I love talking about the zombie argument because it forces people to think very clearly about their positions on mind body and soul. But I agree with you that it fails as an argument about physicalism. Thanks for your efforts in spreading interest in the deepest question of all.
@zarkoff45: People don't have a problem with neuroscience. What they have a problem with is eliminativism masquerading as neuroscience.
Now some people can't tell the difference between philosophy of mind and neuroscience. But that is more indicative of a category error on their part than on a "war on neuroscience" by people who are self-aware that they aren't p-zombies.
Yes there will be a scientific explanation of the mind -explaining it away isn't the same as explaining it though.
It’s not so much an error of neuroscience, as an unwarranted denial that a key issue in philosophy of mind is a moot point. @Veritas48 is making a bald assertion that neurons are not intentional, when there is a lively debate as to whether or not complex causal relations realised by neurons can or cannot be said to be ‘about things’ in the same way as propositional attitude are. It’s more a war on philosophy, as per usual :(
And plase! When you make a video dont put text and voice simultanouslly with different messages. It is impossible (I guess for all) to pay attention to both. And it makes the video very confusing.
If a person is a gathering of elements, than if we describe those only in terms of the matter: sodium, carbon, hydrogen..... etc There WILL be something lacking; because we will skip something essential. Who is in the first place assuming that there is carbon, hydrogen and nitrogen there? The one assuming and talking about that is the mind.
There is an embarassing precedence of the mind which allow us to doubt on matter before we doubt on mind itself.
There is dependence between the mind and the brain? Of course there is. any person who drank alcohol know that. not to talk about those who had an accident and lost the capacity of speaking or anything alike. BUT, it does not change the fact that the experience of drinking alcohol and getting drunk or anything else is noticed by the mind and could not be differently.
So if this mind that examines the brain comes to any conclusion. It does not change the fact that it is the mind the one examining in the first place. It does not change the fact that it is the mind that made an assertion about the reality of the brain.
There is no real garantee there, in the first place, that the perception this mind have of what the body and a brain is is accurate. The only accurate information we could have in first instance is that this mind is behind all the analysis
It is not very scientific to be completely sure that your opponent is not correct.
In fact I should present myself as an opponent of your kind of view.
One argument I think is very strong is that everything we experience is mind. There is nothing at all that could be experienced without being inside mind. If you study the brain, what studies the brain? it is the mind. If I see your video and make a comment, what is behind all that? The mind.
If the universe is in a state of entropy, and the entropy has been constantly getting higher since the big bang, then how would consciousness be something that arises so long after the big bang? The singularity was the point of highest order, then it exploded and became less and less ordered, then the human brain emerged from that disorder and started thinking. It doesn't make sense.
@1simonmatthews "If the universe is in a state of entropy, and the entropy has been constantly getting higher since the big bang, then how would consciousness be something that arises so long after the big bang?"
You are very confused about entropy. Consciousness requires a high state of entropy. Too much order means too much simplicity. Complexity and chaos are ultimately the same thing and consciousness requires an evolved, complex mechanism to arise - the brain.
@zarkoff45 Ok, I can understand what you're saying. I can see the sense in that. So therefore this means that in the distant future there is going to be a higher level of consciousness?
@1simonmatthews "So therefore this means that in the distant future there is going to be a higher level of consciousness?"
I think there will be, and for billions of years, because of accelerating evolution but it doesn't necessarily have to happen that way. And, if there is no source of energy continuing to come into the universe then after trillions of years the universe will be heat dead -- just frozen iron spheres that were once stars and evaporating black holes.
@zarkoff45 I can't understand how that would be the case. It sounds a little illogical to me. If the universe is just going to end up like that, with nothing else happening at all, then it would be logical to ask why all this is happening precisely now. There's all this happening right now, then in so many years time there will be basically nothing forever. Why didn't it happen at some other time? It's more logical to think that it's cyclical. If it can happen once it can happen again.
@1simonmatthews "If the universe is just going to end up like that, with nothing else happening at all, then it would be logical to ask why all this is happening precisely now."
@zarkoff45 Yes that's a good TEDtalk link. I think it was one of the first TEDtalks that I watched a little while ago. What Sean Carroll says pretty much goes with what I was saying. He ends by saying that he thinks that it is cyclical, in which case there won't just be nothingness forever. This makes sense to me. If the big bang was the one and only big bang, the absolute beginning, then there's no reason why the universe wouldn't already be in a state of nothingness.
@zarkoff45 Don't understand what you're saying here. The TEDtalks video concurs with my opinion. Sean Carroll concluded by saying that he thinks the universe is cyclical. That's what I said, and actually think without having to hear it from him. If it wasn't cyclical and started with a big bang with an absolute beginning and expanded to nothing then it would already have happened. The only reason we are here now is because it happens in cycles, not just once.
You can not be where you can not be, you can only happen where you can happen. I don't think you understood Sean Carroll -- and if you did, then Sean Carroll is wrong. Carroll did say things like "anything, like an apple pie, could just pop into existence" but the odds require almost infinity to happen. A messy universe is actually more probable than you or an apple pie.
@zarkoff45 And if you watch it to the end he concludes by saying, in so many words, that he thinks the universe, or multiverse, is cyclical. The apple pie bit was earlier in the video. He goes on to give his opinion after that part.
I'll have to check it out again. But I do not recall him making a probability argument for that. If he did he is probably wrong for the same reason creationists are wrong when they make similar probability arguments..
@zarkoff45 You seem quite sure of things. Good for you. There's only one thing I can say for sure and that's that no one knows how anything exists at all, let alone know if the big bang happens only once. I can say that I have heard some scientists say that they think the big bang wasn't the beginning - and that was in a BBC Horizon documentary. I tend to agree with this theory, but I'm not going to say it's definitely right or wrong. I think it's a work in progress.
@zarkoff45 I never said you seemed quite sure based on your video, I said it based on your previous comment, that Sean Carroll would probably be wrong etc., which was cosmology. Let's not get into an argument eh? We could argue all day about probability etc. and neither of us will back down and we'll both be stressed out for nothing haha. I'll end by saying great video dude! Keep up the good work!
the failure of the "soul" has nothing to do with experiments or proof. it is an incoherent concept. how can you show evidence for or against something which cannot even be defined consistently? it fails at the hypothesis stage just like "god," or "black hole," or "zero dimensional particle," etc
also, experiments dont reveal the causal link, they only give evidence for a theory(s) of one. i still have yet to hear a theory which can explain the arising of consciousness itself. next vid?
"Perhaps the problem is that you don't know what consciousness is"
okay very interesting. i define knowledge as "experience," thus i know what consciousness is by virtue of experiencing it. it would be impossible for me then to not "know" what consciousness is, unless you are attempting to model consciousness, and i don't know your model. that would imply that you are hypothesizing the existence of objects outside your experience which are supposed to explain consciousness.
Your 5 senses have no testability. So everything in this video is bullshit.
Let's start from the root of your problems in this video. Prove to me that your 5 senses are trustworthy and valid without using any of your 5 senses or the 5 senses of other people. Once you've done that, we can move on to considering anything at all in this video.
Actually, you have totally failed to comprehend the video. That line spoken in the high voice was a quote from someone called Marcin and zarkoff was criticizing the view that the android could tell if it had a soul.
Zarkoff was saying that the android could be as wrong as we are. And Zarkoff doesn't believe our senses are accurate:
"Actually, you have totally failed to comprehend the video."
Actually, I think you have totally failed to comprehend my comments, which is why zarkoff was finally smart enough to back off and retreat by not replying to my comments.
Nope. I haven't backed off. Voidcaptain was right. I gave up on you because you are so far off you're too ridiculous to deal with. You're a perfect example of the Dunning-Kruger effect:
Okay then, don't block my accounts or ill have to make videos with my camstudio of you blocking me the way you made videos of veritas blocking you. Ive done nothing but present an argument refuting your video, and you block me and insult me and sweep the argument under the rug as if it does not exist. This is all being recorded. Now please, rather than tell me i'm "too ridiculous to deal with", please respond to the following comment..
Now, mt question that is being avoided is very, very somple. What exactly does the above quoation mean??? And what instruments will you use to verify that our senses are inaccurate?
