A question regarding proof

[Fred]

[The Grand Nudger]

[Fred]

I can't fault with anything you've said. But I must add that in future technology, we could very well trigger a thought in the brain, the kind that, given an electric impulse to neurons ABC,PQR, XYZ, etc. and presto, you see yourself flying to Alpha Centauri. My guess is that a lot of people would pay good money to experience that. Are we that far from such technology? Who knows, but the point is that the possibility of relating brain activity with its content might be just one step away from us.

There's no arguing any of this, but the very same thing could be said for future technology that can locate the flying teapot with the unicorn inside. It's promissory materialism. One day we will know is akin to take it on faith. I'm not denying that it could be true, because one day we're going to know stuff that makes us right now seem like the goat herders the atheists mock.

I'm not in any way saying that objective science is wrong, just that it's only half the story when it comes to evidence. This is one of the most puzzling enigmas. It's often said that someone knows something in theory but not in practice, but the materialists have managed to turn this on their heads because on this score they know it in practice, but not in theory. If you don't believe me, ask them about this pony that's running around. In practice, they get the drill perfectly, but in theory, they are completely stumped as to what the problem is.

[fr0d0]

These articles do not mention whether or not any tests were run to determine if some other organ were functioning as his brain

So now the mind can be something other than the brain? Maybe it was the penis (second brain)? Women wouldn't be so lucky!

[The Grand Nudger]

[fr0d0]

I was wide open to anything Rhythm. See my comment sourcing it for you for my own conclusion.

[popeyespappy]

[Ryft]

I dismiss arguments for which there is insufficient evidence.

What about arguments for which there is zero evidence? You likewise dismiss those, right?

Well, apparently not. It seems you are willing to accept things for which there is either insufficient or zero evidence. Unless they are theistic arguments, of course. You consistently dismiss those. But if they are atheistic, then you would just as soon accept them as dismiss them; what the criteria might be for acceptance or dismissal is anyone's guess, but there it is. On what basis do I say this? The fact that you accept any number of things for which there is insufficient evidence (e.g., that induction is a valid epistemic principle) or zero evidence (e.g., that mind states are a product of brain states).

Yes, there is a clear relationship between brain and mind states. But what is that relationship? Causal, you say. Moreover, you even specify the direction of that cause-and-effect relationship, that it is brain states which cause mind states. On what evidence do you draw this conclusion? The embarrassing answer: "none." You base it on the fact that we consistently observe brain states occurring in correlation with mind states. The critical skeptic should recognize that immediately as the fallacy of cum hoc ergo propter hoc, which frankly does not qualify as evidence. (While causation obviously implies correlation necessarily, correlation does not necessarily imply causation. One can think of a hundred examples of A occurring in correlation to B but having no causal relationship.) The fact that it is a fallacy is not the only reason it does not qualify as evidence. There is an even clearer reason still. Even cases where correlation might be said to imply causation (such as our present case), such a conclusion is drawn from inference, not observation. It is the correlation that is observed empirically, while the causal relationship is inferred inductively. Causation requires not only correlation but counterfactual dependence—which is empirically impossible (since we do not have time machines). So not only is there no evidence for this causal relationship, there cannot even be any. What we have evidence for, and lots of it, is correlation. Worse still, since induction suffers from vicious circularity—for induction cannot be justified except inductively—even your inferred causal relationship stands on rather questionable ground.

First, it fails the test of logic. Second, it is a product of inference, not observation. Third, that inference itself is based on a viciously circular epistemic principle. Despite all of this, you accept the argument. (I am ignoring the fact that metaphysical naturalism being true is a self-referentially incoherent position.)

That the mind (and the effects thereof) is directly related to the brain has been demonstrated as much as anything could be demonstrated.

Indeed, the correlation is amply attested by empirical observations. But that is not the question.

That thought is "simply" electrical impulse ... is perhaps a very narrow way of describing it, but what other evidence do we have?

You do not even have evidence for that.

I'm going to side with whatever currently accepted theory science has to offer.

The causal relationship is not falsifiable even in principle, so it fails the science test. This is philosophy, Rhythm, not science.

I'm here more to repeat ... to Fred that if he wishes to state something as existing, or being a part of reality, he's going to have to show some sort of evidence for it.

Why must he do that? If no evidence for the existence of X is provided, then X does not exist? Surely you would not posit something that naive. If no evidence for the existence of X is provided, then you will have no reason to believe X exists? Surely you are not a solipsist; that is, what relevance does your intellectual assent have to the existence of X? Perhaps you have presumed that Fred is supposed to care whether or not you happen to give your intellectual assent to the existence of X. Is that it? These are rhetorical questions, of course, intended to make you stop and think for a brief moment. You really need to set aside your self-stultifying scientism and its handy tropes just long enough to genuinely hear what Fred is underscoring.

[The Grand Nudger]

Fortunately we have many such examples, and this has of course been a productive area of nueroscience. We've even had an example of such experiments recently discussed on this forum of how changes in environment, (even without physically jacking with the brain) can cause changes in self (measured by observations of behaviour and activity) in the case of monkeys, rape benches, and the "pit of despair". That there is a direct relationship between the material and the mind is documented extremely well. Examples of the "mind" altering material reality are not so well demonstrated.

Love it when I get to quote myself. I'll add:
lobotomy, hallucinogens, mood altering pharmecueticals, disease (say, schizophrenia), traumatic head injuries resulting in temporary or permanent amnesia, the effects of asphyxiation, dehydration, and of course lets not forget death. Each one an example of how something that affects the brain leads to an effect of the mind.

