Eliminating Qualia

[Koyaanisqatsi]

That's not what I'm saying.

That is precisely what you are saying. You say it again:

What exactly do you not understand about the difference between a process and that which arises out of the process?

Your point.

Painting is a process. "Art" is what arise out of that process. So? One is function, the other is form. Ok. Great. So what?

What is happening in the computer chip is the process.

What appears on the screen is what arises out of the process.

A simple distinction.

Simple, as in not compelling. And technically incorrect in regard to how computers work. Nothing "arises" on a computer screen as if emergent or of its own accord.

Now can we finally get to a point, because all you've done so far is equivocate different categories?

 

[ruby sparks]

Here's some features of Um's theory:

1. It involves substance duality, free will, the equivalent of ghosts and homunculi, and infinite regress.
2. Almost no one in the world apart from woo-heads and god-botherers endorses it.
3. He stops answering questions about it when they get tricky.
4. In the final analysis it boils down to 'it feels like it'.
5. He is certain about the rightness of it and other views are wrong and a waste of time.

What sort of 'thing' does that remind me of?

 

[Koyaanisqatsi]

Here's some features of Um's theory:

1. It involves substance duality, free will, the equivalent of ghosts and homunculi, and infinite regress.
2. Almost no one in the world apart from woo-heads and god-botherers endorses it.
3. He stops answering questions about it when they get tricky.
4. In the final analysis it boils down to 'it feels like it'.
5. He is certain about the rightness of it and other views are wrong and a waste of time.

What sort of 'thing' does that remind me of?

You have had more experience with him than I, but it doesn't seem like he's just trying to backdoor a god. Certainly nothing in what he's written so far allows for any such nonsense.

UM, is that your point? You're trying to hide a god in your gaps?

 

[WAB]

It seems to me that DBT and ruby believe you to be positing a ghost in the machine kind of thing, even if not literally a homonculous.

Not literally a homunculus but functionally equivalent.

I am pretty certain you are manifestly NOT positing anything like a soul or an agency completely independent of the brain, some external force that influences the brain.

Not external or completely independent but functionally separate. As I understand it, his mental agent is created by the brain, but then has 'Fat Controller' autonomy over the brain afterwards.

Unless there's supposed to be a separate 'thing' for merely perceiving qualia 'things' and another 'thing' for giving orders to the brain, plus other 'things' enabling the message activity between all the various 'things'. I would not be surprised.

Or sumfink...[George Harrison voice]

I admit defeat.* White flag.

Anyone want to suggest which lady I should be when I get tired of being Rabelais? I mean, Francois is the funniest man who ever lived, but, dayum, he's ugly. And everyone knows people are hard-wired to pay more attention to a pretty face than a homely one.








*[and there was much rejoicing...yaaaaaaaay]

 

[ruby sparks]

You have had more experience with him than I, but it doesn't seem like he's just trying to backdoor a god. Certainly nothing in what he's written so far allows for any such nonsense.

No, despite apparent similarities to god-type stuff, I don't think he's trying to backdoor a god. But substance dualism (or even his trinulaism, if 3 is the number of 'completely different things' that his model even stops at, which it may not be) doesn't have to be backdooring a god either, I suppose. There could be aspects and concepts which are hangovers from theism or religious thinking though.

Arguably the biggest issue with the model, at the moment, is, I think, subject to being corrected if I'm wrong, the internal logic.

If (according to the theory) in order for there to be an experience, there must be both an experiencer and something (separate) experienced, then who or what experiences mind (or self or what have you)? Self can't experience itself, because nothing can, according to the model, and if it were not experienced, it would surely not be known to exist. An infinite regress of experiencers follows, which he says is absurd, so his model is therefore apparently absurd, it would seem at this point. Being absurd would be a significant flaw in any argument.

This does not seem to me to be the case if the experiencer (of all mental stuff) is the brain, because nothing experiences the brain and the buck stops, as I see it.

There are other issues, such as how a mind could have autonomy and control if it is continuously being generated by a brain, and so on. Some 'thing 2' (mind, with very vague properties indeed) supposedly being in control of some other 'thing 1' (brain, with observable and measurable properties) with ' thing 2' (and at the same time 'things 3', the qualia to be perceived by 'thing 2') simultaneously/continuously being brought into existence by 'thing 1' may in fact get close to effectively being a duality contradiction.

