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Sophistic Radiance
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Re: atheism is small minded. [Re: koods]
#18821374 - 09/09/13 11:26 PM (10 years, 5 months ago) |
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koods said:
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There is no satisfactory proof that consciousness is generated by the brain, only the working assumption. I could be wrong about this, and if so I'd just love to be corrected...
Hardly an assumption. There is a direct correlation between the physical structure and conscious awareness. Damage to brain structure results in predictable changes or deficits in consciousness. This isn't merely a correlation, it is cause and effect. Drugs change brain function, and this manifests itself in alterations in our consciousness,
What if you crack a magnifying glass and can no longer use it to light your pipe with the sun? Does it imply that the sun no longer exists, since you can't take sun hits anymore?
If you were on an island full of weed but no flint or tinder, that magnifying glass would be the only way to smoke it.
-------------------- Enlil said: You really are the worst kind of person.
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koods
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Oh shit. I didn't know it was dumb to use your brain to think. Why didn't someone tell me that God would think for me? I feel like I've been drugged with stupidcain.
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NotSheekle said “if I believed she was 16 I would become unattracted to her”
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koods
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BlindSophist said:
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koods said:
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There is no satisfactory proof that consciousness is generated by the brain, only the working assumption. I could be wrong about this, and if so I'd just love to be corrected...
Hardly an assumption. There is a direct correlation between the physical structure and conscious awareness. Damage to brain structure results in predictable changes or deficits in consciousness. This isn't merely a correlation, it is cause and effect. Drugs change brain function, and this manifests itself in alterations in our consciousness,
What if you crack a magnifying glass and can no longer use it to light your pipe with the sun? Does it imply that the sun no longer exists, since you can't take sun hits anymore?
If you were on an island full of weed but no flint or tinder, that magnifying glass would be the only way to smoke it.
Well those are nice sentences but they don't really make much sense - they certainly don't provide any insight into our understanding of consciousness. You seem to be introducing the premise that consciousness is like the sun, an external beam of energy? I don't accept that premise at all. There is no reason to suspect this would be true.
We already have a theory of the mind that is testable, and that theory is that consciousness is a property of the physical brain. We are perfectly capable of messing with consciousness by messing with the brain. We have a decent map of the brain and where functions are located. A mad scientist could take your self identity away one piece at a time with a scalpel.
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NotSheekle said “if I believed she was 16 I would become unattracted to her”
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Sophistic Radiance
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Re: atheism is small minded. [Re: koods]
#18821437 - 09/09/13 11:48 PM (10 years, 5 months ago) |
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koods said: Well those are nice sentences but they don't really make much sense - they certainly don't provide any insight into our understanding of consciousness. You seem to be introducing the premise that consciousness is like the sun, an external beam of energy? I don't accept that premise at all. There is no reason to suspect this would be true.
There is every reason to suspect that this would be true in situations that don't demand falsifiable hypotheses according to measurable data. In most cases, it is far more parsimonious to assume consciousness is common, instead of discrete. For example, I assume that I see the same color blue that you do, and for all practical intents and purposes, this is true. In most given conversations it would be a tragic waste of time and effort to try to describe the color blue in terms of synaptic activity or wavelength instead of just saying "blue".
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We already have a theory of the mind that is testable, and that theory is that consciousness is a property of the physical brain. We are perfectly capable of messing with consciousness by messing with the brain. We have a decent map of the brain and where functions are located. A mad scientist could take your self identity away one piece at a time with a scalpel.
Just like an electrician could modify a color TV to display black and white? That doesn't mean the color TV displaying black-and-white images is receiving a black-and-white signal, and the brain's functioning is a bit more complex than that of a TV set.
-------------------- Enlil said: You really are the worst kind of person.
Edited by Sophistic Radiance (09/09/13 11:57 PM)
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koods
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Have you considered that we have common perceptions and cognition because we generally have the same physiology? Our brains are discrete but they all came from the same blueprint.
I'm not talking about changing the color palette. I'm talking about ripping the knobs and antenna off.
Color is initially nothing more than cells sensitive to certain wavelengths firing under the appropriate stimuli. That basic information works it way through the non conscious parts of the mind and is tanslated and manipulated to be eventually presented to the conscious part as the color we perceive.
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NotSheekle said “if I believed she was 16 I would become unattracted to her”
Edited by koods (09/10/13 12:10 AM)
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Sophistic Radiance
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Re: atheism is small minded. [Re: koods]
#18821509 - 09/10/13 12:19 AM (10 years, 5 months ago) |
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koods said: Have you considered that we have common perceptions and cognition because we generally have the same physiology? Our brains are discrete but they all came from the same blueprint.
And what are those common experiences? I'm not satisfied until I hear an explanation for how all of my experiences and those of others are actually generated by controlled electrical discharges. I acknowledge the possibility (or likelihood) that I don't have the knowledge necessary to understand or even recognize such an explanation. But until I get that explanation in some form, I really don't see how either model of consciousness reflects truth. They are each useful in its own domain and there doesn't seem to be any way of disproving one on the basis of the other.
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I'm not talking about changing the color palette. I'm talking about ripping the knobs and antenna off.
By that logic, ripping the knobs and antenna off a TV actually destroys the signals it would be capable of receiving if functional.
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koods
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Yeah, I guess I stumbled into that one. It's a closed circuit TV.
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NotSheekle said “if I believed she was 16 I would become unattracted to her”
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Sophistic Radiance
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Re: atheism is small minded. [Re: koods]
#18821526 - 09/10/13 12:27 AM (10 years, 5 months ago) |
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Ooh, classic... do the images still exist if there is no TV upon which they can be displayed?
