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Poid
Shroomery's #1 Spellir




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Re: for purposes of clarification: [Re: millzy]
#14445575 - 05/13/11 01:36 PM (12 years, 8 months ago) |
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millzy said: you would be hard pressed to find anyone with extensive education on the subject who would assert that consciousness is a physical phenomenon.
This is an appeal to authority.
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millzy said: the general definition of it in psychology is that it is "our awareness of ourselves and our environment." in no way can that be a concrete structure that exists in tangible reality.
No explanation is given here as to why our awareness of ourselves and our environment can in no way be a concrete structure that exists in tangible reality. Also, not every physical phenomenon is a concrete structure..consciousness doesn't have to be a concrete structure in order to be physical.
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millzy said: and to go back to my original point, if the mind exists in physical reality, where are your memories poid?
They are stored in my brain.
-------------------- Well I try my best to be just like I am, but everybody wants you to be just like them. -- Bob Dylan  fireworks_god said:It's one thing to simply enjoy a style of life that one enjoys, but it's another thing altogether to refer to another person's choice as "wrong" or to rationalize their behavior as being pathological or resulting from some sort of inadequacy or failing so as to create a sense of superiority or separation as yet another projection of a personal fear or control issue.
Edited by Poid (04/19/12 06:42 AM)
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millzy


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Re: for purposes of clarification: [Re: DieCommie]
#14445579 - 05/13/11 01:36 PM (12 years, 8 months ago) |
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DieCommie said: Well, you're right I probably would throw out half of philosophy as irrelevant...
So you are basically just equating physical to empirically observable? Seems weird to me, but I think the mind is empirically observable.
1. how would you define philosophy?
2. why do you feel it's irrelevant?
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Re: for purposes of clarification: [Re: millzy]
#14445583 - 05/13/11 01:37 PM (12 years, 8 months ago) |
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Mistaken conceptions of duality remain rampant, though. Cartesian dualism is only an illustration of the problems we encounter when trying to make new information conform to the frameworks of outdated theory.

I think that psychology is probably a hard science "in the making." Though as I'm typing this I suddenly begin to wonder - what parallels could we draw between it and quantum mechanics, being that they both require statistical analysis to test their hypotheses?
-------------------- Enlil said: You really are the worst kind of person.
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DieCommie

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Quote:
Tchan909 said: Well, I call psychology a "soft science" because it seems to be separated by a degree from the phenomena it describes and predicts. Physical concepts can be tested through direct measurements of mass, velocity, time, et cetera, but we have no equivalent empirical tools for theorizing anxiety and depression in the mind of the patient. We resort to sketchy intuitive interpretations in the absence of harder data. IMO problems like Cartesian dualism and free will are totally epistemological and not "real" per se.
So hard vs soft science, and hence physical vs non-physical phenomenon, are merely a function of how accurate our descriptive and predictive models are? And that cut-off point is arbitrarily set somewhere in between the ability of psychology and the ability of physics? Seems silly to make such a distinction to me. I prefer to think of a continuum of our ability to model and predict phenomenon. Whether or not such a phenomenon is 'physical' is a useless, arbitrary distinction. Some phenomenon are described well, some are described not so well - but all are observed and hence all are empirical.
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Re: for purposes of clarification: [Re: DieCommie]
#14445610 - 05/13/11 01:42 PM (12 years, 8 months ago) |
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I agree that the hard and soft sciences are on a continuum. I don't think there is any "cut-off" point but only characteristics which mark the distinction. Perhaps I misspoke when I said "this is why psychology is a soft science."
-------------------- Enlil said: You really are the worst kind of person.
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In this thread my only real point is that attempts made by reductionists to "physicalize" psychology, and by doing so to shoot down certain philosophical premises, are premature.
-------------------- Enlil said: You really are the worst kind of person.
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DieCommie

