Faith in science?

[shunyadragon]

But there's no evidence that science will be able to solve a problem that is yet to be solved. We are expressing a general faith in the power of the process.

Worse 'arguing from ignorance' than the opening post. Your reference conclusions agree with me.

 

[Altfish]

But there's no evidence that science will be able to solve a problem that is yet to be solved. We are expressing a general faith in the power of the process.

But the evidence tends to show that science will eventually solve the problem; is there an alternative to science to solve problems?

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

The problem of how a subjective world of experience is able to emerge from gooey material in our bodies is still a total mystery. As in, there isn't even one decent guess as to how subjective experience can come from matter as far as I can see.

That's quite unfair. You make it seems as if we know virtually nothing at all. While many questions remain unanswered, lets not pretend as if we know nothing at all.

We know a lot of things. We know about brain chemistry, we know about neural networks,... we know quite some stuff from neurology etc.

So let's not pretend as if we are a bunch of drooling apes who don't even know what a brain is.

So taking our cue from other biological processes and assuming that consciousness is one of those maybe the magic comes from the particular way our brains are arranged in space. But this seems to get us nowhere.

Does it? It's not clear to me at all how you concluded that this gets us nowhere.
It seems to me that it gets us quite a long way already.

Neurons are a very peculiar shape and the agglomeration of neurons in the brain and rest of the nervous system is highly ordered (as in any unordering apparently leads to no consciousness or death). Impulses are carried around quickly by the particular method of cell-to-cell communication. A stimulus from my finger hitting these keys is carried to my brain and from there it whizzes about and fizzes and pops and whatnot and then I feel the keys. Where in that process is the feels?

You just explained it. The "feels" is in the neurons firing away and activating pain receptors.

Most days I'm confident (almost sure) that at some point, with enough work, we'll make the empirical and conceptual breakthroughs which will get us over the hump towards a science of consciousness.

That seems quite likely, yes.

Am I excercising faith in science?

No. You are excercising trust in a method of inquiry that has earned that trust with its immens and impressive track record of solving riddles that were once deemed unsolvable by many.

I am very confident in stating that IF one day we figure out consciousness, it will be figured out by a (or more) scientist(s) through science and not by some priest or monk or circus artist.

This is not "faith". This is trust based on an impressive track record of scientific success in doing exactly that: finding solutions to problems / answers to questions pertaining to nature.

 

[exchemist]

But the evidence tends to show that science will eventually solve the problem; is there an alternative to science to solve problems?

That depends on the problem. There are plenty of problem science is not equipped to solve. And in fact, the so-called "hard problem" of consciousness may be one of them, if only because science may claim there is no such problem to solve.

 

[shunyadragon]

That depends on the problem. There are plenty of problem science is not equipped to solve. And in fact, the so-called "hard problem" of consciousness may be one of them, if only because science may claim there is no such problem to solve.

Your posts are getting worse concerning how science deals with consciousness. Science DOES NOT claim there is no such problem.

You have not responded to the fact that the source you cited agrees with me.

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

But surely one can (and does) have faith in science, in the sense of believing it has the power to make understandable things that are currently not understood.

Yes, but in context of discussion on a religious forum, one must be careful with the words "belief" and "faith".
In religious context, these words have specific connotations.

Having "faith in god", is not at all the same thing as having "faith in science".

In the first, it concerns (superstitious) belief without evidence.
In the latter, it concerns trust of a methodology which has a proven track record.

 

[exchemist]

Yes, but in context of discussion on a religious forum, one must be careful with the words "belief" and "faith".
In religious context, these words have specific connotations.

Having "faith in god", is not at all the same thing as having "faith in science".

In the first, it concerns (superstitious) belief without evidence.
In the latter, it concerns trust of a methodology which has a proven track record.

I am speaking of faith in the sense it seems to me it is being used in the OP.

 

[exchemist]

Worse 'arguing from ignorance' than the opening post. Your reference conclusions agree with me.

Eh? Your hovercraft appears to be full of eels.

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

Evidence!!! Or is nothing but your opinion and you don't speak for a "we".

The evidence is the track record of success of the scientific method, which outclasses all other methods of inquiry that have been tried / proposed in the history of mankind.

8000 years of relying on "visions" and "dreams" and ancient stories of supernatural stuff, lead to combatting desease with bloodletting and exorcisms.

While just 200 years of scientific inquiry landed man on the moon.

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

But there's no evidence that science will be able to solve a problem that is yet to be solved

Science has a track record of successfully solving such problems.
That's the evidence that supports trust that science might be able to tackle this one as well.

Is it a guarantee? Off course not.
But the track record, and history in general, tells us that IF we tackle it, chances are rather humongous that it will be solved through science.

We are expressing a general faith in the power of the process.

And we don't express that trust out of the blue. We base it on an impressive track record that shows that science is very much capable of solving hard problems.

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

I am speaking of faith in the sense it seems to me it is being used in the OP.

It is not really that clear to me how it is being used in the OP as it is not defined.

And as I stated, one must be careful with such words on a religious forum.

In fact, it seems to me that in the OP, it is being used in the sense of "religious faith". Since it is being presented as the thread topic in the religious forum context of "science and religion".


So my answer to the OP is "no, you are not exercising faith in science. Instead, you are merely putting your trust in a methodology which has earned that trust through a proven track record of doing exactly the kind of things you 'trust' it will continue to do in the future."

 

[Polymath257]

So consiousness is identical with neural activity?