No, you are being blocked for trying to continually force your philosophical bullshit into my comments section. If you want to know what the quote means go here:
Now, my question that is being avoided is very, very simple. What exactly does the above quotation mean??? And what instruments (besides our senses) will you use to verify that our senses are inaccurate? Pray tell.
"And Zarkoff doesn't believe our senses are accurate"
Since you speak for other people as if you are zarkoff himself, can you please explain what zarkoff means by the above quotation? And if zarkoff is accurate in saying this, how can we be sure anything at all in science is accurate if the instruments (our senses) that we use to observe science are inaccurate?
good video Zarkoff. i don't believe in souls, nor am i a dualist. there's no presence watching me through me. that said, i understand why you attached this to my video.
I was going to study neuroscience, but then I realised it's just another emotionless excuse to use animals as test subjects. We already know how all the relevant things work, there's no excuses for science to be testing on animals just cause some people refuse to accept that 'aetheric' sciences and old wisdom are correct.
I'm sure it's all very interesting but that it's the point. It fascinates me too, but it's like focusing on eddys and forgetting that the river is drying up entirely.
The only way we'll get real AI (faster but just as stupid as us) is with neural nets not rule-based programming.
We won't do it by running simulations on x86-style architectures. We need hardware that mimics neurons. My bet would be something based around the overflow-rate multiplier (aka digital differential analyser). Well-suited to pulse-rate computing (which is what neurons do). Still going to be bulky, though.
@bdf2718 - what do you mean though, cause - what is intelligence? If you mean processing 'any code' faster then that is different from knowing how to tell the processing units 'how to think'. Faster is no problem, it's the parts about storing info, retrieving relevant info, and what to do with it. How do you give it the ability to choose, without rules that determine what to choose. Even then, we all make our choices from limited options ourselves, if we're even aware enough to see all options.
Fundamental theorem of computing: anything one processor can do with multiple threads can be done by multiple processors (ish). But faster IS a problem - speed of light limitations - if you have the wrong architecture.
We're not going to get sapience with rule-based programming as used in weak AI. If X and Y then Z programmed in at every level.
True sapience will come from neural nets with only basic survival stuff programmed in. Like an infant.
@zarkoff45 That's precisely my point. The real Holy Grail of neuroscience would have to be the self-reproducing machine, the Von Neumann machine. Anything short of that is in its infancy. Maybe when we have designed THAT we can claim to have matched God's creative genius! :)
@anselmiano "The real Holy Grail of neuroscience would have to be the self-reproducing machine..."
Ummm... That's not really neuroscience. Neuroscience is limited to the study of brains, (neurons), not reproductive functions. Don't confuse neuroscience with nanotechnology.
@zarkoff45 However neuroscience has to account for the development of the nervous system from the single celled fertilized egg. To that extent neuroscie4nce's Holy Grail is coming up with a brain-like organ/machine that develops from something as simple as one cell; and then integrate it into a nurturing and auto-replicating system (in the case of humans this is the human body). That is the real challenge! :)
I think you are not considering this arguments full strength. Intentionality is not just a theistic attack on physicialism, many atheists consider it a flaw with physicalism as well. David Chalmers and John Searle being two. It's a serious argument in philosophy of mind. The question is how can a physical thing, like brain, have mental states that are about other physical things? Why do I have thoughts about J. Lo's ass etc. I think there are solutions to this problem, but not neural nets.
Bear in mind that one can be an atheist without being an eliminative materialist. E.g. Schopenhauer. Correlation does not mean by necessity identity or cause.
Also, although I'm an atheist, I don't think you understand 'intentionality'/'aboutness'. I'd recommend you read Bertrand Russell on the matter.
*clears throat* Please show me reseach that actually proves humans have mirror neurons - and then I'll listen past 2:31 of your upload. I refer to research and critism produced by Morton Ann Gernsbacher.
A mirror neuron is just a neuron that fires both when an animal acts and when it sees the same action done by another. Thus, the neuron seems to "mirrors" the behavior of the other, as if the observer were itself acting.
Do you really doubt they exist? Ms Gernsbacher.may argue that that such neurons don't imply what we think, but she can not deny their existence.
Besides, they are only an example of what neurons do. This video is not about mirror neurons.
@zarkoff45 'A mirror neuron is just a neuron that fires both when an animal acts and when it sees the same action done by another.'
People that are a problem can't tell the difference between what they see others doing & what they themselves are doing - clearly the motor neurons do not fire when observing another though. Well, sometimes they can - but people learn or are made to suppress that early on. Or they end up in spaz places if they can't. Astral-puppeting uses that mirroring thing too.
@zarkoff45 - that just proves you're the least scientific person ever then. Cause first my comments are genius, and second if you really gave a shit finding out what your bs claims you are, then you wouldn't have censored me or claimed otherwise.
Zarkoff45, you seem to be completing downplaying the force of the zombie argument this argument doesn't just apply to neuroscience it also applies to evolution through natural selection. Why is it that evolution chose intelligent beings instead of zombie like people?/
@zarkoff45 I don't know a lot about intentionality, but it is the twin sister of qualia when it comes to philosophical problems concerning materialism. There is a complicated and comprehensive online Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy entry on intentionality, but the way Darek Barefoot has laid out this issue is the most accessible one I've seen, so I recommend you start there. Intentionality & qualia might be genuine problems, but they give no reason to think minds can "detach" from brains.
We feel information and that's what makes us different. Machine's are not alive and don't feel, so it's impossible to reverse engineer the brain. Scientist don't even know how a cell works and yet they claim that we are just machines. Scientist can't duplicate a living cell, yet they are going to reverse engineer the brain. It's ignorant to say that a neuron is just a switch, a neuron is a cell, it's not some stupid switch. I am amazed at how ignorant scientist really are.
While I disagree with most of this video it's much better than your others much more respectful but even if Veritas 48 was wrong I don't think he was "lying" outside of that this was much better than the other two videos you made.
I think we need to open up our minds more...Zarkoff, your video purports that there is nothing beyond the physical architecture of our brains and that consciousness is something of an illusion. That may be true and I don't think either one of us can say it is definitively so at this point. Perhaps looking at our brain is like a looking at a computer's hardware and a soul to be software. We could exam the harddrive and see the data, but we would never what it is like to experience that data.
For those of you who completely do not believe in a "soul" of any sort. Is it not odd that we play out everything we experience from our bodies? Why is there any experience? Why are some neural activities consciously experienced while others are never experienced at all?
Let me say that maybe both sides of this argument are jumping the gun. There may be some vehicle of consciousness and reason for it that is "physical" yet currently undiscovered. Science is in its infancy you know...
This s the most in-depth petty internet argument I've ever stumbled upon. Although, I did enjoy the video. And the book you mentioned in a very cliche fashion, Remembrance of Things Past, it seems pretty interesting...
@zarkoff45 I agree with your general premise, but the "neurons aren't about anything" objection concerns a genuine philosophical problem called "intentionality," which is well explained in Darek Barefoot's Secular Web reply to Richard Carrier.
@BlueCollarPhilosoper "...genuine philosophical problem called "intentionality,"..."
Yes, sort of, though using a word like aboutness to describe the problem is misleading. This is one of the things that has slowed down this series. I have to look into it more.
What do you know about it?
It's not any intentionality, many robots do initiate their own reactions to invents. It's really original intentionality because they'll object to people programming and building the 'bots.
@zarkoff45 I agree with your general premise, but the "neurons aren't about anything" objection concerns a genuine philosophical problem called "intentionality," which is well explained in Darek Barefoot's Secular Web reply to Richard Carrier.
My favorite argument, if you're still taking them and haven't already gotten it, is the "radio-antennae" argument. The brain merely functions as a receiver for the soul. I like it because it is hard to really argue against, since it is just a stop-gap, an attempt to throw off the fact that the brain is definitively in control.
Also, Oliver Sacks ftw! I read The Man Who Mistook His Wife for A Hat and after that, I knew I wanted to be a future neuroscientist! Just a few more years...
@zarkoff45 I think you misunderstood that argument, or incorrectly equated the current analogy of a radio for the brain, with the hypothesis from 50 years ago that the brain operates literally like a radio receiver. You said that no robots use radio receivers to function - but I don't see how this is comparable to a human brain. Nobody has built a robot with a mind yet, and the current argument is not that the human brain is literally a radio receiver
@lookatmepleasesir "You said that no robots use radio receivers to function..."
