Status of theories

Is the mind the same as the body? What is consciousness? Can machines have it?

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Scott Mayers
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Re: Status of theories

Post by Scott Mayers »

Obvious Leo wrote:
Scott Mayers wrote: Yet, this hypothesis suggests a type of awareness (conscious-like) by its behavior.
No it doesn't, Scott, that's just your own Newtonian reductionist slant on things. It is perfectly logical to model our planetary biosphere as being alive without having to attribute the notion of purposeful behaviour to it, as the creationists insist on doing. The central point about applying the Gaia hypothesis to evolutionary theory is that we need to regard the entire biosphere as evolving holistically instead of merely considering the status of individual species evolving within it. In my philosophy I extend this model to the entire universe. The entire universe is evolving from the simple to the complex but it does so without any sort of a blueprint whatsoever because this is simply what non-linear dynamic systems do.
Scott Mayers wrote: Just remember that much of what we may appear to disagree on here is mostly about our particular language background only.
I'm well aware of it. You make no distinction between linear and non-linear determinism and I regard the importance of this distinction as the single most important question in both philosophy and science. Reality conforms to EITHER one OR the other but it cannot conform to both.
I don't know why you refer to Newton as my restrictive vision here. I include time and the limited speed of light. You don't agree with any view without accepting both Newton as well as factors of Relativity here since you don't accept space as real. [/quote]
Why are you holding back on telling me just what you mean by "linear and non-linear determinism"? I can only guess that you imply linear to represent a one-way timeline going forward to which the present itself defines the fixed past and an exception for all things beyond the present into the future as being variable ('non-linear' as in having multiple options going forward.) What you ignore is the difference between the things that are defined as doing the "determining" have distinctly different meanings since the word in context requires ownership. That is, one definition of "determining" is how we as humans can rationally find a closed practical means to predict something in the future. A second definition of "determining" is the way an unthinking universe applies its laws in a strict and orderly fashion upon our local reality: a consistency.

I pointed out elsewhere that "consistency" derives its meaning from meaning, "with sameness". But if you only define any concept with only this factor alone, it is incomplete because it doesn't recognize its dependency of its members to have a common principle of difference. This is the genus/species way of providing a complete definition. Otherwise, any incomplete definition is considered circular, or Tautologous, since it doesn't add more information already implied with the symbol.

Example: If you defined a pie as a food, it maps the idea of "pie" to "food" as being the same but doesn't differentiate it as being only one of many things defined as "food". Thus it doesn't add information and appears to only beg that each thing is the exact same thing. That is, in this definition above, a person can reasonably exchange the word "pie" with "food" or vice versa.

Therefore you need to declare how a pie is also different from other kinds of things that mean "food" too.
Here's a better definition:
A pie is a food that consists of a crust layer foundation in which some other food is placed in, sealed with a top layer of crust, and then baked. This extension demonstrates how it belongs to the class, "food", but is a unique type of member that differs from all others by the details expressed in this last definition.
Obvious Leo
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Re: Status of theories

Post by Obvious Leo »

Scott Mayers wrote:Why are you holding back on telling me just what you mean by "linear and non-linear determinism"?
These are stock standard terms in philosophy and I've explained them dozens of times. Linear determinism is pre-determinism and non-linear determinism is not. Newtonian determinism is linear and the real determinism in the universe is non-linear, or chaotic.
Scott Mayers
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Re: Status of theories

Post by Scott Mayers »

Obvious Leo wrote:
Scott Mayers wrote:Why are you holding back on telling me just what you mean by "linear and non-linear determinism"?
These are stock standard terms in philosophy and I've explained them dozens of times. Linear determinism is pre-determinism and non-linear determinism is not. Newtonian determinism is linear and the real determinism in the universe is non-linear, or chaotic.
The ONLY thing most essentially understood in philosophy is that when in dialectic, one must first define their terms! No two individuals automatically agree to the same meaning of anything without first doing this. That's why the law uses definitions up front of any legislation. (see an example here.)

