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Would this be the beginning of a trend? I have an intuition that reversing the causal relationship between high-level (psychology, mind, behaviors) and low-leve
by strogonoff 5y ago
Would this be the beginning of a trend? I have an intuition that reversing the causal relationship between high-level (psychology, mind, behaviors) and low-level (physiology, disease manifestations) matters can significantly advance medicine.
- netizen-936824 5y agoSo if our behavior is the result of neuronal networks processing information, what is the 'causal relationship' 'Higher level' stuff like behavior is the result of our cells communicating, there's no magic 'soul' that act on our biological systems. It generally goes from low->high but there is some feedback that occurs at 'high' and induces changes at 'low' The reality is a combination and thinking it just goes one way is flawed reasoning. Nothing is unidirectional and nothing is binary
- strogonoff 5y agoWhat makes you think consciousness arises from matter? Is it a verifiable hypothesis?
- Madmallard 5y agoIt's far simpler to say it does based on the entire body of our research up until this point than it doesn't so the burden of proof is on those saying that it doesn't.
- strogonoff 5y agoI don’t think there is much existing research that directly tackles this question, is there any? Meanwhile, there is research[0] that appears to be investigating the potential of such reversed causality or at least something adjacent. [0] https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2014.00577/full https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2014.0057...
- Madmallard 5y agoThere's tons of research on consciousness in the medical field, as it's directly relevant for many disorders and conditions affecting it.
- strogonoff 5y agoIs there some research that makes a refutable claim that consciousness arises from matter, and then proves that claim experimentally?
- Madmallard 5y agoIt's literally irrelevant when everything we do to manipulate and track it works already. That's why I said the burden of proof is on the silly philosophical claim that it doesn't arise from matter. Like when doctors see someone's blood ammonia levels go up and they're suddenly less aware of everything going on, less responsive, less able to talk about their thoughts and less coherent. Or patients with hypoglycemia losing their short term memory and eye sight and ability to make coherent sentences. And how we can do EEGs and directly see declines in electrical activity when this happens. How could you possibly think that the consciousness is independent of matter at that point? It seems utterly ridiculous.
- strogonoff 5y agoBlood ammonia level rise correlates with loss of coherence, but a causative link would require direct proof that consciousness arises from matter, and I suspect there is no such proof (the responses in this thread supporting my suspicion). The other, straightforward interpretation is that there may be a third factor that caused both the high ammonia marker and lack of coherence, and naturally that could be patient’s own consciousness and/or its interactions with other consciousnesses (e.g., alcohol abuse).
- Madmallard 5y agoSir there's dozens of different things that alter brain physiology with measurable results in alteration of consciousness. I just took a random example.
- kaba0 5y agoI don’t think that it would be verifiable, but it is a default hypothesis that we don’t assume some yet unseen way of interaction between something and our material bodies. Also, I don’t think that it is unreasonable to imagine “consciousness” happening as an emerging feature of sufficient complexity. Remember, we have 3 billion neurons with orders of magnitudes more connections between them.
- strogonoff 5y agoI don’t mean some third thing interacting with our material bodies. What I mean is consciousness as the territory, and perceived matter and time-space representation as a simplified map.
- netizen-936824 5y agoDo you have evidence for this? Because it sounds like a larger leap of faith than I have assumed in my post.
- strogonoff 5y agoNo, but neither do I have evidence for consciousness arising from matter. If you can point me to some, I’d welcome that.
- Madmallard 5y agoYour logic is literally flat earth level sillyness. There's tons of evidence in medicine/biology of consciousness arising from matter.
- strogonoff 5y agoFlat Earth is a trivially refutable theory, and had been specifically demonstrated to be false. Perhaps I’m missing something, but I am failing to see the same in case of the “consciousness-from-matter” theory.
- zajio1am 5y agoDoes computation in computers arise from matter?
- strogonoff 5y agoIf matter arises from consciousness, then by extension so does computation. I’m not saying it as a fact, as it is neither refutable no verifiable—but neither is the conventional view.
- netizen-936824 5y agoThe explanation that I offer is note plausible than the conventional view (magic souls) Perhaps I'm wrong, but it at least seems like a step in the right direction where the hypothesis is based on already verified behavior of neurons and their networks
- Bobylonian 5y agoThe problem with the consciousness is that by default it is limited to ability perceive senses and bacteria clearly is beyound our limits of consciousness, but that does not make them less real. Our brains collect and process information subconsciously - the layer of our consciousness is not responsible for all the background work, that our brains are doing. There can't exist hypothesis in regards of gut processes affecting very thin layer of consciousness. So, but can you disprove that gut bacteria can't impact brain processes? They can deliver signals to the brain, so what is exatly the obstacle that it makes it impossible task?
- netizen-936824 5y agoFirst I would like you to define consciousness
- strogonoff 5y agoPerhaps you could give an example by defining “matter” or “reality” or whatever you believe is the underlying territory? (Without circular definitions or those involving consciousness, of course.)
- netizen-936824 5y agoI don't understand how there could be circular reasoning involving consciousness when explaining what matter is. I am not a physicist so I will stick with the chemical definition. Matter is made up of atoms, which are made up of proton, electrons, and neutrons. These particles interact and react to form ordered structures which have new emergent properties. These systems build on each other to create new systems such as cells which make up organisms which is what you and I are.
- strogonoff 5y agoYou skipped the part where it is the matter that your consciousness observes.
- netizen-936824 5y agoAh I see, that's a good method of writing off evidence arbitrarily! If we cannot agree that objective observations can be made and shared from the perspective of a human, then it's obvious that you will just write off everything after that point and this conversation is meaningless. This agreement is generally implicit when discussing the results of research.
- strogonoff 5y agoI am not writing the evidence off, merely pointing out that you are observing correlational evidence, and causal link in one particular direction is your conjecture.
- Bobylonian 5y agoWell, if I remember, then there was an article about that some bacteria that was present in brains was also present in gut. The very quick stupid idea was that bacteria from guts was invading brains, but there might be other explanations to that - bacterias are also living outside gut and if some of them somehow are finding a way into the brains, that does not mean that they came directly from guts. Might be - might be not and brains might have other canals that allows bacteria to enter and once they are in brains, they might be able to get control over things and condition brains in favouring specific gut bacteria, by requesting - craving specific food. So, I don't see that this research has nullified those ideas about bacterias affecting brains and helping their species of bacterias without knowing about them. But what this article is proposing is not illogical - not getting into demands of zombified controlled brains hold hostage of bacterias, or actually - developing healthy dietary habbits, by favouring diversity of gut bacterias in first place.