Humans really don't know what they're doing?

[WAB]

Oh dear me, not Delgado again. Do you recall our discussions of Delgado years ago, and his wonderful views of the future, where armies and generals would be operated by remote control?

Ikkkk...disgusting.

Yeah, I know, I know, this is an ethical concern and has nothing to do with objective neuroscience or Delgado's productive contributions to the field.

Just wanted to vent some steam.

 

[DBT]

Oh dear me, not Delgado again. Do you recall our discussions of Delgado years ago, and his wonderful views of the future, where armies and generals would be operated by remote control?

Ikkkk...disgusting.

Yeah, I know, I know, this is an ethical concern and has nothing to do with objective neuroscience or Delgado's productive contributions to the field.

Just wanted to vent some steam.

Sure, I recall your objection. Delgado's personal beliefs were not relevant to the issue of brain stimulation research then, nor are they now. As I pointed out then, it's more a case of his enthusiasm for the research getting the better of his judgment than evil intent. By all accounts he was a decent fellow who shouldn't have made the comments but, unfortunately, did.

 

[untermensche]

It has been pointed out to you that thoughts, feelings and behaviours can be related to the electrochemical activity of brain.....altering chemical balance effecting related changes to consciousness, electrical stimulation of the brain generating thoughts, emotions and feelings according to which region is being stimulated, etc. Which you either ignore or brush aside.

A knowledge of relationships is not an understanding of activity. It is not an understanding of the phenomena.

And it is not any kind of understanding of how a phenomena arises.

That requires a model.

I'm sorry but that is how science works.

If there is no model that can be tested there is no understanding of the phenomena.

How do you think we understand electricity?

By relationships? You flick the switch and the light goes on. Now I understand electricity. How easy!

Hint: We use scientific models.

You miss the point. Deliberately, I suspect. As usual.

The point being that altering chemical balance does indeed alter consciousness. The point being that electrical stimulation of brain regions does in fact generates thoughts and feelings that are related to the region being stimulated.

Which in turn supports the proposition that consciousness is indeed an electrochemical activity of a brain....and not as you claim, something that is inexplicably autonomous.

Therefore you have no case.

One of the pioneers of EBS:

Delgado;

''Dr. Delgado's contention that brain research has reached a stage of refinement where it can contribute to the solution of some of these problems is based, he said, on many of his own experiments. These have shown, he explained, that "functions traditionally related to the psyche, such as friendliness, pleasure or verbal expression, can be induced, modified and inhibited by direct electrical stimulation of the brain."

For example, he has been able to "play" monkeys and cats 'like little electronic toys" that yawn, hide, fight, play, mate and go to sleep on command. And with humans under treatment for epilepsy, he has increased word output sixfold in one person, has produced severe anxiety in another, and in several others has induced feelings of profound friendliness all by electrical stimulation of various specific regions of their brain.''

Putting sand into the gas tank and altering the performance of the engine tells you absolutely nothing about how an engine works. Except it can be altered with sand.

After being told this countless times and still not comprehending speaks of a deep delusion and ulterior motives.

 

[Subsymbolic]

You miss the point. Deliberately, I suspect. As usual.

The point being that altering chemical balance does indeed alter consciousness. The point being that electrical stimulation of brain regions does in fact generates thoughts and feelings that are related to the region being stimulated.

Which in turn supports the proposition that consciousness is indeed an electrochemical activity of a brain....and not as you claim, something that is inexplicably autonomous.

Therefore you have no case.

One of the pioneers of EBS:

Delgado;

''Dr. Delgado's contention that brain research has reached a stage of refinement where it can contribute to the solution of some of these problems is based, he said, on many of his own experiments. These have shown, he explained, that "functions traditionally related to the psyche, such as friendliness, pleasure or verbal expression, can be induced, modified and inhibited by direct electrical stimulation of the brain."

For example, he has been able to "play" monkeys and cats 'like little electronic toys" that yawn, hide, fight, play, mate and go to sleep on command. And with humans under treatment for epilepsy, he has increased word output sixfold in one person, has produced severe anxiety in another, and in several others has induced feelings of profound friendliness all by electrical stimulation of various specific regions of their brain.''

