Why the brain isn`t you

Tuur said:

A map is not the territory; a model is not the thing it represents. Love exist, though it cannot be measured. The only impression is the word the English language uses for different types of live.

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Nope .. another misconception (having no more support than the observation that it is a mere truism).
The territory and the map are both demonstrably models .. just models of different types.

Sure .. quantities are obtained from measurements and are then applied as parameters of the model for the appropriate type of model. (Eg: the model for love would not necessarily be the appropriate type of model for applying quantitative measurements).

I'm pretty sure emotions could be modelled in order to test out some hypothesis or other .. regardless of the general inapplicability of quantitative parameters.

SelfSim said:

Whether its simplistic or not, doesn't alter that the model is still of hypothetical situations.

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I don't think it's even possible to miss that the post I wrote to you is about a hypothetical situation:


So, see how your posts to me make it seem like you didn't read what you responded to?

Suppose you wrote to me an example of a model about a hypothetical situation, and was pointing out how we cannot model accurately and so on, including due to the complexity of reality, etc., and then a day or 2 later, I then wrote to you:

"SelfSim, models are of hypothetical situations."

Wouldn't that be an odd thing to write to you?

Halbhh said:

While I've pointed out to you in the past perhaps a dozen times already that I think our conceptions/theories are only representations/hypothetical models but often about reality in a correspondence fashion (the model can sometimes correspond to some consistent behavior in an unknown reality...)

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In other words, hypothetical models are put to the test and the test results (observations) are then recorded.
The obvious (evidenced) correspondence there, is between the test results (observations) and the model.

There is no evidence whatsoever there, of any reality existing independently from the observations.
Believing that there is, turns out to be completely irrelevant to the test results (observations) and to the model.

Eg: Imagine two electricians. They both have to make the lights go on in a house. One applies a model for electricity because "it mght be true". The other uses the same model because it has proven to make lights come on, but is well aware it is a model and does not think it "refers to" something that truly exists independently from us humans. Do you really think there's any demonstrable difference there, in how they get the lights on? So if you think there is a difference, it is purely because of some article of faith of yours. I see no difference, other than that one person likes to believe in something that truly exists independently from us humans, even if they don't know it exists, (they just believe that), and the other does not add that article of faith, knowing that it has no evidence-based effect on getting the lights on.

SelfSim said:

Nope .. another misconception (having no more support than the observation that it is a mere truism).
The territory and the map are both demonstrably models .. just models of different types.

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Yet the model isn't the thing it models. Ask anyone who's GPS map has led them astray.

Tuur said:

Yet the model isn't the thing it models. Ask anyone who's GPS map has led them astray.

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The GPS model is inaccurate, as it did not lead to the expected destination described in the hypothetical model.
(if its mine, more likely it took some bizarrely, convoluted route to get there).

Once again, no evidence, whatsoever, for the existence of something independent from either model.

SelfSim said:

The GPS model is inaccurate, as it did not lead to the expected destination described in the hypothetical model.
(if its mine, more likely it took some bizarrely, convoluted route to get there).

Once again, no evidence, whatsoever, for the existence of something independent from either model.

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You've just admitted the GPS map isn't the terrain. It is indeed a flawed model, but still a model, who's flaw is not apparent until the model fails. Just as Newtonian physics is a very good model, but still flawed in that it doesn't account for General Relativity, a flaw that was not apparent until things didn't add up, like the precession of Mercury's orbit or the Michaelson-Morley Experiment.

That's the thing about models: we can only make a model based on what we know. The whole point of models is to model observed phenomena. A model tells us nothing about unobserved phenomena. It's where models break down that science happens. "Eureka!" moments are fun, but science happens when someone say. "That's odd." To argue that nothing exists beyond the models is to argue that everything that can be discovered has, and that every research department in the world can shut down.

Tuur said:

You've just admitted the GPS map isn't the terrain. It is indeed a flawed model, but still a model, who's flaw is not apparent until the model fails. Just as Newtonian physics is a very good model, but still flawed in that it doesn't account for General Relativity, a flaw that was not apparent until things didn't add up, like the precession of Mercury's orbit or the Michaelson-Morley Experiment.

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I never used the term 'flawed'.
I used the term 'inaccurate' (and underlined that for emphasis, what's more).
Newtonian mechanics is still fine for its applicable context. There's nothing flawed about it.

Tuur said:

That's the thing about models: we can only make a model based on what we know. The whole point of models is to model observed phenomena. A model tells us nothing about unobserved phenomena. It's where models break down that science happens. "Eureka!" moments are fun, but science happens when someone say. "That's odd." To argue that nothing exists beyond the models is to argue that everything that can be discovered has, and that every research department in the world can shut down.

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I never argued that 'nothing exists beyond the models'. Instead the focus is on going with where the evidence leads.
Untestable notions about what is beyond science's models are beliefs, by definition ..and generate no objective evidence .. So why focus on them?
Like ... beliefs are a dime-a-dozen, (or less), y'know? They're everwhere .. to the point of being so diluted, they're worthless (in terms of practicality).

