Regariding the evidence for materialism

[ElDinero]

Fred, can't help but notice you've missed me out completely. Give mine a go.

[Erinome]

I'll take it as a compliment that none of my input was disputed by Fred. It's hard to argue with logic, I know...

[The Grand Nudger]

Should I feel insulted?...lol.

---

Explaining the mechanics of how it is facilitated is not the same as explaining what it is.

I'm totally on-board with you here, just because we can describe how an engine gives a car the ability to move doesn't mean that it isn't engine faeries that do the heavy lifting.

[Fred]

Fred, can't help but notice you've missed me out completely. Give mine a go.

I know I hit one of yours yesterday. I recognize the avatar and name. I'm keeping up best I can. Throw it at me again.

---

Fred, can't help but notice you've missed me out completely. Give mine a go.

Never mind. Found it. I'll get at ya.

[Fred]

I'll take it as a compliment that none of my input was disputed by Fred. It's hard to argue with logic, I know...

Uh, be careful what you ask for.

---

If I told you that I had a magical talking frog, I couldn't prove that it exists because it does not actually exist, aside from existing in the realm of my imagination. You, however, could not prove that it does not exists, simply because it does not exist. I made it up, but you can't prove that.

So what? What does this have to do with anything I said? Just a tip. I'm here to discuss my points regarding whatever. I'm not interested in discussing fundie talking points or the usual stuff you guys deal with, so let's leave it to stuff specifically stated, ok?

How hard is it to understand that humans invented god?

Can't speak for anyone else, but for me it's proven nigh upon impossible. I haven't been impressed with the usual litany of arguments, but if anyone has anything that's not ripped straight out of the choir book, I'm glad to hear it.

Material things are sometimes invisible. Take oxygen for example. It's colorless and odorless, almost like it isn't there, but we know it is, because we can see it's molecular structure.

All true.

Logical thinking would lead to the conclusion that if you can't prove that something does not exist, then it probably just doesn't exist.

Logical thinking would suggest that you cannot prove a negative, but that's where it stops. Flying teapots and all that.

Be careful with this evidence question, because it's built on a house of cards and far from being the kill shot you all seem to believe it is, it's fucked up coming and going. My old wine post is an approach ramp to that discussion, so let's see what happens.

---

Is this a joke? I will try and break this down for you.

You said you had not seen compelling evidence that death was 'the end'. But I don't understand this at all. We know that when people die, their hearts stop beating and their brains stop functioning, which are basically the two required features of life. When that has happened, they are no longer capable of movement, communication or exhibiting any of the traits that once made them 'alive'.

So, that is the evidence that death is the end, the fact that all our bodily functions cease activity. How is that not compelling evidence?

All I can say on that score is that I have read that full cardiac arrest was full stop and applied to everything you just said. If it doesn't, then there's some doctors doing cardiac that maybe shouldn't be because that's where I learned it from. If I can't trust that as accurate knowledge, then science is as schismatic as religion, and we're all fucked.

Because the system was brought back online afterwards doesn't mean it wasn't offline when it was down, and it was all the way down by definition or there's some Texas science books or some shit going on, which is scarier than anything the church can cook up, because everybody believes the person running the show in the cardiac ward, right?

Now, if it's true that full cardiac arrest means the system is fully down at that time, then this raises problematic questions.

Regardless of what it means, there is abundant clinical evidence of people exhibiting having NDEs when the system is in full cardiac arrest. All the “it's simply a case of this or that still wiggling around before shutting down” yadda may molify you, but it is not a sound answer to the question of why people still experience some kind of consciousness during the time when the system is completely down.

There has never, ever been any credible evidence to suggest that any further consciousness or life exists outside of this.

This is exactly what I meant with the faith statement bit.

This is just an accepted piece of given opinion taken as fact and no matter how often its repeated and calcified, it gets no closer to true.

And no, the next step isn't for you to repeat “so what evidence do you have?” The next step, at least if you want to engage with me, is to examine the questions surrounding evidence and the problems in your assertion. It's a given taken as gospel and it's completely broken. I want to discuss that issue.

[theVOID]

Cool. That's no small agreement, so let's celebrate with a virtual beer here. <clink>

I'm not sure how significant it really is, but I like beer, virtual or otherwise! <clink>

Btw, I've been reading about stuff on these topics for a long time but I've never seen this gnostic bit anywhere else but here. What's that about? Has "hard" and "strong" been replaced or is this an idiosyncracy only practiced here?

