Also, this new wave of thought is not a war on neuroscience, it's a war on the materialist interpretation of neuroscience. It does not deny any of the findings observed by neuroscience. We have good reason to question materialism given the magnitude of conflicting material. Severe hydrocephalus, terminal lucidity, notable near death experiences, induced after death communication, past life regression hypnotherapy, etc...
@AnduinX "Also, this new wave of thought is not a war on neuroscience, it's a war on the materialist interpretation of neuroscience."
Which makes it a war on all of science.
I suspect you missed my first video in this series because I talked about how there is no such thing as a "non-materialist neuroscience." Indeed, there is no non-materialist science anywhere. It's a joke.
watch?v=77XBZHJcoK4
But you sound like you swallowed too much crap to understand why.
@zarkoff45: Quantum physicists theorize imaginary particles, and dimensions in which we have no way to detect or interact. We can only measure these things by the effect they have on what we can observe. 'Non-material' science is much the same and I don't think it can be written off as a joke. Also, materialism is a way to view what science has discovered. It is a belief system, not science itself. A ‘war’ on the materialist viewpoint is not a war on science.
@AnduinX "Quantum physicists theorize imaginary particles, and dimensions in which we have no way to detect or interact."
Yet they still apply the scientific method, suggest theories and experiments to prove/falsify them. The only thing dualism has done for us is ad hoc rationalization.
@infinit888: Scientific experiments can be run on the non-physical as well. The AWARE study, the largest study of near death experiences to date aims to do just that. What has materialism done for us? There's no evidence that specifically supports materialism in the materialism vs dualism debate, and plenty of evidence that weighs against it.
@zarkoff45: I answered just a moment ago below, essentially there's no proof that the right brain is actually conscious at all. The responses of the right brain could be attributed to unconscious mental activity. The position that dualist takes is that consciousness remained whole through the procedure. It's perfectly tenable.
No, it is not tenable. At least not without some really bogus and twisted definition of consciousness. And you do not understand the relationship between the conscious and unconscious mind.
@zarkoff45: If my definition of consciousness is so twisted, perhaps you could provide me with your definition of consciousness - and if my view of this is not tenable, then please tell me how split brains specifically prove that the right brain has awareness and experience of its own. Sleep walkers can do far more impressive things than anything the right brain did in this video, which goes to show that mental activity in the absence of consciousness can explain anything shown here.
@zerkoff45: I’ve heard Marvin’s view before, and I don’t see it as a definition of consciousness at all. It says nothing about the subjective experience of consciousness. There’s also no proof that this view is correct. It’s a belief, and taking it as a basic truth to the point of calling other people’s definitions of consciousness butchered is unjustified.
@zerkoff45: Additionally I think my last point is still valid. Rather than getting into a war of definition with you about the word consciousness, I’ll simply substitute consciousness for ‘experiential awareness’. How do split-brain patients prove that the right brain has its own experiential awareness, when far more complicated responses and actions have seemingly occurred in the absence of experiential awareness (unconsciousness)?
@AnduinX "Scientific experiments can be run on the non-physical as well"
That's what I implied no? I am not aware of a single dualistic hypothesis which isn't in need of ad hoc rationalization after the neuroscientific experiments are actually performed.
"What has materialism done for us?" - I mean this in the kindest way possible get the fuck of our internet. I don't engage trolls.
@infinit888: I'm going to go off on a limb here and guess you're calling me a troll because you view it as obvious that scientific and medical advancement is a direct result of materialist philosophy. It is not materialism that has brought us those advancements. Science has. They are not one in the same and dualism is not inherently anti-science (not even anti-neuroscience, FYI). Materialism is simply a belief system constructed around scientific data.
@zerkoff45: As for Sam Parnia, I believe he said what he needed to say to get funding and support. Check out Sam Parnia’s interview on the Skeptiko Podcast where Alex and him speak about this particular quote thoroughly. Sam Parnia essentially says, “He does not know the answer, if he did he wouldn’t have risked his career to study the subject.” – but truthfully I could care less about his personal beliefs either way. They’re unimportant next to the study of the subject itself.
In this example, there is no evidence that the patient had conscious experience in two different places at once. According to the video itself, the patient had one conscious experience, supposedly from the 'left' hemisphere as the patient tried to make sense of the right hemisphere's actions. The 'soul' was not split, as most hold that the soul IS the individual consciousness.
@AnduinX “…there is no evidence that the patient had conscious experience in two different places at once.”
Which patient? Ramachandran’s or Gazzaniga’s? You're wrong about both. What you call “one conscious experience” is only verbal reportability. You don't understand split brains yet.
And your claim : “the soul IS the individual consciousness” is a vacuous assertion. See what Marvin Minsky says about defining consciousnes in "Consciousness is a Big Suitcase, A Talk with Marvin Minsky"
@zarkoff45: Also, frankly there are gaping holes in the materialist model of consciousness. For example, there are cases of severe hydrocephalus where a patient can be left with virtually no brain, and still have normal, or even above average intelligence and seemingly no other mental deficits. See Lorber’s work, which was published in a leading medical journal in 1980.
@zarkoff45: Also, there are cases of terminal lucidity where patients with severe brain damage, who can’t even remember the names and faces of family members, or hold a conversation enter a lucid state as they near death where they are suddenly able to remember clearly and speak normally, despite the fact that the brain damage that supposedly caused their condition is still very much present at the time.
@zarkoff45: There is still no evidence that consciousness was split here. For example, sleepwalkers have been known to do complicated acts, such as driving somewhere or playing a game of chess while sleeping. What they do during this time is seemingly not conscious, it's complex unconscious mental activity. The rudimentary responses the right brain provided here could easily be just that - unconscious mental activity. The dualist still holds that consciousness was not split.
i dont understand what this is trying to prove, that htere is no soul? all i can say is that we're here, so theres gotta be something thats making us here.i think life is meaningless, but its meaningless so that you can make your own purpose. first there was 0, nothing and everything all infinite possibilities. 'nothing' gave birth to 'something' 1, 1 wished to know itself so it created 2, a reflection of one. that gave birth to 3 and etc etc. the pituitary gland is known as the seat of brama
@fatwadmcskylar what i was saying with the numbers is probably a bunch of loopy bullshit, but it could have some sort of relation to the brain. in meditation you supposedly activate the pituitary gland, and it causes dreamlike states. the pituitary gland is like 0, the pool of everything. the left brain is the 1 and the right is the 2. they created themselves for no apparent reason but because it felt like it. one side doesnt know hwat its doing because its just a reflection of the other side.
Computer brain interface technology for humans is already pretty common. Look at the Cochlear implant. Also, look up a guy named Jens Naumann.
As for interpreting neuron firing as experience, we're coming along nicely. Researchers at Berkley already managed to decode neural firing in a cat's lateral geniculate nucleus to produce an image of the cat's vision and that was back in 2000. It might take some more time to translate more complex stuff but it'll probably happen sooner than later.
By the way, before any assumptions are made, I am not a theist nor am I a pseudo-scientific new ager watching videos like what the bleep or the secret. I am just a student of both science and philosophy seeking to understand reality. I just finished a course in neurobiology this semester, and while fascinating, I still remain unconvinced of the materialist paradigm.
Both are conscious in different ways. The left hemisphere has more language ability so it can be aware of (conscious of) the kind of abstract stuff language makes it possible to understand. The right hemisphere has very limited language ability and more ability to visualize.
Google "CONSCIOUSNESS IS A BIG SUITCASE", "A Talk with Marvin Minsky"
@zarkoff45 so would it be the effectivley the same as you and me both controlling an android, with you controlling one side of its body and me controlling the other? was this guy really two totally separate beings in one body, or was he just having trouble correctly interpreting and expressing the inner workings of his own mind?
@lookatmepleasesir "so would it be the effectivley the same as you and me both controlling an android, with you controlling one side of its body and me controlling the other?"
Almost, but remember, these two people have been living the same life for years inside the same body where they have cooperated and worked together. There would be no learning to get used to each other. The only thing that unified them before was the corpus callosum.
So if all we are is a neural circuit, why are we not p-zombies? Why do qualia exist? Qualia and subjective experience are unnecessary if you reduce everything down to clockwork mechanisms. The body should be able to process information and react accordingly with no such inner subjective experience. Yet there is one.
@ikkuj "I am speaking of awareness of thoughts..."
If you pay attention to the video you'll see that the split brain patients are not all that aware of all their thoughts. They just think they are until they are shown otherwise.
And have you ever seen a person insist they are not angry when they obviously are?
And have you heard about "proprioception"?
Our bodies could possess senses about themselves and the outside world of which our I-functions are unaware.
I never said we have full awareness of all of our thoughts, subconscious desires are a prime example of this, as well as the split brain patient. But the fact that there is anything having any awareness whatsoever isn't really necessary in the materialist paradigm.
