tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3555199390227912207.post1708057467071647161..comments2024-03-16T05:00:38.826-04:00Comments on Egnorance: Steven Novella warns us about confirmation bias!mregnorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11431770851694587832noreply@blogger.comBlogger87125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3555199390227912207.post-38266190585169896612012-12-10T06:09:01.906-05:002012-12-10T06:09:01.906-05:00Michael,
Right, you ignorant fuck (I'm return...Michael,<br /><br />Right, you ignorant fuck (I'm returning the favor). I'm a materialist. The mind is a product of the material brain. It's caused by material (physical) processes occurring in neurons and astroglial cells within certain unclear regions of the brain. Qualitative variations in cell membrane depolarization and synaptic activity. Material processes.<br /><br />You still haven't explained why, if the mind remains single undivided, the person doesn't know he's seen an image of a chicken and a snow covered driveway, and picked the photo of the snow shovel to clear the driveway, not to shovel chicken poop from a henhouse.<br /><br />Anyway, you're ignorant regarding neurophysiology. You still haven't justified your claim that a person is aware of a cutaneous touch before the action potentials reach the brain. That's an impossibility, similar to claiming that neutrinos are capable of traveling faster than light.<br /><br />I quoted the section in Libet's book (page 72 on) which indicates you're wrong. The brain backdates touch sensations to the time of the primary evoked potential (which is at the nerve the stimulus has reached the brain, but unconscious). But the stimulus has to last about half a second, before it becomes conscious which the brain backdates. The action potentials had already arrived.<br /><br />You need to be publicly humiliated. I'm doing my part.bachfiendhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14752055891882312204noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3555199390227912207.post-1696226317810539932012-12-09T22:33:09.560-05:002012-12-09T22:33:09.560-05:00bach:
Knowing what the words mean is an entry tic...bach:<br /><br />Knowing what the words mean is an entry ticket into the debate. If you don't know what "necrosis" or "inflammation" mean, you don't have standing to debate pathology. If you don't know what "Sylvian fissure" or "burr hole" mean, you don't have standing to debate neurosurgery. <br /><br />Most atheist scientists/physicians who debate the mind-brain problem are abjectly ignorant of the real issues involved. They don't even know what the words mean. <br /><br />You don't know shit about the mind-brain problem. You don't even know what the words mean. I've been dealing with you ignorant f*cks for years. You mock and deride people who take the issue seriously and who have taken the time and effort to try and understand it. <br /><br />You all need to be publicly humiliated. I'm doing my part. <br />mregnorhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11431770851694587832noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3555199390227912207.post-74574993362915086972012-12-09T22:25:07.446-05:002012-12-09T22:25:07.446-05:00And anyway, even if my materialism is the same as ...And anyway, even if my materialism is the same as property dualism, I can make exactly the same arguments that I've already made, including the split brain, to support my position of no brain, no mind - and against structure dualism and your Thomistic dualism.<br /><br />For which you don't have the slightest scrap of evidence, besides wishing it were so.bachfiendhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14752055891882312204noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3555199390227912207.post-91604952392930818992012-12-09T22:16:05.959-05:002012-12-09T22:16:05.959-05:00Michael,
I don't care for philosophers' c...Michael,<br /><br />I don't care for philosophers' classifications. There's materialism, which regards the mind as a product of the brain, and which doesn't exist independent of the brain. And there's dualism, which regards the mind as existing independent of the brain.<br /><br />I'm a materialist. The mind exists only when there's intact electrochemical functioning of the brain.<br /><br />You're a dualist. You think that at least part of the mind can exist independent of the brain.<br /><br />Our positions are so far apart, that they can't be considered just flavors of dualism. No brain, no mind.bachfiendhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14752055891882312204noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3555199390227912207.post-30186831723403387012012-12-09T22:10:31.415-05:002012-12-09T22:10:31.415-05:00bach:
You and Hoo and Novella illustrate points I...bach:<br /><br />You and Hoo and Novella illustrate points I've been making for years. <br /><br />1) Dualism is the only sane theory of mind<br />2) People who say they are materialists rarely are. They are just too clueless to understand the actual issues<br />3) Atheists disdain dualism because they associate it with religion. They don't care whether it's true. They just hate religion, and will say any self-contradictory gibberish they can think of to fight it. <br /><br />Novella has been arguing for materialism using dualist positions for years ("The mind is what the brain does", etc). He's too stupid to understand his own arguments, let along those of others. <br />mregnorhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11431770851694587832noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3555199390227912207.post-20174593342720687472012-12-09T22:04:41.489-05:002012-12-09T22:04:41.489-05:00bach:
