/sci/ - Science & Math

There is no thinker, only thought

>>4598856
Then the there is no division between self and other.

The crops are all in and the peaches are rotting
The oranges are filed in their creosote dumps
They're flying 'em back to the Mexico border
To take all their money to wade back again
Goodbye to my Juan, farewell Roselita
Adios mes amigos, Jesus e Maria
You won't have a name when you ride the big airplane
All they will call you will be deportees
My father's own father, he waded that river
They took all the money he made in his life
It's six hundred miles to the Mexico border
And they chased them like rustlers, like outlaws, like thieves
The skyplane caught fire over Los Gatos Canyon
The great ball of fire it shook all our hills
Who are these dear friends who are falling like dry leaves?
Radio said, "They are just deportees"
Is this the best way we can grow our big orchards?
Is this the best way we can raise our good crops?
To fall like dry leaves and rot on out topsoil
And be known by no names except "deportees"

Quantum qualia, motherfucker.

>>4598869
Except for the location of the thought

>>4598879
What does this mean?
Where are thoughts located?

>>4598874
whats that and why would you post that it doesn't even address the question

>>4598882
What an odd thing do ask.

The answer is ofcourse the liver

Alan watts has a speech on this topic, somewhere - been looking for it - but not too hard.

>>4598886
Your the one who suggested thought had a location.

>>4598891
The question is strange not because it has no answer, but because you don't know the answer

>>4598895
Why would anyone ask a question in which they already know the answer ?
You said the division between self and other is the location of thought and are now saying you don't know the location of thought.
I think you have no idea what you are talking about.

I is the locus of control of the self, presented verbally to other selves.

>>4598869
Long story, but the fact that you have a self shows you don't belong exclusively to your self. Having a self implies the capacity to take another one's perspective.

>>4598901
The brain, doofus

>>4598906
haha
Like some sort of consciousness ghost exists throughout brain processing?

>>4598903
>>4598903
>but the fact that you have a self shows you don't belong exclusively to your self.
So this makes no sense

>>4598912
No.
The location of the electrical pulses that make up your thoughts is your brain.

>>4598912
The self is the result of early verbalised socialisation which created two correlated functions in your animal brain: one is the capacity to link internal states to observed external states of other people's behaviours and respond appropriately (the onset of theory of mind abilities) and two is the capacity to control this perspective taking in accordance to your goals. So the self is both obedient and "individual". A feral child, for example, neither has a self nor is an individual.

I think I explained more than enough...

>>4598915
so thoughts are some sort of ghost in electrical impulses

>>4598923
No. I have no idea what you're talking about.
I never said anything about ghosts or souls or anything like that.

That is one gorgeous woman.

>>4598924
yeah your implying thoughts somehow exist as a ghost in the machine or something.
Your the one who implied there was a location of consciousness

>>4598922
To whom is the self obedient?

>>4598928
I said there was a location of thought, not conciousness.
Conciousness is just your current thoughts. The jolt of electricity travelling from one side of your brain to the other

>>4598931
To social interaction, d'uh (I was close to say "society", but that's a bit too abstract.) You can't choose whether your brain takes another one's perspective. Once your brain was developed by socialisation and laguage acquisition, the self will be obedient and "individual".

Complex neural circuits, though we don't know which are responsible yet as it's a very, very complex system. One system in the brain that may be related are thalamo-cortical circuits, which may be responsible for binding or "putting together" all the senses into a coherent "snapshot" of reality (temporal binding).

>>4598932
>Conciousness is just your current thoughts
So this is what I am questioning.
"consciousness is my current thoughts" is itself a thought. Do you see what I'm saying, the subject or the 'I' is an object of thought masquerading as a subject. And if the subject is a confused object of thought then the 'other' with whom the self converses is no less mythological than 'I', the 'Me' or the speaker.

>>4598932
> The jolt of electricity travelling from one side of your brain to the other
BTW this is like saying sight is a lightwave travelling from the object to my eye.

>>4598939
You're trying to define self based on nothing but shadowy language (subject I being object of I, etc). The biological self doesn't operate with discrete functions.

>>4598933
> You can't choose whether your brain takes another one's perspective
I don't know what you are talking about?

>>4598951
> The biological self
And so what does this mean?
What is the 'biological self', but a thought?

>>4598953
Then you want to understand the self by playing circular word games around philosophical concepts like object, subject and so on. I think it would be a much more fruitful approach to define the problem in a testable way.

>>4598954
Ah, nevermind, you're a troll. 2/10.

>>4598964
>>4598964
I don't think you get it.
Who is going to do the tests? Who is going to comprehend the results?

>>4598967
It's a legitimate question.
What the hell does 'biological self' mean?

Is there a reason why it's illegal to shoot dualists?

>Still using Qualia
>1970

>>4598988
what has dualism and qualia have to do with this thread.
God you guys are fucking morons.

>>4598941
It is, unless you believe in quale, which is probably why people have brought it up in this thread.

>>4598997
How can you deny qualia?
What colours are you seeing right now?

>>4599004
I think he's denying "qualia as a separate entity from matter".

