To what extent is evidence important in philosophy?

Discussion in 'General Philosophy' started by DaveC426913, Jan 7, 2017.

  1. Kittamaru Ashes to ashes, dust to dust. Adieu, Sciforums. Valued Senior Member

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    Translation - you have no argument, nor counter argument, and thus fall back on petty attempts at ad hom attacks. Got it

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  3. Yazata Valued Senior Member

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    Here's an experiment you can try for yourself - just drink a six-pack of beer. You will experience very pronounced subjective effects along with the physical ones.
     
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  5. Syne Sine qua non Valued Senior Member

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    I have tried it...a bit too much at times. There are visual/mental exercises that can alleviate that (as well as general headaches). Revived my brother from just shy of passing out to up, alert, and speaking clearly. Engaging intellectual conversation while doing vodka shots will also do the trick. But I'm sure you didn't mean anything like that.

    The brain is a two-way system. Intended commands don't translate well through an inebriated brain, and many intoxicants have a not insignificant contribution from a sort of social placebo effect. The mind will feel what it believes it should feel...unless shown otherwise. That, associated with the iffy sensory signals from the inebriated brain that work as mental cues...

    Simply the belief that you are drinking alcohol can impair judgement and dent memory, say researchers.
    All in the mind? The effect of beliefs about alcohol on alcohol binges
     
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  7. Syne Sine qua non Valued Senior Member

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    I supposed you want us to guess at what you're trying to say?

    The soul is just the emergent brainwaves supported by the substrate of the brain?
    The soul makes questions about the brain irrelevant?
    Some other weak attempt to reconcile your faith with science you don't seem interested in learning about?

    Is it bigger than a bread box? Can you draw a picture?

    Ad hominems? Against who?
     
  8. Kittamaru Ashes to ashes, dust to dust. Adieu, Sciforums. Valued Senior Member

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    You would be oblivious to what someone is trying to say... so let me make it simple:

    What are you supposing works in place of a fully functional brain in the creation of conscious thought (per your comments about a "damaged brain" being merely unable to relay the thought, et al)

    Most anyone here who is in disagreement with you, to be perfectly honest.
     
  9. C C Consular Corps - "the backbone of diplomacy" Valued Senior Member

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    There's the idea that something cannot be reduced to itself. If the complexity of Apple-Tree_Z is simplified to Apple-Tree_Z then no progress has actually taken place. Thus what _x_ is explanatorily reduced to needs to actually be something different. In the ironic scenario of mind, however, that would seem to be the reverse of mind being a simplification of brain.

    But to view the situation from a yet another vantage point...

    Our domestic or internal story of "what's going on" (what is delivered by experience, experiment, and inference) places dependence of the mind upon the brain / body. It may not be upheld 100% of the time (i.e., there might be some anomalies which skeptics can't totally dispel), but that correlation between the two is reliable and universal enough to interpret it as a rule of dependence that the inter-subjective reality construct is adhering to (or trying to).

    Whether or not that dependence would still be the case in a trans-phenomenal and trans-intellect context is unknown. Due to our very enslavement to this middleman of "knowledge-like stuff", we thereby only have access to that self-referring empirical and intellectual evidence. Not to the potential existence it either represents or is only caused by. Even the latter "super-external" domain is a theoretical expectation abstracted from our extrospective sensations and introspective conceptual activity.

    However, given that the very "domestic story" itself within our experiences endorses that the "brain would be part of its own generated contents -- IOW, the phenomenal appearance of the brain and its anatomical analysis and functional descriptions are circularly products of its own industry (unless regarding its generic or abstract version as "mind" doing that)... Then even the option of contending the dependence to literally being the case in a "super-external" setting would seem to largely be a practical, commonsense choice more than one highly tenable or devoid of fallacy.
     
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  10. Magical Realist Valued Senior Member

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    The dependence of the brain on the mind is perhaps not as intuitive as that of the mind on the brain. But when one realizes that the brain only exists for us as a concept or generalization that exists in our mind, and is only objectified as physically real by our mind, it becomes more apparent. Physicalists will argue that the brain is still there whether we're conceiving it or not. But I can't distinguish the states of a brain-dead mind and a mind-dead brain. Phenomenally a brain is no more anywhere for a mind not conceiving it than a mind is no more anywhere for a brain not generating it. They seem to me to be one in the same. Or perhaps they ARE both still "there", albeit in some transcendental noumenal state. Mind dead brain still exists. Therefore brain dead mind still exists.

