TVAA, you asked for and you got it pal, jump up and get beat down

Here is the relevant link for those of you who missed this little gem.

Right off the bat, I have to repost this because it’s just too good:

You actually claim in that statement to know, or at the very least have some resolute understanding of how human minds work. That is just batshit crazy arrogance and idiocy. We know preciously little about the cognitive mechanisms of the human brain, we probally know more about the nature of the universe. Plus the mind is a lot trickier to study than the universe. The universe is physical, we don’t know if the same can be said of the mind. You can’t sense your mind with your physical senses, the only way to sense your mind is with your mind itself. A conundrum isn’t? But not for you, you have it all figured out.

So answer me this: When you ‘hear’ your thoughts there is no physical vibration striking your ear drums, but there is electrochemical activity occurring in your brain as if you had. How’d that happen? What principle of math or physics explains how I can lift my arm just by thinking it? Where do the mind and body meet up and how? But, stop the inquiry! Philosophers close your books! Dualism is bested! TVAA has determined that the mind must be subject to the same principles that computers and the universe are. If I don’t see you with a Nobel Prize by years end I’ll assume you failed to suitably verify your theory.

Alright moving on…

I’d like to think that there is no topic too deep or esoteric to wrap my head around given sufficient time. As a matter of fact I truly enjoy the profound and fundamentally challenging ideas. Many of us in GQ and GD feel the same, which is why we devote a portion of our leisure time to self-edification and a mutually respectful battle of ideals here.

But, people like you really piss me off. I run into your type in graduate classes now and again. I don’t know whether you fundamentally lack the ability to explain yourself or abstract concepts in a clear and understandable matter, or if you actually get off on a power trip from cloaking your words in layer after layer of convolution, cryptic references, and tortuous logic. GIT requires a degree of semantic specificity and precision, but you’re just using that as an excuse to cover up your hermeneutical shortcomings. Some of the most erudite authors are capable of relaying the intensely complicated concepts to just about anyone. That’s probably why guys like Richard Feynman had such broad appeal, and you are a cocky loser with an imaginary team of scientists to verify your findings.

I simply don’t have the stomach to engage you in a debate on Gödel, it would be an insult to a fine thinker like him. I’d sooner discuss Islamic liberalism with Rush Limbaugh. Furthermore, it would be entirely pointless. Spiritus Mundi has shown more patience than common decorum requires in explaining the faults in your argument to you, and all he got in return was a brat who would remove his hands from his ears just long enough to sling mud at anyone near him. That’s what he gets for casting pearls before contemptible swine like you.

Not only are you a condescending jackass with no conception of your own pedagogic limitations, but you are a half-baked flake as well. We had another supercilious little shit like you, Justhink, why don’t you search for his posts and see how the board responded to his attitude.

And this couldn’t go in the original thread, because…

I’m just giving him what he asked for.

He wanted to use foul language, apparently…

Cainxith: Have you read Oliver Sacks? We have a really good idea how the mind works, because of cases in which it doesn’t quite work properly. Brain injuries, strokes, etc.

Yeah, it’s a crummy way of doing science: let’s shoot holes in the machine, and watch the different ways it stops working. (Or, worse for the individual, although more productive for science, the ways that it continues to try to work, with horrid half-success.)

But it is science, and it has shown, pretty clearly, that the “mind” is material.

(I don’t know many people who take Roger Penrose seriously…)

Trinopus

And this couldn’t go in the original thread, because…

I’m just sayin’…you’ve started about 12 pit threads in the past two months. Speaking as someone who overstayed her welcome on pit thread OPs, you may want to step out and get some fresh air, you know?

It’s spring, baby. :slight_smile:

Uh no… the brain is material, and we have at best a rough understanding how how it works.

jarbabyj, point taken, I’ll give the pit a breather

I have no understanding how my brain works.

Cognitive psychologists and neurologists have a remarkably good idea of the computational mechanisms of the brain – at least, we know enough to loosely identify functions.

I don’t know more about the workings of the human brain than anyone else, living or dead – but I know a LOT more than you do.

Remarkably good but we can only loosely identify functions, which is it?

Psychology and neurology are disciplines their infancy. We have but mapped out the most rudimentary functions of the brain, and mostly through trial and error. Poke this part, or zap that part and see how the person reacts. Or some guy gets a railroad spike through just one area of the brain and lives, but loses a certain cognitive ability. But we know very little about the interconnectedness of brain systems, nor, and this I stress above all else do we have any clue whatsoever about the nature of the mind and how the organic processor in our skulls connect to it.

And I don’t doubt you think you know more than me. You think you know more than Ultrafilter, Libertarian, and Spiritus, and I’m not even in their league. Is there anyone you know that you’re not smarter than?

Plenty of people. Just not you.

I’m not at all certain I’m smarter than ultrafilter or Spiritus. I am certain they’re making very stupid mistakes, though.

Libertarian is just messed up. He has psychological blindspots you could hide a caravan of trucks in. Maybe if he didn’t want to reach a particular conclusion so badly… “Modal proof of the existence of the greatest being” my eye.

well, TVAA isn’t always logically “tight” (then again, neither are some of the …ummm, others you point out,) but I agree with him on this one even though the above statement (“Cognitive psychologists and neurologists have a remarkably good idea of the computational mechanisms of the brain – at least, we know enough to loosely identify functions.”) has holes in it.

So, caix, what remarkable scientific theories are you privy too which lend support to the dualistic nature of the computational functions of the brain?

It’s an imprecise statement, but a generally accurate one. We know a lot about the overall processing methods of various subsystems in the brain (especially vision and motor control), but we still don’t understand precisely how collections of neurons wired together give rise to the functions we can identify.

Oh, yes: Cognitive psychologists discarded the homunculus quite some time ago, cainxinth. I think entering the 21st century would be a bit much for you – how about the late 19th?

None, because not exist. That’s why duality is a problem of philosophy not neurology. There is not a person on this planet, TVAA above all, who knows how the mind and body interact.

Okay. Let’s assume for the sake of argument that the mind is fundamentally different from the body.

How does the mind work, then? How does postulating a “mind” independent from the body help explain how people think?

Idiot. Give up the homunculus and move on with your life.

:dubious:

Cainxinth, you started a pit thread over this???!!! And you compare the guy to Justhink?

O.K., step back from the keyboard…

That’s not why I started this thread. That’s just the part of TVAA’s post that I’m qualified to refute. I started this thread to point out that TVAA is raving lunatic with an attitude problem, and that he needlessly obfuscates his arguments like Justhink.

Actually, there is a functional difference between “percision” and “accuracy.” I’m a machinist, and I do a lot of precision work. I can make a part that’s precise to within 1/2000 of an inch. But if I misread the diagram, and make the part four inches long instead of fourteen inches long, despite my precision, my accuracy clearly sucks.

Scientifically, I believe the distinction comes in when a process routinely delivers false positives or false negatives: the process is precise, in that it reliably returns the same result, but inaccurate because the result is incorrect.

How any of this relates to the topic at hand, I don’t know. The whole debate makes my thinklump hurt.