logical bob wrote:What in that post suggests to you that I'm not a materialist?

Matties usually don't subscribe to SCAT. Or maybe I'm finding something new out here. I guess I'm still not clear what about what I've posted you are having a problem with.

I want to note that I'm having strange problems with CDP too. He thinks I should be able to suck a raccoons teat and I just tried it and I can ASSURE you they know who their offspring are!!

Tell me clearly what SCAT is and I'll tell you if I subscribe to it.

logical bob wrote:Tell me clearly what SCAT is and I'll tell you if I subscribe to it.

I wish I knew for sure. It seems to be some Ouroboros thing about the brain. You can't use the brain to understand the brain or consciousness can't be an idea because you need C to have an idea (plobs). It is about mixing up your domains. When discussing our minds if I say that we can understand all of it with science and then someone argues that all science is done with observing brains.

Again. Reduction intent and the theory of reductive mappings. How the fuck did we get here?

You say that you(r brain) reached this conclusion through science and logic. But the conclusion says that you didn't, you reached it because your brain was just doing its thing, truth not a consideration.

What does using my brain to arrive at an idea have to do with any idea whether it is about the brain or a rock? Are we having an issue with relative truth? Or what?

SpeedOfSound wrote:

You say that you(r brain) reached this conclusion through science and logic. But the conclusion says that you didn't, you reached it because your brain was just doing its thing, truth not a consideration.

What does using my brain to arrive at an idea have to do with any idea whether it is about the brain or a rock? Are we having an issue with relative truth? Or what?

I'd say you fall into the "or what?" category. The only thing I'm stickling for here is that "science as a way of discovering how to live" differs in significant ways to "science as an investigation of the world". This is because the notion of "caring" doesn't enter into what are scientific facts. Some facts will not indulge one's propensity to "care". Caring may be sufficient, but it is not necessary.

The fact that humans have a word that means "sacrifice" in various languages and project that onto bears doesn't reflect some "truth" that the bear is making a sacrifice. It's about how powerful this brain is when it comes to making a pleasing rationale into "science". It's a fact that from the human perspective, the bear is making a sacrifice for her cub. What Logical Bob is reminding you of is that old saw about "whenever something tells you how great the brain is, just remember who it is who's telling you that". It's OK for a human being to be really impressed with being a human. That's humanism, for ya.

Logical Bob may have other issues with the concept of truth, vis a vis science, which I just don't want to get into, at the moment.

Cito di Pense wrote:

SpeedOfSound wrote:

You say that you(r brain) reached this conclusion through science and logic. But the conclusion says that you didn't, you reached it because your brain was just doing its thing, truth not a consideration.

What does using my brain to arrive at an idea have to do with any idea whether it is about the brain or a rock? Are we having an issue with relative truth? Or what?

I'd say you fall into the "or what?" category.

The fact that humans have a word that means "sacrifice" in various languages and project that onto bears doesn't reflect some "truth" that the bear is making a sacrifice. It's about how powerful this brain is when it comes to making a pleasing rationale into "science". It's a fact that from the human perspective, the bear is making a sacrifice for her cub. What Logical Bob is reminding you of is that old saw about "whenever something tells you how great the brain is, just remember who it is who's telling you that". It's OK for a human being to be really impressed with being a human. That's humanism, for ya.

Maybe you need to redefine your sacrifice type words in more raw materialistic ways? Maybe you need to make the final step into materialism. Go the whole way. This is like when I try to talk to Matties about information as a purely geometric concept and they keep wanting to bring humans into it. There are NO FUCKING HUMANS! Not really. Just some stuff.

Dude, please don't categorise me with pl0bs! You know me better.

It's not a brain thing or a C thing, it's a problem to do with self reference. It was put very well by a guy called Naked Celt back at RDF.

You can write a book about how primates engage in economic transactions while ignoring the fact that you are a primate enagaing in an economic transaction. You cannot talk about how people use text and discourse while ignoring the fact that you are a person using text and discourse.

probably not an exact quote

logical bob wrote:Dude, please don't categorise me with pl0bs! You know me better.

It's not a brain thing or a C thing, it's a problem to do with self reference. It was put very well by a guy called Naked Celt back at RDF.

You can write a book about how primates engage in economic transactions while ignoring the fact that you are a primate enagaing in an economic transaction. You cannot talk about how people use text and discourse while ignoring the fact that you are a person using text and discourse.

probably not an exact quote

I completely disagree with that idea. It leaves us stuck smack in the middle of something like Little Idiot's mentalism or at best hopeless idealism where we don't believe in trees just because we can only perceive them with the mind representation. I have no issue with mappings between my subjective experience and a rigorous science of the brain. I am after all just crawling under the microscope with the bugs and taking a deeper look.

I just don't get this kind of thinking about the mind. Sorry about the pl0bs bucket but you have to completely let go of Cartesian dualism in these discussions.

SpeedOfSound wrote:Maybe you need to redefine your sacrifice type words in more raw materialistic ways? Maybe you need to make the final step into materialism. Go the whole way. This is like when I try to talk to Matties about information as a purely geometric concept and they keep wanting to bring humans into it. There are NO FUCKING HUMANS! Not really. Just some stuff.

