Karma

[wigginhall]

I understand that simulated universes are an accepted theory.
That kind of wipes the bottom on your Y Fronts of an argument doesn't it?

No, it just shows that 'theory' is an ambiguous term.   It has a colloquial use, e.g. 'I have a theory that blondes have more fun', and a scientific use, meaning an explanation with massive evidence for it (e.g. evolution), but also some people use it to mean 'hypothesis'.   Quite confusing.   

So I'm not sure what you mean by simulated universes as a theory.

[Alan Burns]

you are welcome to remain astonished .It must be like 'Christmas' every day for you

Indeed, we are so surrounded by God's astonishing works of creation that we take them all for granted, and spend much time and effort into using our astonishing gift of intelligence to think up complex scenarios showing how it all came into existence without any help from God.

[Walter]

Indeed, we are so surrounded by God's astonishing works of creation that we take them all for granted, and spend much time and effort into using our astonishing gift of intelligence to think up complex scenarios showing how it all came into existence without any help from God.

Well you're almost  there. As you are atheistic about all other gods there's only one more to go and that's it. Don't give up now , c'mon you can do it.

[Jack Knave]

JK,

No. The human body is “a large multifunctional system” but the countless cells within it are entirely oblivious to the existence of almost all the other cells, yet functioning bodies we have nonetheless. The whole point of emergence as a phenomenon is there is no “CEO”, no designer, no top down anything.

Your body comment doesn't make sense. It, the cells et al, is controlled by the nervous system and so on. Therefore, there is an upper management running things. If this upper management starts fighting with itself in some way then chaos and non-adaptiveness occur.

One upper management in some emergent processes, like chemical reactions and products are the laws of physics that govern it.

[Jack Knave]

JK,

You fundamentally misunderstand what emergence entails, and you underestimate Johnson’s intelligence too. This isn’t about whether something or nothing gets built, but rather it’s about the pattern of the businesses that emerge. Types of business tend to cluster, and they can do so in quite subtle ways without a city planner making it so. Where demand for the goods or services is high (eg Chinese restaurants in a populous city), the clustering is close because the benefit of attracting customers to the area outweighs the disbenefit of proximate competition. Over time, other business too – like specialist food suppliers or transport links – will tend to build around the clusters of alike businesses, creating a positive feedback loop for new Chinese restaurants to come in.

Conversely, when demand is low (eg Chinese restaurants in sparsely populated conurbations, or occasional purchase shops like wine merchants) the clustering will be more disparate because a competitor next door would make either or both uneconomic.

Over time these patterns become embedded – the silk merchants of Florence is a good example – not because of the “ideas of the individuals” but because market forces have dictated the patterns that cause some businesses to fail and others to flourish. It’s not somehow inherent in the nature of Chinese restaurants though that, say, bus stops are positioned close to them.

1) Energy still has to be inputted into this scenario. The Chinese restaurants won't come about if there is a recession or something. Therefore, money can be seen as the fuel that drives this system. No money liquidity no Chinese restaurants. No roads, no sewage system, no refuse disposal, no method/technology to build sustainable restaurants, no transport etc., all of which need to be designed, then non of this would happen.

2) Also, I think want you have described here is complexity theory not emergence.

[Alan Burns]

That’s not your choice to make. If they follow the structure of logical fallacies – and they do – then they’re logical fallacies.

The R & E guide to fallacy detection (part one)

1.  personal incredulity: contains the word "improbable"

2.  non sequiter: can't understand the logic

3.  ad populum: contains big numbers

4.  negative proof: contains the word "not"

5.  authority: mentioning someone cleverer than yourself

6.  straw man: contains anything you object to

to be continued .....

[Jack Knave]

We have traditionally organised power structures in a hierarchical manner; it's intuitive that way.  But it's not the only way to make decisions, there is such as thing as the wisdom of crowds and this is the central insight that we have gleaned by studying insect models.  An ant colony seeking a nest location has no top down authority structure and yet a smart decision emerges out of the interactions of the ants; similarly with bee swarms, it is not a question of the top bee leading the way and the rest just following along. We use these models to study how brains make decisions without having a master neuron as the situation has clear parallels. The idea of a master neuron orchestrating the making of choices is a non-starter - any single neuron is unintelligent, it has no brain of its own with which to direct affairs.  The only way to understand this is by learning how intelligence emerges out of the interaction of billions of neurons.

You mean populism? Yet when one mentions this in the political section there are howls of derision and that we need our technocrats and leaders. So if we all put in our pennyworth into our country this will create an emergence that will make our country victorious....?

[Jack Knave]

Have you provided yours?

I'm not the one making the claim of consciousness via emergence.

