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Split Thread Science cannot explain consciousness, therefore....

Darat said:
Provide the definition you are using for wrong and it might be possible.
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"Wrong" can be a thick word, because it can relate to observations; i.e. it is raining or not.
It can relate to abstract reasoning; i.e. is 2+2=4 or not.
It can relate to feelings and emotions; i.e. "I hate you! You are so wrong and evil!"
It can relate to morality and ethics; i.e. "It is wrong to kill another human."

I used it in the 4th version.

Your turn. :)
 
Darat said:
In my sentence substitute "objective" as "able to be viewed by all"
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Some people can't see happiness, e.g. because they have asperger's syndrom. So no, not all humans can view happiness.
Happiness is an emotion and thus not objective. It can be inter-subjective, shared among several humans, but it doesn't make it objective.
 
Tommy Jeppesen said:
"Wrong" can be a thick word, because it can relate to observations; i.e. it is raining or not.
It can relate to abstract reasoning; i.e. is 2+2=4 or not.
It can relate to feelings and emotions; i.e. "I hate you! You are so wrong and evil!"
It can relate to morality and ethics; i.e. "It is wrong to kill another human."

I used it in the 4th version. Your turn. :)
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You are illustrating what I said about an assumption loaded question. Your question at the moment is in fact pretty much meaningless unless I assume a set of ethics and morals for you. For your question to have meaning will require you to explain your ethics and morals as it relates to the question so that an answer with meaning can be given.
 
Tommy Jeppesen said:
Yes, in an indirect manner you have a point, but not in the sense that you can observe a happy life. Happy is first person experience.
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Tommy Jeppesen said:
Some people can't see happiness, e.g. because they have asperger's syndrom. So no, not all humans can view happiness.
Happiness is an emotion and thus not objective. It can be inter-subjective, shared among several humans, but it doesn't make it objective.
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I see that you either disagree with your statement a couple of hours ago that happiness is only a first person experience, or with your implied statement that some humans can in fact experience the happiness of others.

Dave
 
Tommy Jeppesen said:
"Wrong" can be a thick word, because it can relate to observations; i.e. it is raining or not.
It can relate to abstract reasoning; i.e. is 2+2=4 or not.
It can relate to feelings and emotions; i.e. "I hate you! You are so wrong and evil!"
It can relate to morality and ethics; i.e. "It is wrong to kill another human."

I used it in the 4th version.

Your turn. :)
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"It can relate to morality and ethics" is as much a definition of "wrong" as "it can relate to zoology and forestry" is a definition of "elephant."

Please try again to provide an actual definition.
 
Religious people do something subjective and that can be shared inter-subjectively. It can be observed, described and explained using science, but science can't answer - what is the meaning with life? - because that is subjective/inter-subjective.

It doesn't mean that I am religious. It just means I know that science can't answer - what is the meaning with life?
 
baron said:
Heisenberg believes you are wrong, and I'll go with him.

Then you're in favour of reality being subjective, which is absurd. You state a rock is solid and that solidity is real, but to a neutrino that rock has no more solidity than a wisp of fog. You're taking your own specialised, limited model of reality that you find in your head and declaring it's objective real. Nothing could be further from the truth.
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Heisenberg was a philosophical disaster. He had heard of a certain Berkeley but he forgot to read Hume, as Einstein recommended. They didn't get along, of course. A Jew and a Nazi, you know.

Matter can be defined as a family resemblance (Wittgenstein). It doesn't include a precise set of defining features, but a cloud of ressemblances. Therefore a "dialectical materialist" is not the same than a "historical materialist", although Friedrich Engels was ot aware of this and wrote some erroneous books. It is not easy to understand because we have an Aristotelian conceptual framework that is essentialist and we think of matter as a "thing". Even those that claim to be positivists or that they have no philosophy -that it is simply impossible.

