Philosophy Now Forum

Roger Coghill is a British scientist specialising in electronics. Once I was fortunate enough to be invited into his basement laboratory in Wales. I was enthralled by his collection of ageing electomagnetic field detectors, obtained from the dusty lab of another independent scientist who worked at the beginning of the 20th Century.

Coghill has always maintained that the radiation from mobile phones and masts is harmful, that over-exposure to these electromagnetic fields can trigger cetain cancers. However, like all independent scientists, he continues to be mocked by the mainstream. Unfortunately for Coghill, he became a greater figure of fun some years ago after losing a court case against a mobile phone company and was forced to pay thousands of pounds in costs.

Although Coghill continues to be pilloried by many, it's interesting that he's now the official advisor to the UK Government on mobile phones and their safe use.

Happy Christmas!

b2b,

birds of a feather flock together.

mb.

No Mark, I flock with no one. I just keep an open mind! There's almost always some truth in most theories. To be honest, I haven't followed this discussion properly, but I do think the punch up has gone too far. I mean, it's Christmas mate! Come on...I'm not a Christian, but I do like a bit of peace.

Here's wishing goodwill to all people!

Morpheus,

The post is addressed to b2b. You are one of the more open minded people on the forum, I agree. This is in no-sense directed at you - but to the comments of b2b on the previous page. And I quote:

i can smell you from miles away
but thank god that smell goes away

(that was to mb. not effie) so whoever you are, fuck your pissy star, it burned out of gas, and your stuck with your ass

In comparison I think my comment is quite measured and even tempered. I could have called her a brainless trollop and suggested that her opinion is on an intellectual par with a cow farting in a field - but I didn't. I merely suggest that b2b and effie are similar - as that is suffciently insulting to them both as to recompense the defamation.

mb.

Oh yes, didn't notice that! I'm drinking a wee dram as I type so my eyes are not quite as focused as usual. I gave in to temptation and opened one of my Christmas pressies early. Peace is an even nicer feeling when warmed by a good malt. Cheers!

Cheers Morpheus.

It's not early. Today's the 22nd. Have a warm and wonderful Winter Solstice Eve.

mb.

Mark,

should I be offended by the fact that you compare me to b2b? I have not been drinking, nevertheless I feel honoured

As far as the book is concerned, it will be published in 2009 by a well known medical publishing house. Perhaps you would like the name of the pub. house for further inquiry?

Furthermore, the book is being translated in English and will be available in amazon next year.

Ps. when the first book was written I was 5-6 years old- I wouldn't have participated even if I wanted to!
I call the second book "our book" because I have contributed to it. If you aren't convinced, I have solutions:
1. I can send you the first book
2. You can wait a few months and I willgive you the ISBN of the new book
3. You an call the editor and find out for yourself.

Is the case closed now?

Morpheus,

in general I agree with you.

However, I would like to point out that there is no "conspiracy theory" against new theories. Scientific community must be cautious regarding the ideas it accepts- consequently not every scientist who has been frowned upon is a "neglected" genius.

The reason why I have chosen to expose these ideas in this forum is to pose the under the judgement of the scientific- philosophical community.

Nevertheless, it is established that "normal" science pretty often refuses to move forward and remains stuck in its old beliefs. ALways though opinions that are well-founded, no matter how revolutionary and heretic they seem, manage to prevail.

Merry Christmas

Hello Effie,

I'll wait until after Christmas to launch into my lament about corporate bias in science (and in many other areas of life). If not conspiracy, undoubtedly there's a great deal of vested interest and flexing of powerful muscles.

But let's forget such things for the moment.

I wish you a joyous Yuletide!

No, but I'd call him a fucking liar if he said 1+1=3.

Ok lets put it like this..

Stalin: The Earth is 6000 years old

Would you be more correct to say:

A.) You killed millions of people, therefore you are wrong

OR

B.) Due to carbon dating and a whole slew of other evidence we can conclude that the Earth is considerably older, here are some sources which you can use to verify this

In responding to effie you not only decided that she was immoral, but you also decided that the correct response when dealing with philosophical arguments provided by those that you consider immoral would be A.), which I am sorry to tell you is the wrong answer.

