Uncommon Descent Serving The Intelligent Design Community

Clearing the air for cogent discussion of the design inference, by going back to basics (a response to RDF)

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Sometimes, an objector to design theory brings to the table a key remark that inadvertently focuses the debate back on the core basics.

In his comment at 339 in the ongoing nature/detection of intelligence thread here at UD, longtime objector RDFish does so in these initial remarks:

Intelligent Design Theory

1) No current theory of evolutionary biology can account for the complex form and function of living organisms.

2) This sort of complex form and function (let’s call it “CSI”) is, in our experience, produced only by human beings.

3) ID argues that the best explanation (let’s call it the “Designer”) for biological complexity can therefore be inferred to be similar to human beings in that both human beings and the Designer have “intelligence” . . .

We must thank him for bringing together in one place many of the key problems with objections to the design inference as a scientific project.

I responded at 341 following, as I will now also clip (and slightly adjust):

________________

>>Let me snip [RDF’s] summary post above, and comment on a few points amounting to a slice of the cake that has in it all the unfortunately fallacious ingredients that decisively undermine his frame of argument:

RDF, 339: >> No current theory of evolutionary biology can account for the complex form and function of living organisms.>>

1 –> Actually, the pivotal issue addressed is complexities involved in body plans that involve functionally specific complex organisation and associated information [FSCO/I] . . . including codes and algorithms. As Stephen Meyer noted in reply to an objector to Signature in the Cell:

. . . intelligent design—the activity of a conscious and rational deliberative agent—best explains the origin of the information necessary to produce the first living cell. I argue this because of two things that we know from our uniform and repeated experience, which following Charles Darwin I take to be the basis of all scientific reasoning about the past. First, intelligent agents have demonstrated the capacity to produce large amounts of functionally specified information (especially in a digital form).

[–> Note, this is substantially equivalent to terms often used here at UD, including digitally coded functionally specific, complex information [dFSCI] and functionally specific complex organisation and/or associated information, [FSCO/I]; the latter bringing to bear the fact that a 3-D integrated functionally specific entity can be reduced to coded digital strings, such as with the aid of AutoCAD etc]

Second, no undirected chemical process has demonstrated this power. Hence, intelligent design provides the best—most causally adequate—explanation for the origin of the information necessary to produce the first life from simpler non-living chemicals. In other words, intelligent design is the only explanation that cites a cause known to have the capacity to produce the key effect in question [–> the vera causa test] . . . . In order to [scientifically refute this inductive conclusion] Falk would need to show that some undirected material cause has [empirically] demonstrated the power to produce functional biological information apart from the guidance or activity of a designing mind. Neither Falk, nor anyone working in origin-of-life biology, has succeeded in doing this . . . .

2 –> Also, the correct reference is to no school of a priori materialist, evolutionism that locks out the possibility that FSCO/I just might have its root in design. Let us remind ourselves of what the leading evolutionary thinker Lewontin said:

. . . the problem is to get [the ordinary people] to reject irrational and supernatural explanations of the world, the demons that exist only in their imaginations [–> notice the loaded, prejudicial language and contempt towards those who dare differ with the lab coat clad atheistical elites . . . the attitude that underlies the slanders and strawman tactics I have objected to], and to accept a social and intellectual apparatus, Science, as the only begetter of truth [–> NB: this is a knowledge claim about knowledge and its possible sources, i.e. it is a claim in philosophy not science; it is thus self-refuting and inherently irrational]. . . .

It is not that the methods and institutions of science somehow compel us to accept a material explanation of the phenomenal world, but, on the contrary, that we are forced by our a priori adherence to material causes [–> another major begging of the question . . . ] to create an apparatus of investigation and a set of concepts that produce material explanations, no matter how counter-intuitive, no matter how mystifying to the uninitiated. Moreover, that materialism is absolute [–> i.e. here we see the fallacious, indoctrinated, ideological, closed mind . . . ], for we cannot allow a Divine Foot in the door. [ “Billions and Billions of Demons,” NYRB, January 9, 1997. In case you have swallowed the accusatory dismissal, that this is “quote-mined” please see the wider citation and notes here.]

3 –> I have here emphasised OOL, as this is the root of the tree of life and most clearly focuses the origin of FSCO/I as the usual out of pretending that “natural selection” has wonderful design powers is not present at OOL. But in fact for OOL we are looking at for genomes 100 – 1,000 kbits or so of genetic info, for novel body plans — here on earth not in the observed cosmos — we need 10 – 100+ mn bits of new DNA dozens of times over, and on the usual timeline within 10 MY or so for the Cambrian revo [not that 80 mn or even 10^17 y would make a dime’s worth of difference to the substantial point”].

4 –> Any blind mechanism dependent on chance to generate high contingency — the only serious alternative to design for generating contingency required for information to exist . . . mechanical necessity is the opposite of a contingency generating mechanism, it causes reliable lawlike predictable low contingency patterns such as dropping a heavy object near earth leads to initial acceleration at 9.8 N/kg — will then run into the problem of sampling the configuration space.

