A God without compelling evidence?

[excreationist]

Observers are composed of matter. Matter perceiving matter.

But if we are in a simulation it is actually just information....

 

[DBT]

In his video he never seems to realize that to get any of his evidence for phenomena that are "non-material" he has to have something that is clearly material. As a matter of fact, all the evidence they claim as non-material is clearly material.

How is it that dualists do not recognize this obvious contradiction in their arguments? They are saying, "Non-materialism is real. Here, let me show you something material to prove it."

What am I missing? Is the video a joke, something from the Onion?

It's probably a case of compartmentalized thinking - being so focused on one aspect or aim with the result of becoming blind to other possibilities.

 

[DBT]

Observers are composed of matter. Matter perceiving matter.

But if we are in a simulation it is actually just information....

Then information is the 'matter/energy,' where there is no dualism, no essential separation between observer and observed, only the superficial form and shape differs.

 

[excreationist]

Observers are composed of matter. Matter perceiving matter.

Actually that makes the simulation hypothesis make far more sense. So if artificial neural networks in a simulation function in an equivalent way to our brains then they could be conscious... otherwise the simulation might have philosophical zombies.

I had believed in physicalism for many years but lately due to videos from Quantum Gravity Research, etc, I started to think that consciousness was a fundamental part of reality. I've also heard that scientists haven't really made any progress with the "hard problem". Also recently I was wondering to myself how I can have the sensation of awareness if I am just matter. I was thinking that maybe Penrose was right that there are tiny structures in our brains that can interact in a quantum physical way.

I get the impression that many scientists don't think that consciousness has a physical basis... many say that the basis of the universe is information - there is conservation of information, etc.

 

[Learner]

In his video he never seems to realize that to get any of his evidence for phenomena that are "non-material" he has to have something that is clearly material. As a matter of fact, all the evidence they claim as non-material is clearly material.

How is it that dualists do not recognize this obvious contradiction in their arguments? They are saying, "Non-materialism is real. Here, let me show you something material to prove it."

What am I missing? Is the video a joke, something from the Onion?

Probably not taking serious the bits about serious scientific experiments.

 

[DBT]

Observers are composed of matter. Matter perceiving matter.

Actually that makes the simulation hypothesis make far more sense. So if artificial neural networks in a simulation function in an equivalent way to our brains then they could be conscious... otherwise the simulation might have philosophical zombies.

I had believed in physicalism for many years but lately due to videos from Quantum Gravity Research, etc, I started to think that consciousness was a fundamental part of reality. I've also heard that scientists haven't really made any progress with the "hard problem". Also recently I was wondering to myself how I can have the sensation of awareness if I am just matter. I was thinking that maybe Penrose was right that there are tiny structures in our brains that can interact in a quantum physical way.

I get the impression that many scientists don't think that consciousness has a physical basis... many say that the basis of the universe is information - there is conservation of information, etc.

Consciousness is a physical process. It can be altered through chemical or electrical means. Love or hate generated by stimulating the associated neural structures and regions, perceptions of movement where no movement occurred, etc. The failure of memory function, being the very foundation of consciousness, results in the breakdown of mind and consciousness: an inability to recognize, think or reason.

 

[T.G.G. Moogly]

In his video he never seems to realize that to get any of his evidence for phenomena that are "non-material" he has to have something that is clearly material. As a matter of fact, all the evidence they claim as non-material is clearly material.

How is it that dualists do not recognize this obvious contradiction in their arguments? They are saying, "Non-materialism is real. Here, let me show you something material to prove it."

What am I missing? Is the video a joke, something from the Onion?

Probably not taking serious the bits about serious scientific experiments.

Would you mind expanding on that point?

Just as an aside our brains are quite complex organs obviously. People who's eyes see but who are blind, who's vision centers do not connect to the parts of the eye that sees, are known to avoid objects just as if their vision was as normal as yours and mine. What happens is that their brains are doing the act unconsciously and not using those same conscious vision centers. There isn't anything spooky going on, nothing non-material (whatever that is). Unless told about their behavior in avoiding objects they don't even remember doing it, but the proof is on camera.

So what am I not taking seriously in the video? Honestly this "non-materialism" argument just sounds like more spooky religious talk.

But please help me understand.

 

[excreationist]

Consciousness is a physical process. It can be altered through chemical or electrical means. Love or hate generated by stimulating the associated neural structures and regions, perceptions of movement where no movement occurred, etc. The failure of memory function, being the very foundation of consciousness, results in the breakdown of mind and consciousness: an inability to recognize, think or reason.

