Souls?

[Raithere]

See this is where it's kind of squishy. Sure "they exist" but they are NOT relationships until someone/something notices the differences and labels them as such. Like I say, until then they are just a blur of meaningless function. There is no "meaning" to their function until someone/something cogitates such meaning.

Hehe. I don't know for sure but would suspect it was there prior to someone observing it... but it was utterly meaningless without something think the meaning to be so. By meaningless I simply mean "lacking meaning of any sort", because meaning only exists in consciousness.

It seems that here is where we part company. I just don't attribute any special properties to meaning. To me it seems that meaning is really nothing more than equivocation, a fuzzy conception of actual relationships. It borders on the emotive so we tend to feel it as much as perceive it which tends to lend it more significance than is truly warranted. This also explains why the logical and analytical is often viewed as cold or inhuman. It also explains why humans are so prone to superstition; meaning inferred where there is no relationship.

Basically, the "observer of self". I sometimes think of it as "meaning". Whatever is the difference between an operating computer program and a thinking being. That can't be accounted for. To me, it's been proven beyond reasonable doubt that computers cannot be conscious. Have you seen the relevant portain of "the emperor's new mind" by Mr. Penrose?

No, can you outline it here? And have you read "Godel, Escher, Bach: an Eternal Golden Braid"? Hofstadadter explains how meaning and consciousness are products of a formal system. Meaning is derived when sufficiently complex isomorphisms arise in the system. Consciousness is a self-recursive pattern within a larger structure.

~Raithere

 

[ProCop]

Not at all, if knowledge/experience can be transmitted though MR (or some other means) we should see a pervasive trend in learning all the time. E.G. We should find that as more school-children are taught a subject the easier it is for the next class to learn it. Since the advent of public education we should see massive trends in the ease of leaning how to read and perform mathematics. But we don't see this. Children have to labor over math and reading just the same today as they did several hundred years ago, despite the fact that hundreds of millions more people know how to do this today than back in the 1700s. The trend would be ubiquitous and unavoidable. If Sheldrake's hypothesis were correct it shouldn't take more than a couple of weeks or months to learn to read by this point.

Wrong. If it has an effect upon the physical world we can study it even if we cannot detect it directly. It would be as unavoidable as gravity.

~Raithere

Are you serious about this: <i>Since the advent of public education we should see massive trends in the ease of leaning how to read and perform mathematics. But we don't see this.</I>? Surely we see just that:

<i> The main question in all modern studies of child language acquisition involves finding out what in human language is inborm, innate, we say hard-wired, into the infant's brain structure, and what is learned through experience. Although this question hasn't been answered to anyone's complete satisfaction, it seems clear that the basic capacity to learn language is innate, while the particular form/meaning connections of individual languages are acquired through prolonged exposure to a specific speech community. </i>

from http://pandora.cii.wwu.edu/vajda/ling201/test4materials/ChildLangAcquisition.htm

especially <i> Although this question hasn't been answered to anyone's complete satisfaction,</i> deserves your attention: it says: the science doesn't know / cannot explain this phenomenon namely how is it possible that children not only learn the language but also understand the difficult grammar of the language at early age.

As the rats in the experiment learn basic survival skill (how to find food) in a manner the science has no explanation for do the children learn their language. It was researched by available scientific means but (as I stated in my earlier post) science is not equipt to study immaterial phenomena so it came nowhere regarding the explanation how could children be able to use the grammar (to understand it) before they learn to tie up their shoes. All the theories which one or other group of scientists proposed to explain this phenomenon were opposed by large groups of other scientist. Conclusion? They do not have a clue.

Ditto the experiment with rats.

Science doesn't have the capacity to study the immaterial.

 

[superluminal]

So, just because we currently can't understand the immensly complex phenomenon of language acquisition, that means it's immaterial and beyond science? So, why not just give up and go have a beer all you neurocognitive scientists. I hear plumbing's a pretty lucrative field...

 

[wesmorris]

Actually I think it's more that currently science doesn't have the capacity to study the immaterial, but it most likely will it would seem to me anyway.