Perhaps my wording confused you? I was speaking in second person because the argument was addressed at you and I realized you were the one going to be thinking it through, but no, it is not at all self evident to me that you are aware. It is only self evident to me that I am aware.
@ikkuj "It is only self evident to me that I am aware."
But you do have to use some "theory of mind" or theory of other minds to function socially, yes? You don't deny that there is evidence that others are aware?
And we have tests for things like self-awareness in animals, like the mirror/mark test:
You shouldn't be able to detect qualia and indeed we haven't. We can't detect that they are having an internal experience, as you said we use a theory of mind to simply assume they have qualia which are causing their behavior.
Who said we haven't? That's out of date 19th century philosophy, not neuroscience. We do detect qualia and track their paths from sensory input nerves to deep in the brain.
Google: "Three Laws of Qualia, What Neurology Tells Us about the Biological Functions of Consciousness, Qualia and the Self."
If you're not like a kid insisting there are little people in the TV set you might get it.
It's not out of date, you still have modern philosophers like Dennett and Chalmers arguing over it.
Can you not imagine an animal that has electrochemical signals flowing through it, causing it to change its behavior in different ways, that lacks an internal awareness of any kind of experience? It reacts to what we call "pain" in the same way, avoiding it or trying to reduce that signal, but it acts this way as part of its programming without the need for anything we call "qualia"?
This debate is very much alive and well today. Look for the binding problem in neuroscience and the hard problem of consciousness. We are not detecting experiences, we are detecting electrochemical changes, or in the animal mirror test, we are detecting behaviors in response to stimuli. We're using that "theory of mind" to assume that qualia are involved, because we ourselves are experiencing something.
@ikkuj "It's not out of date, you still have modern philosophers like Dennett and Chalmers arguing over it."
That's like saying creationism is still valid because Chuck Norris and Ben Stein are still arguing with Keith Olbermann and Bill Nye about evolution. Philosophers are not neuroscientists and to paraphrase Richard Feynman: the philosophy of mind is as useful to a neuroscientist as ornithology is to birds.
Creationism is disputing the answer to a "how" question that science has figured out already. Philosophy is trying to answer not a "how" but a "why," even when you work out the physics of "how" mind works. My turn to quote drop, from another physicist, Schrödinger: "It is convenient to regard [the world] as objectively existing on its own. But it certainly does not become manifest by its mere existence."
@ikkuj "Qualia and subjective experience are unnecessary if you reduce everything down to clockwork mechanisms."
I believe that statement is dead wrong.
Qualia and subjective experience are necessary for some functions. How would you know blue from red and report them to another person, saying "that book is red," if you couldn't distinguish red qualia from blue qualia?
Qualia are not at all necessary for the function you're speaking of. If you think they are, then you must also think that a photodetector capable of differentiating between light of different wavelengths requires some internal qualitative experience to make the distinction, even though it's simply a result of different wavelengths producing different electrical signals in the computer.
@ikkuj "then you must also think that a photodetector capable of differentiating between light of different wavelengths requires some internal qualitative experience to make the distinction..."
It depends on what you mean by qualia. Do qualia have to be conscious?
Also, you didn't read well. A mere photodetector does not talk and report with language what it sees. It does not recognize a book as an object and associate a color with the object. There's a lot of cognitive function in that.
Yes qualia have to be conscious! that's the definition! Qualia are the inner subjective experience of sensation.
A photodetector can easily be programmed to speak, in plain English, and identify a certain wavelength as a certain color. It's not much harder to program a computer to do categorization tasks either. But where does the subjective experience come in?
I certainly couldn't have done it. But someone did, which is all my point is. I couldn't program anything.
Do you really think that the robot is going to have any kind of inner experience? It's working on line by line assembly programming of some type, just doing calculations with a microprocessor. What makes you think our brain is anything like a computer, with a central processing unit executing a programmed code line by line?
@ikkuj "Do you really think that the robot is going to have any kind of inner experience?"
In a way, yes. That Asimo has a precursor to inner experience, it has reportable abstract knowledge that it learned on its own. That's the beginning of a self-story and a sense of "I". There is still a lot to do, however.
Whether its done by microprocessors or by organic neurons is irrelevant.
The ability to record information and react to the outside world is something computers have already been able to do. Sure the robot is able to take very complex visual input and give the desired output, but what makes you think there is a necessary inner qualitative experience? It's still executing programming functions line by line.
The right hemisphere has a sense of humor; so maybe it was joking :-P
Other than humor, what did the right hemisphere do that's associated with a soul during that experiment?
I don't think Veritas was thinking of data processing in his analogy. That analogy is used to to mean "The soul=what makes you go/your aspirations and will"
His brain damage analogy; issue is those of different faiths give different responses to that problem. A scientologist answers different than a christian, etc.
@zarkoff45 Trouble is what's attributed to a soul varies from person to person. Could you just sum up a brief list of the total things the right hemisphere did in that experiment?
Many definitions, as I'm sure you've been frustrated by in the past, are vague like "the essence of a living person" or "It's what makes you who you are". I guess the most fundamental things would be consciousness and personality
So what that the brain can be tricked, that means nothing, I bet you Stuart's self was not split, he was always Stuart. Stuart is aware of his body, but like I said before, he's not aware of everything, but Stuart is one, one entity. If you can split Stuart, then I'll will be impressed.
My mind and my body are two different things, my body is doing things that I'm not aware of, but I am always aware of my self, unless I'm sleeping. The mind is always thinking, it's always somewhere, it's amazing.
The maker of this video writes that, "Veritas48 doesn't know shit about neuroscience". He doesn't have to, bring on the best neuroscientist around, and he still doesn't know shit about brain either. A lot of people are impressed by words, like neuroscience, physics, quantum mechanics, I don't give a shit, when it comes to the brain, to consciousness, they are all CLUELESS, completely clueless. Titles mean absolutley nothing. If there were some answers, I would listen, but there
If science is a way to find truth, it's not the only way. we only see tiny iceberg above the surface through sci research. It's too early to conclude by bits findings as the system is complex, indeed. As quantum physics found, if you believe, proton, neutron, electron all composed of energy, and even the dark energy theory. we are immersed in the dark energy. the soul might another form energy, and only exist, no participating, just as an observer through the physical body if it functions.
@TurboDally Rain dancing, mostly. Occasionally I kill a ram and burn it's corpse. Then I smoke a ton of pot. Somewhere along the way I get little bits of truth from a supernatural external third party.
If the self is an illusion, who is it an illusion to, the self? That's one of the things I've been trying to wrap my head around. It's why I'm open to a supernatural explanation but none of the apologists are trustworthy because they are predominantly interested in defending their cults rather than discovering truth.
@albatross1977 asked: "If the self is an illusion, who is it an illusion to, the self?"
Gazzaniga was using the term "self" differently than you seem to be using it. We're talking about a split brain patient who assumes he understands his own reasons, motives and thoughts, however, in his case that was an illusion. So, in the case of that split brain patient it was an illusion to the left hemisphere of his brain.
I don't share the view of soul proponents, it adds nothing to our study.
BUT
What if the car drives autonomously, the wheel falls off so it doesn't drive as smooth. The person is inside and doesn't necessarily have to process information. Though this means the person is completely unnecessary, and through Occam's razor there is no person.
I would say he is slightly justified in his claim of a soul (in this restricted manner).
I would like to hear a refutation not involving processing info.
The person inside would need to process information to continue driving with a broken wheel, and split-brain researchers show that this processing of information cannot take place with certain damage.
I suggested the car is automatic and the person doesn't need to actually drive. The person doesn't need to be there at all. They are inside to look through the windows, that is all. I wanted a refutation of this type of soul.
I understand occam's razor. I am not a soul proponent, or ghost in the machine type. I am only wondering if there is another explanation even though the one I have is satisfactory... Is it insane to wonder and ask?
ive seen on a science channel where a guy made a thinking cap, an actual thinking cap i, like the ones in the cartoons. it works, they demonstrated it. how it works, when the cap is on, it shoots some kind of wave, turning off one half of your brain,that way the other half is more enhanced. the guy was able to remember like 30 objects within 10 seconds, pretty cool if you ask me.
Certainly there is no ghost in the machine just as there are no flying pigs but to conclude that there is no self in the machine from Gazzaniga's (or any other neuroscientific) findings is wrong. The split brain supports two selves each of which responds differently.
As some one who does programing and works on computers the biggest problem, e.i. the thing that always messes them up is there neuron processor, it keeps on making 1d10t errors.
I was raised as a Catholic and as a kid I assumed that what I was being told was true(why would they lie afterall?)
I then became interested in science and tried to make it tally with the beliefs I then held(obviously I had no luck!)So I gave the Bible(the version that the Catholics use)a jolly good read and by the age of nine realised I could no longer believe in any of this stuff.
Neuroscience is wonderfully fascinating stuff and the delusion of there being a soul is just plain silly!