Not really, they're much more common (and more useful) terms in my experience. I've never liked the hard/strong distinction, I'd prefer to use more descriptive terms.

The second link is an archive of papers, hundreds of them, so I wasn't suggesting you read them all. My point was that this isn't at all as settled a question as the Certainists amongst us insist it is. As for the Pinocchio paper, the short version works like this: Materialism is inherently flawed up and down the line.

For what reasons?

There's no question that the brain directly effects mental experience, but there is no way that it is a given that it's a one-way street and that the mind cannot effect the brain.

That would only be a useful way of looking at it presupposing that mind is not brain whereas materialists would say that Mind == (some of the) Brain, certain parts of the brain and mind are simply indistinguishable, one and the same, this can and has been demonstrated via a myriad of experiments, stimulating or deactivating certain parts of the brain can completely change a persons sense of self or even remove it. A good friend of mine had a brain tumour and post-surgery he was pretty much a completely different person; His attitudes, taste in food, music, art, his temperament, mannerisms and general personality all changed - This is exactly what we would expect to happen given Mind == Brain and (correct me if I'm wrong) precisely not what we would expect if Mind is non-brain, an immaterial mind/self would not be dramatically altered by changes to the brain.

There are scads of studies about this, so go poke around.

I have done an enormous amount of research into neuroscience and the philosophy of mind, it's one of the subjects with which I am the most fascinated. If you have any specific studies you would like me to read please recommend them, but I don't appreciate being sent off on a wild-hunt.

But right off the top, as often as it is used to dismiss this or that, the Placebo Effect also demonstrates how the mind can effect matter.

If that is what you think the placebo effect is I'd suggest you are the one who needs to do more research. The placebo effect is entirely about the psychology of mind, how perception and expectation can lead to a patient experiencing less of the symptoms of their ailment - There are very few ailments that are actually physically relieved from the placebo effect, all of these that have been studied in any level of detail have been found to have had rather clear mechanisms linking brain and body - Ailments like hernias, anxiety, depression, ulcers, etc all have fairly well understood neuro/chemical causes and changes in the psychology of a person has a causal relationship to the brain's production of various chemicals as well as signals to the body which result in the ailments in question thus we would expect (and can predict) which physical ailments could really be helped by a placebo and will still result in benefits once the person has been told they received an ineffective treatment, as well as which ones (the vast majority) are entirely due to perception/exception and for which the positive effects of the placebo disappear once the person has been told the treatment ineffective.

If you're interested in learning more about the mechanisms of the placebo effect;

http://www.sjsu.edu/faculty/gerstman/Sta...nandez.pdf
http://neuro.cjb.net/content/25/45/10390.full
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/art...3678927629

No, sir. That's not the problem. The problem is that materialists have been shown over and over again to excel at the classic "heads I win/tails you lose" gambit when it comes to evidence that threatens their faith.

It's called the burden of proof - The burden of proof for the claim that the mind and brain are one in the same has been extremely well substantiated - The claim you are making, that aspects of the mind are non-brain is the one that hasn't been demonstrated in any way, shape or form. There are still many aspects of mind and the mechanisms that give rise to it that are not well established and thus we cannot rule out an immaterial aspect of mind (thus the agnosticism) but it is you as the person making the claim that such things exist who has the responsibility to substantiate your claims.

This isn't in any way a case of "heads I win/tails you lose", nor is there any faith involved, it's simple intellectual rigour.

These aspects have been demonstrated over and again, but nothing is ever enough and everything is instantly dismissed.

Examples?

Poke around and you won't have any trouble finding things to challenge the position from different angles. Here's a place to start: http://bit.ly/6HU9qj.

A paranormal podcast? Oh come on! That isn't evidence, there is nothing scientific about it.

Mind, you, I'm not making any claims for any of that stuff, as it's not my interest, but the point is that the notion that there's no contrary evidence to the material pov is pure dogma perpetuated by the choir. It's right up there with "evolution is just a theory" as far as eye-rollers go.

So you're going to come here and claim that materialism is flawed because we "dismiss" evidence for a non-brain aspect of mind, but instead of providing any examples or specific studies to the contrary you're going to link to a podcast and an essay, and then when pressed further claim that "I'm not making any claims for any of that stuff, as it's not my interest"

I'm disappointed... I was expecting a real discussion and challenge, instead it's the typical "you're wrong but i'm not going to say why" shit we get all the time.

