Common sense argument - the mind and materialism

But the properties of the subjective content of the person's experience of thinking of the chocolate sundae are fundamentally different - they are things like perceptions and thoughts and emotions. Intrinsic qualities of experience that are directly available to introspection. The descriptors of the properties of conscious experience are fundamentally different from and not reducible to the electric charge, field intensity, velocity, mass, etc. that are the basic descriptors of material things. If this is disagreed with, then please give the properties of perception and thought and emotion that are also the properties of matter and energy in motion. Please show how my subjective thought of and desire for and pleasure in eating a chocolate sundae are reducible to field intensities, masses, velocities, etc. Subjective experience of color, taste, smell, and the emotions associated with perceptions are in a fundamentally different world of existence.

I can't show it. And yet there is no proof that qualia are not brain processes. Until there is proof, I'll continue to ask why they cannot be the same thing.

It's a tricky business. I'm not willing to jump to a conclusion.

~~ Paul

And yet there is no proof that qualia are not brain processes.

Actually, there are a number of "proofs" indicating experiences at least sometimes have a nonphysical component. Remote viewing is a contemporary application of clairvoyance that is well documents, even useful. In that, the viewer experiences a sense of seeing the distant place. As I understand, not directly, but as impressions which are probably similar to remembering eating a chocolate sundae.

There are others, but more tangential examples. The effect of intention on REGs is well established, as is EVP. You can discount these as not being mainstream, but without examination, that would be scientism.

There are others, but more tangential examples. The effect of intention on REGs is well established, as is EVP. You can discount these as not being mainstream, but without examination, that would be scientism.

I must say personally I'd be hesitant to cite EVP as anything other than an example of a Rorschach ink-blot test in audible form. It is a topic I tend to steer clear of, as it has always seemed extremely subjective to me. Is there really concrete, testable evidence of its efficacy?

It sounds like you have been reading Wikipedia. EVP is pretty far out on the frontier. Virtually all parapsychologists avoid the subject. Those who have studied it make the usual mistake of assuming college students are competent practitioners. If you did look at the Wikipedia article on EVP, not that I am not allowed to edit there because of a supposed conflict of interest. After much discourse, the skeptics took complete control and would have you understand what they want you to believe.

We have conducted a few online listening studies. EVP are classified as Class A (hear and understand with no prompting), Class B (hear and understand part with no prompting) and Class C (probably cannot he hear or understood) Using Class A, and without prompting, we see an average of around 25% correct word recognition for online listeners. This number has been found by others with similar studies. Remember that the voices are simulations of biologically formed speech.

It took a lot of study, but we finally came out to say that such opportunistic techniques as radio-sweep, use of pseudo-random access of buffer addresses and use of scrambled live voice do not produce EVP or produce so many false positives that they should not be used. I say this to say that most of what you hear on the Internet is from opportunistic techniques and are probably not EVP. Indeed, the best explanation is Rorschach audio -- ordinary mistaken as proof of extraordinary.

EVP is the audio form of Instrumental TransCommunication (ITC). In a study of how well people see visual forms of ITC collected with the video-loop method, people reasonably recognized the features at a much higher rate. See Perception of Visual ITC Images.

From our study, both forms of ITC depend on essentially the same physical principles and exhibit the same hypothesized etheric principles. In the sense that phenomena inherit validity from related phenomena, we think the influence of intention on REGs is essentially the same as the apparent influence of intended order in ITC.

One of the implicit proofs of ITC is that ITC experiments are often replicated by people scattered around the world. However, it does take a little practice and many who try do not succeed. Parapsychologists are beginning to be more open to ITC. The problem is that it is billed as proof of survival. It seems that the majority of parapsychologists do not accept the survival hypothesis, and are reluctant to risk association with it.

Most ITC can be explained with the Super-Psi Hypothesis which holds that anomalous information access can be explained as psychic (psi functioning) access to existing memory or memory retained as survived energy. I have only one example that seems to indicate possible survived sentient personality.

I have attempted to provide a useful model for EVP in A Model for EVP.

Rather than just EVP, take the "proof that qualia are not brain processes" as a suite of phenomena that appear to involve essentially the same principles, but different, depending on their media.

The line quoted by Stephenw,"These sensations are projected by the mind so as to clothe appropriate bodies in external nature" states a point of view that is consistent with emerging understanding in the study of perception. Sensed information comes to our conscious awareness after it is colored by memory.

 Stochastic resonance is of interest to me.  I am arguing for a methodological means to measure the effects of mind in the physical environment.  SR is measured in terms of mutual information, and is an information science observation with a quasi-empirical basis for pattern recognition. 

Maybe in another thread or by PM - you could connect "(a)etheric principles" with SR.  

I would be of the mind that the terms: infospace or information space are better for a scientific conversation.  In this way, light as photons and virtual photons can be measured as to there physical and informational aspects, without a "substance" like aether.

stephenw, I am open to the discussion within the limits of my background. A new thread would seem best, as it seems good here to have other points of view.

One of the ways I speak of these things is conceptual space as opposed to physical space. For instance, we have seen a resistance to the influence of intention by highly controlled processes. The way I have described it is that intention produces a conceptual-to-physical influence. Conceptually, white noise is very stable; however, white noise occasionally punctuated with brief high-energy spikes is conceptually unstable. EVP are more easily formed in such punctuated noise.

So, thinking of physical processes in terms of their engineered stability seems to help predict how intention will affect physical processes.

Is that what you are getting at about taking the with without a "substance" like aether."

I can't show it. And yet there is no proof that qualia are not brain processes. Until there is proof, I'll continue to ask why they cannot be the same thing.

It's a tricky business. I'm not willing to jump to a conclusion.

