The mind begs the question

Discuss any topics related to metaphysics (the philosophical study of the principles of reality) or epistemology (the philosophical study of knowledge) in this forum.
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Consul
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Re: The mind begs the question

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Atla wrote: April 21st, 2021, 11:40 am Science has found zero evidence that links phenomenal consciousness to mechanisms that realize subjective sentience/experience.
Wrong, science has found tons of evidence that links phenomenal consciousness to neural mechanisms in animal brains.
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Consul
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Re: The mind begs the question

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Pattern-chaser wrote: April 21st, 2021, 10:57 amI cannot see a logical justification for rejecting (or accepting) any hypothesis without evidence to support your conclusion. You have no evidence to support your unsubstantiated beliefs. You reject the hypothesis solely based on the lack of evidence to support it, even though there is no evidence to refute it either. Illogical, Captain.
QUOTE>
"At a first approximation, we can take the absence of evidence to be evidence of absence—or more broadly and less memorably, we can take the lack of positive evidence for some hypothesis to be evidence against the hypothesis—just in case we have good reason to believe that if the hypothesis were true, we would have positive evidence."

(McGrew, Timothy. "Evidence." In The Routledge Companion to Epistemology, edited by Sven Bernecker and Duncan Pritchard, 58-67. New York: Routledge, 2011. p. 64)
<QUOTE

We have good reason to believe that if panpsychism were true, scientists would find some positive evidence for specific physical/chemical systems or mechanisms in nonbiological objects (* which can plausibly be regarded as substrates and correlates of mental/experiential states. No such evidence has ever been found by scientists, with this being a case where absence of evidence does amount to evidence of absence; so the rejection of the panpsychist hypothesis is justified. (* rocks, stones, single crystals, single molecules, single atoms, or single particles)
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Atla
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Re: The mind begs the question

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Consul wrote: April 21st, 2021, 1:52 pm
Atla wrote: April 21st, 2021, 11:40 am Science has found zero evidence that links phenomenal consciousness to mechanisms that realize subjective sentience/experience.
Wrong, science has found tons of evidence that links phenomenal consciousness to neural mechanisms in animal brains.
Lol okay, then present one evidence.
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Terrapin Station
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Re: The mind begs the question

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Atla wrote: April 21st, 2021, 11:31 am
Terrapin Station wrote: April 21st, 2021, 7:29 am
Atla wrote: April 19th, 2021, 11:58 pm
Faustus5 wrote: April 19th, 2021, 4:54 pm

Hate to break it to you, but nobodies on random Internet discussion forums are not now and never will be in a position to dictate what does and does not constitute a "scientific measurement". That determination is up to scientists, specifically here, cognitive neuroscientists. And they are perfectly happy with the reports of subjects regarding their subjective experiences being scientific data in good standing. If you have a science based reason for thinking they are mistaken (you don't), please do submit your thoughts to the appropriate peer reviewed journal so the scientific community can be bathed in your superior wisdom.

As for the "taking it on faith" part, if said subjects' reports consistently pair up with the same kinds of internal events from subject to subject (and they do), no faith whatsoever is involved.
A scientific measurement actually MEASURES something.
You don't measure internal events, as neuroscience hasn't found a way to do that. It can only measure external correlates and collect reports. Neuroscience can't tell whether or not internal events actually exist, it just takes it on faith.
That's the the problem, shows that you never once in your life stopped to think about it.
Science can't measure the properties of anything from the spatiotemporal situatedness of being the thing that's measured. And the spatiotemporal situatedness of being the thing that's measured always has unique properties from that situatedness. We're ALWAYS just measuring correlations to those unique properties. This isn't at all something exclusive to mental phenomena. So that doesn't work as an objection, unless you're going to equally object to all scientific measurement period.
This idea of yours has already been addressed in some other topic too. The properties that science measures don't vary depending on spatiotemporal situatedness, they are not unique. Only their spatiotemporal situatedness is unique.
Yes, they do vary. This is very trivially the case. Examples include the shape of objects from different spatiotemporal situatedness, Doppler shifts, etc.
Atla
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Re: The mind begs the question

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Terrapin Station wrote: April 21st, 2021, 2:26 pm Yes, they do vary. This is very trivially the case. Examples include the shape of objects from different spatiotemporal situatedness, Doppler shifts, etc.
The percieved shape of the object doesn't change the shape of the object, the percieved Doppler shift of the wave doesn't change the wave.

Nor is there a reason why such differences should change the nature of properties. The shape just gets distorted, the wave just gets distorted. It's the same kind of property as before, just distorted.
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Re: The mind begs the question

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Atla wrote: April 21st, 2021, 2:38 pm
Terrapin Station wrote: April 21st, 2021, 2:26 pm Yes, they do vary. This is very trivially the case. Examples include the shape of objects from different spatiotemporal situatedness, Doppler shifts, etc.
The percieved shape of the object doesn't change the shape of the object
So, we're not talking about a perceived shape (in other words, we're not requiring persons to have perceptions), we're talking about the shape of the object from a particular spatiotemporal situatedness. That particular spatiotemporal situatedness would be correlated with perceptions, but it's not the same thing as them, because it obtains whether any people do or not.

