Wilberforce1860 wrote:What causes humans to fabricate assertions? That is my question, and what I mean when I say, we don't know how they arise.

The you haven't done sufficient study to warrant any confidence in your silly assertions here, because there are exactly... hang on, let me count them... zero mysteries here.

Humans fabricate such assertions because we are creatures with intent, thus we impose that intent on anything more complex than we can immediately understand.

There is no mystery here, aside from the mystery of how somebody could have made it to adulthood without understanding this elementary stuff.

ADParker wrote:

Wilberforce1860 wrote:

ADParker wrote:
{snip}
But okay, so thoughts are private unless we willingly or unwillingly expose them. What of it?

Only that, because we have an example (thoughts and feelings) of something that exists, but cannot be detected unless voluntarily revealed,

Or involuntarily revealed...or revealed through scans of neural activity...
And can be altered, destroyed or even introduced through alterations of brain chemistry and/or physical brain alteration (brain injury etc.)...

Could you provide an example of thoughts which are introduced by one of the above methods?

Wilberforce1860 wrote:

Calilasseia wrote:

Wilberforce1860 wrote:

Calilasseia wrote:By the way, you might make more progress, if you recognise that what we're interested in here, is how ideas arise. And, as a corollary, what to do with said ideas when they do.

I am interested in this as well, and mentioned it in Row One of the table on Attributes of Thoughts and Feelings (p. 20, #385). There I state that it is unknown

This is complete nonsense. Humans have been documenting how they arrive at their ideas, ever since writing was invented. or did you miss this elementary fact in the requisite classes?

Indeed, that documentation, available in vast quantity, tells us that human beings start the process of generating ideas, by fabricating assertions.

What causes humans to fabricate assertions? That is my question, and what I mean when I say, we don't know how they arise.

Curiosity and a desire to know. Once again, did you not pay attention when such elementary concepts were being presented in relevant classes?

If, on the other hand, you want to shift the goalposts, and ask what makes it possible for us to do this, I refer you to the neurochemists down the corridor. Because, wait for it, neurons act as data processing entities when they exchange signals. Indeed, numerous computer simulations of networks of neurons, are being pressed into service right now for a variety of data processing tasks, such as face recognition (indeed, the BBC television programme Tomorrow's World demonstrated this application working back in the 1980s), handwriting recognition (if you ever owned a Palm Pilot, this was an application of that technology), stock market prediction (Wall Street has been using this for years), and indeed were the driving force behind the development of massively parallel processors. Because wait for it, that's exactly what your brain is - a massively parallel processor made up of lots of tiny units working together. Unfortunately, it's possible to feed that massively parallel processor bad or garbage data, and compromise its working, which is all too often what supernaturalism does.

Wilberforce1860 wrote:

ADParker wrote:

Wilberforce1860 wrote:

ADParker wrote:
{snip}
But okay, so thoughts are private unless we willingly or unwillingly expose them. What of it?

Only that, because we have an example (thoughts and feelings) of something that exists, but cannot be detected unless voluntarily revealed,

Or involuntarily revealed...or revealed through scans of neural activity...
And can be altered, destroyed or even introduced through alterations of brain chemistry and/or physical brain alteration (brain injury etc.)...

Could you provide an example of thoughts which are introduced by one of the above methods?

Are you serious?

A plethora of chemical agents has been demonstrated to alter the workings of the brain on a grand scale, resulting in the generation of thoughts that would previously not have been generated in the absence thereof. Everything from a whole range of tryptamines, salvinorin A, LSD (along with an entire class of lysergides), a whole truckload of phenylethylamines (of which the amphetamines are merely a subclass, and mescalin is a specific instance), natural and synthetic opiates and opioids, cannabinoids, ibotenic acid (which is also a fairly dangerous neurotoxin into the bargain, as it interferes with glutamine pathways), muscimol, numerous tropane alkaloids, ergoline alkaloids, harmala alkaloids, adamantanes ... the list of known chemical agents interfering with a range of critical neurometabolic pathways, and inducing altered thoughts as a consequence, runs into the thousands.

