For years I have been bemused by the website called The Skeptical Zone. Every few months I go over there and peruse the posts. And I think to myself, if they are so skeptical, why does practically everything they say line up with the received dogmas and conventional wisdom of the early 21st century Western intelligentsia?
Do they not know what the word “skeptical” means? Are they going for ironical?
But in a flash of insight today, I finally figured it out. The key is in the quote from Cromwell at the top of their homepage that serves as the motto for the site:
I beseech you, in the bowels of Christ, think it possible that you may be mistaken.
All of this time I mistakenly thought that they were using the aphorism the way Cromwell intended as in “We should bear in mind that each of us is fallible; it follows that each of us should always allow for the possibility that even his most intensely-held beliefs might possibly be mistaken.”
Yes, Barry, that is precisely what I intended it to mean.
No, that is not it. It all becomes clear when you realize that they mean their motto quite literally and when they think of it they think of it this way:
I beseech you, in the bowels of Christ, think it possible that YOU may be mistaken.
The YOU refers to all those who read the words, including the owner of the blog.
There you have it. They are skeptical all right. They are skeptical of everyone’s views but their own, which they hold with a breathtakingly dogmatic tenacity. It all makes sense to me now
Well, we all tend to think that people who seem unable to see our point of view are holding that view “with a breathtaking dogmatic tenacity”. After all, if we thought we were wrong, we’d change our minds, wouldn’t we? It’s intrinsic to the nature of disagreement that we think the other guy is wrong, and greater the clarity with which we think we are seeing the truth, the more dogmatically tenacious the other guy seems to be for not seeing it. Which simply goes to show that one [wo]man’s obvious is another [wo]man’s nonsense.
So: Just to remind everyone: No, the motto is neither ironical, nor addressed to a subset of the world. It is addressed to everyone, unironically, including me. And of course Barry, should he come over, which I hope he will. Please regard it as the Primary Rule of this site.
Thanks 🙂
Edited to, I hope, avoid copyright violation.
I will, say, it is my personal experience, that EVERYONE tends to think that those who disagree with them are refusing to consider the possibility that they are mistaken.
For instance, to me it seems, to use one of Barry’s favorite words, “self-evident” that he is mistaken. And for him, it seems “self-evident” that I am.
This to me is in itself evidence for the case that we should always consider the possibility that what is “self-evident” may not in fact be! And that therefore, we may always be mistaken.
In defense of the case that science has the edge on religion in this matter, however, I would point out that falsification lies at the heart of the scientific method, and so all scientific conclusions are, and will always be, provisional. In contrast, most, but not all, religions, have a creed. Which is also known as “dogma” – a set of truths that form a set of shibbeleths outwith which lies error.
That does not, however, mean, that scientists are less likely to be mistaken that, say, advocates of religion (and they can in any case be one and the same person). Science only claims to reveal a particular kind of knowledge. There are many questions it cannot, in principle, answer, including, I suggest, the answer to the question “was the universe intelligently designed?”
Which is my beef, in fact, with ID. If the postulated ID can include an agent with no constraints whatsover, the postulate is unfalsifiable – by potentially explaining everything can explain nothing.
So it’s not wrong. We could all have been designed and created by an omnipotent ID Last Thursday.
But to infer it from the evidence, that, I suggest, is mistaken. But I could be wrong.
If scientists a tied to dogma, why does UD pounce on every quibble and every disagreement among scientists?
If materialists were really dogmatic, how can there be controversies?
Why do leading biologists feud over neutral evolution, junk DNA, group selection.
It would seem that when these disputes make headlines, it’s taken by IDists that there is no tenant in evolution accepted by everyone. The field is rent asunder with doubt and disagreement.
Except when we are an echo chamber.
I beseech you, in the bowels of Christ, let me out of here!
Glen Davidson
Yes, I thought it pretty ironic that Barry asked if there was one “tenet of evolution” (ok, first it was “tenant”) that all of the “Darwinists” agreed upon.