5 –> This I outlined in 99 above, which has of course been ducked consistently. Namely, for just 500 bits of FSCO/I, we see that the atomic resources of a solar system of 10^57 atoms, for 10^17 s, and giving each atom 500 coins to toss every 10^-14s, will be able to pull up a fraction of the 3.27 * 10^150 possibilities comparable to a single straw compared to a cubical haystack 1,000 LY across, about as thick as our galactic centre. So, if superposed on our neighbourhood and blindly searched tot hat degree of sampling, we have a confident, all but absolutely certain result: we will pick up a straw, as straw is the overwhelming bulk. This is the needle in haystack principle.

6 –> Extend to 1,000 bits, and we see that he atomic resources of the observed cosmos would be swamped to even greater degrees. The observable cosmos, all 90-odd bn LY of it, would be simply lost in the thought exercise haystack.

7 –> So, once we pass 500 – 1,000 bits, of FSCO/I (which will naturally come in deeply isolated islands of function), the only needle in haystack principle sampling challenge plausible causal source is design. Which is why it is unsurprising that in every case where we see such being caused, the source is a designer.

8 –> This then brings up the next side-tracking irrelevancy:

RDF, 339: >>This sort of complex form and function (let’s call it “CSI”) is, in our experience, produced only by human beings.>>

8b –> RDF, in the teeth of being informed otherwise, of course cannot resist redefining CSI to suit his rhetorical purposes. So, let us again pause and give Dembski’s longstanding definition on the record in No Free Lunch:

p. 148: “The great myth of contemporary evolutionary biology is that the information needed to explain complex biological structures can be purchased without intelligence. My aim throughout this book is to dispel that myth . . . . Eigen and his colleagues must have something else in mind besides information simpliciter when they describe the origin of information as the central problem of biology.

I submit that what they have in mind is specified complexity, or what equivalently we have been calling in this Chapter Complex Specified information or CSI . . . .

Biological specification always refers to function . . . In virtue of their function [a living organism’s subsystems] embody patterns that are objectively given and can be identified independently of the systems that embody them. Hence these systems are specified in the sense required by the complexity-specificity criterion . . . the specification can be cashed out in any number of ways [[through observing the requisites of functional organisation within the cell, or in organs and tissues or at the level of the organism as a whole] . . .”

p. 144: [Specified complexity can be defined:] “. . . since a universal probability bound of 1 [[chance] in 10^150 corresponds to a universal complexity bound of 500 bits of information, [the cluster] (T, E) constitutes CSI because T [ effectively the target hot zone in the field of possibilities] subsumes E [ effectively the observed event from that field], T is detachable from E, and and T measures at least 500 bits of information . . . ”

9 –> Likewise, despite repeated corrections on this point at UD for a long time now, RDF cannot resist trying to redefine intelligent agency as human agency.

10 –> But while human beings are intelligent agents, say beavers that build dams adapted to the circumstances of a stream, are also of limited intelligence. So, we have no good reason to confine intelligent agency to human agency.

11 –> Likewise, we deal with possible worlds as well: so long as there are possible states of affairs in which intelligence is exhibited by non-human agents, we have no good warrant to artificially confine our inference from observed agency to require an inference regarding HUMAN agency.

12 –> For that matter, we have no good grounds for locking out the possibility of mind without embodiment as agent. We may not understand how that is possible but it is a serious possibility that should not be locked out by begging questions.

13 –> Where, for instance, we see — as I just had occasion to note in a different thread:

Value of G [the subject of that thread] is not strongly tied to the sort of resonances that lead to H, He, O and C as most abundant elements in the observed cosmos, with N nearby (& IIRC, 5th for our galaxy).

That gives us, stars and galaxies, the gateway to the rest of the periodic table, water with its astonishing properties, organic chemistry’s connector-block element and proteins.

Sir Fred Hoyle was right to point to this pattern as a first pivotal manifestation of fine tuning. Even, though the values involved do not run to huge numbers of decimals.

This looks like a put-up job on the physics behind our cosmos, and points to there being no blind forces of consequence in physics, chemistry or biology.

In plain words — independent of whether we ever get to some prebiotic soup that is reasonable and does somehow throw up living cells, or whether we show that lucky noise driven variation can feed body plan level origination by successive survival based culling out — we have evidence that points to a cosmos set up to facilitate the existence of C-Chemistry, aqueous medium cell based life in terrestrial planets in galactic habitable zones orbiting the right sort of Pop I second generation stars with high metallicity.

And, in my view, that is where design theory should first point . . . it decisively undercuts the 150 years of indoctrination on the world of life.

Then, with that in hand, we are in a position to ask pointed and politely but firmly insist on sound and prudent answers to questions on the sampling of config spaces given planetary, solar system and observed cosmos scale resources, regarding the plausibility of the origin of codes, algorithms and supportive complex functional organisation by blind chance and mechanical necessity.