[No. Materialism states that the brain is m...bach:<br /><br />[No. Materialism states that the brain is material, not that the mind is material.]<br /><br />EVERYONE agrees that the brain is material. Only Idealists would deny that.<br /><br />The question is whether the mind is material. Materialists say yes. Dualists say no. <br /><br />Welcome to the dualist camp. <br /><br />Issues of whether the mind can exist independently of the brain etc. are issues within dualism. Substance dualists say yes. Property dualists say no. Thomistic dualists say only a part of the mind can subsist without the brain. <br /><br />Bach, your dualist membership card is in the mail. mregnorhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11431770851694587832noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3555199390227912207.post-83737620894059679842012-12-09T21:15:22.836-05:002012-12-09T21:15:22.836-05:00Michael,
No. Materialism states that the brain i...Michael,<br /><br />No. Materialism states that the brain is material, not that the mind is material. I don't care what you think, or whether you have elaborate albeit incomplete subclassifications of dualism and materialism.<br /><br />The mind is a product of the brain caused by the electrochemical activity of the brain, similar to the way that vision is a product of the electrochemical activity of the visual cortex.<br /><br />Destroy the brain or destroy the visual cortex and you destroy the mind or vision.<br /><br />The mind is material to the extent that it needs a functioning brain. It doesn't persist without a physical brain.<br /><br />And anyway, even if my position is closest to property dualism, I still regard it as materialism. The mind only exists when the brain is intact. No brain, no material - no mind. Which is an enormous distance from your concept of Mind. Absolutely incompatible. Physically divide the brain, divide the mind, because each half produces each mind.bachfiendhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14752055891882312204noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3555199390227912207.post-14446106028220644352012-12-09T20:47:40.514-05:002012-12-09T20:47:40.514-05:00@bach:
"The mind isn't material. It'...@bach:<br /><br />"The mind isn't material. It's a product of the brain that produces it."<br /><br />Materialism posits that the mind is material. M-a-t-e-r-i-a-l-i-s-m. That's what it means-- the mind is material. Material. Materialism. <br /><br />The theory that the mind is a non-material product of the brain that produces it is a DUALIST theory. Non-material mind. Material brain. Dualist. <br /><br />If the non-material mind is a substance in itself, that's substance dualism. If the non-material mind is a property of the brain, that's property dualism. If the non-material mind is related to the brain as form to matter, that's Thomistic dualism. If the non-material brain is a property of the brain without causitive power, that's Epiphenominalism. If the non-material mind is the functional relation of the brain-- what the brain does, that's functionalism, here a form of dualism. <br /><br />You argue for materialism using explicitly dualist arguments. Teaching you guys about the mind-brain problem is like trying to teach it to a monkey.mregnorhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11431770851694587832noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3555199390227912207.post-56697046126065240102012-12-09T20:14:11.497-05:002012-12-09T20:14:11.497-05:00Michael,
No. You've just taken one materiali...Michael,<br /><br />No. You've just taken one materialist position - the brain is the mind- and ignored others. Such as the mind is a product of the brain.<br /><br />In an unsplit brain, there's a single mind. In the split brain, there's two minds. The right brain produces a mind. The left brain produces a mind. In most cases, the two minds are almost identical, because the two halves of the brain are experiencing the world identically, so the two halves don't disagree.<br /><br />The mind isn't material. It's a product of the brain that produces it. Splitting the brain isn't splitting a physical mind. It's physically splitting a material brain that then produces a separate mind each, both of which generally, but not always, agree.<br /><br />Your 'simplest' explanation isn't simple. What is the 'self' that transcends the material brain? How does it do it? Why isn't it aware that the person has seen a photo of a snow covered drive and a chicken and picked the photo of the snow shovel to clear the snow from the driveway and not to shovel chicken pop from a henhouse?<br /><br />And anyway, if I'm getting personal, calling you a pathological liar, it's not because my back is to the wall. It's because your arguments are just so lame. And anyway, personal abuse is also one of your foibles, with you calling people you don't like bastards (and worse!)bachfiendhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14752055891882312204noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3555199390227912207.post-78848049406171329932012-12-09T19:39:31.618-05:002012-12-09T19:39:31.618-05:00Actually it's dualism 1,000,001, materialism 0...Actually it's dualism 1,000,001, materialism 0.<br /><br />Just another nail in the materialist coffin. mregnorhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11431770851694587832noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3555199390227912207.post-65925300703299959832012-12-09T19:37:35.835-05:002012-12-09T19:37:35.835-05:00That's such a nice way to put it.
