I urge you to not take the attitude that "just a clump of cells" is not a meaningfully intelligent aggregate; and I mean any such grouping, not just in our brains. If you had a map of every reciprocal communicative interaction among that clump of cells, it might blow your socks off with its information-processing complexity. I find it depressingly telling that in this age of infatuation with information technology, there seems to be very little appreciation for the original innernet, the dense nexus of information processing displayed by all cooperative cellular groupings. And unlike computer chips, the signalling pathways don't even need to be contiguous. For example, our immune systems display a distributed body-wide computational system, which parenthetically is also involved in active information processing with gut bacteria and other microbiomes (yes, your white blood cells "discuss" issues with those bacteria). The Janus-faced reality of life as reciprocal regenerative biochemistry accompanied by nearly endless information processing should be chapter 1 of bio texts. And sure, the "how life began" and the origins of consciousness are open questions, but micro/nano computation as a fundamental property of living systems at all levels of organization is very well established.
The causation is a systems property, which I grant you that we understand poorly because complex adaptive systems are underpinned but not determined by their computations; hence causation is probabilistic; no surprise that it's difficult to even fathom. The problem with your analogy is that a radio is not a complex adaptive system of systems, it's deterministic, not stochastic. As such, it's so much junk compared to any biosystem.
Wow. The discussion between you and jamenta is way over my head.
May I suggest you guys figure out how to contact one another and write a paper on this, then dumb it down into a book "the rest of us" might comprehend?
May I also suggest that "so much junk" is a rather pejorative dismissal of the point.
Nice idea, tall order. But I have to disagree with you about "so much junk " because what it is is a biologist's expression of the superiority of living systems to anything technological. Why? Simple. Living systems recycle/ are regenerative and integrative; so far, tech mostly rips up the planet and pollutes. So if it's pejorative, it was certainly not toward jamenta; it's directed at many other members of our species, who unlike indigenous people tend to see tech as superior, largely ignoring its failure to attend to those natural principles that guided most indigenous societies. The reason, of course, why we find ourselves up against the climate/biosphere pauperization wall.
OK. Speaking of the superiority of living systems: A full-grown woman is a living system. She is not dependent on any other life form for her survival. A small "clump of cells" IS. A MAN has no right, human right, natural right, nor lawful right, to tell a women what she can or cannot do with her own body. That is the bottom line here. Whether or not someone else is COMFORTABLE with choices made by a woman in regard to HER OWN BODY is irrelevant. It's not something to vote on, or scientifically explain the wonders of. We're talking about CIVIL RIGHTS. To suggest that men have bodily autonomy but women do not, is illogical, immoral, illegal, and stupid.
I agree with your civil rights posture and your solid objections to misogyny! I'd just clarify that all animals, including humans of all reproductive status, are ultimately dependent upon photo- or chemo-synthetic organisms for biomolecular energy sources & minerals, as well as his or her resident microbiomes of bacteria and fungi. No consumer organism is independently existing in Nature. And for producers like green plants, they don't ultimately do well without the recycling bacteria and mutualistic fungi in soil. Sorry, but real independence is not represented in Nature. So why are you resistant to the science? It's just a related line of discourse to your valid arguments; I don't perceive the perspectives as mutually exclusive.
There is currently no material evidence (at all) that electrical/chemical activity can produce what we know as consciousness. The fundamental properties of chemical compositions, of electron spin, of electro-chemical energy provide no indication (whatsoever) consciousness as we know it can be produced by these elements. Self-awareness, and the 'qualia' question of consciousness (at the heart of the mind/body problem), such as perceiving the color 'red' i.e. what makes red red, is also one of the most baffling and unanswered questions regarding the science of consciousness.
Once again, correlation is not causation. Just because the brain is a complex phenomena does not scientifically prove it is the cause/produces consciousness. Just because a computer can be built to be a highly complex series of electrical signals and computations, has not proven a computer can become 'self-aware' or conscious. In fact, some recent attempts to do just that have failed.
I am not saying it may eventually be proven consciousness is produced by fundamental properties of electricity and neurons. But what I am saying is science currently has not established this is the case. And therefore, the question is a philosophical mind/body problem remaining unresolved scientifically and ontologically.
I don't disagree at all, except to point out that you're still expounding on what I've enumerated as properties of living systems (energy transformation, matter recycling, networked feedback computation); which underpin, but do not constitute their essence. I'd wager that you're familiar with the terminology "emergent properties". Very different from the fundamental physical parameters --- but, somehow derived -- probabilistically -- from them. I emphasize the "somehow". I'm surely not saying that I have a reliable handle on what this means in detail. But I know that without that probabilistic flexibility, a truly novel idea could not arise; and even with my fundamental dark view of humanity, I still belief in the possibility of novel ideas.
But I am also familiar with the excellent work of scientists like Bruce Greyson, Sam Parnia, Pim van Lommel, Michael Sabom, Karlis Osis and Erlendur Haraldsson.