[Sebastian Toe]

The R & E guide to fallacy detection (part one)

1.  personal incredulity: contains the word "improbable"

2.  non sequiter: can't understand the logic

3.  ad populum: contains big numbers

4.  negative proof: contains the word "not"

5.  authority: mentioning someone cleverer than yourself

6.  straw man: contains anything you object to

to be continued .....

The R&E guide to not understanding falacies - lesson one read the quoted post above.

[Sebastian Toe]

I'm not the one making the claim of consciousness via emergence.

I never for a moment thought that you did.
I was interested if you have a definition. Do you?

[Jack Knave]

So you are just trying to make a case for not following evidence, is all.

No, what I'm debating is how that evidence is being read or interrupted by you lot using philosophical arguments and considerations.

[Jack Knave]

The parallel with plate tectonics is hardly appropriate.  When Wegener proposed continental drift he was ridiculed by the orthodoxy of the day but he was being true to evidence. He was ridiculed because his ideas ran so deeply counter to our intuitions just as does a spherical Earth rather than a flat Earth.  The situation with neuroscience is the polar opposite of this, it is neuroscience that is challenging our intuitions about how things are, requiring us to think outside the box, breaking down the naive orthodoxy bequested to us through our judeochristian/greek/cartesian heritage about what it means to be, to exist, to think.  You call neuroscience 'orthodoxy' ? Truth is, it could hardly be more radical.  'High priests', 'ideology', you really gotta be kidding, you could hardly be wronger if you tried, you really need to get to see past this naive obsession with conspiracy thinking

Shame about the abuse at the end. 

I disagree. The materialistic attitude has been gathering speed since Greek times and the enlightenment ushered in a new perspective to life. The problem is it has degraded the aspect of our lives that is related to our human natures; often referred to as our spiritual side. It is the orthodoxy of this materialism that is channelling the ideas and concepts etc. down a soulless cul-de-sac. It is an ideology that "punishes" anyone who steps out of line and forces the party line on all. Sadly it is even an unconscious attribute to science so it functions in the shadows and so is insidiously pernicious in its demands because our culture is set in this historical framework. As such, as it is not fully consciously seen it proceeds unnoticed and without hideous and the whole milieu is taken as a given, as a presumption that colours the researches into areas that involve these human/spiritual/psychological subjects.   

[Jack Knave]

The interesting word there is 'away', as if that is the task of neuroscience, to dismiss human ideas and experiences.  I have read quite a few summaries of neuroscience research, but I've never seen that.   But presumably you have.

I would like to see a citation where neuroscientists actually do this.    Otherwise, it sounds as if you have made this up, as a straw man.    I wonder what Jesus would think of your dishonest tactics?

I heard a top scientist on the radio say that the brain causes consciousness. No if no buts, a straight forward statement that that was the fact of the matter. I was rather surprised that he had talked such unfounded bollocks. Such is the ideology of the science world these days.

[Alan Burns]

The R&E guide to not understanding falacies - lesson one read the quoted post above.

The point I was trying to make is that instead of just labelling things as fallacies, it would be far more constructive to say specifically what you think is wrong, then offer an alternative explanation if possible.

[wigginhall]

I heard a top scientist on the radio say that the brain causes consciousness. No if no buts, a straight forward statement that that was the fact of the matter. I was rather surprised that he had talked such unfounded bollocks. Such is the ideology of the science world these days.

AB wasn't talking about causation,  he said that neuroscience 'explains away' experience, which is different from 'explain'.   'Explain away' means to dismiss something.  I've never heard that expressed.   Straw man by AB, although he pretended he hadn't said that.

Which top scientist? 

[Jack Knave]

I never for a moment thought that you did.
I was interested if you have a definition. Do you?

The term can be used in different ways which is why I'm asking for a definition to see how they are handling this. As it is I kind of sense what their definition would be which would relegate it down to being an automaton; which is what an ant is. They have also said that this sense of being an individual is an illusion so they all think that they are just complex ants - which may explain a few things. 

[wigginhall]

The term can be used in different ways which is why I'm asking for a definition to see how they are handling this. As it is I kind of sense what their definition would be which would relegate it down to being an automaton; which is what an ant is. They have also said that this sense of being an individual is an illusion so they all think that they are just complex ants - which may explain a few things. 

They - they - they.  FFS, do you ever give a citation?

[Enki]

The R & E guide to fallacy detection (part one)

1.  personal incredulity: contains the word "improbable"

2.  non sequiter: can't understand the logic

3.  ad populum: contains big numbers

4.  negative proof: contains the word "not"

5.  authority: mentioning someone cleverer than yourself

6.  straw man: contains anything you object to

to be continued .....