Yes, tenet, like a dogmatically held belief. Do “Darwinists” agree on a single one?
How is that even a question, if “Darwinism” is a quasi-religion?
To be sure, there are quite a few aspects of evolution that are the consensus, but of course there is a considerable flux and questioning around less certain details.
Sort of like science. Which they have never understood.
Glen Davidson
JImfit, from the Pillowfort lets us have it:
“Materialists – Atheists on TSZ are not skeptics since they have their own unshakable dogma of materialism and they won’t let it go because it has replaced their need for a religion, no matter what the 21th century science says, for them there is only one explanation for their existence “They are random cosmic accidents that nothingness spewed without free will or purpose”. They can’t let it go since that would make them a psychological wreck. You are not skeptics you are hardcore believers.”
He has nailed it. I need a religion but I’ve dogmatically replaced it with materialism and even though it is SOOOO at odds with science, I’m keeping my “nothingness spewed” narrative. 0_o
If “a” = “e”, does “a” = not “a”
And worse, they ask questions that I, Jimfit, can’t answer.
How Satanic!
Glen Davidson
Uncommon Descent is primarily a platform for the psychopathic Click Whore of Babylon. Barry Arrington is her pimp. You have to ignore the vast majority of the feed to draw another conclusion.
To spell things out, Barry made UD into a nonprofit corporation. In Please Remember Uncommon Descent in Your End of Year Giving, he said,
(Considering that UD pages double- and triple-load, I suspect that Barry is more concerned with creating an illusion of high traffic than with achieving efficiency.) 0’Leary does not generate a 24/7 mudslide of quasi-scientific disinformation just for warm fuzzies. This leads me to say that it’s an ethical matter, whether you excite the target audience, serving as a personification of Evil in their Cosmic War. I won’t dictate an ought to you. But I also won’t allow that exchanges with Barry are primarily intellectual.
I regard Jason Rosenhouse’s responses to Barry’s “RDFish is an idiot” meltdown as exemplary. To begin with, he waited for something remarkable to come along. For another, he spent just a few words on Barry and ID, the most memorable of them being:
(Truly, less is more.) Finally, when Vincent Torley lifted ID is dead out of context, and made a twerp of himself, throwing down a “mathematical” gauntlet, Jason gave him all the response he deserved in My Over Has Died:
Yes, Jason demonstrated that he was more interested in reporting on the demise of his oven, and also the elimination of his favorite contestants from Dancing with the Stars, than in swatting an amoral fly. That’s hilarious, from where I sit.
I think I agree. The only thing Barry did by announcing his “amnesty” was to increase the hits (and ad
Revenue) to his site. Even now, he maintains sufficient controversy and anger from the sane viewers to ensure that we keep checking UD out. Which is why he maintains a handful of opponents that he can tolerate.
The Aurelio incident actually works for him because I am sure that it increased the number of hits to his site.
If we were smart we would smother him by avoiding UD, but we know we won’t do it. We are all mesmerized by a train wreck.
Acartia,
I don’t mind them getting $0.0002 from some bible college for my visit. The entertainment is well worth it. Barry’s pissyness is delicious.
ETA: I would pay for a subscription to UD Radio and I would help fund a Kickstarter for UDTV.
I’m a Tardaholic and proud!
It’s what the internet is for.
I mean, other than porn.
Glen Davidson
I suspect something similar, that the goal is largely to drive attention to the site and its owner. The point about revenue made me curious, so I looked up UD’s 990 form. (All non-profits have to file a 990 return with the IRS, and they’re mostly available online.)
The only 990 with substantial information is from 2011. It discloses about 6k USD in revenue, all from “gifts, grants, contributions, and membership fees.” Nothing from business activities or anything else that would encompass ad revenue. It spent that money on operating expenses and “contact [sic] content writers. (Supposed to be “contract content writers,” I suspect.)
