/sci/ - Science & Math

No neuropsychologists here?

Well, since this thread won't go anywhere how about a new topic: is reading the easiest and most effectively way to keep increase your brain's neuroplasticity?

>>5161021
Can't quantify a thought.

>>5161021
There aren't any scientists here. Just people who are good really good at calc. but anyway,

>http://live.wsj.com/video/how-the-brain-wiring-forms-thoughts-and-emotions/EA1F50CA-62D0-46EA-85
F3-1AA82B8572A8.html#!EA1F50CA-62D0-46EA-85F3-1AA82B8572A8
>http://capricorn.bc.edu/moralitylab/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/SaxeYoung_CogNeuroToM.pdf

>>5161054
Expound on that. I have this idea that thoughts are as singular as we like to conceptualize them but rather a thought is a continuously changing thing that has no beginning nor end.

>>5161055
Thank you

>>5161064
*aren't as singular

>>5161047
Not just reading
You have to read and understand different and varied things.

>>5161077
But that's effectively what the goal of reading is.

Google this shit fool

OP thoughts aren't formed, consciousnesses is metaphysical.

>>5161104
I'm not sure which keywords to use.
>>5161108
What you're basically saying is that the mind is independent of the brain. That's not the case.

>>5161144
>>5161108

Let's fight over the difference between 'thought' and 'thinking'! I'll get the axes!

>>5161156
But there's no need. I was only asking what the physiology behind thought was. Obviously physical occurs in the brain that leads to thought.

Bump.

>>5161144
Scientifically speaking there is no such thing as "mind". If you want to dwell in untestable spiritualism nonsense, do it on /x/. On /sci/ we don't use unscientific terminology.

>>5161191
0/10

>>5161195
Fuck off Carl

>tfw no physicalism because of qualia

>>5161195
>>5161191
samefag trolling himself

>>5161191
Yes, because self-awareness is purely the result of chemical interactions.

>>5161197
>Offers no evidence
>resorts to ad hominem

back to >>>/x/ faggot

>>5161205
Please give a scientific definition of your mystical "self-awareness", provide a test and explain where it is needed for any explanation, i.e. where anything cannot be explained in terms of physics and biochemistry. Untestable metaphysical nonsense goes to >>>/x/

>>5161205
I'm not the guy you're replying to but isn't that the case? There's always talk about the mind behind the none-physical component of a person's being, but the mind wouldn't exist without the body...So how is it not just chemical interactions?

>>5161206
Troll harder.

>tfw no one's interested in thread until a troll appears
Why can't we ever have meaningful discussion, guys?

>>5161210
>scientific definition of your mystical "self-awareness"

It's self-explanatory you idiot. We are aware of ourselves, as opposed to acting based on instinct. The problem with your statement of it being "metaphysical nonsense" is that self awareness - as of yet - can't be explained due to our lack of understanding of the human mind and therefore can only be conjecture. Bitch.

>>5161213

>huehue ill just pretend i don't understand him

back to >>>/x/ faggot

>>5161218
It isn't self-explanatory. Please define it scientifically and provide evidence that your metaphysical phenomenon exists. "Hurr you have to believe" is not a valid proof on a science board.

>>5161220
>is asked to troll harder
>does troll harder

Good job.

>>5161210
Mirror test.

What's a thought, anyway? Are you talking about a percept, or a memory? Are you talking about a plan to move a part of your body, or are you talking about using language? Are you talking about 'remembering' many objects at once, or perhaps recalling a visual scene? Or maybe you just mean something as simple as a snail habituating to being poked.

>>5161226
The mirror test tests the ability to detect mirrors, nothing else. Various arbitrary interpretations are unscientific and not justified.

>>5161229
>Thought generally refers to any mental or intellectual activity involving an individual's subjective consciousness. It can refer either to the act of thinking or the resulting ideas or arrangements of ideas. Similar concepts include cognition, sentience, consciousness, and imagination.[1]

>>5161226
Can't really prove anything. Creature X has evolved socially so it recognizes itself in the mirror? So what, I can't see how that can prove consciousness exists. As far as I know, I'm the only conscious being in the universe.

>>5161222
Now you're just going in circles. Pic related - it's your reasoning.

>>5161225
shitposting neckbeards like you are the cancer of /sci.

plz leave >>>/x/

>>5161235
So because subjective consciousness cannot be defined, it is necessarily impossible to find a neural basis for it.

All of what I mentioned, however, has a neural basis. It's completely unnecessary to evoke something as meaningless as "thought" to explain how the brain works and what the brain does.

>>5161239
I am not going in circles. I am merely asking you to give a scientific definition of your phenomenon and to explain its relevance in scientific theories.

>>5161240
Nice projection, troll.

>>5161240
I haven't been active on /sci/ since EK's trip was cracked, who is this guy?

>>5161231

Oh god is you again.....mirror tests test for self awareness.

>>5161255
What if I make a robot that can touch its head when it sees itself in a mirror? Is that robot self aware?

>>5161248
Who says it can't be defined? We simply don't know enough about the brain yet to define it but surely it can be defined. Consciousness doesn't exist "just because".

>>5161231

Give an example of an "arbitrary interpretation" that doesn't involve self-awareness and properly explains their behavior in the mirror test.

>>5161263

>Is a robot that [...] sees itself in a mirror?
>Is that robot self aware?

Yes, anon. If you can recognise yourself you're self-aware.

>>5161273
I want trolls to leave. At least the bad ones.

>>5161273

I should note that you should be able to recognise yourself with an extremely high level of accuracy. If your robot has a bar code it scans to recognise itself, it's not self-aware because it responds to the barcode rather than the entirety of its behavior.

Basically any thread starting with
>[....cally speaking....]
is not worth responding to.

>>5161277
>given inconvenient answer
>accuses people of trolling

It sounds like you've already made up your mind that self-awareness c.s. are false, so you're just going to close your ears and shout "nananana I can't hear you" when anybody suggests a way to actually have those terms be compatible with determinism.

You're only embarrassing your future self as long as you keep hanging out with the counterculture-for-its-own sake troupe.

>>5161302
That was my only post in this thread, your hyper defensiveness is really funny.

Wait, my hard just saw itself in the mirror, and bent. My hair must be self aware!