Indeed,, I'm aware of a famous televised experiment that was conducted way back in 1955, and shown on British television. Namely this one:



Indeed, many of these substances have been demonstrated not only to affect processing pathways with respect to thought, but processing pathways with respect to sensory data. You do know what the word "trip" means, with respect to hallucinogenic drug you, don't you?

Wilberforce1860 wrote:
What causes humans to fabricate assertions? That is my question, and what I mean when I say, we don't know how they arise.

A very important distinction for anyone generally interested in exploring the universe or anything within it.

'I don't know' is not the same as 'no one knows'.

Wilberforce1860 wrote:

ADParker wrote:

Wilberforce1860 wrote:

ADParker wrote:
{snip}
But okay, so thoughts are private unless we willingly or unwillingly expose them. What of it?

Only that, because we have an example (thoughts and feelings) of something that exists, but cannot be detected unless voluntarily revealed,

Or involuntarily revealed...or revealed through scans of neural activity...
And can be altered, destroyed or even introduced through alterations of brain chemistry and/or physical brain alteration (brain injury etc.)...

Could you provide an example of thoughts which are introduced by one of the above methods?

That question makes no sense. What form would such an example take? Do you want a MRI scan posted? I think you need to think more about this, because if you don't know what you want, then you can't really expect people to supply it to you.

Your goal posts appear to be shifting. Your initial claim was that 'thoughts cannot be detected' - they can.

Wilberforce1860 wrote:

Calilasseia wrote:

Wilberforce1860 wrote:

Calilasseia wrote:By the way, you might make more progress, if you recognise that what we're interested in here, is how ideas arise. And, as a corollary, what to do with said ideas when they do.

I am interested in this as well, and mentioned it in Row One of the table on Attributes of Thoughts and Feelings (p. 20, #385). There I state that it is unknown

This is complete nonsense. Humans have been documenting how they arrive at their ideas, ever since writing was invented. or did you miss this elementary fact in the requisite classes?

Indeed, that documentation, available in vast quantity, tells us that human beings start the process of generating ideas, by fabricating assertions.

What causes humans to fabricate assertions? That is my question, and what I mean when I say, we don't know how they arise.

The human brain is a heuristic [goal-seeking] computer. There are drives, emotions etc which give urgency or a sense of "investment" in outcomes. This sort of computation is not unique, but present in many, or indeed all animals. The "base" urges are the most straight-forward to understand. Thirst, hunger, the urge for sex etc.

Being intelligent and manipulative creatures, we can convert some of our wishes [short or long term] into tools and technology to a degree most animals can't. Of course, tools include mental tools as well as physical ones, because we can abstract.

However, this system we have is an "add-on" to more simpler systems we see other animals have today. For most survival situations, inferring an "intentional" stance to our surroundings, be they alive or dead is evolutionarily prudent. The 'downside" of such "intentional stance world views is that they can be inefficient and warp our perceptions of reality if we are not careful.

The statement : "Why does it always rain when I have left my umbrella at home" is an example of such an intentional stance. [As well as being a poor perception of probability and statistics].

Military intelligence tries to be more scientific about intentions, and breaks it up into to parts:-

1. Capabilities
2. Intentions

Obviously, the "capabilities" part is more objective. An animal has [potentially] deadly teeth or it has not, a potential enemy has guns or he does not. The intentions part is risk assessment. How likely is it that there are lions with big teeth in suburbia, or how likely is it that an enemy will use his weapons against you? Here, our intentional stance can work against us. Lions do not ALWAYS want to eat. Armed people or nations don't always go to war. And falling rocks are just falling rocks. And rain is rain.

So we have imaginations and make claims, usually for some emotional purpose. The fault here is not imaginations or claims in themselves, but how we choose to react to them. We can moan at the weather, or realize that it is not out to "get us". We simply remember our umbrellas, and accept that we may sometimes forget our rain gear and get wet. And EVIDENCE is helpful here, to establish what our beliefs mean. The better the evidence, the less surprised and inconvenienced we will be.

So science is not just a thing for nerds in lab coats, we can all practice the basics of it 24/7. If we have a more realistic take on the world, we will generally be safer, happier, less afraid and be able to enjoy the good things in life as much as possible.

