Consciousness as a State of Matter

Studies of mental functions, behaviors and the nervous system.

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Re: Consciousness as a State of Matter

#61  Postby zoon » Mar 26, 2014 10:57 am

Mr.Samsa wrote:Yeah it's definitely an interesting avenue of research but, as you say, it's still in its infancy so it's definitely worthwhile to be cautious in the claims we make about the ability of neuroscience to explain thoughts and behaviors. Sort of related, if you get the chance I think you'd enjoy reading "Brainwashed: The Seductive Appeal of Mindless Neuroscience" which criticises the increasing trend of "neurobabble" (a criticism of bad science and bad reporting, not of neuroscience as a whole). It even has a chapter on using neuroimaging for lie detection.

As that book emphasises, neuroscience so far doesn’t tell us in any detail what people are thinking, but it does now make vividly clear that thoughts have a physical basis, rather as the pictures of Earth from space gave a vivid appreciation of facts that had been known for a long time.

?The idea that consciousness is special, a separate state of matter or of being, comes from the historical accident that thoughts are for practical purposes private, we cannot (yet) read each other’s brains as the mechanisms they are. We are correct in supposing that our thoughts are not known to other people, we are not correct if we assume further that the privacy of thoughts is some essential feature of the universe.

On the other hand, we’ve evolved a method of close cooperation which does in fact depend on each individual’s brain processes being unknown to and uncontrolled by other individuals. This close cooperation includes the construction of a group model of the external world which takes for granted that thoughts are inherently unknowable except to their owner. In that sense, that our model of the universe takes for granted that thoughts are private, it is true to say that the privacy of thoughts is indeed an essential feature of the universe, so if neuroscience does eventually allow understanding and control of brains in real time, our understanding of selves and the world is likely to change radically.
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Re: Consciousness as a State of Matter

#62  Postby Mr.Samsa » Mar 26, 2014 11:13 am

zoon wrote:
Mr.Samsa wrote:Yeah it's definitely an interesting avenue of research but, as you say, it's still in its infancy so it's definitely worthwhile to be cautious in the claims we make about the ability of neuroscience to explain thoughts and behaviors. Sort of related, if you get the chance I think you'd enjoy reading "Brainwashed: The Seductive Appeal of Mindless Neuroscience" which criticises the increasing trend of "neurobabble" (a criticism of bad science and bad reporting, not of neuroscience as a whole). It even has a chapter on using neuroimaging for lie detection.

As that book emphasises, neuroscience so far doesn’t tell us in any detail what people are thinking, but it does now make vividly clear that thoughts have a physical basis, rather as the pictures of Earth from space gave a vivid appreciation of facts that had been known for a long time.


Sort of, but only in an uncontroversial way. Everybody accepts that thoughts have a physical basis, even substance dualists accept that the brain is necessary for thoughts. The difficult question is whether the brain produces those thoughts, of which neuroscience has no way of answering. (To avoid accusations here or an off-topic line of discussion, I obviously accept that substance dualism is ridiculous).

zoon wrote:?The idea that consciousness is special, a separate state of matter or of being, comes from the historical accident that thoughts are for practical purposes private, we cannot (yet) read each other’s brains as the mechanisms they are. We are correct in supposing that our thoughts are not known to other people, we are not correct if we assume further that the privacy of thoughts is some essential feature of the universe.


Maybe that's where the idea comes from but again, neuroscience has no way of determining where thoughts actually come from. It just tells us that the brain is necessary for thoughts and not that it is sufficient.

The idea that it's "in the brain therefore it's objective" or "it's in the brain so the brain explains this behavior" is really nonsensical. Before we ever do any research we know that our political or musical preferences (for example) are going to be physically represented in the brain somewhere because, even if we're dualists, we understand that the brain is necessary for the control of those preferences. This isn't really an "explanation" for the behavior though.

It's like when that neuroscience research was misrepresented by journalists and they tried to claim that spiritual experiences, or near-death experiences, or whatever, weren't "real" because they were just firing in the brain. Well, no shit it's physically represented in the brain - how can someone experience or remember an experience without using their brain? It just doesn't tell us whether the neuroscientific results are representations of some so-called divine or supernatural experience, or whether the experience was entirely fabricated by the brain.

