why do we enjoy poetry From the perspective of neuroscience?

[Alan V]

The essence of the issue, to me, is this: mind is about "What is it like to experience X?" Science might be able to guess, linguistically, what a person is experiencing. It might be able to report, "bennyboy exhibits brain patterns associated with X" But I cannot conceive of any way in which subjective and objective perspectives can truly be brought into a single framework. That's because they are diametrically opposed, by definition.

I already answered this. See below.

If science is about making objective observations, I say you cannot do a science of mind, because mind cannot be observed at all.

Of course we can observe our own minds directly.  First person accounts form a useful part of scientific studies, especially when scientists have large samplings which are compared to measurements of brain activity.

All sorts of things can't be observed directly by science, yet scientists can assemble excellent guesses by means of their careful detective work on available evidence, including proxies.  That's how scientists reconstructed ancient climates for instance.

Scientists are studying the mind, and the objections of philosophers are not standing in their way.

---

Philosophy and science have always worked dialectically. Or, depending on where you want to draw the boundary lines, we can agree with bennyboy that science is a subset of philosophy. It's the part of philosophy which demands, a priori, methodological naturalism, and accepts only empirical repeatable inter-subjective quantifiable evidence. Questions about reality which can't be answered within those limits aren't science, but may interest philosophers.

I find it surprising that philosophers still think "science is a subset of philosophy" instead of a spinoff.

[bennyboy]

I find it surprising that philosophers still think "science is a subset of philosophy" instead of a spinoff.

---

I already answered this.  See below.

Of course we can observe our own minds directly.  First person accounts form a useful part of scientific studies, especially when scientists have large samplings which are compared to measurements of brain activity.

All sorts of things can't be observed directly by science, yet scientists can assemble excellent guesses by means of their careful detective work on available evidence, including proxies.  That's how scientists reconstructed ancient climates for instance.

Scientists are studying the mind, and the objections of philosophers are not standing in their way.

I'll make an assertion, and then ask a question. If you can answer it without double-talk, then I may accept that you have a point.

My assertion is that to study something scientifically, you must be able to subject it to physical measurement or enumeration. My question is this-- how would you, as a confident scientist, demonstrate that any physical system, human or otherwise, actually experiences anything subjectively? What are the observable criteria by which you will establish sentience as a material fact?

You can't. You will have to take a position based on a hunch or on inferences drawn from your experience of life.

Congratulations. You haven't even STARTED studying the mind, and you're already doing philosophy!

[Alan V]

My assertion is that to study something scientifically, you must be able to subject it to physical measurement or enumeration.  My question is this-- how would you, as a confident scientist, demonstrate that any physical system, human or otherwise, actually experiences anything subjectively?  What are the observable criteria by which you will establish sentience as a material fact?

Our direct observations of our own subjective experiences (first-person accounts) are data and can be measured, through correlations with other, similar first-person accounts and/or with brain activity recordings, both from a decent sampling of people. That's how scientists have learned important facts about sleep and dreaming for instance.

The invisible gorilla experiment is a good example of comparing first-person accounts:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inattentional_blindness

I'm really surprised that you don't understand all of this, since it's nothing new in the sciences. It's been going on for decades. Many scientific studies of how the mind works are based on such careful collections of observations. It's not just me or anyone else making stuff up. And I wouldn't call it philosophy, because it's not about definitions and speculation so much as about observations and measurements.

If you haven't read any of such science, are you sure you're interested in consciousness studies?

Perhaps you think you can only trust your own first-person observations. If so, that is your prerogative as a philosopher. So don't get me wrong; I am perfectly content that your particular variety of incredulity is confined to philosophers. It makes a great example of why philosophy and science are two separate disciplines.

[bennyboy]

I'll ask a simple question, and you give a simple answer. How does science use observations to establish whether any physical system "X" is able to experience qualia?

[The Grand Nudger]

The same way it uses observations to establish any other thing.

It's a trite and unsatisfactory answer...but it's thoroughly true. If you take issue, you take issue with the entire enterprise of science...-or-...you take special exception to neuroscience for reasons you don't take exception to in any other science. Your call.

[bennyboy]

The same way it uses observations to establish any other thing.

It's a trite and unsatisfactory answer...but it's thoroughly true.  If you take issue, you take issue with the entire enterprise of science...-or-...you take special exception to neuroscience for reasons you don't take exception to in any other science.  Your call.

