I think I am running out of popcorn…and the hot dogs and beer are all gone.
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Yes, I was suspecting that. You deliberately refrain from taking a clear stance that everyone can understand, so that no one can attack your points.
Others and I assumed you were defending emergent properties, but then you said that this isn’t your position, or it’s not exactly your position, or it’s only part of your position.
I have to reconstruct what you think from countless posts and endless opinions… Yes, I know this game.
But it has a simple solution…
Please, is there anyone who can explain to me in a few words what Sheldon’s exact opinion is?
Thank you.
Please, is there anyone who can explain to me in a few words what Sheldon’s exact opinion is?
Thank you.
You have made assertions.
You have refused to give any meaningful evidence
You have doubled down on your unproven, unevidenced, fanciful and unfalsifiable assertions when challenged.
Sheldon does not believe your woo.
Is that clear enough?
Sheesh. Completely out of popcorn and cat treats…Captain Cat is bored…
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That’s another lie, I could not have explained my position more clearly or more exhaustively, further repetition is pointless, if your grasp of language is not to up the task.
Stop stating what others think, stop paraphrasing what you believe I am saying, and use the quote function, how many times?
it’s not even the claim you had made, you’ve changed it again, quote a claim I have made, and I will address it, I’m not wasting time chasing down your endless straw man fallacies, or dishonest misrepresentations that paraphrase my position incorrectly or inaccurately.
You don’t have to do any such thing, and only you are playing a game here, hence you dishonestly paraphrasing, or using straw men, rather than addressing exactly what I have said. You add words that change the meaning and the context, I can’t tell definitively if it’s a poor grasp of language on your part, or you’re genuinely this dishonest. Just quote me verbatim, and then all ambiguity is removed.
Everyone except you would be my guess, though again you are asking broad sweeping and therefore ambiguous questions, rather than addressing exactly what I’ve said, this just seems like another attempt by you to spin the dialogue away from the topics, as your claims were being thoroughly rinsed again.
Panpsychism is unfalsifiable, untestable, and unevidenced, and doesn’t help us explain the origins of consciousness at all. the same as god claims, they generally or inevitably end up appealing to mystery. Whereas viewing consciousness as an emergent property of the brain, can be supported by objective evidence, can be tested, and is falsifiable, and though it still doesn’t allow us to fully understand how it emerged, it still has some explanatory powers.
Thank you, it’s not that hard really one would have thought. Though tellingly whenever his claims are challenged, he ignores those objections totally, and either reverts to endless repetition, or diversionary tactics like creating straw men claims, and then insisting others defend claims they haven’t made. he never when asked, can justify such claims by quoting a post with the exact claim. he paraphrases as well, adding words like assumption for example, when no assumption was made or needed.
Or here for example where he paraphrases me:
I defy anyone to find a claim I have made that uses the word “mere” in that context, also why is the word contend in there, and not Sheldon has demonstrated objective evidence to supports the idea that emotions are emergent properties of the brain?
The contention is not mine alone clearly, it is a well established idea within mainstream science, and has widespread support, unlike panpsychism, since it cannot be objectively evidenced at all, is unfalsifiable, and untestable. Does he imagine such dishonesty will really fool anyone?
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First, I never said that Panpsychism is a fact; I said it is more plausible to me than the concept of emergent properties.
Second, emergent properties face the issue of hard emergence, something I have pointed out since the beginning. Yes, emergent properties can be tested, falsified, and evidenced, but qualia cannot be tested, falsified, or evidenced; they can only be observed at a personal level. So the question here is whether qualia could be an emergent property. There is a gap that does not seem to be a matter of more research but rather something more fundamental. I’ve posted papers on this topic that you can read; I am not inventing anything new.
Moreover, the very concept of emergent properties implies that matter must have some fundamental attributes from which qualia could emerge. This isn’t an idea I came up with; it comes from the papers and philosophers I referenced to you. Therefore, Panpsychism could also be understood as a logical consequence of emergent properties (if there are red walls, there must be red bricks). So, I’m not sure what exactly you expect me to think or do…
If you think qualia is an emergent property, fine. However, I don’t believe it is an emergent property because, according to the paper I sent you, the opinions of important philosophers, and my own understanding, this belief is akin to magical thinking. If you think otherwise, that’s fine. Can we agree to disagree?
Is this the answer you want? What else do I need to do? Do you want papers? What more do you want?
No one cares, since panpsychism is an unfalsifiable, untestable, unevidenced assumption, that has no explanatory powers. Whereas consciousness as an emergent property of the brain is falsifiable, testable, well supported by objective evidence, and has explanatory powers. So endlessly repeating your bare claim, while ignoring those facts won’t lend your claim any credence. Why is this not sinking in?
I am going to pause a moment, while we all take in that you think you can predict the future results of scientific research. The hilarity continues. Your claim for supernatural abilities aside, you are back to using a god of the gaps polemic.
Great, now please offer a simple syllogism to support that claim, only the last time you made it, and I asked, you ran away?
