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Kil
Evil Skeptic
USA
13476 Posts |
 Posted - 08/03/2004 : 13:16:46 [Permalink]
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quote:
Ricky:
Might I suggest a temporary locking of this topic? Just an idea.
You can suggest anything. But no, I wouldn't do that. Not this thread anyhow. I have way to much respect for all of you to do that. Anyhow, Dave could just unlock it again if he wanted to. |
Uncertainty may make you uncomfortable. Certainty makes you ridiculous.
Why not question something for a change?
Genetic Literacy Project |
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Dave W.
Info Junkie
USA
26020 Posts |
Posted - 08/03/2004 : 19:22:57 [Permalink]
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I know it's only been a handful of hours, but I've spent the majority of that time thinking about this. Perhaps a statement of my goals in this thread would help clear things up. I will do so calmly, and without intent to provoke. I hope that in the spirit of "This is a great thread, it's forced some hard thinking and defense. The very reason such places as this site exist.... and the very reason people seek them out," Dude will return, despite my harsh words earlier. I apologize again.
My Primary Goal:
I make a statement regarding P.M.C. - call it X - which is as follows:Given the evidence we have for how consciousness behaves during life, the current state of neurobiological knowledge, the current state of physical knowledge, the dearth of hypotheses regarding P.M.C. which agree with other scientific theories and laws, the lack of phenomena which can only be sufficiently explained by P.M.C., and the fact that the non-P.M.C. hypothesis agrees with everything we know, I tentatively conclude that without further evidence, for all scientific intents and purposes, P.M.C. does not exist. Now, according to Dude, "any statement we can currently make (except to recognize our lack of knowledge) regarding human consciousness after the death of the body is an assertion unsupported by evidence." One would think that since X does much more than recognize our lack of knowledge, Dude's own assertion would apply. He goes on to describe such statements as (paraphrasing) irrational, unreasonable, assuming knowledge which is unverifiable, gratuitous, pure speculation, not good sound thinking, logically flawed, ignorant and invalid.
Perhaps not obviously, I disagree. And so, far from arguing that my position "is the only rational position," I am actually defending the idea that X is a rational position to take. It is one of at least two rational positions to take, the other being "we don't know anything about P.M.C.," which I find unsatisfying for a couple of reasons which I won't go into just now. There are, likely, more rational positions regarding P.M.C., but I'd rather not consider them right now, either.
My Secondary Goal:
Statements along the lines of...- "Any position or statement that is unsupported by evidence is nothing more than a gratuitious assertion. They may be gratuitiously dismissed."
- "By default, if a truth claim cannot be backed up by evidence, it may be dismissed."
- "Any claim that is made without evidence can, and should, be dismissed."
...even within context, sound like broad, generalized statements. I cannot discern how to decide in what cases they are applicable, and in what cases they aren't. If they are meant to apply solely to P.M.C., I could not - and still cannot - tell, without Dude's help.
Thus, my comments regarding Dude's atheism. Each one of the above statements appears to apply to truth claims regarding god(s), including the position that no gods exist. My secondary goal is to find out why the above three statements are not applicable to claims of the non-existence of deities.
And clearly, the fact that we have consciousness now (and something changes upon death) is not a compelling argument (to me) as to why the above statements are applicable to P.M.C., but not to god, or to poor Adam's seventeen arms (which must be sore from all the poking and prodding - I apologize for that, too).
My Tertiary Goals:
All other goals, and statements in previous posts relating to those goals, will be put on the back burner until charred beyond recognition, in the hopes that something resembling an agreement can be reached with regard to my first two goals.
I think the above, Kil, would have been way to much for a chat (even though that was just a suggestion). Heck - I'd been thinking about it all evening, and it still took me over an hour to get it worded "just so."
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- Dave W. (Private Msg, EMail)
Evidently, I rock!
Why not question something for a change?
Visit Dave's Psoriasis Info, too. |
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Dude
SFN Die Hard
USA
6891 Posts |
Posted - 08/10/2004 : 22:10:43 [Permalink]
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Made ya look! hehe .... latest post in this thread by Dude, must be some new arguing goin on! Rubberneckers!
 
Seriously... I'm going to post in this thread again, have been sick (like several days of NyQuil/antibiotics/painkillers/ibuprophen sick) and have every intention of comming back here... cooler and ready to try again to make the point I'm so miserably failing to make....
So, I'll try to work it up offline and see if I can iron it out into something worth reading... |
Ignorance is preferable to error; and he is less remote from the truth who believes nothing, than he who believes what is wrong.
