Consciousness

[untermensche]

Solubility is actually something I studied a lot about in pharmacy school. It is a very interesting topic.

But it all happens because of the properties of water molecules.

It is highly controlled.

If we look at something like a computer it too only can perform consistent complicated functions because of very detailed controls.

It is irrational nonsense to say complicated behavior can result in complicated and consistent results without controls.

 

[George S]

Solubility is actually something I studied a lot about in pharmacy school. It is a very interesting topic.

But it all happens because of the properties of water molecules.

It is highly controlled.

If we look at something like a computer it too only can perform consistent complicated functions because of very detailed controls.

It is irrational nonsense to say complicated behavior can result in complicated and consistent results without controls.

Natural effects, like solubility, behave a certain way. This does not imply control. Quite the opposite. Remember, natural "laws" are descriptive but not prescriptive.

Water has always behaved a certain way in the past. The description of this behavior we can call a "law" of nature.

 

[Subsymbolic]

Solubility is actually something I studied a lot about in pharmacy school. It is a very interesting topic.

Ahh, now I see why you are so keen on breaking bad habits!

But it all happens because of the properties of water molecules.

Surely not 'all'? it has to be a relation between solvent and solute, no?

It is highly controlled.

As I explained, saying it like that is just misleading. You'll just confuse yourself.

If we look at something like a computer it too only can perform consistent complicated functions because of very detailed controls.

See, you have confused yourself. Just think about using the computer metaphor: a computer has a clock, for example, does, say, a rotting apple need a clock to tell it what order to do things in?

It is irrational nonsense to say complicated behavior can result in complicated and consistent results without controls.

I just think that you are confusing yourself by using the word 'controls', you couldn't pick a worse one. Keep it simple, think of an idealised three+ body problem. The only force in play is gravity, the only stuff is mass and yet the simple interactions between the two over an increasing number of bodies gives both complicated, consistent behaviour. Either you want to call gravity and mass 'control' in which case you really are using an unhelpful word, or you want to say something else about this in which case I'm all ears.

 

[untermensche]

Solubility is actually something I studied a lot about in pharmacy school. It is a very interesting topic.

But it all happens because of the properties of water molecules.

It is highly controlled.

If we look at something like a computer it too only can perform consistent complicated functions because of very detailed controls.

It is irrational nonsense to say complicated behavior can result in complicated and consistent results without controls.

Natural effects, like solubility, behave a certain way. This does not imply control. Quite the opposite. Remember, natural "laws" are descriptive but not prescriptive.

Water has always behaved a certain way in the past. The description of this behavior we can call a "law" of nature.

You can't behave in a complex manner with consistency without controls.

If there were no controls you could not see consistency in complex behavior.

 

[untermensche]

Ahh, now I see why you are so keen on breaking bad habits!

What the fuck are you babbling about?

Explain what I mean by "control"?

Do you somehow think the behavior of molecules are not restrained? Not highly controlled by forces?

Your comments are absurd.

 

[Subsymbolic]

Ahh, now I see why you are so keen on breaking bad habits!

What the fuck are you babbling about?

Explain what I mean by "control"?

Do you somehow think the behavior of molecules are not restrained? Not highly controlled by forces?

Your comments are absurd.

I made my position on your choice of word quite clear earlier:

To say things like 'it is controlled' at best inserts teleology in precisely the wrong place and at worst implies a sense of some sort of outside agency which is simply not there. It's important to distinguish between actions and events and avoid language that implies action when only events are taking place.

With water it is less important, but when talking about brains, the chances of making category errors or inserting teleology where there isn't any becomes rather too high.

Given that, how about you explain what is going on in a pond? It doesn't have to be too deep: keep it periodic and nothing below London, but if you are going to say things like 'You should study about it some day.' then you really need to be able to demonstrate that your knowledge justifies your vaunt.

What I don't understand is how you could read this:

I just think that you are confusing yourself by using the word 'controls', you couldn't pick a worse one. Keep it simple, think of an idealised three+ body problem. The only force in play is gravity, the only stuff is mass and yet the simple interactions between the two over an increasing number of bodies gives both complicated, consistent behaviour. Either you want to call gravity and mass 'control' in which case you really are using an unhelpful word, or you want to say something else about this in which case I'm all ears.

and then write what you did.


I doubt anyone else will be able to either.