Putting sand into the gas tank and altering the performance of the engine tells you absolutely nothing about how an engine works. Except it can be altered with sand.

After being told this countless times and still not comprehending speaks of a deep delusion and ulterior motives.

Your analogy doesn't work - putting sand in the brain would be poisoning it. In this case it's being tuned for an effect. Someone who can tune an engine for a particular effect has a deep understanding of it. As we move into summer, for example, I used my knowledge of my

car's engine to apply a remap to sacrifice the torque I mapped in last autumn for a bit more high end fizz. I could have put sand in the tank but I'll leave such surgery to experts like you. Of course as you are almost certainly an expert on cars too, feel free to tell me what my engine is...

 

[Keith&Co.]

And with humans under treatment for epilepsy, he has increased word output sixfold in one person, has produced severe anxiety in another, and in several others has induced feelings of profound friendliness all by electrical stimulation of various specific regions of their brain.''

So, the theory some people have is that the brain is not the source of the mind, just the tool it uses to interface with the body.
If that were true, then wouldn't stimulation of the brain NOT produce anxiety, but maybe produce the body changes associated with anxiety? Pounding heartbeat, a need to pee, muscle tension, voting conservative, while the mind reports no change in feelings?
I mean, assuming the subject is not anxious about the testing until the switch is thrown, it seems like there's no way to produce feelings upstream, if the mind is not a brain product.

 

[DBT]

You miss the point. Deliberately, I suspect. As usual.

The point being that altering chemical balance does indeed alter consciousness. The point being that electrical stimulation of brain regions does in fact generates thoughts and feelings that are related to the region being stimulated.

Which in turn supports the proposition that consciousness is indeed an electrochemical activity of a brain....and not as you claim, something that is inexplicably autonomous.

Therefore you have no case.

One of the pioneers of EBS:

Delgado;

''Dr. Delgado's contention that brain research has reached a stage of refinement where it can contribute to the solution of some of these problems is based, he said, on many of his own experiments. These have shown, he explained, that "functions traditionally related to the psyche, such as friendliness, pleasure or verbal expression, can be induced, modified and inhibited by direct electrical stimulation of the brain."

For example, he has been able to "play" monkeys and cats 'like little electronic toys" that yawn, hide, fight, play, mate and go to sleep on command. And with humans under treatment for epilepsy, he has increased word output sixfold in one person, has produced severe anxiety in another, and in several others has induced feelings of profound friendliness all by electrical stimulation of various specific regions of their brain.''

Putting sand into the gas tank and altering the performance of the engine tells you absolutely nothing about how an engine works. Except it can be altered with sand.

After being told this countless times and still not comprehending speaks of a deep delusion and ulterior motives.

Nothing of the sort. Stimulating brain regions just exposes their various roles and functions. Natural inputs, the things you see or hear or smell, etc, which arouse emotions do essentially the same thing.....impulses from the senses, eyes, ears, etc, are processed and distributed, thus stimulating the very regions that Delgado, et al, experiment with.

Which shows that it is indeed these brain structures that are producing thoughts, feelings, emotions and behaviours regardless of the nature of the input.

 

[untermensche]

Stimulation regions of the brain excites neurons which merely gives rise to random activity. It does not tell us how the brain does anything. Not an inkling.

We don't know how the brain creates "red" by stimulating the brain.

We don't know how the brain creates the mind by stimulating the brain.

We don't get one clue how the brain does anything by eliciting random abnormal activity.

We might learn a little about regions and pathways. But we don't know what is happening in these regions in terms of productive activity, only that the region is somehow involved in some subjective report. How it is specifically involved we don't have a clue.

And it is all based around subjective reporting.

Take away the subjective reports and you have nothing. Not one bit of understanding. Because nothing is known about how the brain creates anything.

Only where. And knowing where does not allow us to know how.

What we want to know about brain activity is HOW it is creating it's effects, not WHERE.