There are a couple of posts that explain this idea better than I can: Brain Scans Prove that the Brain Does Stuff

So we already know that HSDD “has a physical origin”, but only in the sense that everything does; being a Democrat or a Republican has a physical origin; being Christian or Muslim has a physical origin; speaking French as opposed to English has a physical origin; etc. etc. None of which is interesting or surprising in the slightest.

The point is that the fact that something is physical doesn’t stop it being also psychological. Because psychology happens in the brain. Suppose you see a massive bear roaring and charging towards you, and as a result, you feel scared. The fear has a physical basis, and plenty of physical correlates like raised blood pressure, adrenaline release, etc.

But if someone asks “Why are you scared?”, you would answer “Because there’s a bear about to eat us”, and you’d be right. Someone who came along and said, no, your anxiety is purely physical – I can measure all these physiological differences between you and a normal person – would be an idiot (and eaten).


And: The Mismeasure of Neuroscience:

Nevertheless, there are two general issues that I’m concerned about whenever discussions of “the neuroscience of X” come up: one has to do with an apparent confusion (in some people’s minds) regarding what exactly one establishes when one discovers a neural correlate for a particular human behavior; the other has to do with what can (and cannot) be learned from studies of brain damage, be it accidental or as the result of surgery to alleviate neurological problems.

Let’s begin with what exactly follows from studies showing that X has been demonstrated to have a neural correlate (where X can be moral decision making, political leanings, sexual habits, or consciousness itself). The refrain one often hears when these studies are published is that neuroscientists have “explained” X, a conclusion that is presented more like the explaining away (philosophically, the elimination) of X. You think you are making an ethical decision? Ah!, but that’s just the orbital and medial sectors of the prefrontal cortex and the superior temporal sulcus region of your brain in action. You think you are having a spiritual experience while engaging in deep prayer or meditation? Silly you, that’s just the combined action of your right medial orbitofrontal cortex, right middle temporal cortex, right inferior and superior parietal lobules, right caudate, left medial prefrontal cortex, left anterior cingulate cortex, left inferior parietal lobule, left insula, left caudate, and left brainstem (did I leave anything out?).

I could keep going, but I think you get the point. The fact is, of course, that anything at all which we experience, whether it does or does not have causal determinants in the outside world, has to be experienced through our brains. Which means that you will find neural correlates for literally everything that human beings do or think. Because that’s what the brain is for: to do stuff and think about stuff.
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Re: Consciousness as a State of Matter

#63  Postby kennyc » Mar 26, 2014 11:29 am

hackenslash wrote:
surreptitious57 wrote:To suggest that it is only of interest to one is therefore wrong.


Who suggested that?
...



You did. And with the complete degradation of the topic from that point forward, I take my leave of it.

Carry on.
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Re: Consciousness as a State of Matter

#64  Postby kennyc » Mar 26, 2014 11:30 am

Mr.Samsa wrote:
hackenslash wrote:
Luckily, cognitive scientists aren't physicists, so they can say whatever the fuck they like that helps them to model what they observe, but physics is the arbiter.

I'm not wrong, they are. It's a matter of physics. It's a behaviour that emerges from the interactions of many constituents, chemical and electromagnetic. Those interactions are the processes, but the consciousness itself is a behaviour arising out of those processes.

And that's assuming that you can actually find a cognitive scientist that genuinely disagrees with me. Good luck with that.


Don't worry, you're absolutely correct that psychologists (including cognitive scientists) treat processes of consciousness (and cognition in general) as behavior. It stems from the fact that the philosophy of psychology is founded on radical behaviorism, which conceptualised what an organism does (internally and externally) as "behavior". Kenny seems to be relying on an outdated understanding of behavior that only includes physical actions.

And don't bother trying to argue with him, he never presents any arguments and just repeats "you're wrong". He once tried to argue with me over whether behaviorism was a philosophy or a field of science, and the best I could drag out of him was a single wikipedia link (which contradicted him).

Cut your losses.