 

[superluminal]

I guess I just don't get the whole "immaterial" thing. Science studies energy, light, gravity, processes... all "immaterial" yet physically manifested. I think that "mind" is just the manifestation of the process of cognition of sufficiently complex and organized structures, be they biological or not. IMHFO.

 

[Raithere]

ProCop, did you even read your own reference?

What is being discussed is an innate ability to learn spoken language. This is not the same thing as learning how to read. Which, if Sheldrake's hypothesis is correct, should be much easier today where hundreds of millions of people have this knowledge than in the past when the bulk of humanity was illiterate.

Your reference also states quite specifically that the ability to learn a spoken language is due to physical factors, not some mystical transfer of knowledge:

"The main question in all modern studies of child language acquisition involves finding out what in human language is inborm, innate, we say hard-wired, into the infant's brain structure, and what is learned through experience. Although this question hasn't been answered to anyone's complete satisfaction, it seems clear that the basic capacity to learn language is innate, while the particular form/meaning connections of individual languages are acquired through prolonged exposure to a specific speech community. "

Finally, your reference does not suggest any increase of ability; only that it seems to be innate.

~Raithere

 

[ProCop]

What is being discussed is an innate ability to learn spoken language. This is not the same thing as learning how to read. Which, if Sheldrake's hypothesis is correct, should be much easier today where hundreds of millions of people have this knowledge than in the past when the bulk of humanity was illiterate.

It is the basic skill that is transfered "immaterially" between the rats (finding food). Only spoken language is a "basic skill" and therefore only the ability to speak it is transfered. (Many people live without knowing how to read or write while no rats live which are unable to find the food). Note that there are groups of people (eg in the ares of Rainforest) with no written languages (their languages even have no written form) who speak their languages flawlessly while having no education whatsoever. They use their languages (which are in gramatic structure fully comparable to eg modern English) without conscious understanding of the grammar. This skill is acquired due to an immaterial proces (existence of such process is suggested in the experiments with rats).

Now, the closing sentece of the article I posted in my previous entry:

<i>Otherwise, the phenomenon of child language acquisition is just as much a mystery to us as it was to Pharoah Psammeticus. </i>

it is hardly a conlusion one draws when a scientific study is successfully concluded...

The science (in this area) arived at the wall of its limitation. It is posibble (even probable) that it will conquer this wall but first it must accept the fact that this wall exists. The posters here who present scientific views to deny the existence of an immaterial substance (called "soul" in this discussion) have a long way to go.

 

[superluminal]

Procop:

The posters here who present scientific views to deny the existence of an immaterial substance (called "soul" in this discussion) have a long way to go.

Wrong. We have no distance to go. The burden of proof is on those claiming a soul. Not us. There's no evidence for a soul, and the "soul" hypothesis has zero explanitory power, so why even postulate it? Tradition? Shit. I still can't get over the need for most people to believe in mystical gobbledygook just because a scientific explanation is not immediately available. Weak. Really weak.

 

[Sarkus]

The posters here who present scientific views to deny the existence of an immaterial substance (called "soul" in this discussion) have a long way to go.

We make no effort to "deny the existence" of - there is merely no evidence to support the existence.
However, were the "immaterial" soul to exist, it would be logically equivalent to something that doesn't exist.

 

[ProCop]

However, were the "immaterial" soul to exist, it would be logically equivalent to something that doesn't exist.

Yes. Curenct scientific reasoning would arive at that conclusion. This arises the question: is the curent scientific reasoning up to this phenomenon (can it describe/understand this phenomenon without contradicting itself)?

 

[wesmorris]

Well, I thought of another way this shit makes sense to ME, but it could be the crack talking of course.

Envision if you will, a three dimensional coordinate system. At any coordinate in the system, there is the possibility of a point. Perhaps we can call it P(x,y,z). For any selection of a particular point, there is the possibility of a point, or not a point. For instance at the coordinate ( 1, 1, 1) there are two possibilities. Either there is a point there or there isn't. It's ridiculously obvious I understand, but IMO, that possiblity is necessarily representative of a fourth degree of freedom, and perhaps even a whole range of value from -infinity to infinity.

