*popcorn*

(September 30, 2016 at 8:57 pm)Rhythm Wrote: Would a discussion of musical theory or the nature of sound somehow elucidate the materialist position for you?  No, you're just wasting our time.  Get to the moneyshot.  
"Songs are immaterial"

hur dur.  You couldn't really believe that every materialist who's ever lived, in all the world... didn't notice music, didn't notice sound or noise.  Didn't notice that their existence makes their materialist worldview untenable....didn't -have- explanations for either sound or music.  Couldn't even discuss either subject without ambiguity.   That there was no functioning mechanical and physical explanation for the noises people and instruments make and how we arrange them together........  That you, Chad W. Ooters, here at AF...with the brilliant objection to materialism, of music....have finally put the nail in that coffin.  

Could you?

"Thag no like song...need's drop."

(September 30, 2016 at 3:44 pm)Rhythm Wrote:

(September 30, 2016 at 3:31 pm)Whateverist Wrote: Yeah, but that would be pretty uninteresting as well as pedantic.  The world of ideas is bigger than science and there is no need to inject it where it isn't the best tool.  It would be a shame if one over-applied it to the degree that it actually narrowed one's perspective.  Over-reliance on science, at its worst, becomes a kind of appeal to authority .. which so cuts against the grain of what it is intended to be.


From a google search without actually opening a link.

conservapedia:  Methodological naturalism is a strategy for studying the world, ..

rationalwiki:  Methodological naturalism is the label for the required assumption of philosophical naturalism when working with the scientific method.

IDK, scientific assessments of why pop music is so popular could be pretty interesting.   The world of ideas is big, but "bigger than science" is an empty phrase.  What does it mean to be bigger?  That science hasn't answered some question, or that it can't?  Would you know which is which?  Are you sure that the question is properly formed?  

Science isn't about authorities, it's an appeal to evidence and testable, repeatable demonstrations.  An "over reliance" on it...again, an empty phrase, would be an over relaiance on what it is, not what people wish (or do not wish) for it to be (such as an appeal to authority).  Just as the problems of materialism are what they are, not what people import upon them as straw effigies.  

In any case, art can be -and has been- studied scientifically, it;s not immune.  So if there are questions out there which science cant (not hasn't, can't) answer, or questions for which science is not an appropriate tool...it isn't one of them.  It falls -well- within the remit of the method and the pursuit.  It's demonstrable. Testable. Repeatable.  Material. The current status of advertising is nothing other than the scientific pursuit of commercially successful art.  It seems to be producing results.

I suspect science is in no position to exhaustively answer every question relating to art.  Beyond the questions you can answer regarding what is or is not the case regarding any particular artist's work there are also questions involving intent and message which I do not think science can answer.  Of course a scientist can answer them, she just won't need any science to do so.  You won't be surprised that I won't offer any scientific evidence for that hypothesis. Frankly I think it is self-evident.

(September 30, 2016 at 11:06 pm)Whateverist Wrote: I suspect science is in no position to exhaustively answer every question relating to art.

Your suspicions have a burden that you might be dis-interested in.  

Quote:Beyond the questions you can answer regarding what is or is not the case regarding any particular artist's work there are also questions involving intent and message which I do not think science can answer. 

It would be interesting to think them up.  To imagine what the un-testable would look like.  We're notoriously bad at it.  

Quote:Of course a scientist can answer them, she just won't need any science to do so.  You won't be surprised that I won't offer any scientific evidence for that hypothesis.

No, ofc not, but I don't think scientific evidence would be required in the case of your opinions or suspicions, unless we wanted to move them to the fact box.  To propose as a fact that some subject is beyond the purview of some method we would have to explain how, in principle...not in current status, the subject in question would be impenetrable -to- that method.

If art is such a subject (or some portion of art), why, in your estimation, is that so (and what portions)? I have no answer to this question, personally...though I do, distinctinctly, allow for the possibility. I assume you do, you have suspicions?

(September 30, 2016 at 8:57 pm)Rhythm Wrote: Would a discussion of musical theory or the nature of sound somehow elucidate the materialist position for you?  No, you're just wasting our time.  Get to the moneyshot.  
"Songs are immaterial"

hur dur.  You couldn't really believe that every materialist who's ever lived, in all the world... didn't notice music, didn't notice sound or noise.  Didn't notice that their existence makes their materialist worldview untenable....didn't -have- explanations for either sound or music.  Couldn't even discuss either subject without ambiguity. That there was no functioning mechanical and physical explanation for the noises people and instruments make and how we arrange them together........ That you, Chad W. Ooters, here at AF...with the brilliant objection to materialism, of music....have finally put the nail in that coffin.  

Could you?

Answer the question.

I've already told you that I don't feel like indulging you.  You and I both know the material explanation for both sound and music.  We learned it as children.  Why not proceded directly to whatever it is you'll pivot to after that tiresome and pointless discussion played itself out?  That's what you want to talk about...whatever it is, and I'm not big on foreplay.