Ah, look what the cat dragged in slingin' shit and everything.

You are wrong again, as usual.

Carry on. I'm done with you as well.
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Re: Consciousness as a State of Matter

#65  Postby Mr.Samsa » Mar 26, 2014 11:32 am

kennyc wrote:
Mr.Samsa wrote:
And don't bother trying to argue with him, he never presents any arguments and just repeats "you're wrong".



Ah, look what the cat dragged in slingin' shit and everything.

You are wrong again, as usual.

Carry on. I'm done with you as well.


:rofl: Perfect. Thanks, Kenny.
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Re: Consciousness as a State of Matter

#66  Postby zoon » Mar 26, 2014 12:22 pm

Mr.Samsa wrote:The point is that the fact that something is physical doesn’t stop it being also psychological. Because psychology happens in the brain. Suppose you see a massive bear roaring and charging towards you, and as a result, you feel scared. The fear has a physical basis, and plenty of physical correlates like raised blood pressure, adrenaline release, etc.

But if someone asks “Why are you scared?”, you would answer “Because there’s a bear about to eat us”, and you’d be right. Someone who came along and said, no, your anxiety is purely physical – I can measure all these physiological differences between you and a normal person – would be an idiot (and eaten).

It seems to me that what you are saying comes down again to the, entirely correct, point that neuroscience is so far useless at explaining or predicting what brains do in any detail. For as long as this continues to be the case, it will also be the case that for all immediate practical purposes we have free will and consciousness, our minds are most effectively described in terms such as “you are scared”, and minds will be best studied by psychologists and not by physicists.

The only mistake would come if it were supposed that neuroscience cannot possibly ever explain and predict brains in real time. The evidence suggests that this is a real possibility, though well into the future if at all. If it were to happen, psychology could become a branch of physics, and consciousness would no longer be a problem because thoughts would no longer be private.
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Re: Consciousness as a State of Matter

#67  Postby Mr.Samsa » Mar 26, 2014 12:27 pm

zoon wrote:
Mr.Samsa wrote:The point is that the fact that something is physical doesn’t stop it being also psychological. Because psychology happens in the brain. Suppose you see a massive bear roaring and charging towards you, and as a result, you feel scared. The fear has a physical basis, and plenty of physical correlates like raised blood pressure, adrenaline release, etc.

But if someone asks “Why are you scared?”, you would answer “Because there’s a bear about to eat us”, and you’d be right. Someone who came along and said, no, your anxiety is purely physical – I can measure all these physiological differences between you and a normal person – would be an idiot (and eaten).

It seems to me that what you are saying comes down again to the, entirely correct, point that neuroscience is so far useless at explaining or predicting what brains do in any detail. For as long as this continues to be the case, it will also be the case that for all immediate practical purposes we have free will and consciousness, our minds are most effectively described in terms such as “you are scared”, and minds will be best studied by psychologists and not by physicists.

The only mistake would come if it were supposed that neuroscience cannot possibly ever explain and predict brains in real time. The evidence suggests that this is a real possibility, though well into the future if at all. If it were to happen, psychology could become a branch of physics, and consciousness would no longer be a problem because thoughts would no longer be private.


I think you're discussing a slightly different issue. It's not about whether neuroscience can examine brains in real time or not, it's just that some issues require explanations that go beyond the brain. The example that Neuroskeptic gives there is a pretty easy one to understand - if someone became fearful in the middle of a forest and you tried to explain it in terms of some neuroscientific finding (whether solid state or dynamic processes) then you would quite simply be wrong. The person is not fearful because of processes in the brain, they are fearful because a bear is about to eat them.

The brain is the representation and processing of this fear, and the brain is undeniably necessary for any of this to take place, but the brain doesn't cause the fear in any relevant sense any more so than my heart beating faster causes me to run faster. This is why the idea that psychology could be reduced to neuroscience (let alone physics!) is not really a feasible suggestion at all.
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Re: Consciousness as a State of Matter

#68  Postby hackenslash » Mar 26, 2014 12:36 pm

kennyc wrote:
hackenslash wrote:
surreptitious57 wrote:To suggest that it is only of interest to one is therefore wrong.