~~ Paul

The material sciences are not about proof, but about empirical evidence that fits a process model outcomes.

Maybe we can talk about evidence and and process outcomes?  The reason I quoted Whitehead is his stance on importance. (see Chapter One of Modes of Thought)

There is no chance to measure "importance" in neural circuit, other than total signal strength. But in fact ,the strength of signal is not correlative, necessarily, with functional outcomes.  A tiny signal can generate a large and/or complex emotional response.

Importance can be addressed by logical means and by focus in a "global workspace" (GWS).  Importance, especially emotional importance, does connect to beliefs and assessments measurable in Bayesian terms.  Certain logical connections are behind affordances.  (a concept lately embraced by D. Dennett among others).

The idea put forward here is that chemistry and physics have no measurable criteria of what will cause the mind to focus and stimulate a search for meaning.  Information science and psychology can.  There is evidence for how meaning "works".

There is no context for important meanings in chemicals that are deaf and dumb.  There is context for describing the content of a signal as formal information in code.  Qualia will not correlate directly with the chemical generation of peptides.  

Information science can speak to the signals that detect affordances and that lead to emotional reactions and creative thinking.  As we get better at modeling affordances and qualia - we gain understanding of mind.

 To identify an affordance is to have achieved access to a panoply of expectations that can be exploited, reflected upon (by us and maybe some other animals), used as generators of further reflections, etc. Consciousness is still a magnificent set of puzzles, but appears as less of a flatfooted mystery when we think about the fruits of cognition with Gibson’s help. The term is growing in frequency across the spectrum of cognitive science, but many users of the term seem to have a diminished appreciation of its potential. -- D. Dennett 

I can't show it. And yet there is no proof that qualia are not brain processes. Until there is proof, I'll continue to ask why they cannot be the same thing.

It's a tricky business. I'm not willing to jump to a conclusion.

~~ Paul

What do you mean by "proof"? It certainly isn't part of the implements of science. Science and the establishment of "laws" are about the (overwhelming) preponderance of evidence, not absolute certainty. 

Whatever kind of proof you want, the request probably is a rhetorical stratagem and impossible to furnish.

Dictionary.com gives a long list of definitions of the word "proof". These are the most relevant ones:

(1) Evidence sufficient to establish a thing as true, or to produce belief in its truth.
(2) Anything serving as such evidence.
(3) The act of testing or making trial of anything; test; trial: to put a thing to the proof.
(4) The establishment of the truth of anything; demonstration.
(5) In mathematics and logic a sequence of steps, statements, or demonstrations that leads to a valid conclusion.

To a determined skeptic, (1) and (2) are a logical impossibility since the skeptic can always decide to change exactly what evidence is considered "sufficient", and move the goal post. The same applies to (3) and (4). He can always decide that whatever test result is presented, it is insufficient, and demand more. It's impossible to logically prove a negative by evidence, testing or demonstration, since a determined skeptic can always demand more evidence or another test and set of conditions and so on ad infinitum. 

Is the kind of proof you want the mathematics and logic kind, (5)? I invite you to prove your own proposition in this way. That is, prove in this way your own proposition that qualia are material. It's a form of proof that isn't applicable to the subject. 

Going back to science and its methodology, the proposition that qualia are not material has a large body of evidence, alluded to earlier. This consists of things like the demonstration of fundamental existential differences between the elements of qualia and the elements of material things. The one category of "things" is measured in fundamentally different units than the other. What evidence can you furnish that qualia are indeed material? It's a matter of the preponderance of evidence.

I'm well aware of the folly of using Wikipedia as a reference - it is a topic which I've emphasised myself a few times.

I suppose my problem is that whenever an example is given, the way I hear it is mostly at odds with the supposedly 'correct' interpretation. I can't get around that. My ears hear something else. That's why I leave it to others to explore, I would not stand in their way, but I wouldn't feel I could support it.

What do you mean by "proof"? It certainly isn't part of the implements of science. Science and the establishment of "laws" are about the (overwhelming) preponderance of evidence, not absolute certainty. 

Whatever kind of proof you want, the request probably is a rhetorical stratagem and impossible to furnish.

Dictionary.com gives a long list of definitions of the word "proof". These are the most relevant ones:

(1) Evidence sufficient to establish a thing as true, or to produce belief in its truth.
(2) Anything serving as such evidence.
(3) The act of testing or making trial of anything; test; trial: to put a thing to the proof.
(4) The establishment of the truth of anything; demonstration.
(5) In mathematics and logic a sequence of steps, statements, or demonstrations that leads to a valid conclusion.

To a determined skeptic, (1) and (2) are a logical impossibility since the skeptic can always decide to change exactly what evidence is considered "sufficient", and move the goal post. The same applies to (3) and (4). He can always decide that whatever test result is presented, it is insufficient, and demand more. It's impossible to logically prove a negative by evidence, testing or demonstration, since a determined skeptic can always demand more evidence or another test and set of conditions and so on ad infinitum. 

Is the kind of proof you want the mathematics and logic kind, (5)? I invite you to prove your own proposition in this way. That is, prove in this way your own proposition that qualia are material. It's a form of proof that isn't applicable to the subject. 

Going back to science and its methodology, the proposition that qualia are not material has a large body of evidence, alluded to earlier. This consists of things like the demonstration of fundamental existential differences between the elements of qualia and the elements of material things. The one category of "things" is measured in fundamentally different units than the other. What evidence can you furnish that qualia are indeed material? It's a matter of the preponderance of evidence.

 Good grief! Certainly both of you are smart enough to realise Paul is using the word "proof" in the vernacular. He could have wrote it the way you two did, but why (I ask rhetorically)?