14 –> In other words, we have reason to at least be open tot he possibility of intelligent design by minded agent beyond the observed cosmos, indeed, an agent with the skill, power and intent to design and build a cosmos set up for C-Chemistry aqueous medium cell-based life.

15 –> This then raises the focal issue of intelligence, and we should observe the significance of the scare quotes immediately following, on the term INTELLIGENCE . . . as that normally means that the writer — here, RDF — dismisses the concept of intelligence as a dubious notion (not to mention, that of a designer):

RDF, 339: >>ID argues that the best explanation (let’s call it the “Designer”) for biological complexity can therefore be inferred to be similar to human beings in that both human beings and the Designer have “intelligence”. >>

16 –> Design theory argues that on the vera causa principle and inference to best, empirically and analytically grounded explanation the best explanation for FSCO/I is intelligent design. For reasons that have been outlined above, and which neither RDF not other objectors at UD have had a cogent on the merits answer to for years.

17 –> On Intelligence, let me clip 236 above, which was of course studiously ignored and/or brushed aside by RDF et al without cogently addressing the issues:

So, just what is intelligence, then? (Laying aside selective hyperskepticism.)

We may not currently be able to define it any better than we are to define life, or time, or energy etc, but these concepts are reasonable and useful. As a working definition, we may build on Wikipedia’s admission against interest cited in the UD glossary:

INTELLIGENCE: capacities [and so also, the underlying faculties and potentials that give abilities]

a: to reason,

b: to plan,

c: to solve problems [especially those requiring fresh creative or inventive insight and/or judgement in the face of uncertainties and weighing of subtle pros and cons],

d: to think abstractly,

e: to comprehend ideas,

f: to use language, and

g: to learn [i.e. acquire and use knowledge and skills to resolve challenges or attain goals or consciously held purposes,]

. . . [as may empirically indicated by appropriate behaviours that show purposeful creative conceptual activity, often resulting in thermodynamic counter-flow that creatively yields instances of functionally specific and purposeful, complex organisation and/or associated information in code or reducible to such code]

I would suggest that humans fit this and something like a beaver fits a good slice of it.

I further suggest that anything that is an actual or possible being — I here advert to possible worlds — fulfills these criteria would be instantly recognised as intelligent, and something that meets a substantial proportion would be seen as at least limitedly intelligent. Such as, a beaver.

18 –> On the meaning of design (we are after all dealing with definition derby games), let me clip from Wikipedia speaking against known ideological bent:

design has been defined as follows.

(noun) a specification of an object, manifested by an agent, intended to accomplish goals, in a particular environment, using a set of primitive components, satisfying a set of requirements, subject to constraints [–> which would include acting forces, materials and configurational requisites for function];

(verb, transitive) to create a design, in an environment (where the designer operates)[

19 –> Patently, an entity capable of creating a design and giving it effect would be a designer — notice the common-d (I am very aware of the loaded insinuation and hoped for invidious association in RDF’s scare-quotes capital-D “Designer) — and would meet the definition of being intelligent as was also just presented.

20 –> Where, in fact, it has been quite plain all along that intelligence, functionally specific complex organisation and associated information, design and designer have reasonable working understandings rooted in a vast body of experience in an information technology saturated high tech world.

21 –> And while we are at it, let us note from the UD glossary, in light of how William Dembski long since defined Intelligent Design as a scientific project, the basis for the view that is under discussion here at UD:

Intelligent design [ID] – Dr William A Dembski, a leading design theorist, has defined ID as “the science that studies signs of intelligence.” That is, as we ourselves instantiate [thus exemplify as opposed to “exhaust”], intelligent designers act into the world, and create artifacts. When such agents act, there are certain characteristics that commonly appear, and that – per massive experience — reliably mark such artifacts. It it therefore a reasonable and useful scientific project to study such signs and identify how we may credibly reliably infer from empirical sign to the signified causal factor: purposefully directed contingency or intelligent design.

22 –> Where, again, we must note what Sir Fred Hoyle so boldly put on the table thirty and more years ago:

From 1953 onward, Willy Fowler and I have always been intrigued by the remarkable relation of the 7.65 MeV energy level in the nucleus of 12 C to the 7.12 MeV level in 16 O. If you wanted to produce carbon and oxygen in roughly equal quantities by stellar nucleosynthesis, these are the two levels you would have to fix, and your fixing would have to be just where these levels are actually found to be. Another put-up job? . . . I am inclined to think so. A common sense interpretation of the facts suggests that a super intellect has “monkeyed” with the physics as well as the chemistry and biology, and there are no blind forces worth speaking about in nature. [F. Hoyle, Annual Review of Astronomy and Astrophysics, 20 (1982): 16.]