I've n...That's such a nice way to put it. <br /><br />I've noticed that when you folks have your back to the wall, you get personal. <br /><br />Split brain research, and all of the pathological and normal unconscious aspects of the mind, are perhaps the most interesting and challenging philosophical challenges today.<br /><br />Your view that s-b phenomena support the materialist position is difficult to understand. There are 4 core materialist theories-- philosophical behaviorism, eliminativism, type identity theory, and token identity theory. In each of these theories, the mind is the brain, or there is no mind, only the brain. <br /><br />Corpus callosotomy splits essentially all of the connections between the intellective halves of the brain. From a materialist viewpoint, intellect is utterly split into two units that are no longer in substantive communication.<br /><br />Yet the person functions normally, in all ordinary life. Only very subtle specialized experiments reveal any split at all, and that split is only a more developed version of the splits between unconscious process that exist normally. <br /><br />If the mind is material, and the material is split in two, the mind should split in two. It does not, for all ordinary intents and purposes. <br /><br />The simplest explanation is that there is a self that transcends the material brain, and integrates it in normal life despite the complete disconnection of the regions that subserve intellection. <br /><br />Dualism 1, materialism 0.mregnorhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11431770851694587832noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3555199390227912207.post-85367065636805894872012-12-09T18:53:21.989-05:002012-12-09T18:53:21.989-05:00Michael,
Yes, but it all agrees perfectly with th...Michael,<br /><br />Yes, but it all agrees perfectly with the materialist position that the mind is a product of the brain, of all the unconscious and often contradictory processes that are occurring there. It absolutely ruins your view that the mind is non-material, indivisible, and that there's free will. Libet's free won't, certainly, but not free will. Decisions are generally made unconsciously by the brain and presented to the mind after the motor neuron activation necessary for the action has been initiated.<br /><br />Again, if the mind is unitary, the person with a split brain would be aware that he's seen a photo of a snow covered driveway and a chicken, and would know he picked the photo of a snow shovel to clear the snow covered driveway, not to shovel chicken poop from an unseen henhouse.<br /><br />And actually my materialist take on the mind, that its a model of the world and the person's place in it, fits in well with blind sight and phantom limb. There's still cortical representation of vision and somatic sensation within the brain, and these areas are still constructing the parts of the model, the mind, which are lacking any sensory input.<br /><br />But again, you're missing another point again. You claimed that if anyone came up with any evidence for the materialist position, you'd come up with an argument that allows it to support the dualist position better.<br /><br />All you're doing is just denying it. Now that's what I call stupid and dishonest. Pathological liar is a good description of you.bachfiendhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14752055891882312204noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3555199390227912207.post-38930789856026642002012-12-09T17:35:55.694-05:002012-12-09T17:35:55.694-05:00Who is the "person"? The one who reaches...Who is the "person"? The one who reaches, or the one who stops? Are they both persons? Is neither a person? <br /><br />And you err in thinking that split brain research is necessary to show this effect. It is seen in all of us, all the time. The vast majority of our volitional acts are unconscious-- the set of our hip as we turn, the contraction of our left triceps when we grab a cup. We are unaware of the vast majority of the specific volitional acts that we do. <br /><br />In pathological situations, there are many examples beside split brain. Blind sight and phantom hand are other examples. <br /><br />Yet without exception these persons experience life unified. They do not become two or more persons in any meaningful sense in real life. <br /><br />The questions raised by this are profound. Thomas Nagel wrote a seminal paper on this a while ago-- acknowledged to be the best paper on the topic.<br /><br /> [http://download.springer.com/static/pdf/278/art%253A10.1007%252FBF00413435.pdf?auth66=1355265066_b6953486d3430b3ef56ebba1759a2f06&ext=.pdf]<br /><br />He concluded that there is no coherent way of understanding this-- materialist or dualist-- in our current way of thinking. <br /><br />Nagel also thinks materialism is crap, and likes ID, although he's an atheist. <br /><br />[http://www.oup.com/us/catalog/general/subject/Philosophy/Science/?ci=9780199919758&view=usa]mregnorhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11431770851694587832noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3555199390227912207.post-62563478287854656922012-12-09T17:05:16.555-05:002012-12-09T17:05:16.555-05:00And there are behavioral changes too. Such as the...And there are behavioral changes too. Such as the person who reaches for a cigarette, and the other hand stops him. Or the person who takes a dress out of a wardrobe with the other arm putting it back. In both cases the person professing ignorance as to why the person has performed contradictory negating actions.<br /><br />Whenever in future you bring up duality, I'll take great pleasure in pointing out that you don't have an answer to the split brain scenario. Refuse to recognize it. Although you insist that dualism is a much better explanation of the world than materialism.bachfiendhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14752055891882312204noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3555199390227912207.post-17679432902241143132012-12-08T19:55:46.091-05:002012-12-08T19:55:46.091-05:00Anonymous,