One approach reductive materialists often overlook when attempting to ascertain the fundamental properties of 'consciousness' is by not studying consciousness itself. That is, what does the observation of consciousness (behavior and perception) tell us about consciousness? Luminaries such as William James, his good friend Frederic Myers, Carl Jung - all of whom spent their lives studying consciousness itself (not just neurons)and were able to deduce certain properties of consciousness that the 'materialists' are only now beginning to theorize about, many do so based on the scientific parameters that have been discovered in quantum physics, such as nonlocality is a fundamental property of our reality, and time also is a property that is not quite what it appears to be.
It is interesting reality (and consciousness) may be fundamentally driven by probability - and it seems quantum physics has put to rest the age old question of determinism. I would also posit the still ongoing scientific research into Psi and the extensive NDE research is putting to rest the materialistic assumption consciousness is simply a product of neural processes. It is more likely (to me at least, at this time) consciousness is a more fundamental property of reality, just as electrons and electromagnetic energy are fundamental properties. And though I would not go so far as to assume consciousness itself produces reality, I would say it interacts with reality, is a part of it as a fundamental Observer.
This is a bit far afield though of the Abortion debate. But I think it serves to point out we all have different metaphysical/philosophical views on the nature of ourselves and reality. And it was a wise decision by the founding fathers of the US government to insist church and state remain separate.
Yes, we're far afield of the abortion debate, and reductive materialism is clearly inadequate to explain consciousness. But in invoking quantum properties like nonlocality, it's useful to add that the molecular orbitals of the chemical components of living systems are also subject to quantum considerations, and we've barely scratched the surface of what might be the implications. So much to yet discover -- if our species survives long enough (speaking of far afield from Catlin's article). Total agreement about the clear necessity for church-state separation. I think we've covered the bases and then some.
And the men can get over the idea that they have ANY say in what a woman does with her body. If you don't like abortion, fellas, then make sure you don't ejaculate into a woman's body. Problem solved. It's the MEN that cause pregnancy, not the woman.
The most recent theory about consciousness is that neurons are fired by a naturally collapsing quantum wave function. The paper can be found searching for consciousness-is-the-collapse-of-the-wave-function. It is an interesting idea but far from solid evidence, really just a thought experiment.
I urge you to not take the attitude that "just a clump of cells" is not a meaningfully intelligent aggregate; and I mean any such grouping, not just in our brains. If you had a map of every reciprocal communicative interaction among that clump of cells, it might blow your socks off with its information-processing complexity. I find it depressingly telling that in this age of infatuation with information technology, there seems to be very little appreciation for the original innernet, the dense nexus of information processing displayed by all cooperative cellular groupings. And unlike computer chips, the signalling pathways don't even need to be contiguous. For example, our immune systems display a distributed body-wide computational system, which parenthetically is also involved in active information processing with gut bacteria and other microbiomes (yes, your white blood cells "discuss" issues with those bacteria). The Janus-faced reality of life as reciprocal regenerative biochemistry accompanied by nearly endless information processing should be chapter 1 of bio texts. And sure, the "how life began" and the origins of consciousness are open questions, but micro/nano computation as a fundamental property of living systems at all levels of organization is very well established.
Micro/nano computations are also fundamental to radios. Does not prove the radio is the source of the music.
Correlation is not causation.
The causation is a systems property, which I grant you that we understand poorly because complex adaptive systems are underpinned but not determined by their computations; hence causation is probabilistic; no surprise that it's difficult to even fathom. The problem with your analogy is that a radio is not a complex adaptive system of systems, it's deterministic, not stochastic. As such, it's so much junk compared to any biosystem.
Wow. The discussion between you and jamenta is way over my head.
May I suggest you guys figure out how to contact one another and write a paper on this, then dumb it down into a book "the rest of us" might comprehend?
May I also suggest that "so much junk" is a rather pejorative dismissal of the point.
Nice idea, tall order. But I have to disagree with you about "so much junk " because what it is is a biologist's expression of the superiority of living systems to anything technological. Why? Simple. Living systems recycle/ are regenerative and integrative; so far, tech mostly rips up the planet and pollutes. So if it's pejorative, it was certainly not toward jamenta; it's directed at many other members of our species, who unlike indigenous people tend to see tech as superior, largely ignoring its failure to attend to those natural principles that guided most indigenous societies. The reason, of course, why we find ourselves up against the climate/biosphere pauperization wall.
OK. Speaking of the superiority of living systems: A full-grown woman is a living system. She is not dependent on any other life form for her survival. A small "clump of cells" IS. A MAN has no right, human right, natural right, nor lawful right, to tell a women what she can or cannot do with her own body. That is the bottom line here. Whether or not someone else is COMFORTABLE with choices made by a woman in regard to HER OWN BODY is irrelevant. It's not something to vote on, or scientifically explain the wonders of. We're talking about CIVIL RIGHTS. To suggest that men have bodily autonomy but women do not, is illogical, immoral, illegal, and stupid.