23 –> And again, in his famous Caltech talk:

The big problem in biology, as I see it, is to understand the origin of the information carried by the explicit structures of biomolecules. The issue isn’t so much the rather crude fact that a protein consists of a chain of amino acids linked together in a certain way, but that the explicit ordering of the amino acids endows the chain with remarkable properties, which other orderings wouldn’t give. The case of the enzymes is well known . . . If amino acids were linked at random, there would be a vast number of arrange-ments that would be useless in serving the pur-poses of a living cell. When you consider that a typical enzyme has a chain of perhaps 200 links and that there are 20 possibilities for each link,it’s easy to see that the number of useless arrangements is enormous, more than the number of atoms in all the galaxies visible in the largest telescopes. [–> ~ 10^80] This is for one enzyme, and there are upwards of 2000 of them, mainly serving very different purposes. So how did the situation get to where we find it to be? This is, as I see it, the biological problem – the information problem . . . .

I was constantly plagued by the thought that the number of ways in which even a single enzyme could be wrongly constructed was greater than the number of all the atoms in the universe. So try as I would, I couldn’t convince myself that even the whole universe would be sufficient to find life by random processes – by what are called the blind forces of nature . . . . By far the simplest way to arrive at the correct sequences of amino acids in the enzymes would be by thought, not by random processes . . . .

Now imagine yourself as a superintellect [–> this shows a clear and widely understood concept of intelligence] working through possibilities in polymer chemistry. Would you not be astonished that polymers based on the carbon atom turned out in your calculations to have the remarkable properties of the enzymes and other biomolecules? Would you not be bowled over in surprise to find that a living cell was a feasible construct? Would you not say to yourself, in whatever language supercalculating intellects use: Some supercalculating intellect must have designed the properties of the carbon atom, otherwise the chance of my finding such an atom through the blind forces of nature would be utterly minuscule. Of course you would, and if you were a sensible superintellect you would conclude that the carbon atom is a fix.

24 –> Noting also:

I do not believe that any physicist who examined the evidence could fail to draw the inference that the laws of nuclear physics have been deliberately designed with regard to the consequences they produce within stars. [“The Universe: Past and Present Reflections.” Engineering and Science, November, 1981. pp. 8–12]

25 –> All of this has been on longstanding, easily accessible record. In the case of these three clips, from a lifelong agnostic astrophysicist and holder of a Nobel-equivalent prize.

26 –> I therefore, in light of such evidence — much of it long since adverted to in the course of the discussions at UD in recent days — find it very hard to escape the conclusion that we have been dealing with distractions form what is pivotal via red herrings, led away to strawmen duly soaked in ad hominems [the snide insinuations about ignoramus Creationists beg to be openly pointed out . . . ], and set alight with clever talking points in order to cloud, choke, confuse and poison the atmosphere of discussion.

27 –> the answer to such, is simple: go back to the pivotal basics, and clear the air, exposing the fallacies involved along the way.  >>

_________________

So, again, thank you RDF, for letting us understand through these remarks the ways in which despite repeated correction, you and many others have unfortunately misunderstood and therefore caricatured and dismissed the design inference as a scientific project. That is an important service to design thinking in science, as the exercise of correction by going back to roots and basics, will doubtless be of help to many now and onwards. END