    “Your head's like mine, like all our heads; big enough to contain every god and devil there ever was. Big enough to hold the weight of oceans and the turning stars. Whole universes fit in there! But what do we choose to keep in this miraculous cabinet? Little broken things, sad trinkets that we play with over and over. The world turns our key and we play the same little tune again and again and we think that tune's all we are.”
    Grant Morrison, The Invisibles, Vol. 1: Say You Want a Revolution
     
    Last edited: Jan 10, 2017
  11. paddoboy Valued Senior Member

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    I've noticed most of the cranks, and quacks operate the same way.

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    Nonsense in anyone's language.
    Again, anyone that is pronounced brain dead, has zero consciousness and zero mind.
     
  12. Syne Sine qua non Valued Senior Member

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    Nothing. I'm expressing skepticism for the many and varied unsupported causal claims being made here.
    Is there any reason skepticism should end just because our explanations are the best we have for now?

    Quote em.
     
  13. paddoboy Valued Senior Member

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    I certainly do not see your skepticism as valid, rather un-natural cynicism would be more appropriate for the reasons I have stated.
    When there is only one scientific answer available, then it is logical that that answer is most probably correct. That certainly applies to abiogenisis, and again years of biological and genetic research [as well as some links and papers I have given] gives the overwhelming verdict that the mind, and consciousness depend solely on the brain functions, not withstanding your loaded cynicism. eg: If the brain is dead, consciousness and mind have zero applicability.

    Well, you have suggested that I am a troll, as well as Dave from memory, and I commented on it earlier.
     
  14. Kittamaru Ashes to ashes, dust to dust. Adieu, Sciforums. Valued Senior Member

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    So, you made no claim? Then what is the intent/purpose of:
    Again, what IS your argument - or, are you simply being contrarian for the sake of hearing (well, seeing) yourself talk? What evidence would you accept (my guess - probably none)

    Why certainly jeeves:

    Among others - you continually attack the member, rather than the argument.
     
  15. DaveC426913 Valued Senior Member

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    You've repeated asserted that I don't know correlation from causation, and yet it turns out you're the one that has the confusion.
     
  16. James R Just this guy, you know? Staff Member

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    Syne:

    Do you have any ideas on how the separate mind interfaces with the brain? It sounds like you see the mind like Jan Ardena does. He describes it as a "soul spirit" that exists completely independently of the body and persists after death of the brain and body. But Jan refuses to say how the soul spirit can actually control the brain (which controls the body), or exactly how sensory information from the body is passed through to the soul spirit.

    Do you have any ideas on that, or are you with Jan in just having a mystical faith?
     
  17. Jan Ardena OM!!! Valued Senior Member

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    James please quote where I have written that the mind is the spirit-soul.
    Please stop making stuff up and attributing it to me. I'm beginning to feel harassed.

    jan.
     
  18. DaveC426913 Valued Senior Member

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    Boom.
     
  19. James R Just this guy, you know? Staff Member

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    Now watch as Jan attempts to redefine the word "brain", "mind" and "soul" to suit himself.
     
  20. Sarkus Hippomonstrosesquippedalo phobe Valued Senior Member

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    Can you not tell the difference between someone brain dead (a brain-dead mind) and someone merely unconscious (a mind-dead brain)? Or what am I missing?
     
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  21. Syne Sine qua non Valued Senior Member

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    So I'm allowed to be skeptical, but....if I try to explain what I'm skeptical of, I've somehow made a competing claim? Is that what you're saying?
    I'm simply being skeptical of any claim the evidence doesn't directly or necessarily support.

    Avoiding supporting your own claim is rhetorical arm waving...simple observation.
    Pointing out that philosophy does not rely on evidence...simple fact.
    Pointing out a willful and irrational expectation of philosophy...simple observation.

    Which of these do you think completely failed to address the argument? Or are you just tone policing?
     
  22. Syne Sine qua non Valued Senior Member

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    Are you saying that, even in the absence of quotable ad homs, the correlation between your feeling insulted and my tone still establishes causation?

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  23. paddoboy Valued Senior Member

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    I believe you are actually being cynical, ignorant of the facts, and pushing your own personal philosophical, "god of the gaps" agenda in place of the science and logic.
     

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