"many smart people telling many different Stories". This sentence hits it. If there are 20 different theories, 19 are false, and the 20th likely also. Mr. Kuhn is a great Moderator, with a good Feeling for the Situation.
Light is a cluster of electrons. The expanding electron does it all. The electron is particle, object,matter and its expansion is action, motion, phenomena.Still fascinating.
I think the issue with reductionism is like determinism. After an event, you can look back and construct a chain of prior causes that explain the event perfectly, but while useful, it is an illusion. If it was real, you could do it in the forward direction of time, and as any chart worshipping stock picker will tell you, sometimes it works, and sometimes it doesn't, which is indistinguishable from random. Reductionism works the same way. If you start with a macroscopic object or phenomena, you can work down to the atomic level with a perfectly plausible chain of effects, but if you try to go the other way without knowing the final result, you end up with nonsense. Everyone knows this, but it is an article of faith that eventually science will get a "theory of everything" that will fill in the gap. I can't prove it, but I'm beginning to believe that this won't happen because the whole downward or backward chain of events is just an illusion created by the mind. The future is not controlled by the past and the macro is not controlled by the micro. The particle interaction provide the power, but the higher levels provide the final realization of reality.
Now if she just has the language of emergence at her fingertips she may have nailed this in a way some people in the middle would have accepted.... she’s right. But not familiar enough it’s the various philosophical positions to say it in a way that doesn’t seem “too materialist” to non scientists. Notice she at least three times makes clear what john Searle would say as “conscious reduces causally but not ontologically to the brain.”
she is talking all about neuroscience and what part of the brain is stimulated by such and such. that is all fine. but it has NOTHING TO DO with why we have subjectiveness (i.e. consciousness). we have theories about most everything, yet we havent left square 1 with regard to the mind/body problem. and we have been talking about it for centuries. that should give us a hint. we may very well need to take the non-western step of assuming that consciousness is a fundamental, and see where that takes us. the brain creates consciousness road seem to be a dead-end.
We cannot talk about wetness of a single water molecule, only applies to large collection of them. Different levels of concepts described in available english words. Please read Sean Carroll's books and writings on this concept of levels. Those words we use as short hand for talking about those patterns which at lower level will require very verbose descriptions.
Secondly the humans knew about externally visible expression of the underlying phenomenon, therefore those words came first. It took long and deep scientific knowledge in modern times to understand the underlying mechanisms. Talking of example of water, people knew long time ago that water is wet, only in post atomic theory we know that water is made if molecules and in liquid state these molecules slide easily giving the wet feel. We cannot insist on using word wet at molecular level.
@@SandipChitale You are misunderstanding my rhetoric. You make the same mistake she does by using the word "feel" without clearly defining it. If you cannot define the word "feel" or "understanding" in terms of atoms and molecules, we have a problem. Reductionism of water to h2o molecules doesn't hide the wetness. What is meant by wetness is a group behaviour of a large collection of water molecules. This class is known as weak emergence, in contrast to strong emergence where the emergent property is ontologically different from that of its constituents. Wetness of water is easily derivable from laws of motion of h2o molecule and considering the necessary sticking forces like H-bonding.
Does the human being have a quantum wave to develop physical brain, whether through DNA or evolution of particles in physical brain, that can recohere quantum wave function from particles sensed by the physical brain?
His antireductionist argument of different logic at different levels doesn't work, because if you understand individual humans you are with hard work also capable to understand an organization that they form as agents, which defeats his argument. Modular brain structure doesn't defeat chemistry
Reductionism is the position Occam' s Razor compels one to embrace. The fact of the matter is that human bodies are composed of cells, which are composed of molecules, which are composed of atoms, which are composed of subatomic particles, etc. There are some exceedingly complex interactions going on, which are far from fully understood, but there is literally no evidence to suggest anything special - beyond physics - is going on. To postulate that there is more going on than just interactions would seem like a far greater leap of faith, ergo, a belief with poor foundations.
@@jjharvathh You do understand what Occam's Razor is about, right? How is not making unnecessary assumtions 'simple minded'? The human brain is essentially just a clump of biological mass. If it gets damaged, consciousness is lost. I don't see how there is anything beyond physical interactions going on here.
@@eyebee-sea4444 I call it "ideology" because she is not using a single argument for her position - she only says "I believe ..". What she believes is irrelevant for the issue at hand. I've noticed this with other physicalists lately, and I'm sick of it. Have some arguments. Although I completely disagree with Daniel Dennett, he uses arguments, and that is how we try to find the truth.