Knowing specifically in the brain where things are happening is good for doctors but it tells us nothing about what the brain is doing.

 

[DBT]

Stimulation regions of the brain excites neurons which merely gives rise to random activity. It does not tell us how the brain does anything. Not an inkling.

Rubbish. The whole point of the exercise is to acquire a better understanding the brain and its functions. Stimulating brain regions does that. As do case studied of brain pathologies and their symptoms. Just face the facts.

 

[untermensche]

Stimulation regions of the brain excites neurons which merely gives rise to random activity. It does not tell us how the brain does anything. Not an inkling.

Rubbish. The whole point of the exercise is to acquire a better understanding the brain and its functions. Stimulating brain regions does that. As do case studied of brain pathologies and their symptoms. Just face the facts.

The only thing it can do is discover regions that have a relationship in some unknown way to subjective experience.

It will never explain subjective experience or explain how anything experienced is produced.

Cells react to electrical stimulation.

That does not make consciousness an electrical effect.

It just means cells react to electrical stimulation and you can elicit a subjective experience by artificially stimulating them. The normal cellular activity that is artificially elicited creates the subjective experience, not the abnormal external stimulation.

And because it is artificial stimulation you get somewhat artificial experiences, not normal experiences.

The whole enterprise is not even an examination of normal experiences.

 

[fromderinside]

Subjective experience is about as bad as it gets in the experience world. The most reliable experience are catalogs of actions that lead to gains for you relative to the world. I call this objecive experience. it's relative to the world, post hoc, so one really doesn't know whether one has made objective gains until those gains accrue. For most, subjective experience is a mix of probable gains and losses in the moment on the fly, a rather emotion colored thing that is almost all affect. For others it is an ever changing map of how one feels about what one has done or is doing. In either case it is practically useless unless you find calling a space a spade profitable.

 

[untermensche]

All experience is subjective experience.

 

[WAB]

Obviously. Fromder, what exactly is objective experience?

Edit: I retract that. This seems to be an adequate definition. I missed it, sorry:

catalogs of actions that lead to gains for you relative to the world.

 

[DBT]

Stimulation regions of the brain excites neurons which merely gives rise to random activity. It does not tell us how the brain does anything. Not an inkling.

Rubbish. The whole point of the exercise is to acquire a better understanding the brain and its functions. Stimulating brain regions does that. As do case studied of brain pathologies and their symptoms. Just face the facts.

The only thing it can do is discover regions that have a relationship in some unknown way to subjective experience.

It will never explain subjective experience or explain how anything experienced is produced.

Cells react to electrical stimulation.

That does not make consciousness an electrical effect.

It just means cells react to electrical stimulation and you can elicit a subjective experience by artificially stimulating them. The normal cellular activity that is artificially elicited creates the subjective experience, not the abnormal external stimulation.

And because it is artificial stimulation you get somewhat artificial experiences, not normal experiences.

The whole enterprise is not even an examination of normal experiences.

Nonsense. The whole point of the experiments and studies is to get a better understanding of how the brain function, the cognitive roles of various regions, etc.

It is not as if nothing is understood because it is not understood how a brain forms its subjective experience. It is clear that it does, however that is achieved.

Furthermore, for the thousandth time, there is no evidence for your notion of 'smart consciousness' being the director of a 'dumb brain' - this being utter nonsense.

 

[DBT]

All experience is subjective experience.

Yet experience can also be related to objective information which, being objective, may be accessed by anyone.

 

[untermensche]

The only thing it can do is discover regions that have a relationship in some unknown way to subjective experience.

It will never explain subjective experience or explain how anything experienced is produced.

Cells react to electrical stimulation.

That does not make consciousness an electrical effect.

It just means cells react to electrical stimulation and you can elicit a subjective experience by artificially stimulating them. The normal cellular activity that is artificially elicited creates the subjective experience, not the abnormal external stimulation.

And because it is artificial stimulation you get somewhat artificial experiences, not normal experiences.

The whole enterprise is not even an examination of normal experiences.

Nonsense. The whole point of the experiments and studies is to get a better understanding of how the brain function, the cognitive roles of various regions, etc.