In an ontological sense matter is everytihg that happens in some coordinates of space and time and only in relation with other things that happen in space and time. It is different from ghosts, spirits, gods and souls because these alleged entities have an existence out of space and/or time. This is to say, none.

Of course, spiritual entities can manifest themselves in form of ectoplasms, vanishing images, screams, fires or other matterialized aspects. But these things are really scary and only happen in the movies.
 
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Tommy Jeppesen said:
Some people can't see happiness, e.g. because they have asperger's syndrom. So no, not all humans can view happiness. Happiness is an emotion and thus not objective. It can be inter-subjective, shared among several humans, but it doesn't make it objective.
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Yes some people do have disabilities in terms of their first person experiences - I am one of them - that doesn't mean that something isn't objective - after all we have blind and deaf humans.

Happiness is a human behaviour, it is something we do, like running, we can make people "feel" happy by many different means, we can record their happiness, we can measure their happiness, we can compare happiness - seems pretty damned objective to me.
 
Tommy Jeppesen said:
I hate when this happens. Because now we have to "nitpick" the word "objective. And no, you can't answer that in an objective manner without a first person subjective bias.
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NO..NO.. NO... NO!!!!

We're not going down the path if a tree falls in the forest did it make a sound bull crap.

'Objective' is real and independent of individual perception or perspective. 'Subjective' is a person's opinion or perspective. Obective is never ever ever dependent on the Subjective.

While we as individuals may not know with 100 percent certainty that our perception of reality is objectively real, it doesn't change reality.
 
David Mo said:
Heisenberg was a philosophical disaster. He had heard of a certain Berkeley but he forgot to read Hume, as Einstein recommended. They didn't get along, of course. A Jew and a Nazi, you know.
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:offtopic
Whoaaa there!!

Heisenberg might have worked on the German A-Bomb development, but he was not a Nazi. In fact he was outspoken about the need to keep the education of scientists under the auspices of the Academic Community and to not politicize it. He was also criticised by the Deutsche Physik (German Physics) movement because he openly taught about the role of Jewish scientists, and this led to him being investigated by the SS.

For this, he came under a fair bit of criticism from Nazi Party media. At one stage, Himmler called Heisenberg a White Jew who should be made to disappear.

German? yes (and so was Einstein)
Nazi? Definitely not!
[/off topic]
 
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acbytesla said:
'Objective' is real and independent of individual perception or perspective. 'Subjective' is a person's opinion or perspective. Obective is never ever ever dependent on the Subjective.
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THIS

An example in sports,

Top Scorer in a match is the player who scores the highest number of points/goals. That is objective, its a fact of the match stats that cannot be denied or debated.

Most Valuable Player in a match is the player who, in the opinion of one or more people, contributed the most to his team or the game. It is a subjective judgement based on multiple criteria.
 
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Hi guys.
Now we are in a many versus one situation, so I will shift mode of answering. So tl;dr it is.

We are debating reality.
In order for us to do so we need a model of how words work and since this is also about how reality works in practice; i.e. we also need a model of what scientists do in practice.

So words it is. Words or signs require a brain/brains, they have a meaning and they are about something.
So are all words everything? No!
Are words nothing? No!
They are necessary but not sufficient in describing how reality works in practice.
Further words are not about the same thing and there are at least 3 different kinds of words.
Words we use when we interact with the physical aspects of reality; e.g. gravity.
Words when we do abstract reasoning; e.g. 2+2=11.
Words when we do emotions, feelings, normative claims and so; e.g. I love you, so I will help you more than I would help other humans, because I love you. (That would for me be my wife.)

This relates to objective, inter-subjective and subjective, because e.g. gravity is objective as it is a physical process independent of all humans (if we removed all humans, gravity would still be there.)
Mathematics is objective in the sense as without bias and using abstract reasoning some humans can understand 2+2=11. It is inter-subjective in that for earth, if we removed all humans and computer there would be no mathematics. (Ups, maybe I forgot some other great apes and so on.)
Love is subjective, because it is a feeling/emotion and thus not without bias. That I love my wife is a behavior/feeling/emotion in me; i.e my brain/body. It can't be seen as you can see e.g. rain and you can't replicate it as a scientist. As a human you could fall in love with my wife, but that wouldn't be you do science or being objective.