I nearly forget to mention that one of the things that initially made me begin to question my(then)faith(apart from some of the rather obvious inconsistencies in the bible)was the fact that my older brother developed schizophrenia(this is probably why I went into psychology)and supernatural,theistic belief does not deal with mental illness very well.
It tends to assume possesion by demons and other such sillyness.
The soul"hypothesis"is hugely flawed and simply does not work!
I supect he felt ill equipped to respond to your calling out and just decided to to adopt the old censor/ignore strategy.
This tactic does not command respect in his views.
I would have alot more respect for those who tend to do this kind of thing if they just stuck to their guns and fought to the bitter end(maybe even admit when they are defeated.)
All this underhanded malarky just reflects basic dishonesty.
Nobody argued that multiple personalities arise form multiple hemispheres. On top, even if I was arguing that, in the quote above it appears to me that you are basically advocating a perspective whereby mind (personalities) and brain (intact corpus callosum) somewhat don't fit together. I thought you were trying to prove a totally different point..
"Yet it is demonstrably not unitary" && "Not always true. They learn to see the split and adapt"
unitary? their perception of the self? Do you think you would be able to 'demonstrate' it to me? :)
What I am talking about is their consciousness. As in, the qualitative awareness of the percepts. These people never say things like 'I perceive your speech to be BOTH a linguistic code that I can easily master AND a sort of code I can barely understand, unless complexity in syntax exceeds a certain threshold'. That is to say that those contraddictory percepts merge in consciousness (or 'mind'
or 'I' or 'soul' or however u wanna term them, doesn't really matter) while they don't merge in the physical substrates, because of a disrupted corpus callusum. Once again, if you want to support a reductionist-identity theory of the mind-brain problem (I am not even sure of it, u r arguing against dualism, but what are u proposing to replace it?) then, this is probably not the best example.
As for learning to see the split. I have learned that when I want to reach a cup of tea to have a sip,
the readiness potentials (RP) that trigger the movement preceed by some hundread milliseconds the awareness of moving my hand towards the cup, yet, when I do that, I would still report that I first think of reaching the cup and then I move my limb accordingly. That is to say that learning to see the split does not mean to succesfully develop a split conscious perception.
"If it's not a good example, then answer the last questions on the vid"
Overall, I appreciate your effort to give evidence why the dualist theory is faulty (and I agree), but I don't like the over-confidence you are presenting neuroscientific achievements with. MUCH, MUCH and MUCH more is to be discovered in order to be able to give a comprehensive, consistent, falsifiable theory of the mind-brain problem, which to say, to EXPLAIN consciousness.
Finally, why do u even bother replying to those u talk without having a clue whatsoever of the issue here?
@zarkoff45 Humanity doesn't need assholes like you around... casting yer illusions and spreading lies. Yer a fvcking joke. A piss poor excuse for a person.
Do you really think shit videos like this fool anyone? Where is the neurons in yer brain that allow you to shift between lifetimes, you fvcking freak.
the fact that the brain affects the mind doesn't necessarily mean that the mind can't affect the brain or that the brain and the mind be the same thing.
as for the split-brains, it must be noted that a physical obstruction of communication doesn't prevent the perception of the self to unitary. these people never report to feel themselves as having a split mind. if you are trying to corroborate a reductioninst-identity theory of the mind-brain problem, this is probably not the best example.
"a physical obstruction of communication doesn't prevent the perception of the self to unitary."
Yet it is demonstrably not unitary. Nor does the function of communication between hemispheres make the person with multiple personality disorder feel unitary.
"these people never report to feel themselves as having a split mind."
Not always true. They learn to see the split and adapt.
"this is probably not the best example."
If it's not a good example, then answer the last questions on the vid.
I really liked these two vids you made but I would like to know what kind of impact has the information here has made to your experience of life zarkoff.
I think it was Sam Harris who said that neuroscience proves that there is no "unchanging center of narrative gravity or even thinker of thoughts. And even all the decisions are made in the brain before we are even conscious of them.
But still atleast I very strongly feel that "I" think my thoughts and "I" make my decisions.
But can you (what ever that means!) accept that there is no one who made the decisions to make this video and that there is no such thing as a free will (or even a self).
There is a glaring error in what the scientist was saying about the hemispheres' belief in God.
He said he asks the right and left if it believes in God, the right says yes and the left says no, but then he says the right side is atheist and the left side believes in God.
The left hand is controlled by the right hemisphere, and the right hand by the left. So, you have to note whether he is talking about hands are hemispheres.
Riddick was right, the speaker made a mistake and mistakenly said that the right hemisphere was atheist, just seconds after saying that it had commanded the hand to point to yes when asked about whether a god existed. I found the complete video & the article which goes along with this and it says that
"When asked, the right hemisphere believed in God, and the left hemisphere astoundingly did not."
To find this video google "ssnot split brain" without the quotes (Ssnot!: 11/01/06)
@vinzbrain I'm not criticizing anything. I was merely clarifying that (generally), the right brain believes in a god figure, while the left brain usually does not. This is only obvious in split brain patients.
I should clarify. Most of the time, the hemispheres will agree. However, when there is a disagreement, it has never been seen that the left brain will believe in god while the right brain will not. Only the reverse has been documented. Perhaps not surprising, since is it thought that the right brain is more emotional & spiritual, & often desires to believe in emotionally appealing ideas. By contrast, the left brain is more rational & skeptical, usually demanding evidence to substantiate beliefs.
Zizek say it best: "What is crucial to the debates on AI is that an inversion has taken place, which is the fate of every successful metaphor: one first tries to simulate human thought with the computer, bringing the model close as possible to the human "original," until at a certain point matters reverse and the question emerges:
what if this "model" is already a model of the "original" itself, what if human intelligence itself operates like a computer, is "programmed," etc.? As if to ask: How does total simulation of thought differ from real thought?"
The answer hinges precisely on this logic of the reversed metaphor where, instead of conceiving of the computer as the model for the human brain, we conceive of the brain itself as a "computer made of flesh and blood," where, instead of defining the robot as the artificial man, we define man himself as a "natural robot," etc. Zizek Tarrying with the Negative, 43.
A brain controlling a body that's controlling a car is a lot like the brain controlling just the body, except the control is indirect. The brain is just using a biological machine to control yet another machine. Comparing the two isn't even really an anology..He's trying to compare something to ITSELF basically, that happens to just have another thing to control. It proves nothing other than how inept he is.
I think you are guilty of the very thing you accuse Vertias of, in your case you assume that the soul is an illusion because it does not fit in a materialistic world view. After all only physical things can be said to be real right?
Our brains are neural net circuits no doubts about that. But we are talking about our soul/mind/self, and wheather it is to be equated to our brain and our subjective experience of a soul to be dismissed as an "illusion". I'm saying we should not confuse our subjective experience with its physical correlates, and pretend that they are the same thing.
I suppose that a usefull distinction both can and maybe should be made between the mechanics of the brain and what we tend to call the mind.(although they are one and the same and the corelation between the two is self evident )
Those who propose the existence of a soul seem to think that it can exist indipendantly of the brain(this in my opinion is not only unfounded but frankly ridiculous!)
It is derived from the deluded notion that we have some kind of "Spirit" and this is pure nonsense!
Your video makes me feel like I need to brains to read it. I can't read text and listen to audio at the same time. Perhaps make two videos? Or make it shorter and add commentary at the end. Total brain fuck trying to process it all at once.
Presuming information processing is a leap - but not one that necessarily invalidates what you are saying. But I do think that neuroscience is incongruent with dualism, especially if you consider population dynamics and bottom-up embodied cognition. I also tend to think the modular nativistic basis of a "location of the soul" belies the constructed and dynamic nature of the brain. In the end, I think you'd be better served looking at Edelman's Theory of Neuronal Group Selection...
@zarkoff45 My definition of IP is pretty much the classical one given on the IP theory Wikipedia. How you define "information processors" is important. If you are defining it from this theoretical viewpoint, then yes, I deny it. I haven't watched Veritas' video, so I can't comment on him. My purpose in making that statement was because IP, as a theory, has come under a lot of fire from connectionism and dynamical systems in the last 15 years.
"My definition of IP is pretty much the classical one given on the IP theory Wikipedia."
I checked the Wikipedia entry, and yes, that is pretty much what I'm talking about. In the brain it may not be as simple as input->processor->storage->output,
The brain could go through several layers of process and not store all processed information but that's part of what the brain is, an information processor.
I'm not saying the brain doesn't deal with information, but IP is a deficient explanation. Your cognition is constructed from the ground up by sensory perception; it's embodied; dynamic; and multimodal. Sensory information actually constructs the way you think. It's difficult to tease apart the extent to which the brain processes information and the extent to which information forms the brain around it. Does it still deal with info? Sure, but it's not an information processor.
Not in the terms of the psychological theories. If you use information processor to mean something that takes in and does something to information, then yeah, that works. But when you say information processor in terms of IPT, especially with the brain, you are making certain statements about that structure, function, and representation of the brain. Maybe it's semantic, but that term has a certain meaning and it was that meaning I was challenging - not whether the brain deals with information.
