DavidMcC wrote:

Cito di Pense wrote:Sorry. So you just adopted an orphaned piece of crap from somebody else's arse. I urge you to read more critically in the future.

So, you didn't post # 950? I've got news for you - you did.

Next time, if you don't wish to be blamed for shit ideas you didn't come up with, cite your fucking sources when you post the shit ideas.

DavidMcC wrote:

SpeedOfSound wrote:Remember the craze about finding a gene for this and a gene for that? It didn't work out so well.

I'm not sure that has anything to do with identifying key circuits in the brain that make us conscious. The point about high-f beta waves (unlike any genes) is that they correlate with concentrated thought, and are unlikely to emanate from the entire brain, and the feedback loops discussed before seem like a good candidate for the source.

It has everything to do with it. There is no NCC.

DavidMcC wrote:

Cito di Pense wrote:David, you're not actually doing any science, here. You are commenting on science. That's philosophy of science.

Bullsh*t! What do you suppose science letters journals are for, eh?
Stop making a fool of yourself.

I'm sure you have a CV as long as your arm, David. Lots of people come to internet forums to parade their CVs without actually having to publish them. But you are parading your ideas about 'rational concepts of free will' here, and that is philosophy.

Cito di Pense wrote:Next time, if you don't wish to be blamed for shit ideas you didn't come up with, cite your fucking sources when you post the shit ideas.

I did, but it is now way back in the thread, so you'll just have to search, I 'm afraid. I can't be bothered to waste any more time on that.

You are probably still stuck in an intellectual rut on words/phrases like "C" and FW. You need to recognise that scientific language has moved on, so you shouldn't talk to ancient vocabulary.

... I am considering ignoring Cito from now on, as others have advised. He is a distraction from serious debate of the interpretation of brain science results.

VazScep wrote:

Cito di Pense wrote:Continuing to seek a metaphysical correspondent of empirical behaviour goes on apace. 'Intent' and 'consciousness' are related circularly. It's our habit to think of the brain as 'guiding' the activity of an organism. The concepts of 'goals' and 'intention' are ancient ones. Useful fictions, like 'free will'.

A formal notion if you do automated planning, which is a mainstay of modern robotics.

The problem is that automated planners are, in general, really fucking dumb, so I don't know why anyone would tie goals to consciousness, which amounts to taking the formal notion of goal way too seriously.

Automated planners arrived recently, and before then the only mechanisms that behaved as goal-seekers were living things, where the mechanisms are microscopic and only just beginning to be understood. Humans have been predicting each other by simulation, seeing the other’s situation (e.g. with some goal that person might want) and using our own brain processes to guess what they will do (e.g. use different methods to reach that goal), probably since before language evolved. This is the core reason the idea of consciousness came about – predicting other people by guessing (through simulation) first what their goals might be and then how they might try to reach them was and is the most powerful method of prediction available. Since it wasn’t obvious that brains contained mechanisms at all, people were assumed to have some ghostly inner world and also an essential tendency to operate as goal-seekers – the method of prediction was projected on to the people being predicted. So goal-seeking, a central assumption of rationality, has been associated with consciousness for a long time. Now it’s become clear that we are mechanisms, but the assumption that we are essentially different is taking a lot of unravelling, especially as the evolved trick of simulation, which leads to automatically seeing other people as conscious, is still very much better for predicting other people than looking at brain processes (which is a non-starter so far for practical purposes).

DavidMcC wrote:... I am considering ignoring Cito from now on, as others have advised. He is a distraction from serious debate of the interpretation of brain science results.

Please do. It will never end. You should start a thread on your current concerns and maybe we could take this one back to the OP. I see some interesting mistakes in Biagini's article and while he seems a bit of a quack they are the same mistakes you find throughout philosophy of the mind. If I get the time I would like to look at his first bit about solid objects being illusions and the interesting way in which he seems to flip from one side to the other. It's almost making me dizzy.

zoon wrote:Humans have been predicting each other by simulation

Sure, zoon. Assume your conclusion. Way to go. It's not as if coyotes have not been anticipating the behaviour of rabbits (and even that of other coyotes). What humans do into the bargain is write philosophical treatises about it. Whoop de doo.

Oh, wait. They don't do it consciously. Way to assume your conclusion.