No, I did not say that. I said there was no radio receiver of the mind THEORY used by robot makers. They use artificial neural nets, computer processors, programs and information processing theories and devices. At no point in the process are they trying to tap into some extra-dimensional quantum mind realm that Chopra thinks is there.
@zarkoff45 clearly, because there is no evidence of quantum mind realm. They are trying to build robots that process information, the radio analogy implies that once a system reaches a level of complexity for consciousness to emerge, it tunes into a pre-existing consciousness
@zarkoff45 these notions come from altered states of consciousness, but I don't expect somebody like you to have any respect for metaphysics or empirical instrospective philosophy. I just don't understand the universal response of agressive language, why not put forward an argument if you feel so strongly about it
There was a time I used pot for a few months. I can best explain the time distortions as cycles of brain waves becoming out of phase so that instead of a coherent whole I was experiencing the same thing multiple times.
True or false? I don't know. Possibly an interesting topic of research.
@zarkoff45 - if you don't understand what entheogens & psychedelics are doing then you don't understand perception and processing and consciousness, so you can't even see how your own mind is dealing with the problems you are trying to solve.
Just one example - psilocybin can make you physically see better. You can see further away and everything is much more in focus as well.
That's kinda ironic your viewpoint - I thought for a second your name is after Zarkoff as in 'Gracie & Zarkoff'.
@lookatmepleasesir - "once a system reaches a level of complexity for consciousness to emerge, it tunes into a pre-existing consciousness" that's it, that is how it works. If they ever figure it out then it is just about the circuit layouts positionally - the software program will be fairly simple too. It's all in the wiring, souls are real and - consciousness is universal anyway, particles are conscious.
@lookatmepleasesir - as if it needs further highlighted what is actually going on on this planet in this reality, out of all my replies here today the one that affirmed this has been deleted -
'once a system reaches a level of complexity for consciousness to emerge, it tunes into a pre-existing consciousness'
censored by - a consciousness that doesn't make its own decisions.
One is his name, one is not mister Doctor Polaski. (sorry, I have no clue how to spell her name)
It's strange that whoever you were talking about claimed that only Data would be able to tell if he had a soul since he probably assumes we have souls, and we can't sense them. I guess maybe theists have hallucinations of having souls.
The theistic argument is not a valid argument until it can present valid evidence. As yet, it cannot... and I am not going to hold my breath on this one.
"having to listen to the narration and read those tidbits at the same time was like war on my neurons."
Its neural exercise for your brain. If you can't handle the information load first time, just listen - then go back and read while only half listening.
Indeed, and for most people even science comes to them in merely its hearsay form through books, news stories and youtube. No wonder a creationist can't tell the difference between real science and bogus science.
@zarkoff45 it seems you might have been implying by "for most people even science comes to them in merely its hearsay form through books, news stories and youtube" that learning science through books is like learning its hearsay form. Do we need to be technically trained scientists to learn science?
@lookatmepleasesir "...learning science through books is like learning its hearsay form."
Indeed, books are hearsay for the most part. However, you can get a better sense of science from some books thanothers. It depends on the books you read - but I was thinking more of TV news and certain websites.
If you're not reading a few science journals, then you don't really understand science.
And you certainly need to learn more from somewhere before you can even begin to understand this series.
@lookatmepleasesir "what can be learnt from a journal that can't be learnt from a good book on the subject?"
What the scientist is actually saying about his own research. How it was done, and what needs to be done to replicate it. You don't get that from most books.
'Do you have trouble understanding English, or have some other learning disability.'
are you trying to copy what I asked you in my other post? you have trouble understanding a straight forward metaphor, opening the mind. Aspergers syndrome makes it very difficult for a 'sufferer' to understand metaphor, thats why I ask. Its hard to explain what opening the mind means
@philippmikio2 Ironically, if you look up Dawkins on Barnes and Noble, you'll find Dawkins' books and then multitudes of apologetics claiming to refute Dawkins. By your logic, this makes religion worse than science because multitudes of apologetics are trying to refute one biologist.
Then again, by your logic the universe is geocentric, so...
@philippmikio2 I believe that everyone should defend their own position, not assume it speaks for itself. If the people knowing the truth were quiet and the liars spewed their lies all over for instance children, their minds could be closed for the truth (whatever that truth may be).
@pozzska I'd like to make a distinction between learning sense association mappings (which is nothing but learning a dictionary) and the process of creativity. The former is called semantics of a language, and neural nets are quite good at this. Music is also a language and anyone needs to first learn the language to make creative compositions in it. But creativity itself doesn't come by learning. It comes from "listening" attentively and being aware of nature, which kids do better than adults
The ability of a pattern recognition method to work on an unseen pattern (called testing-data) is called the generalization capability of the method. There are crucial bounds on this in statistical learning theory. Broadly speaking, if a method is good at recognizing it is not good at generalizing.
Would somebody ever break this deadlock ? We computer scientists are "sceptical". It should be investigated first. This is why we don't make claims that we can replicate human mental abilities..
The fundamental problem with achieving human level intelligence has to do with "creativity". Computers are good at recognizing things that are already known, not at producing things completely unknown to them. For example, take music. The current crop of algorithms for making music do cut+paste of existing compositions. Otherwise, if they behave randomly, they produce jarring noise not music.
Neural networks are meant for the recognizing patterns from things already seen. Not the unseen.
@vakibs2 - Infants would create the same jarring noise. An adult has been exposed to many patterns and musics. So, the computer having to be taught existing patterns isn't different and doesn't prove anything.
@pozzska - You don't become creative by learning a dictionary. Children are good at rapidly learning sense association mappings. One should first know the language to compose a creative material in it, to make it comprehensible to other people. Children are extremely creative, and indeed, sadly lose their creative abilities as they grow old. It is those that are still young at heart that produce the most creative output.
@vakibs2 - I never claimed that you become creative by learning a dictionary. You said "computers are good at recognizing things that are already known." So are children. They don't come out making up music without any exposure to music. I wasn't arguing that neural networks are good/bad. I was saying your analogy was poor. Also, I know adults that are extremely creative. The last half of your response is simply a bunch of assertions. Children don't all grow out of their creativity.
Also, neural networks don't achieve the best performance on pattern recognition. The best methods today are support vector machines, boosting methods which aggregate simpler decision methods, kernel machines that use linear discriminants on a higher dimensional space etc. In fact, using the word "neural network" in your pattern recognition paper has almost become a recipe for getting rejected without review.
For more info, please read "statistical learning theory" by Vapnik.
In fact, there is no proof that a finite set of rules (a formal grammar) can even thoroughly predict the behaviour of an electron ! Forget a human brain.
There are crucial bottlenecks to realizing human level intelligence in computers. This is related to the so-called NP-hard problems. All current formulations of problems which humans solve trivially (like visual recognition) are NP-hard for computers. Believing that this exponential barrier will be breached is one that is based on "faith".
Your statement that human brains are "finite" is a "religious" faith-based statement for which you have no proof.
I understand the word "finite" as being equivalent to a finite set of rules, described in a formal grammar, to derive "all" its functionality. Neural networks can be described thus (that's why we can program them in computers).There is no "proof" yet, that such a finite grammar can produce human level intelligence.
"Your statement that human brains are 'finite' is a 'religious' faith-based statement ..."
You're nuts.
Is your assumption that you can't fit the ocean in a one gallon milk jug also a "statement" of religious faith, or do you think that you can put an ocean in a milk jug?
"I understand the word "finite" as being equivalent to a finite set of rules,..."
I understand "finite" to have a much broader definition. It also about numbers when saying "there is no largest number."
I surely hope that human's become intelligent enough to see neuroscience as truth, rather than coat my field of research in lies and pseudoscience.
I study and am interning to be a professor of Cognitive Neuroscience....this is literally right down my ally. Thank you for making this video on our behalf, we need to kill this kind of stupid thinking before it can spread.
"...we need to kill this kind of stupid thinking before it can spread."
Unfortunately it has already spread pretty far. If you do a youtube search on terms like "mind" and "consciousness" the pseudoscience seems to outnumber the legit science entries. When you become a professor with first year students in neuroscience you will probably have to deal with such assumptions from your students. Though it will depend on how advanced your courses are. We should kill off the bullshit first year.
@zarkoff45 (part 2) From what I have heard of Dennett's response to the p-zombie argument it is simply an exercise in question begging.
