Objective/Subjective

[fromderinside]

My position is that as minds all is subjective.

All we have are experiences.

Our experiences of the world and the world are not the same thing. The world has no color but our experiences do. Because our experiences are created by an evolved brain. Experiences are not the world somehow directly entering our minds.

"Objective" is a subset of subjective experience.

It is an assumption that there are 'things' in the world behind some of our experiences.

We experience ourselves standing on the planet and not falling through it. So we assume there is something behind the experience causing the experience.

When we assume there is something out there "behind" our experiences we label that 'thing', not the experience of it, as "objective".

"Objective" is a subjective assumption about things in the world related to our experiences.

We can't prove there are "objects" behind our experiences because all we have are experiences.

But there is great utility in assuming there are 'things' behind certain experiences and if we fail to make the assumption we will not survive long.

If we don't assume there is something behind our experience of the cliff we will not survive long. Evolution drives us to make that assumption.

Welcome to FDI's wheelhouse.

Psychology went through such as you propose about 150 years ago.

Rat

 Wilhelm Wundt

C.S. Sherrington repeatedly quotes Wundt's research on the physiology of the reflexes in his textbook,^[60] but not Wundt's neuropsychological concepts.^[59]

Tat

 Introspection

However, when we consider research on the topic, this conclusion seems less self-evident. If, for example, extensive introspection can cause people to make decisions that they later regret, then one very reasonable possibility is that the introspection caused them to 'lose touch with their feelings'. In short, empirical studies suggest that people can fail to appraise adequately (i.e. are wrong about) their own experiential

Bumpf

https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/introspection/

Other recent arguments against the accuracy of introspective judgments about conscious experience turn on citing the widespread disagreement about whether there is a “phenomenology of thinking” beyond that of imagery and emotion, about whether sensory experience as a whole is “rich” (including for example constant tactile experience of one’s feet in one’s shoes) or “thin” (limited mostly just to what is in attention at any one time), and about the nature of visual imagery experience (Hurlburt and Schwitzgebel 2007; Bayne and Spener 2010; Schwitzgebel 2011b; though see Hohwy 2011).
Irvine (2013, forthcoming) has argued that the methodological problems in this area are so severe that the term “consciousness” should be eliminated from scientific discourse as impossible to effectively operationalize or measure. Feest (2014) and Timmermans and Cleeremans (2015) similarly highlight the substantial methodological challenges using introspective reports in the science of consciousness, though without being quite as pessimistic as Irvine.

Introspection has a bad patina, it stink's of philosophy and elitism and continuous failure to actually explain anything.

Self fulfilling prophesy is the most generous I can be about such garbage when wrapped in the claimed attribute of science. Here even Gazzaniga destroys self reporting as anything other than rationalization.

The world isn't subjective else there would be only one of us. No way around that conclusion independent of material verification which is denial of the idea of introspection.

I leave you with plenty of stuff to whataba whataba whataba about.

 

[WAB]

All in quotes are Untermensche's comments. (I am having a drastically hard time with the reply-with-quote thingy)

My position is that as minds all is subjective.

I think I get what you mean, but this sentence is unclear. What do you mean by "as minds"? That we are nothing but minds? No, that can't be. Obviously we have a physical body. We are perceived by others as objects, and we percieve others as objects. We, us, are subjects and objects. Our conscious experience is subjective; our existence is objective.

All we have are experiences.

Alright, but gleaned from a reality exterior to ourselves, which is not dependent on us, and which exists independently of us, and which existed eons before we were born and will exist after we die. A thing can exist without being conscious; but a thing cannot be conscious without existing.

"Objective" is a subset of subjective experience.

No. Subjective experience depends absolutely on something existing - existing objectively. Existence is primary.

It is an assumption that there are 'things' in the world behind some of our experiences.

Well, alright. But it's a manifestly reasonable and rational assumption.

"Objective" is a subjective assumption about things in the world related to our experiences.

No. Subjective assumptions depend entirely on the existence of things and events that we experience. No things, no events happening, no experience.

We can't prove there are "objects" behind our experiences because all we have are experiences.

No. We also have our existence as objects, as things.

But there is great utility in assuming there are 'things' behind certain experiences and if we fail to make the assumption we will not survive long.

Of course there is utility in acknowledging reality. To do otherwise is madness, chaos, self-destruction.