When I share my thoughts, I sometimes hear that I'm wrong. I don't want to argue with this because it's true. For me, I'm right, for someone else, I'm wrong. People have a different mentality. Someone believes in a god and combines this belief with all their thoughts. Someone has a different culture, customs, and something like this. Someone even has their own mind, purposes, and value in this life. I don't argue with them because I respect everyone who has their vision. Let me know what you think to reply to this message.
For me, the problem with reductionism is with the existance of entanglement, radio circuits and resonance. So assuming that the brains physical circuitry negates the possibility of entanglement, radio circuits and resonance is a bit of a strawman. All of which allows for remote operation. And remote operation negates the the need for full reductionism of the brain. Ironically, it does not remove the need for consciousness to exist in some logic gate format elsewhere. Yet I still dont see how such could not be in physical, liquid or gaseous state and any combination of such. Logic is after all, nothing more than the controlled flow of energy in a medium, if you want to be a true reductionist. Indeed, considering the prospect of mutiple dimensions, entanglement and quantum tunneling, thought wouldnt even need to exist in our observable plain of existance, but merely transmitted to it.
I consider control of the brain no different to control over the motor system (learnt outside the womb) and the autonomous system (learnt inside the womb). That seems to confirm that use of the body is learnt by the mind and not therefore, an innate part of the physical structure we call the body.
Honestly, Nobody knows. Homo sapiens can never know the reality of existence. We do not have the tools or instruments to know. The Software can never know the Programmer The Hardware can never know the Manufacturer The Robot can never know its creator. The Created can never know its Creator if there is one.
@@eltonron1558 - Just checking because there is certainly more evidence for Santa than for gods. You can still advocate for the belief, beliefs are like that.
This channel is super...and like Dr. Martin, I'm also a reductionist. As was Da Vinci, Newton, Rosalind Frankin, and Elon Musk. now... why is the painting so magical? This wine like nectar of the Gods? This religion so appealing to its followers...what can Mars offer humanity? ...so on...very nice discussion...also per neurons, synapses, and microrna, dr. martin touched on an area, optogenetics, that will provide even greater light (pun intended) into the constellations of neurons...
Kelsey, at minimum reductionism (IMO a lot of evidence on this) is at the same level as any other magical explanation such as dualism (no evidence I am aware of). No need to be defensive about it.
I have an experiment you can carry out. Smack the matter of your head against a wall hard enough to disrupt the neurons inside your skull. When / if you regain consciousness it might provide you some clues on the relation between mind and matter. Importantly, that the integrity of the material structures inside your brain is critical to your consciousness, mental functioning, and indeed, your memories and personality. This qualifies as experimental evidence in favor of reductionism. Ergo, it should compel one to embrace reductionism or at least materialism, per Occam's Razor.
@@TehNetherlands Why should the brain even need consciousness in the first place? I would think that the brain can carry on nicely without it. A supercomputer can do things similar to a brain but it does not have consciousness. I believe that consciousness can occur without causation and even without a brain, energy or matter and the purpose of consciousness is to perceive and experience for it's own sake.
@@onetruekeeper You can choose to believe that but I don't see how it follows from your argument. Consciousness existing just anywhere outside the physical realm seems to add a lot of unnecessary magic. As for why the brain needs consciousness: maybe it doesn't, and in that case it might be a curious epiphenomenon. It might also be that consciousness is a necessary product of complex, highly parallelized information processing systems. If so, then the only reason your supercomputer is not conscious is because it is not integrated in the way that biological systems are - though in principle a supercomputer like that could be built, as the required information processing structures, and thus the foundation of conscious experience, can be expected to be substrate independent. I personally conjecture that conscious experience will arise in highly integrated, parallelized information processing systems like our brain. Keep in mind that there are levels of conscious experience, and that more simple forms of life or damaged / malformed brains are (or at least appear) 'less conscious' . Think about individuals in a permanent vegetative state, people who have lost part of their brain and personality due to a stroke, alzheimers sufferers, etc. When the information processing circuitry of our brain breaks down, the lights of consciousness are dimmed.
James Ruscheinski, I don't mean to be offensive or attack your comment, but do you realize that "physical information" in nature is not actually there, or even information? It's like how the "selfish gene" isn't actually selfish, and genes are just artificial categories invented by scientists for convenience. Natural structures like DNA are physical templates that are used by the cell to make RNA, then proteins, but at no point would information be of any use since neither cells nor organelles have any mental ability to use information. It's a quibble, but even some scientists can't seem to keep this straight. Information is always in the eye of the beholder, including these little scribbles on this page.