Anyone on this website could be lying about their personal details, but we have no particular reason to doubt them, or believe in them, but they have no bearing on our philosophical discussions and so it doesn't matter.

It would make as much sense for you to claim that I had lied about my residence in merseyside and on this basis proclaim me immoral and all I utter to be wrong.

Mark, not only do you have no reason to doubt effie's claim, you have no reason to care whether it is true or not, your continued insistence that she is lying is a sustained and pointless attack that I can only assume stems from some discontentment you have about your personal life (this is me being a fool and assuming that people only do wrong when they are hurting, and not just because they are total jackasses).

Effie is obviously mature and self-confident enough not to let your bs effect her overly much, which is thankful, and I'm not sure exaclty who, beyond yourself, you think you are convincing that she has lied?
There's only one person's moral quality that you have demonstrated in this thread, and its your own.

Psychonaut,

Let's put it like this...

Ponzi Maydoff the Fradulent, of Liartown, Falseville, USA - says that he has knows of a good investment scheme. Do you:

A) Ignore the newspaper articles that suggest he's a ripoff merchant, give him the benefit of the doubt and a big wad of cash, or -

B) Left hook, right cross, and make off with his wallet and watch 'cause he's the last person on earth gonna call the police?

Silly question. You're a scouser!

mb.

Effie,

effie wrote:You are saying that scientists have been researching neural nets, but haven't succeeded in fully determining their role.

No, I'm saying there is a whole heap of results in the field of computational neural nets that account for their 'behaviour' and another whole lot of links to Mathematics to support it. Plus the last time I looked and it was a long time ago they'd also programmed deduction.

What is this 'role that you want determined'? The 'role' of 'neural nets' appears pretty well understood. They can 'store' 'patterns' for 'retrieval' and they can be 'real-time' 'backward propogation' 'learners' and a whole host of other models are applicable.

Of course, no one doubts that neural nets (and brain as a whole, as a specialized entity) participate in the "memorization" process.

That's twice. What is this "memorization" process? Do you mean the experience of the 'neural-net' 'working'?

However, there are no inconsistencies between this fact and my mentor's suggestion. The CNS prticipates in all itellectual faculties, but it is not mind (and there is no research that has proved that brain- neural nets etc. perform any intellectual faculty)

I'm still a little unclear about this suggestion? Its this EM field? I do not remember you identifying what 'generates' this thing?

1. Brain has been characterized as the most specialized human organ. As a specialized organ, its work is by definition absolutely specific: every time it receives the same stimulus responds in the exactly same way. None of the specialized organs has the ability to choose if it is going to respond or not. However, the noetic organ- mind can!

I'm a little dubious that its an 'organ' like a kidney or a liver or a stomach at all? The 'brain', to me, is just the CNS. The fact that 'we' have the experience of 'being between our ears and behind our eyes' reflects the position of the bodys balance tubes and the shortness of the 'fibres' involved in the connection of the CNS to its 'environment'.
The ability to repeat a pattern from its original input by being given a copy of its orignal input is a fundamental property of computational 'neural nets'. Thats is if I understand you right effie?
I think we can also use the simulation that we call 'mind' to reproduce all of the pattern stored bar the parts that depend upon the actual extenal input.

2. Cells (and monocellular organisms), although they do not have neither brain nor neural nets, have intellect and perform all the intellectual faculties.

This is your area not mine I'm afraid. I would say that I do not understand what you mean by "have intellect and perform all the intellectual faculties."

3. Brain is functionally "disconnected" with mind, if we take into account that in the majority of cases, mental disorders are not accompanied by organic damage.

Personally, I think Mind is "disconnected" from Body in the sense that it is a function of this Body. Which "mental disorders" are you talking about?

4. The fact that information reach brain as electric signals does not prove that they are stored in it or utilized by it.

I doubt its even 'electricity' as I understand it. Some kind of microscopic differences in chemical potential, that can be described in Elecromagnetic or Thermondynamic(?) equations would be my guess. But like I've said, its not the medium where you should be 'looking' for 'memory' as my opinion is we know where it is. What we don't know is the interface between how we experience them and the 'nets' operation. My guess is this is where Freuds 'unconscious' 'lies'.

5. You have written that, although scientists have been researching neural nets, they haven't reached full understanding of mind. In your opinion, which is the cause of this inability?