There is arguably also a lack of parsimony, though of course that's no guarantee of anything. There is also the lack of an effective rebuttal of other models in which the brain could be the experiencer, so that remains an alternative option, not to mention anomalous monism, where brain and mind are essentially two sides of the same coin. And clinical science casts doubt on the idea that the conscious mind actually does control what we do in the way it feels like it does. And there is his claim of knowing stuff it is not possible to know for sure. And a reliance on introspection ('what things seem like') which science and philosophy have shown to be an unreliable method.

I would also mention in passing the not bothering to read or address the many scientific and philosophical papers offered, the clearly erroneous statements about biology and the inconsistency of asking for standards of evidence or proof that he himself does not have. Oh and the insults.

 

[untermensche]

A brain is "substance".

It's activity is the movement of it's "substances".

What arises from this activity is an effect, not a substance.

And a cell is the same cell whether it releases transmitter or not.

And the brain is the same brain even if the cells that make it up are active.

What changes with the introduction of LSD is the activity of cells. Not the cells.

 

[Koyaanisqatsi]

A brain is "substance".

It's activity is the movement of it's "substances".

What arises from this activity is an effect, not a substance.

And a brush holds paint, which is a substance. And applying the brush to canvas is an activity; the movement of the substance. And the result of that activity is an effect we call "art."

So what? Could you please move on to the point?

 

[ruby sparks]

And a cell is the same cell whether it releases transmitter or not.

And the brain is the same brain even if the cells that make it up are active.

What changes with the introduction of LSD is the activity of cells. Not the cells.

LSD changes the brain, physically. Just like the vegetable soup is changed with the cream in it even if the cream soaks into the vegetables (cells). The LSD molecules attach themselves to the seratonin receptors in the brain. The physical brain is different with and without LSD.

Apart from being persistently wrong about biology, do you actually have a point, other than avoiding the questions I asked you?

 

[untermensche]

Not all things are the same.

Art is many things.

It is first the artist. Specifically their skills.

It is also the materials. The paints and brushes and the canvas.

It is also the activity that created it. The movement of the artist's body and the application of paint.

And then it is the final product. The final arrangement of materials.

But art is nothing like a brain creating a mind.

 

[untermensche]

And a cell is the same cell whether it releases transmitter or not.

And the brain is the same brain even if the cells that make it up are active.

What changes with the introduction of LSD is the activity of cells. Not the cells.

The brain is still changed. Just like the vegetable soup is changed with the cream in it even if the cream soaks into the vegetables (cells). The LSD molecules attach themselves to the seratonin receptors in the brain. The physical brain is different.

Have another go.

Cells do not become something else because they behave differently.

We are not talking about a soup. Soup does not have a function.

We are talking about an organ with functional units.

And that organ nor it's functional units do not become something else because they behave differently.

That is desperate nonsense.

 

[ruby sparks]

Cells do not become something else because they behave differently.

We are not talking about a soup. Soup does not have a function.

We are talking about an organ with functional units.

And that organ nor it's functional units do not become something else because they behave differently.

That is desperate nonsense.

Cells are just your latest attempt at evasion. Your claim was that LSD didn't change the brain. That seems to have gone by the wayside all of a sudden.

You're even wrong at the cell level in any case, because the chemical content of a cell is de facto part of the physicality of the cell. You want to say the cell walls are the same? Whoopydedoo. Have a banana.

Try again.

Why are you even talking about this? What is your relevant point?

 

[untermensche]

The mind clearly is something that arises from activity.

That is why changing the activity with LSD changes the experience of the mind.

- - - Updated - - -

Cells do not become something else because they behave differently.

We are not talking about a soup. Soup does not have a function.

We are talking about an organ with functional units.

And that organ nor it's functional units do not become something else because they behave differently.

That is desperate nonsense.

Screw cells. Cells are just your latest attempt at evasion. Your claim was that LSD didn't change the brain.

Try again.

Screw cells?

Go away child.

 

[ruby sparks]

Screw cells?