(No sensory input? OK, I'll throw my Arduino at the mirror and make it flash an LED. Self aware AVRs for everyone!)

>>5161255
Asserting something wrong doesn't make it less wrong. Your conclusion is incorrect. Observed behaviour does not allow to conclude metaphysical phenomena.

>>5161295
>implying sage does anything

>>5161249
>>5161240
Why do you samefag?

>>5161273
0/10

>>5161268
It is fully explained by biochemical and electrical signals in the brain.

>>5161318
That Carl poster isn't me.

I was reading.hearing about this a few days ago.

Basically, some neurologists are teaming up with geneticists to break this down.

We usually think of memories as being electrically stored in an individual neuron, but that doesn't really leave enough room to hold all of your memories. Instead, certain genes may be activated and 'saved for later' in different neurons. When you need to recall something, your brain will go looking for those genes that were activated and through some process we haven't figured out yet, voila, memory.

storing memories on genes leaves A LOT more room that individual neural cells.

>>5161331
how many megabytes doews 1 neurun hab?

What do you mean by thought?

This isn't really an easy question to answer. As to answer this requires explain how and from where attention arises from which involves explaining memory.

I don't particularly care to summarize several years of undergraduate/graduate neuroscience into a couple of paragraphs. If you have a more specific question I'll happily answer that.

>>5161331
Would that be a way to explain instincts (which are basically learned memories that are stored over generations)? This really excites me since I'm currently undecided between majoring in neuroscience or genetics. Can you link the study/article?

>>5161354
Basically how does a thought form? Thought in this case will be the response to external stimuli. You see something, it causes a reaction in your brain, a thought is formed. Physiologically speaking how does this reaction occur and does it terminate or is it continuous?

>>5161362

I am not that guy, but...

Instincts are particularly interesting. There appears to be some evidence for it residing in the genome (although it is clearly a neuronal response involving the amygdala). There was an interesting study done on monkeys that were removed at birth from their mothers that still demonstrated a fear response to snakes(?) I believe but not spiders(?), despite never having encountered either. It's been a while since I read this study (undergrad years), but I believe they measured a spike in activity in the amygdala and the visual processing areas (possibly hippocampus as well). That last bit could all be bullshit may have gotten the scary things backwards. Like I said it's been a few years.

Google for the study I am sure you'll find more.

These debates always seem to become a question of whether mind is separated from the physical world. If you poke a screwdriver in someone's brain and stir it around a bit, depending on where you poke it, your "mind" won't be able to preform the same way it did if you did not damage the physical brain. If you tear apart the correct area of the brain, you will no longer be self aware. This seems pretty obvious.

>>5161368

Quick answer: Something captures you attention (auditory, visual, whatever). This eventually results in cortical activation The Cortex and your basal ganglia form a loop with GABAergic (inhibitory) and Glutamatergic (stimulatory) neurons. This loop feeds back on itself via the thalamus and a cycle of stimulation goes round and round. Each iteration is like choosing a thought/program/whatever. At some point dopamine is released from components int he basal ganglia and acts on various components of the loop to select one of these programs/thoughts/whatever.

While I doubt that process is synonymous with consciousness. It almost certainly underpins it. There isn't a clear seat of consciousness in the brain so it's difficult to go further without entering quite quickly into a realm in which things aren't really settled.

>>5161397

Yes and no. It's perfectly possible consciousness is simply a result of much more complicated neural networks involving multiple components of the brain. eg, it is a product of the intertalk between the striatum, cortex, hippocampus, amygdala, PFC, etc. And while you can damage any of those individual areas and change conciousness none of them are necessary.

That's actually a really shit explanation and anyone who knows anything about neuro will see that, but it'll suffice for getting the point across that consciousness could be distributed as opposed to concentrated.

>>5161374
Gonna piggyback on this

Human babies are afraid of physical stimuli for the most part. Seeing a snake could make them uncomfortable, but they would not know that it should be avoided. I would hypothesize that the need for innate fear like this was not selected for in human evolution once we learned how to collaborate and form tribes that could be effective teachers.

There was a famous scientist/psycho that was testing nature vs nurture in small children.

He found a way to kidnap infants and then expose them to a variety of stimuli and train them to fear things we would think of as irrational fears.

The most famous example is that he would give these infants white fluffy items (blankets, rabbits, etc) and he would bang on a bell or something that made a harsh clanging sound. He quickly taught these infants to associate white fluffy things with pain and discomfort.

Apparently, these same infants were revisited in their adolescence and adulthood and were still afraid of these unusual stimuli.

>>5161402
Is this process continuous or does it end, signifying that a new thought is formed?

>>5161413

Difficult to say. A brain is not like a computer in the sense that circuits can be turned on and off. Most often when we say activation we mean a change in the spike rate of neurons (most neurons will depolarize or activate at a fairly constant rate even if isolated from the rest of the brain. The rate varies depending on the cell. It is possible to modulate this level/rate of activation to be either slower than normal or faster than normal. It becomes quite difficult to draw a clear distinction as to when and where a cycle ends and where it starts.

In theory yes the system returns to base line after a program/though has been selected and then passed on to its effector regions in the cortex.

>>5161021

neuroscience

>science

>>5161424
>shitposting
What would you call it then?

How can someone can deny that they, the agent of thought, exist of physical components? In order for one to think, one must possess a brain. (If you do not believe this, then please decapitate yourself and try to articulate a clever response.)

This should be enough for one to realize that consciousness (including the process of thought) is the sum of ones neurological activity (which, to be clear, is decidedly physical)

Whether string theory or any other TOE can validate the claim that ALL existence is ENTIRELY physically deterministic; the vast majority of anything that you or I will ever experience or think of will be related to something physical. A model of the brain (to yield a deduction of thought, anyway) would only require chemical precision.

Regardless of whatever philosophical notion that anyone has of what the word "thought" really "means", it is impossible to deny that we, being human, are composed cells which (unyielding to human belief) behave according to the laws of chemistry. Again, these laws happen to describe anything that is certain to exist.

Simply because we haven't the computational power to analyze the entire brain in every dimension does not necessitate that thought is metaphysical (even tho thinking iz so hard sumtime!)