Well, then we part company at your use of words like "need". It's a recommendation, but to what end? If there are no fucking humans, then there is no need. We part company over prescriptions of a particular world view. It is perfectly possible to do science, as some have observed here on these pages, without prescribing a world view, AKA a metaphysic. That is the Waterloo of your entire program. You're looking for how to live in the tea leaves that the scientists slosh around for you.

I want to underscore what Logical Bob said about the difference between reporting data as a scientific analysis and interpreting the data. That is, I think, why he mentioned economic activity on one hand, and deconstruction of texts on the other. Reading "sacrifice" (or merely "cost") into the meanderings of bears is more than the bear will traffic (in). There are no bear economists, although some I've seen in pictures are a bit leonine. They are bearly tolerable.

Cito di Pense wrote:

SpeedOfSound wrote:Maybe you need to redefine your sacrifice type words in more raw materialistic ways? Maybe you need to make the final step into materialism. Go the whole way. This is like when I try to talk to Matties about information as a purely geometric concept and they keep wanting to bring humans into it. There are NO FUCKING HUMANS! Not really. Just some stuff.

Well, then we part company at your use of words like "need". It's a recommendation, but to what end? If there are no fucking humans, then there is no need. We part company over prescriptions of a particular world view. It is perfectly possible to do science, as some have observed here on these pages, without prescribing a world view, AKA a metaphysic.

I want to underscore what Logical Bob said about the difference between reporting data as a scientific analysis and interpreting the data. That is, I think, why he mentioned economic activity on one hand, and deconstruction of texts on the other. Reading "sacrifice" into the meanderings of bears is more than the bear will traffic (in).

You think we just get data because we like to suckle data? Or do we use it figure things out? I suspect you have no problem with using the data to manufacture plastics which are used to manufacture spectroscopes which are used to get more data. Why do you draw the line when we use science to understand what is behind words like sacrifice and need? Or consciousness?

I have the same problem with that dawkins fellow who seems so hung up on kin vs. group selection and his gene idea that he can't see that it is all math and and maths are wily beasts.

SpeedOfSound wrote:I completely disagree with that idea. It leaves us stuck smack in the middle of something like Little Idiot's mentalism or at best hopeless idealism where we don't believe in trees just because we can only perceive them with the mind representation.

No idealism implied. I don't know Little Idiot, but I think the common feature in the views of 'gazer, pl0bs and doug is a belief that reality must have the same structure as our thinking, making a conceptual obstacle into a metaphysical chasm. I'm not doing that and I may be closer to you than you realise. If our ability to seek truth is limited by our situation, as I think your ATOH implies, there may be some things we just can't speak truthfully about. That doesn't affect reality, just our ability to speak about it.

SpeedOfSound wrote:Or do we use it figure things out?

It is, as I say, the Waterloo of your entire project. Some things you figure out, and some things you figure in. It pays, as Logical Bob suggests, to keep a handle on which is which.

Consider the problem of rural agricultural reform in Third World contexts. Do you want to help the peasants because the peasants will be better off, or does something else in addition figure into it?

Cito di Pense wrote:

SpeedOfSound wrote:Or do we use it figure things out?

It is, as I say, the Waterloo of your entire project. Some things you figure out, and some things you figure in. It pays, as Logical Bob suggests, to keep a handle on which is which.

Exactly what I have been saying. So what's the issue? 'Keep your domains straight' is my motto.

SpeedOfSound wrote:

Cito di Pense wrote:

SpeedOfSound wrote:Or do we use it figure things out?

It is, as I say, the Waterloo of your entire project. Some things you figure out, and some things you figure in. It pays, as Logical Bob suggests, to keep a handle on which is which.

Exactly what I have been saying. So what's the issue? 'Keep your domains straight' is my motto.

This is not to argue as a scientist does, but to argue as a guy with other priorities who reads a lot of science. The problem of keeping domains straight is not what engages a scientist, except at the naive stage of taxonomy.

When the human quasi-sciences have advanced beyond taxonomy, we'll know it. For now, we have neurophysiology. And all this noise about endorphins.

Reading a lot in the sciences without going in the lab is called "having a hobby". Likewise, spending all your time in the lab without reading is called "being a technician".

logical bob wrote:

SpeedOfSound wrote:I completely disagree with that idea. It leaves us stuck smack in the middle of something like Little Idiot's mentalism or at best hopeless idealism where we don't believe in trees just because we can only perceive them with the mind representation.

No idealism implied. I don't know Little Idiot, but I think the common feature in the views of 'gazer, pl0bs and doug is a belief that reality must have the same structure as our thinking, making a conceptual obstacle into a metaphysical chasm. I'm not doing that and I may be closer to you than you realise. If our ability to seek truth is limited by our situation, as I think your ATOH implies, there may be some things we just can't speak truthfully about. That doesn't affect reality, just our ability to speak about it.

