[MD] What is SOM?

[Krimel]

Ron, dmb;

What is with you guys and the quotes? 

First denying that something has essence is very different from saying that
nothing exists. Since you love quotes so much here a bit from
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ship_of_Theseus 

"Locke's socks
John Locke proposed a scenario regarding a favorite sock that develops a
hole. He pondered whether the sock would still be the same after a patch was
applied to the hole. If yes, then, would it still be the same sock after a
second patch was applied? Indeed, would it still be the same sock many years
later, even after all of the material of the original sock has been replaced
with patches?"

Heraclitus is mentioned as well and as I stated many times I believe the
world is in "essence" Heraclitian. I have gone so far as to call it chaotic
and explain both how and why.

Dave's author is confused when he says, "These are the scientific
specialists, scholars, Gelehrten, and all like-minded types who have
dominated philosophy for the past two centuries. For them, the problem of
existence has become a matter of cognitive science to be answered through
analysis of the brain-mind problem, using techniques borrowed from
neurophysiology, linguistics and computer science."

First of all if it is true that science has dominated philosophy for the
past two centuries then I would say it is because philosophers have had so
little of value to say. But he is confused when he says that the cognitive
sciences are in the least concerned with "existence". Cognitive sciences in
a philosophical sense are not concerned with ontology. Their concern is
epistemology.

What I have tried on several occasions to show is that while no one claims
that science has solved the problem of consciousness, we have learned a lot
about it and how the brain works. Philosophers Dennett, Searle, Hacker and
Robinson are having a lively debate on these matters even now. For Christ
sake, the head frickin' Buddha daddy of them all the Dalai Lama is in on the
act. Where Dave sees reduction they see emergence. Inorganic, to biological
to social to intellectual it even sound familiar depending on whether to see
it from the top or the bottom, huh?

Much of this bears heavily on the MoQ and much of what is discussed here.
Even at an elementary level, easily verifiable through introspective methods
it shows that experience is not a unitary event that fragments into
awareness. The perception of unity is an illusion created by integrating
disparate fragmented input into a whole. It tells us a lot about
pre-intellectual or unconscious process and how they influence our actions
and our intellectual processes. They tell us a lot about "value" and how
emotional processes influence how we think and act. 

I won't go on about this as Dave already knows everything and Ron can use
the Wiki. But by the way a neurologist is a medical doctor not a researcher;
a technologist not a scientist.

Claiming that science is irrelevant because of some absurdist conception of
metaphysics is just farting into the wind. 

Perhaps someone has claimed that science is free of assumptions but
certainly not I. I have in fact said point blank what my assumptions are.
Mainly, one more time, 

1. I think therefore I am
2. There exists a world external to me. (BTW, this says nothing about its
nature or source only that I am not all that is.)
3. In that world there are other minds like mine.
4. Nature is orderly, it contains patterns.
5. We can know nature. 
6. All phenomena have natural causes. 
7. Knowledge is derived from acquisition of experience. 

Remember our chats about faith Dave? I believe I have been honest on that
score. How about you? Just what are your assumptions? Something you don't
like about these?

As far as values I would say science holds that knowledge is superior to
ignorance and that honesty is superior to dishonesty. I have mentioned
Kuhn's critique of science for denying that science is value free. But I
have also mentioned that the values science seeks to be free of are personal
bias and personal prejudice. Didn't Arlo provide an excellent link to a
paper on this not long ago? Did either of you read it?

Again this isn't about the metaphysical problems with what I have said this
is about Dave not being able to follow the directions for building his
rotisserie and whining about how western culture is all evil because it
makes his head hurt. As he would have it the MoQ is the Cheshire Cat reading
Jaberwocky and Dave wields the vorpal blade that goes snicker-snack.

Sounds good but it's still jibberish.