Lately I've been watching heaps of Donald Hoffman videos on YouTube... maybe I want to be the devil's advocate....
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donald_D._Hoffman

....Professor in the Department of Cognitive Sciences..... Hoffman studies consciousness, visual perception and evolutionary psychology using mathematical models and psychophysical experiments

....Hoffman notes that the commonly held view that brain activity causes conscious experience has, so far, proved to be intractable in terms of scientific explanation. Hoffman proposes a solution to the hard problem of consciousness by adopting the converse view that consciousness causes brain activity and, in fact, creates all objects and properties of the physical world. To this end, Hoffman developed and combined two theories - "multimodal user interface" (MUI) theory of perception and "conscious realism".

He seemed so knowledgeable and authoritative.... but now I've been reading his critics... anyway I'd prefer that physicalism is true since it makes simulations pretty straight-forward.

An interesting part in some of his YouTube interviews is about the split brain experiment - that is related to his "conscious agents" theory. He says split brain patients can play 20 questions with themselves and sometimes they lose... and sometimes one hemisphere is an atheist while another is a believer... etc...

He also talks about synesthesia....

Though those things are compatible with physicalism....

 

[DBT]

Non physical mind makes no sense. What is non physical? How would it work? How would non material/physical mind interact with the physical brain?

 

[excreationist]

Non physical mind makes no sense. What is non physical? How would it work? How would non material/physical mind interact with the physical brain?

Well apparently Donald Hoffman has described it using precise mathematics...

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/263704213_Objects_of_consciousness



The following equations are in the same paper are about "microphysical objects"




He sometimes says he's "probably wrong" but says he defines things precisely so that people can check it (something like that). He even discusses qualia (the hard problem) in the paper....

As far as your questions go he probably explains it all in his book....

 

[excreationist]

Another interesting thing that Donald Hoffman has said is:
https://www.guylawrence.com.au/case_against_reality_with_don_hoffman/
(about the Large Hadron Collider) [the transcript seems a bit corrupted]

.....You can explain those smashes and what comes out of them, the probabilities, with this new structure nice new structures beyond space time with symmetries that are beyond space time. And by the way, when you do it with these deeper structures, the math gets simple. When you try to do it in space time, you can get hundreds or thousands of pages you have to compute for each collision. With this deeper structure, not only do you see new symmetries, but the computation becomes literally trivial.

 

[DBT]

Non physical mind makes no sense. What is non physical? How would it work? How would non material/physical mind interact with the physical brain?

Well apparently Donald Hoffman has described it using precise mathematics...

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/263704213_Objects_of_consciousness

View attachment 29386

The following equations are in the same paper are about "microphysical objects"


View attachment 29387

He sometimes says he's "probably wrong" but says he defines things precisely so that people can check it (something like that). He even discusses qualia (the hard problem) in the paper....

As far as your questions go he probably explains it all in his book....

Not even close to describing non material mind. Hoffman has not described non material itself - by definition, a term without references, yet alone non material to material interaction within the brain or anywhere else.

Who has observed non material? Who has studied non material? Who has detected non material? Nobody.

 

[excreationist]

.....Not even close to describing non material mind. Hoffman has not described non material itself - by definition, a term without references, yet alone non material to material interaction within the brain or anywhere else.

Who has observed non material? Who has studied non material? Who has detected non material? Nobody.

He has published more than a hundred things:
http://cogsci.uci.edu/~ddhoff/publications.pdf
His book is 272 pages. I think he would say there is a lot to his theories... I don't think two random screenshots could summarise it all.... often his interviews on YouTube are an hour or multiple hours long. And he barely covers anything from his book.... (the book is probably very dense in content)

He talks quite a lot about qualia in that paper... and he is a professor so I assume he makes a somewhat coherent argument about qualia....
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/263704213_Objects_of_consciousness

 

[excreationist]

BTW Michael Shermer, founder of The Skeptics Society, says "I'm not convinced his argument is sound but it's a super interesting one that really makes you think about these things and does challenge many of our assumptions in a way that is quite useful. I hope you read the book - it's like reading David Deutsch - kind of mind-blowing"

 

[DBT]

.....Not even close to describing non material mind. Hoffman has not described non material itself - by definition, a term without references, yet alone non material to material interaction within the brain or anywhere else.

Who has observed non material? Who has studied non material? Who has detected non material? Nobody.

He has published more than a hundred things:
http://cogsci.uci.edu/~ddhoff/publications.pdf
His book is 272 pages. I think he would say there is a lot to his theories... I don't think two random screenshots could summarise it all.... often his interviews on YouTube are an hour or multiple hours long. And he barely covers anything from his book....

He talks quite a lot about qualia in that paper... and he is a professor so I assume he makes a somewhat coherent argument about qualia....

Hoffman is not the final word on consciousness. So called non material has not been detected, observed, defined, tested. No predictions can be made, no mechanisms between non material and the physical brain described. I don't mean the role of quantum micro-tubules in the brain, which are physical structures.