"If you use information processor to mean something that takes in and does something to information, then yeah, that works."
Did you read the wikipedia entry? They described a falling rock as an information processor: "a falling rock could be considered an information processor ... information in the form of gravitational force ... input to the system we call a rock. .. rock is a specific distance from the surface of the earth traveling at a specific speed...."
You're ignoring what else I said. To say the brain has to be an information processor because of IPTs definition of information processor is presuming IPT, and that's my point: this theory is heavily challenged. It has had major problems with accounting for developmental and neural phenomena, which is why offshoots like Bayesian IPT has arisen. A theory like dynamical systems can account for cognition without relying on the abstract logician homunculus that IPT has trouble demonstrating.
Fair enough. I still challenge that it's only technically correct in terms of identifying with IPT. I would never call the brain that.
Sorry if I'm having trouble communicating what I intended. My point in singling out IPT was that this theory is 1) challenged 2) inherently dualistic. Other theories aren't dualistic, but note how cognition is constructed by perception-action.
@zarkoff45 Yeah, but information processor carries IPT as baggage, just like when I say embodied it carries baggage of certain theories.
I think of IPT as dualistic because of my theoretical bias and education. The way they talk about the abstract logician homunculus to me is dualistic. I don't really want to make too much of a point there; more my personal opinion. As you might have noticed, I'm not a fan of IPT.
If I were still a Christian, I'd probably just take the position that I don't know how the soul and brain interact. Although I didn't know that Aristotle, Aquinas, and others had theories about how the soul worked as a Christian, even at that time I'd have to wonder how they'd have anyway of knowing what they were talking about was true.
Do you plan to address other defenses of the soul, such as free will? D'nesh Dsouza uses that argument in "What's so Great About Christianity."
I don't know of any videos of him defending free will. The only debate I've seen with Dsouza in it is the one he had with Michael Shermer, but the topic of that debate was whether religion is beneficial, not the existence of the soul. You'll have to ask someone who has seen all his debates or quote WSGAC directly.
Also, this new wave of thought is not a war on neuroscience, it's a war on the materialist interpretation of neuroscience. It does not deny any of the findings observed by neuroscience. We have good reason to question materialism given the magnitude of conflicting material. Severe hydrocephalus, terminal lucidity, notable near death experiences, induced after death communication, past life regression hypnotherapy, etc...
AnduinX 6 months ago
@AnduinX "Also, this new wave of thought is not a war on neuroscience, it's a war on the materialist interpretation of neuroscience."
Which makes it a war on all of science.
I suspect you missed my first video in this series because I talked about how there is no such thing as a "non-materialist neuroscience." Indeed, there is no non-materialist science anywhere. It's a joke.
watch?v=77XBZHJcoK4
But you sound like you swallowed too much crap to understand why.
zarkoff45 6 months ago
@zarkoff45: Quantum physicists theorize imaginary particles, and dimensions in which we have no way to detect or interact. We can only measure these things by the effect they have on what we can observe. 'Non-material' science is much the same and I don't think it can be written off as a joke. Also, materialism is a way to view what science has discovered. It is a belief system, not science itself. A ‘war’ on the materialist viewpoint is not a war on science.
AnduinX 6 months ago
@AnduinX "Quantum physicists theorize imaginary particles, and dimensions in which we have no way to detect or interact."
Yet they still apply the scientific method, suggest theories and experiments to prove/falsify them. The only thing dualism has done for us is ad hoc rationalization.
infinit888 4 months ago
@infinit888: Scientific experiments can be run on the non-physical as well. The AWARE study, the largest study of near death experiences to date aims to do just that. What has materialism done for us? There's no evidence that specifically supports materialism in the materialism vs dualism debate, and plenty of evidence that weighs against it.
AnduinX 4 months ago
@AnduinX "There's no evidence that specifically supports materialism in the materialism vs dualism debate"
Why do you think the split brain patients described in this video are not evidence against dualism? How do they fit into a dualistic system?
zarkoff45 4 months ago
@zarkoff45: I answered just a moment ago below, essentially there's no proof that the right brain is actually conscious at all. The responses of the right brain could be attributed to unconscious mental activity. The position that dualist takes is that consciousness remained whole through the procedure. It's perfectly tenable.
AnduinX 4 months ago
@AnduinX "It's perfectly tenable."
No, it is not tenable. At least not without some really bogus and twisted definition of consciousness. And you do not understand the relationship between the conscious and unconscious mind.
zarkoff45 4 months ago
@zarkoff45: If my definition of consciousness is so twisted, perhaps you could provide me with your definition of consciousness - and if my view of this is not tenable, then please tell me how split brains specifically prove that the right brain has awareness and experience of its own. Sleep walkers can do far more impressive things than anything the right brain did in this video, which goes to show that mental activity in the absence of consciousness can explain anything shown here.
AnduinX 4 months ago
@AnduinX "provide me with your definition of consciousness"
Sure, but you won't like it. Just Google "Consciousness is a Big Suitcase, A Talk with Marvin Minsky" and read that.
zarkoff45 4 months ago
@zerkoff45: I’ve heard Marvin’s view before, and I don’t see it as a definition of consciousness at all. It says nothing about the subjective experience of consciousness. There’s also no proof that this view is correct. It’s a belief, and taking it as a basic truth to the point of calling other people’s definitions of consciousness butchered is unjustified.
AnduinX 4 months ago
@zerkoff45: Additionally I think my last point is still valid. Rather than getting into a war of definition with you about the word consciousness, I’ll simply substitute consciousness for ‘experiential awareness’. How do split-brain patients prove that the right brain has its own experiential awareness, when far more complicated responses and actions have seemingly occurred in the absence of experiential awareness (unconsciousness)?
AnduinX 4 months ago
@AnduinX "Scientific experiments can be run on the non-physical as well"
That's what I implied no? I am not aware of a single dualistic hypothesis which isn't in need of ad hoc rationalization after the neuroscientific experiments are actually performed.
"What has materialism done for us?" - I mean this in the kindest way possible get the fuck of our internet. I don't engage trolls.
infinit888 4 months ago
@infinit888: I'm going to go off on a limb here and guess you're calling me a troll because you view it as obvious that scientific and medical advancement is a direct result of materialist philosophy. It is not materialism that has brought us those advancements. Science has. They are not one in the same and dualism is not inherently anti-science (not even anti-neuroscience, FYI). Materialism is simply a belief system constructed around scientific data.
AnduinX 4 months ago
@AnduinX
Just using the word "materialism" marks you as an ignorant troll. The words we use are Physicalism" and "naturalism."
watch?v=69E7wcIUARc
watch?v=eU-wpNOyuas
zarkoff45 4 months ago
@AnduinX "Scientific experiments can be run on the non-physical as well. The AWARE study,..."
I've added two links about the AWARE study to the underbar, please check out the link under the heading,
"Dr. Sam Parnia Claims Near Death Experience Probably an Illusion."
zarkoff45 4 months ago
@zerkoff45: As for Sam Parnia, I believe he said what he needed to say to get funding and support. Check out Sam Parnia’s interview on the Skeptiko Podcast where Alex and him speak about this particular quote thoroughly. Sam Parnia essentially says, “He does not know the answer, if he did he wouldn’t have risked his career to study the subject.” – but truthfully I could care less about his personal beliefs either way. They’re unimportant next to the study of the subject itself.
AnduinX 4 months ago
In this example, there is no evidence that the patient had conscious experience in two different places at once. According to the video itself, the patient had one conscious experience, supposedly from the 'left' hemisphere as the patient tried to make sense of the right hemisphere's actions. The 'soul' was not split, as most hold that the soul IS the individual consciousness.
AnduinX 6 months ago
@AnduinX “…there is no evidence that the patient had conscious experience in two different places at once.”
Which patient? Ramachandran’s or Gazzaniga’s? You're wrong about both. What you call “one conscious experience” is only verbal reportability. You don't understand split brains yet.
And your claim : “the soul IS the individual consciousness” is a vacuous assertion. See what Marvin Minsky says about defining consciousnes in "Consciousness is a Big Suitcase, A Talk with Marvin Minsky"
zarkoff45 6 months ago
@zarkoff45: Also, frankly there are gaping holes in the materialist model of consciousness. For example, there are cases of severe hydrocephalus where a patient can be left with virtually no brain, and still have normal, or even above average intelligence and seemingly no other mental deficits. See Lorber’s work, which was published in a leading medical journal in 1980.
AnduinX 6 months ago
@zarkoff45: Also, there are cases of terminal lucidity where patients with severe brain damage, who can’t even remember the names and faces of family members, or hold a conversation enter a lucid state as they near death where they are suddenly able to remember clearly and speak normally, despite the fact that the brain damage that supposedly caused their condition is still very much present at the time.