-------------------- Enlil said: You really are the worst kind of person.
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koods
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Re: atheism is small minded. [Re: koods]
#18821535 - 09/10/13 12:30 AM (10 years, 5 months ago) |
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Direct electrical stimulation of neurons can elicit memories, emotions, physical sensations, words, symbols, etc., strong magnetic fields of specific frequencies can induce what is deserved as "the presence of god"
You should read some Oliver Sacks. He has a couple books describing cases of strange effects being caused by different neurological issues.
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NotSheekle said “if I believed she was 16 I would become unattracted to her”
Edited by koods (09/10/13 12:32 AM)
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Re: atheism is small minded. [Re: koods]
#18821567 - 09/10/13 12:41 AM (10 years, 5 months ago) |
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Though I have experienced "the presence of god" thanks to DMT, that's not part of the basis of my reasoning. That said, I'll admit the experience could probably provide motivation for my reasoning in a way that paranoid psychosis from amphetamines couldn't.
I haven't read Oliver Sacks, but I do listen to a lot of NPR so I'm vaguely familiar with the God Helmet. I can only imagine it looks something like this:

EDIT: Hey, the Sacks fellow has got an episode of Nova about him. Might be a good starting point.
-------------------- Enlil said: You really are the worst kind of person.
Edited by Sophistic Radiance (09/10/13 12:56 AM)
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Schmendrick
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Quote:
atheism is small minded.
FALSE.
I am an atheist and I have a very large head. My wife bought a hat for me for our anniversary and we had to special order it online because no local Haberdasher carries sizes that large.
I suppose the argument could still be made that my head, though large, contains a physically small brain, but that seems unlikely... I cannot conclusively discount the idea though, because I have never had a CT scan of my head to confirm the mass of the brain therein.
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Sophistic Radiance
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Re: atheism is small minded. [Re: Schmendrick]
#18821862 - 09/10/13 02:45 AM (10 years, 5 months ago) |
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Schmendrick said: I suppose the argument could still be made that my head, though large, contains a physically small brain, but that seems unlikely... I cannot conclusively discount the idea though, because I have never had a CT scan of my head to confirm the mass of the brain therein.
Then you've got nothing, NOTHING! 
Come back when you've replaced 99% of your cranium with the light-conductive polymer necessary for an ultrahigh-resolution camera to make accurate and true statements about your neurophysiology.
-------------------- Enlil said: You really are the worst kind of person.
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koods
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Or wait until he dies and make slices.
The summer after my first year in college, I had an internship at NIH (NIMH specifically). In the hallway outside the lab was the refrigerator where they kept the brains. I had two duties that summer: make and run western blots and decapitate live rats with a manually operated guillotine and extract their brains, kidneys and livers.
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NotSheekle said “if I believed she was 16 I would become unattracted to her”
Edited by koods (09/10/13 03:16 AM)
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Sophistic Radiance
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Re: atheism is small minded. [Re: koods]
#18821929 - 09/10/13 03:15 AM (10 years, 5 months ago) |
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But then we'll miss the precious split-second discharge of high-falutin kilo s that would prove the existence of the soul and make such measurements necessary in the first place.
Clearly, we must vivisect.
-------------------- Enlil said: You really are the worst kind of person.
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Fire is Born
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Re: atheism is small minded. [Re: koods]
#18821931 - 09/10/13 03:17 AM (10 years, 5 months ago) |
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koods said:
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Fire is Born said: When I die I'm coming back as a fucking eagle. Its what i want to believe. If you think I'm wrong then you're small minded
And you're so open minded your brain has fallen out.
Sarcasm detector failed
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Fire is Born
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Re: atheism is small minded. [Re: koods]
#18821935 - 09/10/13 03:19 AM (10 years, 5 months ago) |
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koods said: Or wait until he dies and make slices.
The summer after my first year in college, I had an internship at NIH (NIMH specifically). In the hallway outside the lab was the refrigerator where they kept the brains. I had two duties that summer: make and run western blots and decapitate live rats with a manually operated guillotine and extract their brains, kidneys and livers.
You sound like a hero
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Sophistic Radiance
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Sarcasm2=butthurt
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koods
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Quote:
BlindSophist said: Clearly, we must vivisect. 
My internship experience may come in handy
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Fire is Born said:
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koods said:
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Fire is Born said: When I die I'm coming back as a fucking eagle. Its what i want to believe. If you think I'm wrong then you're small minded
And you're so open minded your brain has fallen out.
Sarcasm detector failed
You should have it checked twice a year, and replace the batteries.
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NotSheekle said “if I believed she was 16 I would become unattracted to her”
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Sophistic Radiance
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Re: atheism is small minded. [Re: koods]
#18821939 - 09/10/13 03:21 AM (10 years, 5 months ago) |
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Quote:
koods said: The summer after my first year in college, I had an internship at NIH (NIMH specifically). In the hallway outside the lab was the refrigerator where they kept the brains. I had two duties that summer: make and run western blots and decapitate live rats with a manually operated guillotine and extract their brains, kidneys and livers.
Western blots sound fun...
...western blots sound fun.
-------------------- Enlil said: You really are the worst kind of person.
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koods
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Quote:
Fire is Born said:
Quote:
koods said: Or wait until he dies and make slices.
The summer after my first year in college, I had an internship at NIH (NIMH specifically). In the hallway outside the lab was the refrigerator where they kept the brains. I had two duties that summer: make and run western blots and decapitate live rats with a manually operated guillotine and extract their brains, kidneyws and livers.
You sound like a hero
No glory in basic research.
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NotSheekle said “if I believed she was 16 I would become unattracted to her”
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