If you define a mind exclusively in behavioristic terms (producing mental language etc.) then of course there will be no difference between a conscious person and a p-zombie. But defining a person in purely behavioristic terms was the issue of contention in the first place.
Thanks for making this series. I've been thinking about making something like this for a while. I just finished taking clinical neurophychology, and its fascinating how much of our person-hood has actually been localized in the brain. Just look at phineas gage. damage to the orbitofrontal contex can make a person a pseudo-psychopath, without empathy. damage to the mesial system can make a person seem like an empty shell. and temporal lobe seizures can cause hyper-religiosity. interesting huh?
Well I see Veritas doing what is a simple old trick of abstract language.
'aboutness' probably doesn't mean anything at all that doesn't have the specific function of helping his argument.
Hyardacil 2 days ago
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I love talking about the zombie argument because it forces people to think very clearly about their positions on mind body and soul. But I agree with you that it fails as an argument about physicalism. Thanks for your efforts in spreading interest in the deepest question of all.
walawala147 6 days ago
Moby Dick just had the plot as a back drop. It was a beautiful discussion of everything from psychology to history
SephieRothe 2 weeks ago
in response to ... Fat German Bastard :D :D :D
Neshuah1 2 weeks ago
@zarkoff45: People don't have a problem with neuroscience. What they have a problem with is eliminativism masquerading as neuroscience.
Now some people can't tell the difference between philosophy of mind and neuroscience. But that is more indicative of a category error on their part than on a "war on neuroscience" by people who are self-aware that they aren't p-zombies.
Yes there will be a scientific explanation of the mind -explaining it away isn't the same as explaining it though.
JohananRaatz 2 months ago
Comment removed
JohananRaatz 2 months ago
@luisisrael15 And who studies the Mind? The Flying Spaghetti Monster, of course.
M4tuX 3 months ago
Holy HELL!
This was painful to watch!
...who the hell makes a video on material which requires concentration, with both a voice-over AND shitloadsa text ???
...Not to mention how your perspective of the universe is, to say the least, chilling.
SnazzyPazzyMark2 3 months ago
I have to get EMPs. Machines are coming.
WarPig15 4 months ago
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TheServiceWeb 5 months ago
It’s not so much an error of neuroscience, as an unwarranted denial that a key issue in philosophy of mind is a moot point. @Veritas48 is making a bald assertion that neurons are not intentional, when there is a lively debate as to whether or not complex causal relations realised by neurons can or cannot be said to be ‘about things’ in the same way as propositional attitude are. It’s more a war on philosophy, as per usual :(
wisdominnature7 5 months ago
And plase! When you make a video dont put text and voice simultanouslly with different messages. It is impossible (I guess for all) to pay attention to both. And it makes the video very confusing.
luisisrael15 6 months ago
If a person is a gathering of elements, than if we describe those only in terms of the matter: sodium, carbon, hydrogen..... etc There WILL be something lacking; because we will skip something essential. Who is in the first place assuming that there is carbon, hydrogen and nitrogen there? The one assuming and talking about that is the mind.
There is an embarassing precedence of the mind which allow us to doubt on matter before we doubt on mind itself.
Well. hope we can keep debate.
luisisrael15 6 months ago
There is dependence between the mind and the brain? Of course there is. any person who drank alcohol know that. not to talk about those who had an accident and lost the capacity of speaking or anything alike. BUT, it does not change the fact that the experience of drinking alcohol and getting drunk or anything else is noticed by the mind and could not be differently.
luisisrael15 6 months ago
So if this mind that examines the brain comes to any conclusion. It does not change the fact that it is the mind the one examining in the first place. It does not change the fact that it is the mind that made an assertion about the reality of the brain.
There is no real garantee there, in the first place, that the perception this mind have of what the body and a brain is is accurate. The only accurate information we could have in first instance is that this mind is behind all the analysis
luisisrael15 6 months ago
It is not very scientific to be completely sure that your opponent is not correct.
In fact I should present myself as an opponent of your kind of view.
One argument I think is very strong is that everything we experience is mind. There is nothing at all that could be experienced without being inside mind. If you study the brain, what studies the brain? it is the mind. If I see your video and make a comment, what is behind all that? The mind.
luisisrael15 6 months ago
If the universe is in a state of entropy, and the entropy has been constantly getting higher since the big bang, then how would consciousness be something that arises so long after the big bang? The singularity was the point of highest order, then it exploded and became less and less ordered, then the human brain emerged from that disorder and started thinking. It doesn't make sense.
1simonmatthews 6 months ago
@1simonmatthews "If the universe is in a state of entropy, and the entropy has been constantly getting higher since the big bang, then how would consciousness be something that arises so long after the big bang?"
You are very confused about entropy. Consciousness requires a high state of entropy. Too much order means too much simplicity. Complexity and chaos are ultimately the same thing and consciousness requires an evolved, complex mechanism to arise - the brain.
zarkoff45 6 months ago
@zarkoff45 Ok, I can understand what you're saying. I can see the sense in that. So therefore this means that in the distant future there is going to be a higher level of consciousness?
1simonmatthews 6 months ago
@1simonmatthews "So therefore this means that in the distant future there is going to be a higher level of consciousness?"
I think there will be, and for billions of years, because of accelerating evolution but it doesn't necessarily have to happen that way. And, if there is no source of energy continuing to come into the universe then after trillions of years the universe will be heat dead -- just frozen iron spheres that were once stars and evaporating black holes.
zarkoff45 6 months ago
@zarkoff45 I can't understand how that would be the case. It sounds a little illogical to me. If the universe is just going to end up like that, with nothing else happening at all, then it would be logical to ask why all this is happening precisely now. There's all this happening right now, then in so many years time there will be basically nothing forever. Why didn't it happen at some other time? It's more logical to think that it's cyclical. If it can happen once it can happen again.
1simonmatthews 6 months ago
@1simonmatthews "If the universe is just going to end up like that, with nothing else happening at all, then it would be logical to ask why all this is happening precisely now."
Whenever it happened would be now:
watch?v=Y350oOiunf4
zarkoff45 6 months ago
@zarkoff45 Yes that's a good TEDtalk link. I think it was one of the first TEDtalks that I watched a little while ago. What Sean Carroll says pretty much goes with what I was saying. He ends by saying that he thinks that it is cyclical, in which case there won't just be nothingness forever. This makes sense to me. If the big bang was the one and only big bang, the absolute beginning, then there's no reason why the universe wouldn't already be in a state of nothingness.
1simonmatthews 6 months ago
@1simonmatthews "then there's no reason why the universe wouldn't already be in a state of nothingness."
You're not thinking correctly about probability. If you won the lottery already then the odds are no longer a hundred million to one against you.
zarkoff45 6 months ago
@zarkoff45 Don't understand what you're saying here. The TEDtalks video concurs with my opinion. Sean Carroll concluded by saying that he thinks the universe is cyclical. That's what I said, and actually think without having to hear it from him. If it wasn't cyclical and started with a big bang with an absolute beginning and expanded to nothing then it would already have happened. The only reason we are here now is because it happens in cycles, not just once.
1simonmatthews 6 months ago
@1simonmatthews "Don't understand what you're saying here."
You can not be where you can not be, you can only happen where you can happen. I don't think you understood Sean Carroll -- and if you did, then Sean Carroll is wrong. Carroll did say things like "anything, like an apple pie, could just pop into existence" but the odds require almost infinity to happen. A messy universe is actually more probable than you or an apple pie.
zarkoff45 6 months ago
@zarkoff45 And if you watch it to the end he concludes by saying, in so many words, that he thinks the universe, or multiverse, is cyclical. The apple pie bit was earlier in the video. He goes on to give his opinion after that part.
1simonmatthews 6 months ago
@1simonmatthews
I'll have to check it out again. But I do not recall him making a probability argument for that. If he did he is probably wrong for the same reason creationists are wrong when they make similar probability arguments..
zarkoff45 6 months ago
@zarkoff45 You seem quite sure of things. Good for you. There's only one thing I can say for sure and that's that no one knows how anything exists at all, let alone know if the big bang happens only once. I can say that I have heard some scientists say that they think the big bang wasn't the beginning - and that was in a BBC Horizon documentary. I tend to agree with this theory, but I'm not going to say it's definitely right or wrong. I think it's a work in progress.
