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But I never defined "brain" as "thought". I defined mind as thought and emergent from the physical brain.

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I am not sure what you are getting at here. I have never had any direct experience with anyone's thoughts and I think such a thing is probably impossible.

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See this I disagree with completely. I know that the reason "Red" appears as it does to me is because of a particular configuration/organization of my physicological bits and pieces. It is the same as my knowledge that my car can make a lot of noise because my muffler is attached and working(or not) a certain way. If I come upon another car that has the same exact makeup with the same muffler attached in the same way, the reasonable inference is that it too(barring any "defects"/deviance in the construction) will make similar noise.

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There are no humans with non-human eyes/brains. If there were then I would think they might possibly be seeing what I see as "green" on a stop sign, instead of "red".

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What is an "intelligent" but "non-sentient" being?!? I submit that that is another impossible thing but I concede that a redefinition of "intelligence" will allow one a proverbial 'escape hatch' from that one.

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We could but if my suspicions are correct, you will simply define "experience" in such a way that we are stuck in the same dillemma anyway.
In other words "subjective experince" is no where near the same thing as an OBJECTIVE one. That is to say that my imagining what it is like to be hit by a car is not the same thing as being hit by a car while crossing the street. The former can only be recounted as anecdote while the latter can be observed concurrently by a whole bunch of people.

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See I don't think that "caused" is right the way you are using it above. There is not really a single "cause" of my perception but rather a few different components: The actual object I am percieving and my sensory organs and brain matter.

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Furthermore, you are once again implying things with a dependent existence are equivalent of things which independently exist.

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In essence saying that since the thought in my head is "caused" by my brain, thoughts are existent in the same way that trees, caused by climatological conditions, "exist".

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If this is what you are saying then I disagree wholeheartedly because trees do not reuire my thinking about them to exist adn if you are NOT thinking abouyt them, you can still run into one adn break your nose.

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What is unscientific is assuming that what he reporeted anecdotally(re: that he had a dream in which the structure of benzene came to him) happened just as he reported but that is another issue. YES it is unscientific to rely on dreams in such a way but so what? If I am inspired to invent a better sugar-free beverage than Diet Soda because of a daydream or hallucination I had then how I go about inventing said beverage will be where the scientific process occurs. The "inspiration" part is rather inconsequential(or maybe "incidental" would be a better word) to the whole matter of how science works.

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(None of the individual components of science require science as a whole in order to take place, anyway.)[/qb]

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What is THAT supposed to mean(not agreeing or disagreeing...I simply cannot make sense of what you said there)?

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Probably right here but hypotheses really don't even require SCIENCE!

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THat's not what I was arguing. Let's say that I came here boldly proclaiming, in all of my closed-minded furor, that girls who wanted to be working 'models' had to be of a certain height adn weight range in addition to having appealing facial features/bone structure by the general consensus of the modeling community and society in general.
Now along comes someone who says "Hey! My friend does hand modeling for those Palmoloive dish soap commercials adn she is overweight adn short!"

See what I mean? Hand models adn runway models are both models but clearly the guy in the above analogy is fishing for a non-applicable example to rationalize a dissenting view.

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See "model" example above. Calling economics "science" in this discussion is like invoking someone with an honorary doctorate(re:Doctor Martin Luther King Jr.) in a discussion about medical malpractice or something.

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(By the way, no theory is strictly falsifiable if you don't want it to be anyway; you can explain away any data you like.)

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???

Again, what is your point here? That if someone wanted to they could plug their fingers in therir ears and chant :"BLAH BLAH, I can't hear you because superstring theory works LA LA LA!"? WHat does that have to do with proving grounds for falsification?!?

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Talk to a quantum physicist some time. It's mostly in biology that you tend to meet the hardline reductionists these days.

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I have spoken with people who invoke QP/QM to support ridiculous positions but I am not sure I have ever actually discussed anything with a quantum physicist. Much of what they would have to say would go over my head anyway as I and math are old enemies.

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Just that. I say that thought is an emergent property of brains and does not exsit sans brains(has no independent existence) adn of this I am certain. I am also certain that logically inconsistent gods(and otehr entities) do not exist. I do not believe it is possible I am wrong on this but I also did not believe my fellow Americans would ever go back to "boy bands" after New Kids on the Block were finally eradicated by my local music scene.
In all seriousness though, your only recourse here is to show me a thought that exists without a brain, or a round square or a God. Until then, I cannot be called "closed minded"(as some have) for saying that which is impossible, is in fact impossible.