I do it because its FUN!Anonymous,<br /><br />I do it because its FUN!bachfiendhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14752055891882312204noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3555199390227912207.post-8561209994533539102012-12-08T19:45:49.032-05:002012-12-08T19:45:49.032-05:00Michael,
To put it another way, if there's on...Michael,<br /><br />To put it another way, if there's only one indivisible mind, then it knows that the person has seen a photo of a snow covered driveway. And a photo of a chicken. And knows that the person picked the photo of the snow shovel because you need the shovel to clear the driveway.<br /><br />That's not a perceptual quirk. That's a major difference in interpretation.<br /><br />It goes along with my view that the mind is a product of the brain and is a model of the outside world and the person's place in it. In the split brain person, the left brain has a model, and the right brain has a model, and usually the models are identical, because both are sensing the world identically. But they're not the same models.<br /><br />You haven't explained why a unitary mind would interpret the world differently. At the same time. With perceptual quirks, such as the famous young girl/old crone picture, the mind flips from one to the other and back several times before settling on one, a different thing.<br /><br />Why don't you use this as a thread to see what others think?<br /><br />The split brain/split mind 'supports' materialism, because its consistent with materialism. The mind is a product of the brain, which is capable of being split. The mind isn't a non-material something, which isn't incapable of being split. It's consistent with materialism, but not consistent with dualism, in my opinion, and you need to explain why it is.<br /><br />You claimed that whatever evidence I came up with in support of materialism, you would be able to make a stronger argument that it actually supports dualism.<br /><br />And all you've done is to ignore the evidence.bachfiendhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14752055891882312204noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3555199390227912207.post-50178994573162425432012-12-08T19:17:22.387-05:002012-12-08T19:17:22.387-05:00You miss the forest for the trees. The mind is not...You miss the forest for the trees. The mind is not split, despite the massive split of the hemispheres. There are perceptual quirks, as noted, but they are surprisingly subtle and only detectable on very difficult specialized testing. Patients never notice it in normal life. Remember that the testing is so subtle and difficult that Sperry won a Nobel Prize for doing it. <br /><br />You chop the material brain in half, and the mind remains unitary, with only subtle evidence for perceptual quirks. How does that support materialism, again? mregnorhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11431770851694587832noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3555199390227912207.post-21250919364708945992012-12-08T18:51:30.446-05:002012-12-08T18:51:30.446-05:00Bachfiend - why do you continue to feed the troll?...Bachfiend - why do you continue to feed the troll? It looks like you're single-handedly keeping Egnor's comments alive. Why do you do it? <br /><br />Now he's launched another one at the measured and rational Dr. Steve Novella in the desperate hope that Steve will take notice and give Egnor that thing he desires most - recognition. Any publicity is good publicity for Michael. If Steve responds, I picture Michael running out his house yelling in delight "I'm somebody now!!" like Steve Martin did in "The Jerk" when his name appeared in the new phone book.<br /><br />So why, Bach, do you spend so much time giving Egnor what he wants and feeding the need-to-be-noticed flame that keeps him posting his anti-intellectual extremism?<br />Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3555199390227912207.post-72317360940526625462012-12-08T18:32:49.966-05:002012-12-08T18:32:49.966-05:00Michael,