I assume the reported income includes ad revenues, despite its characterization. I don’t mean to imply there’s anything improper about that. I’ve never been involved with tax matters and have no idea how ad revenue should be recognized for a non-profit. But I think the magnitude of revenue is interesting. In my very limited experience, $6k is a little low for a site with UD’s numbers but not unreasonable. (Anyone with more experience care to chime in?) It’s not a very significant amount of money, which suggests that money itself isn’t a very significant motivation. Attention, sure, but not filthy lucre.
[Edited to change a figure that apparently caused QuickLatex to have a seizure. And to do a better job assuming good faith.]
That would include you. So given your experience, do you think it in any way increases the likelihood that you might be mistaken?
I thought the comment was a aggressive , exasperated pointing at creationists etc.
I didn’t know it was a higher ideal for everyone to take heed of ones convictions and the merits behind them.
Thats better.
I think that if you cannot even consider the opposing point of view without applying terms intended to ridicule, belittle and attack, it is safe to say that you are refusing to consider the possibility that you are fundamentally wrong. That applies to both sides.
Colin,
Thank you for looking up the form 990. I had a pretty good idea that 0’Leary was scrounging for nickels and dimes, but didn’t suppose that she was so desperate. That would explain why she’s wretched, though not why she’s psychopathic. (I don’t have to assume good faith, knowing how calculatedly she employed false inference, false innuendo, and quotation out of context to cast me a false light. Don’t try this unless you’re a “journalist” posting on a server in my country, i.e., with plenty of room to abuse freedom of the press.)
[Edit: This is the first I’ve said online about the smear job she did on me, back in September. 0’Leary is a 0, and I don’t want to make more of her than that. My response, after I got over my initial anger, was to remove an ID proponent’s name from my blog-reporting on a big mistake he had made while in school. Most of you will get the point without my spelling it out.]
I don’t think it’s entirely safe, William, but I certainlky agree it happens on both sides of the ID debate. I’d also suggest that another indicator is deleting counter arguments.
It certainly would, and does, as I explicitly said. But what do you mean by “it” there? What is the “it” that you think might increase the likelihood that I might be mistaken?
Is there such a thing as a fair die William?
Apparently not….
If you are talking about your view as that opposing point of view, you’ve already made it clear that you hold your views not because of evidence but because you think you will benefit from holding that view. So no need to “consider” those opposing views for you I think, just to start to use them if you think you might benefit, right?
I take your refusal to address my trivial question of if a fair die can exist as a refusal to consider an opposing point of view.
If not, then why not just answer?
Presumably it’s because you know you won’t benefit from answering. You’ll have to take a position and stand by it. As you cannot do that, have you considered why this might be a problem for you and your views?
How can such a trivial question be something you are so afraid to answer or even acknowledge? You’ll pick up on a trivial mistake I might make or something I’ll say about you in error, but important stuff – no, pretend it does not exist.
Could it be because the received dogmas and conventional wisdom of the early 21st century Western intelligentsia are by and large true?
As Lizzie says it always seems like the other guy is prejudiced and blind to what you see as obvious. But I don’t think anyone here goes as far as this in refusing countenance opposing views:
EL said: ” It’s intrinsic to the nature of disagreement that we think the other guy is wrong, and greater the clarity with which we think we are seeing the truth,”
Then the intrinsic nature of people it is not to be skeptical. If you think you are seeing the truth, you beleive are right, that is the opposite of skeptical.
The sentence “I beseech you, in the bowels of Christ, think it possible that you may be mistaken.”do not describe a skeptical position. The classical skepticalposition is theagnostic one. “I do no know” “I´m not sure” “There is no enoughevidence”. Adding may be I wrong do not change the fact you beleiveare right.
If materialism is true, then one’s identity – who they are – is baked into the cake of how incoming data of any sort is represented in the brain. How data is perceived, represented and processed is that the individual’s “mentality”. Therefore, under materialism, an individual is, for all intents and purposes, their cognitive bias, since there is no means of sensing, representing, and processing information neutrally or objectively.