Ask the wibblers for predictions, though, and they can't really commit themselves. It's still based on probabilities.

DavidMcC wrote:

Cito di Pense wrote:Next time, if you don't wish to be blamed for shit ideas you didn't come up with, cite your fucking sources when you post the shit ideas.

I did, but it is now way back in the thread, so you'll just have to search, I 'm afraid. I can't be bothered to waste any more time on that.

Now you might begin to have the glimmerings of an understanding as to how an internet forum is not a journal article with footnotes to its citations. All in one easy-to-digest package.

Now you're just telling me you've cited some shit idea about 'concentrated thought' on multiple occasions. Have you no shame?

DavidMcC wrote:

lobawad wrote:So, do you think that these beta waves are a byproduct of thinking, or constitute (partly) thinking?

I suspect that they are an inevitable by-product, but I don't know for sure whether they may also have consequences of their own. Their increased frequency during concentrated thought is the only known phenomenon relating to them that I know of.

Is that where you explained who you got it from?

DavidMcC wrote:
You are probably still stuck in an intellectual rut on words/phrases like "C" and FW. You need to recognise that scientific language has moved on, so you shouldn't talk to ancient vocabulary.

No, actually, I'm having a grand old time dismantling the pretentious claptrap with which you are festooning this poor forum, pretentious claptrap like 'concentrated thought'. It's, like, a substance, innit?

eveshi wrote:I just stumbled upon this interesting article by physicist Marco Biagini about emergence: Subversive Thinking: Marco Biagini, quantum physics and the scientific refutation of materialism It nicely points out what is all wrong with emergence and gives full support to what pl0bs has written many times on this board (and for which he got ridiculed for no good reason).

Here are the most important parts:

In materialism, consciousness is considered a complex, emergent or macroscopic property of matter, but this definition is inconsistent from a logical point of view; in fact, science has proved that the so-called macroscopic properties are only concepts used by man to describe in an approximated way real physical processes, which consist uniquely of successions of microscopic elementary processes. An example of macroscopic property often used by materialists is roughness; the materialist claims that quantum particles have o roughness, and therefore roughness is a new property, emerging only at the macroscopic level. This is completely wrong; in fact, roughness is only a concept used to describe a certain kind of geometrical distribution of the molecules in a surface. The laws of physics establish that there is an infinity of possible geometrical distributions of particles, and we can classify such possible distributions with different names, and elaborate the concepts of roughness or smoothness, etc. However these are only arbitrary and subjective concepts and classifications,used to describe how an external object appear to our conscious mind, and not how it is .

There is this idea I label a s RIS. What and object Really IS. This is tied up in misunderstandings between ontological and explanitive reduction. Pl0bs and evishi take the ultimate microscopic ER and turn it into OR. It's a common mistake.

A thing appears to be solid to us because to us it really is solid and when a person chooses to walk around a solid object they have not made some sort of a mistake. For one thing they never sat there and ontologically reduced the object to some illusionary extended block of packed matter. hey simply walked around the object because the relationship we have with those objects is that they are not going to act any other way.

Several times in his article he does this:

science has proved that the so-called macroscopic properties

In my previous article I have explained how these ideas are denied by modern science,

The laws of physics establish that

etc. Credibility through science!

His point is:

science has proved that the so-called macroscopic properties are only concepts used by man to describe in an approximated way real physical processes,

This is completely wrong; in fact, roughness is only a concept used to describe a certain kind of geometrical distribution of the molecules in a surface.

But!

Also the concept of a macroscopic rigid and compact object is only an optical illusion,
and not a physical entity.

But you see that is entirely the point. It's not an optical illusion, it's optics telling us the thing we really need to know about the object. That there could be things behind it and we have to step around it to get them.

There is no illusion or mistake in our perception. It is the authors intent to make it look like we walk around making mistakes about the true nature of reality. This is the very familiar straw being stuffed up the ass of the materialist. It's why we had to retreat to the new word physicalism.

When we say a property is emergent it is not news to us that that emerging is about the relationship we have to the thing with the property. But this blows his entire case when you consider that. Consciousness as an emerging property is about our relationship to what it is that we think we know about our own minds.

He is essentially doing, in his wanting to reduce C to some fundamental property, what he calls making a mistake about a solid object being extended packed substance. He is doing exactly that with his idea of C.