I can get my head around the idea that whenever pattern x arises I experience the smell of coffee. Pattern x is the smell of coffee is so unintuitive that it makes no literal sense at all, to me. Not that this makes it wrong, if things could only be true if they made sense to me the world would have to be pretty simple.

Do you think subjective experiences could be identical with any other physical processes in the world or just neuronal processes?

Well, think of it like this. The pattern is *me smelling the coffee*. Whenever I smell coffee, that pattern (or one similar) occurs and whenever that pattern occurs, I smell coffee.

Consciousness is always *of* something and *by* someone. It is a type of information processing by someone about something. The someone is the person whose brain it is. And the processing is done by the brain. It is the *pattern* or *process* of that analysis that is consciousness.

At least, that's how I see it.

 

[Polymath257]

With certain neural activity. A flatworm has neural activity but I think we can agree that it doesn't have consciousness.
My suspicion is that that what we call consciousness needs a feedback loop. Impuls-reaction models explain reflexive behaviour but not consciousness.

And, I think that exactly *what* is required for consciousness may profitably be analyzed by considering which things that are alive we would consider to be conscious.

For example, there seems to be agreement that jellyfish are not conscious. I would bet there is a similar consensus that dogs and cats are conscious. I am personally less certain as we go further towards baseline animals. Octopi seem to have some sort of consciousness, but probably of a quite different sort than humans. Some insects seem to be conscious (bees?) and others not so much (the programmed patterns of some wasps, for example).

Are all vertebrates conscious? I'm inclined to say yes, but I am not absolutely convinced.

Anyway, it seems to me that one way to proceed is to figure out some clear examples of conscious beings and ones that are NOT conscious and figure out what the differences are.

 

[Polymath257]

If you are saying you have faith that one day there will be a scientific explanation of consciousness, you are expressing faith in science, fairly obviously.

But the scientific explanation may be that there is, in some ways, nothing to explain. So you may not find it satisfying. It seems to me there is a lot of fuss about nothing over consciousness.

The thing is that science concerns itself with objective observation of nature - or as objective as we can make it - via observations that are reproducible. That means observations that can be repeated by different people in different places and give results that agree. At this level, consciousness can be studied objectively. We can observe how animals behave when conscious, as opposed to being asleep or in a coma, we can observe the characteristic differences in brain activity between the two states, and so on and so forth. So there is already a developing theory of consciousness, at the physical level.

But what you seem to be asking about is the experience of being conscious. I am reminded of that notorious question: "What is it like to be a bat?" Such a question is utterly meaningless in terms of science. Experience is by nature subjective, rather than objective. So to study it scientifically, one would need some means of rendering experience objective. How?

It seems to me this is non-issue as far as science is concerned. What it feels like to be conscious is, er, what it feels like.

I am not so sure of this last part.

For example, by studying the brain of a bat, we might see that it is excited while pursuing a bug, that it feels affection towards those who nest close by, that it focuses its attention on its child as it lands, etc.

What else is required to know 'what it is like to be a bat'?

 

[Altfish]

That depends on the problem. There are plenty of problem science is not equipped to solve. And in fact, the so-called "hard problem" of consciousness may be one of them, if only because science may claim there is no such problem to solve.

There are lots of 'Ifs and Mays' in that statement
OK, If science can't solve it - I won't have 'faith' that it will - but if science can't solve it nothing else can.

 

[exchemist]

I am not so sure of this last part.

For example, by studying the brain of a bat, we might see that it is excited while pursuing a bug, that it feels affection towards those who nest close by, that it focuses its attention on its child as it lands, etc.

What else is required to know 'what it is like to be a bat'?

Knowing it is excited doesn't tell you what it feels like, from the bat's point of view, though.

Though I must say this feels like a slightly ridiculous conversation to be having....

 

[exchemist]

There are lots of 'Ifs and Mays' in that statement
OK, If science can't solve it - I won't have 'faith' that it will - but if science can't solve it nothing else can.

Well I think the solution lies in philosophy rather than science. Pigliucci thinks the question only arises, at all, as a result of a category mistake by the questioner.

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

If it is science without evidence; then IT IS NOT SCIENCE

What is that supposed to mean?

 

[Brian2]

Is it faith? As I said the definition of faith is along the line of "Belief without evidence"
But science is based on evidence.- so it can't be faith

Science might use evidence but that does not mean that there is evidence for the belief that science will one day find the answers or the belief that the answers are in the realms that science is stuck in.
Science is a tool for physical answers.
Many people may not necessarily think that science will definitely find answers to everything, but that does not stop those people from seeing the answers as lying in physics and chemistry etc somewhere.
It may not be a faith in science as such but it is a lack of faith in other possibilities, even if that may be the direction that some problems in science point to.
For some people it is a rejection of other possibilities.

 

[Polymath257]

Well I think the solution lies in philosophy rather than science. Pigliucci thinks the question only arises, at all, as a result of a category mistake by the questioner.

I have to admit that I have never quite understood what the 'hard' part of the question of consciousness is. But, I also disagree with Chalmers about the coherency of p-zombies.

Saying something is physically identical to a conscious being but not conscious sounds like saying one system is physically identical to another but has a different temperature. It seems to me that both the temperature and the conscious state are determined by the physical situation, if known in detail.

But, I have to admit a similar difficulty understanding the meaning of the term 'qualia'. Does the quale of 'seeing red' also encompass the emotional response (in which case it is NOT indecomposable) or is it merely the sensation of the redness itself (in which case, what is the difference with sensory detection)?