Wilberforce1860 wrote:
What causes humans to fabricate assertions

Statistics
Peer Pressure
Goalpost Shifting
Confirmation Bias
False Equivalence
Argument From Emotion
Argument From Authority
Argument From Ignorance
Argument From Popularity
Correlation Equals Causation

Defence of their particular conviction (religion).

Bert

Wilberforce1860 wrote:What causes humans to fabricate assertions? That is my question, and what I mean when I say, we don't know how they arise.

I'll add something here, because it hearkens back to something I pointed you to a while ago (which you refused to even bother to read after I made the effort to find an online sample).
Remember when I directed you to the Science of Discworld IV book in reference to Human-centered versus Universe-directed thinking (probably not because you pointedly ignored it)?

Well in an earlier book in the series (and I think they mentioned in IV as well) the authors also mentioned that humans might as well have been classified, not as Homo sapiens (lit "wise man"), but as Pan narans: the story telling ape. In that we are natural story tellers, coming up with stories to 'explain' what we don't understand. I have been studying early childhood education of late and one interesting aspect of talking to such young children (through case studies and my actual experiences) is how they often think and discuss along these lines:
Adult: "How does that work?"
Child: "I don't know"
Adult: "I don't either how do you think it might?"
Child: "It works by...."

Note how they jump from "I don't know", not to suggesting possibilities, but instead to telling stories presented as if they know. A little study of human psychology will tell you that this should not be that surprising, that human minds tend to operate in that way. And a part of the rational progress of our species (social evolution if you will) has been to learn to overcome such tendencies to leap to conclusions and hold conclusions as more tentative.

Wilberforce1860 wrote:What causes humans to fabricate assertions

The warm glow of even invented 'knowledge'.
The desire to be able to answer children saying 'But why'?

Both of which, I suspect, play a significant part in the attraction of catch-all ideas like gods.

How useful it must be for parents who live in cultures where knowledge is absent, who are too busy to give a long answer, or who lack the ability to comprehend the real answers to be able to say "Because God/Allah/whatever!".
Not only is [deity] frequently a socially acceptable answer, but in many places a parent can clip a child who continues to ask 'But Why' around the ear while pretending they're doing it because the child is questioning the deity, not because they are annoyed with the child's curiosity and their inability to actually answer.

Wilberforce1860 wrote:

Calilasseia wrote:

Wilberforce1860 wrote:

Calilasseia wrote:By the way, you might make more progress, if you recognise that what we're interested in here, is how ideas arise. And, as a corollary, what to do with said ideas when they do.

I am interested in this as well, and mentioned it in Row One of the table on Attributes of Thoughts and Feelings (p. 20, #385). There I state that it is unknown

This is complete nonsense. Humans have been documenting how they arrive at their ideas, ever since writing was invented. or did you miss this elementary fact in the requisite classes?

Indeed, that documentation, available in vast quantity, tells us that human beings start the process of generating ideas, by fabricating assertions.

What causes humans to fabricate assertions? That is my question, and what I mean when I say, we don't know how they arise.

Whoah, you're getting ahead of yourself. This is a much too complicated topic for you to deal with.

I think we should start first with addressing the question of "Where do rocks come from?

Let's do that Wilberforce!

Let's do 'where do rocks come from' - because the processes involved are most assuredly well known!

Spearthrower wrote:Let's do that Wilberforce!

Let's do 'where do rocks come from' - because the processes involved are most assuredly well known!

I think I learned that in 3rd grade.

ADParker wrote:Well in an earlier book in the series (and I think they mentioned in IV as well) the authors also mentioned that humans might as well have been classified, not as Homo sapiens (lit "wise man"), but as Pan narans: the story telling ape. In that we are natural story tellers, coming up with stories to 'explain' what we don't understand. I have been studying early childhood education of late and one interesting aspect of talking to such young children (through case studies and my actual experiences) is how they often think and discuss along these lines:
Adult: "How does that work?"
Child: "I don't know"
Adult: "I don't either how do you think it might?"
Child: "It works by...."

Note how they jump from "I don't know", not to suggesting possibilities, but instead to telling stories presented as if they know. A little study of human psychology will tell you that this should not be that surprising, that human minds tend to operate in that way. And a part of the rational progress of our species (social evolution if you will) has been to learn to overcome such tendencies to leap to conclusions and hold conclusions as more tentative.