Comments
My two cents: I've had the experience---twice in my lifetime---of "losing consciousness" in the sense of no longer being connected to what we would call the "real world." One time, I actually "saw", while no longer connected to the "real" world, what was about to happen 30 seconds in the FUTURE. I agree with definition #2. We, as persons, have 'consciousness.' It is this which makes us like God, who is a Trinity of Persons in One Divine Nature. I've also had the experience of being drunk, and "losing consciousness," though, I was told later, I was the "life of the party." Let me tell you, our 'conscious' act of "seeing" has very little to do with our eyes. When WmJMurray talks about our consciousness being "outside" our spacetime continuum, I'm sure he has in mind the realm of the Spirit. And, he is correct. What a great sin it is to drink to excess, causing you to "lose consciousness," and thus depriving yourself of this great gift of 'consciousness' God gives us, without which we would not have freedom.PaV
June 25, 2014
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RDFish- we have another agreement- RDFish:
Rather, what the lightning analogy demonstrates is that it is unjustified to conclude that whatever we find to be improbable under natural law as we understand it must therefore be due to “intelligent agency”.
Hey, we agree on that. The explanatory filter requires more than just eliminating necessity and chance before we can infer design. And we realize that not everything can be explained given our current knowledge. Sometimes the best we can do is say “yes it is highly improbable but yet we can’t rule out chance and we can’t yet justify a design inference”. That is when we go back to the beginning to find out why we are investigating this object/ structure/ event in the first place and go from there given all we have uncovered to get back there.Joe
June 24, 2014
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Hi William J Murray,
What difference does it make which explanation seems more plausible to you? You asked for a dualistic explanation that accounts for what appears to be a loss of consciousness, complaining that you “never got one” before.
You are certainly entitled to your metaphysical beliefs and to be disinterested in other people's opinions regarding them. I assumed you enjoyed, as I do, discussing these topics with those who might see things differently. Obviously I was mistaken. Cheers, RDFish/AIGuyRDFish
June 24, 2014
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RDFish:
No, I’m asking questions that I believe are interesting an important.
Find someone who agrees with you- that your questions are important- and ask them. At UD we know your questions are impotent.Joe
June 24, 2014
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Mung: It's a beautiful dream. I had it sometimes. :)gpuccio
June 24, 2014
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gpuccio:
However, we have scarce doubt that it was us experiencing those dreams, even those we forget.
Sometimes I dream of flying, by which I mean unassisted flight. And it's me who is flying, not someone else.Mung
June 23, 2014
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RDFish:
Does everyone else here believe this?
Yes. Whether consciously or unconsciously, we all believe it.Mung
June 23, 2014
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You're on a hiding to nothing, lads. A wild fish chase!Axel
June 23, 2014
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RDFsaid:
Ok, so we have this experience of losing consciousness,
We call it that because of the interpretaion. How can anyone say they are losing consciousness when they never experience a state of "lost" or "absent" conscoiusness?
then we have no experience at all for some period of time,
That's not true at all. A conscious entity never experiences "having no experience for a period of time". What others around the body experience is a body that has no apparent consciousness. The entity that normally operates that body never experiences "no experience for some period of time".
and then we have the experience of regaining consciousness.
No. Once again, you have an experience interpreted as "regaining consciousnesss" because of the non-sequential nature of the surrounding context.
That is the data of our experience.
No, the actual data is, from the experience of the consciousness, an entirely uninterrupted stream of some state of consciousness. The labels you use - "losing consciousness" and "regaining consciousness" are interpretive characterizations of the data as it fits into a linear space/time model.
You are hypothesizing that during the period where we experience nothing, our consciousness is the same as it always is, but outside of our (or in a different) spacetime continuum.
No. That's not what I said at all. In fact I specifically made a point about that not being the case: WJM said.
You are conceiving of consciousness as “attached to” or “the same as” the body, something that moves through space-time sequences with the body in some kind of parallel existence with 1:1 mapping with physical space-time vectors. The body might go through hundreds of miles of space and hours of time from one conscious point to another; that doesn’t mean that the consciousness was “somewhere else” at the time. Consciousness might move from A to Z in one step, while the body moves from A to Z in 25 steps. Consciousness may not be present in 24 of those steps, but that doesn’t mean it was “somewhere else”.
RDFish said:
Compare three explanations for the fact that we lose consciousness when we get hit on the head: ................ It certainly seems to me that (3) is the most plausible and parsimonious explanation.
What difference does it make which explanation seems more plausible to you? You asked for a dualistic explanation that accounts for what appears to be a loss of consciousness, complaining that you "never got one" before. Now you have 2 such explanations, whether or not they "seem" to be the "most plausible" to you.William J Murray
June 23, 2014
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Bring back Elizabeth and Kantian...! All is forgiven!Axel
June 23, 2014