Well, that would serve to explain why some people take a challenge to their beliefs as a personal attack – it would be, in a very significant way. A material mind would in fact “be” the physical state of belief representations in the brain, and those physical states would be directly involved in how all incoming information was necessarily processed physically.
Under materialism, once the set of physical structures in the brain that make the “mind” take root, one wonders what it would take to re-wire the whole thing in terms of changing fundamental views. Even dangerous, self-destructive brainsets can often be almost impossible to alter.
That brings up an interesting question: if you could create a pill that would effectively eliminate what you considered to be irrational, superstitious/theistic thinking and turn everyone into rational materialists, and if you had the power to do so, would you force everyone to take the pill? If not, why not?
I’d roll the dice. Let fate decide. Unless, of course, there is no such thing as a fair die?
What do you think about that William? Is there such a thing?
Of course not. Why not? Because I would see no point in doing so. I might argue my position, and implicitly hope that the other person might see what I’m driving at, but forcing my POV? Nah.
Put the boot on the other foot. Suppose you had a pill that eliminated ‘materialism’. Would you force everyone to take it?
incoming data is not “represented in the brain”. At least, I think that’s a very misleading way of putting it.
“Data in the brain” is not representational at all.
This is where our different worldviews about what we are doing come into play, which IMO makes your perspective irrational. Literally, under materialism, all you can be doing when you are debating/arguing with a person is physically attempting to cause a physical reaction which manifests as a change of brain states. That other person wouldn’t be “choosing” to change their mind, and being “convinced” of a thing, under materialism, is really nothing but an euphemism describing physical states physically altered by physical inputs.
In essence, there is no physical distinction between slipping them a pill or saying something to them that triggers a physiological chain reaction resulting in a “changed mind” in their brain-state. Your words are just a different kind of pill they receive through a different orifice.
From my perspective, of course, one’s beliefs are not determined simply by introducing “pills” of one sort or another into their body because they have free will and an uncaused resource of intent/will. However, if I could influence them by slipping them a pill, I would not, because it would be an attempt to subvert their free will. Under my view, argument is something categorically different than attempting to achieve a physical state change; under materialism, argument and attempting to achieve a physical state change are categorically the same thing.
EL said:
So, my brain has stored actual air vibrations in what, some kind of tube that keeps those vibrations humming when I hear a thing, and when I remember that sound or what someone said, my brain is releasing that vibration from its stored location?
mapou writes:
I have no idea whether you guys like it or not. I like it, and always have, and certainly not because it’s a “putdown of Christianity”. It isn’t.
And I certainly hope we criticise science here. I do. Criticism is the life-blood of science. It’s why we have peer-review!
No. I assumed that by representation, you meant something like it’s ususal usage, e.g.
When you switch on the light, I don’t think the electrons in the circuit “represent” your finger press. They just turn on the light. When your sensory organs receive inpput, I don’t think your brain then has a “representation” of the origin of the signal inside it.
I think as I said, that can be misleading – it suggest some sort of internal screening room where the homunculus views the movie.
Sorry, mapou, but science is advanced by doing science, which is iterative rounds of observation, speculation, and — gasp, criticism.
Still waiting for mapou’s astonishing revelation that will change the world.
EL said:
That’s exactly what I meant. The brain stores an image or a likeness of the incoming data. It doesn’t store the medium it arrives on, but rather representation of that data imprinted on an entirely different substrate. When I recall the sound or the words, my brain doesn’t stimulate any vibrations to produce the sound because I don’t actually “hear” the sound or the words. My brain produces a representation of what I heard.
What is imprinted by the brain is a representation of that data that has arrived on various substrates. So, the brain houses representations of incoming data. It certainly doesn’t store the original data on the original medium.
William J. Murray,
WJM
Remember many of us materialists are also compatibilists. So for us there is an important distinction between getting someone to change their mind via a reasoning process (even though this is also a physical process) and via a pill. I can imagine circumstances where a pill would be a good option – suppose we could put one in the drinking water of the Islamic State leadership – but mostly I would prefer reasoning even if the pill were available:
1) I would be less likely to induce a wrong belief as my arguments and reasons would be subject to assessment
2) I would think it unethical because I would certainly not want the same thing done to me
3) If the change were successful and based on good reasons it would be more likely to be permanent. A belief changed through a pill would subsequently be subject to continuous reasoning processes and might easily be reversed if there were no justification.