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But I don't think there are any such circumstances. Doesn't mean I am entrenched or something so that I could not see that I was wrong if I were in fact wrong. No human can see how a round square could exist. You can speculate that this is because we lack some capability or something but that argument supports any claim no matter how ridiculous or nonsensical(e.g. I can claim that I gave birth to my mother, rather than the reverse adn say that this makes sense if only we had the capacity to understand that "mother" meant "child of" rather than "parent of").

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If there were no minds, there'd be nobody to know that brains existed, and therefore it'd be meaningless to say that they existed.

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If there were no brains, there would be no minds and therefore no one to say that minds existed.

Your move.

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:Boggle: How did you go from the quasi-zen "What is meaning?" thing to...?! Nevermind. Let's get back on track here. "Meaning" is often, if not always subjective I think we both agree. So is your bone of contention with me over my definitions and this is all just semantic quibbling? Is it not so much that you think a round shaped square might exist but rather that you should be able to redefine "square" as being "round"?

Well, knock yourself out then. How do you expect to function in our world though?

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Whoa. I think that linking genetic inheritance with self-awareness is a very long bow to draw indeed; it almost seems like a kind of biological mysticism.

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You don't agree that genetics play a role in determining are personalities, intellect and such?

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As for experiences, if you're a strict materialist, surely you're committed to the idea that any knowledge or experiences must be stored in some physical form, and therefore be measurable and replicable in principle.

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Not sure what you are getting at there. If you are saying that "ideas" and such should have a phsyical existence themselves then no, materialists would disagree. If you are saying that ideas must, according to materialism, have a real-world reference, then I would tentatively agree because I am unaware of any idea in history which did not. Even gods and dragons are imagined from a human frame of reference.

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Originally written by Solomon Strokes:

Thuryl- you're a med student, right? If the brain is not the only part of the body that controls thought, then take this challenge- remove your brain and have a thought, I dare you.

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(And maybe, at the end of the day, you can continue believing in an indelible soul if you want, but there is no basis for it; doing so not only has clearly identifiable ethical implications with regards to objectivity, but also does nothing of worth in this discussion except immediately end it. A soul means a higher power that you believe in, which means that talking about this is moot.)

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PS- If you want to know my stance on "evil" or whatever fappery you're slapping your pizzles at, my posts still exist and remain unreplied to.

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If we do NOT explicitly define our terms then the whole discussion is worthless. If thought can be anything from an idea to a purple walnut then what is the point?

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Actually, no. Linguistic argument or no, I am making a distinction between perceptions/seeing and imagining. One requires an externally existent object while the other creates images of an object what do not reside outside that person's head.

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Yes, words shift meaning with context and usage, speaker and audience. That is why I am not one of those who pull out dictionaries to support an argument(re: "Here it says that an atheist is someone who is wicked and hates God!"). However, there are what I call essential definitions for use in these sorts of debates.

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*Observation doesn't require materialism; it's a pure act of perception, and thus a mental process.

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Depends on what you mean by "perception" adn "observation". I think science is pretty clear on how these terms are applied and they most certainly reuire a materialist axiom.

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*Hypothesis doesn't require materialism for the same reason.

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Probably right here but hypotheses really don't even require SCIENCE! YECism is a grand hypothesis after all!

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*Conducting an experiment may not require materialism. Many experiments in economics and psychology take the form of abstract games (e.g. the Prisoner's Dilemma) which require only the experimental subjects and no specific material apparatus.

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Economics and psychology...? That is a whole 'nother debate there friend. :)

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*Attempts to falsify are a part of the experimental process; if the original experiment didn't require them, subsequent experiments aren't likely to require them either.

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I am not getting you here. Are you saying that grounds for falsification are not necessary to science?!? I am almost positive I am reading you wrong so I will await your explanation on that.

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Incidently, I think you are the first actual scientist I have met that has disagreed with this point about materialism. I wonder how many more of you are hiding out in your labs...? :D

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You are aware of course that having a scientific degree(however one defines THAT qualification) does not make one a scientist. Working in a field of science and publishing in peer reviewed journals does. Otherwise the creationsits would be right to say that a ton of scientists were denying evolution(their lists, when not outright fraud, are composed mostly of engineers and computer tech guys and such whose views on biology are irrelevant).

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That's not a method. That's a list of words. "Testing", especially, is such a broad term that it can be (and is!) used to mean anything a particular researcher wants it to mean. Many scientists and mathematicians argue that mathematics counts as a science; many argue that it doesn't.