Now, I've made my claim in the quote above, perhaps you'll suggest something to the contrary, any "mind over matter" you'd like us to consider Ryft?

So, we watch a brain light up in response to stimulus, what's going on Ryft? What we observe or "the great unknown"?

Not falsifiable even in principle, shenanigans. Lets see if someone can will themselves into the effects of a lobotomy without actually undergoing one. Is there anything you don't believe philosophy to be the appropriate tool for?

Why must he do that? Because that's how science is done. It's called the scientific method, it replaced philosophy in such matters right around 100 years ago. Not everything that can be imagined can be said to exist. A great many things exist that we have not yet discovered, but without evidence any claim to knowledge (including knowledge of existence) about such things is unacceptable. We can speculate on what may exist, but we cannot confidently claim that it does with nothing to substantiate it. If we have one claim that is substantiated by an argument and another which is substantiated by an argument, observations, predictions, results, and reproducibility....they are not on equal terms.

There is no area of science that is built on unfalsifiable claims Ryft. That would, by definition, not be science. Nueroscience is not a faith based position.

[Fred]

I would agree with that to a certain extent, I think we will in time have a better understanding of mind, but I believe the materialist view will be jettisoned as our understanding of reality grows, I agree with the famous quote "scientists finally reach the top of the mountain to find theologians sitting there saying "what took you so long to get here!""

What added value is there by crowbaring in supernatural elements.

None. But I don't see anyone seeking to do so. What do you see that appears to be supernatural in essence and why?

You acknowlege that the the electrical and chemical elements happen.

Of course, because they do happen.

The new neural pathways that make new memories can be observed.

Yes.

That these chemicals and electrical interactions make up the mind is not really in doubt.

This seems to be the accepted view, but the idea that mind is matter has been challenged and those challenges haven't been answered. At best, it's a case of "we don't know yet." That's hardly the same as it not being in doubt.

Just becasue you cant imagine how does not make it not so.

Nobody can imagine how it is so because at present, nobody knows. That's why it's called the hard problem of consciousness, and not one of the easy ones. (Of course, those "easy" ones are actually quite complex, but they can be safely tucked into the "one day we will know" slot because they are theoretically solvable within the current parameters of neuroscience. But the hard problem of why consciousness happens at all is not.

"It is widely believed that physics provides a complete catalogue of the universe's fundamental features and laws. As physicist Steven Weinberg puts it in his 1992 book Dreams of a Final Theory, the goal of physics is a "theory of everything" from which all there is to know about the universe can be derived. But Weinberg concedes that there is a problem with consciousness. Despite the power of physical theory, the existence of consciousness does not seem to be derivable from physical laws. He defends physics by arguing that it might eventually explain what he calls the objective correlates of consciousness (that is, the neural correlates), but of course to do this is not to explain consciousness itself. If the existence of consciousness cannot be derived from physical laws, a theory of physics is not a true theory of everything. So a final theory must contain an additional fundamental component." --David Chalmers

"To explain experience, we need a new approach. The usual explanatory methods of cognitive science and neuroscience do not suffice. These methods have been developed precisely to explain the performance of cognitive functions, and they do a good job of it. But as these methods stand, they are only equipped to explain the performance of functions. When it comes to the hard problem, the standard approach has nothing to say." --David Chalmers

Note that he is not in any way saying that neuroscience is wrong, as he is a staunch supporter of it. He's saying that on the hard problem of why conscious experience arises as conscious experience, the standard model has nothing to say, meaning it hasn't even touched upon the question, let alone answered it.

As our understanding of reality grows so the idea of the supernatural becomes increasingly irrelevant.

True, but our understanding of what is natural expands. A description what was going on on the quantum level would have been seen as absolute batshit crazy supernatural bullshit if someone had been spouting it 50 years before it's discovery. Now, well, naturally, that's the way things operate.

The transition from GTFOoH to Well, Duh, isn't immediate or smooth, but it happens nonetheless. The notion of the primacy of consciousness has absolutely nothing supernatural in it. It's saying that consciousness is a fundamental feature of the universe, and it's hard to get more natural than that, wouldn't you say?

Brian Greene on a discussion with John Wheeler:

"During a lunch we had at Princeton in 1998, I asked [John Wheeler, one of the twentieth -century physics' most celebrated thinkers] what he thought the dominant theme in physics would be in the decades going forward. . . He then slowly looked up and said a single word: 'information'....

"Traditionally, physics focuses on things--planets, rocks, atoms, particles, fields--and investigates the forces that affect their behavior and govern their interactions. Wheeler was suggesting that things--matter and radiation--should be viewed as secondary, as carriers of a more abstract and fundamental entity: information. It's not that matter and radiation were somehow illusory; rather, he argued that they should be viewed as the material manifestations of something more basic. He believed that information--where a particle is, whether it is spinning one way or another, whether its charge is positive or negative, and so on--forms an irreducible kernel at the heart of reality. That such information is instantiated in real particles, occupying real positions, having definite spins and charges, is something like an architect's drawings being realized as a skyscraper. The fundamental information is in the blueprints. The skyscraper is but a physical realization of the information contained in the architect's design.

"From this perspective, the universe can be thought of as an information processor. It takes information regarding how things are now and produces information delineating how things will be at the next now, and the now after that. Our senses become aware of such processing by detecting how the physical environment changes over time. But the physical environment itself is emergent; it arises from the fundamental ingredient, information, and evolves according to the fundamental rules, the laws of physics."

See? It's not about adding anything supernatural, it's about recalibrating what is natural in order to account for what is already fundamentally present.