I’m certainly not a materialist and I have immense respect for Christianity. Am I on the wrong blog again? 🙂
Lately I’ve been appreciating more and more the appeal of Dennett’s shrug-of-the-shoulders about metaphysics. On his view, we can adopt different attitudes — what he calls a “stance” — and how entities are characterized depends on the stance taken towards them. We can adopt “the intentional stance” and treat entities as having reasons, beliefs, desires – and we can adopt “the design stance” and treat entities as having proper and improper functioning — or “the mechanistic stance” and treat entities as having causal structures. Independent of the stances, all there is to reality is what Dennett calls “patterns”.
I think, but I am not sure, that Dennett’s emphasis on patterns is consistent with Evan Thompson’s process ontology:
So we can easily talk about the inferential reasoning of rational agents, the metabolic reactions of purposive organisms, or stellar nucleosynthesis, without feeling any compulsion to answer the question as to what has absolute ontological primacy. If a “materialist” is someone who says that the entities described by fundamental physics have absolute ontological primacy, then I am certainly not a “materialist”, because I do not think anything has absolute ontological primacy. (Call this “ontological anarchy” if you like.)
Yet you claim that I do not have free will. So what’s to subvert in that case?
MF said:
Unless the reasoning process is categorically different from the pill process, while the difference might be important to you, that doesn’t mean they are substantively different processes. The difference between vanilla and chocolate ice cream may be very important to you but there is no real substantive difference. They are essentially different flavors of the same thing.
However, I give you points for rational coherence when you say that the difference between reasoning them to a change of mind and slipping them a pill is your preference:
You continue:
Subject to assessment by a brain you already consider to be faulty? Do we try and convince people out of other faulty brain states, like schizophrenia and OCD and ADD or chronic depression? Or, do we attempt to change those faulty brain states via medication?
You wouldn’t want someone forcing you to take medication in order to allieve a faulty brain state condition that causes you to reject the very medication you need to correct your condition – the faulty belief that god exists, you have libertarian free will and that materialism is false? It seems like you’d be doing them a favor, and that the only reason not to slip them the medication is that you would just prefer to do it in a less obvious way so you don’t feel bad about it. But that’s what I don’t get – why would you feel bad about slipping a person medication you believe that they need?
No, the pill is assumed permanent or will keep the change in place as long as it is consumed by the other person. SO, IOW, if we assume the pill was 100% permanent and effective, then it would be the better option, correct? As far as efficacy being part of the consideration.
WJM:
Both, of course. Haven’t you heard of talk therapy?
Now here’s a question for you: If reasoning is a purely non-physical process, then why can it be influenced both positively and negatively by the substances we ingest?
keiths said:
Why bother, if you had a pill that could cure it?
Where have I claimed that reasoning is a purely non-physical process?
When you stated, flatly, that decisions you make are made in a place where the constraints of physics do not apply. Your “free-will” place where you can make decisions no predicated on prior events.
Well, most neuroscientists would disagree!
Elizabeth,
First of all thank you very much for your hospitality, and secondly, thank you for defending me by sending some comments from the anti-ID side to guano. That was very commendable. Thank you.
If you feel in your heart the Design Hypothesis or Creation (YEC,OEC, PC, YLC, YUC, whatever) is false and that by giving it a fair hearing acceptance of it will decline because it foundations will be exposed, then I respect that, but that does not mean everything ID proponents and creationists say is false even if their ultimate claims could be false. For example, I’ve said most of mammalian molecular evolution, especially for humans, must have been free of selection as a matter of principle (this claim is associated with Kimura’s work on neutral evolution).