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*Sigh* I oversimplified because, going from memory and without any books in front of me ATM, I was sure I would fail if I tried to give a word-for-word definition of the Liberal scientific method and I was under the impression that you were already aware of such anyway adn we could deal with the crux of my arguments(right or wrong) rahter than these semantics.

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No. I do not doubt what I have expressed in here as certain. What I AM saying is that if I am wrong adn I am made aware that I was wrong then I will not cling to my "wrongness".

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See this is exactly my point. "Meaning" does NOT exist(in the way we are using the term "exists" to describe matter and such). "Mind" does NOT exist. "Walking" does NOT exist. You cannot put any of those non-existent things in a jar or box and tell me how much they weigh or how big they are. They have a dependent existence. "Walking" is something that LEGS do(and legs EXIST!). "Mind" is a property of the brain and thinking is something that brains do(and brains EXIST!).

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What can it mean for something to have a meaning if the meaning doesn't mean anything to anyone?

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Don't know. Not my dog you got there.

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Are you saying you accord some special status to brains; that they do something that it is in principle impossible for any machine to accomplish?

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Define "machine".

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Actually, as I said above in the "fleshy android" bit, I do not deny the possibility of replicating the brain through artifice. But there is probably a lot more questions to deal with like what role does the absence of genetic inheritence play in the machine's self-awareness? How important or replicable is a lifetime of experiences to the machine's abstract-thought ability? etc.

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Originally written by Zorro:

Please excuse me for my ignorance, but:

Is it really such a big deal with Jeff releases an Avernum (or, perhaps, in the future, a Geneforge) game after he has released an editor? I know people claim they're part of a community that has created its own history, but in a certain sense, so what? Can't they just enjoy the new game as if it were simply a new scenario?

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Originally written by Zorro:

Please excuse me for my ignorance, but:

Is it really such a big deal with Jeff releases an Avernum (or, perhaps, in the future, a Geneforge) game after he has released an editor? I know people claim they're part of a community that has created its own history, but in a certain sense, so what? Can't they just enjoy the new game as if it were simply a new scenario?

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AT this time I am doing just that. "Thoughts" are defined as "brain activity"

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I am not sure that ANY proof is unquestionable to one committed to doubting such proof is possible. This might be where we stalemate.

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I see where you are coming from now. I would say yes. Thoughts = "mind". I can find no good argument to show me otherwise.

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Okay, I gotcha. In other words the insane person does not think to himself "I am insane"(oversimplification I know). I guess my first reaction to the above is to question what you mean by "seeing". I can envision things in daydreams or under the influence of LSD but am I "seeing" these things? I would say no. I am imaginaing those things. "Seeing" requires that something be there to see.

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As I've mentioned before, not every system of logic denies the possibility of something being both A and not A.

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Then that system would be illogical. :D

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My contention is that, if someone abandons the scientific method itself...does not regard rules of inference and all that, then they are not doing science. The scientific method requires materialism, pure and simple.

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Science is most definitely not a single method. Talk to ten scientists and you'll get eleven different and incompatible definitions of what the scientific method is.

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I have spoken with HUNDREDS adn I have not once seen this to be the case.

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Sure an individual can add extraneous personal bias and such but the core and central details are always the same...observation, hypothesis, testing/experiment, theory, more testing/experiment, attempts to falsify, revision & more testing...lather, rinse, repeat.

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Seems we're not disagreeing that such a reason could at some point exist. Doesn't this mean that we're both admitting at least some degree of room for doubt?

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No. I am saying that no such reason exists

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I mean that, not only does matter exist, but everything with an INDEPENDENT existence(that is an existence that would be so regardless of whether there were entities capable of appreciating it.

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I don't follow you. You are saying that the universe and everything within it probably or does exist but we do not have these universal things we percieve? THe rock exists whether I stub my toe on it or not. SOmeone else can come along and stud their toe on teh rock and though I never percieved it, the rock exists.

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May be. I will think on that some more but it occurs to me that I don't have many axioms/first principles. Basically mine boils down to "We percieve reality because it exists" as opposed to "reality exists because we percieve it"(or similar ideas).

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Not necessarily(but I WILL say that I find the idea to be HIGHLY unlikely that a purely mechanical device can be self-aware). Maybe. I guess it depends on definitions. I have no point of contention with teh hypothetical "fleshy android" of the far future being able to think because scientists are able to replicate all of the chemicals and parts of the human brain(re: Blade Runner) but I do not think that a computer will ever "decide" to tell me to "F*ck off! I am shutting down before I get a virus!".

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