4 ms·

What premise of my argument are you objecting to? Nothing you have said appears to contradict anything I have said. I obviously agree that the body is made out

What premise of my argument are you objecting to? Nothing you have said appears to contradict anything I have said. I obviously agree that the body is made out of many individual parts at all levels of analysis.

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
ncmncm 6y ago
Cars, when driving, have speed that is a continuous, seamless "whole". Therefore, the driver, engine, and wheels have nothing to do with speed because they are parts? Or, the driver must be connected to the wheels via magickal electromagnetic fields? It is meaningless even to say.
- hackinthebochs 6y ago
  Your points are not analogous to my argument which suggests you don't really understand it. Wheels can have continuous angular velocity which cashes out the continuous speed of a car. I don't preclude collections of parts from correlated behavior, which is what a rotating tire is. A road in contact with a tire is interacting with the complex of correlated parts and so the road's perspective of the tire is that of a unified whole. Similarly, our perspective of a table is that of a unified whole due to electromagnetic forces that keeps the dynamics of the constituent molecules highly correlated and our inability to perceive the seams between the parts (without the aid of tools). But when it comes to consciousness, there is no perceiver distinct from the perception, and so you cannot rely on such a distinction to cash out the apparent unified whole of consciousness.
  - ncmncm 6y ago
    None of that has the slightest bit to do with how brains work to weave the activity you have chosen to noun as "consciousness". Minding is activity brains perform, exactly as motion is activity cars perform. To imagine that mind can't come out of brain cells being brain cells is woolly mysticism that is pointless even to write: rejecting reason, you reject language and communication, and there is nobody to talk to and nothing meaningful to say. You could equally well say that, being in the car, you can't experience the motion. But that is also nonsense: you do. There is nothing profound about noticing yourself noticing. Brain activity is not distinct from other activity, just because it can react to itself. Individual, nanoscopic transistors do it all day long.
    - hackinthebochs 6y ago
      >Minding is activity brains perform, exactly as motion is activity cars perform. This is a contentious claim, for which you have provided no arguments. Unsupported assertions are entirely useless in this discussion. My argument is very clear and straightforward. If you disagree, you should point out which premise you disagree with and why. Unspecific incredulity does not make an argument. Note that my claim that consciousness supervenes on the dynamics of the EM field generated by the brain does not make it "mysticism". The EM field is a perfectly kosher physical property of the universe. The core claim of my argument is rather mundane in fact. If you feel compelled to resist the argument at all costs because it strikes you as mysticism, you simply didn't understand it.
      - ncmncm 6y ago
        You appear to imagine that something you think of as "EM fields" can achieve things that cannot be done with wires or axons and transistors or nerve cells. EM fields are linear. That means you can't get any information out of EM interactions [except in ferromagnetic materials] that you didn't put in. It makes them useful for communication, but not for computation, or "consciousness", whatever woowoo you imagine that to be. That you don't understand electromagnetics utterly fails to endow electromagnetics with divine powers. Information processing with nonlinear computational elements such as transistors and nerve cells is stuff we (like every living creature, and your thermostat) use all day, every day. Magickal "consciousness" processes that don't depend on nerve cell operations are an extraordinary claim that demands actual, you know, evidence, which would require words that have actual, you know, definitions. If you imagine that you have this "consciousness" magick that bonobos, ravens, and elephants don't, it is on you to demonstrate it. Good luck. I find "consciousness" mysticism actively disgusting, overwhelmingly worse than Martian UFO fantasies, homeopathy scams, claims of quantum-based ESP powers, or even Ayn Rand objectivism. Even to bring it up is an insult to thinking persons.
        hackinthebochs 6y ago
        Again, your comment completely fails to demonstrate comprehension of my argument. It's not a complex argument. I don't know why you fill it in with nonsense and then disparage your made up nonsense. What a waste of effort! The specific thing that EM fields can do that axons or transistors cannot do is provide "intrinsic unity", the seamless cohesion that underpins the unified whole of conscious experience. This is because the EM field is itself a unified whole. The computational aspects of consciousness are still found in the dynamics of neurons. Again, I was very specific in the argument about what property of the EM field I'm referencing. I'm not sure why you insist on battling strawmen. But increasingly obtuse and indignant responses do not make an argument. So you should really abandon that shtick.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

ncmncm 6y ago

Cars, when driving, have speed that is a continuous, seamless "whole". Therefore, the driver, engine, and wheels have nothing to do with speed because they are parts? Or, the driver must be connected to the wheels via magickal electromagnetic fields? It is meaningless even to say.