The claim of neutral molecular evolution is independent of whether ID is correct or not. I can also claim there are gaps in knowledge in OOL or that OOL is probable to only 1 out of a buzillion (I could provide more exact figures of course), and we can debate those numbers. These are relevant to the ID hypothesis, but ID and creation could be formally wrong even if some arguments put forward in support of ID and creation are unassailable.
If you wish to really host such discussions ( probability of OOL, neutral evolution, etc.) I can participate. But if you think your readership would prefer not to hear these things, but rather hearing “OOL is likely” or that “selection really is the primary cause of human evolution”, or similar such criticism of mainstream ideas, well, I respect that, and I might not post so much on those topics. But though I think you’d welcome it, I think some readers here would prefer not the hear it. What would you like in view of this since I presume SkepticalZone has to cater to some kind of readership?
As far as me and ID, I’ve ruffled so many feathers. Here are my assertions that didn’t go over well:
1. “2LOT is not proof of ID”, boy I made a lot of enemies with that one
2. “ID should not be promoted as science” I infuriated a lot of comrades with that one
3. “CSI for 2000 fair coins ordered by robots shows that CSI calculations are observer dependent, ambiguous and subject to interpretation.” Still unresolved how much CSI is in evidence, I didn’t gain in popularity over that one…
4. “IDists should totally drop 2LOT as defense of ID and de-emphasize information theory, but instead emphasize basic probability”. More of the same reaction…
5. “Explanatory Filter formally demonstrates something not result of chance nor law with respect to assumptions. Assumptions can be false. Further even if assumption are right, it does not formally demonstrate intelligent design in the metaphysical sense, it might only demonstrate it in the circumstantial sense. Therefore the EF is not immutable, and is only as good as the assumptions it is based on.” That was sort of sympathetic to RDFish’s viewpoint, and that didn’t go over well.
6. “Material mechanisms can create CSI, we call them automated factories. Therefore non conscious, material mechanism can make designed objects.”
Several IDists threw a fit over my claim.
7. “ID is circumstantially argued, not formally argued. Some have tried to frame it in terms of absolute logical and philosophical proof. To claim one has logically proven God exists is absurd.” Didn’t make many friends with that…
8. “Irreducible Complexity and information increase can evolve in non-equilibrium thermodynamically closed systems. How much more can this happen in open systems!” I didn’t make to many friends with those assertions.
9. “There is no positive case for ID”. That didn’t go over well.
10. “VJ, neutral evolution can fixate lots of traits.” To VJ’s credit, he made revision, but me being the one to point it out didn’t bode well for me especially since I basically contested someone on a peer-review committee at the Biologic Institute (Branko K.). Larry Moran pointed out I did the unthinkable:
I committed the unforgivable sin of siding with Nick Matzke against the claim of a UD author. People acknowledge I and (gag) Nick Matzke were right, but being the bearer of bad news isn’t a welcome job.
10. “YEC arguments are relevant to ID.” The non-YECs don’t take kindly to that.
11. I gave credit to some ID critics, I even highlighted Gordon Davisson’s post of the moth at Talk Origins, and agreed with it.
12. I thanked Gordon Davisson and Joe Felsenstein after they exposed a flaw in something I posted.
I ended up disgracing an ID proponent and creationist in the process, Jean-Claude Perez. I felt really really bad about that because Perez is a really nice guy.
What I didn’t say, which I will say now, is that Gordon saved my rear-end! Even some of his software fixes at CreationEvolution University were useful. I was able to use in some of my analysis of 3-periodicity.
I was about to present Perez’s work to John Sanford and others, and Gordon saved my tail from embarrassment. Instead I presented my 3-periodicity research which Gordon helped me put together.
John was interested in the 3-periodicity pattern, and I said it was too weak a signal to make an ID inference, but it lead me to some other interesting research in the ID bioinformatics community.
As a result, I was spared humiliation and was able to move forward into ID-sympathetic bio-informatics research. Thank God for Gordon!