Hoffmans position is religion, not science.

Quote;
''The hypothesis that the brain creates consciousness, however, has vastly more evidence for it than the hypothesis that consciousness creates the brain. Damage to the fusiform gyrus of the temporal lobe, for example, causes face blindness, and stimulation of this same area causes people to see faces spontaneously. Stroke-caused damage to the visual cortex region called V1 leads to loss of conscious visual perception. Changes in conscious experience can be directly measured by functional MRI, electroencephalography and single-neuron recordings. Neuroscientists can predict human choices from brain-scanning activity before the subject is even consciously aware of the decisions made. Using brain scans alone, neuroscientists have even been able to reconstruct, on a computer screen, what someone is seeing.''

Where is the experience of red in your brain? The question was put to me by Deepak Chopra at his Sages and Scientists Symposium in Carlsbad, Calif., on March

A posse of presenters argued that the lack of a complete theory by neuroscientists regarding how neural activity translates into conscious experiences (such as redness) means that a physicalist approach is inadequate or wrong. The idea that subjective experience is a result of electrochemical activity remains a hypothesis, Chopra elaborated in an e-mail. It is as much of a speculation as the idea that consciousness is fundamental and that it causes brain activity and creates the properties and objects of the material world.

Where is Aunt Millie's mind when her brain dies of Alzheimer's? I countered to Chopra. Aunt Millie was an impermanent pattern of behavior of the universe and returned to the potential she emerged from, Chopra rejoined. In the philosophic framework of Eastern traditions, ego identity is an illusion and the goal of enlightenment is to transcend to a more universal nonlocal, nonmaterial identity.

The hypothesis that the brain creates consciousness, however, has vastly more evidence for it than the hypothesis that consciousness creates the brain. Damage to the fusiform gyrus of the temporal lobe, for example, causes face blindness, and stimulation of this same area causes people to see faces spontaneously. Stroke-caused damage to the visual cortex region called V1 leads to loss of conscious visual perception. Changes in conscious experience can be directly measured by functional MRI, electroencephalography and single-neuron recordings. Neuroscientists can predict human choices from brain-scanning activity before the subject is even consciously aware of the decisions made. Using brain scans alone, neuroscientists have even been able to reconstruct, on a computer screen, what someone is seeing.


''Thousands of experiments confirm the hypothesis that neurochemical processes produce subjective experiences. The fact that neuroscientists are not in agreement over which physicalist theory best accounts for mind does not mean that the hypothesis that consciousness creates matter holds equal standing.''

 

[excreationist]

Hoffman is not the final word on consciousness. So called non material has not been detected, observed, defined, tested. No predictions can be made, no mechanisms between non material and the physical brain described. I don't mean the role of quantum micro-tubules in the brain, which are physical structures.

Hoffmans position is religion, not science.

From post #54: (see also the quote there)
In that video, Michael Shermer, founder of The Skeptics Society, says "This is an evolutionary and cognitive science argument not a philosophical argument"

I don't think you can properly critique his theories without reading his book or at least watching some of his videos - or read the Wiki page:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donald_D._Hoffman

But anyway I barely am aware of what his arguments are so I can't really defend them. I think the book will teach me a lot about cognitive science research even if physicalism is true.... (BTW he used to be a physicalist)

 

[atrib]

In his video he never seems to realize that to get any of his evidence for phenomena that are "non-material" he has to have something that is clearly material. As a matter of fact, all the evidence they claim as non-material is clearly material.

How is it that dualists do not recognize this obvious contradiction in their arguments? They are saying, "Non-materialism is real. Here, let me show you something material to prove it."

What am I missing? Is the video a joke, something from the Onion?

Probably not taking serious the bits about serious scientific experiments.

Can you clarify? Point us to some of these serious scientific experiments, and where the findings were published?

 

[atrib]

Non physical mind makes no sense. What is non physical? How would it work? How would non material/physical mind interact with the physical brain?

All very good questions. Good luck getting any answers.

 

[skepticalbip]

Non physical mind makes no sense. What is non physical? How would it work? How would non material/physical mind interact with the physical brain?

I would say that mind is more a verb than a noun. Mind is what the brain does, an active process not a physical thing.

 

[T.G.G. Moogly]

Non physical mind makes no sense. What is non physical? How would it work? How would non material/physical mind interact with the physical brain?

I would say that mind is more a verb than a noun. Mind is what the brain does, an active process not a physical thing.

Mind and brain seem like semantic distinctions. Non-physicalism must be regarded as fantasy until demonstrated otherwise. It appears to me nothing more than a perception and comprehension issue with what constitutes scientific rigor for persons claiming non-physicalism. You can't separate beauty from the flower or speed from the runner. We can talk about those things like they're something distinct but they aren't.