Colin Hales wrote: >>> >>>It's one of my favourite lines from Hume!.... but the issue does not >> >>live >> >>>quite so clearly into the 21st century. We now have words and much >>>neuroscience pinning down subjective experience to the operation of >> >>small >> >>>groups of cells and hence, likely, single cells. It's entirely cranial >> >>CNS. >> >>>Cortical, Basal, Cerebellum, upper brain stem. So.... >>> >>>Q If empiricism demands phenomenal consciousness as the source of all >>>scientific evidence (close your eyes and see what evidence is left. >> >>QED.) of >> >>>the science of the appearance of things, then what is phenomenal >>>consciousness itself evidence of? >> >>This is misrepresenting science. Science doesn't aim at the appearance of >>things. It uses appearance, i.e. empirical evidence, to test models which >>go beyond the appearance. > > > This belief is metaphysics of the kind that has got us into this mess and of > the kind destined to go into the fire along with all the other bollocks of > science folly. > > You are assuming laws of appearances drive the universe. You cannot justify > this any better than you could justify the existence of the tooth fairy. The > utility of the laws in predicting appearances is just and only that. End of > story. If what you say is true then when we opened up a brain we'd see the > appearances! We don't, we see brain material. > > >>If they didn't the models would be mere >>catalogues of data. Phenomenal consciousness is no different. > > > So you have some sort of misty eyed attachment to the laws that means you'd > ignore blaring evidence just so you're comfy? I want explanations not deemed > truth!
What would count as an explanation for you? >If that means admitting we've screwed up our evidence system....so be > it.... (= if we have to let go of 'phlogiston', fine) I don't have either a misty eyed attachment to current laws or a wild-eyed attachment to radical speculation. > And anyway....Yes it is VERY VERY different. Nowhere else in science do you > get 2 presentations of data and ignore one of them. Whatever is claimed > found by neural correlates of consciousness (the science you describe) is > neglected everywhere else in science. For example, if mind is a neural > correlate of brain material, what is the equivalent correlate of, say, > coffee cup behaviour? Information processing. >This inconsistency is simply neglected within science > for no reason. No it is only neglected in your straw-man version of science. >If neural correlates are describing mind in any truly > explanatory way then we should be able to use it to make scientifically > supportable claims for whatever passes for the "something correlates of > coffeecup_ness", even though coffee cups can't actually confirm it. Being a > coffee cup may not entail any experiential life but that is not the point. > The point is being able to make a justified scientific statement about it. > All that can be scientifically claimed about the cup is that there are no > neurons there, so there are no _human_ type experiences. This is not a claim > about the fundamental physics of phenomenality in any other context such as > a coffee cup. For example if the cup is hot versus cold, what might the > difference in experience be? Description (causality apparent in appearances) > is not explanation (underlying causality). Correlation is not causation. > Cakes are not caused by cake recipes....etc.etc.etc... round we go again.... > > The underlying physics (of which we are constructed) generates the > phenomenality (mind), not a bunch of rules generated by correlating the > appearances supplied BY it. So you want an explanation in terms of the "underlying physics" - the physics of the really real reality. And how will you know when you've found it? >Just like the underlying causality makes a mass > appear like F = MA is being used to drive it. Saying NCC says anything about > what MIND is like using F= MA to make a brick fly. It doesn't make the brick > fly - it says what it will look like to us if it does. A little int(F dt) will make a brick fly quite nicely. > > Here's the killer question: Can I build an inorganic artifact out of > whatever comes out of neural correlates science? NO. What's your evidence for that assertion? Brent Meeker --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