Go away child.

Yep. I was right. Here is your claim:

You claim the brain itself and not merely it's activity changes in the presence of LSD. Absurdity!

The brain itself does change, because LSD molecules attach themselves to seratonin receptors. While they are there, they are part of the physical brain in every possible sense, however temporary. So you tried to switch to cells. Which you are also wrong about in any case.

And yes, of course this physical change in the brain affects the brain activity, which then affects the mind the brain generates.

Could you get to the relevant point? We all already agree than brain activity generates mind, and that LSD affects this.

 

[untermensche]

You have not changed a cell by binding to a receptor.

Same exact cell.

All that has changed is the behavior of that cell.

The mind arises because of specific behaviors.

Behaviors that can be altered with LSD.

 

[Subsymbolic]

You have not changed a cell by binding to a receptor.

Same exact cell.

All that has changed is the behavior of that cell.

The mind arises because of specific behaviors.

Behaviors that can be altered with LSD.

Perhaps you could explain how, precisely, it is the same exact cell with a LSD molecule locked into its S2A receptor site. The shape of the receptor site itself changes,l the cells firing threshold changes, its firing rate when triggered changes, its recovery time changes and the way it interacts with spatially or temporally bound neighbours changes and, of course, a whole bunch of synaptic neurotransmitters behave differently, That's just off the top of my head, I'm sure there's more.

You are talking objective science here. You are wrong.

Oh, and then there's this:

https://www.nature.com/articles/1395848.pdf

You understand what gene expression means? it means the genes in the cell make different proteins with different phenotypic effects. So the cell is spatially different, physically different, and functionally different. What's left?

 

[ruby sparks]

You have not changed a cell by binding to a receptor.

Perhaps you have not changed 'the cell' when it's just an LSD molecule attached to the receptor. Yes. Fair enough. But so what? What is your point? Seriously? The brain that has the LSD molecules attached to the receptors has changed. And other chemical toxins do change cells (kill them, for instance).

There is no such thing as 'a typical brain'. There are brains. They are all different. In some brains, there is more or less of this or that, seretonin, for example, or to be specific, more or less seretonin uptake. Hence, SSRI's, for depression. Well, that is the theory anyway.

I think we all agree that LSD and other chemicals change the brain in some way (even if not necessarily the cells) and therefore the brain activity and therefore the mind. So I'm not sure what you're getting at, because none of it demonstrates how your model is necessarily correct, because the (more accepted) model in which the brain is the experiencer of mental things is not affected by what you say about brain activity being altered by brain change. So quite honestly, your points about brain change and activity do not seem to be relevant to the topic at hand. At this time. Subject to you getting to the relevant point.

 

[untermensche]

You have not changed a cell by binding to a receptor.

Same exact cell.

All that has changed is the behavior of that cell.

The mind arises because of specific behaviors.

Behaviors that can be altered with LSD.

Perhaps you could explain how, precisely, it is the same exact cell with a LSD molecule locked into its S2A receptor site.

I like this from your linked article.

The effects of hallucinogens are thought to be mediated by serotonin receptor activation; however, how these drugs elicit the unusual behavioral effects remains largely a mystery, despite much research.

The receptor is part of the cell. Not the things that bind by sheer chance to the receptor.

Cells do change.

It is called differentiation.

But it does not happen because something binds to a receptor temporarily.

What that changes is only the behavior of the cell.

The mind arises due to the behavior of the brain.

Not simply because there is a brain.

 

[ruby sparks]

The mind arises due to the behavior of the brain.

Not simply because there is a brain.

You've agreed with something that nobody ever disagreed with.

So, back to the topic. What is the experiencer of your self?

 

[untermensche]

You have not changed a cell by binding to a receptor.

Perhaps you have not changed 'the cell' when it's just an LSD molecule attached to the receptor. Yes. Fair enough. But so what?

When LSD binds to a cell, actually to many cells, the behavior of the cells change and experience changes. The mind changes.

The mind is clearly a product of behavior.

It is a product. A "thing" unto itself.

 

[WAB]

it's - it is
its - possessive

/grammar nazi

*ducks for cover*

***

Ach! D'oh!

Typos*

*Found poem!

score!