AnduinX 6 months ago
@zarkoff45: There is still no evidence that consciousness was split here. For example, sleepwalkers have been known to do complicated acts, such as driving somewhere or playing a game of chess while sleeping. What they do during this time is seemingly not conscious, it's complex unconscious mental activity. The rudimentary responses the right brain provided here could easily be just that - unconscious mental activity. The dualist still holds that consciousness was not split.
AnduinX 4 months ago
Briliiant! Onward to part 3
CorporalNym 8 months ago
Check Atma-Eternal Boundlessness a man with a real great mind.
TheSevenmind 10 months ago
Pretty cool ;) were just another species but with the ability to create fantasies n live by them... Anything is true if society believes in it :)
SuperJonathangallard 11 months ago
i dont understand what this is trying to prove, that htere is no soul? all i can say is that we're here, so theres gotta be something thats making us here.i think life is meaningless, but its meaningless so that you can make your own purpose. first there was 0, nothing and everything all infinite possibilities. 'nothing' gave birth to 'something' 1, 1 wished to know itself so it created 2, a reflection of one. that gave birth to 3 and etc etc. the pituitary gland is known as the seat of brama
fatwadmcskylar 1 year ago
@fatwadmcskylar what i was saying with the numbers is probably a bunch of loopy bullshit, but it could have some sort of relation to the brain. in meditation you supposedly activate the pituitary gland, and it causes dreamlike states. the pituitary gland is like 0, the pool of everything. the left brain is the 1 and the right is the 2. they created themselves for no apparent reason but because it felt like it. one side doesnt know hwat its doing because its just a reflection of the other side.
fatwadmcskylar 1 year ago
Computer brain interface technology for humans is already pretty common. Look at the Cochlear implant. Also, look up a guy named Jens Naumann.
As for interpreting neuron firing as experience, we're coming along nicely. Researchers at Berkley already managed to decode neural firing in a cat's lateral geniculate nucleus to produce an image of the cat's vision and that was back in 2000. It might take some more time to translate more complex stuff but it'll probably happen sooner than later.
KingOfMadCows 1 year ago
@KingOfMadCows "Look at the Cochlear implant."
Yes, that's a good example interfacing to the sensory nerves:
watch?v=qnIUW7xnYB0
Thanks for commenting. I'll make use of that decoded neural firing in a cat's brain in future installments of this series.
zarkoff45 1 year ago
By the way, before any assumptions are made, I am not a theist nor am I a pseudo-scientific new ager watching videos like what the bleep or the secret. I am just a student of both science and philosophy seeking to understand reality. I just finished a course in neurobiology this semester, and while fascinating, I still remain unconvinced of the materialist paradigm.
ikkuj 1 year ago
so which hemisphere was conscious, or was that impossible to tell?
lookatmepleasesir 1 year ago
@lookatmepleasesir "so which hemisphere was conscious..."
Both are conscious in different ways. The left hemisphere has more language ability so it can be aware of (conscious of) the kind of abstract stuff language makes it possible to understand. The right hemisphere has very limited language ability and more ability to visualize.
Google "CONSCIOUSNESS IS A BIG SUITCASE", "A Talk with Marvin Minsky"
zarkoff45 1 year ago
@zarkoff45 so would it be the effectivley the same as you and me both controlling an android, with you controlling one side of its body and me controlling the other? was this guy really two totally separate beings in one body, or was he just having trouble correctly interpreting and expressing the inner workings of his own mind?
lookatmepleasesir 1 year ago
@lookatmepleasesir "so would it be the effectivley the same as you and me both controlling an android, with you controlling one side of its body and me controlling the other?"
Almost, but remember, these two people have been living the same life for years inside the same body where they have cooperated and worked together. There would be no learning to get used to each other. The only thing that unified them before was the corpus callosum.
zarkoff45 1 year ago
So if all we are is a neural circuit, why are we not p-zombies? Why do qualia exist? Qualia and subjective experience are unnecessary if you reduce everything down to clockwork mechanisms. The body should be able to process information and react accordingly with no such inner subjective experience. Yet there is one.
ikkuj 1 year ago
@ikkuj "So if all we are is a neural circuit, why are we not p-zombies?"
What makes you think you are not a p-zombie?
Can you define the word consciousness? A p-zombie could not know what that word really means.
zarkoff45 1 year ago
@zarkoff45
The proof of the pudding is in the eating. The fact that you are aware is an axiom that is self-evident, it can't really be 'proven' in any way.
"I think therefore I am," unless you don't think you think....
ikkuj 1 year ago
@ikkuj "The fact that you are aware is an axiom that is self-evident, "
But what is you? And what are you really aware of? Also it says nothing about the mechanisms of awareness.
So, what are you trying to say?
zarkoff45 1 year ago
@zarkoff45
I am speaking of awareness of thoughts, emotions, and sensations. What else would I be talking about?
ikkuj 1 year ago
@ikkuj "I am speaking of awareness of thoughts..."
If you pay attention to the video you'll see that the split brain patients are not all that aware of all their thoughts. They just think they are until they are shown otherwise.
And have you ever seen a person insist they are not angry when they obviously are?
And have you heard about "proprioception"?
Our bodies could possess senses about themselves and the outside world of which our I-functions are unaware.
zarkoff45 1 year ago
@zarkoff45
I never said we have full awareness of all of our thoughts, subconscious desires are a prime example of this, as well as the split brain patient. But the fact that there is anything having any awareness whatsoever isn't really necessary in the materialist paradigm.
ikkuj 1 year ago
@ikkuj "The fact that you are aware is an axiom that is self-evident..."
Can you see how you just defeated your own p-zombie argument?
If I am aware to you than I obviously cannot be a zombie?
Perhaps you are talking about a different p-zombie argument I've not heard of.
zarkoff45 1 year ago
@zarkoff45
Perhaps my wording confused you? I was speaking in second person because the argument was addressed at you and I realized you were the one going to be thinking it through, but no, it is not at all self evident to me that you are aware. It is only self evident to me that I am aware.
ikkuj 1 year ago
@ikkuj "It is only self evident to me that I am aware."
But you do have to use some "theory of mind" or theory of other minds to function socially, yes? You don't deny that there is evidence that others are aware?
And we have tests for things like self-awareness in animals, like the mirror/mark test:
watch?v=vJFo3trMuD8
watch?v=AHUuX_rBuJE
zarkoff45 1 year ago
@zarkoff45
Um ok, so other animals are self aware. What has that got to do with what we were talking about in the first place?
ikkuj 1 year ago
@ikkuj "so other animals are self aware. What has that got to do with what we were talking about in the first place?"
It was detectable. The p-zombie argument says you shouldn't be able to detect consciousness.
zarkoff45 1 year ago
@zarkoff45
You shouldn't be able to detect qualia and indeed we haven't. We can't detect that they are having an internal experience, as you said we use a theory of mind to simply assume they have qualia which are causing their behavior.
ikkuj 1 year ago
@ikkuj "... detect qualia and indeed we haven't."
Who said we haven't? That's out of date 19th century philosophy, not neuroscience. We do detect qualia and track their paths from sensory input nerves to deep in the brain.
Google: "Three Laws of Qualia, What Neurology Tells Us about the Biological Functions of Consciousness, Qualia and the Self."
If you're not like a kid insisting there are little people in the TV set you might get it.
The qualia called pain:
watch?v=gQS0tdIbJ0w
zarkoff45 1 year ago
@zarkoff45
It's not out of date, you still have modern philosophers like Dennett and Chalmers arguing over it.
Can you not imagine an animal that has electrochemical signals flowing through it, causing it to change its behavior in different ways, that lacks an internal awareness of any kind of experience? It reacts to what we call "pain" in the same way, avoiding it or trying to reduce that signal, but it acts this way as part of its programming without the need for anything we call "qualia"?
ikkuj 1 year ago
@zarkoff45
This debate is very much alive and well today. Look for the binding problem in neuroscience and the hard problem of consciousness. We are not detecting experiences, we are detecting electrochemical changes, or in the animal mirror test, we are detecting behaviors in response to stimuli. We're using that "theory of mind" to assume that qualia are involved, because we ourselves are experiencing something.
ikkuj 1 year ago
@ikkuj "It's not out of date, you still have modern philosophers like Dennett and Chalmers arguing over it."
That's like saying creationism is still valid because Chuck Norris and Ben Stein are still arguing with Keith Olbermann and Bill Nye about evolution. Philosophers are not neuroscientists and to paraphrase Richard Feynman: the philosophy of mind is as useful to a neuroscientist as ornithology is to birds.
zarkoff45 1 year ago
@zarkoff45
Creationism is disputing the answer to a "how" question that science has figured out already. Philosophy is trying to answer not a "how" but a "why," even when you work out the physics of "how" mind works. My turn to quote drop, from another physicist, Schrödinger: "It is convenient to regard [the world] as objectively existing on its own. But it certainly does not become manifest by its mere existence."
ikkuj 1 year ago
@ikkuj "Qualia and subjective experience are unnecessary if you reduce everything down to clockwork mechanisms."