...are only concepts used by man to describe in an approximated way real physical processes,

That's the interesting twisted thinking that I see with him and in many other challengers of physicalism.

Forgive if that is not clear. I can work with you to make it so.

Cito di Pense wrote:Is that where you explained who you got it from?

If you were thinking straight, you would have realised that you needed to scroll further back than that.

DavidMcC wrote:

Cito di Pense wrote:Is that where you explained who you got it from?

If you were thinking straight, you would have realised that you needed to scroll further back than that.

I found every post where you used the pretentious claptrap 'concentrated thought'. It wasn't that hard. Pretentious claptrap can be translated into 120 languages, so you could have hidden it anywhere. But I put 'concentrated thought' up there in lights for you, mate. You should thank me.

The laws of physics establish that there is an infinity of possible geometrical distributions of particles, and we can classify such possible distributions with different names, and elaborate the concepts of roughness or smoothness, etc. However these are only arbitrary and subjective concepts and classifications,used to describe how an external object appear to our conscious mind, and not how it is .

No, not "to our conscious mind", to another rough surface that might be moving against it, which is describable by the science of friction, rather than psychology.

EDIT: Also, microscopy techniques, such as Atomic Force Microscopy and Scanning Tunnelling Microscopy give an idea of the structure of a surface at the atomic scale. When working well, they detect individual atoms, and have even been used to assemble scale structures in the lab:
http://mrsec.wisc.edu/Edetc/nanoquest/atom_manipulation/index.html

DavidMcC wrote:

The laws of physics establish that there is an infinity of possible geometrical distributions of particles, and we can classify such possible distributions with different names, and elaborate the concepts of roughness or smoothness, etc. However these are only arbitrary and subjective concepts and classifications,used to describe how an external object appear to our conscious mind, and not how it is .

No, not "to our conscious mind", to another rough surface that might be moving against it, which is describable by the science of friction, rather than psychology.

Yes, but Biagini only wants to talk about qualia. In other words, he wants to assume his conclusion. That's not so terrible, considering that he only wants to do some wibbling. Arguing seriously with Biagini is like admitting you have nothing better to do.

It's like believing that because a pile of wibble comes from a physicist, debunking it is worth some philosophical hit points.

You can talk about 'consciousness', but pretending that the talk is scientific is not to banish the thought that it is just another philosophical construction like 'existence'. Assuming physicalism or materialism, as Matthew Shute points out, is not ridiculous, but like all metaphysics, it has to assume that it is correct. You can assume that there is no friction without materiality, but all you're doing is rubbing some electrical fields together, and backing off through a few orders of magnitude in length.

Doing science requires you to have metrics or scale. Maybe 'curvature'. Philosophy doesn't have that. Consciousness does not have that. Ants have 'little' consciousness and rats have 'big' consciousness.

Cito di Pense wrote:

lobawad wrote:The post that started this thread proclaimed loudly that human beings are unable to walk, how did we get to the wherever it is we are at this point?

The author of the blog whose contents forms the body of the OP writes:

I'm referring to a critical approach to many controversial topics, including (but not limited to) paranormal phenomena, afterlife research, pseudoskepticism (debunking), reductionistic materialism, dogmatic atheism, philosophy of consciousness and religion/spirituality.

The date of the blog is early 2009. Eveshi (and people like that) know that everyone will find this a wonderful opportunity to show that they are better at wibbling than a solid-state physicist is.

The author of the blog itself is apparently someone who wants to look into spoon-bending, and who interprets the words of Biagini as opening the door for some spoon-bending.

The problem is that Biagini is a physicist and not a philosopher. Matthew Shute is able to point out clearly that using physics to select a metaphysics is at best a personal project. At least until the spoon-bending commences.

I do not think that there is problem in Biagini not being a philosopher- the problem with his writing is more likely caused by being something of a Fachidiot. A halfway-decent introductory creative writing course would have been sufficient to warn him away from thinking entirely in nouns and forgetting the verbs. Solid-state, indeed.

Cito di Pense wrote:

zoon wrote:Humans have been predicting each other by simulation

Sure, zoon. Assume your conclusion. Way to go. It's not as if coyotes have not been anticipating the behaviour of rabbits (and even that of other coyotes). What humans do into the bargain is write philosophical treatises about it. Whoop de doo.