(September 30, 2016 at 11:16 am)Gemini Wrote: Qualia is more difficult, but just because we have trouble connecting them to a neural explanation doesn't mean they're something completely different from neuroprocessing. The explanatory gap is presently neutral with respect to what kinds of explanations we could close it with.

Oh, no doubt. Drugs do stuff to brains and experience pretty much in parallel.

I love how Chad thinks he is smarter than he actually is. Kind of reminds me of myself sometimes.

(September 30, 2016 at 11:35 am)Rhythm Wrote: Is your experience of qualia just an assumption?  If not, then stop.  The science is science regardless of whether or not you appreciate or agree with it's conclusions.  It's fine to be opposed to them, it's ludicrous to argue that they are not what they are.  

Science is the process of observation and inference. You cannot observe someone's qualia. Therefore, the "science" of qualia isn't that. It's actually the science of material correlates TO qualia: brain function, reports of experiences, facial expression, etc. I know that you will just define "qualia" as "the brain function of experience," but that begs the question. Conflation of terms isn't science, it's just conflation.

Quote:It's obvious that you cannot accept what science has to say about qualia, our minds, or our brains...but that you also feel the need to be considered by yourself and others as a scientific and rational person.

The problem is that science doesn't require you to take a stance on the ultimate nature of reality in order to do it. Whether we're in the Mind of God, or the Matrix, or a BIJ, or a real material monism, science is the process of making observations and drawing inferences.

Quote:  Faced with this impossible dilemma, you seem to think that the only way to maintain the integrity of your position and your self appraisal, is to claim that the offending body of science simply doesn't exist, that it's "not-science".  Can you recognize the absurdity of this situation, and of your suggestion?

Yay! This thread is apparently about me. I revel in your obsession with what I think or feel. Let's hug it out!

Quote:OFC it's science, you just don't agree with it.  Internalize that, own it.  Stop trying to rationalize your way around it.

Science is about making observations and drawing inferences. You cannot see the magical unicorn in my dreams; you can see only the brain functions involved, and ask me in the morning what they mean. You might eventually learn that when certain neural chains light up, that means I'm dreaming about unicorns.

You say we can do science of the mind. I say we do science on neural correlates, given philosophical assumptions about the nature of brain and mind. However, in a philosophical argument about the nature of mind, this isn't going to get you very far unless everyone agrees to those same philosophical assumptions.

It's not even that you're wrong. It's that you are willing to make assumptions that are not even necessary to make.

(September 30, 2016 at 11:46 pm)bennyboy Wrote:

(September 30, 2016 at 11:35 am)Rhythm Wrote: Is your experience of qualia just an assumption?  If not, then stop.  The science is science regardless of whether or not you appreciate or agree with it's conclusions.  It's fine to be opposed to them, it's ludicrous to argue that they are not what they are.  

Science is the process of observation and inference.  You cannot observe someone's qualia.

So you claim.

Quote:Therefore, the "science" of qualia isn't that.  It's actually the science of material correlates TO qualia: brain function, reports of experiences, facial expression, etc.  I know that you will just define "qualia" as "the brain function of experience," but that begs the question.  Conflation of terms isn't science, it's just conflation.

I'm sorry, the best evidence we have suggests this is the case.  You think it's question begging, it's not, but it wouldn't matter if it were....because it's -still- the suggestion of the best evidence we have.  

Quote:The problem is that science doesn't require you to take a stance on the ultimate nature of reality in order to do it.  Whether we're in the Mind of God, or the Matrix, or a BIJ, or a real material monism, science is the process of making observations and drawing inferences.

I don't take any such stance, nor do the vast majority of materialists.  I take a stance only on what we know, what we have detcted, and what we have detected is sufficient as an explanation for.  I take an ancillary position, not directly related to the subject, about unecessary and unevidenced assumptions whose soundness cannot, in any known way, be determined......but that would be a different discussion, eh?

Quote:Yay!  This thread is apparently about me.  I revel in your obsession with what I think or feel.  Let's hug it out!

I like hugs, deal.  

Quote:Science is about making observations and drawing inferences.

Which is what we've done, regardless of whether or not you find them convenient, amenable, or satisfying.

Quote:You cannot see the magical unicorn in my dreams; you can see only the brain functions involved, and ask me in the morning what they mean.  You might eventually learn that when certain neural chains light up, that means I'm dreaming about unicorns.

You say we can do science of the mind.  I say we do science on neural correlates, given philosophical assumptions about the nature of brain and mind.  However, in a philosophical argument about the nature of mind, this isn't going to get you very far unless everyone agrees to those same philosophical assumptions.

It's not even that you're wrong.  It's that you are willing to make assumptions that are not even necessary to make.

The irony is strong, here.