2 days ago: There are no absolutes of any kind. There are many observations that lend themselves to this remark.
Our perception of the world is mediated by components of the real world, light for example, and therefore perception is incapable of being perfectly indicative. We are unable to identify anything perfectly and therefore cannot be perfectly knowledgeable about it. Because we are unable to identify anything perfectly we have no basis for supposing that anything is perfectly identifiable.
Language is learned. It consists of bits of the real that are understood by a group of communicators to have a common significance. The notion of perfect language is therefore illusory because the identity of a single thing is questionable, common identities that form the basis of our common nouns is even more questionable, and the process of transmitting the language through teaching/learning from one generation to the next reflects the success of language but does not imply that it is perfect.
The issue of proof is mainly semantic. We must decide what we mean by the word. Typically the word is at its clearest in mathematics where we have agreed elements and procedures. In the scientific context the issue of proof usually arises in the context of achieving perfect, unquestionable, absolute assertions about the world. In science no such proof is to be had. There are organised branches of science where mathematics style proofs are possible because the understanding is effectively mathematical - there are established elements and procedures. But in science although we presume the future will be like the past we unable to absolutely guarantee that this is the case, and for this reason we tend to think of the mathematical proof as being more secure than a scientific one.
Are there scientific facts and generalisations? Obviously yes. Are they guaranteed as correct for eternity. Obviously not! Is perfect knowledge possible? No - even the question is framed in imperfect language.
Apr 21 2013: Hi Paul,
I think it is worth considering the process of choice. It seems to me that choice involves the presentation of alternatives and then the weighing of these against criteria. This is an orderly process that can be replicated by a computer.
The choices people make can sometimes seem mysterious because the criteria against which they are made are not known, and sometimes the situation is so complex that we use strategy. When people habitually makes mistakes (or act according to strange criteria) we say they are irrational.
It is my understanding that, when people decide, the neural process for initiating movement begins at the same time as the neural process for initiating language. Decisions are often underlined by affirming emotions so I would guess that the process for initiating the perception of emotion also begins at this time.
Traditional philosophy has regarded thought and emotion as existent. These are what we perceive when we choose and so we misunderstand them as agents in the process of choice. Quite simply, traditional philosophy is wrong: thought and emotion are not existent, they are not entities, they are not agents. The correct way to express our experience is to say, for example, "I perceive an emotion" NOT "My emotion exists". The actual process of choice lies in brain mechanism and this we don't perceive because it would require further brain mechanism to do so.
It should be clear from the above that the decider is the brain, it is the brain that initiates the action and initiates the communication of that action (if it so chooses). It may be possible to identify a module of the brain as the decider but this is where the identification of the decider ends.
Free will is not an issue except to the extent that it captures the understanding that there are situations where it is ethical and important for others not to threaten consequences on an individual making a decision.
Apr 21 2013: The answer to your question is No! Science is based on observation and responds to what it observes. Even if it satisfactorily accounts for all observations it nevertheless cannot discount an anomaly, a new inconsistent observation.
Language collects things together under single words. It therefore seems, to me, to be a more pertinent question to ask "What can language achieve?" or perhaps "What are the limits of generalisation?"
Apr 21 2013: I would hazard a guess that the definition of emotion is not that precise.
Taken at face value it seems obvious that there could be no future for humanity without emotion because there would be no impulse to choose one thing rather than another. One could imagine people pursuing survival without emotion, but why would they? A parallel consideration is the perception of pain. I understand people who do not feel pain have very poor outcomes (as judged by people who feel emotion and pain).
The idea that psychopaths mimic emotion to their own advantage is an interesting counterpoint because the question is - what motivates them? If the above observation is right then it would seem that either the answer to this question concerns the definition of emotion or the answer is that psychopaths are in some way parasitic of others' values - they seek what others seek.
Apr 21 2013: Hi Lauren,
I think it is worth adding to the discussion the observation that the brain is itself an instrument for reporting what it thinks.
My guess is that, just as it is probably not possible to replicate this sort of biochemistry in another type of chemistry i.e. it will not be possible to replace brain parts with entirely non-organic parts, nor, I suspect will it be possible to find an alternative way to report what the brain thinks apart from the type of instrumentation that the brain itself employs.
Jun 15 2012: Apologies for arriving late.
