To what extent is evidence important in philosophy?

Your expertise I take it is in assuming what everyone else is thinking/saying?
I'm saying in there is evidence for abiogenisis....we are it, and it [abiogenisis] is the only scientific answer.
I'm also saying there is evidence for the mind/brain/consciousness being one and the same.....years of observation shows this.
Or are you cunningly trying to leave the door open for ID and the "god of the gaps"

Again, I'm saying you are overlooking what is staring you in the face, and taking philosophy to the nth degree and beyond reason.

Doing more of what you seem to do best? Putting words in other people's mouths?
Are you aware of what Abiogenisis is defined as?

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Again, it appears you are the one with a closeted "god of the gaps" agenda.

 

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Seriously?

What is the nature of science? Are moral values objective or subjective? Am I in love with Mary Lou? What do I believe in? What is the nature of reality? Would I ever take a human life? Is Donald Trump a good choice for President? How do I feel about this particular painting? How do we know what is possible? Should I trust my mechanic? What is the square root of 769,129? Who did I take to my senior prom? Should I quit my job? etc and etc...

 

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Well, aside from you seeming to reply to the only part of your post I didn't quote...
I'm not sure why you felt the need to bring up the forum rules, unless you were at least insinuating that they were being broken.
I'm happy to leave it at you explaining the context to Yaz, but since you didn't seem to back down from the accusation, it just looked like you were reiterating...perhaps for the mods.

Anyway, I assume the mod action has clarified the rule you were quoting. No harm no foul.

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What you are saying is tantamount to this:

The ball flying across this enclosed and otherwise empty room is correlated with my foot making contact with it. We cannot say that my foot is the cause of the ball's movement; we cannot be sure that there wasn't some other causative agent involving both phenomena.

Sans hypothesis, the number of things you could insert in that correlation is boundless. Thus, it is useless. Every possible correlation between foot and ball has equal weight: an immortal mind, a soul, a collective consciousness, pixies, unicorns, God-bits, or the immortal mind of a unicorn spreading pixie dust over a fingernail of God. This is not philosophy.

 

That we exist is NOT evidence for a specific process of the origin of life. Do you think our existence is sufficient evidence for gravity as well? After all, we couldn't exist if gravity didn't have the appropriate value to form a life-supporting planet. "Years of observation" is not specific evidence...it is merely wild arm waving.
What door? You haven't even managed to describe a door frame.

You've yet to present any specific evidence "to my face."

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Come on, man. Can't you Google up something? Anything?

Definition is not explanation, evidence, or cause.
Now who's putting words in people's mouths? Skepticism is not god-of-the-gaps.

 

Insinuating, no. I was pretty plain. You originally were saying you don't need evidence because this is the philosophy forum.
The rules actually explicitly say otherwise.

The mods get to make that judgment call; you don't.

Aside from that, it's important to me that I not be misquoted (as everyone should agree). It has nothing to do with mods, it has everything to do with other readers thinking I said something I didn't. That has a way of coming back to one one.

Anyway, let's move on.

 

You obviously don't know the difference between correlation and causation. Until you can manage to express that you do, it's pointless, because I'm only talking over your head.

 

I am trying to draw your attention to the fact that, when there are no other factors in play, the correlation implies causation.

But I'll humour you. Explain it to me like I'm ignorant.

What, in the context of brain versus mind, does correlation allow for that causation does not?

 

Where did I say ANYTHING about you being misquoted. Go look. You'll see I specifically left that part out, because I wasn't responding to that at all.
And I'm saying the mods did make that call, and you reiterating the rule serves no purpose, unless you think they forgot to ding me for something.

 

You didn't. Yazata did. It is that which I was explaining, and that had to include the quote from the rules.

You took it and turned it into a slur.

I assure you, it had nothing to do with you. It had to do with me. You'll agree being misquoted can be troublesome. As is being played out right now.

I'll re-iterate. It was entirely about me covering my ass.

 

Great. Now define "metaphor".

 

That is not circular reasoning at all.

It's called feedback. A very simple - and ubiquitous - process where a thing can affect itself, either directly or indirectly.

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Hey, you said it, not me.

You seem to have it backwards. Causation allows for assertions that correlation alone does not allow. Causation requires correlation, but correlation does not imply causation.

In many cases, it seems obvious that one action causes another; however, there are also many cases when it is not so clear (except perhaps to the already-convinced observer). In the case of soap-opera watching anorexics, we can neither exclude nor embrace the hypothesis that the television is a cause of the problem—additional research would be needed to make a convincing argument for causality. Another hypothesis might be that girls inclined to suffer poor body image are drawn to soap operas on television because it satisfies some need related to their poor body image. Or it could be that neither causes the other, but rather there is a common trait—say, an overemphasis on appearance in the girls’ environment—that causes both an interest in soap operas and an inclination to develop eating disorders. None of these hypotheses are tested in a study that simply asks who is watching soaps and who is developing eating disorders, and finding a correlation between the two. - http://www.stats.org/causation-vs-correlation/
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OMG, Nicolas Cage is drowning people!

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https://www.fastcodesign.com/303052...raphs-prove-that-correlation-isnt-causation/2

 

Working on another accusation?

Great. Now define "irrelevant trolling".

 

Exactly. And I'm asking you why it's not allowed.
Foot swings, ball moves. Empty room.
We can conclude that it is a causative link, not merely a correlative link.