1simonmatthews 6 months ago
@1simonmatthews "You seem quite sure of things."
I'm not sure. My video wasn't about cosmology, it was about neuroscience. You don't need cosmology to understand neuroscience.
I just know that creationists tend to make a lot of faulty probability arguments and I have a distrust of such arguments.
zarkoff45 6 months ago
@zarkoff45 I never said you seemed quite sure based on your video, I said it based on your previous comment, that Sean Carroll would probably be wrong etc., which was cosmology. Let's not get into an argument eh? We could argue all day about probability etc. and neither of us will back down and we'll both be stressed out for nothing haha. I'll end by saying great video dude! Keep up the good work!
1simonmatthews 6 months ago
@1simonmatthews "Keep up the good work!"
Thank you. I'll try.
zarkoff45 6 months ago
I've always seen the 'Soul' as a metaphor for being- in the sense of : "to be or not to be" Fascinating vid. I;ll watch the others.
Big fan of Oliver Sach's book " The Man Who Mistook....
CorporalNym 7 months ago
the failure of the "soul" has nothing to do with experiments or proof. it is an incoherent concept. how can you show evidence for or against something which cannot even be defined consistently? it fails at the hypothesis stage just like "god," or "black hole," or "zero dimensional particle," etc
also, experiments dont reveal the causal link, they only give evidence for a theory(s) of one. i still have yet to hear a theory which can explain the arising of consciousness itself. next vid?
junior00bacon00chee 9 months ago
@junior00bacon00chee "i still have yet to hear a theory which can explain the arising of consciousness itself. next vid?"
Perhaps the problem is that you don't know what consciousness is and are not equipped to recognize its arising.
zarkoff45 9 months ago
@zarkoff45
"Perhaps the problem is that you don't know what consciousness is"
okay very interesting. i define knowledge as "experience," thus i know what consciousness is by virtue of experiencing it. it would be impossible for me then to not "know" what consciousness is, unless you are attempting to model consciousness, and i don't know your model. that would imply that you are hypothesizing the existence of objects outside your experience which are supposed to explain consciousness.
junior00bacon00chee 9 months ago
Your 5 senses have no testability. So everything in this video is bullshit.
Let's start from the root of your problems in this video. Prove to me that your 5 senses are trustworthy and valid without using any of your 5 senses or the 5 senses of other people. Once you've done that, we can move on to considering anything at all in this video.
theman77777777232 10 months ago
@theman77777777232 "Your 5 senses have no testability. So everything in this video is bullshit."
Now that is a perfect example of philosophical bullshit. You can know nothing.
zarkoff45 10 months ago
@zarkoff45
Nice refutation. YOU are the only one that can test your 5 senses sir. This is exactly what you said in the video sir. Watch your own video.
theman77777777232 10 months ago
@theman77777777232
You have an amazing talent for incomprehension.
zarkoff45 10 months ago
@zarkoff45
"You have an amazing talent for incomprehension."
That was quite an ironic comment.
theman77777777232 10 months ago
@theman77777777232
Watch 5:27
Only the android knows if he has a soul...
Only you can test your 5 senses...
What's good for the goose is good for the gander. You have to abide by your own standards sir.
theman77777777232 10 months ago
@theman77777777232
Actually, you have totally failed to comprehend the video. That line spoken in the high voice was a quote from someone called Marcin and zarkoff was criticizing the view that the android could tell if it had a soul.
Zarkoff was saying that the android could be as wrong as we are. And Zarkoff doesn't believe our senses are accurate:
watch?v=5asWopatGWs
voidCaptain 10 months ago
@voidCaptain
I think you linked the wrong video. That's my thunderf00t video. I did say something about the unreliability of sensory data in this video though:
watch?v=zahFKGVpQGg
zarkoff45 10 months ago
Comment removed
theman77777777232 10 months ago
Comment removed
theman77777777232 10 months ago
@voidCaptain
"Actually, you have totally failed to comprehend the video."
Actually, I think you have totally failed to comprehend my comments, which is why zarkoff was finally smart enough to back off and retreat by not replying to my comments.
theman77777777232 10 months ago
@theman77777777232 "zarkoff was finally smart enough to back off "
Nope. I haven't backed off. Voidcaptain was right. I gave up on you because you are so far off you're too ridiculous to deal with. You're a perfect example of the Dunning-Kruger effect:
watch?v=XyOHJa5Vj5Y
zarkoff45 10 months ago
@zarkoff45
@zarkoff45
"Nope. I haven't backed off."
Okay then, don't block my accounts or ill have to make videos with my camstudio of you blocking me the way you made videos of veritas blocking you. Ive done nothing but present an argument refuting your video, and you block me and insult me and sweep the argument under the rug as if it does not exist. This is all being recorded. Now please, rather than tell me i'm "too ridiculous to deal with", please respond to the following comment..
theman77777232 10 months ago
@theman77777232 "ill have to make videos with my camstudio of you blocking me"
Go right ahead.
zarkoff45 10 months ago
@zarkoff45
"Zarkoff doesn't believe our senses are accurate"
Now, mt question that is being avoided is very, very somple. What exactly does the above quoation mean??? And what instruments will you use to verify that our senses are inaccurate?
theman77777232 10 months ago
@theman77777232 "mt question that is being avoided"
No, you are being blocked for trying to continually force your philosophical bullshit into my comments section. If you want to know what the quote means go here:
watch?v=XyOHJa5Vj5Y
zarkoff45 10 months ago
This has been flagged as spam show
@zarkoff45
"Zarkoff doesn't believe our senses are accurate"
Now, my question that is being avoided is very, very simple. What exactly does the above quotation mean??? And what instruments (besides our senses) will you use to verify that our senses are inaccurate? Pray tell.
theman77777232 10 months ago
Comment removed
theman77777777232 10 months ago
This has been flagged as spam show
@voidCaptain
"And Zarkoff doesn't believe our senses are accurate"
Since you speak for other people as if you are zarkoff himself, can you please explain what zarkoff means by the above quotation? And if zarkoff is accurate in saying this, how can we be sure anything at all in science is accurate if the instruments (our senses) that we use to observe science are inaccurate?
theman77777777232 10 months ago
Comment removed
theman77777777232 10 months ago
the creepy music is distracting.
mvans130 11 months ago
good video Zarkoff. i don't believe in souls, nor am i a dualist. there's no presence watching me through me. that said, i understand why you attached this to my video.
gothatfunk 1 year ago
I was going to study neuroscience, but then I realised it's just another emotionless excuse to use animals as test subjects. We already know how all the relevant things work, there's no excuses for science to be testing on animals just cause some people refuse to accept that 'aetheric' sciences and old wisdom are correct.
I'm sure it's all very interesting but that it's the point. It fascinates me too, but it's like focusing on eddys and forgetting that the river is drying up entirely.
DracOverLordHaton 1 year ago
*is the point, that should read
DracOverLordHaton 1 year ago
The only way we'll get real AI (faster but just as stupid as us) is with neural nets not rule-based programming.
We won't do it by running simulations on x86-style architectures. We need hardware that mimics neurons. My bet would be something based around the overflow-rate multiplier (aka digital differential analyser). Well-suited to pulse-rate computing (which is what neurons do). Still going to be bulky, though.
bdf2718 1 year ago
@bdf2718 - what do you mean though, cause - what is intelligence? If you mean processing 'any code' faster then that is different from knowing how to tell the processing units 'how to think'. Faster is no problem, it's the parts about storing info, retrieving relevant info, and what to do with it. How do you give it the ability to choose, without rules that determine what to choose. Even then, we all make our choices from limited options ourselves, if we're even aware enough to see all options.
DracOverLordHaton 1 year ago
@DracOverLordHaton
Fundamental theorem of computing: anything one processor can do with multiple threads can be done by multiple processors (ish). But faster IS a problem - speed of light limitations - if you have the wrong architecture.
We're not going to get sapience with rule-based programming as used in weak AI. If X and Y then Z programmed in at every level.
True sapience will come from neural nets with only basic survival stuff programmed in. Like an infant.
bdf2718 1 year ago
Hey, here's a theist question: Can commander Data reproduce himself (hence his brain) by copulating with a similar robot? JAJAJA
anselmiano 1 year ago
@anselmiano "Can commander Data reproduce himself ..."
Yes, given the proper lab.