If you are interested I've made plenty of comments on TED on both consciousness and quantum mechanics.
The gist is:-
People are objects that perceive and therefore experience is expressed as "I perceive X" and NOT as "I have consciousness of X". Consciousness does not exist. The idea arises from a misunderstanding of the concept of perception.
If we analyse the real then a genuine explanation will be in terms of something not-real for otherwise the explanation is circular of infinitely regressive. We see because of light but light itself cannot be seen or visualised in principle. The traditional confusion in interpreting quantum mechanics is the futile attempt to explain the real in terms of itself.
May 2 2012: 1/ We DO NOT "make consciousness in our brains".
2/ There are NO "image-making regions in the brain".
2/ The brain does not MAKE images. Why would it do so and who or what would see them if it did? The brain making images implies a regressive account of vision i.e. we go from saying "I see X" to saying I see X because my brain produces an image of X. This muddles the language concerning perception and self, because it is no longer clear whether seeing X is perception or whether seeing the image produced by the brain is perception.
Saying "I see X" and also, as A.D. does,
"We have a Me that is automatically present in our minds right now. We own our minds."
"So a conscious mind is a mind with a self in it."
shows a great deal of confusion regarding the self. (Defining mind as "a flow of mental images" doesn't really do full justice to the concept of mind; and it literally reduces mind to the visual; and it begs the question - what are non-mental images?).
1/ A.D. says "At any rate, what is consciousness? ..Well first of all, it is a mind, which is a flow of mental images."
So we are to understand that the brain makes images, the mind is a flow of images, and when it has a self in it, it is a conscious mind i.e. consciousness is the flow of images with a self in it. But according to A.D. the autobiographical self itself is as least in part a flow of images, so consciousness is a flow with a flow in it.
Here 'consciousness' is a concept that has been abstracted out of the concrete yet we are to suppose that it is MADE in our brains.
The issue is really quite simple. The problems resolve if we suppose people are objects that perceive (the self/I is the perceiving object), that perception is a process in the real, and that any experience can be expressed as "I perceive X".
In this scheme there ARE regions of the brain related to perceiving images; we can distinguish types of perception including non-perception; and the self need not be unified or competent.
May 2 2012: Could bringing up children to play computer games that simulate quantum mechanical behaviour provide an escape from Dawkins' middle-world? (18.18)
NO! They could, at best, become experts in computer simulations of quantum mechanical behaviour. This is because quantum mechanics does not concern 'balls' going through slits - the relationship of light to balls, which enables us to see balls, cannot be the same as the relationship between light and photons. We see things because of light. Light itself is unseeable and therefore it cannot be properly simulated as visible.
I suggest that our inability to understand quantum mechanics arises from the desire to explain the real in terms of the real i.e. an attempt to explain something in terms of itself. Seeking this kind of understanding is a futile quest for an infinitely regressive non-explanation.
Mar 20 2012: There are undoubtedly some experiences that are malfunctions. Such experiences involve incompetent perception of the real. They are not realistic but nor are they usually classified as religious.
So what makes an experience religious i.e. how does the experience relate to concepts of God?
Feelings of self-transcendence, of losing oneself into a group, are portrayed in this talk as concerned with the real and as functional in the real. So I do not understand what makes this experience religious and I do not understand why there is a group called New Atheists who regard it as a mistake when it bears no obvious relationship to a supernatural power? (Nor do I understand how a talk can mention religion and religious experience while ignoring the fundamental issue of supernatural power.)
It seems disproportionate, grotesque even, to think of human cooperation and transcendence in things like war when its most powerful manifestation is utterly normal - the development and maintenance of language (shared understandings of shared tokens in the real).
Mar 15 2012: Consider a blog 200 years ago, 1,000 years ago, 10,000 years ago, asking questions that no one knows the answers to.
It seems likely to me that the questions would be poor and that the questioner had over-reached themselves by a good margin - because they will have presumed to know not only what the significant questions are but also whether anyone knew the answers to them.
How many universes are there? Defined as "all existing matter and space considered as a whole" (OED) there are NONE because it is illogical to consider something ill defined as a whole.
The multiple universes posited in the interpretation of quantum mechanics is, I have argued, a mistake originating from the notion that the real is unendingly analysable as real.