So it seems to me that for any chosen coordinate system, the actual establishment of any point within it includes an intrinsic degree of freedom: whether or not the model exists or doesn't. You had to choose it before employing it, you have to choose how it's used. Moreso, the model itself is a projection of mind that can either exist, or not subjectively - and models as such, cannot exist outside of mind.

The point here, down my winding road of perhaps apparently un-related reasoning, is that in physical space (as we generally think of it), there is no room for the model. There may be lines, intersections or complex geometric shapes in reality, but they are literally meaningless with no perspective from which to view it, and a mind to separate it from the blob of meaningless function and form. This is IMO, why meaning is special - because it is representative of a degree of freedom that cannot fit into "space" as it's generally considered. Space simply IS, regardless of its context. For it to matter, there must be some "space" in which it can. This is what I call for now "immaterial", as it is necessarily "once removed" from the physical space it represents.

It's in this degree of freedom that I think the concept of a soul is possibly applicable.

*puts down the crackpipe*

 

[superluminal]

...is the curent scientific reasoning up to this phenomenon (can it describe/understand this phenomenon without contradicting itself)?

What phenomenon? You speak as if there's something that needs an explanation. You are presupposing your own hypothesis (which is what all religions do btw). Why not postulate the existence of a kregflump, and demand a scientific explanation for it? (The kregflump is the immaterial essence that makes leaves dance on the trees and musses your hair sometimes. Science as yet is clueless as to the nature of the kregflump.)

The "soul" was just a simplistic attempt at immortality. When you died, something just had to go somewhere, right?

 

[superluminal]

wes,

Crack is bad for you. It makes you speak in tongues, and then forget that you have a tongue.

P(1,1,1) is a point. A point is an abstraction of geometry. There are no possibilities associated with it. It describes a dimensionless location only. You apparently are imagining a little pebble that's either there or not. That's not a point. The little pebble contains an infinity of points.

I do agree that ideas or concepts are immaterial. But they are the result of a self-reflective biochemical machine and only have meaning within the context of the machine. Umm... right?

There's always threads about what is "meaning" and such. Meaning is a human mental construct and describes the mechanism whereby ideas and concepts cause positive feedback that results in reenforcement of consistency in those ideas or concepts. I'm certain that's all there is to it.

 

[(Q)]

So it seems to me that for any chosen coordinate system, the actual establishment of any point within it includes an intrinsic degree of freedom: whether or not the model exists or doesn't.

The degree of freedom of which you speak is allowed with the addition of a fourth dimension; time.

 

[wesmorris]

wes,

Crack is bad for you. It makes you speak in tongues, and then forget that you have a tongue.

I caints helps it main. Ah luvs me my cracksy crack.

P(1,1,1) is a point. A point is an abstraction of geometry.

Okay, so the abstraction as you say below, doesn't "exist", but it does in your mind. If space-time consists of 4ish D (3+1), where does the abstraction fit? There is no place for it. It's internal to the perspective and as such, a degree of freedom unnacounted for by space-time, in which nothing is internal. It's not x, y, z or t. It's abstract. It's the conception of x, y, z and t, not that actual x, y, z and t the conception refers to. Thus, how can you fit it into the actual coordinate system when it doesn't really exist? Yet we know it DOES exist, at least abstractly... blah blah circle circle. You following this? Can you SEE? (red dragon flashback)

There are no possibilities associated with it. It describes a dimensionless location only. You apparently are imagining a little pebble that's either there or not. That's not a point. The little pebble contains an infinity of points.

There is also teh possibility that you aren't imagining it there, but meh. I'm just trying to figure out how to coax a point out of "thin air" so to speak.

I do agree that ideas or concepts are immaterial. But they are the result of a self-reflective biochemical machine and only have meaning within the context of the machine. Umm... right?

