RE: why do we enjoy poetry From the perspective of neuroscience?
January 1, 2019 at 10:50 am
(This post was last modified: January 1, 2019 at 11:03 am by bennyboy.)
Thoreauvian, you are enumerating the points of your world view. Saying "X is good, so must be evolution" is not a particularly convincing argument for why the Universe has the capacity, under any material formation or process, of sustaining subjective experience. Why, for example, couldn't things learn, interact, say stuff, make babies, and so on purely mechanically without ever really having qualia?
And more importantly, how am I to establish that isn't the case?
Alternately, how am I to determine that any of the things I take as real aren't just idealistic representations? How do I know space is real, or anything of the objects in it or their properties? By experiencing them as such, maybe? That leads to a nasty circle-- if 100% of everything you base a theory of mind on is dependent on a world view you developed with that mind, you're going to have a problem establishing a foundation. The Matrix might be feeding you mutually coherent data that represents no actual reality, or perhaps the Mind of God makes pure ideas seem like physical reality, or maybe Ulthar the Magnificent is poking your (Xarathrian, not human) brain with a hard-tipped boodledyboo in a jar somewhere because you've been dead for 10 Xarathrian days and the Ritual of Rezooberification is set to commence.
I'll bite. What does neuroscience tell us about why neurons (or any other physical structures or processes) are capable of subjective experience, rather than a mechanical simulation with identical outcomes: loving-like behaviors, crying-like behaviors, getting mad in a text forum-like behaviors, but without any actual awareness? How, even, does neuroscience establish whether any given physical system is doing so?
And more importantly, how am I to establish that isn't the case?
Alternately, how am I to determine that any of the things I take as real aren't just idealistic representations? How do I know space is real, or anything of the objects in it or their properties? By experiencing them as such, maybe? That leads to a nasty circle-- if 100% of everything you base a theory of mind on is dependent on a world view you developed with that mind, you're going to have a problem establishing a foundation. The Matrix might be feeding you mutually coherent data that represents no actual reality, or perhaps the Mind of God makes pure ideas seem like physical reality, or maybe Ulthar the Magnificent is poking your (Xarathrian, not human) brain with a hard-tipped boodledyboo in a jar somewhere because you've been dead for 10 Xarathrian days and the Ritual of Rezooberification is set to commence.
(January 1, 2019 at 10:18 am)Jörmungandr Wrote:(December 31, 2018 at 10:24 pm)Belaqua Wrote: I honestly can't imagine how neuroscience could tell us anything at all about all this.
And yet it does. Given your assertion, I can only conclude that you lack imagination.
I'll bite. What does neuroscience tell us about why neurons (or any other physical structures or processes) are capable of subjective experience, rather than a mechanical simulation with identical outcomes: loving-like behaviors, crying-like behaviors, getting mad in a text forum-like behaviors, but without any actual awareness? How, even, does neuroscience establish whether any given physical system is doing so?
