Re: Does violating the laws of physics require intelligence?

In article
<524d05dc-0de4-4331-aaef-9b63bca785ff@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>,
Treus <treusdrie@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

Christopher Denney wrote:
On Jan 26, 6:14 pm, Treus <treusd...@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
raven1 wrote:
On Sat, 26 Jan 2008 16:49:47 -0800 (PST), Treus <treusd...@xxxxxxxxx>
wrote:


Angles are sufficient for gravity in the same way the brain (whatever
that is, since you don't have an adequate description of it in this
context) is sufficient for the mind: either one could cause the
effects attributed to it.


I was asking what "reproducibility" meant in this context. I don't
know what you mean by it, and I'm not clear that you do either.


Basic scientific method. It means someone else can take your
measurable causes and produce the same results.


You mean like measuring what parts of the brain are active in
controlled situations and reproducing those results in another place
with different subjects? They've done that.

No, I mean like taking measurable causes and reproducing the effects
you attribute to them. That is, don't just talk about what makes a
mind, go ahead and describe how to make one.

That's actually your job.

We can observe the phenomena of mind from measurable causes attributed
to any brain you'd care to examine, and we find that the same areas in
each brain are responsible for the same phenomena.


Some, not all, phenomena of mind. Not even close to all that would be
necessary to construct a mind from your purported properties of the
brain.


One is no more required to create a mind to study it than one is
required to create gravity to study it.
There is plenty of pre-existing stuff around to study, we don't need
artificial ones.

The claim is not that the mind can be studied, but rather that the
mind can be created from given material ingredients.

You're changing the focus from your claims to the claims of others.
Let's start with yours. What is there about the mind that the brain
can't account for?

The absence of a sufficient and replicable explanation means a further
agent _could_ be involved because the brain cannot, given the current
evidence and omitting all fairytales and wishful thinking, be assumed
to be adequate to produce the mind.


Again, WHY NOT? What reason do you have to suggest that anything
further is required.


How may times do I have to say it? You don't have a sufficient and
replicable basis upon which to derive the mind from the brain. All you
have is an imaginary scenario. No experiment has produced a mind from
your measurable conditions. Maybe you had a dream once that it
happened. Maybe you saw it on an episode of Star Trek. But never, in
the real world of actual empirical data, has it actually happened. You
cannot explain all or even most phenomena of the mind using only
measurable properties of the brain in a manner that any other person
could duplicate. All you have are a few marginal dependencies between
the mind and the brain. You do not, except in your materialistic myth,
have actual, observed, real world causal sufficiency.


You are incorrect, there is plenty of data on what parts of the brain
relate to what kinds of thought processes, and how.
People have been studying the brain for a very long time, in various
ways, and they keep getting better at it.
You still haven't said what property a mind has that isn't "contained"
in the brain.
Perhaps you think someone will correct you, if you say something that
can be checked.

"Plenty" of data? Okay.

"Contained" in the brain. That's probably not the word you wanted,
because it puts the burden of showing the brain is the exclusive
source, which I exactly what I doubt you can do. Most properties of
the mind are at least contributed to by the brain. This I have no
argument with.

Just because we don't know the exact details, doesn't mean we don't
know that something is going on, and certainly doesn't mean it has to
be coming from someplace else.

Something is going on, no question. You don't know what, nor can you
empirically claim you know entirely from where. Your _bias_ is that
the physical brain does it all, though you can't describe how. I think
this is a fair description of the situation.

That's merely an argument from ignorance. So far the best you've come up
with amounts to "the processes of mind that we haven't fully described
in the brain may amount to an independent existence." It's up to you to
tell us what that is and provide some evidence for it. So far all you
have is assertions.

--
Timberwoof <me at timberwoof dot com> http://www.timberwoof.com
"When you post sewage, don't blame others for
emptying chamber pots in your direction." ?Chris L.

.

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