There's a difference.  If I'm studying the building of bridges, it's because I want the experience of walking on a bridge and it not falling down.  If I'm studying gravity, it's because I want to know why things move toward each other without the application of any other conspicuous actor.

If I'm studying the effects of drugs on the brain, and subsequent experience, then that's fine-- I can ask people to report experiences, do brain scans and so on.  I'm perfectly good with that, and have benefited from that kind of science more than once.

But if I want to learn about psychogony, and in particular to know what physical systems do / don't experience subjectively, then I'm in a pickle.  You can ask people how they feel when you poke their brain with a pin, and be fairly comfortable with the underlying assumptions about physical reality and the ubiquity of real awareness in other people; but that's not really a scientific inference, it's a pragmatic axiom.  I can't ask a complex organic system on the Planet Zolotn, or the google 2100 Real-bot ™, at least not sensibly.

[The Grand Nudger]

The same way it uses observations to establish any other thing.

It's a trite and unsatisfactory answer...but it's thoroughly true.  If you take issue, you take issue with the entire enterprise of science...-or-...you take special exception to neuroscience for reasons you don't take exception to in any other science.  Your call.

There's a difference. 

There isn't.   You may take a different sort of exception...but what nueroscience is doing is qualitatively no different than any other branch.  Their observations and inferences are just as strong (or weak) as any other, and for the same reasons...in every case.

Consider a world in which the above was not true..and, despite brilliant minds working on it, you, Benny, you..on AF.org....are the person who cracked it, and reduced neuroscience to non-science.  

If I'm studying the building of bridges, it's because I want the experience of walking on a bridge and it not falling down.  If I'm studying gravity, it's because I want to know why things move toward each other without the application of any other conspicuous actor.

.......funny you should mention gravity........we know less about that, fundamentally, than the human brain or consciousness.  Weird, right?  Bottom of the ocean is another one.

If I'm studying the effects of drugs on the brain, and subsequent experience, then that's fine-- I can ask people to report experiences, do brain scans and so on.  I'm perfectly good with that, and have benefited from that kind of science more than once.

-there's only one kind of science.  

But if I want to learn about psychogony, and in particular to know what physical systems do / don't experience subjectively, then I'm in a pickle.  You can ask people how they feel when you poke their brain with a pin, and be fairly comfortable with the underlying assumptions about physical reality and the ubiquity of real awareness in other people; but that's not really a scientific inference, it's a pragmatic axiom.  I can't ask a complex organic system on the Planet Zolotn, or the google 2100 Real-bot ™, at least not sensibly.

You're in no more or less of a pickle than you would be in the example above.  This isn't to say that you''re not in a pickle..but if you decide that route, I just want you to understand that this "pickle" is bigger than just the things about brains and minds you take exception to.  Not arguing with you, not trying to talk you out of anything, just trying to supply you with a broader perspective of the consequences of whichever route you take.

The objections you've mounted cannot be addressed in a vacuum. Those statements, inferences, claims, and conclusions whioch would be warranted in any other subject either apply to the brain and experience or they do not. If they do not..we have a special case. There's only two ways that can end. Either the brain really is different, fundamentally, than everything else, or we've engaged in special pleading. I'll let you decide, like the example of Benny from AF cracking nueroscience, above, which is more likely..between those two possible and exhaustive outcomes.

---

In reality, meanwhile............ the who, what, when, where, and why of experience have been answered..it's the -how- we're working on, now. That's why these threads never fail to irritate me, lol. Theres a lag between the edge and the popular appraisal, and that leads people to communicate the issues of last generation and yesteryear as though they were weights pressing down on the minds of researchers today. You've been grappling with the cartesian drama..for example, in every thread about the mind that you've posted on these boards for as long as I've been here watching you post. I don't want you to take this as a personal dig, I spent the better part of a decade trying to solve a problem a 19 year old unpaid research intern rattled off to me as though it were rote kindergarten learning...recently. I'd spent time and money, lots of both, trying to solve an issue that some pimple faced baby knew the solution to by heart, lol.

---

[bennyboy]

Not sure what to say, except nope.

In the case of a bridge, it doesn't matter to me if it's a simulation. So long as the Matrix bridge built of Matrix material stands up when I walk on it, that is sufficient for me. But in the case of sentience, a simulated mind is not sufficient to me.