>>5161464
I agree without you, however when I think of metaphysical it isn't necessarily synonymous with religious associations.

>Meta- (from Greek: μετά = "after", "beyond", "with", "adjacent", "self"), is a prefix used in English (and other Greek-owing languages) to indicate a concept which is an abstraction from another concept, used to complete or add to the latter.

When people say such things as "the mind is metaphysical" that doesn't automatically mean it's not physical; quite the contrary, instead, (I think) they would be saying that the mind is an abstraction of the brain, a part of it.

>>5161464
Why do you support the untestable concept of a "consciousness" (=soul)? It has no scientific basis. You can make the claim that this entity arises from neuronal activity, but it is not testable whether that claim is true or not. All we can objectively observe is the neuronal activity. Your metaphysical entity is irrelevant to science and its existence or non-existence makes no difference at all. Occam's razor tells us to not believe claims with no evidence.

>>5161487
What it means is that it isn't subject of science and any claims regarding a metaphysical phenomenon are irrelevant and can be dismissed for lack of evidence.

Thoughts are the qualia your tulpas form.

>>5161493
>isn't subject of science
>can be dismissed for lack of evidence.
If its not science then you can't dismiss it simply on grounds of lack of evidence, those are the rules science plays by, not the rules not-science plays by.

>>5161210
>>5161191

Inquiring into the nature of our subjective experience is not "untestable spiritualism nonsense", but a form of rational inquiry itself.

Science deals with the external, objective reality of the universe. Science is able to explain, for example, that sound is a wave propogating through a medium and that our ears can interpret this sound. But this gives us no indication whatsoever of the subjective experience of hearing.

Our moment to moment experience gives no indication whatsoever of the biological mechanisms taking place in our brains and bodies. Science by nature cannot deal with subject experience, but that does not mean subjective experience is not a legitimate area of rational inquiry.

You seem to be denying the fact that subjective experience takes place at all.

>>5161222
7/10
you're doing good.

>>5161494
First of all it's "/sci/ - science and math" and not "/sci/ - rational philosophical inquiry". Secondly even rational inquiry suggests to dismiss the existence of metaphysical phenomena for lack of evidence. Occam's razor.

>>5161498
Occam's razor is not restricted to use in science. It is a general principle of rationality.

>>5161502
Do you have anything worthwhile to contribute or are you just shitposting?

>>5161512
>Occam's razor is not restricted to use in science. It is a general principle of rationality.
Occam's razor lacks rigor.

OP that is an extremely open, very complicated question.

There isn't any way to answer it meaningfully in an online thread.

Substance dualism. /thread

>>5161508

You don't seem to understand the difference between subjective experience and "metaphysics".

Phenomena which humans experience can be explained and investigated in two ways. They can be explained in terms of the physics and biology of the processes, or they can be explained phenomenologically (what they feel like subjectively).

An emotion such as happiness is not "metaphysical", it is a physical process taking place in the body, and it is experienced subjectively as positive state of mind (difficult to describe emotional states). But just because it is in our subjective experience does not mean it is metaphysical. That's like saying that "hearing" is metaphysical, when it is just how our brains interpret (and how we subjectively experience) the information encoded in sound waves.

By paying attention to and observing our subjective experience, without making any claims about the nature of the universe from them, we can glean some insight about the nature of subjective experience itself.

>>5161494

> no indication of the subjective experience of hearing

The subjective experience of hearing can be objectively determined, but this determination may not be readily comprehensible by another subject. This, though, does not mean that the experience is not physical.

> moment to moment experience gives no indication whatsoever of the biological mechanisms taking place in our brains and bodies

bro, u got ur causality rong

>>5161530

I never said that sound/hearing wasn't physical, all I said is that there is a difference between the physical account and the phenomenological account of the phenomena. There is the physical phenomena of sound, and then there is how we subjectively experience it.

While we might not know as much about consciousness as we do about hearing, it's basically the same principle I imagine.

As for your causality comment I don't understand what you mean. I never suggested that subjective experience comes before the physical processes, and in fact I never even suggested that they weren't the exact same thing.

>>5161519
Your statement makes no sense. Occam's razor is not a theory, it's a principle you apply.

>>5161525
This is a science board. You can post your deep philosophical insights on /lit/ or /x/. On /sci/ we don't want claims that can't be tested or backed up by evidence.

>>5161524
Eliminative materialism. /thread

from action potentials.

There's no qualitative difference between the "thoughts" you have, a dog has, a rat has, a small fish has, or an insect has.

>>5161568

>On /sci/ we don't want claims that can't be tested or backed up by evidence.

First of all they are not "philosophical insights", all I am saying is that by observing our subjective experience (and we KNOW that subjective experience is a phenomena which arises naturally in the universe) we can gain some kind of insight into it.

If you put your hand into a fire and it hurts, that experience is evidence to you that putting your hand in fire is not an enjoyable experience. While something like that may or may not be explainable scientifically, it doesn't change the fact that you now KNOW that putting your hand in fire is painful.

As long as we do not make any kind of claim about the nature of the universe, and as long as we are honest about what we can and cannot know, inquiry into our subjective experience does provide us with a kind of evidence. Due to the nature of subjective experience we cannot express that evidence from one person to another, but that is a problem of language and communication, not a flaw of the evidence itself.

>>5161568
>Occam's razor is not a theory, it's a principle you apply.
yes, and that principle is ill-defined, and lacks any real basis. It doesn't actually mean anything, and appealing to it is vacuous.

>>5161580
>There's no qualitative difference between the "thoughts" you have, a dog has, a rat has, a small fish has, or an insect has.
Yes there is.

>>5161585
>by observing our subjective experience
Show me how I can observe your subjective experience.

>>5161588
Science is based on empiricism and rationality. If you deny rationality, you deny science.

>>5161603
Prove it.

>>5161603
No there isn't. They're all just organised systems of action potentials. The only significant difference is the number of neurons involved.

>>5161611
Yes, except the quality of being mine is not possessed by the thoughts of dogs. Thus there is a qualitative difference.

>>5161610
>Science is based on empiricism and rationality. If you deny rationality, you deny science.
But we're not talking about science, we're talking about not-science see: >>5161498
So you can't really appeal to what science is the framework of things that aren't science.

