Gabriella,
There’s no waffle and that wasn’t his claim. He told us that he’d deny any theories that “effectively remove” the opinions he asserts to be facts. I merely explained that you cannot prove a negative – natural childbirth theory doesn’t for example “remove” stork theory if you frame the latter to be non-investigable, but it does provide a sufficiently robust explanation as to make it irrelevant.
You are still waffling. I wasn't referring to any claims AB might have made. I was referring to your claim, which you have so far not substantiated, that AB entirely dismisses scientific findings we do have. If theories don't rule out AB's ideas on free will, then what findings is he dismissing as opposed to adding on to existing findings with speculation about souls?
You’re very confused. The cognitive sciences in particular provide a wealth of evidence that supports their theories of mind. Those theories are consistent with our understandings of other phenomena we experience and can explain more fully, and so far at least they give us a good indication of being on the right track toward a more complete model.
Which bit are you claiming I am confused about? I bring up theories of mind, ask you for your "robust explanation" (as you called current theories) for the process of how the brain produces the complexities of self-reflective knowledge that makes up conscious self-awareness. And all I get is the above waffle - such as wealth of evidence, good indication of being on the right track.... Where's the "robust explanation"?
AB though dismisses that evidence out of hand because it doesn’t provide “definitions” (by which presumably he means explanations) that are complete, and he uses that notion then to insert his “soul” as an explanation but for which there’s no evidence whatsoever. That’s his problem. Even though a complete A-Z explanation of consciousness isn’t there we do at least have perhaps a coherent A-M explanation, whereas AB has only A – “it feels that way to me therefore that’s the complete explanation for it”.
I thought you said he dismisses the findings of science entirely. Now you claim he is dismissing evidence out of hand. But then you go on to say you actually mean he is inserting a soul into the gaps in the existing explanations. You do know the difference in the English language between dismissing findings entirely and inserting additional speculations right?
To put it another way, which do you think to be the more likely to give you an accurate picture: a 100 piece jig-saw with half the pieces missing, or a 100 piece jig-saw with 99 of the pieces missing? I propose the former (while accepting that I could be wrong); AB asserts the latter (while denying any possibility of being wrong).
The 50 pieces present give you a picture of whatever is on those 50 pieces, but it doesn't give you any kind of accurate representation of what the unknown picture on the missing 50 pieces.
Actually I don’t, but using pejorative language like this just makes you look unpleasant as well as out of your depth.
That's a very accurate description of yourself. Well done.
My credibility is fine thanks, and if by “the ability of self-reflective knowledge that allows us to see someone else's point of view has been observed in animals” you mean something like empathy,
If i meant something like empathy, I would have used the word "empathy". I meant what I said - the brain's ability to be self-aware of its own subjective consciousness and recognise alternative points of view by recognising that other beings have a different subjective sense of conscious self that is separate and different from our own.
Misrepresentation noted. I talk about deeper levels – indeed I’ve often said here that there’d be no way to know whether we’d ever found the ultimate truth about anything (the problem of unknown unknowns in other words).
What you said to AB in #31538 was "That’s just an irrational belief you happen to hold built on the odd notion that your “deepest feelings” about something must therefore explain reality at the deepest level." You did not say reality at a deeper level. Hence I asked the question about whether science has claimed to have discovered reality at the deepest level. I don't recall AB claiming to be explaining reality at "the deepest level".
From what I read in the link, she suggests some sort of autonomous (ie, non-deterministic) decision-making process. So far as I could see though she didn’t trouble to explain how that decision-making mechanism would function outside of the determined vs random binary options.
No what she suggested was that there are some demonstrations that show that changing the format of Libet's experiment on whether intention precedes action has shown that our intentions are the factors that cause our actions. She also suggested that Libet's experiment does not correspond to real world situations where typically our actions: (a) do have consequences, (b) have rewards or punishments attached to them, and (c) are goal-directed and therefore she argues that in those kind of situations we seem to have some control or agency over decisions we make. Perceiving potential consequences and making reasoned decisions based on those perceptions based on our life experience, knowledge, and personality seems to be using our conscious brain to make a choice about a course of action.
