From: Scott Roberts (jse885@localnet.com)
Date: Thu Nov 10 2005 - 16:34:01 GMT
Case,
Scott said:
Including the evidence that people experienced thinking as coming from
outside themselves as opposed to now when we think of thinking as coming
from within? I would say this goes beyond 'paradigm shift' as usually
understood.
[Case]
Our brains are capable of distinctly different ways of working. If you are
simply saying that as cultures become more complex it becomes a better
survival strategy to develop on the verbal mode. Then evidence of this
verbal mode will show up more often. But that this does not imply that the
other mode is not still available. It is a matter of probability
distribution of the traits. But really could use some kind of idea what this
shift is supposed to be and what is the evidence for it's occurrence.
Scott:
The evidence is in Barfield's "Saving the Appearances", gleaned from
etymology, literature, art, and the history of ideas.
Scott said:
Are you saying you want to restrict the word 'sign' to words and sentences
of a human language like English? Anyway, I am arguing that where there is
consciousness there is semiotics. So now we're at the 'tis/'taint stage, so
to argue one needs to go at a deeper level, as below.
[Case]
So they co-exist?
Scott:
If by "they" you mean consciousness and semiotics, I am saying that they are
two ways of considering the same (non-)thing. Quality is another way.
[Case said]
It seems to me that quantum physics confirms what we see in Macroworld: That
is there is plenty of uncertainty, so chose your metaphors carefully because
anything can happen.
Scott said:
I don't follow. What does this have to do with attempting to explain
perception with the products of perception?
[Case]
Since we do this I am not sure I need to explain why we can't.
Scott:
We do this? How so? There is no explanation of perception from the products
of perception that I am aware of. And, of course, I am saying there can't be
one.
Case continued:
I see no connection between quantum physics and perception in what you have
said other than that you say they are connected. I do see that by our nature
we access our senses sequentially and memory only fudges the problem by
allowing us to randomly access the past sequentially. The fact that we
experience things sequentially does not make them sequential
Scott said:
So we agree that there is non-spatio-temporal reality "behind" the
spatio-temporal that we sense? So I am asking: why attempt to explain
sensing in terms of the products of sensing? Or memory (that is, why attempt
to explain it as spatio-temporal neural activity)?
[Case]
Because any explaination that we come up with must refer to something that
two or more of us can agree upon. This places a number of restriction on
what it is possible for us to use fruitfully. In this case brain matter is
it. Whatever is happening cosmologically we can see it manifesting itself in
brain activity.
Scott:
What we don't see manifesting itself in brain activity is consciousness of
brain activity (or anything else). If you're going to restrict yourself to
scientific evidence, you've got no way to back up the view that the brain
produces consciousness. No such evidence can distinguish between the
producing and regulating positions.
Scott said:
Well, we know that the perceptual dimensions do not exist "outside" of
perception, since relativity and QM shows that they break down at the
extremes (very fast and very small). The only reason for thinking that they
do is by ignoring the Munchhausen fallacy.
[Case repeats]
I was not aware that physicists had settled on the number of dimensions so I
don't see how any of this is relevant.
Scott:
I was distinguishing between perceptual dimensions (3 of space, 1 of time,
and 1 of mass) which QM has shown are insufficient for accounting for
subatomic wave/particles. Physicists' dimensions are mathematical ones,
where the number and type no longer need to be the 5 of perception, now that
physics has overcome the Munchhausen fallacy. The strange thing is that
people who want to explain perception in terms of spatio-temporal neural
activity still haven't.
Case continued:
But all of that aside for a second, are you or Barfield suggesting that
human consciousness is not dependant on brain activity of any kind?
Scott said:
Yes and no. The difference between me and the materialist is on the question
of whether normal waking human consciousness is produced by brain activity
or whether it is regulated by brain activity. I go with the latter, that the
brain's role in human consciousness is to keep the senses aligned with each
other and with thinking in order to operate in a spatiotemporal manner.
[Case]
So you have advanced a theory that brain activity is regulated not produced
in the brain. But if is not produced in the brain where is it produced?
Scott:
Umm. I advance a theory that *consciousness* is regulated not produced in
the brain, not brain activity. Consciousness is not produced anywhere. It
produces everything else.
Scott said:
Though here again, one must understand that the brain that we see (and
study), like everything else, is just the spatio-temporal sign of a complex
set of non-spatio-temporal SPOV. It is possible (that is, I see no reason to
reject the possibility) that human consciousness could operate in other
modes, without a brain, which is to say, it could survive death (though
whether one wants to call that 'human' or not is up in the air). I don't
know that it does, I just see no metaphysical reason to reject the
possibility.
[Case]
Unless there is something that three or more gathered in his name can agree
upon that would help guide us to a firm decision in this matter I go back to
tossing coins.
Scott:
Everything that you are saying is just as speculative as what I am saying.
We are battling metaphysics here, which is to say, interpretations of the
scientific evidence, not the evidence itself.
[snip]
[Case said]
Since the amoeba's behavior can be entirely explained as a series of
chemical reactions. It hard to see what "amoebic intellect/consciousness"
adds to our understanding. Once again there is no habit involved. There is
not even the possibility of habit forming in a amoeba.
Scott said:
This is more 'tis/'taint. I don't see how either of us can demonstrate our
respective positions strictly in terms of observing amoebae. My talk of
habits (borrowed from Peirce) is a way of redescribing biological data based
on a rejection of the materialism on which your descriptions are based.
[Case]
As I have stated previously materialism for me is a matter of
intersubjectivity. There has to be something there for us to agree upon or
it is just all speculation.
Scott:
So how do you justify claiming that the amoeba's behavior can be entirely
explained as a series of chemical reactions, that there is no habit
involved, that there is not even the possibility of habit forming in an
amoeba? Looks like speculation to me.
Scott said:
I must have missed something. Who is Wolfram? Also, some of Barfield's books
are in print, including "Saving the Appearances".
[Case]
Steven Wolfram wrote Mathmatica software then spent 20 years using it to
explore various sets of rules to manipulate cellular automata. His book
costs like $45 and I figure I need the For Dummies version anyway. He uses
different rules sets to generate the Game of Life in three or more
diminsions. At least that's what I get thumbing through it. Rule sets can be
changed and certain rules sets produce highly dymanic self sustaining
systems.
You said a while back something about not putting much stock in Artificial
Intellegence. What about virtual life forms?
Scott:
The existence of virtual life forms or strange attractors or anything of
that nature make no difference to my arguments, since they are all more
forms, and say nothing about how there can be awareness of forms.
- Scott
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