From: Hermit (hidden@lucifer.com)
Date: Mon Jun 03 2002 - 09:28:24 MDT
[quote from: veridicus@outgun.com on 2002-06-02 at 13:52:49]
[VeryRidiculus] He gives a fairly shallow and quite restricted explanation of consciousness, self-awareness, and the mind. “To say that mind comes from brain is indisputable, but I prefer to qualify the statement and consider the reasons why the brain’s neurons behave in such a thoughtful manner.”
[Hermit] Perhaps it was "quite shallow and restricted" in the hope, apparently blighted, that it would be clear to the meanest intelligence? The best possible answer to the question is, perhaps, because it works for us.
[VeryRidiculus] What is sadly comical about everyone from Kandel to Searle to Damasio, to Satcher, Crick to Judd (all very distinguished philosophers, neuroscientist, neurologists, and Nobel laureate biochemist) is that there is absolutely no scientific evidence whatsoever to support such explanations of mind being produced by brain.
[Hermit] I can sniff your mind! Mittens the kitten (http://www.matazone.co.uk/kitty1.html). Heard of "Brain fingerprinting"? Seen a dynamic PETS image of a mind engaged in thinking? How about explaining the correlation between physical damage (e.g. stroke, accident, tumor) and the disintegration of mind, self-awareness and consciousness. The cause and effect is clear and undeniable. Modern science is making the mechanisms of the mind very visible.
[VeryRidiculus] “They are not statements of scientific fact but rather articles of quasi-religious faith cloaked in the language of science. No philosopher, scientist, or psychiatrist even pretends to have any idea how brain processes could possibly produce the mysterious and ineffable experience of human consciousness.”
[Hermit] "They are not statements of scientific fact" is an assertion with no visible means of support... Try FAQ: The God Module (http://virus.lucifer.com/bbs/index.php?board=31;action=display;threadid=25482). It is refuted by one scientist stating the opposite. I do.
[VeryRidiculus] This rampant “neurophilosophical” reasoning was largely my personal motivation for seeking an undergraduate education in neuroscience and psychology.
[Hermit] Seems that wherever you went to school did a fairly poor job of educating you. Amongst other things, they omitted to teach you what the “scientific method” is – and is not. I recommend FAQ: The Scientific Method ( http://virus.lucifer.com/bbs/index.php?board=31;action=display;threadid=11537)
[VeryRidiculus] My personal belief in spirit the subsequent contradictions with this growing “brain creates mind” idea and the scientific materialism it reflects have convinced me that this field will impact humanity more deeply than any other area of science.
[Hermit] Your beliefs are showing, Belief can only occur where acceptance is not compelled, for if acceptance is compelled, then belief is not required to accept that thing. Belief is thus the acceptance of some thing as being provisionally true where:
[*]contradictory evidence exists which throws doubt upon or compels the rejection of the thing being accepted as truth.
[*]insufficient evidence exists to compel or suggest acceptance of the thing as truth.
[Hermit] Indeed, I would suggest that this sentence, rather than the above is an " article[s] of quasi-religious faith" not decently cloaked at all.
[VeryRidiculus] These ideas are so strongly held by so many scientists nowadays that it is considered unscientific even to question it.
[Hermit] Science questions theories, once research provides consensual support for an observation it is fairly pointless to close your eyes and say "It ain't so". I would suggest that the evidence is so overwhelming, that attempting to question it is indeed "unscientific."
[VeryRidiculus] Nevertheless, it is a seriously misguided belief,
[Hermit] I note that reiterating an assertion does not improve its support.
[VeryRidiculus] and I want to emphasize that the reasoning generally used to justify it does no stand up to careful scrutiny.
[Hermit] Taps his fingers and waits for the straw man. Sure enough, it follows.
[VeryRidiculus] The reasoning goes such, because the symptoms of mental illness can be alleviated by changing brain chemistry, mental illnesses must really be disorders of brain chemistry and therefore mind (and soul) must really be brain. This line of “neurophilosophical” reasoning is taken so much for granted nowadays that it can be quite startling to realize how little sense it actually makes.
[Hermit] Notice that this does not speak to your assertion that "there is absolutely no scientific evidence whatsoever to support such explanations of mind being produced by brain." There are vast amounts of evidence for this, and only somebody completely unaware of the field could make such an assertion. No neurophysician would assert that "mental illnesses must really be disorders of brain chemistry" when we know that it can also be generated by physical damage and faulty meshes (e.g. once somebody is infected by belief, it is very difficult to get them to think even quasi-rationally). Your assertion fails, because those diseases which are caused by "disorders of brain chemistry" are indeed treatable by tinkering with brain chemistry.
[VeryRidiculus] We could with equal logic argue that if a tree disease can be cured by changing the chemistry of the soil, then tree diseases must really be soil disorders and therefore trees must really be soil!
[Hermit] Your unsupported and irrational assertion. We don't treat shoes to correct faulty brain chemistry - and that would be a true parallel. Instead we treat the faulty brain. So your analogy fails.
[VeryRidiculus] There is no logical or scientific reason not to assume that the soul is a distinct entity, rooted in the brain and dependent on it for consciousness just as a tree is rooted in the soil and dependent on it for life. I challenge anyone to refute this! (to refute it, you have to prove - not simply assume - that brain processes actually do cause consciousness).
[Hermit] The "soul" is your strawman. You support it. I have not seen a "soul" or a mechanism for communicating with "souls" or indeed any sign that the concept of "soul" is anything other than a construct of brain processes... Meanwhile, brain processes and consciousness both exist.