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So the invention of a physical/nonphysical dichotomy is there simply to substantiate preconceived philosophical beliefs? Ha, I agree - that is why it's bullshit. It's ad-hoc and self serving.
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Re: for purposes of clarification: [Re: DieCommie]
#14445661 - 05/13/11 01:54 PM (12 years, 8 months ago) |
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DieCommie said: So the invention of a physical/nonphysical dichotomy is there simply to substantiate preconceived philosophical beliefs? Ha, I agree - that is why it's bullshit. It's ad-hoc and self serving.
I don't think judgments like those are useful to understanding the problem. We live with epistemological problems of self and other and of free will, and our differing solutions to those problems have driven us apart as a species.
Age of Aquarius indeed.
-------------------- Enlil said: You really are the worst kind of person.
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Poid
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Re: for purposes of clarification: [Re: DieCommie]
#14445667 - 05/13/11 01:55 PM (12 years, 8 months ago) |
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-------------------- Well I try my best to be just like I am, but everybody wants you to be just like them. -- Bob Dylan  fireworks_god said:It's one thing to simply enjoy a style of life that one enjoys, but it's another thing altogether to refer to another person's choice as "wrong" or to rationalize their behavior as being pathological or resulting from some sort of inadequacy or failing so as to create a sense of superiority or separation as yet another projection of a personal fear or control issue.
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Re: for purposes of clarification: [Re: Poid]
#14445711 - 05/13/11 02:03 PM (12 years, 8 months ago) |
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If I say, "I like grapes," would you be able to run tests on my brain which conclusively demonstrate HOW I like grapes, and then to examine the brains of others to determine if they like grapes also? The simplest and most concise explanation for why I keep sucking down the fruit of the vine is "I like grapes." And what is "I"? That's a whole other question for which psychology has many self-contradictory theoretical answers and neuroscience has no concrete answer.
This is the danger of dualism - in summarily dismissing it or embracing it. We don't have the epistemological tools to correctly do either.
-------------------- Enlil said: You really are the worst kind of person.
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Poid
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I pretty much agree..however, since the mind is natural, and every natural phenomenon is physical, the mind is physical.
-------------------- Well I try my best to be just like I am, but everybody wants you to be just like them. -- Bob Dylan  fireworks_god said:It's one thing to simply enjoy a style of life that one enjoys, but it's another thing altogether to refer to another person's choice as "wrong" or to rationalize their behavior as being pathological or resulting from some sort of inadequacy or failing so as to create a sense of superiority or separation as yet another projection of a personal fear or control issue.
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Re: for purposes of clarification: [Re: Poid]
#14445760 - 05/13/11 02:14 PM (12 years, 8 months ago) |
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Of course it's physical. By definition it's physical.
My caveat is that it may not be useful to understand the mind as physical, because it's moated-off by countless X-factors from the exacting measurements that physical sciences use. The brain is a fatty, squishy mystery.
To understand the mind only as a physical phenomenon, with currently-available data and technology, involves a degree of reductionism that could result in catastrophic errors and misjudgments. Our buddy Hitler, the ultimate dirty-word of reasoned debate in level voices, applied the theory of evolution in a premature, reductionist way that failed to ensure his fitness against the allies. I'm going to go out on a limb here and say most if not all problems with current human affairs involve a similar practice of reductionism applied to the mind.
-------------------- Enlil said: You really are the worst kind of person.
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Poid
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What kinds of errors and misjudgments do you foresee if we understand the mind only as a physical phenomenon?
-------------------- Well I try my best to be just like I am, but everybody wants you to be just like them. -- Bob Dylan  fireworks_god said:It's one thing to simply enjoy a style of life that one enjoys, but it's another thing altogether to refer to another person's choice as "wrong" or to rationalize their behavior as being pathological or resulting from some sort of inadequacy or failing so as to create a sense of superiority or separation as yet another projection of a personal fear or control issue.
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Re: for purposes of clarification: [Re: Poid]
#14445808 - 05/13/11 02:24 PM (12 years, 8 months ago) |
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Fundamentalist scientism fomented by the summary rejection of supernatural concepts.
Fundamentalist religion fomented by the premature dismissal, by the secular community, of very real physical processes within the brain which are poorly-characterized and misunderstood by science but better manipulated by ancient systems of social control.
That kind of talk is controversial and has on countless occasions embroiled us in an epistemological cul-de-sac, but another, more obviously tangible example is of iatrogenic disease caused by weak diagnostic tools. How many tweakers do you know who got started with ritalin? Because I know a bunch. (And don't take this as an anti-psychopharmaceutical diatribe, because I use ritalin responsibly and love it.)
-------------------- Enlil said: You really are the worst kind of person.
Edited by Tchan909 (05/13/11 03:59 PM)
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MushroomTrip
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So, keeping it scientific can somehow turn into mysticism through some unknown process?
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   All this time I've loved you And never known your face All this time I've missed you And searched this human race Here is true peace Here my heart knows calm Safe in your soul Bathed in your sighs
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Re: for purposes of clarification: [Re: MushroomTrip]
#14445819 - 05/13/11 02:27 PM (12 years, 8 months ago) |
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I prefer to think that keeping it mystical can turn into science through the process of record-keeping.
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By the way, happy birthday!
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MushroomTrip
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Hmmm, can you maybe exemplify what it is that you're talking about? It seems that you said that, keeping record of the most subjective experiences, without actually materially measuring them, can, at one point, turn into science, as in something objectively perceived? How would that happen?
--------------------
   All this time I've loved you And never known your face All this time I've missed you And searched this human race Here is true peace Here my heart knows calm Safe in your soul Bathed in your sighs
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MushroomTrip
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Quote:
Tchan909 said: By the way, happy birthday!
Thanks!
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   All this time I've loved you And never known your face All this time I've missed you And searched this human race Here is true peace Here my heart knows calm Safe in your soul Bathed in your sighs
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Poid
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Re: for purposes of clarification: [Re: MushroomTrip]
#14445871 - 05/13/11 02:39 PM (12 years, 8 months ago) |
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Yeah, happy birthday!
-------------------- Well I try my best to be just like I am, but everybody wants you to be just like them. -- Bob Dylan  fireworks_god said:It's one thing to simply enjoy a style of life that one enjoys, but it's another thing altogether to refer to another person's choice as "wrong" or to rationalize their behavior as being pathological or resulting from some sort of inadequacy or failing so as to create a sense of superiority or separation as yet another projection of a personal fear or control issue.
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