication affect our consciousness. 2. Anesthesia can make our consciousness disappear altogether. 3. Drugs that affect specific brain systems affect consciousness and behavior. Example: Parkinson’s patients given the drug L-DOPA often exhibit hypersexuality and gambling addiction. Discontinue the drug, and these behaviors cease. 4. Brain diseases and tumors can cause massive changes in personality and behavior, as in the case of a man who became a pedophile due to a brain tumor. When the tumor was removed, the pedophilia ceased. 5. Electrical and magnetic stimulation of the brain can alter consciousness, behavior, and even moral judgment.
Your statement begs the question, which is, "What is the true nature of reality?" The candidates, to simplify, are materialism, idealism, and dualism. If one assumes that materialism is true, then your "evidence" just details some of the ways that brain action creates certain conscious experiences. If one assumes that dualism is true, then your "evidence" is evidence that activity in the brain can influence the contents of consciousness, ie., that there is some kind of connection between mind and matter. If one assumes that idealism is true, then your "evidence" just describes some of the ways in which the "rules" of the virtual reality which is the illusion of the material world operate to create our shared experience. So the "evidence" is explainable within the context of all three worldviews. Therefore, it doesn't prove or disprove any of them. What is not explainable within the materialist worldview is how consciousness can arise from inanimate matter. And by the way, what is not explainable in the dualist worldview is how an immaterial substance (mind) can possibly have any causal effect on a material substance (matter) and vice versa. This is of course the classic "mind/body problem" of Western philosophy. It is for these reasons, among others, that I long ago decided that the only worldview consistent with all the evidence is idealism, or the view that there is only mind/spirit and that the material world is illusion, or a kind of virtual reality orchestrated and coordinated by God.Bruce David_{January 14, 2012
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LOL.champignon_{January 14, 2012
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champ you state:
Umm, BA — are you aware that quantum mechanics is a branch of physics? That QM deals with matter and energy? That those are part of physical reality? If you claim that consciousness depends on QM, you’re saying that it is a physical phenomenon.
Since you clearly do not even begin to understand the nature of the evidence presented against you, I rest my case! The last shot belongs to you. I'm done wasting my time with you!bornagain77_{January 14, 2012
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champignon, quite the contrary, I called your evidence anecdotal (i.e. unreliable due to cherry-picked or otherwise unrepresentative of typical cases).
Pretending that my evidence is anecdotal won't work, BA. I'm surprised you thought you could get away with it. Seriously, did you think that science hasn't studied these questions?
Whereas, since I led first with ‘conclusive evidence’ from quantum mechanics (representative of our best foundational knowledge of the universe) and you avoided that premier, unsurpassed, line of evidence...
Umm, BA -- are you aware that quantum mechanics is a branch of physics? That QM deals with matter and energy? That those are part of physical reality? If you claim that consciousness depends on QM, you're saying that it is a physical phenomenon.
Personally, it is not worth my time to deal with it!
When you of all people lapse into silence, it's a sure sign that you cannot answer. Not worth your time? You, the guy who spams this blog with hundreds, if not thousands, of lines every day? So, back to those ten points in my two comments. Can you address them, or not?champignon_{January 14, 2012
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SureUpright BiPed_{January 14, 2012
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champignon, quite the contrary, I called your evidence anecdotal (i.e. unreliable due to cherry-picked or otherwise unrepresentative of typical cases). Whereas, since I led first with 'conclusive evidence' from quantum mechanics (representative of our best foundational knowledge of the universe) and you avoided that premier, unsurpassed, line of evidence with your anecdotal, cherry picked, evidence, I think it would be proper for you to address the conclusive evidence from the foundation of reality first. But of course since you will, just like Elizabeth, refuse to be honest with reality itself, what is the point??? Personally, it is not worth my time to deal with it!bornagain77_{January 14, 2012
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Bantay:
It reveals origin of Stephen Hawking’s brutal pride and arrogance as well as the resolve and perseverance of one classy lady, Jane Hawking. Jane keeps it real, intimate, honest and informative of what really happened. A good read.
Elizabeth:
Yeah, an ex-wife’s view is bound to be unbiased.