I believe that statement is dead wrong.
Qualia and subjective experience are necessary for some functions. How would you know blue from red and report them to another person, saying "that book is red," if you couldn't distinguish red qualia from blue qualia?
zarkoff45 1 year ago
@zarkoff45
Sorry but I believe YOUR statement is dead wrong.
Qualia are not at all necessary for the function you're speaking of. If you think they are, then you must also think that a photodetector capable of differentiating between light of different wavelengths requires some internal qualitative experience to make the distinction, even though it's simply a result of different wavelengths producing different electrical signals in the computer.
ikkuj 1 year ago
@ikkuj "then you must also think that a photodetector capable of differentiating between light of different wavelengths requires some internal qualitative experience to make the distinction..."
It depends on what you mean by qualia. Do qualia have to be conscious?
Also, you didn't read well. A mere photodetector does not talk and report with language what it sees. It does not recognize a book as an object and associate a color with the object. There's a lot of cognitive function in that.
zarkoff45 1 year ago
@zarkoff45
Yes qualia have to be conscious! that's the definition! Qualia are the inner subjective experience of sensation.
A photodetector can easily be programmed to speak, in plain English, and identify a certain wavelength as a certain color. It's not much harder to program a computer to do categorization tasks either. But where does the subjective experience come in?
ikkuj 1 year ago
@ikkuj "It's not much harder to program a computer to do categorization tasks either."
So, you think this was easy:
watch?v=P9ByGQGiVMg
And that it is not taking us closer to self-aware robots?
zarkoff45 1 year ago
@zarkoff45
I certainly couldn't have done it. But someone did, which is all my point is. I couldn't program anything.
Do you really think that the robot is going to have any kind of inner experience? It's working on line by line assembly programming of some type, just doing calculations with a microprocessor. What makes you think our brain is anything like a computer, with a central processing unit executing a programmed code line by line?
ikkuj 1 year ago
@ikkuj "Do you really think that the robot is going to have any kind of inner experience?"
In a way, yes. That Asimo has a precursor to inner experience, it has reportable abstract knowledge that it learned on its own. That's the beginning of a self-story and a sense of "I". There is still a lot to do, however.
Whether its done by microprocessors or by organic neurons is irrelevant.
zarkoff45 1 year ago
@zarkoff45
The ability to record information and react to the outside world is something computers have already been able to do. Sure the robot is able to take very complex visual input and give the desired output, but what makes you think there is a necessary inner qualitative experience? It's still executing programming functions line by line.
ikkuj 1 year ago
The right hemisphere has a sense of humor; so maybe it was joking :-P
Other than humor, what did the right hemisphere do that's associated with a soul during that experiment?
I don't think Veritas was thinking of data processing in his analogy. That analogy is used to to mean "The soul=what makes you go/your aspirations and will"
His brain damage analogy; issue is those of different faiths give different responses to that problem. A scientologist answers different than a christian, etc.
crocoshocker 1 year ago
@crocoshocker "what did the right hemisphere do that's associated with a soul during that experiment?"
First thing you have to do before I can answer that is tell me what it is you think souls do.
zarkoff45 1 year ago
@zarkoff45 Trouble is what's attributed to a soul varies from person to person. Could you just sum up a brief list of the total things the right hemisphere did in that experiment?
Many definitions, as I'm sure you've been frustrated by in the past, are vague like "the essence of a living person" or "It's what makes you who you are". I guess the most fundamental things would be consciousness and personality
crocoshocker 1 year ago
stem cells will fix that brain problem right up, oh wait, they may be illegal in the state someone lives in..................
blazereef 1 year ago
So what that the brain can be tricked, that means nothing, I bet you Stuart's self was not split, he was always Stuart. Stuart is aware of his body, but like I said before, he's not aware of everything, but Stuart is one, one entity. If you can split Stuart, then I'll will be impressed.
cmpresents 1 year ago
My mind and my body are two different things, my body is doing things that I'm not aware of, but I am always aware of my self, unless I'm sleeping. The mind is always thinking, it's always somewhere, it's amazing.
cmpresents 1 year ago
It's amazing how atheists and scientist feel insulted when other people don't agree with what they preach. How does it feel.
cmpresents 1 year ago
The maker of this video writes that, "Veritas48 doesn't know shit about neuroscience". He doesn't have to, bring on the best neuroscientist around, and he still doesn't know shit about brain either. A lot of people are impressed by words, like neuroscience, physics, quantum mechanics, I don't give a shit, when it comes to the brain, to consciousness, they are all CLUELESS, completely clueless. Titles mean absolutley nothing. If there were some answers, I would listen, but there
are none.
cmpresents 1 year ago
If science is a way to find truth, it's not the only way. we only see tiny iceberg above the surface through sci research. It's too early to conclude by bits findings as the system is complex, indeed. As quantum physics found, if you believe, proton, neutron, electron all composed of energy, and even the dark energy theory. we are immersed in the dark energy. the soul might another form energy, and only exist, no participating, just as an observer through the physical body if it functions.
xiaofeng9335 1 year ago
@xiaofeng9335
Did you bother to watch this series?
zarkoff45 1 year ago
@xiaofeng9335 What other way other than science do you have to "find the truth"?
TurboDally 1 year ago
@TurboDally Rain dancing, mostly. Occasionally I kill a ram and burn it's corpse. Then I smoke a ton of pot. Somewhere along the way I get little bits of truth from a supernatural external third party.
smiledammit24 1 year ago
@xiaofeng9335 we could also be in the matrix
1aaronaaron1 1 year ago
If the self is an illusion, who is it an illusion to, the self? That's one of the things I've been trying to wrap my head around. It's why I'm open to a supernatural explanation but none of the apologists are trustworthy because they are predominantly interested in defending their cults rather than discovering truth.
albatross1977 1 year ago
@albatross1977 asked: "If the self is an illusion, who is it an illusion to, the self?"
Gazzaniga was using the term "self" differently than you seem to be using it. We're talking about a split brain patient who assumes he understands his own reasons, motives and thoughts, however, in his case that was an illusion. So, in the case of that split brain patient it was an illusion to the left hemisphere of his brain.
zarkoff45 1 year ago
amazing
dmix09 1 year ago
@dmix09
Thanks, I think.
What exactly was amazing?
zarkoff45 1 year ago
@zarkoff45 Haha, honestly what isn't amazing about all this?
I've never come across these studies before, it's truly fascinating.
These videos are great. Keep 'em coming (=
dmix09 1 year ago
I don't share the view of soul proponents, it adds nothing to our study.
BUT
What if the car drives autonomously, the wheel falls off so it doesn't drive as smooth. The person is inside and doesn't necessarily have to process information. Though this means the person is completely unnecessary, and through Occam's razor there is no person.
I would say he is slightly justified in his claim of a soul (in this restricted manner).
I would like to hear a refutation not involving processing info.
showABCshow 1 year ago
"I would like to hear a refutation not involving processing info."
Tough shit. You're not going to get one because mind is all about processing information.
What else do you think the mind/brain does?
If you're not processing information, then you're not conscious.
zarkoff45 1 year ago
@zarkoff45
You took it literally...
I ran out of characters...
The person inside would need to process information to continue driving with a broken wheel, and split-brain researchers show that this processing of information cannot take place with certain damage.
I suggested the car is automatic and the person doesn't need to actually drive. The person doesn't need to be there at all. They are inside to look through the windows, that is all. I wanted a refutation of this type of soul.
showABCshow 1 year ago
"I wanted a refutation of this type of soul."
occam's razor
zarkoff45 1 year ago
@zarkoff45
lol I suggested that in my first response :)
I was looking for another explanation, bb.
showABCshow 1 year ago
"I was looking for another explanation"
Why?
What other explanation do you need for unnecessary and unobservable stuff?
It's insane to ask. You're slipping into apologetic quicksand.
zarkoff45 1 year ago
@zarkoff45
Wow... stop taking it so seriously.
I understand occam's razor. I am not a soul proponent, or ghost in the machine type. I am only wondering if there is another explanation even though the one I have is satisfactory... Is it insane to wonder and ask?
showABCshow 1 year ago
ive seen on a science channel where a guy made a thinking cap, an actual thinking cap i, like the ones in the cartoons. it works, they demonstrated it. how it works, when the cap is on, it shoots some kind of wave, turning off one half of your brain,that way the other half is more enhanced. the guy was able to remember like 30 objects within 10 seconds, pretty cool if you ask me.
JUKIO01 1 year ago
can a person live with only one hemisphere?
MensRifleAssociation 2 years ago
"can a person live with only one hemisphere?"
Depends on what you mean by "hemisphere"? Only the cerebral cortex is split in two halves.
