Re: dhw--Epistemological Framework (Humans)

by Balance_Maintained , U.S.A., Friday, January 14, 2011, 22:33 (5061 days ago) @ xeno6696


> A TV works by receiving a radio signal sent through the air, and interprets the signal into a form that humans can use, namely sound and light. 
> 
> I have heard ancient (5+) years ago of experiments done looking at humans, and no exterior signal has been deemed present. Therefore, we should conclude that consciousness is at best--an extremely local phenomenon. 
> 
> I will maintain that there is more evidence that consciousness is localized to the human brain than there is life was designed. First, to borrow from a previous argument I used with David, you need to be able to conceptualize design and what exactly it is. All knowledge we have is ultimately based on experience; an old teacher's adage: there is no better teacher. -I see that more discussion has been devoted to the framework, but something in your dispute of his analogy was lacking. You state that 'no exterior signal has been deemed present. Therefore, we should conclude that consciousness is at best, an extremely local phenomenon." I would ask on what grounds any scientist is able to make such a sweeping statement. -1)First, we are not even able to pin down the nature of consciousness itself, so we are in essence unable to locate the 'receiver', should there in fact be one. -2)Secondly, we have no idea in what shape or form these 'transmissions' or 'signals' would take, thus rendering almost any 'empirical' study worthless except in the context of defining what is NOT a signal. Since we fail at step 1, we categorically are destined to fail at step 2 because without knowing where the receiver is or what form it might take, we can not definitively state that the 'receiver' is not receiving. -3)If a person experiences a NDE/OBE, during a time that the 'receiver' is 'disconnected' from the brain, can you confirm that the 'receiver' is in fact altogether inactive, or can you only infer that there is no data transfer between 'receiver' and brain, and nothing being written to the hard drive of the brain.-If you brought Di Vinci in and showed him a television, no matter how hard you tried to explain it, you would seem to him to be talking about God, until you were able to increase his knowledge level up with all the technology and concepts that makes television possible.