Is the Filter Theory committing the ad hoc fallacy and is it unfalsifiable?

I don't need to believe anything but the truth. My search is for the truth.

Well I suggest that you start with those people who have reluctantly switched from being materialists to a more flexible position - Tallis for example. They will show you where your ideas are wrong.

Or just take me! I was a pure materialist when I finished my PhD in chemistry. I'd used computers a lot in the course of that work, and I knew that some people were beginning to think about making computers think. I went to a general lecture by Longuet-Higgins about just that.

I accepted the idea and used to marvel that the computer, that just reads instructions in binary code from its memory and performs some trivial arithmetic step, before moving on to the next step. The computer worked so fast - about 500,000 instructions per second (absurdly slow by modern standards), so I was vaguely prepared to accept that the idea might be valid. I thought the idea rather wonderful - vaguely analogous to the counter-intuitive ideas in Quantum Mechanics and Relativity.

A few years later I was chatting to my boss at work, and I expressed some mild doubts that computers could really be made to think - indeed to become conscious - and be was fairly dismissive - he was sure it must be possible, if our slow and slightly flakey 'wetware' could do it, then computers must be able to do the same sometime soon.

Back then it was hard to browse the scientific literature much, but I came across a paper studying ESP as a way to communicate with submarines. The idea was to use error correcting codes to send a message telepathically - and they claimed that this worked!

Then a little later I watched a program with my girlfriend about the paranormal. As usual the program included a scientific sceptic (I wish I remember his name), and he finished the show off by assuring the audience that "there is no scientific evidence that ESP is true". I tried to emphasise to her that this statement was at best misleading because it seemed to imply that the scientific literature contained no positive reports of ESP. That had a profound effect on me, because it meant that some scientists act as propagandists rather than as objective sources of knowledge.

By now, I realise that there are vast chunks of information that are simply ignored by those who continue to be materialists. Try for example:

https://www.amazon.com/Entangled-Minds-E...B002XQAAYK

David

On the pragmatic side of things..  
Sunflowers react logically to increase a personal supply of photons due to their biological information processing.
Whether you call it a soul, they, and all living things are able to purposefully change real-world probabilities in their environment.  This is achieved in a way that corresponds to a first-person POV.  These individualized centers of information-processing develop as part of the ontogeny of the organism, in a natural fashion.  The primary process is learning from experiencing physical, emotional and cultural environments.  

The question is, if somebody says humans need to have a soul in order to have will and memories, what else requires a soul? Do monkeys need souls? Toads? Ants? Jelly Fish? Sunflowers? Where do you draw the line?

I use sunflowers because they have the ability to sense where the sun is, and move the flower to face the sun (https://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/05/scien...r-day.html) . So in a sense they "decide" to move to face the sun. But yes, that is strictly a mechanical movement. I contend that there is a progression of similar biological decision-making functioning in life forms, from sunflowers to jelly fish to ants to toads to monkeys to humans. Each step of the way I think the decision-making processes can be described as the work of biology and a soul is not needed. If you think you need to insert a soul somewhere in that continuum, where do you make the break? Why?

Pragmatically, concepts can be structured and communicated electronically, outside of brains and be very effective.  AI is "doing" things.  This defense of "magic" brains seems silly and out of date.

Yes, both brains and computers can do mental tasks.

Of course the patterns for the color red may be impressed on certain neurons in the brain in response to the eyes registering that frequency of light.

But then you make it clear that you don't comprehend the well-known "hard problem" in the philosophy of mind. You blithely remark that the neurons of your brain direct your mouth to say "I see red", not recognizing that this action automatically assumes, in addition to the neurons, the overriding existence of an "I" or conscious self that experienced the color red.

The nature of this conscious self with its subjective awareness remains a total mystery, and is fundamentally, existentially different from the physical neurons and all their interactions. The conscious perception of the color red has no physical parameters like length, width, depth, weight, energy, voltage, frequency, velocity, it goes on. This subjective awareness can't in principle be the physical neurons or their interactions, but this conscious self indubitably exists since we directly experience it. 

That's the "hard problem".

So you can't get away with this, with stealthily slipping in the consciousness of the perceiver as an unspoken assumption, without explaining how mind and subjective awareness arise from neurons when the parameters of these two entities are fundamentally different.

Yes, I am aware of the hard problem of consciousness. 

In the post to which you responded, I was not discussing consciousness, but memory. I was discussing how it is that molecules can remember that something which the brain perceives as being red should be described with the word, "red". That doesn't seem like a difficult problem. Brains can remember that this vocal cord sequence to make the mouth say "red" is associated with the neuron patterns in the brain when one is looking at something red. So if you ask me what color that apple is, my brain figures out I should say "red". 

Regarding consciousness, I argue that the brain itself is making the decisions, and creates both the muscle movements and awareness of the story of what is going on at the same time. This awareness of what is going on is called consciousness. I write about this at Consciousness .

In the post to which you responded, I was not discussing consciousness, but memory. I was discussing how it is that molecules can remember that something which the brain perceives as being red should be described with the word, "red". That doesn't seem like a difficult problem. Brains can remember that this vocal cord sequence to make the mouth say "red" is associated with the neuron patterns in the brain when one is looking at something red. So if you ask me what color that apple is, my brain figures out I should say "red".

The problem is, we tend to use the word 'memory' in two different ways, the colloquial sense and the sense of computer memory.

You could indeed imagine devising a molecular computer memory, but the problem is that computers work from the address of every bit of data in their memories (they usually have two types of memory, RAM and 'disc', though the latter doesn't rotate any more in modern computers) and the difference doesn't really matter in this context).

Understanding how human memory works is much more difficult. Say you want to remember something you read a while back. Where do you go in your memory to find it, bearing in mind that by definition you don't remember what it is.

