Correlation vs Causation

Turned out to be not much of anything? What is going on in this thread? My goodness. An individual cell is marvelously complex. How on earth does that qualify as "not much of anything"?

"Life" seemed unique. We did not have any sort of idea how a collection cells (no matter that they were individually marvelously complex) from non-living matter, could produce living creatures. Like consciousness, on its face, life from non-life is just as inexplicable as mind from non-mind.

Yet, in the end, as we dug into life, nothing showed up as a a necessary ingredient to change non-life to life. The marvelously complex cell was alive all on its own. It was the idea that we needed something more than that to account for life which turned out to be "not much of anything".

Linda

Perhaps this describes why there is a difference, in at least one way, between you and Steve, and some of the proponents. Philosophy is critically important, and makes you think a lot about important stuff. 

Here, trying to act like consciousness does not at least seem to be facially unique is a product of a lack of critical thinking.

Again, we can describe what the kidney does biochemically - and HOW that actually produces the results it does.

We understand some of what goes on in the brain biochemically, and do not have any sort of idea how it produces conscious, subjective experience. And to deny that and say that it's a product of philosophy treating things differently, is to utterly dismiss the issue without further consideration.

Part of critical thinking is being aware of the limits of "your" position which is not happening. That position being: consciousness is hard to figure out, nobody knows how it happens so that means the brain can't produce it and it must be non-local. The correct position is, nobody knows how the brain produces it let's find out. Paranomalists make assumptions beyond what is warranted. The question Linda and me have asked is why is the human brain given special treatment?

Perhaps this describes why there is a difference, in at least one way, between you and Steve, and some of the proponents. Philosophy is critically important, and makes you think a lot about important stuff. 

Here, trying to act like consciousness does not at least seem to be facially unique is a product of a lack of critical thinking.

Again, we can describe what the kidney does biochemically - and HOW that actually produces the results it does.

We understand some of what goes on in the brain biochemically, and do not have any sort of idea how it produces conscious, subjective experience. And to deny that and say that it's a product of philosophy treating things differently, is to utterly dismiss the issue without further consideration.

But the only real difference you are alluding to is the extent to which various mechanisms have been elucidated, not the extent to which causation has been established. The process of science manages to uncover finer and finer detail, but the extent to which that detail has been uncovered varies widely. Nowhere else do we see this insistence that until we have uncovered every mechanism which applies, down to Planck length, causation is denied. We don't know exactly how aspirin prevents heart attacks. Does that mean it doesn't? Before we had electron microscopes so that we could see what was actually going on with the cell membrane, did anybody really try to claim that the kidney wasn't filtering toxins? Is anybody claiming that gravity doesn't cause apples to fall from trees because we don't really know exactly how gravity works? The realism we experience is profoundly different from the reality that quantum mechanics entails. How we get from one to the other is a far deeper mystery than consciousness.

Again, I'm not arguing that understanding how the brain works, which respect to producing mind, does not seem more complex than how the kidney works. But so do/did a lot of other things. I'm just trying to move beyond making these sorts of distinctions based on what is intuitively palatable.

Linda

But the only real difference you are alluding to is the extent to which various mechanisms have been elucidated, not the extent to which causation has been established. The process of science manages to uncover finer and finer detail, but the extent to which that detail has been uncovered varies widely. Nowhere else do we see this insistence that until we have uncovered every mechanism which applies, down to Planck length, causation is denied. We don't know exactly how aspirin prevents heart attacks. Does that mean it doesn't? Before we had electron microscopes so that we could see what was actually going on with the cell membrane, did anybody really try to claim that the kidney wasn't filtering toxins? Is anybody claiming that gravity doesn't cause apples to fall from trees because we don't really know exactly how gravity works? The realism we experience is profoundly different from the reality that quantum mechanics entails. How we get from one to the other is a far deeper mystery than consciousness.

Again, I'm not arguing that understanding how the brain works, which respect to producing mind, does not seem more complex than how the kidney works. But so do/did a lot of other things. I'm just trying to move beyond making these sorts of distinctions based on what is intuitively palatable.

Linda

So, to avoid your usual ploy of posting something contentious, getting the reaction you were hoping for and then claiming to be misunderstood by the dumb proponents, what exactly are you saying? That life is explained - there is no doubt about how it came about nor any debate about what defines life vs non-life? And also that consciousness is not a mystery to science: that it is now certain to be a product of brain activity and there is no such thing as the hard problem?

I think we deserve a statement of your views rather than another series of "all I am saying is" disclaimers which keep the futile back and forth going until everyone gets frustrated and the subject is dropped.

So, to avoid your usual ploy of posting something contentious, getting the reaction you were hoping for and then claiming to be misunderstood by the dumb proponents, what exactly are you saying?

I don't have a "ploy", and definitely not that one. I say what I mean, so if you want to know what I am saying, read what I said.