I explained at least half a dozen times why this is a false dichotomy fallacy. You might be happy to hold irrational beliefs, I am not.
Not one word of that addresses your multiple uses of known common logical fallacies, and you even repeat some of them. 
I don’t want anything, this is a debate forum, your arguments have been relentlessly irrational, your belief {panpsychism) is unfalsifiable, untestable, unevidenced, and has no explanatory powers (see the definition of magic 
), unlike consciousness as an emergent property of the brain, which is falsifiable, can be tested, is well supported by objective evidence, and has explanatory powers. Back you go to the gap now, and around and around you go…
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I told you that understanding all the physical properties of simple plants tells us nothing about their qualia. I’m not talking about the future; I’m talking about the present. Do you think it will be different with the brain? The day we can simulate a human brain in a computer, we will still be arguing whether it has qualia or not.
Why a syllogism? Why do you refuse to understand the simple example of “we have green walls (qualia), so we need green bricks (or yellow and blue bricks)”? Why isn’t that enough?
If qualia is an emergent property of the brain, and all emergent properties arise from more fundamental properties, then there must be more fundamental properties in matter to explain how qualia emerges.
I’m not saying you have to choose anything; I’m simply pointing out that there is a gap. Until this gap is resolved, it equates to magical thinking—something emerging from nothing, which is the issue of hard emergence. When you have an explanation, you will be able to close this gap.
… And this implies that there must be fundamental properties in matter from which qualia can emerge (panpsychism); otherwise, you encounter the problem of magical emergence. If there is another alternative, please explain it to me.
Moreover, as I told you—and you omitted—qualia can’t be measured, observed, or tested. Therefore, we can’t definitively say whether only brain activity is associated with qualia or if any physical activity might be associated with it.
In short, you associate qualia with the brain because it’s the only context in which you can personally experience qualia, not because it’s the only place where qualia could be occurring or has been observed—since qualia itself cannot be observed.
You are assuming that qualia exists only where you can detect it, in brain activity, but this is an assumption. Qualia could potentially be everywhere, and our inability to measure it makes any such association fairly arbitrary.
Let me guess, you’re still not satisfied, right?
FFS! A rock exhibits a property that can’t be traced back to the properties of fundamental particles! WTAF!
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Oh dear… 
Either you can present a simple syllogism to support that claim, or the word logical is yet again, being used purely as rhetoric.
You said it right there, that’s a false dichotomy fallacy.
No it doesn’t, that’s just the unfalsifiable, untestable, unevidenced claim that has no explanatory powers, that you keep endlessly repeating.
Not knowing is an alternative, and this has been explained to you, more than once. It has also been explained to you, multiple times, that implying your unfalsifiable, untestable, and unevidenced belief has any credence because of the lack of an alternative explanation, is a known common logical fallacy, called argumentum ad ignorantiam.
Straw man fallacy, as I have never made any such claim.
Liar, and you can’t say I didn’t warn you not to lie and misquote me.
Liar, again you can’t say I did not warn you.
My satisfaction is irrelevant, until you learn that you’re not learning anything.
That’s fine if you don’t know; it’s not a problem.
And…
Let me make sure I understand you. If you seem to suggest that qualia could be an emergent property of the brain, why do you call me a liar for saying that you associate qualia with the brain? Why?
Oh, just to show how you misrepresent me by using these altered quotes:
Actually, YOU are the one who doesn’t understand that your wibblings about “qualia” are irrelevant to the experiments I covered in detail above, and indeed are irrelevant to vast swathes of scientific investigation, despite your failed attempt in a previous post to try and misrepresent the scientific endeavour as an exercise in religious doctrine.
Indeed, the point that flew past you at hypersonic speed, is that those scientific experiments I covered above have taken the subjective experiences of various test subjects, and extracted therefrom objective data allowing those subjective experiences to be reconstructed. This has lethal consequences for your wibbling about “qualia”.
Oh this is going to be good …
Not to a physicist it isn’t. Guess what? We already have evidence in abundance for particles with mass. Adding some new ones to the collection isn’t that gigantic a leap.
But since the idea appears to be so strange to you, I’ll explain how the idea arose. Which began with simulations of the behaviour of stars in galaxies. Galaxies exhibit a feature known as ‘rotation curves’, which provide information about the orbital velocities of stars around the centre of a galaxy. Unlike the behaviour of planets around stars, which follow the classic Newtonian pattern, stars orbiting a galactic centre exhibit behaviour departing from the classic scheme, and the question arose as to why this phenomenon was occurring.
By way of hypothesis, the idea that a halo of additional mass around the galaxy was influencing stellar orbital velocities was proposed. When this was tried in the simulations, the simulations produced galaxy rotation curves that were in precise agreement with observation of real galaxies. In short, a solution to the problem was found.
But this led to another issue. Namely, wny hadn’t scientists observed that mass beforehand?
Here, once again, the physicists had an answer. Namely, that all the mass previously observed was observed because it interacted with the electromagnetic force, including the absorption and emission of photons. Courtesy of this behaviour, we have been able to point telescopes at stars and planets, and observe them in detail for 400 years or so.