What normal humans do into the bargain is to set up a whole category of the mental, including, for example, false beliefs, pretend play, and the appearance/reality distinction, as described in this article by Simon Baron-Cohen. He describes how people with autism, who are especially impaired in managing social life, also fail tests for false beliefs, pretend play and other mentalising concepts, or are impaired by comparison with normal people. There’s no clear evidence that even chimps can deal with false beliefs, animals like coyotes almost certainly don’t.

zoon wrote:There’s no clear evidence that even chimps can deal with false beliefs, animals like coyotes almost certainly don’t.

False beliefs bite you in the arse, and not even the members of your congregation can save you, although they can hand you a crust of bread and such. One can't even express 'beliefs' without language. But go ahead and assume your conclusions, namely that learning is a conscious process, or that it involves 'beliefs'. There's as much woo in your discourse of 'false belief' as in a pack of JWs on a Saturday morning neighbourhood tour.

Judging from the performances on this forum, false beliefs are not the problem. It's the unfalsifiable ones you have to look out for. That's the only kind that people can really cling to, as if it were some sort of oar hanging over the side of some lifeboat for the rational mind, and they were drowning in a sea of doubt.

News Flash, zoon. Sewage treatment reduces incidence of cholera. What's the 'false belief' corresponding to that one? Eating shit is good for you? Wibbling is knowledge?

If you want to talk about learning technology, go to an education forum.

Cito di Pense wrote:I think I understand why you've chosen theorem-proving. I think it is at least partly because what you want are reliable algorithms, and if you can prove an algorithm is reliable, then you know only the user can introduce garbage. Am I close?

Full disclosure: we're still trying to convince programmers that theorem-proving is worth a damn.

Things are looking up. We're in a recession, and funding is drying up. EPSRC have only two areas in computer science they intend to grow, and of the two, ours is the largest.

But so long as people are happy to write software and operating systems in C, we're never going to get taken seriously. But then again, I'd say that programmers make really shitty engineers:

"I have been told that one of the reasons for the longevity of the Roman bridges is that their designers had to stand under them when they were first used. It may be time to put a similar discipline into the software field."

Read the rest here.

Cito di Pense wrote:You can talk about 'consciousness', but pretending that the talk is scientific is not to banish the thought that it is just another philosophical construction like 'existence'.

If we are to do science, we have to "pretend that the talk is scientific", to give ourselves the chance to demonstrate that we are not just kidding ourselves.

Assuming physicalism or materialism, as Matthew Shute points out, is not ridiculous, but like all metaphysics, it has to assume that it is correct.

Any scientific hypothesis assumes that it is correct in the first instance. Of course, it must then go on to make itself testable. To be testable, it has to go on to make a prediction. My version of the "C" hypothesis does this by inferring by analogy between the brain and any other electronically based control system that its functioning is maintained by self-sustaining oscillators (the computer analogy being the crystal-controlled clock).
Thus, identification of the oscillators in the brain as the cortico-thalamo-cortical feedback loops is important. It would be further strengthened by checking that the oscillator frequency is compatible with the high beta-wave frequencies observed when we are using our consciousness the most.

Doing science requires you to have metrics or scale.

Yes, and that is why I referred to high f beta waves, which have been shown to be linked to the "concentrated thought" (= greater level of consciousness) that you inexplicably derided previously.
PS. Sorry if you couldn't find the reference on that. I also tried and failed! However, I am not imagining it, and I did find a table of frequency ranges for various kinds of EEG-detectable "brain waves", and their connections with sleep and wakefulness, and "concentrated thought" in the case of beta waves.

Cito di Pense wrote:Philosophy doesn't have that. Consciousness does not have that. Ants have 'little' consciousness and rats have 'big' consciousness.

You probably think I am "just a philosopher" because I once cited the Philosopher, Dan Dennett, in support of my own arguments against the scientific validity of Sam Harris's and others' "scientific" conclusions that we do not have something called a "free will", on the basis of the Libet experiments. If you read my main post on the FW thread, you will see that I think they were not taking account of the different modes of operation that the human brain has (best ecapsulated as "we often do one thing while thinking of another").