[theVOID]

I've just finished reading that essay.

Some of the more disagreeable things I noticed;

1. He fails entirely to acknowledge that while the mechanisms that lead to the sense of self are not well understood we have demonstrated as well as anything can be that altering the brain alters the very sense of self a person experiences. We can isolate/disrupt certain regions of the brain and then subject people to certain sensory stimuli; In one study a sudden noise, bright lights and electric shocks all caused the persons in the experiment to react just as they were aware of the stimuli yet they reported absolutely no experience of events during the time in which the electrodes were interfering with the activities of certain parts of their brain - Another study using fMRI scans reported that the brainwave patterns associated with sensory experience and the sense of self are very much distinct.

https://www.weizmann.ac.il/neurobiology/...vation.pdf

This alone is damning to his entire argument as he places sensory experience at the forefront of the sense of self - what we have demonstrated is that reaction to sensory stimuli is mechanical, a case of cause and effect, and that awareness of said sensory stimuli is simply superfluous.

2. He uses patently silly characterizations of materialism, specifically what he calls "strict materialism"; "Strict or ‘radical’ materialists deny the existence of first person experience at all. The underlying argument goes something like this: There is no such thing as sense experience. There can’t be, because everything must be made of matter, sense experience can’t be made of matter, and therefore it doesn’t exist!"

It's completely disingenuous bullshit, even the most hardened materialist philosophers suggest nothing of the kind. Furthermore, the term "strict materialism" is a mainstay not of any materialist literature, but creationist/intelligent design propaganda. There are no "strict materialists" as he defined them.

3. He argues that materialists switch between accepting and then later rejecting self-awareness; "More often materialists are self-contradictory about the existence of first person experience - there can be at one moment an acceptance of the existence of first person experience but later on a denial. The acceptance will show an awareness of the importance of acknowledging first person experience in everyday life. The denial is usually in the context of a philosophical argument about problems with the use of language, or with concepts, when referring to sense experience."

And how does he support this accusation? Quote Mining! He uses two quotes by Philosopher Gilbert Ryle from a 1949 book "Concept of mind".

a) "Much of our ordinary thinking is conducted in internal monologue or silent soliloquy, usually accompanied by an internal cinematograph show of visual imagery."

b) "In short, there are no such objects as mental pictures..."

What Ryle meant by "there are no such objects as mental pictures" was not that the internal monologue does not exist, but that it, and in this case specifically mental pictures, do not exist as distinct objects but are distributes across the brain, it is not a thing in and of it's self, an 'object', but the coalescence of many processes. For a claim about neuroscience by a philosopher in 1949 it has held up extremely well, we now know and have an abundant amount of evidence that the brain is very much a distributed system, especially where it pertains to consciousness. The brain's modelling/mapping process is fairly well understood;

http://www.dtic.mil/cgi-bin/GetTRDoc?AD=...tTRDoc.pdf

4) He's admits that materialists who believe that first-person-experience is a product of the brain (READ: All of them) avoid the "Pinocchio problem" so he goes about for the rest of the article pretty much exclusively attacking his made up category of "strict materialists". Not only that but he would actually have you believe that "Strict Materialists" are the garden-variety type and it is the other materialists who are the rare ones...

EPIC FAIL.

[Fred]

Cool. That's no small agreement, so let's celebrate with a virtual beer here. <clink>

I'm not sure how significant it really is, but I like beer, virtual or otherwise! <clink>

<sniff> You're my first one here. Yeah, <sniff> it's important. Really, though, it's a fundamental point, so I'm damn glad to hear it.

Btw, I've been reading about stuff on these topics for a long time but I've never seen this gnostic bit anywhere else but here. What's that about? Has "hard" and "strong" been replaced or is this an idiosyncracy only practiced here?

Not really, they're much more common (and more useful) terms in my experience. I've never liked the hard/strong distinction, I'd prefer to use more descriptive terms.

Heh. I just wish you guys would nail it down once and for all, so we could put the bald is a hair color phase behind us. Yeah, I dream.

The second link is an archive of papers, hundreds of them, so I wasn't suggesting you read them all. My point was that this isn't at all as settled a question as the Certainists amongst us insist it is. As for the Pinocchio paper, the short version works like this: Materialism is inherently flawed up and down the line.