IN SUM:
Some of my ID colleagues got upset with me. But lots of them aren’t in universities actually trying to have discussions with professors and grad students and researchers and professionals who actually know things about Shannon’s theorem, the second law, molecular biology, cybernetics, proteomics, etc.
I do have some supporters in the ID community. Some know that what I said regarding the 2nd law is correct, but why do I have to be the fall guy and come forward and blow the whistle? Maybe because I’m someone of no consequence in the debate…
Anyway, Elizabeth and fellow anti-IDists, if you want a mix of some pro-ID, pro-Creation viewpoints, I’ll provide them. Ironically, I will occasionally take the SkepticalZone side of the argument when I think the ID side is providing the next generation of IDists and creationist unwise and even garbage arguments.
I don’t think it’s too much to ask and IDists who swears by the second law to actually do a calculation demonstrating the change in entropy of a system as it relates to ID. Why are those calculations missing? I don’t think it is too much to get agreement on the CSI figures for 2000 coins being assembled by a robot. We don’t get agreement. And where does philosophy fit in to the explanatory filter? YEC arguments are more relevant to the Explanatory Filter than philosophy.
Thank you again Elizabeth for hosting my offerings.
I still wouldn’t call what it “stores” a “representation”. Who would it be “representing” the “data” to? We do not look in our brains, see the information printed there, and read it off.
As I said, I think the model is really misleading. “Data” normally means “what is given” – implying that there is, at least, a recipient of that data. Who, in your model, is the recipient? Why does that recipient need it to be “represented”? Why can’t it access the “data” directly? What do you even mean by “data” in this model? What is metaphor and what is literal here?
You can post about anything you like Sal! Clearly most of the regulars here won’t have a lot of time for YEC, because the evidence is so overwhelmingly against it, but you are very welcome to make your case.
William:
Lizzie:
I agree with William on this one.
It’s no different in principle from what happens inside a self-driving car, for example. The system represents its environment internally and operates on that representation.
Lizzie:
To itself, just as the self-driving car represents the environment to itself.
Elizabeth, there’s some discussion among philosophers of cognitive science about whether the concept of representation has much explanatory value.
I used to think, as you do, that talking about the brain as representing objects and properties implicitly commits us to the homunculus fallacy. (I take it that that is your worry when you wrote, “Who would it be “representing” the “data” to? We do not look in our brains, see the information printed there, and read it off.”)
However, one could “de-homunculize” (ugh) the concept of representation by thinking of representations as Churchland does: as an dynamical structure, composed of activation vectors across neuronal populations, the features of which which stand in homomorphic relations with features of the environment. We posit the existence of such representations in order to explain how organisms coordinate sensory ‘input’ and motor ‘output’ across a range of cognitive tasks — perception, memory, learning, and so on — and our posit is justified to the extent that it enables predictive success.
On the other hand, we are also seeing the rise of anti-representationalism in the philosophy of cognitive science, wherein we explain cognitive activity in terms of dynamic processes as directly coordinating perception of affordances with successful coping without anything too “intellectual” between them.
I don’t have any firm views on one side or the other of this debate — I’ve been aware of it for a while but I’m only now focusing in on it.
If that is what William means, then I am not in disagreement – well, not so much.
As long as the metaphor doesn’t land us up with an inner screening room for the carmunculus.
EL said:
I would assume it represents the information in a manner suitable for future processing/retrieval and playback for whomever or whatever is capable of utilizing that information for whatever purpose.
Then it’s a good thing I didn’t say we did.
I think what is misleading you is your own peculiar definitions and assumptions.
I haven’t found any definition of “data” that agrees with you.
Yeah .. if that was actually a definition of “data”.
Lizzie:
Yes, Sal. The whole point of TSZ, unlike UD, is to promote open discussion of contentious issues.
Just keep in mind that people are as free to disagree with your position as you are to state it.
Absolutely. And as long as the word “representation” doesn’t bring a passenger along in its baggage, I’ll buy it. But we certainly don’t “read off” a “representation” of “incoming data” from the “brain”. For a start, we can’t even see our brains, and it’s us that does the reading!