 

[untermensche]

I think I get what you mean, but this sentence is unclear. What do you mean by "as minds"? That we are nothing but minds? No, that can't be. Obviously we have a physical body. We are perceived by others as objects, and we percieve others as objects. We, us, are subjects and objects. Our conscious experience is subjective; our existence is objective.

The mind is partially "that which experiences". It must exist for there to be experience. When we have an experience there is no possible doubt we are having that experience. That is the nature of experience.

There are experiences of the assumed 'external world', sights and sounds and resistance from experienced 'objects', and there are also experiences of 'internal' things like emotions and drives and memories.

The mind is also that which has "intelligence". It experiences and acts using that intelligence.

The mind can also act. It can make decisions and move the body and try to convince other people of things.

The mind is created by experience. It grows and changes over time.

If certain assumptions made about existence are true then ultimately the mind is an evolved survival tool. Like teeth are an evolved survival tool. And no two people have the same mind. It is individualistic, just like teeth.

Alright, but gleaned from a reality exterior to ourselves, which is not dependent on us, and which exists independently of us, and which existed eons before we were born and will exist after we die. A thing can exist without being conscious; but a thing cannot be conscious without existing.

All we have is experience. The rest is assumption. It is assumed there is something external to the mind we are experiencing and we are not in some Matrix vat.

No. Subjective experience depends absolutely on something existing - existing objectively. Existence is primary.

Says who? It is only an assumption and will always only be an assumption that there is more than experience.

Because all we have access to is experience. We don't experience an object. We experience our experience of the object.

Well, alright. But it's a manifestly reasonable and rational assumption.

Reasonable assumptions are never more than assumptions. They don't create anything because they are reasonable.

No. Subjective assumptions depend entirely on the existence of things and events that we experience. No things, no events happening, no experience.

That is an assumption.

No. We also have our existence as objects, as things.

We know we have experiences.

We don't know any have existence beyond our experience of them. That is an assumption.

Of course there is utility in acknowledging reality.

We assume there are "real" things behind our experience.

There is only experience and assumptions about those experiences.

There is nothing else that can be proven.

Because all we have are our experiences and assumptions. We have no more than that.

 

[untermensche]

Welcome to FDI's wheelhouse.

Psychology went through such as you propose about 150 years ago.

Rat

 Wilhelm Wundt

Tat

 Introspection

However, when we consider research on the topic, this conclusion seems less self-evident. If, for example, extensive introspection can cause people to make decisions that they later regret, then one very reasonable possibility is that the introspection caused them to 'lose touch with their feelings'. In short, empirical studies suggest that people can fail to appraise adequately (i.e. are wrong about) their own experiential

Bumpf

https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/introspection/

Other recent arguments against the accuracy of introspective judgments about conscious experience turn on citing the widespread disagreement about whether there is a “phenomenology of thinking” beyond that of imagery and emotion, about whether sensory experience as a whole is “rich” (including for example constant tactile experience of one’s feet in one’s shoes) or “thin” (limited mostly just to what is in attention at any one time), and about the nature of visual imagery experience (Hurlburt and Schwitzgebel 2007; Bayne and Spener 2010; Schwitzgebel 2011b; though see Hohwy 2011).
Irvine (2013, forthcoming) has argued that the methodological problems in this area are so severe that the term “consciousness” should be eliminated from scientific discourse as impossible to effectively operationalize or measure. Feest (2014) and Timmermans and Cleeremans (2015) similarly highlight the substantial methodological challenges using introspective reports in the science of consciousness, though without being quite as pessimistic as Irvine.

Introspection has a bad patina, it stink's of philosophy and elitism and continuous failure to actually explain anything.

Self fulfilling prophesy is the most generous I can be about such garbage when wrapped in the claimed attribute of science. Here even Gazzaniga destroys self reporting as anything other than rationalization.

The world isn't subjective else there would be only one of us. No way around that conclusion independent of material verification which is denial of the idea of introspection.

I leave you with plenty of stuff to whataba whataba whataba about.

No scientist has ever observed an experience that something besides themselves is having. This is why in all these "studies" they are forced to ask subjects what they are experiencing. They have no other way to know.

Scientists don't have the slightest clue what an experience is or where it might be found.

Some from this total ignorance claim that experience does not exist.

A laughably stupid conclusion.

 

[fromderinside]

Scientists don't depend on their 'observations'. Scientists depend on well formed operations ( Operationalism - I specifically exclude Skinner's approach to the topic. Rat pellets do not an operation make.) verifiable using instrumentation ( Instrumentalism)

Philosophers depend on observation. IMHO that fact is the very reason philosophy has been discarded as an instrument for acquiring knowledge, replaced by the  Scientific method.