-- Thomas Jefferson
"god :: the last refuge of a man with no answers and no argument." - G. Carlin
Hope, n.
The handmaiden of desperation; the opiate of despair; the illegible signpost on the road to perdition. ~~ da filth |
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Dude
SFN Die Hard
USA
6891 Posts |
Posted - 08/12/2004 : 00:26:23 [Permalink]
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Ok... gonna try this a small piece at a time.
The point I'm trying to make is about human consciousness. I'm going to break this into two posts, so please refrain from bustin me up until after the post that will follow this one.
To that end I'd like to eliminate the other topics running through this thread, and make a general point or two about some of them.
First, with regard to god(s), PMC, Ricky's invisible dragon(tm), ect... I stand by the idea that truth claims without evidence can be dismissed whole cloth. There is no need to apply Occam's Razor to decide which explanation, if any, seems more likely until you have some evidence to evaluate. It seems to me a waste of time to attempt to evaluate claims of equal evidence, when the evidence is zero, to try and reach a "more likely" conclusion.
Nobody is required to accept any truth claim without evidence.
If, for example, I said I could fly by willpower... what makes more sense? A simple, "Bullshit, prove it." or the long drawn out evaluation of evidence that doesn't exist and the eventual conclusion that it's unlikely I can fly by willpower? The conclusions will be the same, and I guess you could say that what I'm doing is just a boiled down version of the longer form. I think it's much more direct and to the point, however, to just call bullshit bullshit and move on.
Next, in regard to my atheist outlook. I only mention the word "neccessary" because of one simple fact. There have been, literally, reems of alleged evidence for the existence of god. When evaluating the evidence I have concluded that none of the evidence requires god, and all the purely argumentive approaches fail logically. As Dave W pointed out, Occam's Razor at work. But only when confronted by alleged evidence or argumentive explanation. If somebody says to me, "god exists!" I simply reply, "Bullshit, prove it." If they toss in some alleged evidence, I apply the razor. The 5000 year old pile of alleged evidence for god is what prompts a person to use Occam's Razor to evaluate it. In the case of Ricky's Invisible Dragon(tm), no such pile of evidence exists. I can simply say, "Bullshit, prove it."
In the case of PMC (using the term here as I think Dave_W is using it, to describe human consciousness surviving the death of the body intact) same thing. No evidence. ect...
But... none of this has anything to do with the point I'm trying to make here... which I will attempt to make, once again, in my next post in this thread. I'll get it in here sometime today (Thursday). |
Ignorance is preferable to error; and he is less remote from the truth who believes nothing, than he who believes what is wrong.
-- Thomas Jefferson
"god :: the last refuge of a man with no answers and no argument." - G. Carlin
Hope, n.
The handmaiden of desperation; the opiate of despair; the illegible signpost on the road to perdition. ~~ da filth |
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Dude
SFN Die Hard
USA
6891 Posts |
Posted - 08/12/2004 : 12:26:28 [Permalink]
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Ok, before I get evacuated (Hurricane Charlie is zeroing in on my town, and they have ordered mandatory evacuation for zones A,B,and C. I live in D, so if it gets worse I'm next.)
Let me give this another go....
I'll start by listing the things I'm not trying to make a point about, and that I think have cluttered up this thread and made it more confusing than it needs to be.
god
PMC (as in human consciousness surviving the death of the body intact)
invisible dragons
CH3COOC6H4COOH
Occam's Razor
What I'm trying to make a point about is human consciousness. It's a simple point (I think) but has proven to be difficult to communicate.
Any statement that we can currently make about what happens to human consciousness upon the death of the body is a statement without evidence to support it.
When the human body dies:
Consciousness is extinguished
Consciousness moves to the happy hunting grounds
Consciousness gets back in line to wait for reincarnation
Consciousness changes into something else entirely
Consciousness hangs around to talk to John Edward
Consciousness follows the inverse square law of electromagnetic radiation and without the powersource of a living body becomes to faint over time/distance to be detected by the living...
None of those are supported by any evidence, and no other statement I'm aware of is either.
Truth claims, statements of fact, ect... that are not supported by evidence may be dismissed.
Without evidence any conclusion you draw is nothing more than an unevidenced assertion.
I am not advocating an agnostic position. I'm not trying to leave room for the possibility of life after death.
The only statements we can make, currently, are: The consciousness of a dead person can no longer interact with the consciousness of a living person, and that something happens to human consciousness when the body dies. The question is what.