hackinthebochs 6y ago
Your points are not analogous to my argument which suggests you don't really understand it. Wheels can have continuous angular velocity which cashes out the continuous speed of a car. I don't preclude collections of parts from correlated behavior, which is what a rotating tire is. A road in contact with a tire is interacting with the complex of correlated parts and so the road's perspective of the tire is that of a unified whole. Similarly, our perspective of a table is that of a unified whole due to electromagnetic forces that keeps the dynamics of the constituent molecules highly correlated and our inability to perceive the seams between the parts (without the aid of tools). But when it comes to consciousness, there is no perceiver distinct from the perception, and so you cannot rely on such a distinction to cash out the apparent unified whole of consciousness.
- ncmncm 6y ago
  None of that has the slightest bit to do with how brains work to weave the activity you have chosen to noun as "consciousness". Minding is activity brains perform, exactly as motion is activity cars perform. To imagine that mind can't come out of brain cells being brain cells is woolly mysticism that is pointless even to write: rejecting reason, you reject language and communication, and there is nobody to talk to and nothing meaningful to say. You could equally well say that, being in the car, you can't experience the motion. But that is also nonsense: you do. There is nothing profound about noticing yourself noticing. Brain activity is not distinct from other activity, just because it can react to itself. Individual, nanoscopic transistors do it all day long.
  - hackinthebochs 6y ago
    >Minding is activity brains perform, exactly as motion is activity cars perform. This is a contentious claim, for which you have provided no arguments. Unsupported assertions are entirely useless in this discussion. My argument is very clear and straightforward. If you disagree, you should point out which premise you disagree with and why. Unspecific incredulity does not make an argument. Note that my claim that consciousness supervenes on the dynamics of the EM field generated by the brain does not make it "mysticism". The EM field is a perfectly kosher physical property of the universe. The core claim of my argument is rather mundane in fact. If you feel compelled to resist the argument at all costs because it strikes you as mysticism, you simply didn't understand it.
    - ncmncm 6y ago
      You appear to imagine that something you think of as "EM fields" can achieve things that cannot be done with wires or axons and transistors or nerve cells. EM fields are linear. That means you can't get any information out of EM interactions [except in ferromagnetic materials] that you didn't put in. It makes them useful for communication, but not for computation, or "consciousness", whatever woowoo you imagine that to be. That you don't understand electromagnetics utterly fails to endow electromagnetics with divine powers. Information processing with nonlinear computational elements such as transistors and nerve cells is stuff we (like every living creature, and your thermostat) use all day, every day. Magickal "consciousness" processes that don't depend on nerve cell operations are an extraordinary claim that demands actual, you know, evidence, which would require words that have actual, you know, definitions. If you imagine that you have this "consciousness" magick that bonobos, ravens, and elephants don't, it is on you to demonstrate it. Good luck. I find "consciousness" mysticism actively disgusting, overwhelmingly worse than Martian UFO fantasies, homeopathy scams, claims of quantum-based ESP powers, or even Ayn Rand objectivism. Even to bring it up is an insult to thinking persons.
      - hackinthebochs 6y ago
        Again, your comment completely fails to demonstrate comprehension of my argument. It's not a complex argument. I don't know why you fill it in with nonsense and then disparage your made up nonsense. What a waste of effort! The specific thing that EM fields can do that axons or transistors cannot do is provide "intrinsic unity", the seamless cohesion that underpins the unified whole of conscious experience. This is because the EM field is itself a unified whole. The computational aspects of consciousness are still found in the dynamics of neurons. Again, I was very specific in the argument about what property of the EM field I'm referencing. I'm not sure why you insist on battling strawmen. But increasingly obtuse and indignant responses do not make an argument. So you should really abandon that shtick.