And yes, I'd like you to try to explain what you men by control, because right now you are once again equivocating between extrinsic control in a computer and intrinsic control in molecular interactions. Either you are equivocating or confused. Either way, I'm starting to see a pattern. The bottom line is that 'control' implies a controller and that is always going to be unhelpful. You really need to use a more teleologically neutral term.

 

[untermensche]

So after you spew a bunch of nonsense you decide that maybe you need to know what I mean by "control"?

I use it in the broadest sense possible.

So gravity is a control. It is a force that can direct action.

Electromagnetism is a control.

The properties of elementary particles are controls.

Nothing is happening in matter haphazardly. Nothing happens in a molecule without very tight controls. The scope and limits of action are controlled. A water molecule cannot suddenly become a benzene ring. An electron can only be in certain places, not all.

Water molecules arrange themselves mainly due to electrical forces. The dipole nature of the molecule creates a separation of charge.

But in this thread control means the control of brain activity which allows long lasting and incredibly complex phenomena to occur.

This cannot happen by magic.

Saying it happens because the brain is the brain is to say absolutely nothing.

If a brain can turn electromagnetic energy into a color and do it over and over again then it needs some kind of controls on it's activity to do so.

If the brain can turn activity into something that experiences the color it needs incredibly precise controls.

 

[bilby]

I made my position on your choice of word quite clear earlier:

To say things like 'it is controlled' at best inserts teleology in precisely the wrong place and at worst implies a sense of some sort of outside agency which is simply not there. It's important to distinguish between actions and events and avoid language that implies action when only events are taking place.

With water it is less important, but when talking about brains, the chances of making category errors or inserting teleology where there isn't any becomes rather too high.

Given that, how about you explain what is going on in a pond? It doesn't have to be too deep: keep it periodic and nothing below London, but if you are going to say things like 'You should study about it some day.' then you really need to be able to demonstrate that your knowledge justifies your vaunt.

What I don't understand is how you could read this:

I just think that you are confusing yourself by using the word 'controls', you couldn't pick a worse one. Keep it simple, think of an idealised three+ body problem. The only force in play is gravity, the only stuff is mass and yet the simple interactions between the two over an increasing number of bodies gives both complicated, consistent behaviour. Either you want to call gravity and mass 'control' in which case you really are using an unhelpful word, or you want to say something else about this in which case I'm all ears.

and then write what you did.


I doubt anyone else will be able to either.

I could probably explain it, but the TOU of the board do not allow me to.

 

[Subsymbolic]

So after you spew a bunch of nonsense you decide that maybe you need to know what I mean by "control"?

I use it in the broadest sense possible.

So gravity is a control. It is a force that can direct action.

Electromagnetism is a control.

The properties of elementary particles are controls.

Nothing is happening in matter haphazardly. Nothing happens in a molecule without very tight controls. The scope and limits of action are controlled. A water molecule cannot suddenly become a benzene ring. An electron can only be in certain places, not all.

Water molecules arrange themselves mainly due to electrical forces. The dipole nature of the molecule creates a separation of charge.

But in this thread control means the control of brain activity which allows long lasting and incredibly complex phenomena to occur.

This cannot happen by magic.

Saying it happens because the brain is the brain is to say absolutely nothing.

If a brain can turn electromagnetic energy into a color and do it over and over again then it needs some kind of controls on it's activity to do so.

If the brain can turn activity into something that experiences the color it needs incredibly precise controls.

Cool, in that case, why use such a misleading word when physics offers you more precise terms that do not have misleading teleological connotations. More ot the point, what that actual fuck was your computer metaphor trying to do?

 

[untermensche]

Physics offers no better word.

The computer metaphor is clear.

You can have hardware but it can't do anything productive without very complicated "instructions". These "instructions" place the scope and limit on activity. They say what can and cannot happen.

You can have a brain but it too can't do anything productive without "instructions", without "controls" on it's activity.

And since it is activity involving trillions of elements and the resultant phenomena is incredibly complex and long lasting the controls must be very precise and durable.

 

[Subsymbolic]

Physics offers no better word.

If you are quite sure. So when you say:

Nothing happens in a molecule without very tight controls.

for example, you are quite certain that there are no better words than control to describe what happens in a molecule? Are you quite sure?

The computer metaphor is clear.

Yes, it certainly is clear, that's precisely why I'm questioning it. Your use of the word 'control' could just be a very unfortunate word choice, but your use of the computer metaphor forces me to a much less charitable conclusion.

You can have hardware but it can't do anything productive without very complicated "instructions".

