Re: syllogism

From: David Longley (David_at_longley.demon.co.uk)
Date: 09/30/04 

Date: Thu, 30 Sep 2004 16:39:25 +0100

In article <415c1a5b$0$44105$5fc3050@dreader2.news.tiscali.nl>, JPL
Verhey <matterDELminds@hotmail.com> writes
>
>"David Longley" <David@longley.demon.co.uk> wrote in message
>news:VcZOY5A7l0WBFwtC@longley.demon.co.uk...
>> In article <415b3d29$0$44107$5fc3050@dreader2.news.tiscali.nl>, JPL
>> Verhey <matterDELminds@hotmail.com> writes
>...
>>>What exactly is your problem with people researching the relationship,
>>>correlations between the structural and physiological mechanisms of
>>>the
>>>nervous system and the psychological reality of conscious experience?
>>>
>>
>> That to a very great extent, most of those who purport to be doing so,
>> aren't. They're just making out that they do whilst peddling the same
>> old metaphysical nonsense that humans have been doing for thousands of
>> years. They're just using a new medium.
>
>Ok. So it is possible and a number of people do this research in a way
>that is sound according to you, whilst others (I understand in your
>opinion most) don't.
>
>Can you expand some on this and give detailed examples of the right way
>and the wrong way - both in terms of perhaps of methodology and in the
>way language and models are used?

I have done so, several times, to no avail. I provided links to Kandel's
work on synaptic plasticity in Aplysia (*and* not to what he goes on to
speculate about the hippocampus and human/rat "memory"). That was done
to show what that work depends upon, ie sound behaviour analysis. But
basically, the honest answer has to be no, and part of the reason for
that is that the very fact that you ask me to do what you do, shows that
you have not learned from what I have provided in the past. It seems
reasonably clear that a) you don't have the necessary background to
understand the work and b) you won't even do the work that's suggested
to grasp what's said at the level that is required to grasp the other
points that are being made. That's the problem. For some reason, people
seem to think that they can pick up a couple of popular books on
neuroscience or psychology and that through browsing them they'll be up
to speed on what's known about brain-behaviour relations. It doesn't
work that way, and I think only ignorant people could think otherwise.
But that's what we see here. We see Michaels, Zero, Nagega etc and many
others arguing with people who have spent decades working in the very
fields in which they are obviously little more than amateurs. What's
worse is that they nevertheless insist on posting asinine remarks based
on the half understood things they've read in the popular books they've
read or as a result of some random net searches they've dashed off 10
mins after reading a post. It's just stupid behaviour, and there's no
other word for it. The fact that lots of people do it is just testament
to the sad way that education has become democratised.

Other than that, the point to grasp is not to speculate about
"consciousness" and to give other intensional notions wide berth.

I suggested you read "Fragments" and I suggested you read "Two Dogmas".
I've seen little evidence of you having done either. The same goes for
the others I mention above.

>
>I *do* understand, contrary what you may think, the danger of
>"explaining words with just more words" without any extensional
>referrents - the mushrooming of what you call mentalistic nonsense in
>"folk psychology". That being said, it appears that in non-scientific
>contexts, daily life if you wish, our society and the way it functions
>highly depends on mentalistic frameworks of thought that DO shape and
>control our behavior and to our own benefit, vice versa of course the
>environment within and with which we interact.

Then why do you spend so much time *writing* about these matters and
contradicting those who advise you not to? Why don't you take the advice
given and do some of the things you've been advised to do instead? The
answer, it would seem, is that you either can't help yourself or that
you find the prospect of doing anything other than "arguing", less
rewarding and too much like hard work.

>
>We don't always need to fully understand how or why we do it, as the
>"silly goose laying golden eggs" in the lecture of Skinner doesn't have
>a clue - as long as we lay them and find ways to produce more eggs, and
>even better eggs, i.e. *solve the problems we want to solve*.. who
>cares. The more we understand of how the natural environment and culture
>condition and shape us (sure, also in how we think), and the more we
>know about the "blackbox" of the brain, and the more correlates are
>found between experiential realities and bodybrain structure and
>physiology.. they are all extra bonusses and enable us to do even better
>magic with more magic. As Geese we won't have evolved much perhaps..but
>see how the world has changed since we left Africa 40.000 years ago and
>became better and better in making tools and control the environment to
>our benefit. (no disrepect to our ancestors or other animals!)
>
>
>>
>> We have little empirical evidence to suggest that the human brain has
>> evolved much if at all over the last 35,000 years. The size of the
>> brain is limited by the size of the head that can pass through the
>> vagina and pelvis. Given that, how does studying the human brain teach
>> us anything useful about human "intelligence" or "consciousness"
>> rather than behaviour and the contingencies which shape and control
>> it? On top of that, since most of the research on the brain is done on
>> the rat (the rat's brain is about the size of the top part of one of
>> your fingers) and given that nobody can adequately model that (or the
>> far simpler 302 neural net of nematodes), why are any of you so
>> cockily prattling about what you think has been achieved by "modern
>> cognitive neuroscience" and "computational models", especially *to
>> people who have done research in modern neuroscience*?!!! Either the
>> people peddling the stuff that you refer to are stupid (for whom one
>> might have some compassion) or they're egregiously exploiting that
>> very large part of the human population who is considerably more
>> stupid than they are!
>> --
>> David Longley
>
> 

-- 
David Longley