The Abacus and Semiotics

(16th May 2014, 15:30)Pickup_shonuff Wrote:

(16th May 2014, 14:21)ChadWooters Wrote:If by vindicate you mean that spiritual experiences have physical affects, I don't see that as justification for assuming that spiritual events are entirely physical.And I was careful to say spiritual experience recognizing that different religious traditions interpret these experiences in various ways. That does not invalidate the basic experience.

The problem is, I think, that unless the distinction is more clearly defined and demonstrated, we're merely arguing semantics, describing the phenomena of experience in a manner--on the one hand--that tries to appreciate the notion of objective facts, and on the other, that seeks to reduce them to merely esoteric symbols, symbols that offer no predictive value or shed light on uncharted territory of human experience. What justification do we have for extending spiritual experiences beyond the physical when the only widely accepted definition of a supernatural occurrence is that which eludes critical examination?

Substitute the word mental for spiritual, and it leads back to the original post. And yes it is a matter of semantics in the truest sense of the word. The question is about how significance can supervene on physical processes. The meaning of signs and symbols have absolutely no objective relationship with the form or medium of the signs themselves. Abacus beads have no inherent meaning until a knowing subject assigns them meanings. Nor do arrangements of LED lights on a screen. And when I say the same about the fully physical states of the brain it is completely consistent with the relationship between signs and significance with all other physical systems. Materialist make an exception for brains without any evidence for a mechanism that defines the difference between conscious and unconscious processes. That's what they call special pleading.

(29th August 2013, 00:39)BrianSoddingBoru4 Wrote:...get a verifiable positive reading and I'll shake your hand and retract my prior statement. Until and unless that happens, I'm going to go on happy in my conviction that consciousness is the result of brain function.

Nevertheless your conviction would not be based on science. In your opinion, brain events generate mental properties. An alternate opinion, one with which I agree, holds that brain states represent mental properties similar to how abacus beads stand for numbers.It would be like erasing a PDF after you read it. The signs that represent meaning would be gone, but the meaning would remain in thought.

In either case, when brain activity ceases, the body would no longer be able to express mental properties. Neither theory is falsifiable nor does either one of them qualify as a proper scientific theory. Thus resolution of the mind-body problem is beyond the reach of neuroscience.

(20th October 2013, 10:32)genkaus Wrote:Aren't you missing the fact that "seeing beyond what is immediately apparent" is a form of complex data processing.

You have confused data processing with the assignment of meaning. The first is the manipulation of symbols. The second is interpreting the significance of those symbols. A machine process can start with one set of symbols and follow rules to produce a second. It can do so without any understanding of what the symbols mean. Understanding the significance of the symbols is another thing altogether. The thought problem that illustrates your mistake is Searle’s “Chinese Room”.