Then your "linear determinism" = "pre-determinism" implies what I call, "fate", as do many philosophers too. But you believe this in part of the past up to the present. And your "non-linear determinism" is to imply the future beyond the present whereby though some things can be 'predictable', not everything can (like the weather) other than approaching towards better precision. I call what is "linear" as is related to a line -- it extends infinitely in both directions and "non-linear" as an extension of other dimensions, like planes, then space, then time, then worlds (times of times), etc. How is this not ever more non-linear as you can get?!!
Obvious Leo
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Re: Status of theories

Post by Obvious Leo »

Scott Mayers wrote:
Obvious Leo wrote:
Scott Mayers wrote:Why are you holding back on telling me just what you mean by "linear and non-linear determinism"?
These are stock standard terms in philosophy and I've explained them dozens of times. Linear determinism is pre-determinism and non-linear determinism is not. Newtonian determinism is linear and the real determinism in the universe is non-linear, or chaotic.
The ONLY thing most essentially understood in philosophy is that when in dialectic, one must first define their terms! No two individuals automatically agree to the same meaning of anything without first doing this. That's why the law uses definitions up front of any legislation. (see an example here.)

Then your "linear determinism" = "pre-determinism" implies what I call, "fate", as do many philosophers too. But you believe this in part of the past up to the present. And your "non-linear determinism" is to imply the future beyond the present whereby though some things can be 'predictable', not everything can (like the weather) other than approaching towards better precision. I call what is "linear" as is related to a line -- it extends infinitely in both directions and "non-linear" as an extension of other dimensions, like planes, then space, then time, then worlds (times of times), etc. How is this not ever more non-linear as you can get?!!
I really don't know how to argue this point, Scott, because you are simply wrong. There is no controversy whatsoever about these definitions of linear and non-linear determinism. Linear determinism means pre-determinism, creationism, law-derived determinism, call it what you will. Reality is enacted according to a PLAN. Non-linear determinism applies to a self-determining reality. There is no plan. That's it. These are unanimously accepted definitions so there is no argument to be had here.
Scott Mayers
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Re: Status of theories

Post by Scott Mayers »

Obvious Leo wrote:
I really don't know how to argue this point, Scott, because you are simply wrong. There is no controversy whatsoever about these definitions of linear and non-linear determinism. Linear determinism means pre-determinism, creationism, law-derived determinism, call it what you will. Reality is enacted according to a PLAN. Non-linear determinism applies to a self-determining reality. There is no plan. That's it. These are unanimously accepted definitions so there is no argument to be had here.
I just questioned them and have not heard of these terms as you use them. You seem to be begging that I do but considering how you even extend your meaning to include other concepts through a clear personal bias, I refuse to abide. You seem to be implicitly defining "linear determinism" as one who has a "one-track mind" limiting themselves to being unable to recognize anything beyond that track. Hmmm, how does your belief in a one-way time fit into this? You want to associate all things you like with a term that you interpret as actually meaning an insult by default is a scare (crow) tactic to prevent people from adapting it in any other expanded meaning you associate with everything else.

That's like imposing someone to name their child, "Whaddafuk R. U. Lookinat" and expect they'd have an equal chance to find friends as anyone else. :P
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RG1
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Re: Status of theories

Post by RG1 »

Graeme M wrote: Having just become seriously inquisitive about consciousness and mind, I've been reading what I can find on the web and also chased up a couple of books that seem to tackle where my interests lie. I haven't really found any forums that seem to grapple directly with what seems to be matters of neuroscience or cognitive science but philosophy forums come close.
Graeme M wrote:I'm interested though about what ideas have been developed over time by notable thinkers and also what science is learning about the physical functioning of the brain and how that relates to 'consciousness'. All very interesting!
No issue here with the "interest in the ideas of notable thinkers", but be cautious of "science". Although the “science” of it all is very interesting, I think this path only takes you deeper into the woods. (...and where you may get stuck and lost!)

Remember -- science is the accumulation of knowledge, which is the accumulation of thoughts, which is the accumulation of experiences. Science is 'downstream' of where you want to go. No answers will be found here. You will still have to resolve the experiences that create the thoughts, that create the knowledge, that creates the science, that creates the 'truth' (that science supposedly found).