And we don't know. We'll probably figure it out eventually, but it will require a better technical definition of what exactly human consciousness is (i.e. the whole cause thing)
Does that make any more sense than any other attempt I've made to explain my position on this? |
Ignorance is preferable to error; and he is less remote from the truth who believes nothing, than he who believes what is wrong.
-- Thomas Jefferson
"god :: the last refuge of a man with no answers and no argument." - G. Carlin
Hope, n.
The handmaiden of desperation; the opiate of despair; the illegible signpost on the road to perdition. ~~ da filth |
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Ricky
SFN Die Hard
USA
4907 Posts |
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Dude
SFN Die Hard
USA
6891 Posts |
Posted - 08/12/2004 : 13:09:42 [Permalink]
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quote:
Posted by Ricky:Are you saying that the truth claim "Consciousness exists after death" and the truth claim "Consciousness does not exist after death" can both be dismissed?
Without evidence, yes. Especially with the connotation implied in "consciousness exists after death" that consciousness somehow survives intact, and the implication in "consciousness does not exist after death" that consciousness simply disappears.
quote:
Posted by Ricky:As Dave W. and I have both posted, all the evidence we have says that consciousness exists in the brain, and solely in the brain.
As far as I am aware, there is no such evidence. If your referring to statements about consciousness not being present in people who have experienced damage to the brain, ect... the observation you can make is only that consciousness requires a functional brain to interact with others. It's a far cry from being eidence that the brain is consciousness. |
Ignorance is preferable to error; and he is less remote from the truth who believes nothing, than he who believes what is wrong.
-- Thomas Jefferson
"god :: the last refuge of a man with no answers and no argument." - G. Carlin
Hope, n.
The handmaiden of desperation; the opiate of despair; the illegible signpost on the road to perdition. ~~ da filth |
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Dave W.
Info Junkie
USA
26020 Posts |
Posted - 08/12/2004 : 18:15:59 [Permalink]
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Dude wrote:quote:
Does that make any more sense than any other attempt I've made to explain my position on this?
Yes, and I would agree with you if there were no evidence related to consciousness and brains.
I disagree with the idea that we do not have sufficient evidence to conclude that consciousness is a matter of brain activity. The changes (sometimes lasting ones) which can be made to various aspects of consciousness using drugs, electricity, or trauma are evidence of that. To suggest otherwise is to suggest that there is an as-yet-undetected mechanism through which consciousness itself detects the presence of LSD, or a shock, or an icepick within the brain and decides to behave differently during and after the assault. Such a mechanism can be dismissed due to lack of evidence.
Conversely, if brain activity is consciousness, then physically or medically altering brain activity should alter consciousness, and it does. We have tons of evidence for this. The simplest example of this is anesthesia. Ether (for example) can cause such a disruption in brain activity that consciousness is lost.
If brain activity is not consciousness, but a separate phenomenon, what assumptions (without evidence) must we make to support that idea? Brain activity being consciousness seems to me to be the most parsimonious explanation which covers all the avialable data.
And so, I find the idea that consciousness ends with death to be a reasonable position to take. |
- Dave W. (Private Msg, EMail)
Evidently, I rock!
Why not question something for a change?
Visit Dave's Psoriasis Info, too. |
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astropin
SFN Regular
USA
970 Posts |
Posted - 08/13/2004 : 11:03:13 [Permalink]
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So the bottom line here seems to be that:
A. Dave, Ricky & I see enough evidence between brain function and consciousness to draw a conclusion about PMC.
B: Dude (and probably many others) does not see enough evidence to draw any conclusions about PMC.
Done!
This was the first thread I ever started and with 129 replies to date I may never top it. Thanks for the great discussion guy's & girls.
Oh and Dude according to the weather reports....YOU BETTER GET OUT OF THERE!
Adam |
I would rather face a cold reality than delude myself with comforting fantasies.
You are free to believe what you want to believe and I am free to ridicule you for it.
Atheism:
The result of an unbiased and rational search for the truth.
Infinitus est numerus stultorum |
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Ricky
SFN Die Hard
USA
4907 Posts |
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Valiant Dancer
Forum Goalie
USA
4826 Posts |
Posted - 08/13/2004 : 11:27:08 [Permalink]
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quote:
Originally posted by Dude
quote:
Posted by Ricky:Are you saying that the truth claim "Consciousness exists after death" and the truth claim "Consciousness does not exist after death" can both be dismissed?