Bantay:
Elizabeth, you really need to read her personal account before jumping to conclusions.
Elizabeth is not jumping to conclusions -- you are. You can't take it on faith that an ex-wife's account of her marriage is "real, honest and informative of what really happened". It's just common sense.champignon_{January 14, 2012
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Regarding OBEs and NDEs, I'll ask the same questions I posed to Bruce David on another thread. I thought his answers were ad hoc and unsatisfactory, because they boiled down to saying "Things are the way they are because the soul wants them that way" -- an unfalsifiable assertion. Perhaps you'll do better.
I have several questions for dualists who believe that near-death and out-of-body experiences provide evidence for an immaterial mind that is capable of functioning independently of the body: 1. If a cognitive or emotional function can be impaired or eliminated by damaging or disrupting a particular brain region, how can that function be intact during an NDE, when the brain is supposedly shut down completely? 2. Similarly, if consciousness is independent of the brain, why can it be suppressed by anesthesia? 3. Ditto for memory and Alzheimer’s disease. Memory can be disrupted due to brain damage caused by Alzheimer’s disease. If the brain shuts down during NDEs, why do subjects retain their memories? 4. If the immaterial mind can see and hear from its vantage point outside of the body during NDEs and OBEs, why do we have eyes and ears? Why can’t we employ the same faculty of direct perception in normal life? 5. If NDEs and OBEs actually involve the mind leaving the body, why is it that so many of them don’t match reality? For example, why do NDE subjects so often report encounters with living people during their experiences? Think of Ben Breedlove, whose famous NDE involved the living rapper Kid Cudi, who of course did not share the experience.
All of these facts make sense if materialism is true, and they make no sense if the mind or soul is immaterial.champignon_{January 14, 2012
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BA77, I notice that you avoided the points I raised in my comment (reposted here for your convenience):
No faith required. The evidence is massive: 1. Physical fatigue and intoxication affect our consciousness. 2. Anesthesia can make our consciousness disappear altogether. 3. Drugs that affect specific brain systems affect consciousness and behavior. Example: Parkinson’s patients given the drug L-DOPA often exhibit hypersexuality and gambling addiction. Discontinue the drug, and these behaviors cease. 4. Brain diseases and tumors can cause massive changes in personality and behavior, as in the case of a man who became a pedophile due to a brain tumor. When the tumor was removed, the pedophilia ceased. 5. Electrical and magnetic stimulation of the brain can alter consciousness, behavior, and even moral judgment.
If consciousness is separable from the body, then why are all of these things true?champignon_{January 14, 2012
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Elizabeth, you really need to read her personal account before jumping to conclusions. In fact, you could probably learn a few things from Jane Hawking, at the very least, how to conduct yourself without being snarky. I got the impression Jane is an intelligent, engaging, forgiving and graceful lady, not a bitter, jilted housewife. She supported and cared for an extraordinarily selfish and arrogant man, putting his interests before her own. Okay, well, you also said "Science is not morality, not theology, never was or will be" Is that your tacit admittance that morality and theology do not have their origin in what science can measure? Just wondering.Bantay_{January 14, 2012
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Actually the evidence that consciousness and matter are two very different things has massive evidence behind it. Besides the formal proof provided earlier, please note this following video by Anesthesiologist Stuart Hameroff:
Does Quantum Biology Support A Quantum Soul? Stuart Hameroff http://vimeo.com/29895068
In fact the evidence for conscious causation is extensive, conclusive, and massive:
Do Conscious Thoughts Cause Behavior? -Roy F. Baumeister, E. J. Masicampo, and Kathleen D. Vohs - 2010 Excerpt: The evidence for conscious causation of behavior is profound, extensive, adaptive, multifaceted, and empirically strong. http://carlsonschool.umn.edu/assets/165663.pdf
The following is further stunning, repeatable, scientific evidence for a 'mind' that is inherent in man;
The Mind Is Not The Brain - Scientific Evidence - Rupert Sheldrake - (Referenced Notes) http://vimeo.com/33479544/
So we have extensive, indeed conclusive evidence for consciousness being unique, and separate, from matter, whereas on the other hand, in those rare moments of honesty from atheists, we find,,,