For what reasons?

See long version. C'mon man. I'm not going to do all the lifting around here. You guys ask for stuff, I give it, then you blow it off or ask me to bullet point it for you. Wtf is with that, as this is the third time today this has come up.

There's no question that the brain directly effects mental experience, but there is no way that it is a given that it's a one-way street and that the mind cannot effect the brain.

That would only be a useful way of looking at it presupposing that mind is not brain whereas materialists would say that Mind == (some of the) Brain, certain parts of the brain and mind are simply indistinguishable, one and the same, this can and has been demonstrated via a myriad of experiments, stimulating or deactivating certain parts of the brain can completely change a persons sense of self or even remove it. A good friend of mine had a brain tumour and post-surgery he was pretty much a completely different person; His attitudes, taste in food, music, art, his temperament, mannerisms and general personality all changed - This is exactly what we would expect to happen given Mind == Brain and (correct me if I'm wrong) precisely not what we would expect if Mind is non-brain, an immaterial mind/self would not be dramatically altered by changes to the brain.

Can we settle this for once and put this one point to bed? Mind not being fully reducible to brain does not mean that mind is independent of brain. Of course changes in the brain effect all the things you say. For the sake of discussion, let's posit everything neuroscience says as far as brain function as true. Just the facts though, not the conclusions you guys then slap on top. I'm Joe Friday this way. Just the facts.

There are scads of studies about this, so go poke around.

I have done an enormous amount of research into neuroscience and the philosophy of mind, it's one of the subjects with which I am the most fascinated. If you have any specific studies you would like me to read please recommend them, but I don't appreciate being sent off on a wild-hunt.

Heh. No problem. You want them summarized before or after I send them? That archive I sent is crawling with articles, go poke around. It's all laid out clearly. You being familiar with the field, you should be able to see if there's anything there of worth.

But right off the top, as often as it is used to dismiss this or that, the Placebo Effect also demonstrates how the mind can effect matter.

If that is what you think the placebo effect is I'd suggest you are the one who needs to do more research. The placebo effect is entirely about the psychology of mind, how perception and expectation can lead to a patient experiencing less of the symptoms of their ailment - There are very few ailments that are actually physically relieved from the placebo effect, all of these that have been studied in any level of detail have been found to have had rather clear mechanisms linking brain and body - Ailments like hernias, anxiety, depression, ulcers, etc all have fairly well understood neuro/chemical causes and changes in the psychology of a person has a causal relationship to the brain's production of various chemicals as well as signals to the body which result in the ailments in question thus we would expect (and can predict) which physical ailments could really be helped by a placebo and will still result in benefits once the person has been told they received an ineffective treatment, as well as which ones (the vast majority) are entirely due to perception/exception and for which the positive effects of the placebo disappear once the person has been told the treatment ineffective.

If you're interested in learning more about the mechanisms of the placebo effect;

http://www.sjsu.edu/faculty/gerstman/Sta...nandez.pdf
http://neuro.cjb.net/content/25/45/10390.full
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/art...3678927629

Wow. That was awesome, Dr. Really. It's like Rhythm with his ants dance. Regardless of it's applicability to the main point, as tangents go, it's the learning channel, and I really like that stuff. I really do mean this. But all that being so, I kind of got stuck on the "very few" at the beginning, and the "vast majority" at the end.

One white crow, and it's a done deal, such is the box you guys built for yourselves. I'm not concerned with the minutia of the placebo effect beyond the simple fact that it is part of a body of larger evidence that shows that mind can effect matter. And the endless repetitions that none of the evidence is valid is not going to change that.

This evidence game is a serious problem, and I have every intention of going straight at it because I may be new here, but I am not new to the dynamic and I know this fucking drill back and forth. I don't mean your post specifically, but the way this whole show is playing out since I popped up.

No, sir. That's not the problem. The problem is that materialists have been shown over and over again to excel at the classic "heads I win/tails you lose" gambit when it comes to evidence that threatens their faith.

It's called the burden of proof - The burden of proof for the claim that the mind and brain are one in the same has been extremely well substantiated -

No. the brain correlates have been extremely well mapped, though there's still a long way to go, but you guys haven't at all nailed anything else down.