SelfSim said:

I never argued that 'nothing exists beyond the models'. Instead the focus is on going with where the evidence leads.
Untestable notions about what is beyond science's models are beliefs, by definition ..and generate no objective evidence .. So why focus on them?
Like ... beliefs are a dime-a-dozen, (or less), y'know? They're everwhere .. to the point of being so diluted, they're worthless (in terms of practicality).

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Like the belief that a dearly beloved model isn't flawed if it's inaccurate? Inaccurate and flawed are the same. The history of science is of finding flaws in the models and either refining the model or making a new one because the understanding is that they are models of reality.

Asking why focus on what's beyond science seems an awful lot like saying why dare question the existing models. Has anyone come up with evidence to support string theory yet? How about the notion of a multiverse? Yet if there's no evidence of either, why would any researcher bother to look for it?

Besides which, the affections of those dear to us are beyond science and we operate on a belief that they have feelings for us, but at the end of the day it is untestable. It is a belief. Do you then hold that love is worthless because it is a belief?

Tuur said:

The inability to communicate isn't an indicator of lack of self. People in induced comas cannot communicate, but their self is still there. I don't think the answer is quite as pat as it may seem. To make horribly crude analogy, a computer's motherboard can fail, but its program still exist (and nobody make more of this analogy than what it is, an analogy).

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People in comas still have brains. Computer hard drives still physically exist and have their data (the programs) on them even if the motherboard dies.

It's fun to speculate about what could be. I think we're talking about what is, however. Until someone can present evidence that a mind\consciousness can exist completely lacking brain tissue\hardware, talk of souls and independent consciousness is just fun speculation and conjecture.

So, I say again: You are your brain. When your brain ceases to live\function\exist, so do you. No one has shown anything refuting that statement.

The IbanezerScrooge said:

So, I say again: You are your brain. When your brain ceases to live\function\exist, so do you. No one has shown anything refuting that statement.

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Near death experiences would suggest that isn't true. You have taken, whether you admit it or not, a position of faith of course.
No one knows how the brain & consciousness works so the flip side to your statement 'The souls continues to exist after death of the body' is true because no-one has shown anything refuting that statement.
Incidentally, a soul is pretty much needed for Christianity to be true otherwise a person can't be resurrected. Sure, God who has perfect info could recreate an individual but He would actually just be creating the 1st clone or copy of that individual if we just cease to exist at death.
I don't think God wants clones in Heaven with Him, He wants the actual individuals that made the choice for Him which means something that is us needs to survive our death and is needed for us to live again. Soul fits this nicely.

Here are 2 scientists, one a neurosurgeon, talking about NDE's

SelfSim said:

There is no evidence whatsoever there, of any reality existing independently from the observations.

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This is interestingly close to a major theory of how to interpret Quantum Mechanics. The original view of Heisenberg for instance.

"Werner Heisenberg, among others, interpreted the mathematics to mean that reality doesn't exist until observed."
(I just grabbed the first link in a search for that: What Does Quantum Theory Actually Tell Us about Reality?)

Seeing that one idea though, it's good to be aware there are many other competing ideas about how to interpret Quantum Mechanics (that is, regarding how particles have seemed to not have a definite state (position/etc.) until observed) --

The IbanezerScrooge said:

So, I say again: You are your brain. When your brain ceases to live\function\exist, so do you. No one has shown anything refuting that statement.

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The interesting thing is that, too, is a belief.

Tuur said:

The interesting thing is that, too, is a belief.

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You know, my reply was too flippant. Here we enter to science what is the unknown. If we could quantify consciousness, scientists wouldn't have to plunk a mirror down in front of an animal and try to figure out if they are self aware by how they react to it. It could be measures. In the same way there wouldn't be debate at what point AI could become self-aware. Again, that could be measured. We only know that consciousness exists, and science can tell us very little beyond that. Faced with the unmeasurable, and in turn the unknown, the idea that we are only a collection of nerve cells is as much a belief as maintaining we're something more.

It's worth noting there have been instances when people have been aware when they shouldn't have been, with a point of view that should have been impossible. If someone wishes to attribute that to hallucination, then we have a question of how can someone hallucinate while unconscious. And if we start to move further afield than that while maintaining that a person is their brain, then we have to attribute some out-there capabilities to our collection of neurons.

Tuur said:

Like the belief that a dearly beloved model isn't flawed if it's inaccurate? Inaccurate and flawed are the same. The history of science is of finding flaws in the models and either refining the model or making a new one because the understanding is that they are models of reality.

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Ok .. so would you then say (for eg) that the Newtonian Mechanics is 'flawed' because of QM?
Both models describe elements of objective reality, so one must be 'flawed' and the other is not, according to your above reasoning.

(I'm starting to see the origin of this nonsense believed-in dichotomy of 'supernatural' and 'physical' realities here).

SelfSim said:

Ok .. so would you then say (for eg) that the Newtonian Mechanics is 'flawed' because of QM?
Both models describe elements of objective reality, so one must be 'flawed' and the other is not, according to your above reasoning.