Google: "Girl Sees Fine With Half a Brain"
zarkoff45 2 years ago
Certainly there is no ghost in the machine just as there are no flying pigs but to conclude that there is no self in the machine from Gazzaniga's (or any other neuroscientific) findings is wrong. The split brain supports two selves each of which responds differently.
slartibartfats 2 years ago
As some one who does programing and works on computers the biggest problem, e.i. the thing that always messes them up is there neuron processor, it keeps on making 1d10t errors.
great vid.
whydid666 2 years ago
Excellent video. Ramachandran is brilliant!
Gorteenminogue 2 years ago
I was raised as a Catholic and as a kid I assumed that what I was being told was true(why would they lie afterall?)
I then became interested in science and tried to make it tally with the beliefs I then held(obviously I had no luck!)So I gave the Bible(the version that the Catholics use)a jolly good read and by the age of nine realised I could no longer believe in any of this stuff.
Neuroscience is wonderfully fascinating stuff and the delusion of there being a soul is just plain silly!
DaveODrisc 2 years ago
I nearly forget to mention that one of the things that initially made me begin to question my(then)faith(apart from some of the rather obvious inconsistencies in the bible)was the fact that my older brother developed schizophrenia(this is probably why I went into psychology)and supernatural,theistic belief does not deal with mental illness very well.
It tends to assume possesion by demons and other such sillyness.
The soul"hypothesis"is hugely flawed and simply does not work!
DaveODrisc 2 years ago
It would seem that Veritas48 has blocked me and removed some of my comments from his videos.
zarkoff45 2 years ago
Yep, I'm sure he blocked me. I tried to subscribe and got a message that I couldn't because I was blocked.
zarkoff45 2 years ago
Hardly a surprising reaction from someone who tries to conform evidence to a preconceived view.
sdrawkcabgnipytmi 2 years ago
What is it with those who choose to censor any criticism?(theists tend to be utter bastards for doing it!)
I think deep down they suspect they are wrong and dont wish to confront that particular truth so they just ignore it.
Surely if they were truly confident in what they believe then they would be positively delighted to confront such criticism.
DaveODrisc 2 years ago
In Veritas48's case I am sure he is overwhelmed by the huge numbers of videos that responded to him. He'll never be able to respond to all of them.
But none of those who responded to him called him out on his ignorance of neuroscience like I did.
zarkoff45 2 years ago
I supect he felt ill equipped to respond to your calling out and just decided to to adopt the old censor/ignore strategy.
This tactic does not command respect in his views.
I would have alot more respect for those who tend to do this kind of thing if they just stuck to their guns and fought to the bitter end(maybe even admit when they are defeated.)
All this underhanded malarky just reflects basic dishonesty.
DaveODrisc 2 years ago
Comment removed
JackBz 2 years ago
@zarkoff45
first off, thanks for replying.
then:
"Nor does the function of communication between hemispheres make the person with multiple personality disorder feel unitary"
vinzbrain 2 years ago
Nobody argued that multiple personalities arise form multiple hemispheres. On top, even if I was arguing that, in the quote above it appears to me that you are basically advocating a perspective whereby mind (personalities) and brain (intact corpus callosum) somewhat don't fit together. I thought you were trying to prove a totally different point..
"Yet it is demonstrably not unitary" && "Not always true. They learn to see the split and adapt"
What is demonstrably not
vinzbrain 2 years ago
unitary? their perception of the self? Do you think you would be able to 'demonstrate' it to me? :)
What I am talking about is their consciousness. As in, the qualitative awareness of the percepts. These people never say things like 'I perceive your speech to be BOTH a linguistic code that I can easily master AND a sort of code I can barely understand, unless complexity in syntax exceeds a certain threshold'. That is to say that those contraddictory percepts merge in consciousness (or 'mind'
vinzbrain 2 years ago
or 'I' or 'soul' or however u wanna term them, doesn't really matter) while they don't merge in the physical substrates, because of a disrupted corpus callusum. Once again, if you want to support a reductionist-identity theory of the mind-brain problem (I am not even sure of it, u r arguing against dualism, but what are u proposing to replace it?) then, this is probably not the best example.
As for learning to see the split. I have learned that when I want to reach a cup of tea to have a sip,
vinzbrain 2 years ago
the readiness potentials (RP) that trigger the movement preceed by some hundread milliseconds the awareness of moving my hand towards the cup, yet, when I do that, I would still report that I first think of reaching the cup and then I move my limb accordingly. That is to say that learning to see the split does not mean to succesfully develop a split conscious perception.
"If it's not a good example, then answer the last questions on the vid"
Sorry, what's the last question??
vinzbrain 2 years ago
Overall, I appreciate your effort to give evidence why the dualist theory is faulty (and I agree), but I don't like the over-confidence you are presenting neuroscientific achievements with. MUCH, MUCH and MUCH more is to be discovered in order to be able to give a comprehensive, consistent, falsifiable theory of the mind-brain problem, which to say, to EXPLAIN consciousness.
Finally, why do u even bother replying to those u talk without having a clue whatsoever of the issue here?
vinzbrain 2 years ago
Excellent couple of videos. Well done.
MrMan322 2 years ago
@zarkoff45 Humanity doesn't need assholes like you around... casting yer illusions and spreading lies. Yer a fvcking joke. A piss poor excuse for a person.
Do you really think shit videos like this fool anyone? Where is the neurons in yer brain that allow you to shift between lifetimes, you fvcking freak.
theDracoIX 2 years ago
"casting yer illusions and spreading lies."
What lies?
zarkoff45 2 years ago
What lies?! Yer whole fvcking life is a lie.
theDracoIX 2 years ago
And what do you think you know about my life?
zarkoff45 2 years ago
i wouldn't even reply to that, looks like it was typed with his elbow
lukeism2 2 years ago
you're a nutter
lukeism2 2 years ago
the fact that the brain affects the mind doesn't necessarily mean that the mind can't affect the brain or that the brain and the mind be the same thing.
as for the split-brains, it must be noted that a physical obstruction of communication doesn't prevent the perception of the self to unitary. these people never report to feel themselves as having a split mind. if you are trying to corroborate a reductioninst-identity theory of the mind-brain problem, this is probably not the best example.
vinzbrain 2 years ago
"a physical obstruction of communication doesn't prevent the perception of the self to unitary."
Yet it is demonstrably not unitary. Nor does the function of communication between hemispheres make the person with multiple personality disorder feel unitary.
"these people never report to feel themselves as having a split mind."
Not always true. They learn to see the split and adapt.
"this is probably not the best example."
If it's not a good example, then answer the last questions on the vid.
zarkoff45 2 years ago
excellent m8,really good stuff. 5 stars.
ReligionWatch 2 years ago 2
I really liked these two vids you made but I would like to know what kind of impact has the information here has made to your experience of life zarkoff.
I think it was Sam Harris who said that neuroscience proves that there is no "unchanging center of narrative gravity or even thinker of thoughts. And even all the decisions are made in the brain before we are even conscious of them.
But still atleast I very strongly feel that "I" think my thoughts and "I" make my decisions.
continues...
NoLifeKingigiorjatar 2 years ago
But can you (what ever that means!) accept that there is no one who made the decisions to make this video and that there is no such thing as a free will (or even a self).
NoLifeKingigiorjatar 2 years ago
There is a glaring error in what the scientist was saying about the hemispheres' belief in God.
He said he asks the right and left if it believes in God, the right says yes and the left says no, but then he says the right side is atheist and the left side believes in God.
Not sure if anybody else picked that up.
RiddickThePragmatic 2 years ago
The left hand is controlled by the right hemisphere, and the right hand by the left. So, you have to note whether he is talking about hands are hemispheres.
zarkoff45 2 years ago
I'm pretty sure he had to be talking about the hemispheres, because it does not make any sense to say whether the hands are atheist or not.
RiddickThePragmatic 2 years ago
Hands point, hemispheres believe. Listen again.
zarkoff45 2 years ago
Bit who made the decision to write your message if there is no self, and brains do the decisions without you being aware of them.
NoLifeKingigiorjatar 2 years ago
Riddick was right, the speaker made a mistake and mistakenly said that the right hemisphere was atheist, just seconds after saying that it had commanded the hand to point to yes when asked about whether a god existed. I found the complete video & the article which goes along with this and it says that
"When asked, the right hemisphere believed in God, and the left hemisphere astoundingly did not."
To find this video google "ssnot split brain" without the quotes (Ssnot!: 11/01/06)
IsLikeThat 2 years ago
@ IsLikeThat and others:
what's the point of your criticisms?
Ramachandran is pointing at the sky, and you are staring at the tip of his finger.
vinzbrain 2 years ago
@vinzbrain I'm not criticizing anything. I was merely clarifying that (generally), the right brain believes in a god figure, while the left brain usually does not. This is only obvious in split brain patients.
IsLikeThat 2 years ago
"(generally), the right brain believes in a god figure"
Says who?
Where did you get that bit from? Most split brain patients, as far as I know, aren't divided on such beliefs.
zarkoff45 2 years ago
I should clarify. Most of the time, the hemispheres will agree. However, when there is a disagreement, it has never been seen that the left brain will believe in god while the right brain will not. Only the reverse has been documented. Perhaps not surprising, since is it thought that the right brain is more emotional & spiritual, & often desires to believe in emotionally appealing ideas. By contrast, the left brain is more rational & skeptical, usually demanding evidence to substantiate beliefs.