>>5161610
>Prove it.
You are structurally different from them. Therefore, your thoughts are different from them.

>>5161610

We both know that you cannot translate an experience one person is having so that another person is having it too. Explaining a subjective experience to someone who has never had such an experience is like trying to explain what red looks like to someone who was born blind.

This does not mean that we cannot observe our own subjective experience. Also, to completely ignore a naturally occuring phenomena such as subjective experience, just because it is difficult to convey information/evidence from one person to the next, is I think unscientific.

we dont have that much technology yet OP

This video should provide a better explanation than I've been able to. Neuroscientist Sam Harris discusses meditation and consciousness:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O2tEQPNG198

>>5161619
What qualitative difference is there?

>>5161623
I am appealing to rationality. Do you want to dismiss rationality? Then you implicitly dismiss science.

>>5161630
Non-sequitur.

>>5161636
>We both know
Then you agree that it is not scientifically testable and thus does not belong on /sci/?

>Also, to completely ignore a naturally occuring phenomena
If it cannot be measured or observed physically, then it doesn't exist.

>>5161652
He's a pseudo-philosophical crackpot. Regardless of his former science background he has completely left science and is now talking nothing but pseudoscientific nonsense on /x/ level.

>>5161660
>What qualitative difference is there?
one possesses a quality the others do not have, that is in itself a qualitative difference.

>>5161660
>I am appealing to rationality. Do you want to dismiss rationality? Then you implicitly dismiss science.
your little slippery slope argument confuses me. If i dismiss rationality for X i must do it for Y? We're not talking about science, we've never been. Why would it impact science at all?

>>5161660

>Then you agree that it is not scientifically testable and thus does not belong on /sci/?

This is the internet, stop being such a /sci/ nazi.

>If it cannot be measured or observed physically, then it doesn't exist.

So you have never experienced anything, ever. Subjective experience does not exist. There is only waves propgating through mediums, there is no "hearing"; there is only transfer of energy, no "taste"; there is no such thing as "seeing", there is just fluctuations in the electromagnetic medium.

How can you possibly be sitting at a computer right now, obviously experiencing the world, and deny that subjective experience even exists.

>He's a pseudo-philosophical crackpot

That is just wrong. Many neuroscientific studies have shown the benefits of rational self inquiry such as meditation. These benefits have been shown to include increasing grey matter thickness by up to 40% in some areas, increased activity in prefrontal cortex associated with positive effect, increased neuronal connections in brain regions associated with concentration and compassion, and decreased connectivity in brain regions associated with emotions such as anger, hatred, etc.

>>5161687

2/10

>>5161679
Didn't answer my question. Please show me the evidence for your claim.

>>5161681
Either you accept rationality or you don't.

>>5161687
>This is the internet, stop being such a /sci/ nazi.
This is /sci/. Stop being an anti-intellectual /b/tard.

>So you have never [...] there is just fluctuations in the electromagnetic medium.
Correct.

>How can you possibly be sitting at a computer right now,
Me sitting at a computer is the result of deterministic physical and biochemical processes.

>That is just wrong.
The following sentences in your post did not support this statement, they were unrelated.

>>5161725
>Didn't answer my question. Please show me the evidence for your claim.
the claim is self evident. I possess thoughts which are 'mine' a dog's thoughts are mine. This is a quality. Thus they differ qualitatively.

>>5161725
>Either you accept rationality or you don't.
why?

>>5161725
Do you not have any feelings or awareness? You are a p-zombie.

>>5161725

I can't help but think you are intentionally misinterpreting everything I'm saying.

>This is /sci/. Stop being an anti-intellectual /b/tard.

As I have stated over and over again science is not the only form of rational inquiry. And there is enough neuroscientific evidence backing it up for it to be /sci/.

>Correct.

You are now denying that you have ever experienced any emotions, any sensory perceptions, and any thoughts. These are what constitute our subjective experience.

>Me sitting at a computer is the result of deterministic physical and biochemical processes.

Again, this is something that I have addressed before. I agree ENTIRELY that we are the result of physical and biochemical processes. What you don't seem to comprehend is that the physical mechanisms and our subjective experience are different accounts of the same thing. Just because an emotion is caused by physical processes does not mean that we cannot feel happy or sad or whatever.

>The following sentences in your post did not support this statement, they were unrelated.

Sam Harris is an advocate of meditation. You said he was a "pseudo-philosophical crackpot",
presumably because of this, and so I provided evidence that meditation is a valid area of scientific research. I can't think of any other thing that Sam Harris talks about that could lead you to label him as you did.

You could be the greatest scientist on the planet studying the most complex field of study there is, quantum thermodynamics say. But no matter how engrossed you are in this, you cannot escape from the fact that these are just thoughts arising in the present moment. You cannot escape from subjective experience.

>>5161729
>the claim is self evident
It isn't. Please stop making baseless assertions and provide scientific evidence.

>>5161731
Law of the excluded middle.

>>5161740
Everyone is a "p-zombie". Occam's razor tells us to not accept magic for which there is no evidence. Thus the untestable distinction between "p-zombies" and owners of a magical soul / consciousness is arbitrary and meaningless.

>>5161817
>Law of the excluded middle.
does not apply

>>5161817
>It isn't. Please stop making baseless assertions and provide scientific evidence.
science does not concern itself with qualitative statements. What you are asking for makes no sense.

>>5161817
>Everyone is a "p-zombie".
I am not. I experience qualia. I'm fine if you do not, however.

>>5161832

Just felt like adding the youtube description of qualia:

Qualia is a term used in philosophy to refer to individual instances of subjective, conscious experience. The term derives from a Latin word meaning for "what sort" or "what kind." Examples of qualia are the pain of a headache, the taste of wine, the experience of taking a recreational drug, or the perceived redness of an evening sky. Daniel Dennett writes that qualia is "an unfamiliar term for something that could not be more familiar to each of us: the ways things seem to us."Erwin Schrödinger, the famous physicist, had this counter-materialist take: "The sensation of colour cannot be accounted for by the physicist's objective picture of light-waves. Could the physiologist account for it, if he had fuller knowledge than he has of the processes in the retina and the nervous processes set up by them in the optical nerve bundles and in the brain? I do not think so."