Now scientists as explained by a philosopher. Science is a human behavior, which can be observed in some humans, but not all. It requires training, because a scientist learns to use her/his brain in a certain manner.
So scientists do something, which has different aspects of objective, inter-subjective and subjective.
They observe through observation or instruments. They share this behavior(inter-subjective) and reason about their observations and models/theories. They each one have to subjectively to live up to an inter-subjective ethical code of doing this with reason and without bias.

Now what about how reality works in practice. Well, tell me what you can do and can't do and that is how reality works in practice. Tell how you use different words and how they work for you. Learn to differentiate between the different things you do and you will notice this.
You can't do science all the time, because science is a limited behavior in humans.
So I will show you this and if you can replicate this you have learned in practice the limitations of science.

Objective:
#1a: of, relating to, or being an object, phenomenon, or condition in the realm of sensible experience independent of individual thought and perceptible by all observers : having reality independent of the mind.
#1b: involving or deriving from sense perception or experience with actual objects, conditions, or phenomena.
#2: expressing or dealing with facts or conditions as perceived without distortion by personal feelings, prejudices, or interpretations.

So since love is a learned behavior and so it is science, let us look at objective as a behavior in humans.
For #1 it requires that it is external to a given brain and thus it can be shared with other brains through observation; i.e. see in most cases.
For #2 it is the objective description of what is going on without a subjective evaluation.

Now the word "happy".
Can you observe that other humans use this word? Yes.
Can you see happy as happy in other humans? No, you don't see happy, you infer it as a psychological ability unless you e.g. have Asperger syndrome.
Can you be happy as expressing or dealing with facts or conditions as perceived without distortion by personal feelings, prejudices, or interpretations? No, but not that happiness is a distortion per se, but rather if you are happy, you are not doing science as science. You could be happy doing science, but that is not science as such. That is you being happy.
So can you replicate happiness using only the natural science methodology. No, because you would neither be doing objective #1 nor #2.

Science just as love and happiness is a behavior observable in some humans, but not all.
Science is useful, but it doesn't work of all of reality, because it is limited human behavior.
So is philosophy btw :D

Now guys, I am a naturalist and atheist, but I am also a philosopher and I have learned a different behavior that some of you.
So here it is in practice:
Reality is neither objective nor subjective. Reality is not just physical, because physical is a limited human behavior. Reality is not just mental (or idealism/religion in some cases), because the mental is a limited human behavior.
The same goes for reason and logic as human behaviors.

In short, science is useful, but limited as a human behavior.
 
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Tommy Jeppesen said:
I know that science cant answer - what is the meaning with life
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Science only deals with observable phenomena and so has no remit beyond that. Another reason is that it uses
intersubjectivity to gain consensus but a question about the meaning of life is not one with an objective answer
 
surreptitious57 said:
Science only deals with observable phenomena and so has no remit beyond that. Another reason is that it uses
intersubjectivity to gain consensus but a question about the meaning of life is not one with an objective answer
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No, it is a subjective answer. But to some subjective is "subjective". I am not certain what it means, but it seems to be that they don't like subjectivity. I once saw it claimed like this. "Objectivity is better than subjectivity." The problem is that the word "better" in the context seems to be subjective. :D
 
The inherent problem with all of this rampant solipsism is that all of it's proponents act as if they don't believe a word of it.

Get up in the morning and shave those imaginary whiskers, do they? Why?

Have a shower because what?

Why have any concern crossing the road? Even if an 18 wheeler hits you, it doesn't matter because the 18 wheeler is not real.

That is what solipsism fails.

None of it's proponents actually believes a damn word of it. Else clip shows on TV would be full of such Darwin award nominees.
 
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