On Oct 10, 7:57 am, Stathis Papaioannou <stath...@gmail.com> wrote: > > A simple model of a car's steering would involve knowing the gear > ratio between the steering wheel and the front wheels. You could then > predict which way the car will turn given the driver's input.
The same is true of a neuron. If you know that someone is going to think about gambling (because you tell them to do that in an experiment), then you can predict that there will be amygdala activity in their brain. If nobody had ever heard of gambling though, there is no possibility of imagining what that would be just from looking at the activity in the brain. In this case causality is initiated in one direction only - from high level psychological to low level neurological. >That is > what it means to say the simulation can predict the car's behaviour. Yeah, no. You're just weaseling out of your position. It's nakedly obvious to me. > If you simulate a neuron, then you predict what the neuron will do > given certain inputs. The model of the neuron does not include the > inputs. No. Your claim is that all inputs must also be neurological. You say over and over that neurons can only fire in response to other neurons. I have shown that it is not true and now you are being dishonest about your position throughout this conversation. I may be crazy but I don't have Alzheimers (yet). > > >> Apart from the philosophical issues there are two scientific issues > >> you misunderstand. The first is what it means to simulate something. > >> It appears you think that the simulation must include the whole > >> universe and not just the thing being simulated. > > > No, it's just that I understand that simulation is a subjective > > proposition. There is no such thing as an objective simulation. That > > would require that one thing be replaced by another which is identical > > in every way, which is impossible or else it would be the same thing. > > I have a much more realistic understanding of simulation, that it in > > fact depends upon which criteria can be perceived by what audience and > > the degree to which those thresholds of perceptual substitution can be > > exceeded. Since we have no idea whatsoever how deeply inseparable the > > physical underpinnings of the psyche are, there is absolutely no > > reason to arbitrarily assume a particular substitution level. > > The simulation is not the same as the object being simulated but it > can come arbitrarily close to any 3-P observable aspect of the > object's behaviour. I would agree as far as the simulation of objects, but not of subjects. That's what this whole thread is about - me asserting that there is likely a primitive, irreducible ontology of subjectivity and you and others denying that such a thing is possible. Bruno's conclusion is that both objectivity and subjectivity supervene upon an arithmetic primitive ontology, (which I have agreed with in the past and would probably continue to agree with if I were Bruno and had his facility with arithmetic concepts), whereas I conclude that arithmetic is actually a subject, but a particular subject - the essentializing of objectivity...it is a powerful way of way of making sense, but there are other kinds of sensemaking and qualia such as symmetry and succession, presence and absence, etc, which form the foundation upon which arithmetic realism depends. What is your position though? It seems to be that consciousness and life are not real for you on any level. Your cogito seems to be "Ion channels open therefore something thinks that it thinks, therefore it is not'. You're welcome to your opinions of course, but I find it hard to take this worldview seriously in light of our ordinary experience and the findings of neurology. We understand that high level processes to in fact influence low level processes. I offer a hypothesis which models those dynamics. We observe that much of the activity in the brain is in fact spontaneous, and not cyclical or dependent upon external neurological inputs for firing - that neurons are in fact living organisms capable of autonomous and synchronized intentionality. Your solution seems to be to hide in a cave of pre-scientific incuriousity. Content to let our entire lives as we experience them natively to be sequestered in a never-never land that is neither physical nor spiritual. Your assumptions paint conscious subjects as epiphenomenal non-objects, orphaned from reason, science, or any possibility of understanding. Further, they deny their own self-invalidation without justification, so that somehow these thoughts of exclusively deterministic epistemology are themselves immune from their own critical purview. It is to say that all thought is 'simply' neurology - except this thought. This is the one special magic thought which disqualifies all others. It is a philosophy that appeals to many, for obvious reasons, as it provides the sense of certainty and safety which we crave. The truth is that is thought is 'simply' the mirror image of new age religiosity, but owing more of it's spirit to the Inquisition. > > >> The second is the > >> belief you seem to have that microscopic events can happen without an > >> empirically observable cause. You cite scientific articles discussing > >> spontaneous neural activity and you think that that is what they are > >> talking about: that the transmembrane voltage in a neuron can just > >> change because the subject wills it. > > > It's not my belief, it is the scientific consensus. If your beliefs > > that subjective will does not change electromagnetic current in the > > nervous system have any validity, then all you have to do is give me a > > link or two of studies which support this. Since you cannot, I will > > assume that underneath it all, you understand that you are factually > > incorrect but are incapable of admitting it, even to yourself. > > The scientific consensus in neuroscience is that there is physical > basis for everything that happens in the brain. The brain is physical, so everything that happens in the brain is by definition physical. There is scientific consensus that brain events correlate to subjective events but there is no such consensus that subjective intentions do not cause physical events. Indeed common sense would dictate that we are the ones subjectively choosing our words here, since they are not floating around in our ion channels. >A neuron will only > fire if its biochemistry requires it to fire. I agree. But it's biochemistry requires electromagnetism, and I am saying that electromagnetism *must* have a subjective, sensorimotive ontology (otherwise our subjectivity could not be closely correlated with it). I don't believe in a never never land of Cartesian theater - feeling can only be electromagnetic and electromagnetism can only be feeling. They are the same thing, only viewed from 1-p vs 3-p. >This is not something > that is stated explicitly because it's too obvious to state, like > saying you think with your brain rather than your liver. Specific > papers look at specific mechanisms behind neural activity. For > example, > > http://jp.physoc.org/content/305/1/171.long > > investigates cerebellar Purkinje cells in the cerebellum, which can be > spontaneously active. The basic principle behind a spontaneously > excitable cell is that the threshold potential for voltage activated > ion channels is lower than the resting membrane potential. That just means that the ion channels are dependent upon electromagnetic conditions, which I've already explained is the case. But what are those conditions dependent upon. What do you think is meant by the term 'spontaneous'? > > > How > > else do you explain voluntary action being different from involuntary > > actions? Do you think that when you take control of your breathing > > manually that nothing has changed in your nervous system? That we > > suddenly have a hallucination that we are controlling our own > > breathing? > > Voluntary breathing involves signals from the motor cortex, while > involuntary breathing involves the brainstem. In general, if you are > aware of your actions and can modify them according to your > cognitions, the actions are voluntary. This has nothing to do with > whether the underlying neurological events are deterministic. A low > level analysis of someone performing a voluntary action would show the > neurons in his brain firing exactly as the biochemistry dictates. You are confusing correlation with causation. What causes the signals in the motor context? What does it mean that "you are aware of your actions and can modify them according to your cognitions"? Who is 'you'? What is 'aware'? How do 'cognitions' get into the brain? You are trying to hide the gaping hole in your assumptions by focusing on the middle of the chain of neurological events which we both agree upon and distracting from the beginning and ending of the chain where we disagree. You do this because you are incorrect and hope to confuse the issue. The only relevant issue is where the chain of events begins. You claim that all events must begin and end in the brain. My view is that some events begin and end in the brain, using the subject as an instrument to accomplish biological-evolutionary functions, and some events begin and end in the psyche, using the brain and body as instruments to accomplish psychological-sociological functions. My view makes perfect sense, while yours is incomplete and denies ordinary reality. > > > Your accusations are empty. Your view explains nothing. > > It is the position with minimal assumptions that is consistent with > what we know about the brain and behaviour. It is possible that there > is a non-physical influence on behaviour but there is no evidence for > it. It is also possible that we already have all the evidence that is necessary within our own subjective consciousness. It's just a matter of understanding the relation between the interior and exterior. Craig -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. 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