>>5161766
>I can't help but think you are intentionally misinterpreting everything I'm saying.
No, I'm not. This is what you are doing.
>As I have stated over and over again science is not the only form of rational inquiry.
Irrelevant. This is a board dedicated to science and math.
>And there is enough neuroscientific evidence backing it up for it to be /sci/.
In an earlier post of yours you already admitted that your claims are not testable by means of science.
>What you don't seem to comprehend is that the physical [...] are different accounts of the same thing.
Physical processes stay physical. There is no reason to believe that they produce unobservable magic which has no effects.
>Sam Harris is an advocate of meditation. You said he was a "pseudo-philosophical crackpot",
Meditation means practicing spiritualism. He is also an advocate of metaphysical philsophical soul / consciousness nonsense. This has nothing to do with science anymore.
>I provided evidence that meditation is a valid area of scientific research
You didn't provide evidence. Argument by authority is a fallacy. Only the effects of meditation are scientifically researched. The practice of meditation remains an /x/ topic.
>I can't think of any other thing that Sam Harris talks about that could lead you to label him as you did.
See above. Most of what he's talking is pure philosophy without scientific basis.

>>5161844
This is an irrelevant pop-philosophy description of qualia.

>>5161827
Then you are dismissing logic.

>>5161831
So you admit that your claim was unscientific? Please do not make baseless claims on a science board. Maybe >>>/x/ is the right board for you.

>>5161832
Please provide evidence of your magical "qualia".

>>5161856
>Then you are dismissing logic.
In some cases yes. Buridan's ass would starve.

>>5161844
That was wikipedia, not youtube, and everyone on /sci/ already knows what qualia are supposed to be. There is still no evidence for their existence.

>>5161856
>Please provide evidence of your magical "qualia".
in what way is it magical?

>>5161856
My evidence is my own experience. If you had qualia, you would not ask for evidence of their existence.

>>5161864
>There is still no evidence for their existence.
qualia is that which we experience every waking moment, that which we cannot help but experience, of what could there be more evidence?

>>5161866
You are proposing the existence of something supernatural, something that cannot be tested by means of science. Without evidence your claim is meaningless.

>>5161872
>>5161873
"Hurr you have to believe" does not count as evidence. Please provide objectively verifiable evidence.

>>5161884
I have qualia, so they exist. What is so hard to appreciate?

Also, the fact that the word "qualia" exists in English dictionaries and is appreciated by countless publications dating back to the beginning of civilization is solid evidence for other non-zombies having experienced them, too.

>>5161903
I have experienced god, therefore he exists. Why is that so hard to appreciate?

The fact that the word "God" exists in English ditionaries and is appreciated by countless pubilcations dating back to the beginning of civilization is solid evidence for other non-zombies having experienced Him, too.

>>5161903
If I claimed to have a non-interacting invisible ghost in my closet, would you believe me? I hope not. Thankfully I do not make such claims. You on the other hand did. It's just rational to ask for evidence.

>>5161884

The hottest woman on the planet could walk up to this guy and ask for sex and his response would be "PROVE YOUR VAGINA MAKES ME FEEL GOOD LOL NO OBJECTIVE EVIDENCE".

>>5161915
>>5161917

There is a vital difference that you are missing. "Qualia" just refers to the range of things which we can experience as humans. This includes consciousness, thoughts, emotions, sensory perceptions, etc. We do not need objective evidence to know that we think, or that we feel emotions. We directly experience it ourselves.

You cannot make the same argument for god because that would require you to make claims about the nature of the universe based on your subjective experience. We are saying: "this is what we experience" (qualia), not "this is what we experience, therefore god exists".

Even if you saw god or a ghost, the chances are that you are just hallucinating.

It is rational to ask for evidence, but it is not rational to ask for evidence that humans are capable of experiencing thought, and emotion, and sensory perception. We KNOW that we experience all those things. That is qualia. And to deny that we experience it is the most profound lack of understanding of evidence that I can think of.

>>5161944
I have GALLONS of evidence that humans and other organisms have sensory perceptions, emotion, and other complex processing of these and other factors. Neuroscientists have been working on these problems for decades. In not one of the ~100 or so papers were 'qualia' or 'the soul' called on to explain any of these phenomena.

I admit that I know what you mean by subjective experience or whatever, but it's completely trivial. You do not need to evoke this "mechanism" to explain any objective observations about the nervous system or animal behavior, fundie.

>>5161944
This is a science board and nothing is excluded from the burden of proof. If you make a claim, please provide evidence to back it up. Your "hurr you have to believe" argument is no different from any /x/tard trying to defend his irrational baseless claims against scientific reasoning.

>>5161962
In not one of the ~100 or so papers that were published on these topics in the last month in neuro journals, i mean.

>>5161962

You might not need it to explain objective reality, but why isn't subjective experience itself considered a valid area of rational inquiry.

The fact that we cannot escape our subjective experience to me shows that it is anything but trivial. Subjective experience is the only kind of experience there is. It is all that we are. And by gaining a better understanding of it, we are able to investigate things such as what consciousness is, how best to be happy, etc.

Also "qualia" has nothing whatsoever to do with the soul. There is no soul. The physical structure of the brain and of the human body allow us to experience. It is this experience that is refered to as qualia. It is not some entity residing in the body, it is just a term given to the range of subjective experiences that humans have.

>>5162002
>rational inquiry.
Feel free to do rational inquiry all day. As long as it isn't scientific, it doesn't belong on /sci/ though.

>Also "qualia" has nothing whatsoever to do with the soul. There is no soul.
Qualia and consciousness are just different labels for the soul, i.e. untestable metaphysical phenomena that are somehow supposed to take place in the brain but have no evidence.

>>5161969

There is seriously something wrong with your brain if you don't understand that direct perception is a kind of evidence.

Even when you are observing a scientific experiment designed to provide evidence, you are still observing it with your senses, from your subjective viewpoint. If subjective experience does not occur, then how could we percieve an experiment in the first place?

>>5162002
No, we can investigate how to be happy without evoking something as trivial as subjectivity. People doing neuromodulator research (dopamine, serotonin, opiods, etc) have been making more headway into chemical and behavioral solutions to this problem than people doing pointless mental masturbation in arm chairs of philosophy departments.

