Michael Egnor: How can we study consciousness scientifically?

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February 25, 2020

Mind, Neuroscience

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Egnor tells us that Tam Hunt offers some good ideas at Scientific American but his dismissal of objectivity is cause for concern: There is a better way.

Hunt is right that the scientific study of consciousness using merely third-person objective data is flawed—it is the idiotic flaw of behaviorism—but the notion that “objective” data needs scare quotes opens the door to a deconstruction of our knowledge of the natural world that is every bit as idiotic and dangerous as the crude materialist objectification of consciousness.

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Indeed. That way lies the war on math, the war on science and endless Sokal hoaxes that don’t really matter because serious science is no longer possible. All that remains is persecuting unpopular groups in science.

Comments

___
"If the human mind has evolved in obedience to the imperatives of survival, what reason is there for thinking that it can acquire knowledge of reality, when all that is required in order to reproduce the species is that its errors and illusions are not fatal?"
http://clearysviewpoint.blogspot.com/2015/03/why-naturalism-is-self-refuting.html?m=1Truthfreedom_{February 28, 2020
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Regarding 'evolution' and the human brain, I found this article: https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.forbes.com/sites/johnfarrell/2018/05/06/how-the-evolution-of-the-mind-needed-more-than-natural-selection/amp/
"But as Miller points out, our evolved brains also provide the capacity for our minds to explore, test and correct what may be our first false impressions about the natural world. So we are not slaves to illusions caused by faulty senses".
Of course Kenneth R. Miller does not explain how the self-correcting mechanism appeared. - evolution has created brains with self-correcting capabilities. Yes, our brains are tricked by 'illusions' but we can 'escape' those illusions because evolution knows the truth and it is communicating it to us? Truthfreedom_{February 27, 2020
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ET, 14: Only if he still held those idiotic views. Yes! Which he probably would not do since he would have been brought up under a completely different educational system with more data and more knowledge.JVL_{February 27, 2020
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Jim Thibodeau:
He was probably a very smart guy compared to other people at the time, but If he were around today he’d be considered an idiot.
Only if he still held those idiotic views.ET_{February 27, 2020
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@12 JimThibodeau
That’s not what I did.
Well, what you did was elegantly display your ignorance. :) Aristotle's philosophy has exerted a unique influence on almost every form of knowledge in the West and it continues to be a subject of contemporary philosophical discussion. No proof of your hmm 'assertions' of course. By the way, do you understand that the man lived 2300+ years ago? He was not a modern scientist. Google is your friend, it explains things, but if you find the subject very dense, I might offer some help. Oh myyyy, Aristotle did not invent neither the Interneeeet nor the iPad!
He was wrong about most everything.
Lol. Like our materialist friends, for example? Materialism's Epistemological Blunder https://strangenotions.com/materialisms-failures-hylemorphisms-vindication/Truthfreedom_{February 27, 2020
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The logical fallacy known as ad hominem is an argument of the form ‘he’s an idiot *therefore* he’s wrong’. That’s not what I did. I just called him an idiot. The other use of the term ad hominem is to describe an insult, which is what I did. But that’s not the logical fallacy. Galileo and Newton both showed him to be wrong. He was wrong about most everything.Jim Thibodeau_{February 27, 2020
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@9 Jim Thibodeau Your Logical Fallacies Ad Hominem (Abusive) argumentum ad hominem (also known as: personal abuse, personal attacks, abusive fallacy, damning the source, name calling, refutation by caricature, against the person, against the man) Description: Attacking the person making the argument, rather than the argument itself, when the attack on the person is completely irrelevant to the argument the person is making. https://www.logicallyfallacious.com/logicalfallacies/Ad-Hominem-AbusiveTruthfreedom_{February 27, 2020
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@9 Jim Thibodeau
Aristotle thought men had more teeth than women and that some people are born to be slaves. And that the Earth had already existed for eternity.
Proof please?
He was probably a very smart guy compared to other people at the time, but If he were around today he’d be considered an idiot.
More idiot than the 'New Atheists' for example? Less? What do you think? https://evolutionnews.org/2019/12/new-atheism-a-shipwreck-of-fools/Truthfreedom_{February 27, 2020
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Aristotle thought men had more teeth than women and that some people are born to be slaves. And that the Earth had already existed for eternity. He was probably a very smart guy compared to other people at the time, but If he were around today he’d be considered an idiot.Jim Thibodeau_{February 27, 2020
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___ Materialism’s Failures: Hylemorphism’s Vindication Part II: Materialism's Encroachment on Science
"Scientific materialists often fail to distinguish between: (1) the neural changes in the brain and (2) the subjective experience of sensing. The former are physically observable neural patterns; the latter are subjective experiences that cannot be subject to physical observation". "Science traces physiological phenomena from the external world into the brain. Science can say the physical sequence terminates inside the brain. But science cannot say that knowledge takes place inside the brain, because knowledge is not itself an observable phenomenon. Science can look at neural patterns “from the outside,” but it cannot look at subjective sense experience “from the inside.” "Sensory neural activity is located inside the brain. But, the only way to infer from that fact that all knowledge is located inside the brain is by ILLICITLY (*typical materialist move) adding the assumption that sense knowledge is a purely material phenomenon, which can be spatially located. Such an assumption does not come from natural science, but from the philosophy of materialism". Dr. Dennis Bonnette.