Cosmologists are free to define what a universe is and in a way that allows for more than one but asking the question "How many universes are there?" is bound to be irrelevant to this process.
It is well understood that one of the keys to progress is asking the right question.
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A comment on Conversation: Truths and Facts. Does Science prove anything?
Our perception of the world is mediated by components of the real world, light for example, and therefore perception is incapable of being perfectly indicative. We are unable to identify anything perfectly and therefore cannot be perfectly knowledgeable about it. Because we are unable to identify anything perfectly we have no basis for supposing that anything is perfectly identifiable.
Language is learned. It consists of bits of the real that are understood by a group of communicators to have a common significance. The notion of perfect language is therefore illusory because the identity of a single thing is questionable, common identities that form the basis of our common nouns is even more questionable, and the process of transmitting the language through teaching/learning from one generation to the next reflects the success of language but does not imply that it is perfect.
The issue of proof is mainly semantic. We must decide what we mean by the word. Typically the word is at its clearest in mathematics where we have agreed elements and procedures. In the scientific context the issue of proof usually arises in the context of achieving perfect, unquestionable, absolute assertions about the world. In science no such proof is to be had. There are organised branches of science where mathematics style proofs are possible because the understanding is effectively mathematical - there are established elements and procedures. But in science although we presume the future will be like the past we unable to absolutely guarantee that this is the case, and for this reason we tend to think of the mathematical proof as being more secure than a scientific one.
Are there scientific facts and generalisations? Obviously yes. Are they guaranteed as correct for eternity. Obviously not! Is perfect knowledge possible? No - even the question is framed in imperfect language.
A comment on Conversation: Do we have a self (ego, soul, actor, etc.) that exhibits free will?
I think it is worth considering the process of choice. It seems to me that choice involves the presentation of alternatives and then the weighing of these against criteria. This is an orderly process that can be replicated by a computer.
The choices people make can sometimes seem mysterious because the criteria against which they are made are not known, and sometimes the situation is so complex that we use strategy. When people habitually makes mistakes (or act according to strange criteria) we say they are irrational.
It is my understanding that, when people decide, the neural process for initiating movement begins at the same time as the neural process for initiating language. Decisions are often underlined by affirming emotions so I would guess that the process for initiating the perception of emotion also begins at this time.
Traditional philosophy has regarded thought and emotion as existent. These are what we perceive when we choose and so we misunderstand them as agents in the process of choice. Quite simply, traditional philosophy is wrong: thought and emotion are not existent, they are not entities, they are not agents. The correct way to express our experience is to say, for example, "I perceive an emotion" NOT "My emotion exists". The actual process of choice lies in brain mechanism and this we don't perceive because it would require further brain mechanism to do so.
It should be clear from the above that the decider is the brain, it is the brain that initiates the action and initiates the communication of that action (if it so chooses). It may be possible to identify a module of the brain as the decider but this is where the identification of the decider ends.
Free will is not an issue except to the extent that it captures the understanding that there are situations where it is ethical and important for others not to threaten consequences on an individual making a decision.
A comment on Conversation: Can science uncover the origin of everything?
Language collects things together under single words. It therefore seems, to me, to be a more pertinent question to ask "What can language achieve?" or perhaps "What are the limits of generalisation?"
A comment on Conversation: Would a world without emotions better?
Taken at face value it seems obvious that there could be no future for humanity without emotion because there would be no impulse to choose one thing rather than another. One could imagine people pursuing survival without emotion, but why would they? A parallel consideration is the perception of pain. I understand people who do not feel pain have very poor outcomes (as judged by people who feel emotion and pain).
The idea that psychopaths mimic emotion to their own advantage is an interesting counterpoint because the question is - what motivates them? If the above observation is right then it would seem that either the answer to this question concerns the definition of emotion or the answer is that psychopaths are in some way parasitic of others' values - they seek what others seek.
A comment on Conversation: Will mind-reading eventually become a reality and what are the implications for humanity?
I think it is worth adding to the discussion the observation that the brain is itself an instrument for reporting what it thinks.
My guess is that, just as it is probably not possible to replicate this sort of biochemistry in another type of chemistry i.e. it will not be possible to replace brain parts with entirely non-organic parts, nor, I suspect will it be possible to find an alternative way to report what the brain thinks apart from the type of instrumentation that the brain itself employs.