Consciousness is not important to understand because it isn't needed to explain any observations about the nervous system or behavior. Even "unconciousness" (something different) associated with sleep and anesthesia can be explained away by changing parameters of meaningful cognitive processes that can be directly studied (in this case, memory).

Yeah, that's cool, you can rename subjectivity if you want. I'm fine with that. Just don't delude yourself that it's useful for explaining anything that can be defined objectively.

>>5162023
Evidence in science has to be objectively verifiable and experimental observations have to be repeatable and reproducable.

>>5162020
>Qualia and consciousness are just different labels for the soul

That is just so unbelievably wrong it's mindboggling. I'm really starting to think that you're just a troll. How can you actually equate a phenomena like CONSCIOUSNESS which we all experience, to the SOUL, an outdated religious concept.

If you were not conscious, you could not type. You couldn't do ANYTHING apart from automatic behaviour such as breathing and heart-beating.

"Consciousness is the quality or state of being aware of an external object or something within oneself."

"The soul, in many mythological, religious, philosophical, and psychological traditions, is the incorporeal and, in many conceptions, immortal essence of a person, living thing, or object."

Consciousness is a by product of the workings of the brain, it has nothing whatsoever to do with the soul.

>>5162041
>If you were not conscious, you could not type.
False, false, false, false. All that you require is a system that can map some input (in this case, photons on the retina and proprioception from muscles) to some output, and a representation of some goal. All of this can be done with a nervous system (apparently), or an equivalent system. At no point is "consciousness" required of this system, unless you mean that the system can do work on it's environment. If that's what you mean, I ask that you show me a thermodynamics textbook that evokes consciousness to explain phenomena.

>>5162041
Did you bother reading the rest of the post you are quoting? It explains why you are wrong. No matter how much you try to twist semantics, there is no untestable magic in our brain. There's just physics and biochemistry going on. Humans are biological robots responding to outer stimuli. We evolved and there's nothing special or magical about us. By relabeling spiritual or religious nonsense you achieve nothing.

>>5161687
>lists a bunch o objective phenomena
>calls them subjective

Your education has been so deprived that you've reached the conclusion that human response to stimuli is somehow magical and transcendental, or as you would put it "subjective".

>>5162041
>claims to be not religious
>believes that physical processes can produce untestable magic

Can't tell if low tier troll or actually mentally deficient.

>>5162026

>No, we can investigate how to be happy without evoking something as trivial as subjectivity

We can, but why should we only investigate from one viewpoint. Also you keep refering to subjectivity as trivial. If ALL there is is subjective experience, how can it be trivial? You have no direct contact with reality. Everything you experience is a byproduct of the brain interpreting reality and allowing you to experience that reality subjectively.

>People doing neuromodulator research etc.

I am not talking about philosophy. I am talking about meditation - observing our subjective experience without judging or reacting to it - and it's measurable effects on the brain. And meditators have made far more headway than any scientist in determining what makes us happy, and in actually realising that potential for happiness.

I don't see how I am redefining subjectivity at all, please elaborate.

>Just don't delude yourself that it's useful for explaining anything that can be defined objectively.

The objective explanation of our biology gives no indication of our subjective experience, or vice-versa. But these things are actually the same. Neural firing patterns in the brain ARE thoughts. But it is OBJECTIVELY TRUE that we experience the world SUBJECTIVELY.

>>5161766
>Just because an emotion is caused by physical processes does not mean that we cannot feel happy or sad or whatever.

No, what it means is that you're attaching too much significance to "feelings". All they are are action potentials.

>>5162041
>which we all experience

Do you have evidence for this claim? I'm pretty sure that I never experienced any spiritual magic.

>>5162072
>>5162075
This is what I've been yelling about the whole time. I study spatial attention in rhesus macaque. Despite that what I'm studying is arguably the closest cognitive process to 'consciousness' that there is, never once have I deluded myself with some stupid notion that qualia have non-zero exploratory power.

Fundie is just a dualist in disguise, and clearly misunderstands basic principles of neuroscience and behavioral science.

>>5162063

ON MORE THAN ONE OCCASION I HAVE STATED THAT I AGREE ENTIRELY THAT ALL THAT IS GOING ON IS PHYSICS AND BIOCHEMISTRY. READ MY POSTS BEFORE YOU MAKE CLAIMS ABOUT WHAT I BELIEVE.

I agree with EVERYTHING you just said. EVERYTHING. But that does not change the fact that we EXPERIENCE.

>>5161873
some evidence for the claim
>Could the physiologist account for it, if he had fuller knowledge than he has of the processes in the retina and the nervous processes set up by them in the optical nerve bundles and in the brain? I do not think so."

The problem with you qualia fags. is that you throw scientific investigation out the window andsay stupid things like
"It's qualia it can't be investigated it must be qualia there is no way that response to stimuli or peretpion or consciousness could ever be explained or investigated I know this because I know it"

You're like creationists.

>>5162089
>But that does not change the fact that we EXPERIENCE.

That we experience what? I don't have any spiritual experiences. You are wrong. Dualism trolling goes to >>>/x/

>>5162089
You made the claim that a metaphysical phenomenon called "consciousness" or "soul" exists. It is up to you to show us the evidence and to explain how it is relevant to any explanatory theory.

>>5162089
Caps doesn't make you correct. Sorry, it's irrelevant whether or not we 'experience,' and since you can't define it, then I could just as easily take the opposite position and use the *exact* same arguments. I could even call you an idiot and a profound evidence ignorer when you disagree with me!

>>5162072

You don't seem to understand the difference between subjective and objective.

"Subjectivity refers to the subject and his or her perspective, feelings, beliefs, and desires. In philosophy, the term is usually contrasted with objectivity."

"A proposition is generally considered to be objectively true when its truth conditions are met and are "mind-independent"—that is, existing freely or independently from the thoughts of a conscious entity or subject."

Thoughts, emotions, etc are known to be experienced, and we have scientific evidence for them but that doesn't make them objective.

They can only be experienced by humans observing with their own bodies. You are not experiencing my thoughts and I'm not experiencing yours. That is subjective experience.

All of you scientific knowledge (while correct) only arises as thoughts within the present moment. You are still experiencing them subjectively. You cannpot escape from your subjective experience.

nobody who has had a decent even pre-university education in biology could believe in qualia.