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RDFish (#74): I definitely stick to explanation 1). When we "lose consciousness", be it because we get hit on the head, or undergo anaesthesia, we simply go into a state which is probably similar to the state of deep sleep. We may experience some deep state of peace, with scarce formal contents, but there is no reason to believe that we experience nothing. Every day we access the sleep state, and we come out of it, and the experience is similar to "losing consciousness" or "regaining it". And yet we know that we have experiences during thew sleep state, at least in the dream phases. Your phrase in explanation 3): "we are no longer conscious" is a good example of the difficulty in your view. If we are not conscious, there is no "we". You should say: there is no "we", and after sometime there is again a "we". But, strangely, that "we" feels that it is the same "we" as before. And it is nbot a question of memory and conscious remembrance of identity. As I have said, there are dreams where our identity seems to be completely different from our waking identity, and yet we feel that it is always "we", even if different. Sometimes the logic itself of a dream is so different from what we feel and understand in the waking state that we have huge difficulties even trying to go through it by the lingering memory of the dream. And yet, we have no doubt that it was "us" in that dream. We don't attribute that experience, however strange, to some other, unknown person. There is no reason at all to believe that our identity as a conscious subject is in any way lost during the states of apparent "unconsciousness", no more than there is reason to believe that it is lost during a dream, or that we were another person during the first 2-3 years of our lives, of which we usually have no conscious memory.gpuccio
June 23, 2014
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RDFish: The uniting thread of our consciousness is not the memory of the states (which is often lost), but the continuity of the identity. We experience many dreams that we completely forget when we awaken. Some of them we remember, sometimes only for a few instants, some other we remember for long times. However, we have scarce doubt that it was us experiencing those dreams, even those we forget. We would never want to have very bad dreams, even if we forget them afterwards, because we intuitively know that it's we who suffer in those dreams, whatever we may remember of them. We are not affected (not much, usually) if another person has a bad dream, because it's another subject who experiences that bad state. But we dread our bad dreams, whatever the future memory of them, because it is "!our subject", our I, who will have to experience them. If we knew in advance that we will suffer from amnesia tomorrow, and then for three years we will suffer from physical and mental pain, would we be indifferent to that perspective only because that would happen to a person who has no "conscious" memory of what we are today? I don't think so. The intuitive certainty of the constancy of our identity, whatever the "conscious" external attributes of that identity, is the true source of all our hopes and fears. We know that we are and will continue to be "us". The same subject, whatever its memories, attributes, and states of consciousness.gpuccio
June 23, 2014
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Hi William J Murray,
You never experience a moment of ceased consciousness. To experience a thing requires consciousness of some sort, so you cannot experience your consciousness in a “ceased” state, so you cannot say you have experienced it “ceasing”.
Although we do experience losing consciousness and regaining consciousness, it is very true that we do not experience anything at all after we have lost consciousness and before it returns. I agree completely (although gpuccio apparently dissents regarding this point).
Which is why I’m pointing out that you are, instead, necessarily interpreting a sequences of experienced events as your consciousness”ceasing”, because in-between two points of some sort of conscious experience, time has elapsed and/or you have traveled a distance in space incongruent with your last known conscious space-time vector, which is why you interpret it as your consciousness “ceasing” for a time.
Ok, so we have this experience of losing consciousness, then we have no experience at all for some period of time, and then we have the experience of regaining consciousness. That is the data of our experience. You are hypothesizing that during the period where we experience nothing, our consciousness is the same as it always is, but outside of our (or in a different) spacetime continuum. A materialist would argue that consciousness is the same thing as brain function, or that consciousness reduces to or emerges from brain function. I wouldn't argue any of these things. It does, however, seem that some brain function is required for consciousness, and here is why I say that: Compare three explanations for the fact that we lose consciousness when we get hit on the head: 1) GPuccio's explanation: We don't actually ever lose consciousness, even though it feels like we do. The conscious experiences that occur while our body is unconscious are somehow forgotten when our body regains consciousness. 2) Your explanation: Our consciousness exists outside of our spacetime continuum (or in a different one), and when our bodies are unconscious, time only passes for those in the same spacetime continuum as we are, while no time passes for our consciousness. When we regain consciousness, our consciousness again appears to remain synchronized with our bodies in "real time". (I hope I've paraphrased your view accurately - I'm not trying to misrepresent what you're saying). 3) Consciousness somehow depends on certain functions of the brain, and when those functions are disrupted, we are no longer conscious. When they resume, so does our conscious experience. It certainly seems to me that (3) is the most plausible and parsimonious explanation. Cheers, RDFish/AIGuyRDFish
June 23, 2014
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RDFish:
I really think that most people would agree that whatever is true metaphysically, our experience is that we experience a stream of consciousness that ceases under certain circumstances (drugs, injury, and so on) and then returns.
No, RDFish. You never experience a moment of ceased consciousness. To experience a thing requires consciousness of some sort, so you cannot experience your consciousness in a "ceased" state, so you cannot say you have experienced it "ceasing". Which is why I'm pointing out that you are, instead, necessarily interpreting a sequences of experienced events as your consciousness"ceasing", because in-between two points of some sort of conscious experience, time has elapsed and/or you have traveled a distance in space incongruent with your last known conscious space-time vector, which is why you interpret it as your consciousness "ceasing" for a time.William J Murray
June 23, 2014
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GP:
The coma scale measures what it is meant to measure, that is how “distant” from normal body consciousness the patient is. Unfortunately, our clinical scales cannot solve deep philosophical problems.
Of course not. Kairosfocus, however, has advocated the Glasgow Coma Scale as a reliable and dispositive indicator of consciousness, and does so in the context of a more or less philosophical discussion, where it is completely misplaced.Reciprocating Bill
June 23, 2014
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Reciprocating Bill:
This has relevance to other discussions ongoing here. It follows from the above that the the Glasgow coma scale doesn’t really measure consciousness at all (a person in a deep, wholly unresponsive coma as indicated by the Glasgow is still conscious, according to this view), and measures such as “self-directed activity” also fail to indicate consciousness that persists in this way (there is no self-directed behavior while one is “knocked out,” anesthetized, etc.
The coma scale measures what it is meant to measure, that is how "distant" from normal body consciousness the patient is. Unfortunately, our clinical scales cannot solve deep philosophical problems. All measures which are directed to the normal functions in the waking state will not work for other kinds of states. A mystic in deep ecstasy may appear unconscious to all those who look at him. The waking state is only the tip of an iceberg. We are much more than that.gpuccio
June 23, 2014
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RDFish:
So according to you, we still have conscious experiences while we are unconscious, and so the word “unconscious” doesn’t really mean that we are unconscious, but rather it means “still conscious”.
Yes. Still conscious, in a different way.gpuccio
June 23, 2014
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Hi William J Murray,
You’re thinking of consciousness as if it is limited to the physical body and is governed by physical regularities, like sequences of spatial or temporal movement.
No, I'm thinking of those things at all. Rather, I am thinking of consciousness merely as I experience it phenomenologically. I am not considering its limitations, ontological status, or causal powers. I am not considering whether it exists in our spacetime or if it is "attached to" or "the same as" the body. Instead, I'm talking only about our conscious awareness as we experience it, and as people describe it: "I lost consciousness", "I regained consciousness", and so on. I really think that most people would agree that whatever is true metaphysically, our experience is that we experience a stream of consciousness that ceases under certain circumstances (drugs, injury, and so on) and then returns. Cheers, RDFish/AIGuyRDFish
June 23, 2014
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RDFish, I answered your question. I'll try to add to it in some way so you can understand it is an answer to your question: You’re thinking of consciousness as if it is limited to the physical body and is governed by physical regularities, like sequences of spatial or temporal movement. My body may move sequentially through hundreds of miles and several hours of time from one point of conscious experience to the next [add: while the body is apparently in the state we call "unconscious"]; that doesn’t mean my consciousness must be accounted for in all of those vectors of time/space because it is not bound to experience physical time/space sequence the same way the physical body is. You are conceiving of consciousness as "attached to" or "the same as" the body, something that moves through space-time sequences with the body in some kind of parallel existence with 1:1 mapping with physical space-time vectors. The body might go through hundreds of miles of space and hours of time from one conscious point to another; that doesn't mean that the consciousness was "somewhere else" at the time. Consciousness might move from A to Z in one step, while the body moves from A to Z in 25 steps. Consciousness may not be present in 24 of those steps, but that doesn't mean it was "somewhere else".William J Murray
June 23, 2014
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RDF to Gpuccio:
Apparently you are hypothesizing here that while we are anesthetized, or in a dreamless sleep, or have been “knocked unconscious”, and so on, we actually are still experiencing conscious awareness, but when we regain consciousness, we for some reason forget all that happened while we were unconscious (but still, in your view, having conscious experiences). Is that what you mean?
Gpuccio to RDF:
Yes.
This has relevance to other discussions ongoing here. It follows from the above that the the Glasgow coma scale doesn't really measure consciousness at all (a person in a deep, wholly unresponsive coma as indicated by the Glasgow is still conscious, according to this view), and measures such as "self-directed activity" also fail to indicate consciousness that persists in this way (there is no self-directed behavior while one is "knocked out," anesthetized, etc.Reciprocating Bill
June 23, 2014
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Hi gpuccio, Thanks for that clear answer. So according to you, we still have conscious experiences while we are unconscious, and so the word "unconscious" doesn't really mean that we are unconscious, but rather it means "still conscious". Does everyone else here believe this? Cheers, RDFish/AIGuyRDFish
June 23, 2014
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RDFish: Yes.gpuccio
June 23, 2014
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Hi gpuccio,
In our human condition, our consciousness is strongly linked to the brain and to its activities. Alterations in the brain strongly affect what the consciousness perceives.
Yes, I think this is obvious.
Our consciousness never disappears. Why do you say that?
It is very common for people (including doctors) to talk about "losing consciousness", and virtually everyone knows what that means. When we fall into a dreamless sleep, or when are anesthetized, or when we receive a blow to head, and so on, we say that we "lose consciousness" because our conscious awareness ceases. When we awaken, we say that we "regain consciousness". The second question that emergency medical personnel often ask (after "is he breathing?") is usually "is he conscious"?
Our consciousness undergoes different states.
Yes, I agree.
Our waking memory is mainly limited to experiences in the waking state. That does not mean that all our other experiences are not conscious, and that they don’t belong to us. It’s the same subject which experiences them all.
Apparently you are hypothesizing here that while we are anesthetized, or in a dreamless sleep, or have been "knocked unconscious", and so on, we actually are still experiencing conscious awareness, but when we regain consciousness, we for some reason forget all that happened while we were unconscious (but still, in your view, having conscious experiences). Is that what you mean? Cheers, RDFish/AIGuyRDFish
June 23, 2014
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Hi William J Murray,
You asked me to explain “where consciousness goes” when you are not conscious – at least according to my worldview. I did so. I did so.
What you said was that while your body might move hundreds of miles over several hours, you may have only one or two points of conscious experience. This (1) doesn't comport with my experience of a continuous stream of consciousness, and (2) doesn't explain why we lose consciousness when something happens to our brain.
It appears to me now that you are just trolling.