In other words, the science-man relies on his 'consciously derived science' (thoughts, >knowledge, >science) to tell him his 'truths' of consciousness. This is no different than a religious-man relying on his Bible to tell him the truths contained within his Bible.

If you desire is to understand mind/consciousness (or the 'experience' of). My recommendation is to go the opposite direction, and take the direct path of -- introspection and simple logic. You can't understand the beginning if you're walking towards the end.

In essence, using "science" to resolve consciousness is merely piling on massive amounts of 'experiences' in the attempt to understand the starting 'experiences', while only getting further away, higher up on the pile of experiences (and deeper into the woods!)
Obvious Leo
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Re: Status of theories

Post by Obvious Leo »

Scott Mayers wrote: You seem to be implicitly defining "linear determinism" as one who has a "one-track mind" limiting themselves to being unable to recognize anything beyond that track.
I'm doing no such thing. I've stated dozens of times that linear determinism assumes that events in the universe occur according to a suite of laws and non-linear determinism assumes the opposite. The former assumes creationism and the latter assumes evolution. These are mutually exclusive constructs and thus cannot both be right. If you accept the notion of the "laws of physics" then you are a creationist, or a linear determinist.
Scott Mayers
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Re: Status of theories

Post by Scott Mayers »

Obvious Leo wrote:
Scott Mayers wrote: You seem to be implicitly defining "linear determinism" as one who has a "one-track mind" limiting themselves to being unable to recognize anything beyond that track.
I'm doing no such thing. I've stated dozens of times that linear determinism assumes that events in the universe occur according to a suite of laws and non-linear determinism assumes the opposite. The former assumes creationism and the latter assumes evolution. These are mutually exclusive constructs and thus cannot both be right. If you accept the notion of the "laws of physics" then you are a creationist, or a linear determinist.
You are assuming a metaphorical definition that evokes emotional prejudice to your interpretation of "linear" and "non-linear" here. For instance, how the hell does "creationists" or "laws of physics" in their own definitions have any relationship to being "linear" or "non-linear". Certainly MY world of "laws" manifests more than simply any linear form. I'm the one who believes in mult-universals here which requires more than a mere linear way of thinking. Your inclusion of mentioning things you don't like to be included as "linear" only suggests that you are using it as many sales professionals do when they attempt to dismiss their skeptics as being trapped in their one-way thinking and tout "thinking outside of the box" as the better virtue instead.

So I prefer using the general word "determinate" unqualified to describe any X that can assert causation with precision and accuracy. [X is either any human, or Nature itself]
Then I use the term, "fate" to describe one believing in a strictly unique cause to a unique effect in their 'determinations'. [Your meaning of "Linear determination"]

You assume that all 'law' statements are restricted to such one-to-one functions. But this is only due to your own belief in unique causation as what is true about reality. In math, any argument acts as a machine that takes in inputs and gives answers as outputs are referred to as "Relations". These define any domains to any ranges. A "function" is a more specific type of relation in which only one unique 'answer' is allowed as an output to any number of inputs. A one-to-one correspondent is what is called an Injective Function and refers to what you are thinking of as "linear determinisim" above. But as I'm trying to show you is that "laws" are just these math arguments that take a given domain of things as inputs and 'computes' one or more answers from the range of possibilities as outputs. Thus not all "laws" are necessarily 'linear' by your meaning.

I can't speak for "Creationists" except to note that they embrace both a 'fixed' and "linear" form with regards to history but a definite NON-linear one with regards to their usual belief in "free will" as a law granted them by their Creator. In this way, they see reality as having both linear and non-linear factors to reality.

Example fixed [linear] "law": "No law hereafter is fixed." [A law that commands non-linearity to everything]. So this is a simple counter to your concern that linear determinism is any more or less rational than non-linear determinism.
Obvious Leo
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Re: Status of theories

Post by Obvious Leo »

I'm giving up, Scott. I've tried dozens of different ways of explaining it to you but you're just not getting it. However this is completely uncontroversial philosophy which any philosophy of science undergraduate would be expected to understand. There are thousands of different texts on the subject of non-linear dynamic systems theory because these principles are used to model every single science except physics. It is no coincidence that of all the sciences physics is the one that makes no sense.
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