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A man who can read letters but not numbers exposes roots of consciousness

sciencemag.org

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Re: A man who can read letters but not numbers exposes roots of consciousness

#161

Post by montjoy »

vinceguidry wrote: post #152
corin_ wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I may well be misunderstanding a definition of science, but no I wasn't confusing it with "good". I don't know what the best definition of science is, but here's the first one Google suggests: > "the intellectual and practical activity encompassing the systematic study of the structure and behaviour of the physical and natural world through observation and experiment." Can you explain what excludes the studying of hu…

This is what I meant by "getting into the epistemological weeds" heh. I'll requote your definition with emphasis. > the intellectual and practical activity encompassing the systematic study of the structure and behaviour of the physical and natural world through observation and experiment . All three of the italicized aspects are not how the mind is studied. The mind is not a physical object. It cannot be observed or…

Oh come now.

> The mind is not a physical object. It cannot be observed or experimented with in a systematic way.

So clearly false if you read the article, or have ever looked at an optical illusion.

> ... because buildings and minds are not physical, natural things. They're unnatural things, conjured up by human invention and imagination

Then likewise Ecology, Geology, Biology and all other sciences that cover systems aren’t science? What is left? Surely not physics because that could be quantum OR relativity. Surely not QM because that could be particles OR waves.

> Another example, computer science isn't science. It's math. Computers are deterministic, there's no point in running experiments

Ok now I know you are trolling.

Re: A man who can read letters but not numbers exposes roots of consciousness

#162

Post by hackinthebochs »

vinceguidry wrote: post #152
corin_ wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I may well be misunderstanding a definition of science, but no I wasn't confusing it with "good". I don't know what the best definition of science is, but here's the first one Google suggests: > "the intellectual and practical activity encompassing the systematic study of the structure and behaviour of the physical and natural world through observation and experiment." Can you explain what excludes the studying of hu…

This is what I meant by "getting into the epistemological weeds" heh. I'll requote your definition with emphasis. > the intellectual and practical activity encompassing the systematic study of the structure and behaviour of the physical and natural world through observation and experiment . All three of the italicized aspects are not how the mind is studied. The mind is not a physical object. It cannot be observed or…

As far as the mind has physical effects, it can be studied scientifically. When I study a building by studying its steel frame, I am studying the building inasmuch as the steel frame is a component of the building.

Re: A man who can read letters but not numbers exposes roots of consciousness

#163

Post by lisper »

I call shenanigans. There is nothing inherently different about numbers and letters. They are all just abstract shapes. There is no possible way that evolution could have produced a mechanism that could distinguish between the two without training.

Re: A man who can read letters but not numbers exposes roots of consciousness

#164

Post by collyw »

hackinthebochs wrote: post #142
akiselev wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All of the research you describe can be safely bundled into the same category as "dead salmon shows brain activity on an fMRI if you squint hard enough." It's phrenology for the 21st century, except with dyes and MRIs instead of head shaped calipers. The second you say the words "conscious mind", you leave the realm of science. At best, "consciousness" is an abstraction used by psychiatrists and laypeople over much d…

I'm struggling to come up with something more substantive to say in response, but this is a bad take and it needs to be said. Studies that demonstrate high level brain activity without the corresponding conscious experience are important in that they help to constrain where and how conscious experience is generated. Platitudes about human intelligence have no utility here.

> conscious experience is generated

Is there any evidence that it is generated?

Re: A man who can read letters but not numbers exposes roots of consciousness

#165

Post by rpastuszak »

kebman wrote: post #135
agustif wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Promise.all()

When you've been working on Node.js for too long. xD

Because if it's longer than that your rotten soul is already burning in the callback hell.

Re: A man who can read letters but not numbers exposes roots of consciousness

#166

Post by whatshisface »

lisper wrote: post #163

I call shenanigans. There is nothing inherently different about numbers and letters. They are all just abstract shapes. There is no possible way that evolution could have produced a mechanism that could distinguish between the two without training.

If evolution was responsible for character recognition, reading would not be taught in schools...

Re: A man who can read letters but not numbers exposes roots of consciousness

#167

Post by sollewitt »

akiselev wrote: post #87
pulkitsh1234 wrote: post #70

Somehow this is not surprising for me, I have heard about experiments related to free-will wherein the brain already made a decision even before the conscious mind became aware of it. Thus putting doubts on our conscious experience of free-will. Also, in terms of problem solving, there are experiments which show that the brain calculates the answers and "presents" the answers later on to the consciousness. It's not l…

All of the research you describe can be safely bundled into the same category as "dead salmon shows brain activity on an fMRI if you squint hard enough." It's phrenology for the 21st century, except with dyes and MRIs instead of head shaped calipers. The second you say the words "conscious mind", you leave the realm of science. At best, "consciousness" is an abstraction used by psychiatrists and laypeople over much d…

The core assumption in cognitive neuroscience is that cognition is centered in the activity of the brain. The second is that neuronal activation corresponds to function. After that it's about finding proxies for measuring activation. Which part of that makes the field junk science?

Re: A man who can read letters but not numbers exposes roots of consciousness

#168

Post by lisper »

whatshisface wrote: post #166
lisper wrote: post #163

I call shenanigans. There is nothing inherently different about numbers and letters. They are all just abstract shapes. There is no possible way that evolution could have produced a mechanism that could distinguish between the two without training.

If evolution was responsible for character recognition, reading would not be taught in schools...

Yes, that was kind of my point.

Re: A man who can read letters but not numbers exposes roots of consciousness

#169

Post by hawthornio »

henriquemaia wrote: post #57

> Somehow, his brain was still processing and identifying a face—a fairly high-level skill—even though his conscious mind was oblivious. I'm maybe wrong about this, but isn't the ability to recognize faces a fairly low-level skill? Case is point being other social animals having it, like apes, monkeys, or even sheep [1] (who can even recognize human faces [2]). So maybe they're here referring to the ability of seeing…

Recognizing faces is the highest level of visual processing. The lowest levels are detecting regions of contrast, lines, then orientations of lines...

[Textbook](https://www.amazon.com/Basic-Vision-Introduction-Visual-Perc...)

Re: A man who can read letters but not numbers exposes roots of consciousness

#170

Post by _8j50 »

Nextgrid wrote: post #148
_8j50 wrote: post #106

Silly question: how do they know he isn't lying?

I read the paper and they address that point by saying that they don’t see any benefit he would gain from lying.

Attention or maybe out of some psychological trauma he started lying to himself about this particular issue.
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