/sci/ - Science & Math

It definitely can. Because good and bad are not some vague concepts that were invented from nothing. They are biologically derived. You can start by saying that endless, excruciating pain is bad. If you disagree, you are simply playing semantic games and have no traction in this discussion.

>>5930084
Come on, share your thoughts on the subject. You seem to care a great deal about the quality and relevance of posts on this forum. Now is your chance to contribute to that. Perhaps I am too ignorant and hopeless to benefit, but another person reading this thread might learn something, or have something to say.

>>5930079
Perhaps in my first post, I did talk about philosophy. But I'm curious now to talk about the research. You seem very knowledgeable on this subject. What, in brief, is the current state of the neuroscience of pleasure? You can discuss it at any level or specificity you wish. If it simply bamboozles me, consider it a chance to make a fool out of someone less intelligent than you.

>>5930072
I wasn't aware that pleasure was a solved problem. Of course I'm not talking about the basics, but the cutting edge of the problem. That's what I'm curious to learn more about. Lay it on me.

>>5930069
Try me. Your knowledge of neuroscience may vastly outstrip mine, but perhaps the thread can be salvaged. I'm always interested in learning more. If your knowledge simply leaves me bamboozled, I'll go away.

>>5930061
Well, there has to be some explanation of what pleasure is. What do you think? Feel free to disregard my thoughts. If mine are juvenile and wrong, I'd like to hear something more advanced.

>>5930054
Ha. What a strange thing to inspire such vitriol. What are your thoughts on the basis of pleasure?

>>5930023
Irrelevant to what? It is perfectly relevant to a discussion of pleasure. Which is what I made the thread to discuss.

Pleasure is nothing. It is not something we seek. That is a case of mistaken causality. Things we deem pleasurable are simply the things we are compelled to seek. In other words, we don't do things because they are pleasurable, we do them for reasons inaccessible to our minds. These reasons are the output of ancient neural circuits, finely tuned to send a body hurtling down one path of behavior vs. another.

We will never understand our selves until we deconstruct these ancient circuits. All reflection and analysis will dead-end at this point, because the processes occurring in these circuits are simply not available to our minds.

>>5913230
The machine analogy for biology is extremely weak. A life is a complex, densely interconnected, non-equilibrium system. Replacing faulty parts as you go is simply not enough.

Biology is far more complex than these people truly understand. Mastery of biology is a long, long way off.

>>5839647
>garbage simulations of linguistic idiocies

Don't forget that language is fluid and changes to us as much as we change to it.

>The constant stamping of a boot to the back of the head of intelligence for the sake of perpetuating continual gerontocratic regimes that perpetuate their own abuse...

The ancestry of thought is also malleable. Putrid strains come and putrid strains die. Beautiful strains come and beautiful strains die. The genetics of our cultural ancestry are a work in progress ;)

>>5839636
You're smart but you've been sidelined by silly notions of what "should be" rather than what is. All this talk of chumps... it makes no sense. And who is to say that monoculture doesn't have some special resonance with the human mind? Do we not seek harmony?

The important thing is the ratio of brain size to body size. And it's not right to say they're more complex exactly.

Think of it in terms of the hierarchy of functions. A whale has a big brain, but far more of it is devoted to basic sensory and motor functions (because they have simply more sensory tissue). Humans, with the biggest brain/body ratio by a significant margin, have more of the space devoted to higher levels of hierarchical functioning.

You mean the cultural or evolutionary history?

Let's talk about the neocortex. Columnated or no? Modular or no?

>>5561451
1. Is laziness not acceptable sometimes? People are not machines, they do not work efficiently and shouldn't be expected to. Anyway, it is a problem that already exists. Except in the current system, periods of laziness have severe repercussions. In this system, at least there would be an opportunity to address it.

2. It would cost no more. The teacher would just have to understand the goals, and discuss the material with the student until he was convinced that the student met the goals.

3. The system does breed this dependent, mewling class of people. But not by anyones ill intent, everyone involved essentially has good intentions. Everyone sees the problems and wants to fix it.

>>5561447
You want to banish me to those abominations? There is zero chance of interesting discussion on any of them.

Education should not be poured passively into people at an arbitrary rate. Standard goals should be defined, and a great deal of resources should be made available to assist in pursuit of those goals (including teachers and professors). There are no grades, no classes, no lectures.

A student can request a goal check or some such, in which case a teacher will sit down with the student and asses whether or not the student has met the goal. If they have met it, the teachers makes note of it. If not, they point out the areas the student should keep working. There are no consequences for not passing a goal check.

The students can each approach learning the material in whatever way they want. They can read a textbook, ask for a teacher to describe it, listen to a pre-recorded lecture, discuss it with other students, or whatever. There is no one way for everyone to learn.

There is not any pace that a student needs to move at. But teachers can subjectively determine if a student is stuck in an area and help them out. If a student does not complete all the goals for a high school education, they can return to them at any time in their adult life and earn their high school diploma.

This is real education.

>>5559039
Yes, how the structures work of course. In particular the cortex.

>>5559020
I recommend that you use this opportunity to learn something, instead of try to impress.

>>5559004
Who says we can memorize easily? The options you've given are both too simplistic. Some people can calculate very easily. Some can not memorize at all.

>>5558997
I have had no unique insights into this particular molecule, so you would be better served reading the primary literature. However, I can give you a high level suggestion as to how to approach it:

Schizophrenia is a disease that results from a failure for the nervous system to properly synchronize. Cortical synchrony depends on chandelier cells. Look into the effects of this molecule on chandelier cells. I suspect that the molecule causes dysfunction in the targeting of chandelier cell axons towards the axon initial segment. This is just an intuition though

>>5558989
A great deal of study and a series of deep insights.