The scientific method is the reason humanity has advanced it's understanding of the world about them over the past 500 years or so.

Congratulations on your return to the cave. Please stay there where you won't be endangering humanity any time soon.

Tea anyone?

 

[WAB]

Welcome to FDI's wheelhouse.

Psychology went through such as you propose about 150 years ago.

Rat

 Wilhelm Wundt

Tat

 Introspection

However, when we consider research on the topic, this conclusion seems less self-evident. If, for example, extensive introspection can cause people to make decisions that they later regret, then one very reasonable possibility is that the introspection caused them to 'lose touch with their feelings'. In short, empirical studies suggest that people can fail to appraise adequately (i.e. are wrong about) their own experiential

Bumpf

https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/introspection/

Other recent arguments against the accuracy of introspective judgments about conscious experience turn on citing the widespread disagreement about whether there is a “phenomenology of thinking” beyond that of imagery and emotion, about whether sensory experience as a whole is “rich” (including for example constant tactile experience of one’s feet in one’s shoes) or “thin” (limited mostly just to what is in attention at any one time), and about the nature of visual imagery experience (Hurlburt and Schwitzgebel 2007; Bayne and Spener 2010; Schwitzgebel 2011b; though see Hohwy 2011).
Irvine (2013, forthcoming) has argued that the methodological problems in this area are so severe that the term “consciousness” should be eliminated from scientific discourse as impossible to effectively operationalize or measure. Feest (2014) and Timmermans and Cleeremans (2015) similarly highlight the substantial methodological challenges using introspective reports in the science of consciousness, though without being quite as pessimistic as Irvine.

Introspection has a bad patina, it stink's of philosophy and elitism and continuous failure to actually explain anything.

Self fulfilling prophesy is the most generous I can be about such garbage when wrapped in the claimed attribute of science. Here even Gazzaniga destroys self reporting as anything other than rationalization.

The world isn't subjective else there would be only one of us. No way around that conclusion independent of material verification which is denial of the idea of introspection.

I leave you with plenty of stuff to whataba whataba whataba about.

Here's a slightly different take on Gazzaniga's studies:

https://www.thenation.com/article/archive/hemispheric-disturbances-michael-gazzaniga/

 

[fromderinside]

I wasn't aware of Gazzaniga until I worked as a post doctoral scientist in (the late) James with Marianne Old's lab at Cal Tech in 1978 - 80. There I met an engaging guy in Sperry's lab. That's as far as things went. We have different views of how living beings evolve and operate. Never been a fan of opportunistic procedures.

 Corpus callosum

 

[untermensche]

Scientists don't depend on their 'observations'. Scientists depend on well formed operations ( Operationalism - I specifically exclude Skinner's approach to the topic. Rat pellets do not an operation make.) verifiable using instrumentation ( Instrumentalism)

Philosophers depend on observation. IMHO that fact is the very reason philosophy has been discarded as an instrument for acquiring knowledge, replaced by the  Scientific method.

The scientific method is the reason humanity has advanced it's understanding of the world about them over the past 500 years or so.

Congratulations on your return to the cave. Please stay there where you won't be endangering humanity any time soon.

Tea anyone?

They rely on experience and assumptions and nothing else.

There is nothing else. The scientific method is a set of assumptions derived from experience. It is a product of philosophy.

They construct abstract models and if future experience complies with the models they consider the models valid. When experience does not comply with the models they consider the models flawed.

Operationalism is making assumptions based on experience.

Utility is just another experience.

Models are constructed with nothing but experience and assumptions. Humans have nothing but experience and assumptions.

You can't show me anything that is not an experience to demonstrate the validity of any model.

Try when you finish what you experience as tea.

 

[skepticalbip]

It appears that someone here gets their jollies by punking the forum.

 

[untermensche]

It appears that someone here gets their jollies by punking the forum.

You talking about yourself?

Try to address arguments.

 

[steve_bank]

Science is not observation?

Hey, an apple just fell on my head from a tree and I wonder why things always fall down.

To me science is to a large degree Socratic, asking a question leads to more questions sometimes leading to discovery and truth.

 

[untermensche]

Science is not observation?

Hey, an apple just fell on my head from a tree and I wonder why things always fall down.

To me science is to a large degree Socratic, asking a question leads to more questions sometimes leading to discovery and truth.