That life is explained - there is no doubt about how it came about nor any debate about what defines life vs non-life? And also that consciousness is not a mystery to science: that it is now certain to be a product of brain activity and there is no such thing as the hard problem?

Did I say any of that? No? There you go, questions answered.

I think we deserve a statement of your views rather than another series of "all I am saying is" disclaimers which keep the futile back and forth going until everyone gets frustrated and the subject is dropped.

You can't find it all that frustrating, given the frequency with which you play "let's pretend that Linda said something she didn't and harass her on that basis". I'd rather discuss the topic at hand instead of this nonsense.

Linda

Why do folks choose to see evidence for psi? The answer to that question will tell us why the human brain is treated with exception vs. "kidneys"

Well, of course the strength of the scientific evidence for psi is the whole theme of this site, in a sense.

But what surprises me is that it seems to come as news to some people that others take that evidence seriously, or that it might cause them to put brain function in a different category from kidney function.

There seems to be at least two layers to what this convo has evolved to.

Consciouness as thoughts / how the brain thinks. Could this be explained mechanistically? Sure why not? At least to a certain degree.

The other layer is more the hard layer of consciousness. Why do we appear to be 'here', as opposed to this just being a bunch of space dust automatons that just happen to be undergoing complicated movements?

Let's say this. You are going to be placed in one of two rooms with 10 humans each. You are granted full knowledge of materialist interactions. In one of the rooms, the people are as in our current world, in the other they are exactly the same, but they instead don't have any 'experiencer' inside. That is to say, you reading this, there is an experiencer inside of you. Your computer likely does not, although it is capable of many advanced processes.

How would you tell which of the two room has people with actual 'perspectives', as opposed to just being meat robots (as in, your PC/Mac on steroids. Or maybe your computer is actually aware?).

Now the people in the rooms look at a red piece of paper. How can you tell what the people in the two rooms are experiencing as far as the color (red). Well, likely similar brain patterns at a structural level. But, to the experiencers, is there anything else. How do you know what one person experences as 'red', is not the same as another person experiences as green (aka, they both think they see red, but if the Person 1 could somehow see what Person 2 experienced as 'red', Person 1 would think that is their experience of 'green').

Thanks for your input.

And, don’t believe this has been posted yet.

http://www.tylervigen.com/spurious-correlations

"Life" seemed unique. We did not have any sort of idea how a collection cells (no matter that they were individually marvelously complex) from non-living matter, could produce living creatures. Like consciousness, on its face, life from non-life is just as inexplicable as mind from non-mind.

Yet, in the end, as we dug into life, nothing showed up as a a necessary ingredient to change non-life to life. The marvelously complex cell was alive all on its own. It was the idea that we needed something more than that to account for life which turned out to be "not much of anything".

Linda

 
Consciousness is the very thing which could make something "alive" that you referenced. We do not know. What is certain, is that we do not definitely know (which you seem to just have asserted) what it is that makes that cell "alive all on its own". We understand the mechanisms, we understand the biochemical processes, but we don't know how they started, and we don't know what consciousness is, how pervasive it is, etc.

So really, that issue is still unanswered. We looked, found incredible complexity, and know lots but don't know much, much more than we do know.

Part of critical thinking is being aware of the limits of "your" position which is not happening. That position being: consciousness is hard to figure out, nobody knows how it happens so that means the brain can't produce it and it must be non-local. The correct position is, nobody knows how the brain produces it let's find out. Paranomalists make assumptions beyond what is warranted. The question Linda and me have asked is why is the human brain given special treatment?

I'm going to avoid carrying out this discussion with you any further, because I have little to no doubt that you exhibit the use of critical thinking the least of anyone on this site, by far, skeptic or proponent.

You are utterly dismissive o philosophy in general, and as a result you miss and don't consider important ideas relating to the things you attempt to discuss.

I am aware of the limits of my position. Pot calling the kettle black much? Do you at all recognize the limits of yours? I've never seen you acknowledge anything of the sort.

Oh look! An absurd and totally inaccurate straw man of the proponent position! Bravo steve, you've spent years on these forums and still can't be intellectually honest with yourself about what the actual positions are. 

Completely and entirely agree about trying to figure it out, and indeed that we don't know. I'm willing to wager that the majority of intelligent proponents agree entirely with that sentiment. You accuse proponents of making assumptions that are unwarranted - I think it's equally fair to say that you dismiss good evidence. 

At the very least, it's entirely debatable. The question you just posed - why is the brain treated different - requires an incredible amount of obstinance to attempt to defend as a position.

As has been discussed, the brain is intimately related with one of the most mysterious phenomena in human history, and indeed the most incredible of biology/life. It is the very nature of the physical makeup of the brain that makes the question "what is subjective, conscious experience, how does it arise, and how could something like matter lead to that?" viable and important.

If you do not recognize that obvious and clear distinction, and instead choose to mock and say it's just proponents thinking wistfully, I just can't fathom how you could suggest you've thought hard about it at all - or how you could say you even understand what the issue is from the get go.