I agree with your civil rights posture and your solid objections to misogyny! I'd just clarify that all animals, including humans of all reproductive status, are ultimately dependent upon photo- or chemo-synthetic organisms for biomolecular energy sources & minerals, as well as his or her resident microbiomes of bacteria and fungi. No consumer organism is independently existing in Nature. And for producers like green plants, they don't ultimately do well without the recycling bacteria and mutualistic fungi in soil. Sorry, but real independence is not represented in Nature. So why are you resistant to the science? It's just a related line of discourse to your valid arguments; I don't perceive the perspectives as mutually exclusive.
There is currently no material evidence (at all) that electrical/chemical activity can produce what we know as consciousness. The fundamental properties of chemical compositions, of electron spin, of electro-chemical energy provide no indication (whatsoever) consciousness as we know it can be produced by these elements. Self-awareness, and the 'qualia' question of consciousness (at the heart of the mind/body problem), such as perceiving the color 'red' i.e. what makes red red, is also one of the most baffling and unanswered questions regarding the science of consciousness.
Once again, correlation is not causation. Just because the brain is a complex phenomena does not scientifically prove it is the cause/produces consciousness. Just because a computer can be built to be a highly complex series of electrical signals and computations, has not proven a computer can become 'self-aware' or conscious. In fact, some recent attempts to do just that have failed.
I am not saying it may eventually be proven consciousness is produced by fundamental properties of electricity and neurons. But what I am saying is science currently has not established this is the case. And therefore, the question is a philosophical mind/body problem remaining unresolved scientifically and ontologically.
https://youtu.be/x-6hosFAObI
I don't disagree at all, except to point out that you're still expounding on what I've enumerated as properties of living systems (energy transformation, matter recycling, networked feedback computation); which underpin, but do not constitute their essence. I'd wager that you're familiar with the terminology "emergent properties". Very different from the fundamental physical parameters --- but, somehow derived -- probabilistically -- from them. I emphasize the "somehow". I'm surely not saying that I have a reliable handle on what this means in detail. But I know that without that probabilistic flexibility, a truly novel idea could not arise; and even with my fundamental dark view of humanity, I still belief in the possibility of novel ideas.
I am familiar with 'emergent' properties.
But I am also familiar with the excellent work of scientists like Bruce Greyson, Sam Parnia, Pim van Lommel, Michael Sabom, Karlis Osis and Erlendur Haraldsson.
One approach reductive materialists often overlook when attempting to ascertain the fundamental properties of 'consciousness' is by not studying consciousness itself. That is, what does the observation of consciousness (behavior and perception) tell us about consciousness? Luminaries such as William James, his good friend Frederic Myers, Carl Jung - all of whom spent their lives studying consciousness itself (not just neurons)and were able to deduce certain properties of consciousness that the 'materialists' are only now beginning to theorize about, many do so based on the scientific parameters that have been discovered in quantum physics, such as nonlocality is a fundamental property of our reality, and time also is a property that is not quite what it appears to be.
It is interesting reality (and consciousness) may be fundamentally driven by probability - and it seems quantum physics has put to rest the age old question of determinism. I would also posit the still ongoing scientific research into Psi and the extensive NDE research is putting to rest the materialistic assumption consciousness is simply a product of neural processes. It is more likely (to me at least, at this time) consciousness is a more fundamental property of reality, just as electrons and electromagnetic energy are fundamental properties. And though I would not go so far as to assume consciousness itself produces reality, I would say it interacts with reality, is a part of it as a fundamental Observer.
This is a bit far afield though of the Abortion debate. But I think it serves to point out we all have different metaphysical/philosophical views on the nature of ourselves and reality. And it was a wise decision by the founding fathers of the US government to insist church and state remain separate.
Yes, we're far afield of the abortion debate, and reductive materialism is clearly inadequate to explain consciousness. But in invoking quantum properties like nonlocality, it's useful to add that the molecular orbitals of the chemical components of living systems are also subject to quantum considerations, and we've barely scratched the surface of what might be the implications. So much to yet discover -- if our species survives long enough (speaking of far afield from Catlin's article). Total agreement about the clear necessity for church-state separation. I think we've covered the bases and then some.
Well said.
And the men can get over the idea that they have ANY say in what a woman does with her body. If you don't like abortion, fellas, then make sure you don't ejaculate into a woman's body. Problem solved. It's the MEN that cause pregnancy, not the woman.
“And it was a wise decision by the founding fathers of the US government to insist church and state remain separate.”
Doesn’t make them wise about everything, considering most of them were slave owners and privileged rich white guys.
The most recent theory about consciousness is that neurons are fired by a naturally collapsing quantum wave function. The paper can be found searching for consciousness-is-the-collapse-of-the-wave-function. It is an interesting idea but far from solid evidence, really just a thought experiment.