So what similarities is someone noting, and who is the someone?

"The next problem" should cue you in to the fact that that's something I take issue with.

We're not going to add that you have reading comprehension problems to the rest of this now, are we? I'm so tired of the complete bullshit way that folks like you try to have conversations online.

Sorry, I'm not answering your questions until you've answered mine.

What do you take issue with in the above scenario? — ZzzoneiroCosm

My question is the next thing I take issue with.

"You're saying something about similarities, but you're not saying what's supposed to be similar. "

So at T1 brain-state X is unconscious to you. At T2, T3, T4 and T5, brain-state Y is conscious to you. You note the similarities between T1, T2, T3, T4 and T5 and hypothesize that brain-state X may be similiar to brainstate Y, the central distinction being, possibly, that at T1 you were unconscious of the nature of brainstate X. — ZzzoneiroCosm

The next problem: what similarities are we noting? You're saying something about similarities, but you're not saying what's supposed to be similar. Similarities of brain states? To whom?

There is certainly a brain-state at T1.

I'm calling it brain-state X.

What would you like to call it? — ZzzoneiroCosm

There's going to be some state as long as there's a brain, sure. What are we using for evidence of the state in question, and what does it have to do with anything cognitive or conscious if we're not aware of it?

Analogical argumentation is inherently imprecise. — ZzzoneiroCosm

Noting that there's an ontological difference between A and B is irrelevant to whether the analogy works. It's stupid to suggest that it's relevant. Analogized things are necessarily different ontologically, otherwise it's not an analogy. You need to be able to focus on what's being analogized, not irrelevant ontological differences.

You note the similarities between T1, T2, T3, T4 and T5 and hypothesize that brain-state X may be similiar to brainstate Y, — ZzzoneiroCosm

There's no reason to say that there's a brainstate X at T1 if you're not conscious of X at T1.

Generally, yes. — ZzzoneiroCosm

Yeah, that's pretty stupid.

You don't have an analogy if A and B are identical.

Are there unconscious brainstates? — ZzzoneiroCosm

Yes. They're not cognitive.

It's different because car alarms aren't minds. It's not a precise or useful analogy. — ZzzoneiroCosm

So if we make an analogy between A and B, if anything is different ontologically when it comes to A and B, there's a problem with the analogy?

I might substitute "conscious" for "present". — ZzzoneiroCosm

I edited that quickly after I wrote it, by the way.

There are no unconscious cognitive structures.

How would this be different, by the way, than saying:

On occasions 1, 2, 3 and 4, when I shook Joe's car, the alarm went off.

On occasion 5, I shook Joe's car, but I didn't hear the alarm. That must mean that the alarm went off, only in a hidden or silent way.

That would be making a similarly absurd move because of a belief in induction and an unwillingness to deal with non-"neat" data/scenarios.

It's correlated with it if it's present sure.

Okay, so at another time, where X isn't consciously present, we're saying that it was unconsciously present because we believe in induction (with respect to sameness) strongly enough when there's similarity that we're willing to posit thoughts that we aren't aware of?

It was conscious at those times? Okay. And we're saying that to that person's mind, at those times, they acted in such and such way because of thought-pattern x?

Okay, we can do this instead:

At T2, T3, T4 and T5 I behaved in such and such a way in light of thought-pattern X. — ZzzoneiroCosm

That's a claim. What is the evidence for the claim?

So if you're defining "personality" conventionally, this:
===================================
To this:

Through self-examination I discover that at T2, T3, T4 and T5 I behaved in such and such a way in light of thought-pattern X.

Considering T1, and noting its similarities to T2, T3, T4 and T5, I hypothesize that thought-pattern X was at play at that time as well.
===================================
Has nothing to do with "continuity of personality"

Explain what you take issue with in this scenario: — ZzzoneiroCosm

We're getting to it. I won't do more than one "issue" at a time. You mentioned "continuity of personality" first. And you just introduced a whole host of other issues that we have to cover first, because we're now much further away from talking about how observables would count as "continuity of personality" than we were a few steps ago.

How are you defining "personality" then, because that doesn't seem to resemble any conventional definition of it.

There's plenty of evidence vis-a-vis the continuity of personality. — ZzzoneiroCosm

First, what does "the continuity of personality" even refer to, exactly, in terms of observables?

...the process of internalizing the norms and ideologies of society. — ZzzoneiroCosm

Wouldn't an important part of that be semantics?