Who suggested that?
...



You did. And with the complete degradation of the topic from that point forward, I take my leave of it.

Carry on.


Err, no I didn't.

Also, I note you had no response to the cog-sci expert agreeing with my assessment.
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Re: Consciousness as a State of Matter

#69  Postby zoon » Mar 26, 2014 1:27 pm

Mr.Samsa wrote:I think you're discussing a slightly different issue. It's not about whether neuroscience can examine brains in real time or not, it's just that some issues require explanations that go beyond the brain. The example that Neuroskeptic gives there is a pretty easy one to understand - if someone became fearful in the middle of a forest and you tried to explain it in terms of some neuroscientific finding (whether solid state or dynamic processes) then you would quite simply be wrong. The person is not fearful because of processes in the brain, they are fearful because a bear is about to eat them.

The brain is the representation and processing of this fear, and the brain is undeniably necessary for any of this to take place, but the brain doesn't cause the fear in any relevant sense any more so than my heart beating faster causes me to run faster. This is why the idea that psychology could be reduced to neuroscience (let alone physics!) is not really a feasible suggestion at all.

You say: “- if someone became fearful in the middle of a forest and you tried to explain it in terms of some neuroscientific finding …. then you would quite simply be wrong. The person is not fearful because of processes in the brain, they are fearful because a bear is about to eat them.”

I think this is where hackenslash’s post today of Feynman discussing “why” questions is relevant. Feynman makes the point that someone trying to answer a “why” question needs to take into account the presuppositions and concerns of the person asking the question. The same “why” question can have very different correct answers, depending on those factors. Your example is a case in point. If the person asking “why are you afraid?” is standing beside the person in the forest, then the question of whether a hungry bear is in the immediate vicinity is the only pressing one, the epistemological status of states of mind can wait. If, on the other hand, (as now), the people discussing the question “why are you afraid” are all ensconced comfortably in front of their computer screens posting in a thread about consciousness, and the frightened person is a figment of everyone’s imagination, then the answer “that person is afraid because of processes in their brain” becomes a reasonable one, at least as correct as the answer that an imaginary bear is about to eat them.

When we say “that person is scared because a bear is about to eat them”, we are using Theory of Mind (or Relational Frame Theory), we are assuming that they are rational, that is, that their brain is working in the same way as everyone else’s. Theory of Mind is a prescientific evolved capacity which is still the most powerful way we have of predicting another person’s actions in real time with any accuracy, so it’s the only effective method we have of explaining people. To say “they are afraid because of brain processes” is correct but, in the present state of neuroscientific technology, useless for any practical purpose. This may change, neuroscientists may become able to predict and explain us in real time, but it won’t change for the foreseeable future, brains are too complicated.
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Re: Consciousness as a State of Matter

#70  Postby Mr.Samsa » Mar 26, 2014 1:40 pm

zoon wrote:
You say: “- if someone became fearful in the middle of a forest and you tried to explain it in terms of some neuroscientific finding …. then you would quite simply be wrong. The person is not fearful because of processes in the brain, they are fearful because a bear is about to eat them.”

I think this is where hackenslash’s post today of Feynman discussing “why” questions is relevant. Feynman makes the point that someone trying to answer a “why” question needs to take into account the presuppositions and concerns of the person asking the question. The same “why” question can have very different correct answers, depending on those factors. Your example is a case in point. If the person asking “why are you afraid?” is standing beside the person in the forest, then the question of whether a hungry bear is in the immediate vicinity is the only pressing one, the epistemological status of states of mind can wait. If, on the other hand, (as now), the people discussing the question “why are you afraid” are all ensconced comfortably in front of their computer screens posting in a thread about consciousness, and the frightened person is a figment of everyone’s imagination, then the answer “that person is afraid because of processes in their brain” becomes a reasonable one, at least as correct as the answer that an imaginary bear is about to eat them.


The Feynman discussion isn't really relevant as what we're discussing here is levels of explanation. Both approaches are answering the question, but neither are answering both parts of the question. Asking "why are they fearful?" can be rephrased, if you like, in to the two questions of: "What component of the environment has triggered a fearful response?" and "How is is physically possible for an organism to experience fear?". The first level of analysis requires a psychological explanation (the bear), whereas the second one requires a physiological explanation (the neuroscience).

