New video - Neuroscientific Evidence: Irreducible Mind (Part 1)

What about the data in the video demonstrating that mind can alter the effective response to natural sex drive, by choice?  Is there a "magic" material or force that is currently unknown that would support this causation of mental choice to physical organization?  In terms of materials science any bridge theory leads to information science - when measuring information gain?

The problem I have with that is it would, as I noticed one commenter claim, potentially support the whole 'being gay is a choice' narrative and that abusive 'conversion camps' would actually work. I don't agree with that view at all, unless the biased commenter was confused with this. The data is interesting, but I personally hope it's not going to be used to support this narrative.

The problem I have with that is it would, as I noticed one commenter claim, potentially support the whole 'being gay is a choice' narrative and that abusive 'conversion camps' would actually work. I don't agree with that view at all, unless the biased commenter was confused with this. The data is interesting, but I personally hope it's not going to be used to support this narrative.

Not to get side tracked, but no one chooses to be homosexual anymore than one chooses to be heterosexual? It's a patently deceptive argument.

Yes, I know that being gay isn't a choice. I just noticed that this data may be interpreted to further the opposite view by some.

The basic nature of feedback loops is that physical output parameters of a physical process involving amplification are looped around to change the physical input parameters of that amplification process. The feedback can reduce distortion in the amplification process, change the timing of the outputs due to delays in the feedback process, etc. These parameters are all physically measurable values involving physical processes, fundamentally different in existential category from the inside experience subjective characteristics of consciousness, like qualia, thought, "knowing", intentionality, etc. Feedback loops are just variations of various physical processes and in no way answer the "Hard Problem".

This reminds me of re: the falsity of materialism Sam Harris - the New Atheist horseman with a Neuroscience PhD - had to accept:

...To say “Everything came out of nothing” is to assert a brute fact that defies our most basic intuitions of cause and effect—a miracle, in other words.
Likewise, the idea that consciousness is identical to (or emerged from) unconscious physical events is, I would argue, impossible to properly conceive—which is to say that we can think we are thinking it, but we are mistaken. We can say the right words, of course—“consciousness emerges from unconscious information processing.” We can also say “Some squares are as round as circles” and “2 plus 2 equals 7.” But are we really thinking these things all the way through? I don’t think so.

Consciousness—the sheer fact that this universe is illuminated by sentience—is precisely what unconsciousness is not. And I believe that no description of unconscious complexity will fully account for it. It seems to me that just as “something” and “nothing,” however juxtaposed, can do no explanatory work, an analysis of purely physical processes will never yield a picture of consciousness. However, this is not to say that some other thesis about consciousness must be true. Consciousness may very well be the lawful product of unconscious information processing. But I don’t know what that sentence means—and I don’t think anyone else does either.

edit: Just for clarity when he says, "unconscious" he means what we usually refer to around here as "non-conscious".

The problem I have with that is it would, as I noticed one commenter claim, potentially support the whole 'being gay is a choice' narrative and that abusive 'conversion camps' would actually work. I don't agree with that view at all, unless the biased commenter was confused with this. The data is interesting, but I personally hope it's not going to be used to support this narrative.

The paper is based on a DOE (design of experiment) to test the propensity of exhibiting a standard response as a control group and to measure the effect of will with the focus group.  I have trust in the standards of M. Beauregard and the other researchers to have avoided any such implication outside of the datagathering.

https://drmariobeauregard.com/biographie/

AFAICTell the study also shows dampening of existing desire coming upon a person, not a radical shift in the objects of desire?

The basic nature of feedback loops is that physical output parameters of a physical process involving amplification are looped around to change the physical input parameters of that amplification process.... These parameters are all physically measurable values involving physical processes, fundamentally different in existential category from the inside experience subjective characteristics of consciousness, like qualia, thought, "knowing", intentionality, etc. 

Two meanings and applications of the term "feedback loop".

There are feedback patterns (noise, crosstalk) occurring with physical signals such as electronic circuits and sound reinforcement.

However, the feedback loops at issue do describe knowing, learning and most importantly - command and control - and are found in perceptual systems.  The positive and negative feedback loops of environmental information form the basis for homeostasis in ecology.  Feedback loops are revealed in the math conceptions of Norbert Wiener, founder of cybernetics.

 [b]A classic and influential work that laid the theoretical foundations for information theory and a timely text for contemporary informations theorists and practitioners.[/b]

With the influential book Cybernetics, first published in 1948, Norbert Wiener laid the theoretical foundations for the multidisciplinary field of cybernetics, the study of controlling the flow of information in systems with feedback loops, be they biological, mechanical, cognitive, or social. At the core of Wiener's theory is the message (information), sent and responded to (feedback); the functionality of a machine, organism, or society depends on the quality of messages. Information corrupted by noise prevents homeostasis, or equilibrium.

 

https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/cyberneti...nd-edition

Two meanings and applications of the term "feedback loop".

There are feedback patterns (noise, crosstalk) occurring with physical signals such as electronic circuits and sound reinforcement.

However, the feedback loops at issue do describe knowing, learning and most importantly - command and control - and are found in perceptual systems.  The positive and negative feedback loops of environmental information form the basis for homeostasis in ecology.  Feedback loops are revealed in the math conceptions of Norbert Wiener, founder of cybernetics.

 

https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/cyberneti...nd-edition

The YouTube materialist skeptic posts appear to be talking about feedback involving literal physical nerve signals rather than the other type of feedback system that you describe (as you put it, knowing, learning, command and control, found in perceptual systems).  Since this additional type of feedback involves "perceptual systems" and perception (becoming aware of something) is an aspect of consciousness, this type of feedback definition already assumes consciousness rather than doing anything to explain it.

The YouTube materialist skeptic posts appear to be talking about feedback involving literal physical nerve signals rather than the other type of feedback system that you describe (as you put it, knowing, learning, command and control, found in perceptual systems).  Since this additional type of feedback involves "perceptual systems" and perception (becoming aware of something) is an aspect of consciousness, this type of feedback definition already assumes consciousness rather than doing anything to explain it.

To quote Raymond Tallis, another non-materialist neuroscientist:

A material object such as the brain may have a history that results in its being altered, but the previous state, the fact of alteration, or the time interval between the two states, are not present in the altered state. A synapse, like a broken cup, does not contain its previous state, the event that resulted in its being changed, the fact that it has changed, the elapsed time, or anything else containing the sense of its ‘pastness’ which would be necessary if it were the very material of memory. How could someone ever come to believe it could?

Those who imagine that experiments with Aplysia cast light on memory betray the origin of the erroneous belief that memory is inscribed in matter. The belief is based on a slither from memory as you and I understand it, to learning; from learning to altered behaviour; from altered behaviour to altered properties of the organism; and viola! – the materialisation of memory! However, with Einstein’s help, we can see that sincere materialists must acknowledge that they have no explanation of memory. Instead of thinking that memories can be located in the brain (or even more outrageously, captured in a dish), they ought to hold, along with Bergson, that “memory [cannot] settle within matter” even though (alas), “materiality begets oblivion.” In short, they should take off their dull materialist blinkers and acknowledge the wonderful mystery of memory.