Science is assumptions made from experience.

If experiences changed then all the assumptions would have to change.

It is only an assumption that experiences won't change.

All humans have are their experiences and the assumptions they make from them.

 

[skepticalbip]

Science is not observation?

Hey, an apple just fell on my head from a tree and I wonder why things always fall down.

To me science is to a large degree Socratic, asking a question leads to more questions sometimes leading to discovery and truth.

Observation is only one part of the scientific method.

From only observation, we would only have that apples fall out of trees. The scientific method led more generally to F=G(m₁ m₂)/r².

 

[WAB]

I wasn't aware of Gazzaniga until I worked as a post doctoral scientist in (the late) James with Marianne Old's lab at Cal Tech in 1978 - 80. There I met an engaging guy in Sperry's lab. That's as far as things went. We have different views of how living beings evolve and operate. Never been a fan of opportunistic procedures.

 Corpus callosum

I copied two bits from Cathy Gere's article (which I posted a link to above) that resonated with me because I have said similar things myself in these discussions over the years:

How is it that Gazzaniga, whose entire career has been based on the application of the scientific method, has so little regard for the workings of reason? With this denial he seems to claim rationality for himself and his fellow neuroscientists while consigning the rest of us to automaton status

***

Now take the famous experiment purporting to show that voluntary choice is no such thing. The task that the participants were asked to perform was to move the hand and wrist. The subjects were encouraged to relax in a lounge chair and let their minds wander, moving only when they felt like it. With each subject wired to an EEG to detect activity in the area of the motor cortex that instructs the hand to move, the moment when the brain was ready to go with the action was recorded. The participants were also asked to note the time at which they were conscious of making the decision to move the hand. From the finding that conscious awareness happened crucial milliseconds after the brain was primed, the post-hoc nature of all our choices was supposedly confirmed. The precise nature of the task—its meaninglessness, capriciousness and whimsicality—was designed to represent “an incontrovertible and ideal example of a fully endogenous and ‘freely voluntary’ act.” If this existential languor is experimental psychology’s highest ideal of freedom, it’s clear why Gazzaniga has contempt for the concept. Anyone who has idly wondered when and how they will generate the momentum to get out of bed on a Sunday morning will recognize this as freedom of a pleasant but peculiar sort, in which the promptings of the body—a wiggling of the toes, a yawn, a stretch—often discernibly precede the directives of the intellect.

From https://www.thenation.com/article/archive/hemispheric-disturbances-michael-gazzaniga/

***

Cathy Gere has another article in the nation that is pertinent to much of the political discussion going on at TFT:

https://www.thenation.com/article/archive/how-tolerant-should-we-be-intolerance/

 

[DBT]

It's basically a matter of physics: information cannot be made conscious by the brain before it is acquired, propagated and processed. Our conscious experience of the world and self must necessarily happen miliseconds after the event.

In that regard Gazzaniga is correct. The evidence is undeniable.

 

[WAB]

It's basically a matter of physics: information cannot be made conscious by the brain before it is acquired, propagated and processed. Our conscious experience of the world and self must necessarily happen miliseconds after the event.

In that regard Gazzaniga is correct. The evidence is undeniable.

I am certain his studies had great value and I do not presume to say he was incorrect about anything, at least not with respect to the data and his highly-skilled interpretation of it. I defer to his far greater understanding in that regard, and to any professional for that matter, especially a scientist. I'm just a peanut.

But my humility only goes so far, and I think people (any people) should struggle to think for themselves and question everything. They should investigate issues from every angle, find out as much as they can, and arrive at an agreement, not just blindly acquiesce. Remember the days of the lobotomy, and how far we've come from those dark days. It's not that long ago. That someone is a scientist is no guarantee that they will be moral, deeply-empathetic people. History has plenty of hard evidence that some physicians and scientists were downright evil, as evil as it gets.

I trust in the progress of science, and I am grateful for it. And I agree that science is at the heart of virtually all human progress, but I do not regard scientists as special people whose opinion in areas outside their discipline ought to be given special consideration. Not at all. It is possible for a scientist to not know much about philosophy, or psychology, or to miserably misunderstand certain concepts.

IMO we are in no position to dismiss the work of philosophers, with the idea that science can sufficiently cover everything, so we don't need them.

(And YES, lest anyone think I am saying otherwise: philosophy and science are not competitive, distinctly different disciplines. A scientist is often also a philosopher, and vise-versa. Scientists have to be able to think philosophically. There doesn't need to be any animosity between the two.)