Okay.. but uhm, does that context not exist? Does context exist? How? Context itself is an abstract. How can context exist in space-time with nothing but space-time for which it might exist? Again, there is no place to put it unless you introduce the possibility of abstraction as you sort of noted.

There's always threads about what is "meaning" and such. Meaning is a human mental construct and describes the mechanism whereby ideas and concepts cause positive feedback that results in reenforcement of consistency in those ideas or concepts. I'm certain that's all there is to it.

Close enough. I really don't need or mean to argue specifically about meaning, but more to the undeniable existence of abstracts which have no physicality in and of themselves in terms of space-time.

Okay and just to nitpick. I don't think meaning itself is a construct if it's honest, rather it's a consequence of the interaction of a variety of existing / formulating concepts as contrasted by the mental state at the time. Something like that. Maybe that's what you meant translated into my lexicon. Bah. Regardless, where does "pink" (the idea" fit into space-time)? It simply doesn't, as there's nowhere to put it.

I understand you might say "it's in this chemical compound stored between nueron x2239.34 in the thorasic incisive cranial section 3B", but that doesn't quite cut it, as the idea "pink" can exist anywhere across the neural net. It can be "pink infinity" or "pink blue" or "pink floyd" ... etc. There is no "pink" at the location you specified, but merely a reference point for it, which has to be accessed and can be placed into any conceptual relationship one can muster at a given time. *shrug*

 

[wesmorris]

So it seems to me that for any chosen coordinate system, the actual establishment of any point within it includes an intrinsic degree of freedom: whether or not the model exists or doesn't.

The degree of freedom of which you speak is allowed with the addition of a fourth dimension; time.

But "just" time doesn't cover it. You have to have something to abstract it for it to become a model. Otherwise, it's just there like there with nothing to be said of it whatsoever. In fact, the model can't exist without something to conceive of it, right? Further, whether it IS or ISN'T there cannot be established at all without abstraction, as there is nothing to establish it.

 

[wesmorris]

no?

 

[Raithere]

It is the basic skill that is transfered "immaterially" between the rats (finding food).

No.

"For instance, when laboratory rats in one place have learned how to navigate a new maze, why do rats elsewhere in the world seem to learn it more easily? Rupert Sheldrake describes this process as morphic resonance: the past forms and behaviors of organisms, he argues, influence organisms in the present through direct connections across time and space."
- http://www.sheldrake.org/books/

Only spoken language is a "basic skill" and therefore only the ability to speak it is transfered.

Again, no. Sheldrake hypothesizes that all knowledge can be transferred by MR.

They use their languages (which are in gramatic structure fully comparable to eg modern English) without conscious understanding of the grammar.

This is true.

This skill is acquired due to an immaterial proces

As of yet there is no evidence to warrant this conclusion.

it is hardly a conlusion one draws when a scientific study is successfully concluded...

That's because much remains unknown. Specifically, how structures in the brain (physical structures, mind you) provide a template for language. It's not an invitation to go off into la-la land.

It seems to me that you don't know what you're talking about. You found some unproven hypothesis that resembles something that could sort of, superficially, resemble your notion of a soul and you're off running with it as if it were evidence.

~Raithere

 

[Raithere]

Regardless, where does "pink" (the idea" fit into space-time)? It simply doesn't, as there's nowhere to put it.

I understand you might say "it's in this chemical compound stored between nueron x2239.34 in the thorasic incisive cranial section 3B", but that doesn't quite cut it, as the idea "pink" can exist anywhere across the neural net. It can be "pink infinity" or "pink blue" or "pink floyd" ... etc. There is no "pink" at the location you specified, but merely a reference point for it, which has to be accessed and can be placed into any conceptual relationship one can muster at a given time. *shrug*

Nonsense. Pink is a concept that defines a range of light wave frequencies. Pink as an abstract is the perception of that range of light wave frequencies as recorded in the function of the brain. A direct, causal, and physical connection.

~Raithere

 

[wesmorris]

What's a concept raith? What is its substance? Though it is comprised of chemicals, how can it mean something? How can a "part of a larger system" dilineate one meaning from another? Why does it bother?