The example you give of an imagined meeting with a bear falls into the same distinction, it's just now that the answer is that the person becomes fearful because of an imagined bear. The neuroscience still doesn't answer the question that is generally relevant when we ask why is someone fearful in those situations.

zoon wrote:When we say “that person is scared because a bear is about to eat them”, we are using Theory of Mind (or Relational Frame Theory), we are assuming that they are rational, that is, that their brain is working in the same way as everyone else’s. Theory of Mind is a prescientific evolved capacity which is still the most powerful way we have of predicting another person’s actions in real time with any accuracy, so it’s the only effective method we have of explaining people. To say “they are afraid because of brain processes” is correct but, in the present state of neuroscientific technology, useless for any practical purpose. This may change, neuroscientists may become able to predict and explain us in real time, but it won’t change for the foreseeable future, brains are too complicated.


Not at all, it's still not an issue of the state of neuroscience but just a basic methodological issue. We could have absolutely perfect knowledge of the brain and it would still be wrong to say that the person is fearful because of some neurological fact.
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Re: Consciousness as a State of Matter

#71  Postby zoon » Mar 26, 2014 1:59 pm

Mr.Samsa wrote:Not at all, it's still not an issue of the state of neuroscience but just a basic methodological issue. We could have absolutely perfect knowledge of the brain and it would still be wrong to say that the person is fearful because of some neurological fact.

If a smoke alarm goes off, and someone asks “Why has that object started making a noise?”, is the correct answer “Because there’s a fire – run!” or a lengthy disquisition on the mechanism inside the smoke alarm? Surely either answer could be right, depending on circumstances?

Similarly, if someone is afraid, and someone asks why that person is afraid, it could be correct to say “Because a bear is about to eat them”, or, in other circumstances, it could be equally correct to say “Because of their brain processes”.
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Re: Consciousness as a State of Matter

#72  Postby Mr.Samsa » Mar 26, 2014 2:06 pm

zoon wrote:
Mr.Samsa wrote:Not at all, it's still not an issue of the state of neuroscience but just a basic methodological issue. We could have absolutely perfect knowledge of the brain and it would still be wrong to say that the person is fearful because of some neurological fact.

If a smoke alarm goes off, and someone asks “Why has that object started making a noise?”, is the correct answer “Because there’s a fire – run!” or a lengthy disquisition on the mechanism inside the smoke alarm? Surely either answer could be right, depending on circumstances?

Similarly, if someone is afraid, and someone asks why that person is afraid, it could be correct to say “Because a bear is about to eat them”, or, in other circumstances, it could be equally correct to say “Because of their brain processes”.


Yes, but the point is that if your friend is running away from you in a forest and you ask why he's afraid, you don't want a neuroscience lesson, the level of explanation that the question is based is one where the answer is "there's a bear". The same applies to the smoke alarm situation - if it's going off and I ask someone why it's making that noise, the level of explanation that the question is being asked is where the answer "because there's a fire" is the right one.

The point is simply that they aren't explaining the same thing. If a question is asked at one level and you give an answer that is on a different level, then that answer is always wrong. To rephrase my comments above, if someone asks why a certain part of the brain fired in a certain way, then it will always be wrong to say "because there's a bear". The question is asked at the level of neuroscience, not the psychological level.
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Re: Consciousness as a State of Matter

#73  Postby zoon » Mar 26, 2014 2:45 pm

Mr.Samsa wrote:
zoon wrote:
Mr.Samsa wrote:Not at all, it's still not an issue of the state of neuroscience but just a basic methodological issue. We could have absolutely perfect knowledge of the brain and it would still be wrong to say that the person is fearful because of some neurological fact.

If a smoke alarm goes off, and someone asks “Why has that object started making a noise?”, is the correct answer “Because there’s a fire – run!” or a lengthy disquisition on the mechanism inside the smoke alarm? Surely either answer could be right, depending on circumstances?