David

David

Yes, I am aware of the hard problem of consciousness. 

In the post to which you responded, I was not discussing consciousness, but memory. I was discussing how it is that molecules can remember that something which the brain perceives as being red should be described with the word, "red". That doesn't seem like a difficult problem. Brains can remember that this vocal cord sequence to make the mouth say "red" is associated with the neuron patterns in the brain when one is looking at something red. So if you ask me what color that apple is, my brain figures out I should say "red". 

Regarding consciousness, I argue that the brain itself is making the decisions, and creates both the muscle movements and awareness of the story of what is going on at the same time. This awareness of what is going on is called consciousness. I write about this at Consciousness .

Awareness (dictionary):
Knowledge or perception of a situation or fact.

You don't seem aware of the fact that the word "awareness" inherently assumes the existence of an immaterial conscious perceiving self or "I", since knowledge and perception are immaterial properties of a conscious knower, that is, the conscious self. The existence of the conscious "knower" is part of the inherent meaning of the word "awareness".

The same applies to the words "memory" and "remembering". The primary, human definition of memory and remembering (and that is what you are referring to - the human being remembering and having a memory), automatically assumes the existence of an immaterial conscious rememberer. The same goes for "knowing" and "knowledge". Only an immaterial conscious self "knows" something, not any machine. We know beyond any doubt that we exist as immaterial conscious aware entities experiencing knowing and memories. The hard problem again.

You say, "....I argue that the brain itself is making the decisions, and creates both the muscle movements and awareness of the story of what is going on at the same time."

Please explain how physical neurons create an immaterial nonphysical conscious awareness. I say nonphysical because none of the experienced properties of subjective "awareness" have any physical attributes or parameters like weight, energy, position, dimensions and so on. Please weigh a thought and give its physical dimensions and other measurable parameters. The most you can do is measure certain physical correlates to the immaterial thought.

Read the link, not a very impressive argument by Carrier.

I'm not even sure what Carrier is saying, just seems like a confused rant with the conclusion that his logical argument is not a hard proof...

Understanding how human memory works is much more difficult. Say you want to remember something you read a while back. Where do you go in your memory to find it, bearing in mind that by definition you don't remember what it is.

I think memory is just the saving of various neural patterns in our brains. Inputs to our brains cause various neural patterns, and these get etched in our brains.

How do we recall memories? It has nothing to do with looking up data that is stored at a particular location as computers do it. Rather, neurons are constantly firing according to the saved patterns and new inputs. These combine into various competing structured neural patterns. Each moment one set of neural patterns gains predominance and controls the attention, directing our movements at that moment. Immediately other sets of neural patterns pop into focus in sequence, directing our movements throughout the day, and writing the story of a conscious self doing all of this.

I write more about how molecules think at https://mindsetfree.blog/how-can-molecules-think/.

You don't seem aware of the fact that the word "awareness" inherently assumes the existence of an immaterial conscious perceiving self or "I", since knowledge and perception are immaterial properties of a conscious knower, that is, the conscious self. The existence of the conscious "knower" is part of the inherent meaning of the word "awareness".

I don't think awareness requires an immaterial self doing the perceiving. Rather, as I have explained here, I think the molecules in my brain perceive things, and write the story of a conscious person doing it.

The same applies to the words "memory" and "remembering". The primary, human definition of memory and remembering (and that is what you are referring to - the human being remembering and having a memory), automatically assumes the existence of an immaterial conscious rememberer.

I disagree. I don't need a soul to do my remembering for me. I can do it on my own.

When I use the word "I," I am referring to that whole set of things that makes up my material body, plus any forces or other entities that may be involved in that which makes me be me.

Please weigh a thought and give its physical dimensions and other measurable parameters. The most you can do is measure certain physical correlates to the immaterial thought.

Thoughts are actions that we do. Actions don't have weight.

Asking me to weigh my thoughts is like asking me to weigh a conversation or an exercise routine. You can't weigh a set of actions.

I don't think awareness requires an immaterial self doing the perceiving. Rather, as I have explained here, I think the molecules in my brain perceive things, and write the story of a conscious person doing it.


I disagree. I don't need a soul to do my remembering for me. I can do it on my own.

When I use the word "I," I am referring to that whole set of things that makes up my material body, plus any forces or other entities that may be involved in that which makes me be me.


Thoughts are actions that we do. Actions don't have weight.

Asking me to weigh my thoughts is like asking me to weigh a conversation or an exercise routine. You can't weigh a set of actions.

You still have not engaged with my challenge from post #100, "....you can't get away with this, with stealthily slipping in the consciousness of the perceiver as an unspoken assumption, without explaining how mind and subjective awareness arise from neurons when the parameters of these two entities are fundamentally different."

No explanation has been forthcoming. And it looks like you subscribe to some version of panpsychism, if you believe that the individual molecules of your brain's neurons have some form of conscious awareness. As has been noted before, panpsychism doesn't really explain consciousness, it just imbues it to every molecule of matter in some mysterious way.

Sure, human actions don't have weight. But thoughts invariably have "agentness" associated with them - a conscious agent had to generate those thoughts. It is the immaterial conscious agent behind these thoughts that you need to explain materialistically. In fact, you seem to be denying that you exist as a conscious agent; this is denying Descartes' famous "I think therefore I am".

How do we recall memories? It has nothing to do with looking up data that is stored at a particular location as computers do it. Rather, neurons are constantly firing according to the saved patterns and new inputs. These combine into various competing structured neural patterns. Each moment one set of neural patterns gains predominance and controls the attention, directing our movements at that moment. Immediately other sets of neural patterns pop into focus in sequence, directing our movements throughout the day, and writing the story of a conscious self doing all of this.

That sounds more like an epileptic fit than a sane computation. Has anyone tried to simulate that theory of memory?

David