Human experience can be utterly mundane.
Just look at how our sense of smell can become acclimatised to a particular smell so we no longer actively notice the odor.

This is EXACTLY the same type of neural pathway one can see present in anemones and other life-forms with similarly basic neural networks.

>>5162106
>All of you scientific knowledge (while correct) only arises as thoughts within the present moment. You are still experiencing them subjectively. You cannpot escape from your subjective experience.

Let's ignore the fact that you can't prove this So what does it mean? Why does this matter? By knowing this, what can we explain?

You've ignored me every time I've asked this.

>>5162106
if your brain had a similar structure to mine and were subject to conditions that it experienced teh same action potentials then you would have the same thoughts that I do.

There is nothing particularly special or magical about our response to stimulus.

>>5162100

>Caps doesn't make you correct.

I used caps out of frustration since you seem intent on misrepresenting my arguments. I have stated I think 4 times now that Iagree that there is nothing more than physical and chemical processes taking place in the brain. I am not a dualist in any sense whatsoever. I am a complete materialist.

But this does not change the fact that objective physical phenomena are interpreted by the human mind in subjective ways. Hearing a sound gives no indicating whatsoever of the physical reality of a wave propogating through a medium. Our subjective experience is how the human mind interprets physical phenomena. I am saying it's "magic". But we don't "see" the frequency of electromagnetic waves, we see colour. I am not saying that they are dualistic in nature, it's just that raw sensory data is interpreted by the brain to give us our subjective experience of the world.

As for a definition of subjective experience, it is all that we experience from our own viewpoint.

hey encephalon are you blonde and do you browse /r9k/ ?

>>5162126

* I am NOT saying it's magic I should have said.

>>5162125
Brunette and yeah, but I'm feminist so usually not for long.

>>5162119

It means exactly what i said it means. You quoted it yourself. We cannot escape from subjective experience. We cannot remove ourselves from our body (since we are our bodies) to observe nature objectively. We can understand it objectively through scientific inquiry, but as a matter of direct experience we always experience subjectively.

This is why I say subjective experience matters. Subjective experience itself is an objective truth about the universe.

>>5162126
>Hearing a sound gives no indicating whatsoever of the physical reality of a wave propogating through a medium.
Sure it would if we had enough information.

We would simply need to know what neurons would be relevent to monitor in terms of re resulting action potentials caused by listening to that sound, then we'd need to know about the sensitivity of the auditory organ to calculate what waveform would cause the haircells to be affected in such a way to produce those resulting action potentials, then we'd have a good answer for the wave form that must have been heard.

that information would be extremely difficult to obtain and measure, but there's nothing about it that makes it super-natural.

>>5162123

Again, I agree entirely. We are our brains, and our brains are confined to operate within the bounds of physical laws. If your brain was my brain then we would be the same person, yes.

But that doesn't change the fact that as I sit here typing, I am having thoughts, emotions are arising, etc. and these are not being experienced by anyone else in the world. Nor can i readily translate my experience so that someone esle can feel it. It is subjective. But in no way does that mean that there is a metaphysical component to nature.

>>5161725
>Please show me the evidence for your claim.
Do you accept that there are structural differences between species?
If so, then, operating on the premise that thoughts are purely physical and take place in the brain, it follows that thoughts will be different.

There isnt a "thought" that you can pin point to. But the act of firing creates a process that seemingly creates thoughts. Neuroscience is long way from discovering what thoughts are. Whether it is actually created or just an illusion created by the act of motion

>>5162126
We see wavelengths of light, or hear frequencies of vibration in the air. We just have a finite (non-continuous) range of frequencies and wavelengths that we can observe, and the way that the nervous system represents these things is something that we, using language, refer to as "color." Why does this imply that the nervous system uses subjective experience to interpret color? Why can't it be that subjectivity an irrelevant byproduct of the transformations that the nervous system actually does? A three layer mathematical network with an input layer and an output layer can also categorize wavelengths.

If you remove subjectivity from your explanation of the system, the system it still works. Therefore, as this portion of the explanation adds no explanatory power, we shouldn't even include it in our explanation. That's occam's razor.

>As for a definition of subjective experience, it is all that we experience from our own viewpoint.
You've made nothing clearer with this definition, and you know that you haven't.

>>5162138

Please stop using terms like "super-natural". They are not representative of my views whatsoever.

As for your example, the fact that we are able to determine things to be true using science doesn't change the fact that our subjective experience alone gives no indication of objective reality. when I hear a car alarm going off nothing about that experience indicates to me that air particles are vibrating and bouncing off each other in a way that my ears and brain can interpret as sound.

All I'm really arguing for is that we DO experience subjectively, and that it is an interesting enough area to warrant further inquiry. The best explanation of the inherent subjectivity of experience would combine neuroscience with phenomenological reports. This would allow us to "map" physical events in the brain to subjective experiences.

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/0893608089900208

Here you go, /sci/. This should be all the evidence you need that qualia or subjectivity or voodoo is totally irrelevant, and should be omitted from any explanation of the nervous system:

"This paper rigorously establishes that standard multilayer feedforward networks with as few as one hidden layer using arbitrary squashing functions are capable of approximating any Borel measurable function from one finite dimensional space to another to any desired degree of accuracy, provided sufficiently many hidden units are available. In this sense, multilayer feedforward networks are a class of universal approximators."

Find where they require qualia in this paper to explain how the hidden layer works. I dare you.

>>5162139
>and these are not being experienced by anyone else in the world. Nor can i readily translate my experience so that someone esle can feel it.

So what?
Your thoughts are different from anyone else's because your receptors have been subjected to different stimuli from anyone else.
Making someone else experience the same throughts would impossible in practical terms but if we had a machine that could specify the location and energy levels of the matter within it then we could createsomething that thought hte exact same things as you.

I don't know why you keep on saying "It's subjective, it's subjective" as though there's some significance to that statement.

>>5162144

Why does this imply that the nervous system uses subjective experience to interpret color?

Because what we experience is different (apparently) to objective reality. I don't think they are truly different, it's just that raw data from the enviorment is interpreted by the brain in ways that we experience subjectively.