It is not as if nothing is understood because it is not understood how a brain forms its subjective experience. It is clear that it does, however that is achieved.

Furthermore, for the thousandth time, there is no evidence for your notion of 'smart consciousness' being the director of a 'dumb brain' - this being utter nonsense.

You are lost in delusion.

There is no point beyond discovering which areas of the brain you can artificially stimulate to get a subjective report.

It only tells you that subjective reports arise when you stimulate certain areas. Or subjective reports change.

That is the end if it.

No other information is gained from these near pointless exercises.

You don't learn if these are the only areas involved in the subjective report. You don't know how the subjective experience is generated. You don't learn anything about consciousness and how it effects the brain.

A form of scientific ignorance is not understanding what a study shows and does not show.

- - - Updated - - -

All experience is subjective experience.

Yet experience can also be related to objective information which, being objective, may be accessed by anyone.

What objective information do you have about experience?

Artificially eliciting an experience only tells you how to artificially elicit an experience.

It tells you nothing else objective about an experience.

 

[untermensche]

Obviously. Fromder, what exactly is objective experience?

Edit: I retract that. This seems to be an adequate definition. I missed it, sorry:

catalogs of actions that lead to gains for you relative to the world.

It is not an "experience". It is a catalog. It MIGHT become a command, a reflex, if "that which experiences", the mind, senses significant and imminent danger.

All experience is subjective experience. All that is known is known through subjective experience.

When there is agreement between subjective experiences that is not an objective experience.

 

[DBT]

You are lost in delusion.

There is no point beyond discovering which areas of the brain you can artificially stimulate to get a subjective report.

It only tells you that subjective reports arise when you stimulate certain areas. Or subjective reports change.

That is the end if it.

It's clear who is delusional. It's not me. So according to you, all of the research, experiments and analysis that has been done over many decades by people who's aim is to better understand the brain and its functions has been an utter waste of time and nothing has been learned......yet you yourself, mr untermensche, know something, you know that it is 'smart consciousness' that is in charge of a 'dumb brain' because you experience yourself raising your arm 'at will' - meanwhile completely ignoring the mechanisms and means of your experience.

Oh, yes, precisely where the delusion lies is quite clear.

What objective information do you have about experience?

Really? Well, anyone can read the same book, look at the same sunset, agree that they are sitting in a car traveling from point A to point B and so on,

Objective information. Verifiable by anyone who cares to check.

Just as there has been a body of information about brain functions, regions, pathologies and behaviours, acquired through research.....that one Mr Untermensche is not willing to consider because he knows better. He knows better because he experiences the ability to raise his arm at will, yet ignores the means of his experience.

 

[untermensche]

I am saying rational things like: All you can learn is how to artificially elicit an artificial experience. You do not learn how a brain generates an experience.

And you are saying nonsense like:

So according to you, all of the research, experiments and analysis that has been done over many decades by people who's aim is to better understand the brain and its functions has been an utter waste of time and nothing has been learned

Others can decide who is reasonable.

 

[fromderinside]

Obviously. Fromder, what exactly is objective experience?

Edit: I retract that. This seems to be an adequate definition. I missed it, sorry:

catalogs of actions that lead to gains for you relative to the world.

It is not an "experience". It is a catalog. It MIGHT become a command, a reflex, if "that which experiences", the mind, senses significant and imminent danger.

All experience is subjective experience. All that is known is known through subjective experience.

When there is agreement between subjective experiences that is not an objective experience.

First, people can hold two or more experiences in mind at a time and two or more experiences can form the basis for a catalog. You need to take a look at a statistical topic of measurement called  conjoint measurement where it is shown that subjective scales like ordinal ones can, when joined together, become interval scales information. All that is necessary is that one hold one's catalog in mind when one is experiencing something. We've used such as these with experienced experts to extract objective data about flight performance and workload for instance.

 

[untermensche]

You do not hold experiences in your mind. That is not an experience. It is a memory.

Experience is the totality of what you are experiencing in the ever changing present.