tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15005476.post2941719337449238928..comments2023-10-10T08:02:18.073-04:00Comments on Rationally Speaking: Neuro-backlash? What backlash?Unknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger30125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15005476.post-79766034291146869502013-09-19T08:03:59.116-04:002013-09-19T08:03:59.116-04:00Of course!Of course!Disagreeable Mehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15258557849869963650noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15005476.post-78455562269632510562013-09-18T17:03:51.018-04:002013-09-18T17:03:51.018-04:00The ink vs Shakespeare analogy doesn't work. Y...The ink vs Shakespeare analogy doesn't work. You can talk about the characters in a play without referring to the language it is written in, but you can also say something about the content of the play in terms of clusters of consonants or word counts. However, you cannot say anything meaningful about a play in relation to the ink it was printed with. The play is not at all the ink, but it is an instance of the language of which it is composed.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15005476.post-90056549860343403202013-09-18T16:50:58.112-04:002013-09-18T16:50:58.112-04:00You mean, is nature conscious or not that it too i...You mean, is nature conscious or not that it too is a robot?Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15005476.post-8264520801377609892013-09-18T06:47:21.647-04:002013-09-18T06:47:21.647-04:00...on your belief....on your belief.Louis Burkehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03583066162106331227noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15005476.post-37057256923303065052013-09-18T01:18:39.562-04:002013-09-18T01:18:39.562-04:00Understanding
Quantum mechanics, today's phys...Understanding<br /><br />Quantum mechanics, today's physics is uncertain or only probable at best. Physics is based on a dice game, do you understand that Professor? A crap shoot! If you do understand the quagmire science finds itself in, is that good enough for you? Do you understand the grey area versus the clarity of light? Enlightenment? Is maybe the best science or you can do?<br /><br />What about philosophy Professor, you write a lot about it. Has philosophy defined the absolute yet, the truth? Have you?<br /><br />And religion and their faith; is God real? The Pope said they had yet to find the proof. What is real, anything? What does mankind understand, what pray tell do you?<br /><br />Thanks for having me,<br />I think I can help,<br /><br />=<br /><br /> <br /> = MJAhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01897595473268353450noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15005476.post-69827963551261405852013-09-17T21:48:08.039-04:002013-09-17T21:48:08.039-04:00"A smell of petroleum prevails throughout.&qu..."A smell of petroleum prevails throughout."Miles Rindhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03733605717776262840noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15005476.post-53981034116651157372013-09-17T21:45:34.137-04:002013-09-17T21:45:34.137-04:00Yes, one would have to do that to be fair to the a...Yes, one would have to do that to be fair to the authors. My point was just that neuroscience was being puffed, no matter who was doing the puffing. I deliberately chose this piece of reportage rather than the press release that it cited (which I looked up through a link in the former) for my quotation because the article represented the findings of the study in a more inflated fashion than did the press release.Miles Rindhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03733605717776262840noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15005476.post-51049457945315286802013-09-17T21:35:43.115-04:002013-09-17T21:35:43.115-04:00brainoil,
Good luck. When it happens, please expl...brainoil,<br /><br />Good luck. When it happens, please explain it to me too.Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09099460671669064269noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15005476.post-68115811838034378512013-09-17T20:51:02.811-04:002013-09-17T20:51:02.811-04:00MJA,
One of those days I'm going to understand...MJA,<br />One of those days I'm going to understand what you are talking about.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15005476.post-7557587687456395732013-09-17T20:43:26.056-04:002013-09-17T20:43:26.056-04:00Thanks for the note on reductionist "brain di...Thanks for the note on reductionist "brain disease" approaches to addiction. Jeff Sheff's new book "Clean" certainly appears guilty, though not necessarily fully embracing all of Pop Neuroscience. He rightly points out what's wrong with 12-step approaches to addiction support.<br /><br />However, he has two failures after this.<br /><br />The first is not to say ONE WORD about alternatives to AA/NA, like Lifering, SMART or SOS. Not one word.<br /><br />The second is to, per your comments, proceed to looking at drugs that can (but not always) reduce cravings for alcohol, or opiates, and from there hope for the holy grail -- an addiction vaccine. The man is on some level so ignorant of the real, complex nature of addiction, despite his son's addiction that led to his first book, it's scary.<br /><br />That said, Pop Neuroscience reflects the typical American love with what I call salvific technologism on my blog, that is, the idea that the cavalry of a technological fix are just over the hill. Surely Pop Neuroscience will, via better fMRIs, point the way to laser-guided quasi-lobotomies for bipolar disorder, schizophrenia and more!Gadflyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13075757287807731373noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15005476.post-51126724043991968952013-09-17T19:40:22.285-04:002013-09-17T19:40:22.285-04:00Brooks takes a right wing dualist perspective beca...Brooks takes a right wing dualist perspective because neuroscience can be used in areas like media advertising and other marketing techniques. We may talk in dualisms, reductions, epiphenoma and emergence but neuroscience has little to say why "mind" sees the world as such.<br /><br />Why do we make a possible category error as seeing consciousness as an individual trait when consciousness produces the train whistle of language and culture which are social traits?Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15005476.post-81357443878950285842013-09-17T18:02:19.991-04:002013-09-17T18:02:19.991-04:00By the way, my earlier comment was not a criticism...By the way, my earlier comment was not a criticism of the article, which I think was good! However, I do see the mind as more than just a different level of description than the brain. I see it as a mathematical structure which could in principle be implemented on a different substrate while remaining essentially the same mind (hence, mind uploading while probably practically infeasible is not incoherent a priori).Disagreeable Mehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15258557849869963650noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15005476.post-59494637756275403282013-09-17T17:57:54.221-04:002013-09-17T17:57:54.221-04:00I've said this before, but I think the Computa...I've said this before, but I think the Computational Theory of Mind (which I view to be not only consistent with naturalism but necessarily true in a naturalistic framework) leads to dualism of a kind.<br /><br />There is more than one form of dualism, and not all of them are superstitious. Dualism should not be a dirty word, and my kind of dualism has more in common with mathematical Platonism than it does with Descartes.<br /><br />More on why I think dualism is both consistent with naturalism and entirely reasonable on my blog:<br /><br /><a href="http://disagreeableme.blogspot.co.uk/2013/09/dualism-is-not-dirty-word.html" rel="nofollow">Dualism is not a Dirty Word</a>Disagreeable Mehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15258557849869963650noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15005476.post-8186778336791309932013-09-17T17:44:44.715-04:002013-09-17T17:44:44.715-04:00One would have to judge the content and conclusion...One would have to judge the content and conclusions of the paper itself:<br /><a href="http://www.scribd.com/doc/168872802/Network-structure-and-dynamics-of-the-mental-workspace" rel="nofollow">scribd.com/doc/168872802/Network-structure-and-dynamics-of-the-mental-workspace</a>.Philip Thrifthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03021615111948806998noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15005476.post-27075789763516853442013-09-17T17:40:06.345-04:002013-09-17T17:40:06.345-04:00Philip,
The problem is that your sentence is just...Philip,<br /><br />The problem is that your sentence is just as true as it is unhelpful...Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09099460671669064269noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15005476.post-71216850391545649012013-09-17T17:34:22.045-04:002013-09-17T17:34:22.045-04:00We are conscious robots (built by nature).We are conscious robots (built by nature).Philip Thrifthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03021615111948806998noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15005476.post-63717445115348841882013-09-17T12:14:22.827-04:002013-09-17T12:14:22.827-04:00Meanwhile, the neuro-hype continues to come out:
...Meanwhile, the neuro-hype continues to come out:<br /><br />"<a href="http://natmonitor.com/2013/09/17/researchers-discover-source-of-imagination-in-human-brain/" rel="nofollow">Researchers discover source of imagination in human brain</a>" (Lance Tillson, <i>The National Monitor</i>, September 17, 2013):<br /><br />>>According to a news release from Dartmouth College, researchers have discovered the source of imagination in the human brain. <b>Their research answers several longstanding scientific questions: what gives people the ability to make beautiful art, construct novel tools and achieve other extremely distinct actions</b>. . . .<br /><br />>>“Our findings move us closer to understanding how the organization of our brains sets us apart from other species and provides such a rich internal playground for us to think freely and creatively,” notes lead author Alex Schlegel, a graduate student in the Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences at Dartmouth College, in a statement. “<b>Understanding these differences will give us insight into where human creativity comes from and possibly allow us to recreate those same creative processes in machines</b>.”<<<br /><br />Such statements conflate conceptual questions about what imagination and creativity are and how they work with empirical questions about what mechanism in the brain makes it possible for human beings to have imagination and creativity. The research bears on the latter sort of question, but it is touted as if it bore on questions of the first sort.Miles Rindhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03733605717776262840noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15005476.post-10195275129731040762013-09-17T11:34:53.356-04:002013-09-17T11:34:53.356-04:00Richard, I was a bit sly in using the word "g...Richard, I was a bit sly in using the word "grammar" in my last sentence. I intended my statement to be defensible on a common understanding of the word "grammar." So understood, saying that the contrast between first-person and third-person perspectives is a difference of grammar and not of ontology suggests a disparagement of the issue about mind and body. But for my own private purposes I had in mind the Wittgensteinian sense, in which grammar is something that can be investigated for as long as it gives rise to conceptual perplexities, which is to say, potentially endlessly.Miles Rindhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03733605717776262840noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15005476.post-53105843214100186102013-09-17T11:15:57.068-04:002013-09-17T11:15:57.068-04:00"knowledge of the neural mechanisms underlyin...<i>"knowledge of the neural mechanisms underlying addiction typically has less relevance to the treatment of drug addiction and alcoholism than the psychological and social causes"</i><br /><br /><i>"In fact, certain psychological treatments, especially cognitive-behavioral and interpersonal psychotherapies, appear to be at least as effective as medications for depression"</i><br /><br />It's telling that in both of these examples, the overall efficacy of our treatments is not very good. Questions about what exact type of dualism or reductionism is being espoused are only useful insofar as they inform an eventual model of human behavior. Almost everyone agrees that this model will contain descriptions at multiple levels of organization.