Similarly, if someone is afraid, and someone asks why that person is afraid, it could be correct to say “Because a bear is about to eat them”, or, in other circumstances, it could be equally correct to say “Because of their brain processes”.


Yes, but the point is that if your friend is running away from you in a forest and you ask why he's afraid, you don't want a neuroscience lesson, the level of explanation that the question is based is one where the answer is "there's a bear". The same applies to the smoke alarm situation - if it's going off and I ask someone why it's making that noise, the level of explanation that the question is being asked is where the answer "because there's a fire" is the right one.

The point is simply that they aren't explaining the same thing. If a question is asked at one level and you give an answer that is on a different level, then that answer is always wrong. To rephrase my comments above, if someone asks why a certain part of the brain fired in a certain way, then it will always be wrong to say "because there's a bear". The question is asked at the level of neuroscience, not the psychological level.


We may be coming closer to agreement?

My point is that the level at which a “why” question is being asked isn’t necessarily fixed by the verbal form of the question; often, it’s also dependent on the circumstances.

To some extent, this particular discussion is about semantics, in that the English words “fear” and “afraid” do tend to imply that there is something the person is afraid of; those words take Theory of Mind for granted, and in using them one assumes automatically that people are rational and have similar brain processes. Even when Macbeth is afraid of an imaginary dagger, the form of words still implies there is something he fears, rather than that his brain’s gone haywire.

If the question was: “Why is that person exhibiting the common signs of fear?” rather than “Why is that person afraid?” would it still be wrong to answer “Because of brain processes”?
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Re: Consciousness as a State of Matter

#74  Postby Asta666 » Mar 26, 2014 10:22 pm

zoon wrote:If the question was: “Why is that person exhibiting the common signs of fear?” rather than “Why is that person afraid?” would it still be wrong to answer “Because of brain processes”?

I don't think it would be wrong to answer “Because of brain processes” in any case, but in some cases it could be considered incomplete, because in some cases it works as an enabler (that allows the organism to exhibit the response) while the independent variable is environmental and in others as enabler and trigger because both variables are part of occurrences in the physiology of the brain (i. e. fear of the bear vs fear because of brain tumor respectively).
But of course both ways can be valid given that consistent relationships between the variables can be shown, but some tend to take things too far like the proponents of a reductionism that would allow for the whole abandonment of psychological terms. That is just philosophical forecasting, but sometimes seems to be upheld with too much certainty.
The behavioral account sets the task for the physiologist. Mentalism on the other hand has done a great disservice by leading physiologists on false trails in search of the neural correlates of images, memories, consciousness, and so on. Skinner
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Re: Consciousness as a State of Matter

#75  Postby Imza » Mar 27, 2014 1:17 am

The whole of question of whether or not if it is wrong to say "Because of the brain processes" seems to be based on not being sufficiently clear as to what level of explanation (and perhaps for what purpose) is being requested. As such, I don't think it's "wrong" but simply not clearly stated.

Reminds of Sapolsky's explanation of why did the chicken cross the road and the different "buckets" you can answer that question

Here is an excerpt describing his analogy:
Why did the chicken cross the road?

It’s easy to see a single one of these categories as providing The Explanation. But they are merely various Behavior Buckets. They are all a part of the big picture explanation.

It is an easy trap to fall into. Flawed bucket thinking has been done by many of the most influential scientists in history!

This course is about how biology influences behavior.

And a major goal is to not fall for bucket thinking – we must resist the temptation to find The Explanation in one bucket.

Much time will be spent traversing the various buckets. For example,

What was the behaviour?
Why did that happen? (neurons firing, etc.)
What environment caused that behaviour to happen? (sensory stimulation, etc.)
How do hormone changes affect the sensitivity to sensory stimulation?
What genes caused certain hormones to be created?
What environment caused certain genes to be expressed?
Etc. etc.


More at : http://alexvermeer.com/human-behavioral ... roduction/
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Re: Consciousness as a State of Matter

#76  Postby Mr.Samsa » Mar 27, 2014 3:42 am

zoon wrote:
If the question was: “Why is that person exhibiting the common signs of fear?” rather than “Why is that person afraid?” would it still be wrong to answer “Because of brain processes”?