Without evidence, yes. Especially with the connotation implied in "consciousness exists after death" that consciousness somehow survives intact, and the implication in "consciousness does not exist after death" that consciousness simply disappears.
quote:
Posted by Ricky:As Dave W. and I have both posted, all the evidence we have says that consciousness exists in the brain, and solely in the brain.
As far as I am aware, there is no such evidence. If your referring to statements about consciousness not being present in people who have experienced damage to the brain, ect... the observation you can make is only that consciousness requires a functional brain to interact with others. It's a far cry from being eidence that the brain is consciousness.
While I agree that we can identify consciousness, what we cannot assume is that it is independant of brain functionality or that it isn't an indicator of brain functionality. Therefore, one can not make definative statement on the existance or non-existance of PMC. Like the existance or non-existance of a supreme being, there is no proof to speak of. Occams rasor would say that the existance of God and PMC are equavalent. (i.e. extremely unlikely.) I'd have to side with Dave on this one. Some parts of the brain have autonomic or sensory functions. Consciousness tends to indicate other parts of the brain which hold more esoteric functions such as memmory, emotion, and reasoning.
On a different note, Charlie is supposed to be a mid-range cat 3 by the time it hits. Get out if you can.
Correction. It's been upgraded to a cat 4. The wind speeds are just 10 mph below a cat 5. |
Cthulhu/Asmodeus when you're tired of voting for the lesser of two evils
Brother Cutlass of Reasoned Discussion |
| Edited by - Valiant Dancer on 08/13/2004 11:47:12 |
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astropin
SFN Regular
USA
970 Posts |
Posted - 08/13/2004 : 13:22:45 [Permalink]
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Well Ricky we could go back and forth on PMC with Dude and others seemingly forever. Then again...you are correct, that's what this site is all about. Please continue.
Brain = Consciousness.
I don't have time right now and I know that Rick & Dave have already provided some evidence for this view. Let's try to compile everything we do know about brain function & consciousness and put it in one neat post. |
I would rather face a cold reality than delude myself with comforting fantasies.
You are free to believe what you want to believe and I am free to ridicule you for it.
Atheism:
The result of an unbiased and rational search for the truth.
Infinitus est numerus stultorum |
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Dude
SFN Die Hard
USA
6891 Posts |
Posted - 08/15/2004 : 20:57:30 [Permalink]
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quote:
Posted by Valiant Dancer:Therefore, one can not make definative statement on the existance or non-existance of PMC. Like the existance or non-existance of a supreme being, there is no proof to speak of. Occams rasor would say that the existance of God and PMC are equavalent.
Why does this theme keep rearing it's nasty little head in this thread? God is not relevent to this conversation, has nothing to do with this conversation, and does nothing but cloud the issue. Leave god in the religion folder.
quote:
Posted by astropin: So the bottom line here seems to be that:
A. Dave, Ricky & I see enough evidence between brain function and consciousness to draw a conclusion about PMC.
B: Dude (and probably many others) does not see enough evidence to draw any conclusions about PMC.
Done!
No. Not done. astropin, I'm not sure you have grasped the topic. PMC is only one of the may things that have been put forth as to what happens to human consciousness on death. There is certainly no case to be made for the existance of PMC. That, you could say, is a conclusion.
quote:
Posted by Dave W: Brain activity being consciousness seems to me to be the most parsimonious explanation which covers all the avialable data.
And so, I find the idea that consciousness ends with death to be a reasonable position to take.
I would agree that it's not an unreasonable postion to take if you think that the brain = consciousness. I believe we need more evidence than what is currently available before reaching that conclusion though. I'd like to see some solid evidence that relates to causation first.
(Off topic- Charley was a total miss for my area. They predicted for 48 hours straight that he was comming dead on to Tampa Bay, but he decided to swing a last minute right while flipping the bird to the meteorologists. Sadly, because of the predictions for his path, many people in the area he hit did not evacuate and others were not properly prepared. When they finally made the call for his turn east, it was way to late to evac people from the area. It's made for one busy weekend at work, 18 hours days fri-sat-sun for me) |
Ignorance is preferable to error; and he is less remote from the truth who believes nothing, than he who believes what is wrong.
-- Thomas Jefferson
"god :: the last refuge of a man with no answers and no argument." - G. Carlin
Hope, n.
The handmaiden of desperation; the opiate of despair; the illegible signpost on the road to perdition. ~~ da filth |
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Ricky
SFN Die Hard
USA
4907 Posts |
Posted - 08/15/2004 : 21:17:59 [Permalink]
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quote:
Why does this theme keep rearing it's nasty little head in this thread? God is not relevent to this conversation, has nothing to do with this conversation, and does nothing but cloud the issue. Leave god in the religion folder.