Because its bloody hard to simulate a CNS, its body and its environment realistically. Why? Because theres a a good chance that thats already the point of 'all this'. But actual body movement is well underway as being fully understood by Robot makers and appears to involve very little 'mind' and many localised systems with good Mechanics. So 'good' 'movement' should involve very little mind I guess?

6. Every time that our scientific opinions are compatible with reality (that is to say correct)...

What do you mean by "correct"? And "reality" for that matter?

...the phenomena we study become simplified and cmprehensible and are correctly interpreted.

My guess is that the phenomena would stay the same. You mean your model of it does?

Even the simplest phenomenon (e.g. the gradual sinking of a sailboat in the horizon) is incomprehensible if our basic truth is wrong (if we thought that earth was flat).

As I said, there is no historical evidence that this has ever been a widespread belief amongst people. The 'sinking' effect you talk about was only noticed with the advent of the Telescope and as such I assume was confirmation of what most people knew already.

Is it unlikely that the fact that we cannot understand the intellectual faculties is due to our basic beliefs regarding the role of the brain is wrong?

Which "intellectual faculties"? It might be because we have a false idea about what the 'brain' is and what you said?

7. Is brain ,as a whole, the only candidate for the role of the noetic organ- mind?

To my understanding the 'brain' that you think about is not even in the running. My Brain has a chance but it needs a Body support system and a 'decision' about what senses 'its' going to use before the Universe can 'present itself' that way?

Given the existing regime, under which intellectual faculties haven't been interpreted yet, should we or shouldn't we propose other candidates, apart from brain, for the role of mind? Is it scientifically correct and desirable or is it the definition of scientific error/obsession to decline any other candidacy?

Yes, we should propose the CNS and its Body in an Environment as the source for this Mind. Then we should spend some time examining, in threes, or at least twos, what 'this' is like and all about? We should bring back Jungs idea of subjects trained in noticing mental states and introduce them to the Neuroscientists. We should stop thinking that we are going to find out what 'mind' is by examining 'mad' people. We should seriously examine all Europeon States mental health systems and we should make a grab-bag out of the techniques that work and train our 'therapists' in applying them to the situtaions where they are effective, and most of all we should stop looking for 'skyhook' solutions based upon metaphysics. In effect we should create a Phenomenolgy that I'd call Meataphysics.

In this context, every scientist is obliged to test all the possible versions before opining. How much of a scientist is someone who has already decided about the outcome of his research?

I thought you said you had a solution for this? If you are asking where Psychiatrists should 'head' for given the coming revolutions in neuroScience, neuroChemistry and Biology in general, I have no idea but I assume they won't be poor.

The expression and testing of all the alternative versions of an issue is the only acceptable scientific way.

I'm not sure what you mean?

Let me remind you that all the knowledge we have today were, when expressed for the very first time, opinions which were considered heretic, wrong, etc and which conflicted with the prevailing opinions. What would you say today to those who prosecuted Copernicus, Galileo, Servet, Paracelsus, etc? On the other hand, what would you say to Copernicus and the others: do not express your opinions, because you may be disappointed if they are not accepted by others?

I'm not knocking some of what you say. the EM field has always interested me as if you could 'take one away' from an automobile it would not run no matter what the conditon of its systems is my guess. How that would relate to Mind I don't know but from the stuff I've seen EM fields appear to affect perception but the subjects appear to have no idea how to describe their experiences.

Finally, in your opinion, which crieria should we use in order to choose among the various "factors" that have been or will be suggested?

The fact that we are Primates appears a good start and as such its all criteria and models so we choose that ones that are most useful and flexible. How do we choose them? By 'showing' people how they decide when something is true for them, would be my guess for a good starter.

Ps. The model I am trying to present has not come out of nowhere. There are plenty of knowledge and scientific laboratory data to support it(from physics, neurophysiology, biology,etc), which haven't been utilized yet due to the hard- set belief that brain is mind. I once again offer to send the links! After all, my mentor hs dedicated his life at gathering data and utilizing it.

Effie, present me with a complete stripped down basic model of what you are proposing and I might be able to comment more intelligably.
a_uk

Psychonaut,

Let's put it like this...