Well its not completely arbitrary, again I'm not a religious person although I can quote what John wrote in the opening of his gospel "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God" so there is merit in the sense that it offers an explanation for believers of the gospel, that the idea of the world came before the world. — staticphoton

I have no idea why that would seem to be an explanation to them.

however chemical properties are not explicable in terms of the laws of physics. — Pantagruel

What are the criteria for explanations in that scenario?

That's a dogmatic assertion that you can't possibly defend (except with more dogma). — ZzzoneiroCosm

The way it's defended is that there's zero evidence of y being present at T1. There would need to be some evidence of it being present at T1 in order to not say it's a fiction.

Is this your belief or is this the absolute truth of the situation? — ZzzoneiroCosm

"Absolute truth" is a nonsensical phrase. There's no reason to believe that something else is the case in lieu of any evidence that something else is the case.

It's a well-known phenomenon and as clear as it needs to be. It even has its own wikipedia page — ZzzoneiroCosm

Sure. so how would you finish this sentence: "Socialization mediates biological identity by ________"?

From this statement it appears you don't accept that a person can engage in self-examination to learn more about his past behavior. — ZzzoneiroCosm

They're not going to learn something like, "I did x because I think y," where at the time they did x, T1, there was no thought like y present to their consciousness. They'd be making up the notion, at time T2, that they thought y at time T1 (but they just weren't aware of it at T1). It's a fiction.

You don't believe that brain states cause behavior? — ZzzoneiroCosm

They can, but they don't necessarily. There's no reason to believe that some events can't occur acausally (including probabilistically but not ultimately causally).

the concept that first there was an idea and then there was a universe is not without merit. — staticphoton

What would be the merit of that? It just seems like an arbitrary fantasy notion.

How is that the brain generates the private subjective world of the self and then for what purpose? it seems logically impossible that nerve signals can generate a subjective observer while at the same time enabling that self to have its own distinct powers. It appears to be a useless appendage. — lorenzo sleakes

You're seeing the brain and the subjective world of self as two different things--you're at least assuming some sort of epiphenomenalism if you're not simply asserting a partial dualism.

The subjective world of the self is a property of brains. It's not something different than brains that is generated for some purpose. It's what brains are like/it's simply qualities brains have. It's what those materials, in those structures, undergoing those processes, are like. It's not something separate from that.

Max Tegmark has made an interesting attempt at modeling the "Ultimate Ensemble theory of everything" (ToE):

... whose only postulate is that "all structures that exist mathematically exist also physically". This simple theory, with no free parameters at all, suggests that in those structures complex enough to contain self-aware substructures (SASs), these SASs will subjectively perceive themselves as existing in a physically "real" world. This idea is formalized as the mathematical universe hypothesis,[16] described in his book "Our Mathematical Universe". — alcontali

I don't see how that's not basically just making up arbitrary SciFi-like crap.

to me, everything in the world is an idea that has been created. Even an apple tree, seems tome, to be an idea that has been created from a thought. — sydell

Hard--and maybe impossible--for me to relate to thinking that everything is an idea or that it would seem to someone like it has been created from a thought.

This is a good example of why this forum can be so frustrating. I'm interested in the claim you're making, but it's not clear to me. So I ask for clarification, and because you can't articulate your ideas well--can't explain them in other words, in more detail, etc., you get defensive and pissy about it, and then it's just ego battle crap and a waste of time.

You're on Chrome extension ignore now. Harry Hindu, if you're capable, answer the question. — Baden

Don't get pissy with other people just because you can't articulate your ideas well. Work on yourself instead.

So no. You're not capable of clarifying the claim you're making. Maybe work on being able to articulate your ideas better. Try writing (and try publishing because that will push you more) some of your ideas out as a paper, so that you need to be clear and detailed about what you're claiming without interacting with others. That will help you be able to articulate your ideas better.

You made a claim: "Society mediates biological identity."

That claim is not at all clear to me. I'm asking you to clarify the claim. Are you not capable of clarifying a claim you're making?

Society, at whatever level, is involved in forming the identity of individual humans? Yes or no? — Baden

In what way do you see society as involved in this?

What do you disagree with re 1) — Baden

(1) would need to be clarified (and justified if dubious after the clarification).