>>4599004
>How can you deny qualia?
I'm not denying it, I'm simply not accepting it as a hypothesis that's been sufficiently validated yet. At this point, it would just be unreasonable for me to believe in quale, at least in the Jackson sense of the concept.

>>4599004
>>4599008

We have to be careful with word definitions. The internal subjective experience we all call "the color red" most certainly exists. I call things like that 'qualia', but believe they are a currently as-yet not fully understood property of perfectly ordinary matter, such as the electro-chemical system in our brains.

>qualia-scientologists in /sci/

>>4599009
Yeah, I'm referring specifically to the dualistic interpretation of subjective experiences. I'm not questioning the existence of said experiences altogether.

>>4599008
You have no idea what you are talking about and have read far to much dennet

Shit ain't science.

>>4599015
>read far to much dennet
I've never read a single word of his, mostly because he's a compatibilist.

>You have no idea what you are talking about
Give me an argument, or fuck off.

>>4599014
>the existence of said experiences altogether.
What is wrong with you? Everyone except you and dennet uses 'qualia' to mean the above. That is, 'qualia' is pretty much synonymous with subjective experience, experience, subjective phenomenology.
No dualistics connotations, nothing to do with attacking physicalism, your attacking a complete strawman.

>>4599014
Fuck dualism. Realizing that matter, when properly organized, generates things like orgasms and the taste of chocolate, is the coolest thing ever.
It's as mind blowing as finding live faeries living in one's garden.

>>4599009
> but believe they are a currently as-yet not fully understood property of perfectly ordinary matter
So this is what I'm questioning. What is the thing which does the understanding?
Is it thought or the thinker?

>>4599019
>Everyone except you and dennet uses 'qualia' to mean the above.
Almost every proponent of qualia defines them as having non-physical properties, including the people who coined and subsequently popularized the term. I'm increasingly more baffled that you had the fucking balls to accuse *me* of not knowing what I'm talking about, by the way.

>your attacking a complete strawman.
No, I'm not. You're simply grossly unfamiliar with the term itself, its history and the things that have been written about it.

>>4599021
You are such an idiot OMG
You as a taster of chocolate are amazed to find out that tasting chocolate exists?
OMG guys check this shit out matter when properly organized makes this thing called 'taste'.
Woopty shit fuckhead I've tasted all my fucking life.
But cockfucker! the taste of chocolate dudddde, the fucking taste of chcoclate from ordinary matter how amazing!!!111
wow, man, just wow.

>>4599023

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Meme_Machine

Go to a library. Get this book. Read it. Then come back if you have any questions.

>>4599025
>I'm increasingly more baffled that you had the fucking balls to accuse *me* of not knowing what I'm talking about, by the way.
Hahah ok bro what are you a fucking prince

>>4599026
gb2/b/

>>4599019
It's because of "IQ fundie", who has the following argument:
>1. Qualia are subjective experiences that are non-physical in nature.
>2. I definitely feel qualia, so they exist
>3. (1) and (2) there exist non-physical things
>4. (3) materialism is wrong

>>4599030
Which is to say.
Either you include the part of it being non-physical. But then it's obvious that people may want to reject it.
Or you define it as something physical. Then people have no problem accepting it.

I have no problem with the existence of "taste", or my internalized representation of "blue". I merely reject that these things are non-physical in nature.

>>4599027
So what is the thing which reads?
When 'I' read a book, what is the 'I', the thinker of thoughts or thought itself.

>>4599026
Yes. No spirits. No ghosts. No gods. Just electron clouds interacting. And somehow, that creates... us.

I operate on a level above yours, and have learned to appreciate the little things in life, and how amazing the most perfectly ordinary things are. The fact that you belittle this idea means you still take your existence for granted. You're still a child. Give it a few years, and if you have an existential crisis or two, you may learn something.

>>4599036
No I mean you just have such a scientific view of 'ordinary matter' that it surprises you when you find out that the taste of chocolate exists in the universe, when you yourself are a taster of chocolate.
>eats chocolate all his life
>learns about materialism
>OMG how can this be the taste of choclate exists OMFG 'ordinary matter OMG amazing amazing
Meanwhile I eat your chocolate then fuck your cockhole with a spoon

On an unrelated note, when the slithy toves gyre and gimble in the wabe, do the mome raths and the Bandersnatch go snicker-snack in the tulgey wood?

>>4599041
>I eat your chocolate then fuck your cockhole with a spoon

>When 'I' read a book, what is the 'I', the thinker of thoughts or thought itself.

>>4599041
It's not the taste that surprises me.

It's finding out that the chocolate bar, and the taster, also known as 'me', are both made of the exact same fundamental particles following the exact same rules.

>>4599051
Ok so what is the 'me'. Is it the thinker of thoughts or is it thought itself?

>>4599053
The thinker.

/thread

>>4599053
"There is as yet insufficient data for a meaningful answer."
-Isaac Asimov, "The last question"

>>4599059
How could any data answer this questioin?
Who is going to interpret the data?

>>4599061
>Who is going to interpret the data?
God.

/thread

>>4599057
>The thinker.
So this is a thought
"I am thinking my thoughts" is itself a thought.
What is the structure of thought? I think thought is mechanical.

>>4599064
You're right.

/thread

>>4599063
lol