This gives me no option but to assume that we are talking about a traditional, serial computer with a nice clear distinction between software and hardware. In which case, of course. However, what you are now explicitly saying, that was only implicit in your word choice. is that this control is extrinsic. It comes from outside of the computer, in the shape of a program, a proper procedure that tells the computer what to do 'instructions'.

These "instructions" place the scope and limit on activity. They say what can and cannot happen.

Perhaps you can help me out though. Why exactly are you wrapping quotations around the word 'instructions'. I assume there's a reason. You are using the computer metaphor and so you are clearly describing the algorithm, the formal instructions that tell the computer what to do. What is it about this that makes you uncomfortable with the word 'instructions'. (Please don't let me catch you equivocating again...)

You can have a brain but it too can't do anything productive without "instructions", without "controls" on it's activity.

Sure, but in the case of a computer those controls are imposed on the software by the hardware. The instructions come from outside the computer. If you are convinced that this is a good metaphor then I guess you have to be committed to saying that the same is true of things happening in a molecule - that the controi comes from outside it (and indeed that the possibility exists that those controls could be changed; that we could reprogram a molecule if we were l33t enough. Obviously this is bollocks. A computer follows a program. molecules of water or indeed serotonin are not following an algorithm that is imposed on them as by a program. They are merely being what they are and intrinsically playing out the consequences of the physical attributes they have in the situation they are in. The computer metaphor demands that we see control as extrinsic, which is precisely the wrong way of looking at precisely the wrong word. Water in a pond tends towards the lowest energy state because of ......... not because it is following orders. (I'm still waiting for that pond description by the way...)

And since it is activity involving trillions of elements and the resultant phenomena is incredibly complex and long lasting the controls must be very precise and durable.

Not by very simple interactions giving rise to emergent behaviour without any extrinsic controls beyond each molecules intrinsic nature?

 

[untermensche]

for example, you are quite certain that there are no better words than control to describe what happens in a molecule? Are you quite sure?

I am not limiting the idea to molecules.

So there is no better word.

And you have made no argument to suggest extremely tight controls are not necessary for brain activity to achieve a complicated and consistent result.

 

[fromderinside]

Untermenche you are reinventing things to no purpose. You replace physical laws of nature with controls in part, Does your rational for so doing adhere to simplest explanation structure? If so, lease provide your law of control in math form within your consciousness theory. It would make our digesting of your terms simpler.

 

[untermensche]

Nothing has been replaced.

But some things are clearly recognized.

To have any consistent result requires tight controls on behavior. The key idea here is consistent and complicated result. It cannot be achieved by magic.

To deny it is to make oneself useless.

 

[Kharakov]

Look- anything eternal is not controlled, since it wasn't caused. Since the universe wasn't caused, it's eternal... so it isn't controlled.

You're just arguing the same stupid idea from a different angle.

 

[Treedbear]

...

If the brain can turn activity into something that experiences the color it needs incredibly precise controls.

Cool, in that case, why use such a misleading word when physics offers you more precise terms that do not have misleading teleological connotations. More ot the point, what that actual fuck was your computer metaphor trying to do?

I agree. I'd simply say cause or causes. Control implies intent, either directly or by design. Rather than "precise controls" I would say something like "intricate causes".

 

[untermensche]

You could not be more lost.

There is no connection between this and the impossibility of infinite time in the past.

This is about what is neccessary for complicated activity to create a consistent and complicated result.

That cannot happen by magic.

It can only happen when the activity has precise controls on it's behavior.

 

[Treedbear]

You could not be more lost.

There is no connection between this and the impossibility of infinite time in the past.

...

If that's in reply to my last post then you've definitely lost me.

 

[bilby]

You could not be more lost.

There is no connection between this and the impossibility of infinite time in the past.

...

If that's in reply to my last post then you've definitely lost me.

He's lost himself.

One of his bigger problems is that he seems to think that there exist unconnected facts, explanations and events.

He's completely clueless about the simple fact that all knowledge is interrelated by universally applicable physical laws and principles. Unter inhabits a weird multiverse, in which each subject area has its own unique set of rules, and its own logic, unrelated to those that exist in any other subject area.

It's truly bizarre; and it leads to some hilarious contradictions that he somehow manages to ignore completely - although to do so he basically has to shut down any and all discussion with endless repeats of 'nobody knows anything, therefore I know everything and you are all lost sheep'.

 

[untermensche]

You could not be more lost.

There is no connection between this and the impossibility of infinite time in the past.

...

If that's in reply to my last post then you've definitely lost me.

No. It was for the post before your post.