In my paperback copy of Life on Earth (published by the BBC to accompany the David Attenborough TV series of the same name), his final chapter, the one that covers humans, has the chapter heading The Compulsive Communicators. Which dovetails neatly with your Pan narans observation above.

I agree that Pan Narans (or Homo Narans?) is a far more appropriate and less arrogant name to give our species.

Calilasseia wrote:

Wilberforce1860 wrote:

Calilasseia wrote:

Wilberforce1860 wrote:

I am interested in this as well, and mentioned it in Row One of the table on Attributes of Thoughts and Feelings (p. 20, #385). There I state that it is unknown

This is complete nonsense. Humans have been documenting how they arrive at their ideas, ever since writing was invented. or did you miss this elementary fact in the requisite classes?

Indeed, that documentation, available in vast quantity, tells us that human beings start the process of generating ideas, by fabricating assertions.

What causes humans to fabricate assertions? That is my question, and what I mean when I say, we don't know how they arise.

Curiosity and a desire to know. Once again, did you not pay attention when such elementary concepts were being presented in relevant classes?

What causes humans to be curious and have a desire to know? And are these necessary for generating thoughts? They may be. But the connection does not appear to me to be necessary, or even obvious.

Calilasseia wrote:
If, on the other hand, you want to shift the goalposts, and ask what makes it possible for us to do this,

What makes it possible to do what?

Calilasseia wrote:
I refer you to the neurochemists down the corridor. Because, wait for it, neurons act as data processing entities when they exchange signals. Indeed, numerous computer simulations of networks of neurons, are being pressed into service right now for a variety of data processing tasks, such as face recognition (indeed, the BBC television programme Tomorrow's World demonstrated this application working back in the 1980s), handwriting recognition (if you ever owned a Palm Pilot, this was an application of that technology), stock market prediction (Wall Street has been using this for years), and indeed were the driving force behind the development of massively parallel processors.

These are interesting applications. But these all work just fine with digital computers. No other intelligence, like generating their own thoughts, is required.

Calilasseia wrote:
Because wait for it, that's exactly what your brain is - a massively parallel processor made up of lots of tiny units working together. Unfortunately, it's possible to feed that massively parallel processor bad or garbage data,

It is certainly a part of what your brain is. Not exactly what it is.

Calilasseia wrote:
and compromise its working, which is all too often what supernaturalism does.

It doesn't work at all without God, and works much better when submitted to Him, in my experience. These are assertions I will not defend in this thread.

Calilasseia wrote:

Wilberforce1860 wrote:

ADParker wrote:

Wilberforce1860 wrote:

Only that, because we have an example (thoughts and feelings) of something that exists, but cannot be detected unless voluntarily revealed,

Or involuntarily revealed...or revealed through scans of neural activity...
And can be altered, destroyed or even introduced through alterations of brain chemistry and/or physical brain alteration (brain injury etc.)...

Could you provide an example of thoughts which are introduced by one of the above methods?

Are you serious?

A plethora of chemical agents has been demonstrated to alter the workings of the brain on a grand scale, resulting in the generation of thoughts that would previously not have been generated in the absence thereof. Everything from a whole range of tryptamines, salvinorin A, LSD (along with an entire class of lysergides), a whole truckload of phenylethylamines (of which the amphetamines are merely a subclass, and mescalin is a specific instance), natural and synthetic opiates and opioids, cannabinoids, ibotenic acid (which is also a fairly dangerous neurotoxin into the bargain, as it interferes with glutamine pathways), muscimol, numerous tropane alkaloids, ergoline alkaloids, harmala alkaloids, adamantanes ... the list of known chemical agents interfering with a range of critical neurometabolic pathways, and inducing altered thoughts as a consequence, runs into the thousands.

Indeed,, I'm aware of a famous televised experiment that was conducted way back in 1955, and shown on British television. Namely this one:



Indeed, many of these substances have been demonstrated not only to affect processing pathways with respect to thought, but processing pathways with respect to sensory data. You do know what the word "trip" means, with respect to hallucinogenic drug you, don't you?