But, more recently, physicists alighted upon particles that did not interact with the electromagnetic force, namely neutrinos. These particles will simply pass straight through ordinary matter, and the usual way of detecting them involves looking for their infrequent interactions via the weak nuclear force. For example, very occasionally, a neutrino wil interact with the nucleus of a a chlorine atom, changing a neutron into a proton, and generate an argon atom. Over time, a build up of an excess of argon can be detected by various means. Another method of detection involves looking for the Cerenkov radiation produced when a neutrino entering water generates a relativistic electron or muon. Such detectors have to be shielded from stray radiation sources, and are usually situated in deep mineshafts to shield them from cosmic rays and other extraneous influences.
So, we already have a precedent for a particle that doesn’t engage in electromagnetic interactions, in the form of the neutrino, trillions of which ware emitted by the Sun every second as a consequence of nuclear fusion, and indeed, neutrino bursts from deep space are the first sign that a supernova event is about to become visible on Earth.
So, it wasn’t a major stretch for physicists to postulate the existence of one or more new particles, which this time only interacted via gravity. The term “dark matter” arises from the complete absence of conventional interactions with photons, unlike more typically observed matter. Now, exactly what sort of particles make up dark matter is still an open question, but scientists have sound reasons to postulate the existence of dark matter particles, because they provide a neat and elegant solution to several problems that aren’t soluble by other means, and have the virtue of being in accord with Occam’s Razor.
So, moving on … let’s see whast drivel you’re going to post about them, shall we?
Yet instead of celebrating that we’ve reached the point where this is possible, you sneer.
If you think dark matter isn’t measurable of observable, then you obviously never paid attention in class.
Recall what I just said above, about dark matter particles interacting via gravity? That’s how they’re observed, through their effects upon surrounding visible matter and upon light travelling through space, which follows the curvature of spacetime. Since dark matter has mass, and induces curvature upon spacetime like ordinary matter, the precence thereof can be detected via such effects as gravitational lensing, And indeed, at least one dark matter halo has now been mapped in detail.
“Can’t measure or observe” my arse.
Wrong. You present blind assertions on the subject, but no substance. Learn the difference.
Again, you merely assert this. Those experiments I covered above on reconstruncting still images and movies via fMRI scanning data have lethal implications for this assertion.
The only one exhibiting a refusal to understand relevant concepts here is you.
You have explained nothing, merely asserted.
I seem to recall demonstrating that the neuroscientists you purportedly “cited” as agreeing with your assertions about “qualia” do no such thing.
It’s solved the problem of reconstrructing still images and movies people have observed, using nothing more than fMRI data of blood flow through the brain.
Plants don’t even have a nervous system. So how can thay have anything comparable to the “experiences” that organisms with nervous systems have?
Seems you failed to register that little peroblem when you launched into this ridiculous diversion.
If this assertion of yours is correct, then “qualia” are not a scientific phenomenon by definition, and if they are not observable, they’re indisinguishable from the nonexistent.
So you assert, which is all you ever do.
Hence the paper, and the claim you repeated, contained a false dichotomy fallacy…as accepting that the objective evidence supports the idea that consciousness is an emergent property of the brain, whilst simultaneously not knowing how consciousness emerged from physical properties, is not akin to nor does it require, magical thinking, as you have repeatedly claimed.
No, it hasn’t. You can reconstruct an image from the “brain activity” of a computer, but that doesn’t imply the presence (or absence) of qualia.
Wrong… anyway…
Qualia can be observed as a personal experience that is impossible to transfer to others. Dark matter can be observed only through its gravitational effects.
Not just me—philosophers, neuroscientists, and the entire hard problem of consciousness revolve around that. And no, observing images in the brain is part of the easy problem of consciousness, not the hard one.
Ok, ok, enough…
Dear oh dear, you said:
More research, ipso facto it must be future research, how the fucj can more research not be talking about future research? That makes zero sense.
…and I altered nothing, so another lie. I clipped the text for brevity, and used the quote function so anyone can link immediately to your full post.
You assume that evidence supports the idea that qualia is an emergent property, but I, along with others, don’t see it that way. All brain functions are exactly that—functions; they do something. However, qualia seems to be a purely passive property without any known function. Moreover, there’s the issue of hard emergence, which I interpret as not supporting the idea that qualia is an emergent property.
So, you interpret the evidence one way, and I interpret it another way. Is that acceptable to you, or am I still an irrational monster?
Is that the way you view yourself?
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Wow, missed the point of your false dichotomy fallacy again, whooooosh…
Also wrongly equating objective evidence with assumption…so adding a false equivalence fallacy, dear oh dear.
Another bare assertion, but by all means tell us what objective evidence you can demonstrate for this assertion?
Nonsense, there is no objective evidence for panpsychism…none.
Yes, you are still using known logical fallacies, so by definition your arguments are irrational.
This is the image people here seem to have of me… some kind of evil monk or something…
Ok, let’s try again… You interpret the evidence as supporting emergent properties, while I interpret it differently. Is that fine now?