(I'm starting to see the origin of this nonsense believed-in dichotomy of 'supernatural' and 'physical' realities here).

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All models are fundamentally flawed. That's the point in the physics joke that ends "Assume a spherical cow." Is that really so troubling? The whole point in the search for a unified theory is because the models are piecemeal approximations. It's known that both Newtonian physics and Quantum Mechanics are flawed in that they describe a small part of the world, but you can't derive one from the other, whereas you could from derive Newtonian physics, General Relativity, Quantum Mechanics, and the rest of the models in physics from a unified theory.

It shouldn't be troubling to realize that even the best models are flawed, for models are based on how we observe something and think it works. That's why researchers poke at the models, looking for places they don't quite work, for those places are where science happens. This shouldn't be disturbing, unless we make more of it than it actually is. Those early anatomists who compared what they saw with Galan's Anatomy knew something was off. Those who noticed observations didn't agree with Ptolemy knew something was off. Michaelson and Morley knew something was off when their experiment to measure the passage of the earth through aether didn't give the results they were looking for. That's science.

The moment we cannot allow ourselves to consider, even for a moment, that the models cannot be flawed, the concept of science dies just a little. It becomes not a method of inquiry, but something that must not be questioned, and that's not how science works. Nor is science the totality of existence, which should be obvious but apparently needs stating. That holds true whether someone believes the supernatural exists or not. Know that something that has come out of science is that the universe is more marvelous than we had imagined, maybe more that we can possibly imagine.

Sorn said:

Near death experiences would suggest that isn't true. You have taken, whether you admit it or not, a position of faith of course.
No one knows how the brain & consciousness works so the flip side to your statement 'The souls continues to exist after death of the body' is true because no-one has shown anything refuting that statement.
Incidentally, a soul is pretty much needed for Christianity to be true otherwise a person can't be resurrected. Sure, God who has perfect info could recreate an individual but He would actually just be creating the 1st clone or copy of that individual if we just cease to exist at death.
I don't think God wants clones in Heaven with Him, He wants the actual individuals that made the choice for Him which means something that is us needs to survive our death and is needed for us to live again. Soul fits this nicely.

Here are 2 scientists, one a neurosurgeon, talking about NDE's

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NDE's are a different topic from what is being discussed here and they don't help the argument anyway because 100% of people who have had NDE's have had brains. Do you have any examples of people who lack brains recounting an NDE?

Tuur said:

All models are fundamentally flawed. That's the point in the physics joke that ends "Assume a spherical cow." Is that really so troubling? The whole point in the search for a unified theory is because the models are piecemeal approximations. It's known that both Newtonian physics and Quantum Mechanics are flawed in that they describe a small part of the world, but you can't derive one from the other, whereas you could from derive Newtonian physics, General Relativity, Quantum Mechanics, and the rest of the models in physics from a unified theory.

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Classical physics is used in an overwhelming majority of situations in our lives like: houses, buildings, bridges, airplanes, and physical structures, heat engines/motors, etc were all designed based on classical thermodynamics laws. As is radio reception, antennae, TV transmitters, wi-fi signals are all based on the classical electromagnetic description. Whether one calls thermodynamics, electromagenetism or classical gravity, 'flawed' or not, all those things work in the overwhelming majority of given situations.
I would also hope that you can see that the above exam pleswere not accomplished using SR/GR, or QM.

If these things were based on 'flawed, piecemeal approximations', then why do they work so well?

Also, it is not true that classical mechanics, QM and SR/GR's descriptors are piecemeal and unrelated .. eg: QM's rate of change of momentum and classical's, are identical in form. The two are related under the condition that the QM observables have been averaged. SR's addition of relative velocities, is also the same as classical's (ie: under Galilean and Lorentz transformations).

The point of this is that classical physics works .. so propagating the notion that its 'flawed', is vastly outweighed by everyday evidence.

Classical physics is derivable from SR and QM, under special conditions that apply to everyday situations.
Mainstream science's view on this is that any theory must have the ability to show that it merges to the classical description, when applied to an ordinary situation.
This can only be shown mathematically and it is the mathematical form which then provides the objective demonstration.
The same cannot be shown convincingly, (objectively), via hand-waving or qualitative arguments about the supernatural, consciousness, the existence of some standard of 'perfection', or waffly NDE stories.

Tuur said:

The moment we cannot allow ourselves to consider, even for a moment, that the models cannot be flawed, the concept of science dies just a little. It becomes not a method of inquiry, but something that must not be questioned, and that's not how science works. Nor is science the totality of existence, which should be obvious but apparently needs stating. That holds true whether someone believes the supernatural exists or not. Know that something that has come out of science is that the universe is more marvelous than we had imagined, maybe more that we can possibly imagine.

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Perhaps this is just a language thing(?), so if you agree, please excuse me for challenging the notion of 'flawed'. I don't recall ever having seen the term 'flawed' in a Physics textbook, applying to classical, SR/GR or QM.
If you agree on the basis of a difference in word meanings, then I think we're mostly in agreement with what, I think, is the gist of what you're saying there, (with the corrections/qualifications I've outlined above).