No, I'm asking questions that I believe are interesting an important. It appears to me that you are just evading.
As Axel pointed out, RDFIsh and many others argue with assumptions and question phrasing that assumes a materialist’s world. For instance, the idea that the consciousness is “off” or “goes somewhere” is a materialist perspective of a certain kind of space-time continuity that all things must experience in some kind of shared sequential order.
It is a very common idiom to say that we "lose consciousness" and "regain consciousness" in the various situations that I've described. I did not invent these ways to describe our experience; they simply reflect what we actually experience. Have you ever been anesthetized, or fallen into a dreamless sleep, or had a severe concussion, or drank too much alcohol? Would you not say that under these conditions you "lose consciousness"? If not, how you do describe it?
I have in fact drive over a hundred miles only to realize at some point I had no conscious recollection of the time or space in between, my body apparently acting entirely programming, habit & instinct.
When this happens, I am consciously thinking about something other than my driving of course. I am not asleep at the wheel, which would be a very different state.
Perhaps the problem isn’t that RDFish doesn’t get answers to his/her questions, but rather gets answers that do not fit the framework RDFish requires them to fit, and then RDFish feels comfortable claiming that the question has not been answered when, in fact, it has.
It seems to me that you are uncomfortable confronting the evidence of our experience, because it conflicts with your religious beliefs. But I'd rather discuss the issues rather than perform amateur psychoanalysis of others. Cheers, RDFish/AIGuyRDFish
June 23, 2014
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kairosfocus, I am thinking about the onlookers. What are they to think seeing you grapple with an argument that has already been refuted?Joe
June 23, 2014
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As Axel pointed out, RDFIsh and many others argue with assumptions and question phrasing that assumes a materialist's world. For instance, the idea that the consciousness is "off" or "goes somewhere" is a materialist perspective of a certain kind of space-time continuity that all things must experience in some kind of shared sequential order. Consciousness has no such restriction. I need not follow the linear time/space path as the body. It might be said that if an unconscious body is traveling from A to B over hundreds of miles and several hours, the consciousness experiences no discontinuity. If a person falls asleep on a train or in a car or an airplane, the consciousness experiences no "gap" of a few hours; the consciousness changes through different states - perhaps dream states or semi-conscious states - but it never experiences "non-consciousness". I have in fact drive over a hundred miles only to realize at some point I had no conscious recollection of the time or space in between, my body apparently acting entirely programming, habit & instinct. Perhaps the problem isn't that RDFish doesn't get answers to his/her questions, but rather gets answers that do not fit the framework RDFish requires them to fit, and then RDFish feels comfortable claiming that the question has not been answered when, in fact, it has.William J Murray
June 23, 2014
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RDFish: In our human condition, our consciousness is strongly linked to the brain and to its activities. Alterations in the brain strongly affect what the consciousness perceives, because we are almost "bound" to perceive the brain states primarily. Our consciousness never disappears. Why do you say that? Our consciousness undergoes different states. The waking state, which we usually identify with what we are, is only one of them. The dreaming state, the deep sleep state, are other states of consciousness that we regularly experience. And there are other states which are not experienced often, but which still exist and are important, including altered states due to chemicals, contemplative states, mystic states, NDEs and so on. Our waking memory is mainly limited to experiences in the waking state. That does not mean that all our other experiences are not conscious, and that they don't belong to us. It's the same subject which experiences them all.gpuccio
June 23, 2014
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RDFish said:
Do you actually mean that you can, say, drive 100 miles with no conscious awareness of what you are doing? This certainly doesn’t fit with my experience – I experience a continuous stream of conscious awareness as long as I am awake. I suspect the same is true of you; it would be rather alarming otherwise.
You asked me to explain "where consciousness goes" when you are not conscious - at least according to my worldview. I did so. I did so. It appears to me now that you are just trolling.William J Murray
June 23, 2014
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Hi Axel,
Surely, Pim Van Lommel’s hypothesis that the brain is merely a receiver of the radiant ‘brain waves’ of a person’s non-local mind, akin to radio and TV waves, etc., fits such facts as we know.
Well, that's just the point: This view (often called "transmission theory") doesn't fit the facts at all. When something happens to a radio (it's turned off, or unplugged, or broken, etc), the radio waves are not affected. But when something happens to our brain (via drugs, injury, etc) our consciousness disappears.
RDF’s contradictory claims, followed by their framing as a question, clearly show that he is confused, for no other reason than that he starts off from the reductionist position of the incorrigible materialist, and makes it clear that he has no intention of considering any other metaphysical position.
Actually what I am doing here is exactly that: I am considering the metaphysical position of dualism, in particular "transmission theory". I don't understand why people think this is consistent with the evidence, and I would like to hear from people who do. Cheers, RDFish/AIGuyRDFish
June 23, 2014
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Hi William J Murray,
My body may move sequentially through hundreds of miles and several hours of time from one point of conscious experience to the next; that doesn’t mean my consciousness must be accounted for in all of those vectors of time/space because it is not bound to experience physical time/space sequence the same way the physical body is.
Do you actually mean that you can, say, drive 100 miles with no conscious awareness of what you are doing? This certainly doesn't fit with my experience - I experience a continuous stream of conscious awareness as long as I am awake. I suspect the same is true of you; it would be rather alarming otherwise. Cheers, RDFish/AIGuyRDFish
June 23, 2014
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