"... by copulating with a similar robot?"
He was fully functional according to Tasha Yar, but I don't think he was that functional.
zarkoff45 1 year ago
@zarkoff45 That's precisely my point. The real Holy Grail of neuroscience would have to be the self-reproducing machine, the Von Neumann machine. Anything short of that is in its infancy. Maybe when we have designed THAT we can claim to have matched God's creative genius! :)
anselmiano 1 year ago
@anselmiano "The real Holy Grail of neuroscience would have to be the self-reproducing machine..."
Ummm... That's not really neuroscience. Neuroscience is limited to the study of brains, (neurons), not reproductive functions. Don't confuse neuroscience with nanotechnology.
zarkoff45 1 year ago
@zarkoff45 However neuroscience has to account for the development of the nervous system from the single celled fertilized egg. To that extent neuroscie4nce's Holy Grail is coming up with a brain-like organ/machine that develops from something as simple as one cell; and then integrate it into a nurturing and auto-replicating system (in the case of humans this is the human body). That is the real challenge! :)
anselmiano 1 year ago
I think you are not considering this arguments full strength. Intentionality is not just a theistic attack on physicialism, many atheists consider it a flaw with physicalism as well. David Chalmers and John Searle being two. It's a serious argument in philosophy of mind. The question is how can a physical thing, like brain, have mental states that are about other physical things? Why do I have thoughts about J. Lo's ass etc. I think there are solutions to this problem, but not neural nets.
WayOfTheBastard 1 year ago
@WayOfTheBastard
Yea, I misunderstood what Veritas48 meant by aboutness. I will have to make a correction video.
Then I'll have to read up on this intentionality argument.
zarkoff45 1 year ago
@zarkoff45 You're big man to admit that. I can link you some stuff to read out it if you want. watch?v=YFat5fNlLzA is a good place to start.
WayOfTheBastard 1 year ago
@WayOfTheBastard
Feel free to PM me any links to good articles on the subject.
Some of the stuff I've read from Alvin Plantinga is a totally WTF is he talking about stuff - it makes no sense at all.
zarkoff45 1 year ago
@WayOfTheBastard: If anything proves the existence of a soul, it's your thoughts about J. Lo's ass. If that's not spirituality, what is?
BlueCollarPhilosoper 11 months ago
Bear in mind that one can be an atheist without being an eliminative materialist. E.g. Schopenhauer. Correlation does not mean by necessity identity or cause.
Also, although I'm an atheist, I don't think you understand 'intentionality'/'aboutness'. I'd recommend you read Bertrand Russell on the matter.
Mindscapology 1 year ago
The arguments for a soul I've heard all my life is along the lines of the following
"I can't believe in chemicals creating sentience/a will to live"
"Meat can't feel emotions or reason; a steak doesn't talk or love or dream"
"Close your eyes, imagine a cat. No light's hitting your eye. Who's looking at that mental image?"
"What is love/beauty? Can that really just be meat?"
Nothing you would see as more than logical fallacies, but I've heard them for so long I'd like them addressed indepth
crocoshocker 1 year ago
@crocoshocker
Thanks for the ideas for future subjects.
zarkoff45 1 year ago
*clears throat* Please show me reseach that actually proves humans have mirror neurons - and then I'll listen past 2:31 of your upload. I refer to research and critism produced by Morton Ann Gernsbacher.
Tyrannii 1 year ago
@Tyrannii
A mirror neuron is just a neuron that fires both when an animal acts and when it sees the same action done by another. Thus, the neuron seems to "mirrors" the behavior of the other, as if the observer were itself acting.
Do you really doubt they exist? Ms Gernsbacher.may argue that that such neurons don't imply what we think, but she can not deny their existence.
Besides, they are only an example of what neurons do. This video is not about mirror neurons.
You're being stupid.
zarkoff45 1 year ago
@zarkoff45 'A mirror neuron is just a neuron that fires both when an animal acts and when it sees the same action done by another.'
People that are a problem can't tell the difference between what they see others doing & what they themselves are doing - clearly the motor neurons do not fire when observing another though. Well, sometimes they can - but people learn or are made to suppress that early on. Or they end up in spaz places if they can't. Astral-puppeting uses that mirroring thing too.
DracOverLordHaton 1 year ago
@DracOverLordHaton
Astral-puppeting? Sounds like utter bullshit to me.
zarkoff45 1 year ago
@zarkoff45 - no you know that's as true as the comment here you censored, and what the comment quoted from another persons post.
The reason you are like that - is also why you will never be real yourself, and why you therefore obviously cannot build anything more real than you.
DracOverLordHaton 1 year ago
@DracOverLordHaton "...as the comment here you censored"
Worse than that - you are now blocked for filling my comments section with your crap.
zarkoff45 1 year ago
@zarkoff45 - that just proves you're the least scientific person ever then. Cause first my comments are genius, and second if you really gave a shit finding out what your bs claims you are, then you wouldn't have censored me or claimed otherwise.
Kill yourself fucktard.
DuffBeerDragon 1 year ago
@DuffBeerDragon
So, you have sock accounts. Well, blocked again.
zarkoff45 1 year ago
an an undergrad in neuroscience i am glad to finally see some one tackle this issue in you tube. thank you.
staledoughnuts1 1 year ago
Zarkoff45, you seem to be completing downplaying the force of the zombie argument this argument doesn't just apply to neuroscience it also applies to evolution through natural selection. Why is it that evolution chose intelligent beings instead of zombie like people?/
500bigguy100 1 year ago
@zarkoff45 I don't know a lot about intentionality, but it is the twin sister of qualia when it comes to philosophical problems concerning materialism. There is a complicated and comprehensive online Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy entry on intentionality, but the way Darek Barefoot has laid out this issue is the most accessible one I've seen, so I recommend you start there. Intentionality & qualia might be genuine problems, but they give no reason to think minds can "detach" from brains.
BlueCollarPhilosoper 1 year ago
We feel information and that's what makes us different. Machine's are not alive and don't feel, so it's impossible to reverse engineer the brain. Scientist don't even know how a cell works and yet they claim that we are just machines. Scientist can't duplicate a living cell, yet they are going to reverse engineer the brain. It's ignorant to say that a neuron is just a switch, a neuron is a cell, it's not some stupid switch. I am amazed at how ignorant scientist really are.
cmpresents 1 year ago
@cmpresents They can too duplicate the living cell, they've been able to for a number of years now.
splicedenergy 1 year ago
This has been flagged as spam show
@splicedenergy You don't know what you are saying.
cmpresents 1 year ago
It's nice, but the music and sound effects are way too loud. I had trouble hearing the voice at times.
MomoTheBellyDancer 1 year ago
awesome, sub+
slipcurve 1 year ago
I believe that the 'soul' is just the consciousness of our right hemisphere. You are your brain and your brain is you, nothing more.
TheLoserKingdom 1 year ago
While I disagree with most of this video it's much better than your others much more respectful but even if Veritas 48 was wrong I don't think he was "lying" outside of that this was much better than the other two videos you made.
Jayoung1000 1 year ago
I think we need to open up our minds more...Zarkoff, your video purports that there is nothing beyond the physical architecture of our brains and that consciousness is something of an illusion. That may be true and I don't think either one of us can say it is definitively so at this point. Perhaps looking at our brain is like a looking at a computer's hardware and a soul to be software. We could exam the harddrive and see the data, but we would never what it is like to experience that data.
WrAth2110 1 year ago
@WrAth2110 wrote: "I think we need to open up our minds more..."
What does that even mean? How does one open a mind?
zarkoff45 1 year ago
@zarkoff45 User theramintrees has some interesting videos.
Mitche23 1 year ago
@Mitche23
I'll have to check out theramintrees - I'm already subbed to QualiaSoup, but haven't seen a video of his in my subscription box for a long time.
zarkoff45 1 year ago
@zarkoff45 I think they are brothers, Theramin and Qualia.
Mitche23 1 year ago
@zarkoff45
Or
QualiaSoup
Mitche23 1 year ago
@zarkoff45 are you serious? do you suffer from aspergers syndrome? no offense, I'm just curious
lookatmepleasesir 1 year ago
For those of you who completely do not believe in a "soul" of any sort. Is it not odd that we play out everything we experience from our bodies? Why is there any experience? Why are some neural activities consciously experienced while others are never experienced at all?
