Neurosurgeon Provides Evidence Against Materialism

[Amarok]

No it isn't

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Simply false

A person is depressed. Clinically depressed. He/she has thoughts of suicide, can't sleep, can't concentrate, has trouble interacting with people and of course feels terrible about themselves and the world. Doctors have pills for this sort of thing now and let's say in this case it's the persons serotonin levels in the brain. The pills adjust the serotonin levels and the person is no longer depressed. 

Are you saying that serotonin levels  are the same thing as the person's experience of depression. Now that is simply false.

Nope you have to account for the rest of the brain. But the physical effects going on in the brain are no different then the feeling .And no P zombies are nonsense as is Mary's Red Room and the Chinese thought experiment . The mind is a physical process .

[Mister Agenda]

I'm sure Dr. Egnor is a fine surgeon. What do the neuroscientists think?

[Dmitry1983]

A person is depressed. Clinically depressed. He/she has thoughts of suicide, can't sleep, can't concentrate, has trouble interacting with people and of course feels terrible about themselves and the world. Doctors have pills for this sort of thing now and let's say in this case it's the persons serotonin levels in the brain. The pills adjust the serotonin levels and the person is no longer depressed. 

Are you saying that serotonin levels  are the same thing as the person's experience of depression. Now that is simply false.

Nope you have to account for the rest of the brain. But the physical effects going on in the brain are no different then the feeling .And no P zombies are nonsense as is Mary's Red Room and the Chinese thought experiment . The mind is a physical process .

Robots are p-zombies

[The Grand Nudger]

I read part of the article but professor-speak is tiresome. It's not mysterious that a non-physical essence can control behavior. Not to me anyway. It may be for Cartesians but from a hylomorphic view it makes perfect sense. Besides you can conduct this experiment in the comfort of your own home to prove the authors are wrong. Decide that in ten minutes you will do the chicken dance. Set the alarm. Unless you change your mind, or something like a fatal stroke intervenes, in ten minutes you will do the chicken dance. You could probably get the results published.

From what I read the authors are saying that when my attention is focused on an apple the brain 'computes' a 'schema' that I am aware my attention is on the apple. What insight! But that doesn't mean my experience of looking at an apple or being aware I'm looking at an apple is the same thing as whatever brain stuff the authors imagine is going on here. In fact they are very different things. The two things may correspond but they are not the same.

The insight (at least potentially) is that the schema isn't expected to contain information on how it operates, only that information that would be useful to it;s operation.  You don't need to know what an individual neuron firing feels like, so you don't, and thus the schema necessarily wouldn't "feel like" a description of it's mechanical function.

You asked this question-

Now I'll concede the point for arguments sake that these sensations correspond to or are even caused by measurable activities in the brain. Still the sensation or thought you experience is something very different from the brain activity. No? Qualia the eggheads call them. This is obvious to me. 

The answer from AST is that it's obvious to all of us, as expressed so fantastically in the section I quoted for you...... but also wrong.

I'm interested in this home experiment, though. What is deciding that I'm going to do the chicken dance in ten minutes meant to demonstrate, which others are we proving wrong, and about what?

[LastPoet]

I'm sure Dr. Egnor is a fine surgeon. What do the neuroscientists think?

One of the brightest, trying to understand. Heh, he helped the neuroseurgeon that worked and got my sister off epilepsy. Ya know, what they called demon possession.

[The Valkyrie]

Just read the Rational Wiki.

As soon as it mentioned the "Discovery" institute, I stopped reading.

'Nuff said.

[ColdComfort]

I'm interested in this home experiment, though.  What is de to demonstrate that the authors ciding that I'm going to do the chicken dance in ten minutes meant to demonstrate, which others are we proving wrong, and about what?

The chicken dance experiment was meant to demonstrate that the authors were wrong in saying that a "non-physical essence" cannot control behavior.

