Downward Causation: Useful or Misguided Idea?

[Speakpigeon]

Yeah, I'll try to have a quiet talk with my brain about that. You see, my brain seems to know more than me about logic. It seems to know the answers before I do. I'll talk to it and turn it down. Let's see who's in charge here! Thanks UM!
EB

 

[untermensche]

Yeah, I'll try to have a quiet talk with my brain about that. You see, my brain seems to know more than me about logic. It seems to know the answers before I do. I'll talk to it and turn it down. Let's see who's in charge here! Thanks UM!
EB

What is the square root of 3,479,003?

Don't use your mind or a method your mind knows about.

Just allow your brain to do it.

Of course your mind needs to tell your brain that a square root is desired first.

Why would a brain look at a number and think "square root needed"?

 

[untermensche]

As for UM, until he realises that the public relations department isn't the management...

Try to use your mind to move your arm.

You will get an inkling of what is in charge.

Try to use your mind to eat your brain.

You will get an inkling of what is in charge.
EB

Minds don't eat.

They move ideas around.

And arms.

And they can move the arm to destroy the brain.

 

[rousseau]

Holy shit, can we not have unterbot ruin another thread again?

 

[untermensche]

Holy shit, can we not have unterbot ruin another thread again?

Holy shit!!!

Are you not able to simply ignore what you are not interested in?

I have no trouble ignoring boring worthless shit and focusing on living ideas.

 

[Subsymbolic]

I'd suggest that you have a go at explaining how the Banach Tarski paradox is remotely possible if what you imply is true.

From your Wiki link:
"The reason the Banach–Tarski theorem is called a paradox is that it contradicts basic geometric intuition."

Well, me, I think that's a bit off. I could explain but I'd rather see you take your DBT medicine first...
EB

I'm not sure what you intended your quote to achieve, but the bottom line of B-T is that it is one example of an operation that can be performed in logic or maths that cannot be performed outside of logic or maths.

Perhaps you should have a go at explaining rather than just going for the ad hominems? However, DBT (Dialectical Behavioural Therapy) is a form of Cognitive Behavioural Therapy. It's a treatment rather than a condition and, as if that wasn't bad enough, it's a talking therapy, not a medicine. Either way, implying that I suffer from an intense Borderline Personality Disorder (which DBT was developed for treating) is driving a truck through the TOU and you should know better.

 

[Subsymbolic]

Well, kinda.

It's certainly the case that mental states supervene on physical states. That's just a commitment to monism. However, rather than argue something I've demonstrated before, to no discernable effect, I'll just point you at the work of Donald Davidson and Jaegwon Kim on anomalous monism. This isn't an argument, merely pointing you in a direction that is available. However, if you want to argue the case, rather than making a statement of what seems intuitively obvious to you and assuming that stands as a refutation, as both you and UM have done, I'd suggest that you have a go at explaining how the Banach Tarski paradox is remotely possible if what you imply is true.

If understanding the mind/brain were as simple as following what is intuitively obvious, there wouldn't be a problem with understanding how we work.

As for UM, until he realises that the public relations department isn't the management...

Try to use your mind to move your arm.

You will get an inkling of what is in charge.

No, I'll get an inkling of how my user illusion works. What I will not get is an inkling, no inkling whatsoever of how the computational elements of my brain process information and lead to action.

Do you really think that introspection is a reliable way of talking about anything except conscious experience; how things seem to you?

 

[Subsymbolic]

A brain that can do logic is a brain that has the necessary 'wiring' to do logic.

Brains don't do logic. Minds do.

Blows my mind! Could you explain that, "brains don't do logic"?

And what about computers?

And what about my logic assistant-professor, back in the days? I sure thought that what he was doing was logic, and teaching us logic! Yet, all I could see was his body, of course. His mind was probably something he was keen to keep for himself, I guess.

Brains don't do logic, that'd be a phrase very chic to utter here in Paris. Can I quote you on that?
EB

Easy, brains instantiate a virtual machine that processes information in a serial, symbol shuffling sort of manner. Brains, of course, do not function in this way as they process information in a massively parallel manner which simply doesn't lend itself to doing the sort of logical symbol shuffling that computers, processing information in a serial manner, rather than that massively parallel way that brains do it, find easy.