ATOH doesn't imply that reason is not a valid thing. It only tells us that there are powerful things in the brain that affect our thinking and behavior. We certainly have a few layers above all of that and this is where the fight between group vs kin selection may fail.

On a given day I may feel overly aggravated by my sons aggressive behavior. I may then use my mind to rationalize this into a problem with my son. Or I could stay aware of this little needle of aggravation and use my mind to look at other possibilities. I may have trouble doing that. No matter how hard I think I still come up with my son is an ungrateful little bastard who must be forced form the nest. But before I boot him I might try something else. I say a prayer or meditate. I wait a day or two and then revisit the situation sans needle. I might suddenly be aware that I was a needling prick too. I have just used knowledge of ATOH and something resembling ATOH to deal with ATOH. If the system works then I get curious about what the fuck just happened. How could logical knowledge combined with illogical prayer be looked at logically? The answer is tied up in our biology and that is what I use to untangle the particulars.

Maybe we can get to the bottom of this with this specific example?

Cito di Pense wrote:

SpeedOfSound wrote:

Cito di Pense wrote:

It is, as I say, the Waterloo of your entire project. Some things you figure out, and some things you figure in. It pays, as Logical Bob suggests, to keep a handle on which is which.

Exactly what I have been saying. So what's the issue? 'Keep your domains straight' is my motto.

This is not to argue as a scientist does, but to argue as a guy with other priorities who reads a lot of science. The problem of keeping domains straight is not what engages a scientist, except at the naive stage of taxonomy.

When the human quasi-sciences have advanced beyond taxonomy, we'll know it. For now, we have neurophysiology. And all this noise about endorphins.

Reading a lot in the sciences without going in the lab is called "having a hobby". Likewise, spending all your time in the lab without reading is called "being a technician".

That would be valid if I were a scientist who was not also a human when in a forum talking about humans. It doesn't fly when we are discussing ourselves while being ourselves. Philosophers are not going to get it straight unless we get this shit straight amongst ourselves.

Cito di Pense wrote:
This is not to argue as a scientist does, but to argue as a guy with other priorities who reads a lot of science. The problem of keeping domains straight is not what engages a scientist, except at the naive stage of taxonomy.

Hmmm. You are suspicious about my priorities? That happens a lot around here. What do you think they are?

Are you suggesting that scientists should just keep their heads down and shut up about policy? leave that to the politicians and philosloppers?

SpeedOfSound wrote:
That would be valid if I were a scientist who was not also a human when in a forum talking about humans. It doesn't fly when we are discussing ourselves while being ourselves. Philosophers are not going to get it straight unless we get this shit straight amongst ourselves.

And I more or less agree with you. I just don't think that science is much use for winning anything but scientific arguments.

Initially, in my contacts with philosophers, I thought as you do now, that reciting a lot of science would simply blow the philosophical cobwebs out of the water, to mix a metaphor or two. It didn't and it doesn't. And you can't keep your domains straight by reciting science to try to win philosophical arguments.

The above quoted remarks are a perfect example of this. You cite scientific data when it suits you, and when the data are insufficient to move mountains, you bring in the fact that we are humans in a forum talking about humans. This is a marriage of convenience only.

When we are talking about the human issues on which you focus, we are dealing with the utterances of humans; in other words, a text. Dig at a text enough and try to find something beneath it. I dare ya. I double dare ya, as Jules Winnfield might have, um, said. Calling it a "sacrifice" constitutes a "text". It's now detached from the data set.

SpeedOfSound wrote:

Cito di Pense wrote:
This is not to argue as a scientist does, but to argue as a guy with other priorities who reads a lot of science. The problem of keeping domains straight is not what engages a scientist, except at the naive stage of taxonomy.

Hmmm. You are suspicious about my priorities? That happens a lot around here. What do you think they are?

Are you suggesting that scientists should just keep their heads down and shut up about policy? leave that to the politicians and philosloppers?

I have no interest in your priorities, unless they pollute the aims of taxonomy. It's nothing personal. As Francis Bacon, or somebody, said: Confusion is worse than simple ignorance. It's not time yet to say that something is neither fish nor fowl.

When I discuss policy, it is openly and as a political particle, and it is about my preferences. But as I say, this is needlessly to personalise the discussion, which is often what happens when a conversation runs off the rails of rigour. All I am saying is that you are not arguing as a scientist does, and have put on your philosopher hat.

Cito di Pense wrote:
When we are talking about the human issues on which you focus, we are dealing with the utterances of humans; in other words, a text. Dig at a text enough and try to find something beneath it. I dare ya. I double dare ya, as Jules Winnfield might have, um, said. Calling it a "sacrifice" constitutes a "text". It's now detached from the data set.

I don't think that is true when we are talking about how the cortex might utter the text. It's a whole new ball game when we look deeply into what neural nets do and what that implies. If you followed my posts from my naive beginnings on RDF you would notice that somewhere along the line that I started to sound like a walking contradiction when it came to my use of text. It was at this point that neuroscience started to really soak in for me. The science changed the way I thik about EVERY FUCKING THING! ( an off center reference to Gary Oldman's rant in The Professional in case you wonder why I use it so much)