Because that is why we are having this discussion. What most people are trying to understand is how you can say that god does not exist in a 0 evidence situation, and say that you can't draw a conclusion on PMC in a 0 evidence situation. That is the reason why we are having this entire discussion, its how it all started. We think that there is a conflict in thinking both things at once.
quote:
I would agree that it's not an unreasonable postion to take if you think that the brain = consciousness. I believe we need more evidence than what is currently available before reaching that conclusion though. I'd like to see some solid evidence that relates to causation first.
Correlation can lead to causation, its how a lot of scientific tests work. They try modifying different variables and seeing the changes on it to establish if or not there is a causation. Then they look for what exactly that causation is. We know there is causation through mutiple lines of evidence:
If I get hit on the head hard enough to disrupt my brain, my consciousness will be altered.
When I take drugs that affect my brain, my consciousness will be altered.
When my brain stops functioning, for all that we can observe, so does my consciousness.
And the other ones that were previously listed. These all lead to the same conclusion, that consciousness and the brain are the same.
Just because we don't know the exact causation, does not mean that we don't know if there is causation or not.
And since consciousness and the brain are one and the same, it would only be reasonable that when the brain stops, so does consciousness. |
Why continue? Because we must. Because we have the call. Because it is nobler to fight for rationality without winning than to give up in the face of continued defeats. Because whatever true progress humanity makes is through the rationality of the occasional individual and because any one individual we may win for the cause may do more for humanity than a hundred thousand who hug their superstitions to their breast.
- Isaac Asimov |
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Dave W.
Info Junkie
USA
26020 Posts |
Posted - 08/15/2004 : 21:56:11 [Permalink]
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Coincidental to this discussion, Michael Shermer's "Skeptic" column in Scientific American in the September, 2004, issue is titled "Mustangs, Monists, and Meaning." It's about the differences between dualists - those who think that mind and body are somehow separate - and monists.
Now, I'm not bringing this up as a back-handed way of accusing Dude of being a dualist, or (per the quote below) of accusing him of believing in "souls," but only because the ideas in the paragraphs, below, are relevant to this discussion:Dualists hold that body and soul are separate entities and that the soul will continue beyond the existence of the physical body. Monists contend that body and soul are the same and that the death of the body -- the disintegration of DNA and neurons that store my personal information -- spells the end of the soul...
The principal barrier to a general acceptance of the monist position is that it is counterintuitive. As Yale University psychologist Paul Bloom argues in his intriguiing book, Descartes' Baby (Basic Books, 2004), we are natural-born dualists. Children and adults alike speak of "my body" as if "my" and "body" are dissimilar. In one of many experiments Bloom recounts, for example, young children are told a story about a mouse that gets munched by an alligator. The children agree that the mouse's body is dead -- it does not need to go to the bathroom, it can't hear, and its brain no longer works. Yet they insist that the mouse is still hungry, is concerned about the alligator, and wants to go home. "This is the foundation for the more articulated view of the afterlife you usually find in older children and adults," Bloom explains. "Once children learn that the brain is involved in thinking, they don't take it as showing that the brain is the source of mental life; they don't become materialists. Rather they interpret 'thinking' in a narrow sense and conclude that the brain is a cognitive prosthesis, something added to the soul to enhance its computing power."
The reason dualism is intuitive is that the brain does not perceive itself and so ascribes mental activity to a separate source. Hallucinations of preternatural beings (ghosts, angels, aliens) are sensed as real entities, out-of-body and near-death experiences are perceived as external events, and the pattern of information that is our memories, personality and "self" is sensed as a soul. The bolding above is mine. It may be the most important sentence as relates to our discussion here.
Because, until we have evidence of such a separate source, the idea can be dismissed. The idea of a separate source for consciousness requires facts which are not in evidence. The idea that brain activity is consciousness requires no such unevidenced assumptions.
Arguing that there isn't enough evidence to reach a conclusion is nearly the same thing as arguing that the evidence for either proposition is equal in amount, which simply is not true. There are mounds of evidence for brain-based consciousness (the examples you've been given in this thread so far, Dude, just scratch the surface), while there is zero evidence that consciousness is something other than brain activity.
Let me ask you a different question: what kind of causative evidence would convince you that the brain activity is consciousness?
Edited to add: glad to know you didn't fall victim to Charlie, Dude. |
- Dave W. (Private Msg, EMail)
Evidently, I rock!
Why not question something for a change?
Visit Dave's Psoriasis Info, too. |
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