While the logic your professor tried to teach you supervenes on the brain, it supervenes through a virtual machine, or rather through a series of virtual machines. Brains simulate doing logic well enough to do logic, because simulated information processing is information processing. Computers actually do logic at a fundamental hardware level. Brains don't, at a fundamental wetware level. Even quite small coalitions of neurons can instantiate most information processing strategies, btu this supervene upon their fundamental information processing strategies which has a lot more to do with weighting, firing rate and threshold functions.

I'm pretty certain that isn't remotely what UM was trying to say.

But it is the case. If you look for logical functions in neurons, or indeed beliefs, desires, truth and meaning in the fundamental processing of the brain you'll come away disappointed.

 

[Speakpigeon]

Right now I feel like giving you a big hug!

It's such a relief just to have someone able to articulate intelligent ideas in good English after taking the UM medicine as I just did.

It sort of ate at my brain, I guess. So, thanks for your reply. You just saved my life!
EB

 

[Speakpigeon]

Try to use your mind to eat your brain.

You will get an inkling of what is in charge.
EB

Minds don't eat.

As I already observed before, you don't seem to understand English too well. Which makes any conversation with you like a mission to a retirement home. I can't spend my time pulling a tooth out o' you.
EB

 

[Speakpigeon]

I have no trouble ignoring boring worthless shit and focusing on living ideas.

I guess that was really meant to flatter me.

I wouldn't know how to reciprocate, though.

Impossible, I think.
EB

 

[Speakpigeon]

I'd suggest that you have a go at explaining how the Banach Tarski paradox is remotely possible if what you imply is true.

From your Wiki link:
"The reason the Banach–Tarski theorem is called a paradox is that it contradicts basic geometric intuition."

Well, me, I think that's a bit off. I could explain but I'd rather see you take your DBT medicine first...
EB

I'm not sure what you intended your quote to achieve, but the bottom line of B-T is that it is one example of an operation that can be performed in logic or maths that cannot be performed outside of logic or maths.

Perhaps you should have a go at explaining rather than just going for the ad hominems? However, DBT (Dialectical Behavioural Therapy) is a form of Cognitive Behavioural Therapy. It's a treatment rather than a condition and, as if that wasn't bad enough, it's a talking therapy, not a medicine. Either way, implying that I suffer from an intense Borderline Personality Disorder (which DBT was developed for treating) is driving a truck through the TOU and you should know better.

O-kay...

So, you force me now to admit I hadn't a clue Dialectical Behavioural Therapy existed at all. So, I couldn't possibly have meant to refer to that when I used the acronym 'DBT'.

So, no. No ad hominem in my post.

And I'll let you work out what else I could have meant.
EB

 

[Speakpigeon]

I'd suggest that you have a go at explaining how the Banach Tarski paradox is remotely possible if what you imply is true.

From your Wiki link:
"The reason the Banach–Tarski theorem is called a paradox is that it contradicts basic geometric intuition."

Well, me, I think that's a bit off. I could explain but I'd rather see you take your DBT medicine first...
EB

I'm not sure what you intended your quote to achieve, but the bottom line of B-T is that it is one example of an operation that can be performed in logic or maths that cannot be performed outside of logic or maths.

Perhaps you should have a go at explaining

I'll do that, just no yet.

As a matter of fact, It's a fascinating subject to me. Still, there's several directions to consider. First, the one of my initial comment that it's a bit off. And then my take on what you just claim above about the applicability of the interesting operation mentioned in the Banach–Tarski theorem. It seems there's a relation between these two directions. But I'm not the one you were talking to when you decided to bring that theorem up for consideration and I don't want to intrude. I'm sure what I have to say can wait. Although I'm not sure I'll be able to wait myself!
EB

 

[untermensche]

Well, kinda.

It's certainly the case that mental states supervene on physical states. That's just a commitment to monism. However, rather than argue something I've demonstrated before, to no discernable effect, I'll just point you at the work of Donald Davidson and Jaegwon Kim on anomalous monism. This isn't an argument, merely pointing you in a direction that is available. However, if you want to argue the case, rather than making a statement of what seems intuitively obvious to you and assuming that stands as a refutation, as both you and UM have done, I'd suggest that you have a go at explaining how the Banach Tarski paradox is remotely possible if what you imply is true.

If understanding the mind/brain were as simple as following what is intuitively obvious, there wouldn't be a problem with understanding how we work.

As for UM, until he realises that the public relations department isn't the management...