Let me say that maybe both sides of this argument are jumping the gun. There may be some vehicle of consciousness and reason for it that is "physical" yet currently undiscovered. Science is in its infancy you know...
WrAth2110 1 year ago
This s the most in-depth petty internet argument I've ever stumbled upon. Although, I did enjoy the video. And the book you mentioned in a very cliche fashion, Remembrance of Things Past, it seems pretty interesting...
WrAth2110 1 year ago
@WrAth2110 "This s the most in-depth petty internet argument ..."
Petty? Trying to defend science from the lies and distortions that flood the internet is petty?
zarkoff45 1 year ago
@zarkoff45 I agree with your general premise, but the "neurons aren't about anything" objection concerns a genuine philosophical problem called "intentionality," which is well explained in Darek Barefoot's Secular Web reply to Richard Carrier.
BlueCollarPhilosoper 1 year ago
@BlueCollarPhilosoper "...genuine philosophical problem called "intentionality,"..."
Yes, sort of, though using a word like aboutness to describe the problem is misleading. This is one of the things that has slowed down this series. I have to look into it more.
What do you know about it?
It's not any intentionality, many robots do initiate their own reactions to invents. It's really original intentionality because they'll object to people programming and building the 'bots.
zarkoff45 1 year ago
This has been flagged as spam show
@zarkoff45 I agree with your general premise, but the "neurons aren't about anything" objection concerns a genuine philosophical problem called "intentionality," which is well explained in Darek Barefoot's Secular Web reply to Richard Carrier.
BlueCollarPhilosoper 1 year ago
My favorite argument, if you're still taking them and haven't already gotten it, is the "radio-antennae" argument. The brain merely functions as a receiver for the soul. I like it because it is hard to really argue against, since it is just a stop-gap, an attempt to throw off the fact that the brain is definitively in control.
Also, Oliver Sacks ftw! I read The Man Who Mistook His Wife for A Hat and after that, I knew I wanted to be a future neuroscientist! Just a few more years...
Cyrathil 1 year ago
@Cyrathil "My favorite argument, ... the "radio-antennae" argument. The brain merely functions as a receiver for the soul."
Did it already, in part 3:
watch?v=NRkzdFG-lyE
zarkoff45 1 year ago
@zarkoff45 I think you misunderstood that argument, or incorrectly equated the current analogy of a radio for the brain, with the hypothesis from 50 years ago that the brain operates literally like a radio receiver. You said that no robots use radio receivers to function - but I don't see how this is comparable to a human brain. Nobody has built a robot with a mind yet, and the current argument is not that the human brain is literally a radio receiver
lookatmepleasesir 1 year ago
@lookatmepleasesir "You said that no robots use radio receivers to function..."
No, I did not say that. I said there was no radio receiver of the mind THEORY used by robot makers. They use artificial neural nets, computer processors, programs and information processing theories and devices. At no point in the process are they trying to tap into some extra-dimensional quantum mind realm that Chopra thinks is there.
zarkoff45 1 year ago
@zarkoff45 clearly, because there is no evidence of quantum mind realm. They are trying to build robots that process information, the radio analogy implies that once a system reaches a level of complexity for consciousness to emerge, it tunes into a pre-existing consciousness
lookatmepleasesir 1 year ago
@lookatmepleasesir "a level of complexity for consciousness to emerge, it tunes into a pre-existing consciousness ..."
Utter bullshit.
There is no reason to assume such crap.
zarkoff45 1 year ago
@zarkoff45 these notions come from altered states of consciousness, but I don't expect somebody like you to have any respect for metaphysics or empirical instrospective philosophy. I just don't understand the universal response of agressive language, why not put forward an argument if you feel so strongly about it
lookatmepleasesir 1 year ago
@lookatmepleasesir "...notions come from altered states of consciousness, ..."
You mean drug induced insights? I certainly have no respect for those.
zarkoff45 1 year ago
@zarkoff45
There was a time I used pot for a few months. I can best explain the time distortions as cycles of brain waves becoming out of phase so that instead of a coherent whole I was experiencing the same thing multiple times.
True or false? I don't know. Possibly an interesting topic of research.
bdf2718 1 year ago
@bdf2718 - can you detail that better? How do you mean you experienced the same thing multiple times?
DracOverLordHaton 1 year ago
@zarkoff45 - if you don't understand what entheogens & psychedelics are doing then you don't understand perception and processing and consciousness, so you can't even see how your own mind is dealing with the problems you are trying to solve.
Just one example - psilocybin can make you physically see better. You can see further away and everything is much more in focus as well.
That's kinda ironic your viewpoint - I thought for a second your name is after Zarkoff as in 'Gracie & Zarkoff'.
DracOverLordHaton 1 year ago
This has been flagged as spam show
@lookatmepleasesir - "once a system reaches a level of complexity for consciousness to emerge, it tunes into a pre-existing consciousness" that's it, that is how it works. If they ever figure it out then it is just about the circuit layouts positionally - the software program will be fairly simple too. It's all in the wiring, souls are real and - consciousness is universal anyway, particles are conscious.
DracOverLordHaton 1 year ago
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@lookatmepleasesir - as if it needs further highlighted what is actually going on on this planet in this reality, out of all my replies here today the one that affirmed this has been deleted -
'once a system reaches a level of complexity for consciousness to emerge, it tunes into a pre-existing consciousness'
censored by - a consciousness that doesn't make its own decisions.
DracOverLordHaton 1 year ago
@zarkoff45
This comment refers to part 3 of this series:
watch?v=NRkzdFG-lyE
zarkoff45 1 year ago
It's (Day-ta), not (Da-ta).
One is his name, one is not mister Doctor Polaski. (sorry, I have no clue how to spell her name)
It's strange that whoever you were talking about claimed that only Data would be able to tell if he had a soul since he probably assumes we have souls, and we can't sense them. I guess maybe theists have hallucinations of having souls.
Primalxbeast 1 year ago
@Primalxbeast we was reffering to consciousness or self awareness.
lookatmepleasesir 1 year ago
@lookatmepleasesir *he
lookatmepleasesir 1 year ago
I think he probably didn't accept this because you said he flat out lied. Is it possible he was merely ignorant, even if grossly?
HonestDiscussioner 1 year ago
@HonestDiscussioner "Is it possible he was merely ignorant, even if grossly?"
Yes, in a way that is possible, if he lied to himself like the split-brain patient in part 2:
watch?v=gcEV_HsIdBI
zarkoff45 1 year ago
The theistic argument is not a valid argument until it can present valid evidence. As yet, it cannot... and I am not going to hold my breath on this one.
Marchawc 1 year ago
Good stuff. Interesting. Though having to listen to the narration and read those tidbits at the same time was like war on my neurons.
releewasgay 1 year ago
@releewasgay wrote:
"having to listen to the narration and read those tidbits at the same time was like war on my neurons."
Its neural exercise for your brain. If you can't handle the information load first time, just listen - then go back and read while only half listening.
zarkoff45 1 year ago
Myth minds are taught to blindly accept hearsay over physical evidence.
MrSammo1 1 year ago
@MrSammo1
Indeed, and for most people even science comes to them in merely its hearsay form through books, news stories and youtube. No wonder a creationist can't tell the difference between real science and bogus science.
zarkoff45 1 year ago
@zarkoff45 are you suggesting science can't be learnt from books?
lookatmepleasesir 1 year ago
@lookatmepleasesir "are you suggesting science can't be learnt from books?"
No. Why would you think that? Do you have trouble understanding English, or have some other learning disability.
zarkoff45 1 year ago
@zarkoff45 it seems you might have been implying by "for most people even science comes to them in merely its hearsay form through books, news stories and youtube" that learning science through books is like learning its hearsay form. Do we need to be technically trained scientists to learn science?
lookatmepleasesir 1 year ago
@lookatmepleasesir "...learning science through books is like learning its hearsay form."
Indeed, books are hearsay for the most part. However, you can get a better sense of science from some books thanothers. It depends on the books you read - but I was thinking more of TV news and certain websites.
If you're not reading a few science journals, then you don't really understand science.
And you certainly need to learn more from somewhere before you can even begin to understand this series.
zarkoff45 1 year ago
@zarkoff45 what can be learnt from a journal that can't be learnt from a good book on the subject?
lookatmepleasesir 1 year ago
@lookatmepleasesir "what can be learnt from a journal that can't be learnt from a good book on the subject?"