So why does the 'left' brain hav...Michael,<br /><br />So why does the 'left' brain have its bizarre interpretation of why the 'right' brain picked the photo of a snow shovel. The left brain has a 'theory of mind' regarding how the right brain regards the world that can be manipulated to be wrong. In the same way that two people with two minds can be manipulated so that one can give a wrong interpretation of the other's rationale.<br /><br />You've explained nothing. The materialist position is that in the split brain individual, there's a right mind and a left mind, which most of the time are extremely similar, because the right and left brains are experiencing the same stimuli.<br /><br />The left mind has a theory of mind about the right mind that's accurate because they're both a product of split brains which are seeing the same things. <br /><br />All you've done is to ignore the argument as not existing. Why does the left brain think that the right brain picked the shovel to shovel chicken poop from the henhouse if the mind of the person is indivisible?bachfiendhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14752055891882312204noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3555199390227912207.post-44938669670901297692012-12-08T17:49:10.912-05:002012-12-08T17:49:10.912-05:00In split brain, there is no split mind. There rema...In split brain, there is no split mind. There remains one mind, one person. <br /><br />There are perceptual oddities, mostly unconscious. Fascinating, but just perceptual oddities all the same. In everyday life, and to all ordinary observers, split-brain people are normal, and even to the patients themselves, split-brain patients are normal..<br /><br />The remarkable thing is that despite severing the massive tracts that connect the hemispheres, the mind remains unitary and singular. mregnorhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11431770851694587832noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3555199390227912207.post-20140094243595582762012-12-08T17:33:36.079-05:002012-12-08T17:33:36.079-05:00Michael,
I see now where my confusion arose. Age...Michael,<br /><br />I see now where my confusion arose. Ages ago in this thread you wrote of the materialism/dualism dichotomy (so at that time you were a 'lumper'). I took the materialist position that the mind is a product of the mind. You changed 'product' to 'property' (they're not the same thing!), and called my position 'property dualism', and setting yourself off on your ever more finely delineated splitting.<br /><br />Please go back to your original lumping. The split brain/split mind is perfectly consistent with the materialist view of the brain. How is it consistent (or better explained, if you like) by whatever dualist flavour you prefer?bachfiendhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14752055891882312204noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3555199390227912207.post-48314171247838400912012-12-08T17:22:58.084-05:002012-12-08T17:22:58.084-05:00This comment has been removed by the author.bachfiendhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14752055891882312204noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3555199390227912207.post-4763944922125766542012-12-08T16:48:03.962-05:002012-12-08T16:48:03.962-05:00Michael,
OK, I gather you're 'a splitter&...Michael,<br /><br />OK, I gather you're 'a splitter'. I'm definitely 'a lumper'. I regard there to be just materialism and everything else. You're in the everything else camp. In the same way that there's a non-teleological camp and a teleological camp in evolution, which again includes everything else..<br /><br />The Causes and Thomistic dualism are just words used to describe something that either doesn't exist or isn't useful. So I don't bother with them.bachfiendhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14752055891882312204noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3555199390227912207.post-25184547364038130402012-12-08T16:29:33.747-05:002012-12-08T16:29:33.747-05:00There is monism and dualism. Monism has three flav...There is monism and dualism. Monism has three flavors-- materialism, idealism, and neutral monism. Look 'em up.<br /><br />Materialism (materialist monism, to be rigorous) has several flavors-- eliminative materialism, type-identity theory, token-identity theory, philosophical behaviorism. <br /><br />Dualism has several flavors. Substance dualism, property dualism, Thomistic Dualism, Predicate dualism, Parallelism, Occassionalism, and Epiphenominalism. Epiphenominalism is usually considered a form of property dualism. <br /><br />Functionalism is generally considered indeterminate between materialism and dualism, although I (and many others) consider it dualist. <br /><br />You may think that Four Causes is nonsense, as well as Thomistic dualism, but that reflects on you, not on them. mregnorhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11431770851694587832noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3555199390227912207.post-63492515318350764822012-12-08T16:03:21.399-05:002012-12-08T16:03:21.399-05:00Michael,
I agree I'm confused by this termino...Michael,<br /><br />I agree I'm confused by this terminology. I'm a 'lumper'. There's materialism or there's dualism. I'm a materialist. I've read the Wikipedia article on dualism, and I regard property dualism to be materialism. The description of Thomistic dualism I regard as just gobbledygook, so I just lump it in with dualism.<br /><br />Have you given any more thought to split brain/split mind?<br /><br />I don't think that you can use Aristotle or Thomistic dualism to argue that there must be a Mind. All this talk about Causes I regard as just nonsense.<br />bachfiendhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14752055891882312204noreply@blogger.com