IsLikeThat 2 years ago
Oh, ok, i think i understand what you mean now. He asked and the right hand picked no and the left hand picked yes.
Still confusing though :(
RiddickThePragmatic 2 years ago
Zizek say it best: "What is crucial to the debates on AI is that an inversion has taken place, which is the fate of every successful metaphor: one first tries to simulate human thought with the computer, bringing the model close as possible to the human "original," until at a certain point matters reverse and the question emerges:
notonewhit 2 years ago
what if this "model" is already a model of the "original" itself, what if human intelligence itself operates like a computer, is "programmed," etc.? As if to ask: How does total simulation of thought differ from real thought?"
notonewhit 2 years ago
The answer hinges precisely on this logic of the reversed metaphor where, instead of conceiving of the computer as the model for the human brain, we conceive of the brain itself as a "computer made of flesh and blood," where, instead of defining the robot as the artificial man, we define man himself as a "natural robot," etc. Zizek Tarrying with the Negative, 43.
notonewhit 2 years ago
"computer made of flesh..."
Reminds me of a book title:
"Soul made flesh: the discovery of the brain-- and how it changed the world"
-- by Carl Zimmer
Good book by the way, it's partly online at Google books.
zarkoff45 2 years ago
A brain controlling a body that's controlling a car is a lot like the brain controlling just the body, except the control is indirect. The brain is just using a biological machine to control yet another machine. Comparing the two isn't even really an anology..He's trying to compare something to ITSELF basically, that happens to just have another thing to control. It proves nothing other than how inept he is.
Deometris 2 years ago
I think you are guilty of the very thing you accuse Vertias of, in your case you assume that the soul is an illusion because it does not fit in a materialistic world view. After all only physical things can be said to be real right?
pkingo1 2 years ago
"...you are guilty of the very thing you accuse Vertias of, in your case you assume that the soul is an illusion..."
You don't get it. It's not a mere assumption, it has been demonstrated to a high degree that our brains are neural net circuits.
Can you answer the questions asked at the end?
zarkoff45 2 years ago
Our brains are neural net circuits no doubts about that. But we are talking about our soul/mind/self, and wheather it is to be equated to our brain and our subjective experience of a soul to be dismissed as an "illusion". I'm saying we should not confuse our subjective experience with its physical correlates, and pretend that they are the same thing.
pkingo1 2 years ago
"I'm saying we should not confuse our subjective experience with its physical correlates, and pretend that they are the same thing."
I'll deal with that statement in a future video.
zarkoff45 2 years ago
I suppose that a usefull distinction both can and maybe should be made between the mechanics of the brain and what we tend to call the mind.(although they are one and the same and the corelation between the two is self evident )
Those who propose the existence of a soul seem to think that it can exist indipendantly of the brain(this in my opinion is not only unfounded but frankly ridiculous!)
It is derived from the deluded notion that we have some kind of "Spirit" and this is pure nonsense!
DaveODrisc 2 years ago
Your video makes me feel like I need to brains to read it. I can't read text and listen to audio at the same time. Perhaps make two videos? Or make it shorter and add commentary at the end. Total brain fuck trying to process it all at once.
tobyw87 2 years ago
Very interesting. thanks for posting.
sclan2 2 years ago
Lol at Thunderf00t at the end
LimmingKenny 2 years ago
Brilliant.
riversonthemoon 2 years ago
confusing gotta watch it at least 2 more times
crash077 2 years ago
Presuming information processing is a leap - but not one that necessarily invalidates what you are saying. But I do think that neuroscience is incongruent with dualism, especially if you consider population dynamics and bottom-up embodied cognition. I also tend to think the modular nativistic basis of a "location of the soul" belies the constructed and dynamic nature of the brain. In the end, I think you'd be better served looking at Edelman's Theory of Neuronal Group Selection...
landfillpoet 2 years ago
"Presuming information processing is a leap"
Is it? What do you think "information processing" means?
Do you deny that we are at least partly information processors? Do you think Veritas didn't mean to imply the soul was an information processor?
zarkoff45 2 years ago
@zarkoff45 My definition of IP is pretty much the classical one given on the IP theory Wikipedia. How you define "information processors" is important. If you are defining it from this theoretical viewpoint, then yes, I deny it. I haven't watched Veritas' video, so I can't comment on him. My purpose in making that statement was because IP, as a theory, has come under a lot of fire from connectionism and dynamical systems in the last 15 years.
landfillpoet 2 years ago
"My definition of IP is pretty much the classical one given on the IP theory Wikipedia."
I checked the Wikipedia entry, and yes, that is pretty much what I'm talking about. In the brain it may not be as simple as input->processor->storage->output,
The brain could go through several layers of process and not store all processed information but that's part of what the brain is, an information processor.
How could it not be?
zarkoff45 2 years ago
I'm not saying the brain doesn't deal with information, but IP is a deficient explanation. Your cognition is constructed from the ground up by sensory perception; it's embodied; dynamic; and multimodal. Sensory information actually constructs the way you think. It's difficult to tease apart the extent to which the brain processes information and the extent to which information forms the brain around it. Does it still deal with info? Sure, but it's not an information processor.
landfillpoet 2 years ago
"I'm not saying the brain doesn't deal with information... but it's not an information processor."
That doesn't make sense.
The brain is not a computer processor, but if it processes (deals with) information it's an information processor.
zarkoff45 2 years ago
Not in the terms of the psychological theories. If you use information processor to mean something that takes in and does something to information, then yeah, that works. But when you say information processor in terms of IPT, especially with the brain, you are making certain statements about that structure, function, and representation of the brain. Maybe it's semantic, but that term has a certain meaning and it was that meaning I was challenging - not whether the brain deals with information.
landfillpoet 2 years ago
"If you use information processor to mean something that takes in and does something to information, then yeah, that works."
Did you read the wikipedia entry? They described a falling rock as an information processor: "a falling rock could be considered an information processor ... information in the form of gravitational force ... input to the system we call a rock. .. rock is a specific distance from the surface of the earth traveling at a specific speed...."
zarkoff45 2 years ago
You're ignoring what else I said. To say the brain has to be an information processor because of IPTs definition of information processor is presuming IPT, and that's my point: this theory is heavily challenged. It has had major problems with accounting for developmental and neural phenomena, which is why offshoots like Bayesian IPT has arisen. A theory like dynamical systems can account for cognition without relying on the abstract logician homunculus that IPT has trouble demonstrating.
landfillpoet 2 years ago
"You're ignoring what else I said."
As far as I understand you, I agree with you on the rest.
The term Information Processor may be misleading, but it is technically correct.
zarkoff45 2 years ago
Fair enough. I still challenge that it's only technically correct in terms of identifying with IPT. I would never call the brain that.
Sorry if I'm having trouble communicating what I intended. My point in singling out IPT was that this theory is 1) challenged 2) inherently dualistic. Other theories aren't dualistic, but note how cognition is constructed by perception-action.
landfillpoet 2 years ago
I said information processor, not information processing theory. Yes, that IPT theory is inadequate.
But I don't see how IPT is dualistic.
zarkoff45 2 years ago
@zarkoff45 Yeah, but information processor carries IPT as baggage, just like when I say embodied it carries baggage of certain theories.
I think of IPT as dualistic because of my theoretical bias and education. The way they talk about the abstract logician homunculus to me is dualistic. I don't really want to make too much of a point there; more my personal opinion. As you might have noticed, I'm not a fan of IPT.
landfillpoet 2 years ago
If I were still a Christian, I'd probably just take the position that I don't know how the soul and brain interact. Although I didn't know that Aristotle, Aquinas, and others had theories about how the soul worked as a Christian, even at that time I'd have to wonder how they'd have anyway of knowing what they were talking about was true.
Do you plan to address other defenses of the soul, such as free will? D'nesh Dsouza uses that argument in "What's so Great About Christianity."
GuineaPigDan 2 years ago
"Do you plan to address other defenses of the soul, such as free will?"
Eventually, if this series goes on long enough, but I think I'm going to have to give people some background information on neural nets first.
"D'nesh Dsouza uses that argument in 'What's so Great About Christianity.'"
Is there a D'nesh Dsouza free will argument on youtube I can use? Link if you can here.
zarkoff45 2 years ago
I don't know of any videos of him defending free will. The only debate I've seen with Dsouza in it is the one he had with Michael Shermer, but the topic of that debate was whether religion is beneficial, not the existence of the soul. You'll have to ask someone who has seen all his debates or quote WSGAC directly.
GuineaPigDan 2 years ago
Well done.
TheNakedAtheist 2 years ago
8o)
Mephistophilus 2 years ago
Nice use of Thunderf00t. :-)
wimsweden 2 years ago