 

[steve_bank]

Science is not observation?

Hey, an apple just fell on my head from a tree and I wonder why things always fall down.

To me science is to a large degree Socratic, asking a question leads to more questions sometimes leading to discovery and truth.

Science is assumptions made from experience.

If experiences changed then all the assumptions would have to change.

It is only an assumption that experiences won't change.

All humans have are their experiences and the assumptions they make from them.

You ASSUME much without evidence....

If nothing else science and discovery is a process. Part of it is serendipity like the discovery of the CMBR. Part of it is inspiration, the idea for raster scam TV video came from observation of plowed libes in a field.

Faraday happened to be outside with a compass when lightnings struck causes the needle to deflect.

Then tere is pure matahentcal exploration.

Pont being there is a genal process but no set of rules on how to accomplish discovery.

Discovery may sdyar with assumptions, but objective science is repeatbale experiments.

When you hit the brakes on your car or you are in a jet on a takeoff roll on what assumption's do you believe both are going to work?

For me I know something about how both work. For you who appears to know little why trust an airplane will fly? Why trust aerodynamics wll always work?


Science deniers all share a common characteristic, they implicitly trust all he science upon which their daily modern lives depend all the while without a clue how any of it woks. A blind implicit faith in science.

Science is data driven not assumption driven in the sense you imply, assumption in your case meaning subjective and watthour solid foundation.

If science and astrology are both based on assumptions, is there a difference between astrology and science? If not what differentiates the two?

 

[untermensche]

Science is not observation?

Hey, an apple just fell on my head from a tree and I wonder why things always fall down.

To me science is to a large degree Socratic, asking a question leads to more questions sometimes leading to discovery and truth.

Science is assumptions made from experience.

If experiences changed then all the assumptions would have to change.

It is only an assumption that experiences won't change.

All humans have are their experiences and the assumptions they make from them.

You ASSUME much without evidence....

We are that which experiences and makes assumptions.

Show me something else.

If nothing else science and discovery is a process.

Is there a discovery that is not an experience or an assumption based on experience?

Show me one.

 

[DBT]

It's basically a matter of physics: information cannot be made conscious by the brain before it is acquired, propagated and processed. Our conscious experience of the world and self must necessarily happen miliseconds after the event.

In that regard Gazzaniga is correct. The evidence is undeniable.

I am certain his studies had great value and I do not presume to say he was incorrect about anything, at least not with respect to the data and his highly-skilled interpretation of it. I defer to his far greater understanding in that regard, and to any professional for that matter, especially a scientist. I'm just a peanut.

But my humility only goes so far, and I think people (any people) should struggle to think for themselves and question everything. They should investigate issues from every angle, find out as much as they can, and arrive at an agreement, not just blindly acquiesce. Remember the days of the lobotomy, and how far we've come from those dark days. It's not that long ago. That someone is a scientist is no guarantee that they will be moral, deeply-empathetic people. History has plenty of hard evidence that some physicians and scientists were downright evil, as evil as it gets.

I trust in the progress of science, and I am grateful for it. And I agree that science is at the heart of virtually all human progress, but I do not regard scientists as special people whose opinion in areas outside their discipline ought to be given special consideration. Not at all. It is possible for a scientist to not know much about philosophy, or psychology, or to miserably misunderstand certain concepts.

IMO we are in no position to dismiss the work of philosophers, with the idea that science can sufficiently cover everything, so we don't need them.

(And YES, lest anyone think I am saying otherwise: philosophy and science are not competitive, distinctly different disciplines. A scientist is often also a philosopher, and vise-versa. Scientists have to be able to think philosophically. There doesn't need to be any animosity between the two.)

Philosophy certainly has its place. Just not as pure reason. Philosophy has to consider the discoveries of science, accounting for the neuronal mechanisms of cognition, the nature of decision making when considering moral behaviour. Sociopath's, for instance, having little or no empathy, seeing the world in a different way are likely to have quite different sets of criteria than those of the average person.

 

[WAB]

untermensche, Steve_Bank asked a question of you in post #117:

If science and astrology are both based on assumptions, is there a difference between astrology and science? If not what differentiates the two?

I think it's a good question.

My answer would be that astrological assumptions are based on nothing but fantasy, while the assumptions scientists have are based on research, experimentation, rigorous, methodical trial and error, ie, hard evidence.

Further, I wouldn't even say that science is based on assumptions, because it isn't.