@@jamesruscheinski8602 So who programmed the DNA? Did they use Java or C++? It's not your fault. You hear even crazier stuff on CTT from supposed experts, like how math is discovered, not invented. There's no fixing some people.
@@jamesruscheinski8602 Wow, you should write up a paper and collect your Nobel Prize since you have now proved Charles Darwin wrong about evolution being random. No need for CRISPR since consciousness can do the gene editing for you. Why do you just keep throwing out these ideas without any thought or consideration? Learning something new doesn't have to be painful. Having said all that, I should commend you for accidentally stumbling upon the profound truth that I am trying to convey to you; only a mind can create or use information. So we agree, finally.
Kelsey, you did well. Do not be defensive about reductionist take on mind. All the evidendence is on our side. A physical brain damage affects the aspects of mind permamently depending on where the damage was. Introduction of chemicals e.g. drug , alchohole affects the mind functions temporarily. These two aspects tell us that mind results from the physical structure and the dynamic, electro chemical processes in the brain. Depending on the damage even there can be dissociation of first person experience. I am of opinion what more evidence is needed towards reductionist analysis. The reason we cannot complete the research faster, because morally correctly we cannot do invasive investigation of brain function. Luckily the new FMRI techniques which are non -invasive are going to help us here. I think the difficulty in doing direct research is the HARD PROBLEM, and not what David Chalmers calls "Hard problem".
I believe the brain produces the mind. But I also believe emergent systems can be more than the sum of the parts. Would John Lennon have been as great without the other Beatles? They were more than the sum of their parts, and this 1+1=3 equation (or in the Beatles case, 1+1+1+1+ George Martin= 9) is everywhere in nature. Think about it.
Look how she laughed and started ..I am a reductionist 😀😀. Just a small correction . Brain does not have trillion neurons . The human brain contains a hundred billion neurons and several hundred trillion synaptic connections
No, mind makes brain........ isn't it obvious!? .... Sorry, I went mad for a few seconds there.. Your mind is held in the brain but is highly influenced by the nervous system and its sensors... Our senses.
Yup, she is right. People who try to make conciousness into magic, souls, receiving universal conciousness or God are just reaching for straws. Conciousness is what the brain does. Evolution is the mechanism that did it. And as an analogy, one will never be able to understand how the software of PowerPoint works by studying the micro possessor running it, but that does not mean that it is magic.
"One will never be able to understand how the software of PowerPoint works by studying the micro possessor running it, but that does not mean that it is magic?" That doesn't sound like a good analogy (conflating living organisms with computers): we do know how Power Point works. Roger Penrose has thought about this much more than the lady being interviewed. Antonio Damásio as well: consciousness (or a simple proto-consciousness in the form of homestasis) begins at the cell level and involves the entire organism. Schrodinger as well thought that a possible avenue must be the (still non-existente) bridge physics with chemistry and then biology. Quantum biologists are now exploring that venue.
@@robertoalexandre4250 It's about levels of complexity. Although studying the brain and neurons and synapses is part of understanding the function of the brain, it will not yield the secrets of consciousness itself. Other analogies include; understanding the manufacture of paper money and coins will not give you insight to understanding world economies and understanding chemistry inside the cell will not give you much insight into Darwinian evolution.
Being conscious is a process that cultural evolution hit on resulting in bigger civilizations (more reproductive success) than what human instinct was able to accomplish.
I would say that “evolution” was the genesis of consciousness. I would posit the consciousness came before cultural evolution. I also consider consciousness as existing along a continuum.
@@blaster-zy7xx My self is conscious. I cannot conceive of anything but a self as able to be conscious. I do believe that any organism that is able to maintain a self concept is and must be conscious (except, or course, when the self ceases to exist during a deep and dreamless slumber as regularly imposed by the physical substrate). The reason human beings are conscious is to better run our civilizations. Cultural evolution made us conscious for that purpose. Civilization enables us to reproduce more abundantly... in perfect keeping with the workings of evolution. Hard to imagine a civilization of our complexity run entirely by instinct driven organisms.
IMO people almost have a wishful desire for some supernatural explanation for mind and conciousness because of historic romanticized reasons. The word "just" introduces a negative connotation when one says, human mind is "just" the net effect of brain structure and electro chemistry. We should remove the word "just" and suddenly it becomes a wonderful idea.