https://strangenotions.com/materialisms-failures-hylemorphisms-vindication/ *(added).Truthfreedom_{February 27, 2020
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Truthfreedom and beauty, 6: I do not understand the ‘problem’ highlighted by Wikipedia. Okay! Just wondering!!JVL_{February 27, 2020
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@5 JVL I do not understand the 'problem' highlighted by Wikipedia. -The bronze sphere never was alive to begin with. It never had a soul. -The dead body is a body that has lost its soul. That is why it is so different from its living state (it loses its form-properties-decomposes).Truthfreedom_{February 27, 2020
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Truthfreedom, 4: I was unaware of the philosophical hypothesis of hylomorphism. How interesting! I'm not really capable of entering into a really serious discussion of its benefits and flaws but I was interested in the following from Wikipedia:
Some scholars have pointed out a problem facing Aristotle's theory of soul-body hylomorphism. According to Aristotle, a living thing's matter is its body, which needs a soul in order to be alive. Similarly, a bronze sphere's matter is bronze, which needs roundness in order to be a sphere. Now, bronze remains the same bronze after ceasing to be a sphere. Therefore, it seems that a body should remain the same body after death. However, Aristotle implies that a body is no longer the same body after death. Moreover, Aristotle says that a body that has lost its soul is no longer potentially alive. But if a living thing's matter is its body, then that body should be potentially alive by definition. One approach to resolving this problem relies on the fact that a living body is constantly replacing old matter with new. A five-year-old body consists of different matter than does the same person's seventy-year-old body. If the five-year-old body and the seventy-year-old body consist of different matter, then what makes them the same body? The answer is presumably the soul. Because the five-year-old and the seventy-year-old bodies share a soul—that is, the person's life—we can identify them both as the body. Apart from the soul, we cannot identify what collection of matter is the body. Therefore, a person's body is no longer that person's body after it dies. Another approach to resolving the problem relies on a distinction between "proximate" and "non-proximate" matter. When Aristotle says that the body is matter for a living thing, he may be using the word "body" to refer to the matter that makes up the fully organized body, rather than the fully organized body itself. Unlike the fully organized body, this "body" remains the same thing even after death. In contrast, when he says that the body is no longer the same after its death, he is using the word "body" to refer to the fully organised body.
Do either of those two resolutions sound right to you? I'm not sure Aristotle would have been aware of the science behind the two resolutions. Which brings up another question: do we interpret Aristotle from our modern perspective or from his? Might that change our acceptance of his notions?JVL_{February 26, 2020
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___ An Excellent Article on Hylemorphism: Attention: for the intellectually lazy (darwinists, I am looking at you): this is far more complicated than 'naturalprocessesdidit', it requires actual and careful thinking.
"The theory of hylemorphism is not a mere clever invention. It is an explanation based upon the facts of a case. And the test of its value is the fact that it stands up. It has faced many difficulties. There are cases that seem to upset it. But careful investigation has always justified it". https://www.google.com/amp/s/selfeducatedamerican.com/2012/10/17/the-theory-of-hylemorphism-jonathan-dolhenty/amp/
Truthfreedom_{February 26, 2020
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@2 BobRyan:
The words chosen are carefully considered in order to achieve a result that will impact readers.
Darwinists will spew out some garbage 'explanation' about those words and the logic behind them being the result of structures that came about thanks to: - 'natural' selection. If it does not work, then: - 'free riding'/ 'spandrels formation' is their second favorite choice. If it does not work, then: - 'random' genetic drift comes to the rescue and caused them. The fact that they can not prove any of the above does not bother them. At all.Truthfreedom_{February 26, 2020
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I'm fascinated by people who claim there is nothing beyond the brain. They devalue their own self in an attempt to accept the flaws of their own beliefs. Humans do not act as other animals act. Animals put no thought into their actions, but humans put thought into everything. The responses given to cites like Uncommon Descent are based on careful consideration of which words to use. We do not simply enter words mechanically, since that would shows far more commonality in responses than what is actually observed. The words chosen are carefully considered in order to achieve a result that will impact readers.BobRyan_{February 26, 2020
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___ Subjective Experience and Objective Existence:
"In the Thomistic view, following Aristotle (384–322 B.C.E.), the fundamental reality is form. When we perceive and understand reality, we grasp the form of reality through our minds. It is this intake of form into the mind—this information about the real world—that makes it possible for us to have subjective experience about objective reality. It is the basis for intentionality —the power of thought to be about something". Dr. Michael Egnor https://mindmatters.ai/2020/02/how-can-we-study-consciousness-scientifically/
Truthfreedom_{February 25, 2020
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