How about just one link to a peer-reviewed study(NOT story-study) that actually backs up one of your claims?
It would help if you would post some “real evidence” that what you claim has any validity at all.
We could take up a collection…
Stranger
Yes, I can see your point on remote viewing as an answer to this one study of the numbers. But remote viewing would not work for the majority of OBEs. How about the blind seeing when out of body? I am not going to convince you of anything, I know that, I am just giving information so if you should happen to experience something you will know about it.
OK, I can see that happening, but not without some direction greater than the brain. The program would need a director of some kind I believe. After all, what if the damage was to the part of the brain that was capable of adjusting itself. Then there would be no improvement, yet there is always improvement. Might be a point for science to look for/at.
I have them also, just not the time yet or the thread. They are easy to find.
I believe it is your turn now.
Even though it’s rather generous of you to skip your turn to provide any evidence whatsoever for the umpteenth time, I’d feel bad to cut ahead of you yet again, so go right ahead and give us that peer-reviewed study you’ve been promising us for years.
No, just replicated modules.
Already being undertaken. For example, some papers from the CogAff project: this or this
lekatt, the biggest problem that I find with the stories related in the link you provided is that there is no explanation given for why these blind people did not have to go through the the period of learning to interpret the meaning of light and shadow and depth. Concepts like size, space and shape don’t really hold meaning for people who have been blind from birth.
“For the newly sighted, vision is pure sensation unencumbered by meaning.” – Annie Dillard, Pilgrim at Tinker Creek
Further reading on the subject: Marius von Senden’s book Space and Sight
As I said it is not time yet, but if you desire: Dr. Michael Sabom, Dr. Pim Van Lommel, Dr. Sam Parnia, Dr. Kenneth Ring, and Dr. Greyson of the University of Virginia are some of the researchers who have been published in peer-review journals. You can look them up on the Internet.
I looked up your links, but found computer stuff and a lot more links.
Just how would replicated modules have the intelligence to transfer functions in the brain. Perhaps you can be more specific.
This is true for the physical person, but when you leave your body you are operating in the spiritual world with a whole new set of abilities. I could go much further, but would get off topic. I think your question was a very good one. Thanks.
And you can provide a link to a peer-reviewed study as promised, or admit that you don’t have one.
Which is it?
Go to google and select google scholar. Search for the people and studies you have in mind and provide us with the links please. You appear to have plenty of time to keep posting, so I’d like to be able to check out specifically what it is you think is out there.
Grayson and Van Lommel have been published in the Lancet I know for sure, the others I will have to find out where.
I can’t believe you are showing interest, OK, give me some time, probably this afternoon so I can complete a web page I have been working on and I will post enough links to keep you busy for awhile.
“Computer stuff”, huh? Actually, Sloman is a noted philosopher who moved into computer science. He’s one of a very few people praised by Minsky (Dennett is another) as doing good work in AI. The “CogAff” project is a study on affect (emotion) and cognition; yes, located particularly in computer science, but cognitive studies is too broad a field to be so dismissive just because this happens to be found in a CS department.
Furthermore, I was responding specifically to your statement:
As you’d see if you read the papers, they deal specifically with “programs” (i.e., actual implementations on a computer) that can deal (autonomously) with “damage” through replicated modules, based on a biological, autoimmune model. In fact, IIRC, they even learn the appropriate model.
The point being, as expressed in the paper(s) in both philosophical and computer science terms, that modules can observe other modules. Hence, an area that was “damaged” – even if it was one responsible for adjusting other modules – could be adjusted by a replicated module.
I do have to admit that replicated modules was too narrow a way to express myself. Upon thinking a bit after hitting “submit”, I realized that I also should have put in something about decentralized control. I’m not sure why people insist that there must be a “director” of sorts. Amazing what can be accomplished by the aggregate action of many small and “stupid” individuals.
That seems a needlessly simplistic notion of how a self-correcting, self-organising system could work. How about if the self-correction mechanism was distributed as part of the architecture of the whole system, for example?
Why are you guys responding to lekatt? You’ve let him drag yet another thread down into his own little realm of willful ignorance. Just ignore him, he has yet to say anything he hasn’t attempted to assert a dozen times before, and failed to justify just as many times.
You’re right, I think, but only to a degree. The thing is, he sets up such wonderfully easy rebuttals (if not utter disproof, at least plausible/probable counters) that it’s difficult not to take them.
So, the OP’s questions were:
My opinion: there is no “who”. There is, however, an outstanding “Ship of Theseus” problem concerning identity (i.e., how does our sense of self retain some coherent form through changes over time?) We reify our concept of self, treating it as an entity of observation with definite bounds. Embodiment makes this easy – “I” am encapsulated in this body; anything that happens to this physical entity happens to “me”. But when we move to consider the non-physical – particularly non-tangible, internal experience – we lose the easy definition provided by a physical body.
A large part of my answer would concern topics dealt with in the papers to which I linked previously – reflection and introspection of a dynamically changeable system. So long as there is continuity between states (and possibly memory of prior states), an identity can be said to exist.
As to the existence of a “who”, it’s a part of the “user illusion” we all experience; an aggregate of simple processes, brought about in part because some of these processes are hidden. An interesting question (to me) is whether (at least partial) “internal ignorance” of (and by) the system is necessary for a sense of coherent identity.
Finally, the question of “Can consciousness be observed?” IMHO, some waffling is required – yes, but only to some extent. An external observer can impute “consciousness” to others based on the other’s actions. That doesn’t prove an entity has or doesn’t have consciousness, just that the external observer believes it does (a la the Turing Test). Internally, there is also some degree of observation, but much remains hidden.