Alan's Guide to lack of fallacy detection(part one)

1. personal incredulity: I find x so astonishing that everyone must be as astonished as me and believe as I believe, or they are deceiving themselves

2. non sequitur: it doesn't matter if x doesn't follow y in my argument, I don't think that matters, and nor should you

3.ad populum: A lot of people believe what I believe, so it must be right

4 negative proof: I have a belief which I can't back up with any evidence or answer awkward questions about but which you can't prove is wrong. So therefore it must be right.

5. authority: because somebody is cleverer than me and believes the way I do, they must be right.

6. straw man: just because I have given a statement that either has nothing to do with what you are saying or hugely distorts what you are saying is no reason for you to bring that to my attention

to be continued .....

[wigginhall]

7.  I am fundamentally dishonest, so I don't mind making stuff up, and making illogical jumps, and misquoting people.   After all, it's all for Jesus!

[Jack Knave]

AB wasn't talking about causation,  he said that neuroscience 'explains away' experience, which is different from 'explain'.   'Explain away' means to dismiss something.  I've never heard that expressed.   Straw man by AB, although he pretended he hadn't said that.

Which top scientist?

They do try to explain away the individual identity of self by saying it is just an illusion of  feeling of being an agent. Once you've done that then experience is relegated to just being input/output data and so on.

It was some years ago now, probably on In Our Time with Melvin Bragg, or a programme like that, that wouldn't invite some charlatan.

[wigginhall]

They do try to explain away the individual identity of self by saying it is just an illusion of  feeling of being an agent. Once you've done that then experience is relegated to just being input/output data and so on.

It was some years ago now, probably on In Our Time with Melvin Bragg, or a programme like that, that wouldn't invite some charlatan.

Funny that, a few years ago, a guy in a pub told me he'd seen a leprechaun.   It must be true, because the pub is really nice.

Any citation for 'an illusion of feeling of being an agent'?

[wigginhall]

8.  I can always pretend that I haven't said something, that I did.   But remember, Jesus loves you!

[torridon]

Shame about the abuse at the end. 

I disagree. The materialistic attitude has been gathering speed since Greek times and the enlightenment ushered in a new perspective to life. The problem is it has degraded the aspect of our lives that is related to our human natures; often referred to as our spiritual side. It is the orthodoxy of this materialism that is channelling the ideas and concepts etc. down a soulless cul-de-sac. It is an ideology that "punishes" anyone who steps out of line and forces the party line on all. Sadly it is even an unconscious attribute to science so it functions in the shadows and so is insidiously pernicious in its demands because our culture is set in this historical framework. As such, as it is not fully consciously seen it proceeds unnoticed and without hideous and the whole milieu is taken as a given, as a presumption that colours the researches into areas that involve these human/spiritual/psychological subjects.   

That is just more of the same old, same old; the whole post seems tinged with conspiratorial thinking.  I don't recognise any of that, I think it is all in your mind. I don't recall anyone working in any science field being 'punished' for not toeing a party line, or failing to uphold some or other ideology. Maybe you are mistaking the rough and tumble of a competitive environment for some sort of sinister control which just isn't there. People do get criticised for bad work; rivalries do get intense, but all that does not amount to some sort of shadowy control.

If 'materialism' has been gaining ground, that is perhaps because the physical sciences have been unstoppably successful to date in describing the physical world and we do not throw out a large body of knowledge lightly, that would be reckless. If there is to be some novel ingredient required to explain consciousness then it needs to identified, measured, tested with the same degree of rigour we would expect within any other field for it to become acceptable.  Some researchers have tiptoed into this arena with ideas like panpsychism and biocentrism but they are not gaining much foothold because the solid data for such ideas is just not there and most people working in the field think it unnecessary spurious complication that diverts attention from the real work to be done.

[Sebastian Toe]

The term can be used in different ways which is why I'm asking for a definition to see how they are handling this. As it is I kind of sense what their definition would be which would relegate it down to being an automaton; which is what an ant is. They have also said that this sense of being an individual is an illusion so they all think that they are just complex ants - which may explain a few things. 

Thst explains why you want their version of an explanation, which is nice.
However you may have missed it but just to reiterate, I was asking what your definition is. Do you have one?

[Jack Knave]

They - they - they.  FFS, do you ever give a citation?

Well one definition is the way Jung generally uses it as that aspect of our ego (technical term) which is diametrically opposed to the Unconscious. But he even at time sets out variations. But when dealing with these psychological options language then becomes a barrier or inadequate and it then can only be appreciated through experience. But for me the real issue is what is self consciousness/self awareness etc. that awareness of being an acting subjective agent - kind of being aware that you are aware of things and yourself such that you see yourself as being separate with respect to those things - even your body. See language is now falling short to adequately convey what our Being is.