I think maybe the confusion has just been you taking the example a little too literally when the point isn't that language is ambiguous and can be interpreted in different ways, but that levels of explanation shouldn't be conflated. The point is just that questions asked at one level cannot be answered at another. Imza's description of Sapolsky's point seems to hit the nail on the head.
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Re: Consciousness as a State of Matter

#77  Postby zoon » Mar 27, 2014 10:21 am

Asta666 wrote:
zoon wrote:If the question was: “Why is that person exhibiting the common signs of fear?” rather than “Why is that person afraid?” would it still be wrong to answer “Because of brain processes”?

I don't think it would be wrong to answer “Because of brain processes” in any case, but in some cases it could be considered incomplete, because in some cases it works as an enabler (that allows the organism to exhibit the response) while the independent variable is environmental and in others as enabler and trigger because both variables are part of occurrences in the physiology of the brain (i. e. fear of the bear vs fear because of brain tumor respectively).
But of course both ways can be valid given that consistent relationships between the variables can be shown, but some tend to take things too far like the proponents of a reductionism that would allow for the whole abandonment of psychological terms. That is just philosophical forecasting, but sometimes seems to be upheld with too much certainty.

Asta666, Imza and Mr Samsa all seem to be making the same point, that levels of explanation should not be conflated, which I certainly agree with for immediate practical purposes of getting things done. Where I disagree is that they seem to be turning this pragmatic point into one of absolute principle, and claiming that under no circumstances could it ever be correct to describe human behaviour exclusively in terms of physics.

This particular thread is about consciousness, and the arguments swirling around consciousness do hinge on whether human behaviour can be described in terms of the laws of physics or not. If not, then there is indeed something special about humans, and the woo-merchants are right. Of course, nobody has come close to achieving a detailed physical description of brains yet, so to that extent the question is still open. But there is no evidence that brains are anything other than extremely complex mechanisms, they haven’t shown any signs of breaking the known laws of physics. Asta666 writes above: “some tend to take things too far like the proponents of a reductionism that would allow for the whole abandonment of psychological terms. That is just philosophical forecasting, but sometimes seems to be upheld with too much certainty”, but isn’t it the working assumption of most scientists in the field?

Psychological terms cannot yet be abandoned in practice because our evolved Theory of Mind method of predicting other people (essentially guesswork using the similarity of their brains with one’s own) is still far more effective than any method based on looking at brain mechanisms. To say that psychological prediction can never be abandoned for more accurate physical modelling and prediction appears to me to be an argument from ignorance, an argument that the gaping holes in our current knowledge of the physics of brains can never in principle be filled.
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Re: Consciousness as a State of Matter

#78  Postby Asta666 » Mar 27, 2014 11:58 am

zoon wrote:Where I disagree is that they seem to be turning this pragmatic point into one of absolute principle, and claiming that under no circumstances could it ever be correct to describe human behaviour exclusively in terms of physics.

I don't think that was ever said or implied. If someone intends to explain something exclusively in terms of physics he does it or he doesn't. I'm just saying that philosophical arguments about how one day it'll be doable can't replace the actual explanation.

zoon wrote:This particular thread is about consciousness, and the arguments swirling around consciousness do hinge on whether human behaviour can be described in terms of the laws of physics or not. If not, then there is indeed something special about humans, and the woo-merchants are right.

I don't agree. A lack of scientific methodologies to study something doesn't support any particular metaphysical or whatever kind of far fetched explanation you were thinking about.

zoon wrote:Psychological terms cannot yet be abandoned in practice because our evolved Theory of Mind method of predicting other people (essentially guesswork using the similarity of their brains with one’s own) is still far more effective than any method based on looking at brain mechanisms. To say that psychological prediction can never be abandoned for more accurate physical modelling and prediction appears to me to be an argument from ignorance, an argument that the gaping holes in our current knowledge of the physics of brains can never in principle be filled.