The claim you are making, that aspects of the mind are non-brain is the one that hasn't been demonstrated in any way, shape or form.

There are still many aspects of mind and the mechanisms that give rise to it that are not well established and thus we cannot rule out an immaterial aspect of mind (thus the agnosticism) but it is you as the person making the claim that such things exist who has the responsibility to substantiate your claims.

This isn't in any way a case of "heads I win/tails you lose", nor is there any faith involved, it's simple intellectual rigour.

Uh, no. That isn't so. There's a lot of flab instead of rigor, and that's what I want to focus on, not the the minutia of the ants dance or the placebo effect or whatever pet projects anyone has. In short, I am not qualified to yammer about this and that tree, but I know when the woods are burning, and that's what I'm interested in focusing on.

These aspects have been demonstrated over and again, but nothing is ever enough and everything is instantly dismissed.

Examples?

See what I mean? It's a game, Void. A dodge and a weave. It never ends. If I had time enough and love, we could do this for years, and at the end, you'd still be asking for more. It's part of the dance. Look, the best example of this dynamic in full over-blown cartoon fury happened right here in one of my threads.

I posted the bit about the guy with essentially no brain having the IQ of 126 and getting some math degree, and someone slid right by that and said they would be interested in what else the guy could do since a math degree didn't necessarily imply other cognitive areas.

Chew on that a minute, Void.

The point isn't to examine anything. It's to dismiss everything, no matter what, and then go right back to saying there's no evidence yadda.

Poke around and you won't have any trouble finding things to challenge the position from different angles. Here's a place to start: http://bit.ly/6HU9qj.

A paranormal podcast? Oh come on! That isn't evidence, there is nothing scientific about it.

That's the dispassionate spirit we've all come to love with you guys. I know what's in there, so I don't even have to look. Now, give me more, so I don't have to look at that either. And if you can bullet point it, all the better.

Mind, you, I'm not making any claims for any of that stuff, as it's not my interest, but the point is that the notion that there's no contrary evidence to the material pov is pure dogma perpetuated by the choir. It's right up there with "evolution is just a theory" as far as eye-rollers go.

So you're going to come here and claim that materialism is flawed because we "dismiss" evidence for a non-brain aspect of mind, but instead of providing any examples or specific studies to the contrary you're going to link to a podcast and an essay, and then when pressed further claim that "I'm not making any claims for any of that stuff, as it's not my interest"

Look, void. It's just me responding to all of you, and there's a bit else going on, so excuse my sloppy rendering. Let me clear this up. I'm not here to argue the minutia level stuff about NDEs or paranormal stuff per so. It's not my thing. I don't do the skeptic shuffle and follow the arguments. That's what I mean by not qualified, don't care. Meaning, I don't want to get lost while you guys pull out your favorite area of expertise and go into sidebars that shoot right past my thesis.

I can't keep up with all of this, which sucks, because this place is just what I wanted, but didn't know about. I have several fires going with these threads, but they all converge upon my main thesis, so I am going to have to go triage and hit them all in one shot.

I'm not here to say that the materialist argument is wrong. I'm saying it's broken, as it cannot stand up to its own truth claim. It's all going to funnel into the evidence question, which is good because this is seemingly the only arrow you guys have in your quiver. Busted and without a sharp point, whatever, shoot what ya got, I suppose.

I'm disappointed... I was expecting a real discussion and challenge, instead it's the typical "you're wrong but i'm not going to say why" shit we get all the time.

Whatever else, I'm not the same old shit you get all the time, Void. I'll see ya in the other thread if you show up.

[downbeatplumb]

Whatever else, I'm not the same old shit you get all the time, Void. I'll see ya in the other thread if you show up.

I dont think you've seen the 'same old shit' we get here.
Your arguments are looking very familiar.

[Fred]

Whatever else, I'm not the same old shit you get all the time, Void. I'll see ya in the other thread if you show up.

I dont think you've seen the 'same old shit' we get here.
Your arguments are looking very familiar.

Heh. Well, it's a relief to hear that someone finds them familiar. I prefer discussing what I am saying as opposed to what people assume I'm saying, and so far it's far more of the latter than the former. Since they are the same old shit, would you do me the favor of clearly stating what they are? Seriously. My argument about the mythic structure in the Old Wine thread has clearly eluded the folks who have responded to it, so if you can include that one in your list, I'd love to hear how that is the same ol' same ol'.