Physical viewpoints on the human mind bother me.

If you get down to a fine enough scale, it's actually the opposite

Oh quantum mechanics how I love you.

edited 5th Jan '11 2:25:04 PM by Pykrete

Interpretations of quantum mechanics hurt my head.

But anyway, I don't see how I'm being presumptuous or arrogant if I say that the mind is the brain, the most complex type of object in the known universe...

Well, I suppose put like that it does seem arrogant, actually, but no more than saying that the mind is a gift given to us directly by a god, and made in his image, etc.

edited 5th Jan '11 2:27:34 PM by Tzetze

[1] This facsimile operated in part by synAC.

@Yeller: I think that emotion comes from the soul and is then translated through the brain into the body, and that drugs are the opposite; as your brain is relaying information back to the soul, the drugs make a kink in the system.

My name is Cu Chulainn. Beside the raging sea I am left to moan. Sorrow I am, for I brought down my only son.

It's still functionally the same thing so why is it an issue whether it's just your brain or brain and soul?

Because if two theories make the exact same predictions, the simpler one is more useful.

Blind Final Fantasy 6 Let's Play

Seems to me like entities being multiplied beyond necessity.

Also, if the brain can control the soul via drugs, then why not via the chemicals it uses for signaling all the time? If you take an adrenaline shot, it does the same thing to your brain as if your adrenal gland released it itself. Most psychoactive drugs work by mimicking or blocking neurotransmitters, so why should they have effects on the soul that neurotransmitters don't, assuming a soul exists at all?

...eventually, we will reach a maximum entropy state where nobody has their own socks or underwear, or knows who to ask to get them back.

Basically, I think it works like how the brain communicates with the body, just with an extra step on the ladder. Soul sends emotions, feelings, etc. to the brain which releases chemicals that do their thing to the body. All the information that the body sends to the brain is translated to the soul. Drugs mess up the system on the way to the soul, rather than from the soul.

Also, Occam's Razor has failed science before, hard, several times. Consider that during the time the concept of atoms was proposed, Occam's Razor dictated it was bullshit, amoung other examples.

In itself, science is a means used to find things, not an all-powerful force that always knows precisely how and why everything works. (Hence why just about everything in most sciences is titled 'The theory of blank' rather than 'the law of blank.') If scientists knew everything they would have no reason to exist. It kills me how so many people rally behind the latest theory and shout 'X is Y!' 'How do you know?' 'SCIENCE!'

edited 5th Jan '11 5:34:25 PM by Diamonnes

My name is Cu Chulainn. Beside the raging sea I am left to moan. Sorrow I am, for I brought down my only son.

I do agree that the human mind is a wondrously complicated thing. And doesn't need any Supernatural fluff to make it interesting.

As for Determinism, I don't see how it would remove . I don't like and don't believe in, Quantum "Chaos" by whatever name you want to call it by, and go for the Superdeterminism loophole to still believe in a Deterministic universe. However, even if there is that which is Indeterministic at a tiny Quantum scale, it is just that, an incredibly tiny and not very important exception. That's still no reason to believe in "Free Will", as 99.9% of the Universe is still Deterministic, including most of the brain worth measuring. So on a very small scale, things may be slightly random, but on the large scale, the scale that has almost everything that essentially matters in terms of measuring, most everything can be explained with a Casually Deterministic system to 99.9% accuracy. That Quantum Anomaly means little. Which means that in years to come, we should be able to measure the brain as close as we need to.

And that's exactly what Occam's Razor is. A model of efficiency. It selects which hypothesis is most useful for study and verification. Not which is absolutely correct. Since we've brought up nihilism, nihilism actually logically makes sense to me. Nothing in the universe can be absolutely certain, science is the measurement of what is likely. It's possible you can't say anything is %100 certain. However, you can say that something has a high tendency. For instance, the tendency to objects near to the planet earth falling towards it. And then speculate and form a hypothesis and then theory as to why this strong tendency exists; gravity.

edited 5th Jan '11 6:17:48 PM by Ukonkivi

Genkidama for Japan, even if you don't have money, you can help![1]

The concept of atoms was bs until there was evidence.

Blind Final Fantasy 6 Let's Play

Oh, wow, that's original. I'm sure no one has used that argument before.

Kill all math nerds

So, by your own logic, the concept of a soul is bs Until there is evidence. Correct? So, I'll be a revolutionary scientist and you can be one of the guys that doubts them, k?

Wait, so you're a pagan that doesn't believe in a non-determinist universe?

what.

edited 5th Jan '11 6:34:36 PM by Diamonnes

My name is Cu Chulainn. Beside the raging sea I am left to moan. Sorrow I am, for I brought down my only son.

Yes, I am a Pagan. And I am also a Superdeterminist.

It doesn't seem that strange. There are lots of Pantheistic Pagans. And a great deal of Naturalistic Pantheists. I don't see why I need Indeterminism to believe in my Pagan beliefs given that I don't even believe in them in a Supernatural fashion to begin with.

Life has been a bit interesting for me because of this though, as I've gotten into a lot of arguments with Atheistic Indeterminists, arguing my case Deterministic Naturalistic Pagan Pantheism. Just to name one, a user named "Kaiserpingven" at My Anime List whom I have gotten into several arguments with, him arguing against my claim that the universe is deterministic, and my belief in God.

Even stranger, a user, called Grilleds, on Doujinstyle, has argued against me, saying that "Determinism is an idea more associated with religion", and several others, really. And that they believed in Free Will and disbelieved in Religion equally. They gave me a Flat "What" when I claimed that Atheists have had a higher tendency to believe in Determinism than Free Will. And maybe followed by something about Determinism having something to do with Destiny/Predestination. I was a bit aggravated by this, to say the least, considering that I remember Grilleds claiming that "a Christian WOULD believe in something like Determinism. How can you have Free Will if there's a big controlling God?". And seemed to want to keep asserting that Determinism was a very religious thing as a tit for my tat that Determinism has been more heavily followed by Atheists.