Maybe you are thinking only about folk psychology as used in everyday life, but I'm talking about scientific concepts of the field like reinforcement or personality (which the proponents of the kind of reductionism I was thinking about say that are also to be replaced).
This is the same as in the history of biology: explanations at the levels of neuroscience, genetics and physiology in general have not replaced ethology or entailed the abandonment of it's concepts, they complement each other in some cases and in others things are not clear enough.

PS: What the fuck all this has to do with the terms and laws of physics (as a discipline and not as physical things, which would be a useless adjective to add) eludes me. Reminds me of http://www.rationalskepticism.org/psych ... 37408.html
The behavioral account sets the task for the physiologist. Mentalism on the other hand has done a great disservice by leading physiologists on false trails in search of the neural correlates of images, memories, consciousness, and so on. Skinner
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Re: Consciousness as a State of Matter

#79  Postby Imza » Mar 27, 2014 2:40 pm

zoon wrote:
Asta666, Imza and Mr Samsa all seem to be making the same point, that levels of explanation should not be conflated, which I certainly agree with for immediate practical purposes of getting things done. Where I disagree is that they seem to be turning this pragmatic point into one of absolute principle, and claiming that under no circumstances could it ever be correct to describe human behaviour exclusively in terms of physics.

Well actually I don't know if I made that claim in my post but that's an interesting area of discussion. You stated that you understand why the neuroscience explanation for the question "why is the person afraid?" versus the psychological explanation, as they are two different levels of explanation. However, what your saying here seems to contradict that if I understand you correctly. Basically, in the case of fear, you'd have to say that once neuroscience gets advance enough, we won't have need for psychology and once chemistry and physics gets advanced enough, we won't have need for neuroscience.

This to me seems to be wrong way to look at it in that psychology does not reduce down to neuroscience as they are studying things in parallel and one will not replace the other. Psychologists largely study functional environmental interactions of humans whereas neuroscientists focus on the brain related mechanisms of how those organism-environment interactions occur in the brain. No amount of information about the brain itself will replace the work on environmental relationships simply because that information is not present in the brain but in the environmental relationships.

This particular thread is about consciousness, and the arguments swirling around consciousness do hinge on whether human behaviour can be described in terms of the laws of physics or not. If not, then there is indeed something special about humans, and the woo-merchants are right. Of course, nobody has come close to achieving a detailed physical description of brains yet, so to that extent the question is still open. But there is no evidence that brains are anything other than extremely complex mechanisms, they haven’t shown any signs of breaking the known laws of physics. Asta666 writes above: “some tend to take things too far like the proponents of a reductionism that would allow for the whole abandonment of psychological terms. That is just philosophical forecasting, but sometimes seems to be upheld with too much certainty”, but isn’t it the working assumption of most scientists in the field?


I don't think strict reductionism is the only option available to the physicalist and even if it was, there is no guarantee that reductionism would be an effective epistemological strategy for all physical things. Some things, perhaps qualia is one of them, may never be studied in terms of science. I like the analogy of chemistry and Shakespeare here, where no amount of chemical knowledge about the ink that is used in a pen will help you understand the contents of Shakespeare written using that ink.

However, I don't think we are limited to reductionism and in cases like the one I mentioned above regarding Shakespeare and Qualia, we may never be able to reduce to physics. That however doesn't mean that the world is not physical, it could mean that there are emergent properties and a whole set of other possibilities. Or as Susan Haack (Philosopher of Science) puts it, everything is physical but not everything is physics.

However, I'm not strongly committed to either a reductionistic or non-reductionist view. If a physicists walked into my office tomorrow (I know a quite a few them, my partner is a physicists) and told me some amazing finding on how they can explain human behavior with physics, I'd be thrilled and gladly work with them to collect my nobel. So far, I just have not seen it done very well.
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Re: Consciousness as a State of Matter

#80  Postby mrjonno » Mar 27, 2014 3:29 pm

At a cell level does quantum mechanics have any relevance to anything, you could use 19th century mechanics and electromagnetism to describe them (cells are relatively very big)

Once you get down to the individual electron level quantum mechanics can come into play but life doesn't really revolve around what individuals electrons do on their own (millions of electrons is a different matter, again you don't really need quantum mechanics to predict the behaviour of large numbers of electrons)
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