Ponzi Maydoff the Fradulent, of Liartown, Falseville, USA - says that he has knows of a good investment scheme. Do you:

A) Ignore the newspaper articles that suggest he's a ripoff merchant, give him the benefit of the doubt and a big wad of cash, or -

B) Left hook, right cross, and make off with his wallet and watch 'cause he's the last person on earth gonna call the police?

Except, mark, that this is a philosophy forum, not an investment scheme.

If a liar tells you about an epistomological model, they may not sincerely believe in it, but it may still be true.

The fact that someone is a liar has no bearing on their philosophy, because you shouldn't be accepting spoon-fed truth even from an honest man.

Psychonaut,

We do not even know each other, but I am really touched by your attitude and amazed by your logical series and arguments.

For all that matters, I can assure you that I haven't told a single lie- and I could prove it. Besides, I have no motive to do that...However, a solid proof of my honesty would prevent someone from their offensice loggorhea, therefore none of the solutions I have proposed has been accepted

Anyway, once again I agree with you: it doesn't matter (or it shouldn't matter) which is the identity or the personality of the sayer... The only thing that matters are ideas, especially in a philosophical forum!

Effie

Arising_uk,

I think we have started to mention hundreds of issues (et's live EM fields aside for a while) and it is really impossible for me to handle all of them in the same time (my English does not help ). Plus, there are literally thousands of opinions we could discuss. After all, it is a subject that has bothered mankind since antiquity.

Therefore, I think we should "restart" our conversation, beginning from the most fundamental parts of our discussion.

Each living organism has an organ, a factor or an entity (the term does not matter) which is the final recipient of all the information and has the ability to utilize these information in order to determine the behaviour of the organism towards its environment. In other words, every organism has a central program which guides both its biological and behavioural reactions.

Nowdays, the question is: which is the physical identity of this factor/entity/organ which we call with various terms, among which mind is the most suitable one? How exactly are intellectual faculties performed? E.g. how exactly are information stored? etc

I know, beyond any doubt, that the idea that prevails today (regarding this identity) identifies Mind with Brain. Is this idea correct? Has any research proved it correct? (until some decades ago, experts were convinced that heart was the centre of emotion- or the organ which served one of the basic intellectual faculties. The first man to doubt this idea was Servet, who claimed that heart was nothing more than a pump which sends blood to the vessels. Servet was condemned as heretic and was burnt to death).

What I am trying to say is that brain is not the entity which serves the intellectual faculties (perception, consciouness, emotion, orientation in time and space, memory, will, attention/concentration and thinking).

Brain, in our opinion, is a specialized energy convertor: a central organ to which all information are headed in order to obtain their final physical form, and become able to reach and be incorporated in mind, where they will be analyzed and the reaction of the organism will be decided.

Since you are familiar with mechanics, please think about the following idea: all specialized organs of the human body (eyes, ears, muscles, etc) are specialized energy convertors (like every complex mechanical device). They participate in the function of the body offering their specialized work. E.g. eyes convert electromagnetic signals to electric pulses. uscles receive electrochemical signals and convert them into dynamic energy. Brain receives electric signals and converts them into what?

Since you referred to technology and robots, wht do you have to say about the program of those devices? Are circuits enough? Obviously, robots have (at least substandard) memory. Where is this memory stored?

Of course, anyone , if believes that brain IS mind, is free to carry on their work and try to describe (not discover, since you prefer this term ) how brain thinks, stores info, etc. (btw, with the term "memorization" I refer to the process with which info are stored). Fine by me. All I am saying is that this effort is not likely to succeed, as it happens every time a basic truth is wrong. (A.F Chalmers, "What is this thing called science?" presents some examples)

As for the mental illnesses you have asked me for, most of them do not provoke any symptoms on the function of brain. Psychoses, Schizophrenia, amnesia etc most of the time are asymptomatic, brain-wise. Of course, there are other disorders which are produced by brain damage or hormonic disorders (psychosomatic disorders etc). The most impressive case I have wittnessed is that of a person who had been injured by a spear. The 30% of his brain was destroyed. However, exept for a short-period amnesia, which lasted for a month, no other mental disorder has been provoked!!!

Effie

PS.

I'm not knocking some of what you say.

I have never thought that "you are knocking some of what I say". My apologies if my tone is intense