Part of the point here is that any location we pick for what properties obtain in a given x is just another spatiotemporal situatedness. There is no preferred spatiotemporal situatedness and no "situatedness-free" spatiotemporal situatedness. So there's no preferred situatedness for what the shape of x is. It has shape x at location L and shape y at location M.
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Re: The mind begs the question

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Terrapin Station wrote: April 21st, 2021, 3:42 pm
Atla wrote: April 21st, 2021, 2:38 pm
Terrapin Station wrote: April 21st, 2021, 2:26 pm Yes, they do vary. This is very trivially the case. Examples include the shape of objects from different spatiotemporal situatedness, Doppler shifts, etc.
The percieved shape of the object doesn't change the shape of the object
So, we're not talking about a perceived shape (in other words, we're not requiring persons to have perceptions), we're talking about the shape of the object from a particular spatiotemporal situatedness. That particular spatiotemporal situatedness would be correlated with perceptions, but it's not the same thing as them, because it obtains whether any people do or not.

Part of the point here is that any location we pick for what properties obtain in a given x is just another spatiotemporal situatedness. There is no preferred spatiotemporal situatedness and no "situatedness-free" spatiotemporal situatedness. So there's no preferred situatedness for what the shape of x is. It has shape x at location L and shape y at location M.
By 'perceived' I meant 'apparent'. The apparent shape of the object changes with our relative location, but its actual shape is constant.
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Re: The mind begs the question

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Atla wrote: April 21st, 2021, 3:59 pm
Terrapin Station wrote: April 21st, 2021, 3:42 pm
Atla wrote: April 21st, 2021, 2:38 pm
Terrapin Station wrote: April 21st, 2021, 2:26 pm Yes, they do vary. This is very trivially the case. Examples include the shape of objects from different spatiotemporal situatedness, Doppler shifts, etc.
The percieved shape of the object doesn't change the shape of the object
So, we're not talking about a perceived shape (in other words, we're not requiring persons to have perceptions), we're talking about the shape of the object from a particular spatiotemporal situatedness. That particular spatiotemporal situatedness would be correlated with perceptions, but it's not the same thing as them, because it obtains whether any people do or not.

Part of the point here is that any location we pick for what properties obtain in a given x is just another spatiotemporal situatedness. There is no preferred spatiotemporal situatedness and no "situatedness-free" spatiotemporal situatedness. So there's no preferred situatedness for what the shape of x is. It has shape x at location L and shape y at location M.
By 'perceived' I meant 'apparent'. The apparent shape of the object changes with our relative location, but its actual shape is constant.

"Actual" versus "perceived" in that sense presupposes a preferred spatiotemporal situatedness. But there is no such thing.
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Re: The mind begs the question

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Terrapin Station wrote: April 21st, 2021, 4:50 pm
Atla wrote: April 21st, 2021, 3:59 pm
Terrapin Station wrote: April 21st, 2021, 3:42 pm
Atla wrote: April 21st, 2021, 2:38 pm
The percieved shape of the object doesn't change the shape of the object
So, we're not talking about a perceived shape (in other words, we're not requiring persons to have perceptions), we're talking about the shape of the object from a particular spatiotemporal situatedness. That particular spatiotemporal situatedness would be correlated with perceptions, but it's not the same thing as them, because it obtains whether any people do or not.

Part of the point here is that any location we pick for what properties obtain in a given x is just another spatiotemporal situatedness. There is no preferred spatiotemporal situatedness and no "situatedness-free" spatiotemporal situatedness. So there's no preferred situatedness for what the shape of x is. It has shape x at location L and shape y at location M.
By 'perceived' I meant 'apparent'. The apparent shape of the object changes with our relative location, but its actual shape is constant.

"Actual" versus "perceived" in that sense presupposes a preferred spatiotemporal situatedness. But there is no such thing.
It doesn't presuppose that, it's the absolute perspective vs the relative perspective. Science strives for objectivity, even if it's unattainable.
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Re: The mind begs the question

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Atla wrote: April 22nd, 2021, 12:16 am
Terrapin Station wrote: April 21st, 2021, 4:50 pm
Atla wrote: April 21st, 2021, 3:59 pm
Terrapin Station wrote: April 21st, 2021, 3:42 pm

So, we're not talking about a perceived shape (in other words, we're not requiring persons to have perceptions), we're talking about the shape of the object from a particular spatiotemporal situatedness. That particular spatiotemporal situatedness would be correlated with perceptions, but it's not the same thing as them, because it obtains whether any people do or not.