[The Grand Nudger]

How would deciding to do a chicken dance, and then either doing the chicken dance -or- not doing the chicken dance, for whatever reason, demonstrate that?

You're giving a demonstration of what, I assume, is us deciding stuff, but what about that demonstration tells you or would inform anyone else that a "non-physical essence" is doing the deciding in the first place?

[ColdComfort]

The insight (at least potentially) is that the schema isn't expected to contain information on how it operates, only that information that would be useful to it;s operation.  You don't need to know what an individual neuron firing feels like, so you don't, and thus the schema necessarily wouldn't "feel like" a description of it's mechanical function.

I'm not sure what the point here is. I'm not aware of neurons firing: of course. I'm not aware of most of my body's functions. But instruments can measure them. Perhaps in time there will be instruments that will be able to measure brain activity that corresponds to every conscious experience. I'll concede the point for the purposes of this discussion. My experience of awareness or directing my attention to something is not the brain activity the authors have in mind. It is something quite different even though you may assert a causal connection.

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How would deciding to do a chicken dance, and then either doing the chicken dance -or- not doing the chicken dance, for whatever reason, demonstrate that?

You're giving a demonstration of what, I assume, is us deciding stuff, but what about that demonstration tells you or would inform anyone else that a "non-physical essence" is doing the deciding in the first place?

Because the experiment demonstrates that the decision corresponds to the behaviour or almost always does. If you want to argue either that a decision is a physical thing or that decisions are determined by brain activity then the experiment is begging the question. " Non-physical essence" was the authors words not mine.

[The Grand Nudger]

The insight (at least potentially) is that the schema isn't expected to contain information on how it operates, only that information that would be useful to it;s operation.  You don't need to know what an individual neuron firing feels like, so you don't, and thus the schema necessarily wouldn't "feel like" a description of it's mechanical function.

I'm not sure what the point here is. I'm not aware of neurons firing: of course. I'm not aware of most of my body's functions. But instruments can measure them. Perhaps in time there will be instruments that will be able to measure brain activity that corresponds to every conscious experience. I'll concede the point for the purposes of this discussion. My experience of awareness or directing my attention to something is not the brain activity the authors have in mind. It is something quite different even though you may assert a causal connection.

The point was directly answering the question that you asked.  Yes, it feels different. Yes, it seems obvious.

Your experience of awareness or directing your attention to something is -exactly- the sort of brain activity the authors were referring to.  One of the novel features of AST is that it's the only (hopefully, just the first one day) mechanistic explanation of consciousness that claims to predict the disparity between what your brain is doing and what it feels like, as well as the seemingly obvious conclusion that you have some non physical stuff capable of apprehending physical stuff and engaging in a causal relationship with it.  

That said, I'm not asking you to accept that AST is the most accurate explanations. Only using it to challenge the assumption that observing that experience doesn't feel like a description of it's process has anything probative to add as to whether or not it actually is. Imagine a ghostly AST, that posits that the mechanism doing all of this is not the brain, but the soul. It would still posit that your soul awareness doesn't provide you with the information required to make your soul feeling an identical description of it's soul process. You might even posit, in a soul world, that you have some sort of mysterious other stuff, not soul stuff, capable of apprehending soul stuff and engaging in a causal relationship with it. It feels different, and it seems obvious.

Because the experiment demonstrates that the decision corresponds to the behaviour or almost always does. If you want to argue either that a decision is a physical thing or that decisions are determined by brain activity then the experiment is begging the question. " Non-physical essence" was the authors words not mine.

Does this really have anything to do with what I would want to argue?  You just told me it would demonstrate those other positions wrong.  Well, if that's so, then there would have to be some way to tell, in the experiment, whether a decision was made by a physical or non physical essence.  

How does the mere presence of a decision demonstrate this? How can we tell this by deciding to do the chicken dance?

It seems to me that you're only asserting something that both positions can agree to. That we can make decisions, and that our decisions can influence our actions.