---

There's only two ways that can end.  Either the brain really is different, fundamentally, than everything else, or we've engaged in special pleading.  I'll let you decide, like the example of Benny from AF cracking nueroscience, above, which is more likely..between those two possible and exhaustive outcomes.

These are not mutually exclusive. The brain is clearly different from non-brain things, by definition. And when you wave toward the brain as an explanation of consciousness, then you are saying that it allows for consciousness when other systems do not, but without explaining why that would be. Implied is this: most systems do not sustain consciousness, but the brain does 'just cuz it does. That's special pleading.

I think there are several options worth considering:
1) idealism: the brain (and everything else) is real, but is a representation of a complex set of ideas that we virtualize. Note that this doesn't preclude objective truth.
2) panpsychism: all material is intrinsically capable of allowing for consciousness, and all energetic interactions represent elemental consciousness.
3) physical supervenience: the universe and its parts are not intrinsically sentient in any sense of the word, but something like a field (metaphorically) may be spawned under certain special conditions.

I personally am an ambiguist-- I believe that reality encompasses all three of those in a paradoxical manner, and that which one is true is dependent not on its objective reality but upon which angle you are examining it from-- much like a QM particle in a double-slit experiment is both of / neither of / one of a particle or a wave. I really do not think there's a truth to be had outside the context imposed by a thinking agent-- or rather, that a thinking agent is required for that superposition to be resolved and to appear monist.

[The Grand Nudger]

Not sure what to say, except nope.

In the case of a bridge, it doesn't matter to me if it's a simulation.  So long as the Matrix bridge built of Matrix material stands up when I walk on it, that is sufficient for me.  But in the case of sentience, a simulated mind is not sufficient to me.

Does it matter to you if your experience is (as it certainly is, lol) a simulation......?  Why..and if so, is that caring itself part of the simulation?  

These are not mutually exclusive.  The brain is clearly different from non-brain things, by definition.

Not in the relevant sense, it isn't..or at least we haven't found it to be so as of yet. It seems to work like everything else does. Again, there are no "brain physics"..just physics.

You're rejecting this, but there's no sense or means to do so. Either you satisfy yourself with a special pleading case and hope to heaven that the thing in question turns out to be meaningfully special, or you don't. If you do, understand that your objections simply -are- special pleading (which isn't always a fallacy, only when the damned thing aint special in the sense required)..or implicate every scientific inference.

Yes, Benny, they're exclusive. Either the thing is like other things or it aint. If it's like other things, the statements made by nueroscience are just as credible and for the same reasons as statements made about bridges. If it's not, then they're not...but one immediately has to wonder about bridge claims, then. You only have the two choices on this one, because it's been reduced to simplicity - and both choices are a shit sandwich, clearly..by reference to your rejection.

Oh well. The universe isn't under any compulsion to satisfy us.

---

Let me offer a concrete example.  A voltimeter doesn't directly measure electricity.  It can't..hell, it doesn't even know what that is.  What it measures is the difference between the charges of two points against a known volume of electrical current (abnd it doesn't know what that is, either, lol).  It only "sees" the effect. If theres a "charge" of x on one end of a conductive array and a "charge" of y on the other end, then something has occurred between those two ends to consume (or produce) the difference. When we make statements based on measurements like these we consider them to be flatly accurate and scientific, the very definition of, no less...why would they be any less so when the thing being measured is a brain or a mind?

Either the voltimeter (and, by extension, neuroscience) is or isn't credible.  Is or isn't a scientific measurement.  Is or isn't a special case.  If we can say "x goes into region b, and when it comes out, it has a value of y" we have described thought as accurately as a voltimeter describes electrical current.

Does that help?

[Alan V]

The brain is clearly different from non-brain things, by definition.  And when you wave toward the brain as an explanation of consciousness, then you are saying that it allows for consciousness when other systems do not, but without explaining why that would be.  Implied is this: most systems do not sustain consciousness, but the brain does 'just cuz it does.  That's special pleading.

Any philosopher interested in arguing about consciousness should inform himself about brain science.

The above paragraph betrays your lack of knowledge about the science you somehow consider yourself informed enough to judge. You obviously are not.

I have already offered you information that explains why brains allow for consciousness when other systems do not. You simply don't agree with it.

Yet it was never up to me to inform you about brain science anyway. It is your responsibility to be informed.

So you simply are not arguing in good faith, apparently because you feel your pet theory is threatened by real science.