Let's suppose you decide to be unkind to X. You're conscious of no special criteria underpinning your decision to be unkind. You're curious about this and devote long, painstaking hours to self-examination. After a period of introspection you realize Y is why you made the decision to be unkind. — ZzzoneiroCosm

On my view, what people are doing in that situation is making up a reason to "explain" why they did the behavior they did, because they have a belief that there should be a (stateable-in-a-"reasoned"-sentence) explanation for everything, and for some unknown, irrational reason, people have a tendency to think that there always need to be one or two "background" reasons, but that there do not need to be one or two "background" reasons for the background reasons.

A certain brain-state was present at the time I made my decision to be unkind. I was at that time unaware of the relationship of this brain-state to the decision to be unkind. After long hours of self-examination, I discovered brain-state-Y to be present at the moment of my decision to be unkind. At the moment I made the decision to be unkind I believed there was no special criteria, but through introspection I've learned that brain-state-Y underpinned my decision to be unkind. — ZzzoneiroCosm

Again, "Criteria for kindness would refer to reasons that we can practically state as sentences, reasoned or emoted conditions, etc.," which the brain states in question wouldn't be. They're not mental brain states.

And that is if the antecedent brain states are even causal to the behavior in question. Again, I don't buy determinism.

That's why I mentioned all of that in the first place. Either you're ignoring what I said or you don't understand it.

You may think you have no set criteria for practicing kindness but in fact there is a particular concatenation and mechanism of neurons and other unspecified brainstuffs that determine when you will and when you will not practice kindness. — ZzzoneiroCosm

I don't buy determinism, either, but at any rate, non-mental reasons for something aren't "criteria for kindness." Criteria for kindness would refer to reasons that we can practically state as sentences, reasoned or emoted conditions, etc.

!

That's an extreme variety of physicalism. I suppose if you hold the image of a tree in your mind you make the attempt via the intellect to reduce this tree-thought to something physical. But, of course, the tree-thought itself is nonphysical. (I suppose you disagree.)

The tree-thought exists and the brain state giving rise to the tree-thought exists. One is psychological and one is physical. (I suppose you disagree.)

To reduce the mind to physicality is to fatally limit your scope of exploration. It's a dogmatism and hence fatally limiting. — ZzzoneiroCosm

Yes, I disagree. I think everything is physical, and I don't deny thoughts or anything psychological, so I think psychological phenomena are physical.

Again, I'd say that the very notion of nonphysical >>whatevers<< is incoherent.

What I call "unconscious mental content" you call "brain states with the potential to create mental content." You leap from the psychological to the physical to avoid using a phrase that rings nonsensical to you. I prefer to describe the mind without referencing the physical. — ZzzoneiroCosm

I'm a physicalist. I don't think anything about mind is nonphysical. I'm not "leaping to the physical." I think the idea of nonphysical >>whatevers<< is incoherent.

What I'm describing as potentials etc. isn't anything qualitatively like mental states (which are purely physical), so I'm not about to start calling them mental states.

Again, this is why I'm using the car alarm analogy. There's nothing controversial about that only being physical. It shouldn't be hard to understand that it isn't the case that the sound is present at all times but just hidden most of the time. And there's nothing qualitatively like the sound as a property of the alarm when the alarm isn't going off. So it would be silly to call certain states of the non-sounding alarm something like the "inaudible alarm." (Using "alarm" there in the sense of the sound it makes when triggered.)

You reduce this sort of memory to a brain state. You're no longer describing the mind. — ZzzoneiroCosm

The mind is brain states.

In fact, all I have to do to explode your definition of mental content is add - memories. — ZzzoneiroCosm

It wasn't an exhaustive list. And sure, memories are an example. Again, there's no reason to believe that there are unconscious memories.

Most people would probably say that there are unconscious thoughts, desires, etc. too. Unconscious, or colloquially, "subconscious" mental content is a very popular idea.

The definition wasn't gerrymandered to pick out only uncontroversially-conscious phenomena. If there were unconscious mental phenomena, unconscious desires, thoughts, memories, etc. would be an example.

You claim it isn't mental content. So I have to ask: Is it nonmental content?

If it's nonmental content, what specific kind of nonmental content is it? — ZzzoneiroCosm

You'd have nonmental potentials, which amount to specific brain states (structures and processes that can respond in specific dynamic ways), that can result in mental content, which is necessarily conscious. Again, it's just like a car alarm, where particular structures/processes can respond in specific dynamic ways to produce a sound.

I've already agreed the memory in question takes a different form in its conscious and unconscious states. — ZzzoneiroCosm

You could think it takes a different form, but it's something like conscious mental content.

Your definition of mental content is esoteric — ZzzoneiroCosm

lol