<br /><br />The practical question has to do with what lines of research we follow to get to a decent model -- something we are nowhere close to having. Are we really at risk, at this point, of discarding research at the higher levels of organization? Or is the excitement surrounding research at lower levels a reasonable reaction to hitting a vein of research methods that will hopefully improve our descriptions at all levels?<br /><br />Yeah, it annoys me to hear overconfident and exclusionary predictions about neuroscience research. But it's the results, not the predictions, that will end up mattering. And it's worth remembering that the results we're getting from our current high-level approaches are nowhere near good enough.Asher Kayhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04684052925980478870noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15005476.post-58534607534855651712013-09-17T07:33:52.804-04:002013-09-17T07:33:52.804-04:00Miles, I've long suspected that part of the co...Miles, I've long suspected that part of the confusion over consciousness arises from people reifying first-person experience, treating it as a phenomenon. But I still feel quite confused about the whole subject.Richard Weinhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/18095903892283146064noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15005476.post-88927238805409850462013-09-17T07:08:09.047-04:002013-09-17T07:08:09.047-04:00Miles,
Re your (2): What's in a name? The fac...Miles,<br /><br />Re your (2): What's in a name? The fact that predicate dualists give themselves that name doesn't necessarily mean that this is a form of dualism in a helpful sense. I think that predicate dualism (as the SEP describes it) is so different from traditional dualism that it's misleading to put them together in one category.<br /><br />Of course, we could just ignore the fact that the authors called their position "property dualism", and say that it doesn't matter what they call it. But since the issue of dualism (in the more traditional sense) is already in play (and mentioned earlier in the OP), their use of the same term in an (arguably) different sense is confusing.<br /><br />It's also possible that these terms carry baggage which is not explicitly stated by their proponents. The linked Guardian article makes the point that, even if we call ourselves materialists, we may still think like dualists (and I assume the author means "dualist" in the traditional sense). Perhaps predicate and property dualists carry more traditional dualistic baggage than they realise. I note that the OP also uses the word "emergent", which to me is another red-flag word. It can be used in a harmless ("weak") sense, but to me the term usually seems to carry a kind of baggage verging on the dualistic. I think it's best avoided altogether.<br /><br />I agree with your (3), but much of philosophical error and disagreement turns on problems of terminology, so such problems deserve our careful attention. Much of the argument over neuroscientific excess seems to depend on whether authors agree with crude statements like "The mind is the brain". If they could see that there's no one right answer to such questions (it depends what you mean), then the camps might be less polarised.Richard Weinhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/18095903892283146064noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15005476.post-7955878204210896692013-09-17T04:00:48.750-04:002013-09-17T04:00:48.750-04:00Not possible ;)Not possible ;)Louis Burkehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03583066162106331227noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15005476.post-48194389142021887982013-09-17T00:02:13.534-04:002013-09-17T00:02:13.534-04:00"... [T]he mind is not identical with the mat..."... [T]he mind is not identical with the matter that produces it. So, to say that the brain and the mind are different is not necessarily evidence of scientific ignorance. It means simply that one cannot use the physical rules from the cellular level to completely predict activity at the psychological or behavioral level."<br /><br />The authors seem to be implicitly suggesting that the neuroscientific view sees the brain in isolation.<br /><br />This is the key point surely (only obscured by talk of dualism and 'the mind'): that the brain would not function as a normal brain (generating social responses, speech, etc.) were the body of which it is a part not in a particular kind of physical environment – namely one involving a whole bunch of other bodies interacting socially.<br /><br />If the brain is seen in its broader physical context, and we accept the (obvious) need for different levels of description, then, as Louis Burke suggests, I think we can do without talk of dualism.<br /><br />Whereas ordinary, casual uses of the word 'mind', and idioms like 'make up your mind', are obviously fine and quite harmless, serious talk of 'the mind' does tend to encourage dualistic ways of thinking in my view.<br /><br />(And who is talking about 'completely predicting', by the way?)Mark Englishhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03506844097173520312noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15005476.post-17873431190396619612013-09-16T22:20:16.071-04:002013-09-16T22:20:16.071-04:00Interesting point, Tom. I think that your observat...Interesting point, Tom. I think that your observation amounts to this, that from a third-person perspective, conscious states are not epiphenomena because they are not, properly speaking, <i>phenomena</i> at all. A phenomenon is an observable occurrence, and conscious states cannot be observed. Other people, obviously, cannot observe my conscious states, but only what goes on in my body; but also (though less obviously), <i>I</i> cannot observe my own conscious states, but can only <i>have</i> them. So the contrast between conscious states and neural states is not a contrast between two kinds of phenomena but between a first-person (perhaps also second-person) perspective and a third-person perspective. That's an irreducible distinction, but of grammar, not of ontology.Miles Rindhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03733605717776262840noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15005476.post-83478745122719914392013-09-16T21:26:50.225-04:002013-09-16T21:26:50.225-04:00One solution: Build a conscious robot and ask it w...One solution: Build a conscious robot and ask it whether it thinks that the code being executed by its circuitry is the same as the circuitry.Philip Thrifthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03021615111948806998noreply@blogger.com