>Why can't it be that subjectivity an irrelevant byproduct of the transformations that the nervous system actually does?

We investigate things in science because they are interesting and we want to find the truth about them. Subjective experience is not irrelevant in my opinion because it is interesting, and because I think a deeper understanding of it could be beneficial to people.

>If you remove subjectivity from your explanation of the system, the system it still works

No, animals without brains can't work without the concept of subjectivity. The fact that the brain does transform raw sensory data (objective reality) and that every brain is different dictates that subjectivity is a necessary proprty of any experience.

>You've made nothing clearer with this definition, and you know that you haven't.

Well again I would like to state that language is really not meant for the job expressing experiences from one person to another.

Subjective experience is any experience which takes place in a person's mind (brain) rather than the external world; and is particular to a given person.

This includes all sensory perception, emotions, thoughts, etc. Despite being (and not just caused by) physical processes themselves, these things are experienced by you and no one else. That is subjective experience.

>>5162159

I keep going on about subjectivity precisely because you think it is insignificant. It is a naturally occuring by-product of the nature of the universe, and as such I think it warrants attention.

your arguments keep pointing out that behinf subjective experience is the physical mechanisms and there I'm wrong. But I never denied the physical mechanisms, I'm just saying that we don't experience them directly/as they are (I.e. we have "thoughts" in our experience, we don't have neurons firing in particular sequence).

>>5162174

Getting tired, please ignore my grammatical errors.

>>5162163

* animals with brains

>>5162163
>No, animals without brains can't work without the concept of subjectivity. The fact that the brain does transform raw sensory data (objective reality) and that every brain is different dictates that subjectivity is a necessary proprty of any experience.
Most of this quote is literal nonsense. Your thesis sentence is falsified by the extremely high impact paper that I linked in this post >>5162152

>We investigate things in science because they are interesting and we want to find the truth about them. Subjective experience is not irrelevant in my opinion because it is interesting, and because I think a deeper understanding of it could be beneficial to people.
So because it's already been proven (above paper) that you don't need subjectivity to explain nervous system function, it can't possibly be as beneficial as work with actual rigor.

>Well again I would like to state that language is really not meant for the job expressing experiences from one person to another.
Talking about the evolutionary "purpose" of any evolved mechanism is handwavy, so lets not pretend that we know what language is for, mkay?

>
This includes all sensory perception, emotions, thoughts, etc. Despite being (and not just caused by) physical processes themselves, these things are experienced by you and no one else. That is subjective experience.
Better definition, but you used experience to define experience again. Still useless.

>>5162152

It's not about "needing" qualia to explain how something works. It's the fact that it is there and that we all experience it. If you don't think you do, then you don't understand it's definition (it is merely a term used to describe everything we experience).

From wiki page:

Daniel Dennett identifies four properties that are commonly ascribed to qualia. According to these, qualia are:

1.ineffable; that is, they cannot be communicated, or apprehended by any other means than direct experience.

2.intrinsic; that is, they are non-relational properties, which do not change depending on the experience's relation to other things.

3.private; that is, all interpersonal comparisons of qualia are systematically impossible.

4.directly or immediately apprehensible in consciousness; that is, to experience a quale is to know one experiences a quale, and to know all there is to know about that quale.

>>5162174
IF you acknowledge that your response to stimuli is subjective only in that nobody else has likely been subjected to quite the same stimuli as you before then what about it could you possibly think warrants attention?

It's totally trivial.
You're imlpicitly acknowledging the trivialness of the fact that your action potentials are different from anyone else in the world, then continuing on entirely unabated.

It's a cognitive disconnect.

>>5162192
If we don't need qualia to explain how something works, then why is it relevant to the nervous system?

Get the fuck out of the thread and go to /x/.

thoughts are subjective and occur at any given time, consciously or subconsciously it is inevitable. the question you ask is a metaphysical idea and somewhat indeterminate for we can not give an essential definition to a thought nor can we base a general idea of what a thought may be. why do thoughts arise? how do they arise? why do they arise the way they do? why do they arise within certain confines that we at times can not break?
certainly a very intriguing idea.

>>5161915
This is an unintelligible analogy that could have only been written by someone with severe mental defects, a troll-ish personality, or both. Qualia are not at all related to blind faith. Experiences of some deity in the form of hallucination (can) occur, and they will have their own concomitant qualia.

Also, you seem to think physical existence is the only *form* of existence. Do not confuse the two. Can you acknowledge the existence of consciousness and the epiphenomenon of subjective experience?

>>5161917 non-interacting invisible ghost
You suffer the same psychological difficulties as the other poster. Do you not have emotion, sensation, or consciously experience the color red? Go ahead and confound yourself on explaining how you think science deals with the subjective experience of ordinary human beings who are not zombies.

>>5162126
>claims there is "nothing more than physical and chemical processes"
>still believes in a metaphysical "mind"

The inconsistency hurts.

>>5162687
>Can you acknowledge the existence of consciousness

>Can you acknowledge the existence of fairies and dragons

Fuck off >>>/x/

>>5162129
lel, 10/10 post

>>5162143
Non-sequitur. There is no reason why the same process cannot take place on different hardware architectures.

>>5162152
lel, another 10/10 post. I guess the idiots you're talking to don't even know what Borel measurable means.

>>5162192
>It's the fact
How is it a fact, if you can't even provide one piece of evidence?

>>5162687
Why should someone believe in an untestable and unobservable "epiphenomenon" (which by definition means it has no effects)? This would be even less rational than believing in ghosts.

>>5162689
Do you have evidence? Then post it here. Otherwise you should leave to /x/.

ITT: people voicing their uneducated opinions about a subject they don't have scientific knowledge of.

>>5162993
Thank you, Captain Obvious.

>>5162152
Is it just me, or does that link not work? What's the title of the paper? I have a good understanding of measure theory and a desire to learn about feedforward networks.

>>5163292
Server seems temporarily down. Three hours ago it was still up. I'd love to read it too, but you have to pay for the paper.

>>5163292
>>5163302
nvm, found it

http://dss.ucsd.edu/~hwhite/pub_files/hwcv-028.pdf

>>5163302
Yeah I assumed you'd have to pay for it, sciencedirect and all. I have money to throw away.

>>5163310
Oh nice, cheers.