Darwinian Psychologist David Barash Admits the Seeming Insolubility of Science's "Hardest Problem" to a materialistic framework Excerpt: 'But the hard problem of consciousness is so hard that I can't even imagine what kind of empirical findings would satisfactorily solve it. In fact, I don't even know what kind of discovery would get us to first base, not to mention a home run.' David Barash - Materialist/Atheist Darwinian Psychologist http://www.evolutionnews.org/2011/11/post_33052491.html
Thus, apparently, there is only anecdotal evidence for materialistic conjecture of 'emergent mind', such as what champ cited, and zero conclusive evidence that you can actually take to the bank, such as the conclusive evidence self-evident from quantum mechanics for Mind's independence! Moreover, we have the success of the scientific enterprise itself which testifies for the reality of the Mind of God;
Epistemology – Why Should The Human Mind Even Be Able To Comprehend/Correspond To Reality? – Stephen Meyer - video – (Notes in description) http://vimeo.com/32145998
further notes:
A neurosurgeon confronts the non-material nature of consciousness - December 2011 Excerpted quote: 'To me one thing that has emerged from my experience and from very rigorous analysis of that experience over several years, talking it over with others that I respect in neuroscience, and really trying to come up with an answer, is that consciousness outside of the brain is a fact. It’s an established fact. And of course, that was a hard place for me to get, coming from being a card-toting reductive materialist over decades. It was very difficult to get to knowing that consciousness, that there’s a soul of us that is not dependent on the brain.' Neurosurgeon Dr. Eben Alexander’s Near-Death Experience Defies Medical Model of Consciousness - audio interview http://www.skeptiko.com/upload/skeptiko-154-eben-alexander.mp3 The Scientific Evidence for Near Death Experiences - Dr Jeffery Long - Dr. Melvin Morse - video http://www.metacafe.com/watch/4454627 Blind Woman Can See During Near Death Experience (NDE) - Pim von Lommel - video http://www.metacafe.com/watch/3994599/ Kenneth Ring and Sharon Cooper (1997) conducted a study of 31 blind people, many of who reported vision during their Near Death Experiences (NDEs). 21 of these people had had an NDE while the remaining 10 had had an out-of-body experience (OBE), but no NDE. It was found that in the NDE sample, about half had been blind from birth. (of note: This 'anomaly' is also found for deaf people who can hear sound during their Near Death Experiences(NDEs).)
This following experiment is really interesting:
Scientific Evidence That Mind Effects Matter - Random Number Generators - video http://www.metacafe.com/watch/4198007
I once asked a evolutionist, after showing him the preceding experiment, "Since you ultimately believe that the 'god of random chance' produced everything we see around us, what in the world is my mind doing pushing your god around?"bornagain77_{January 14, 2012
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Elizabeth wrote:
Conciousness is a property of certain material systems.
gpuccio replied:
OK, then you have to explain why certain material systems are not conscious, and others are. Once explained that, you can reproduce consciousness by reproducing the properties that generate it.
That's like saying to someone in the 12th century:
Unless you can explain why certain material systems are iridescent and others aren't, you can't claim that iridescence is a physical phenomenon.
Why some material systems are conscious (or iridescent) and others aren't is an interesting question, but we don't have to answer it in order to show that consciousness (or iridescence) is a physical phenomenon.champignon_{January 14, 2012
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OK, then you have to explain why certain material systems are not conscious, and others are. Once explained that, you can reproduce consciousness by reproducing the properties that generate it.
Well, your first is easy enough. Organisms with brains are the only systems we know of, and that's because of the specific nature of those systems. Obviously not all systems have the same properties! And of course we know a fair bit about just why brains result in consciousness. We clearly can't readily reproduce those systems because they are vastly complex, and way beyond our technical capacity. We may do, eventually, I guess, but my hunch is that if we do it will because we have let them evolve, and we will still have to investigate, post hoc, just how they do it. There are some design jobs that evolutionary systems do a heck of a lot better than we do
Now, don’t come with the usual trivialities about emergent properties. That is really nonsense. Emeregent properties, if and when they “emerge”, emerge for definite reasons.