What the scientist is actually saying about his own research. How it was done, and what needs to be done to replicate it. You don't get that from most books.
zarkoff45 1 year ago
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'Do you have trouble understanding English, or have some other learning disability.'
are you trying to copy what I asked you in my other post? you have trouble understanding a straight forward metaphor, opening the mind. Aspergers syndrome makes it very difficult for a 'sufferer' to understand metaphor, thats why I ask. Its hard to explain what opening the mind means
lookatmepleasesir 1 year ago
Nice job! I'm studying the work of the Churchlands right now for an independent study at UC Denver.
RickeyRamone 1 year ago
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This is for Karl , Neurology is the future not some ancient mistic fantasy.
mcneurocangri 1 year ago
This is for Karl , Neurology is the future not some ancient mistic fantasy.
mcneurocangri 1 year ago
This for Karl , Neurology is the future not some ancient mistic fantasy.
mcneurocangri 1 year ago
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Ok now, stop it. Truth is going withstand the test of time. If science is right, it will not be necessary to defend it.
I don't like the approach to "attack" other positions. Let them be.
philippmikio2 1 year ago
Ok now, stop it. Truth is going withstand the test of time. If science is right, it will not be necessary to defend it.
I don't like the approach to "attack" other positions. Let them be.
philippmikio2 1 year ago
@philippmikio2
"Truth is going withstand the test of time."
Not necessarily.
zarkoff45 1 year ago
@philippmikio2 Ironically, if you look up Dawkins on Barnes and Noble, you'll find Dawkins' books and then multitudes of apologetics claiming to refute Dawkins. By your logic, this makes religion worse than science because multitudes of apologetics are trying to refute one biologist.
Then again, by your logic the universe is geocentric, so...
Setar 1 year ago
@philippmikio2 I believe that everyone should defend their own position, not assume it speaks for itself. If the people knowing the truth were quiet and the liars spewed their lies all over for instance children, their minds could be closed for the truth (whatever that truth may be).
TheBlenderer 1 year ago
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JonahTorn 1 year ago
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JonahTorn 1 year ago
@pozzska I'd like to make a distinction between learning sense association mappings (which is nothing but learning a dictionary) and the process of creativity. The former is called semantics of a language, and neural nets are quite good at this. Music is also a language and anyone needs to first learn the language to make creative compositions in it. But creativity itself doesn't come by learning. It comes from "listening" attentively and being aware of nature, which kids do better than adults
vakibs2 1 year ago
I think I can't post URLs in comments. I wrote a blog post and would be glad to your comments there. Dont have a webcam around me..
the-redpill DOT blogspot
Cheerios.
vakibs2 1 year ago
The ability of a pattern recognition method to work on an unseen pattern (called testing-data) is called the generalization capability of the method. There are crucial bounds on this in statistical learning theory. Broadly speaking, if a method is good at recognizing it is not good at generalizing.
Would somebody ever break this deadlock ? We computer scientists are "sceptical". It should be investigated first. This is why we don't make claims that we can replicate human mental abilities..
vakibs2 1 year ago
Dude, you're writing too much in my comments. Make a video response - I'll accept it.
Besides, I'd rather pwn you as a video than as a commenter.
zarkoff45 1 year ago
The fundamental problem with achieving human level intelligence has to do with "creativity". Computers are good at recognizing things that are already known, not at producing things completely unknown to them. For example, take music. The current crop of algorithms for making music do cut+paste of existing compositions. Otherwise, if they behave randomly, they produce jarring noise not music.
Neural networks are meant for the recognizing patterns from things already seen. Not the unseen.
vakibs2 1 year ago
@vakibs2 - Infants would create the same jarring noise. An adult has been exposed to many patterns and musics. So, the computer having to be taught existing patterns isn't different and doesn't prove anything.
pozzska 1 year ago
@pozzska - You don't become creative by learning a dictionary. Children are good at rapidly learning sense association mappings. One should first know the language to compose a creative material in it, to make it comprehensible to other people. Children are extremely creative, and indeed, sadly lose their creative abilities as they grow old. It is those that are still young at heart that produce the most creative output.
vakibs2 1 year ago
@vakibs2 - I never claimed that you become creative by learning a dictionary. You said "computers are good at recognizing things that are already known." So are children. They don't come out making up music without any exposure to music. I wasn't arguing that neural networks are good/bad. I was saying your analogy was poor. Also, I know adults that are extremely creative. The last half of your response is simply a bunch of assertions. Children don't all grow out of their creativity.
pozzska 1 year ago
Also, neural networks don't achieve the best performance on pattern recognition. The best methods today are support vector machines, boosting methods which aggregate simpler decision methods, kernel machines that use linear discriminants on a higher dimensional space etc. In fact, using the word "neural network" in your pattern recognition paper has almost become a recipe for getting rejected without review.
For more info, please read "statistical learning theory" by Vapnik.
vakibs2 1 year ago
In fact, there is no proof that a finite set of rules (a formal grammar) can even thoroughly predict the behaviour of an electron ! Forget a human brain.
There are crucial bottlenecks to realizing human level intelligence in computers. This is related to the so-called NP-hard problems. All current formulations of problems which humans solve trivially (like visual recognition) are NP-hard for computers. Believing that this exponential barrier will be breached is one that is based on "faith".
vakibs2 1 year ago
Your statement that human brains are "finite" is a "religious" faith-based statement for which you have no proof.
I understand the word "finite" as being equivalent to a finite set of rules, described in a formal grammar, to derive "all" its functionality. Neural networks can be described thus (that's why we can program them in computers).There is no "proof" yet, that such a finite grammar can produce human level intelligence.
Believing it so is called the "Hard AI" position.
vakibs2 1 year ago
"Your statement that human brains are 'finite' is a 'religious' faith-based statement ..."
You're nuts.
Is your assumption that you can't fit the ocean in a one gallon milk jug also a "statement" of religious faith, or do you think that you can put an ocean in a milk jug?
"I understand the word "finite" as being equivalent to a finite set of rules,..."
I understand "finite" to have a much broader definition. It also about numbers when saying "there is no largest number."
zarkoff45 1 year ago
I surely hope that human's become intelligent enough to see neuroscience as truth, rather than coat my field of research in lies and pseudoscience.
I study and am interning to be a professor of Cognitive Neuroscience....this is literally right down my ally. Thank you for making this video on our behalf, we need to kill this kind of stupid thinking before it can spread.
TutorialClarity 1 year ago
"...we need to kill this kind of stupid thinking before it can spread."
Unfortunately it has already spread pretty far. If you do a youtube search on terms like "mind" and "consciousness" the pseudoscience seems to outnumber the legit science entries. When you become a professor with first year students in neuroscience you will probably have to deal with such assumptions from your students. Though it will depend on how advanced your courses are. We should kill off the bullshit first year.
zarkoff45 1 year ago
anyone want to buy my soul for 10,000
JUKIO01 1 year ago
I don't mind the music, but trying to read text while listening to the narration degrades the comprehension of both!
Most of us have two eyes and two ears but only one brain - we can either listen to this or read it with the sound off, I suppose.
hznfrst 1 year ago
"Most of us have two eyes and two ears but only one brain..."
Actually, you have more than one brain, as I'll explain leter in the series.
zarkoff45 1 year ago
@zarkoff45 (part 2) From what I have heard of Dennett's response to the p-zombie argument it is simply an exercise in question begging.
If you define a mind exclusively in behavioristic terms (producing mental language etc.) then of course there will be no difference between a conscious person and a p-zombie. But defining a person in purely behavioristic terms was the issue of contention in the first place.
Or did I miss something?
JohananRaatz 2 months ago
Very good video, one complaint. The music is kind of distracting. If you could tone that down a bit that would be terrific
wownerdFTW 1 year ago
I will tone down music in the next parts of the series.
zarkoff45 1 year ago
Thanks for making this series. I've been thinking about making something like this for a while. I just finished taking clinical neurophychology, and its fascinating how much of our person-hood has actually been localized in the brain. Just look at phineas gage. damage to the orbitofrontal contex can make a person a pseudo-psychopath, without empathy. damage to the mesial system can make a person seem like an empty shell. and temporal lobe seizures can cause hyper-religiosity. interesting huh?
oooshiny888 1 year ago