It is not clear to me what "thoughts were introduced". That is, no one said, "This is a thought we are going to inject into our subject with this chemical. The thought is 'Pink elephants are preferred by most children to blue ones' ", for example. And then injected the chemical, and the subject said it.

Altering one's ability to think clearly, or causing them to see spots or other hallucinations, is changing their perceptions. Their thoughts about these things remain their own.

ADParker wrote:

Wilberforce1860 wrote:What causes humans to fabricate assertions? That is my question, and what I mean when I say, we don't know how they arise.

I'll add something here, because it hearkens back to something I pointed you to a while ago (which you refused to even bother to read after I made the effort to find an online sample).
Remember when I directed you to the Science of Discworld IV book in reference to Human-centered versus Universe-directed thinking (probably not because you pointedly ignored it)?

I remember this post, and I actually did go to the link and read some of what was there. But it was quite long, and in the end, did not get around to the point you were making, because it was incomplete. I therefore had nothing to day about it. If you would like to summarize it in your own words, I will try to respond.

ADParker wrote:
Well in an earlier book in the series (and I think they mentioned in IV as well) the authors also mentioned that humans might as well have been classified, not as Homo sapiens (lit "wise man"), but as Pan narans: the story telling ape. In that we are natural story tellers, coming up with stories to 'explain' what we don't understand. I have been studying early childhood education of late and one interesting aspect of talking to such young children (through case studies and my actual experiences) is how they often think and discuss along these lines:
Adult: "How does that work?"
Child: "I don't know"
Adult: "I don't either how do you think it might?"
Child: "It works by...."

Note how they jump from "I don't know", not to suggesting possibilities, but instead to telling stories presented as if they know. A little study of human psychology will tell you that this should not be that surprising, that human minds tend to operate in that way. And a part of the rational progress of our species (social evolution if you will) has been to learn to overcome such tendencies to leap to conclusions and hold conclusions as more tentative.

You are taking "fabricate assertions" a little too seriously. By "fabricate assertions" I simply meant how do we "come up with ideas". Whether we believe they are true, or think they might be, or know they are not.

I was using assertions because that was the wording Calilasseia used. From his context, I thought he meant something more general. My apologies to him if he did not.

Wilberforce1860 wrote:

What causes humans to be curious and have a desire to know? And are these necessary for generating thoughts? They may be. But the connection does not appear to me to be necessary, or even obvious.

Asked and answered. The brain "software" for finding water, food, shelter, mates etc etc can also be used for other things, especially in humans and other animals with some spare neurons. All animals have this circuitry to some degree. Even bacteria can sense food, the presence of other bacteria-only dimly for some functions, but they can do it. Have your ever heard of quorum sensing in bacteria? This is where bacteria can detect the chemical "scent" or smell of other bacteria of the same species. The concentration of such '"signalling" molecules tells the bacterium how many bacteria there are. Google quorum sensing.

These are interesting applications. But these all work just fine with digital computers. No other intelligence, like generating their own thoughts, is required.

Your brain, or more generally your CHS works in ways that are similar, but not the same way to a digital computer. One of the main differences, from a functional perspective is that animal brains are heuristic, whereas a PC has to be given commands. The "computer" analogy falls in and out of favour, because the analogy is both illuminating but also misleading if not applied properly.
Brains have the neurotic equivalent of AND, OR and NOT gates. The eyes for example, compensate for quantum uncertainty in humans and many other animals by AND-ing the signals from about 10 photo-receptors. This seems counter-intuitive, because that means less resolution in the image BUT there is also less noise due to the receptors firing from the ambient infra-red of a warm body. [The wave length of the receptor is not fine-tuned]. Interestingly, frogs [a cold blooded animal] have less problems with ambient infra-red, and so see more detail, although they probably see some 'stars" from odd low energy photons making their visual pigments fire. ["false-positives"]

I am willing to bet you know none of the above. Indeed you keep on making claims about how this or that is impossible, when there is no mystery at all. This is all known scientific fact, all well established scientific theory.

It doesn't work at all without God, and works much better when submitted to Him, in my experience. These are assertions I will not defend in this thread.

Good, then you are withdrawing all these claims? Well done. Claims without evidence are bullshit and you know it.