Part of the point here is that any location we pick for what properties obtain in a given x is just another spatiotemporal situatedness. There is no preferred spatiotemporal situatedness and no "situatedness-free" spatiotemporal situatedness. So there's no preferred situatedness for what the shape of x is. It has shape x at location L and shape y at location M.
By 'perceived' I meant 'apparent'. The apparent shape of the object changes with our relative location, but its actual shape is constant.

"Actual" versus "perceived" in that sense presupposes a preferred spatiotemporal situatedness. But there is no such thing.
It doesn't presuppose that, it's the absolute perspective vs the relative perspective. Science strives for objectivity, even if it's unattainable.
The whole point being that there is no "absolute perspective"--the whole idea of that is incoherent/nonsense. "Objectivity" doesn't denote something not relative. It doesn't denote something "absolute."
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Re: The mind begs the question

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Consul wrote: April 21st, 2021, 1:58 pm QUOTE>
"At a first approximation, we can take the absence of evidence to be evidence of absence—or more broadly and less memorably, we can take the lack of positive evidence for some hypothesis to be evidence against the hypothesis—just in case we have good reason to believe that if the hypothesis were true, we would have positive evidence."

(McGrew, Timothy. "Evidence." In The Routledge Companion to Epistemology, edited by Sven Bernecker and Duncan Pritchard, 58-67. New York: Routledge, 2011. p. 64)
<QUOTE

If you believe that absence of evidence is evidence of absence, I don't know how I can continue to communicate with you. Your understanding of logic is fundamentally different to mine, and to all the other people who do NOT believe that absence of evidence is evidence of absence. I thought it was a well-known logical fallacy; I certainly see it as so. But you do not. Logically, we have no common ground, so we cannot meaningfully communicate. I withdraw from this small part of a sub-thread, and I wish you well.
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Consul
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Re: The mind begs the question

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Atla wrote: April 21st, 2021, 2:13 pm
Consul wrote: April 21st, 2021, 1:52 pm Wrong, science has found tons of evidence that links phenomenal consciousness to neural mechanisms in animal brains.
Lol okay, then present one evidence.
This has been demonstrated beyond reasonable doubt by the effects of brain injuries, brain diseases, anaestethics, psychopharmaceuticals, and narcotics on mind and consciousness.
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Consul
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Re: The mind begs the question

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Consul wrote: April 22nd, 2021, 10:18 am …anaestethics…
I mean "anaesthetics".
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Re: The mind begs the question

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Pattern-chaser wrote: April 22nd, 2021, 8:49 am
Consul wrote: April 21st, 2021, 1:58 pm QUOTE>
"At a first approximation, we can take the absence of evidence to be evidence of absence—or more broadly and less memorably, we can take the lack of positive evidence for some hypothesis to be evidence against the hypothesis—just in case we have good reason to believe that if the hypothesis were true, we would have positive evidence."

(McGrew, Timothy. "Evidence." In The Routledge Companion to Epistemology, edited by Sven Bernecker and Duncan Pritchard, 58-67. New York: Routledge, 2011. p. 64)
<QUOTE
If you believe that absence of evidence is evidence of absence, I don't know how I can continue to communicate with you. Your understanding of logic is fundamentally different to mine, and to all the other people who do NOT believe that absence of evidence is evidence of absence. I thought it was a well-known logical fallacy; I certainly see it as so. But you do not. Logically, we have no common ground, so we cannot meaningfully communicate. I withdraw from this small part of a sub-thread, and I wish you well.
If you had read the above quote slowly, you would have noticed that the claim is not that the absence of evidence is always, i.e. unconditionally, evidence of absence, but only "just in case we have good reason to believe that if the hypothesis were true, we would have positive evidence."

For example, when you look in your fridge, and there is no evidence for the presence of a bottle of milk in it, then this does amount to evidence for the absence of a bottle of milk in it; and you're thereby evidentially justified in believing that there is no bottle of milk in your fridge. For if there were one in it, you would certainly find evidence for its presence by seeing the thing.
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Re: The mind begs the question

Post by Atla »

Terrapin Station wrote: April 22nd, 2021, 7:15 am
Atla wrote: April 22nd, 2021, 12:16 am
Terrapin Station wrote: April 21st, 2021, 4:50 pm
Atla wrote: April 21st, 2021, 3:59 pm
By 'perceived' I meant 'apparent'. The apparent shape of the object changes with our relative location, but its actual shape is constant.

"Actual" versus "perceived" in that sense presupposes a preferred spatiotemporal situatedness. But there is no such thing.
It doesn't presuppose that, it's the absolute perspective vs the relative perspective. Science strives for objectivity, even if it's unattainable.
The whole point being that there is no "absolute perspective"--the whole idea of that is incoherent/nonsense. "Objectivity" doesn't denote something not relative. It doesn't denote something "absolute."
Objectivity / the absolute perspective is an ideal, that does denote something not relative. It's an ideal, not a literal perspective.
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