Argh, that's an irritating memory to remember. I feel like I have some unfinished business with the world about it now. I even posted some Youtube videos by some very outspoken Atheists and Determinists. And they went completely ignored. Oh God, why couldn't they even just answer to my arguments rather than just state "Determinism is religious foolishness" over and over? Arrrrgh. I liked Doujinstyle a lot(at first, before all the drama), and we generally agreed about almost everything. But when we disagreed, lady, was it dumbfounding.

edited 5th Jan '11 6:59:37 PM by Ukonkivi

Genkidama for Japan, even if you don't have money, you can help![1]

Right, the myth of the lone genius, doubted, ridiculed, perhaps persecuted by others. A character type adored by proponents of pseudoscience and consumers of fiction alike. Sure, there's a certain romantic appeal to the fantasy that you, like Einstein, Galileo, Darwin, Jor El, etc., may be doubted now, but will eventually come out ahead of your critics when your ideas are vindicated by history.

But in the real world, there have been tons of people with ideas that they can't prove/that are widely doubted/that challenge the status quo. There's a word for most of these people— incorrect. That's why the ones who actually do turn out to be correct are so remarkable— they're exceptions to the rule. Science is a collaborative endeavor, not a Cowboy Cop show. Most progress is made bit by bit in tiny increments by teams of scientists building on the work of those that came before, working to fill in the little gaps in our explanatory models through meticulous, repetitive series of experiments. If you intend on a career in science, you need to accept the overwhelming probability that this is how it'll be for you as well. Holding out hope that you'll be one of those rare individuals who become famous for a big idea that changes everything is a recipe for disillusionment.

Are you trolling, or what?

Blind Final Fantasy 6 Let's Play

I'm going to go out on a limb and guess that he's probably one of those people who's retreaded this topic so many times in the past that he no longer sees any point in actually engaging in any real discussion about it, and is so tired of the subject and unsympathetic towards those who are still interested in discussing it that instead of just keeping his mouth shut or going to another thread, he has the urge to snark at them. I'm open to being proven wrong, though.

Goddess I get so tired of people not knowing when I'm joking. there's a subtle language shift that is apparently impossible to detect over the internet.

The guy just defeated his own logic, for blood's sake.

It was bullshit until there was evidence

That can't be true from a scientific perspective. Everything was always made up of atoms. Atoms didn't suddenly appear one day, that's not how it works. So, even though at the time it seemed extremely unlikely, it was true. It was always true, it always will be true, and people thinking it doesn't make sense doesn't make it not true. I think the same thing applies here.

I also don't think that I'm going to make a huge discovery that changes everyhing. I'm going to be an ANTHROPOLOGIST for the goddess' sake. The biggest think I might discover is some link between two cultures, or another subspecies of humanity, and that's a one in several million chance. However, I'm also fairly certain that someone at some point in time will discover evidence that souls are, in fact, real. I don't think it's going to be me, and I don't pretend to think science works that way.

edited 5th Jan '11 7:47:11 PM by Diamonnes

My name is Cu Chulainn. Beside the raging sea I am left to moan. Sorrow I am, for I brought down my only son.

I don't think there is ever going to be any evidence for the existence of souls. Until we develop some device or method of detecting and measuring spiritual things.

It's one of those things that can't be proved or disproved by science.

Be not afraid...

More accurately, there can't be any evidence until you develop a falsifiable theory. As it is now, you've basically said that the hypothetical soul always acts in a way as if it didn't exist. Convenient, huh?

edited 5th Jan '11 8:13:20 PM by storyyeller

Blind Final Fantasy 6 Let's Play

In this particular case, Poe's Law unfortunately came into play. The myth of the lone genius really is a widespread meme, particularly among proponents of ideas which lack evidence.

Right, it was true before there was evidence. But before evidence, it was still unreasonable to believe it. Before a falsifiable (at least in principle) hypothesis on the matter was formulated, it was even more unreasonable. In fact, it was intellectually irresponsible. It's nice that atoms ultimately did turn out to be real, but that doesn't make it reasonable to believe in something without evidence or even an idea as to how evidence about it could be collected, even if you call it a "personal belief".

The bottom line is that the problem with your belief in the soul isn't that it's necessarily wrong; it's that it's based on a way of thinking that has an inferior track record of distinguishing truths from falsehoods, and therefore is relatively dubious. The best way to come up with a reliable explanatory model of reality is to use criteria like falsification and evidence and even occam's razor to restrict the number of claims we make to the ones that we have really really good reasons to believe. If we don't have really really good reasons to believe something, the intellectually responsible thing to do is say "we don't know", not promote one of the various unfalsifiable possibilities as the truth.

While I don't believe in 'souls' or anything I feel the need to point out saying your mind is the brain is like saying your car is go or TNT is explosion. One is the action the other the is mechanism.

edited 9th Jan '11 10:14:56 AM by joeyjojo

hashtagsarestupid

The idea of the brain being a quote-gateway-unquote for the soul only really works if you're a  ^*

dualist, I believe. As I wouldn't think of myself as one, I'm not convinced by the idea of a "soul".

^^No, it's like saying your car is the big metal thing with an engine and wheels.

[1] This facsimile operated in part by synAC.

"It's one of those things that can't be proved or disproved by science." - Loni Jay

Same for invisible dragons, really. o.o

There are separate factors when dealing with theological or philosophical statements.

edited 9th Jan '11 10:41:31 AM by saladofstones3