[VeryRidiculus] Taking this logic seriously we must conclude that modern psychiatric opinion is simply wrong.
[Hermit] To assert that what you offered is "logic" is to greatly overvalue your input. To draw a conclusion based on a strawman is clearly a result of faulty "brain chemistry" or other structural deficiency.
[VeryRidiculus] Mental illness cannot be just a chemical imbalance in the brain. Rather, it is a disharmony of body, brain, mind, and spirit within the whole person: an inner conflict of the soul.
[Hermit] BS detector now sweeps into the danger zone... Why can "Mental illness" not "be just a chemical imbalance in the brain" split infinitives and all? What justifies your assertion about "disharmony," what research have you undertaken which supports this? What experiments and analysis did you perform? Where is your data? What is your theory? How could it be falsified.
[VeryRidiculus] Such a disharmony may include a chemical imbalance in the brain as one of its elements, but the chemical imbalance itself is not the mental illness, nor does it cause the mental illness.
[Hermit] "Chemical imbalances" are certainly not "the only cause". But if you assert that faulty brain processing is not responsible for "mental illness" then you have to explain why damaged brains have faulty processes, why treating brain faults cures mental illness and where you envision the "mental illness" occurring if not in the brain. A complicating factor is that despite your self-supposed technical grasp <sarcasm> not all "mental illnesses" are the same, having the same “cause” or etiology - that idea went out along with the concept of them being caused by "demons".
[VeryRidiculus] Unfortunately, entrenched beliefs tend to be impervious to logic, and so our blind cultural faith in scientific materialism has now brought us to the point where we are willing to accept extravagant and potentially dangerous uses of medication that could never be justified on the basis of scientific evidence alone.
[Hermit] I'm not sure that it is well-supported and successfully applied scientific materialism which is at fault or the "entrenched beliefs" in "souls" and "spirits" which is impervious to common sense to the extent that it imagines that what has been offered is logic.
[VeryRidiculus] Blunderov you asked me What do you mean by “God” precisely? And how do you know that what you think is “God”, is in fact “God” - how can you be sure? Also, where did it come from?” Things that transcend mankind tend to also transcend the language and mental faculties of mankind. Certain experiences cannot be adequately understood unless they are shared. But then, where exactly would a person have to be in order to share my inner experience, to know what it was really like to hear the sound of “one hand clapping”, to glimpse the “face of god”? Could a person have a similar experience while listening to a concert, chanting in unison at a meditation retreat, or walking alone on the beach? The place you gotta be to understand another person’s inner experience is an indefinable inner place-the place where experiencing happens. This is a metaphorical place, like Ithaca of Homer’s Odyssey, or the Rome that all roads lead to. It is a place we must all struggle to get to, only to discover th
at we have been there all along.
[Hermit] On the evidence of the above, I'd suggest that you consider lithium treatment.
[VeryRidiculus] “None by his own knowledge, or by subtle consideration, will ever really understand these things. For all words and all that one can learn or understand in a creaturely way, are foreign to the truth that I mean and far below it.” -John Van Ruysbroeck (1293-1381)
[Hermit] Was this supposed to mean something?
[VeryRidiculus] “Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind” - Albert Einstein
[Hermit] Have some better Einstein quotes...
"It was, of course, a lie what you read about my religious convictions, a lie which is being systematically repeated. I do not believe in a personal God and I have never denied this but have expressed it clearly. If something is in me which can be called religious then it is the unbounded admiration for the structure of the world so far as our science can reveal it." [Albert Einstein, 1954, from "Albert Einstein: The Human Side", edited by Helen Dukas and Banesh Hoffman, Princeton University Press]
"I am convinced that some political and social activities and practices of the Catholic organizations are detrimental and even dangerous for the community as a whole, here and everywhere. I mention here only the fight against birth control at a time when overpopulation in various countries has become a serious threat to the health of people and a grave obstacle to any attempt to organize peace on this planet." [ letter, 1954]
"Scientific research is based on the idea that everything that takes place is determined by laws of nature, and therefore this holds for the action of people. For this reason, a research scientist will hardly be inclined to believe that events could be influenced by a prayer, i.e. by a wish addressed to a Supernatural Being." [Albert Einstein, 1936, responding to a child who wrote and asked if scientists pray. Source: "Albert Einstein: The Human Side", Edited by Helen Dukas and Banesh Hoffmann]
"I cannot conceive of a personal God who would directly influence the actions of individuals, or would directly sit in judgment on creatures of his own creation. I cannot do this in spite of the fact that mechanistic causality has, to a certain extent, been placed in doubt by modern science. [He was speaking of Quantum Mechanics and the breaking down of determinism.] My religiosity consists in a humble admiration of the infinitely superior spirit that reveals itself in the little that we, with our weak and transitory understanding, can comprehend of reality. Morality is of the highest importance -- but for us, not for God." [Albert Einstein, from "Albert Einstein: The Human Side", edited by Helen Dukas and Banesh Hoffman, Princeton University Press]
"The further the spiritual evolution of mankind advances, the more certain it seems to me that the path to genuine religiosity does not lie through the fear of life, and the fear of death, and blind faith, but through striving after rational knowledge." [Albert Einstein, from "Albert Einstein: The Human Side", edited by Helen Dukas and Banesh Hoffman, Princeton University Press]
Hermit <in haste>
---- This message was posted by Hermit to the Virus 2002 board on Church of Virus BBS. <http://virus.lucifer.com/bbs/index.php?board=51;action=display;threadid=25545>
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