A comment on Conversation: How randomness of a photon particle in a two slit experiment could explain the phenomena of Consciousness and Decision-Making
If you are interested I've made plenty of comments on TED on both consciousness and quantum mechanics.
The gist is:-
People are objects that perceive and therefore experience is expressed as "I perceive X" and NOT as "I have consciousness of X". Consciousness does not exist. The idea arises from a misunderstanding of the concept of perception.
If we analyse the real then a genuine explanation will be in terms of something not-real for otherwise the explanation is circular of infinitely regressive. We see because of light but light itself cannot be seen or visualised in principle. The traditional confusion in interpreting quantum mechanics is the futile attempt to explain the real in terms of itself.
A comment on Talk: Antonio Damasio: The quest to understand consciousness
2/ There are NO "image-making regions in the brain".
2/ The brain does not MAKE images. Why would it do so and who or what would see them if it did? The brain making images implies a regressive account of vision i.e. we go from saying "I see X" to saying I see X because my brain produces an image of X. This muddles the language concerning perception and self, because it is no longer clear whether seeing X is perception or whether seeing the image produced by the brain is perception.
Saying "I see X" and also, as A.D. does,
"We have a Me that is automatically present in our minds right now. We own our minds."
"So a conscious mind is a mind with a self in it."
shows a great deal of confusion regarding the self. (Defining mind as "a flow of mental images" doesn't really do full justice to the concept of mind; and it literally reduces mind to the visual; and it begs the question - what are non-mental images?).
1/ A.D. says "At any rate, what is consciousness? ..Well first of all, it is a mind, which is a flow of mental images."
So we are to understand that the brain makes images, the mind is a flow of images, and when it has a self in it, it is a conscious mind i.e. consciousness is the flow of images with a self in it. But according to A.D. the autobiographical self itself is as least in part a flow of images, so consciousness is a flow with a flow in it.
Here 'consciousness' is a concept that has been abstracted out of the concrete yet we are to suppose that it is MADE in our brains.
The issue is really quite simple. The problems resolve if we suppose people are objects that perceive (the self/I is the perceiving object), that perception is a process in the real, and that any experience can be expressed as "I perceive X".
In this scheme there ARE regions of the brain related to perceiving images; we can distinguish types of perception including non-perception; and the self need not be unified or competent.
A comment on Talk: Richard Dawkins: Why the universe seems so strange
NO! They could, at best, become experts in computer simulations of quantum mechanical behaviour. This is because quantum mechanics does not concern 'balls' going through slits - the relationship of light to balls, which enables us to see balls, cannot be the same as the relationship between light and photons. We see things because of light. Light itself is unseeable and therefore it cannot be properly simulated as visible.
I suggest that our inability to understand quantum mechanics arises from the desire to explain the real in terms of the real i.e. an attempt to explain something in terms of itself. Seeking this kind of understanding is a futile quest for an infinitely regressive non-explanation.
A comment on Talk: Jonathan Haidt: Religion, evolution, and the ecstasy of self-transcendence
So what makes an experience religious i.e. how does the experience relate to concepts of God?
Feelings of self-transcendence, of losing oneself into a group, are portrayed in this talk as concerned with the real and as functional in the real. So I do not understand what makes this experience religious and I do not understand why there is a group called New Atheists who regard it as a mistake when it bears no obvious relationship to a supernatural power? (Nor do I understand how a talk can mention religion and religious experience while ignoring the fundamental issue of supernatural power.)
It seems disproportionate, grotesque even, to think of human cooperation and transcendence in things like war when its most powerful manifestation is utterly normal - the development and maintenance of language (shared understandings of shared tokens in the real).
A comment on Talk: Questions no one knows the answers to
It seems likely to me that the questions would be poor and that the questioner had over-reached themselves by a good margin - because they will have presumed to know not only what the significant questions are but also whether anyone knew the answers to them.
How many universes are there? Defined as "all existing matter and space considered as a whole" (OED) there are NONE because it is illogical to consider something ill defined as a whole.
The multiple universes posited in the interpretation of quantum mechanics is, I have argued, a mistake originating from the notion that the real is unendingly analysable as real.
Cosmologists are free to define what a universe is and in a way that allows for more than one but asking the question "How many universes are there?" is bound to be irrelevant to this process.
It is well understood that one of the keys to progress is asking the right question.