Of course they do.
Water is different form oxygen and hydorgen, but we have specific explanations for that at chemical level.
And for consciousness, although it is clearly much more complex, and we have only scratched the surface so far. But scratched it we have, very substantially.
And so it is for any member of the ambiguous and eterogeneous “set” of emergent properties. There is absolutely no explanation of why any of the many proposed patterns of matter should become conscious. A loop is not conscious. 10000 loops are not conscious. There is absolutely no logic in believing that 10^14 loops will be conscious. A parallel computer is not conscious. What else do you propose as an explanation for consciousness?
Well, I could refer you to a very large literature, but probably the best book-length account is Edelman and Tononi's book "A Universe Of Consciousness: How Matter Becomes Imagination". Relevant other literature is the vast literature on attention, perception, action, decision-making, social cognition, and Theory of Mind.
The resoning that only because some softwrae can emulate some computations that our consciousness performs, then the software is a step towards consciousness, is simply silly.
Yes, it would be, rather.
I repeat: there is absolutely no logical reason, no credible evidence, no acceptable intuition, of how consciousness should “emerge” from any property of material objects. Absolutely no one.
I disagree.
With this, I invite you to propose your reasons, if you have any.
Well, I've been thinking of writing some blog posts, and may do so, but clearly it's a big subject. I'll give you a link if I do. Consciousness, per se, isn't my field, but attention, perception, decision-making and learning, as well as dynamic brain networks, are, and they are all part of the domain. Thanks for the other link btw :) Going there now.Elizabeth Liddle_{January 14, 2012
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Bruce,
To say, “consciousness is a property of certain material systems” is in my view simply a restatement of one’s faith that somehow consciousness is compatible with materialism.
No faith required. The evidence is massive: 1. Physical fatigue and intoxication affect our consciousness. 2. Anesthesia can make our consciousness disappear altogether. 3. Drugs that affect specific brain systems affect consciousness and behavior. Example: Parkinson's patients given the drug L-DOPA often exhibit hypersexuality and gambling addiction. Discontinue the drug, and these behaviors cease. 4. Brain diseases and tumors can cause massive changes in personality and behavior, as in the case of a man who became a pedophile due to a brain tumor. When the tumor was removed, the pedophilia ceased. 5. Electrical and magnetic stimulation of the brain can alter consciousness, behavior, and even moral judgment. It's true that we don't know how matter gives rise to consciousness, but as I've pointed out to you before, we also don't know how an immaterial mind could be conscious. Consciousness is a mystery for everyone, not just the materialist. We may not know how consciousness arises, but the evidence overwhelmingly supports the idea that it cannot exist independently of the body.champignon_{January 14, 2012
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Care to share the joke, Upright BiPed?Elizabeth Liddle_{January 14, 2012
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Yes, everyone is biased. But we are talking about a book by his ex-wife.Elizabeth Liddle_{January 14, 2012
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Elizabeth: Conciousness is a property of certain material systems OK, then you have to explain why certain material systems are not conscious, and others are. Once explained that, you can reproduce consciousness by reproducing the properties that generate it. Now, don't come with the usual trivialities about emergent properties. That is really nonsense. Emeregent properties, if and when they "emerge", emerge for definite reasons. Water is different form oxygen and hydorgen, but we have specific explanations for that at chemical level. And so it is for any member of the ambiguous and eterogeneous "set" of emergent properties. There is absolutely no explanation of why any of the many proposed patterns of matter should become conscious. A loop is not conscious. 10000 loops are not conscious. There is absolutely no logic in believing that 10^14 loops will be conscious. A parallel computer is not conscious. What else do you propose as an explanation for consciousness? The resoning that only because some softwrae can emulate some computations that our consciousness performs, then the software is a step towards consciousness, is simply silly. I repeat: there is absolutely no logical reason, no credible evidence, no acceptable intuition, of how consciousness should "emerge" from any property of material objects. Absolutely no one. With this, I invite you to propose your reasons, if you have any.gpuccio_{January 14, 2012
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