Try to use your mind to move your arm.

You will get an inkling of what is in charge.

No, I'll get an inkling of how my user illusion works. What I will not get is an inkling, no inkling whatsoever of how the computational elements of my brain process information and lead to action.

Do you really think that introspection is a reliable way of talking about anything except conscious experience; how things seem to you?

Where do you have an evidence of "user illusion" when you move your arm?

You've pulled that from left field.

There is no reason to think anything like that is happening.

 

[untermensche]

Right now I feel like giving you a big hug!

It's such a relief just to have someone able to articulate intelligent ideas in good English after taking the UM medicine as I just did.

It sort of ate at my brain, I guess. So, thanks for your reply. You just saved my life!
EB

You value bullshit and a flowery irrational style over substance.

You have no idea what things are worth.

brains instantiate a virtual machine that processes information in a serial, symbol shuffling sort of manner.

This is pure bullshit and there is not one bit of evidence for it.

Nobody has a clue how brains do what they do or what they are doing to create consciousness.

It is good you show how easily you are persuaded by bullshit.

 

[DBT]

Because logical determinism is not the same as physical determinism and a brain that can do logic (or maths) can arrive at conclusions, and thus behaviour that cannot be arrived at any other way. Which, of course, would be downward causation...

A brain that can do logic is a brain that has the necessary 'wiring' to do logic.

Brains don't do logic. Minds do.

And a mind needs education and practice to be logical. It is not the natural state of minds.

There is no mind without brain activity forming and generating mind. Mind has no autonomy from brain activity.

 

[DBT]

Because logical determinism is not the same as physical determinism and a brain that can do logic (or maths) can arrive at conclusions, and thus behaviour that cannot be arrived at any other way. Which, of course, would be downward causation...

A brain that can do logic is a brain that has the necessary 'wiring' to do logic.

Well, kinda.

It's certainly the case that mental states supervene on physical states. That's just a commitment to monism. However, rather than argue something I've demonstrated before, to no discernable effect, I'll just point you at the work of Donald Davidson and Jaegwon Kim on anomalous monism. This isn't an argument, merely pointing you in a direction that is available. However, if you want to argue the case, rather than making a statement of what seems intuitively obvious to you and assuming that stands as a refutation, as both you and UM have done, I'd suggest that you have a go at explaining how the Banach Tarski paradox is remotely possible if what you imply is true.

If understanding the mind/brain were as simple as following what is intuitively obvious, there wouldn't be a problem with understanding how we work.

As for UM, until he realises that the public relations department isn't the management...

It's not that it is 'intuitively obvious' to me that the ability to do logic is a function of neural architecture/ brain, but that this is what the available evidence supports. If the work of Donald Davidson and Jaegwon Kim suggests otherwise, perhaps you could provide quotes.

 

[untermensche]

Brains don't do logic. Minds do.

And a mind needs education and practice to be logical. It is not the natural state of minds.

There is no mind without brain activity forming and generating mind. Mind has no autonomy from brain activity.

How many times do you need to be told like a child that your logic sucks?

Saying the brain somehow and in some unknown manner creates consciousness does not tell us what consciousness can do to the brain.

You keep repeating this absolute nonsense I suppose because your mind is incapable of learning anymore.

 

[untermensche]

Try to use your mind to eat your brain.

You will get an inkling of what is in charge.
EB

Minds don't eat.

As I already observed before, you don't seem to understand English too well. Which makes any conversation with you like a mission to a retirement home. I can't spend my time pulling a tooth out o' you.
EB

You are very simple.

You only seem to be able to read a sentence one way.

Try to use your mind to eat your brain.

People that really understand English understand I responded to what you badly wrote.

 

[DBT]

Brains don't do logic. Minds do.

And a mind needs education and practice to be logical. It is not the natural state of minds.

There is no mind without brain activity forming and generating mind. Mind has no autonomy from brain activity.

How many times do you need to be told like a child that your logic sucks?

Saying the brain somehow and in some unknown manner creates consciousness does not tell us what consciousness can do to the brain.

You keep repeating this absolute nonsense I suppose because your mind is incapable of learning anymore.

Consciousness is a form of brain activity. Again, consciousness does whatever the brain is doing, nothing more, nothing less. That there are multiple feedback loops happening within the brain while conscious activity is taking place does not mean that consciousness has autonomy....as you appear to suggest.