 

Thank you. perfect examples.

The above are all cases where there are uncountable other factors involved. That's why we cannot make a causative link.

In the case of foot and ball, there are no other extant factors.
In the case of the mind and brain, unless we have reason to posit some sort of soul, there are no other extant factors.

The Nick Cage analogy and the anorexia analogy are demonstrably faulty analogies.

You were half-right. I don't understand your specious idea of correlation. It's wrong. You're applying it unilaterally, like a guy with a hammer who thinks everything is a nail.

 

That we exist most certainly gives reason to ask why....and as much as you like to avoid it, universal abiogenisis to explain how life came about is the only scientific answer...and of course us being here, is evidence of abiogenisis.
Your door and/or door frame was obviously a reference to yourself in leaving open a "god of the gaps"

Evidence of the mind, brain, and cosciousness being basically one and the same....like I said, years of anatomical and genetic studies, see that as the obvious answer...or do you suggest something else? I'm sure you are able to google too...I'm not here to spoon feed you.

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No, it's being silly and obfuscating.
I'm not putting words in anyone's mouth as you are constantly doing....I'm speaking of my opinion based on what you are trying to push.
I've seen others here denying certain aspects, but always leaving that door open for the paranormal, supernatural or the like.....
Again, abiogenisis is the only scientific answer for life, and the association of brain, mind, and cosciousness are in reality the only answer to the current question despite your correlation and causation repeated comment.

 

I hope you're not talking about neurofeedback, which seems to include a healthy dose of dubious scientific claims, or neural feedback, which doesn't seem correlated to behavior. You do realize that if you claim a cause, the onus is yours to support that claim, don't you?

In 2009 Lorimer Moseley and Peter Brugger carried out a remarkable experiment in which they encouraged arm amputee subjects to use visual imagery to contort their phantom limbs into impossible configurations. Four of the seven subjects succeeded in performing impossible movements of the phantom limb. This experiment suggests that the subjects had modified the neural representation of their phantom limbs and generated the motor commands needed to execute impossible movements in the absence of feedback from the body.[30] The authors stated that: "In fact, this finding extends our understanding of the brain's plasticity because it is evidence that profound changes in the mental representation of the body can be induced purely by internal brain mechanisms—the brain truly does change itself." - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neuroplasticity
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Your example actually does show causation, so I can only assume you're still confused about correlation (otherwise you wouldn't be comparing apples and oranges).

In the case of the foot and ball, the evidence of causation is NOT the lack of other factors. Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. The evidence of cause and effect are momentum, force (contact), and reaction...a chain of events, and energy transfer, we can faithfully follow.
In the case of the brain, you are positing cause, apparently based solely on an absence of evidence (argument from ignorance). You have shown no sequence of events as evidence for any particular cause.
If you assert those are faulty analogies, by all means, demonstrate them so. You proclaiming it is not an argument.

Discovering and characterizing neural correlates does not offer a theory of consciousness that can explain how particular systems experience anything at all, or how and why they are associated with consciousness, the so-called hard problem of consciousness... - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neura...ess#Neurobiological_approach_to_consciousness​

Now cite something to support your argument already.

 

Came across this........................
http://uwf.edu/jgould/documents/Mind-BrainandConsciousnessProblem_000.pdf
excerpt:
Dualism – The human brain and mind are separate. Known formally as Cartesian Dualism after it’s originator, the 17th century French philosopher René Descartes. Physical matter, including the body and brain, behaves according to the laws of nature, and is thus suitable for scientific investigation. The human mind (soul, self, or spirit), which controls human behavior, lacks physical substance--and thus obeys no natural laws, and is therefore the appropriate purview of the Church. This belief in the dichotomy of mind and brain (that they are separate entities) was sanctioned by the the Roman Catholic Church, and became the dominant view for centuries.

Monism –
The mind and brain are really one. Today we generally accept this unity position, but there are many who still believe that some aspects of the mind, e.g., consciousness, cannot be just products of the activity of our physical brain--a squishy, wrinkled, 3-pound mass of tissue.

Notes:

Evidence for the brain being the physical locus of the operations of the mind includes studies of lesioning, stimulating, and recording brain activity -- the latter involving the electrical (EEG & ERP), magnetic (MEG), and metabolic (PET & fMRI) actions of the brain; and correlating these events with mental events, such as variations in information processing and states of consciousness. 2) Evidence for the quoted statement from Gazzaniga and the paraphrasing in paragraphs four and five above under What Then is Consciousness? includes, e.g.: bias effects of subliminal perception; priming in masking studies, and blindsight. With regard to the latter, unilateral neglect patients can use information they are not consciously aware of to make correct judgments of same vs. different regarding visual stimuli in the left vs. right visual hemifields. This is a form of blindsight in which the geniculostriate pathway is intact, at least in part, hence it is likely that unconscious/preconscious processing can occur at the level of the cortex, and is not solely limited to subcortical or secondary processing systems. (Gazzaniga et al., 2002, pp. 660-666)] 3) The preconscious is defined in The American Heritage Dictionary as: The memories or feelings that are not part of one's immediate awareness but that can be recalled through conscious effort. Webster's Dictionary defines it as: Not present in consciousness but capable of being recalled without encountering any inner resistance or repression.