shennong posted:
ya i was making a feyerabend referencei havent actually read aynthing hes written, i just recite the wiki summary of his theories to my reductionist friends and watch them quake with rage
is his stuff worth reading?
i have no idea
e: gyrofry says yes though, so i am apparently endorsing it via my thread dedication
an image editor will tell you that the A and B squares are the same color. is the image editor correct or are you? what opinion does your brain have on the matter?
dm posted:
the mind is not the brain
appearances can be deceiving
noavbazzer posted:
my friend whos a brain chemistry major keeps going on about how in the next hundred years were going to be able to live forever and the technology is there and she gets so worked up that you cant even get a word in and sigh
im the TA that fails her in her last term of her final year
noavbazzer posted:
my friend whos a brain chemistry major keeps going on about how in the next hundred years were going to be able to live forever and the technology is there and she gets so worked up that you cant even get a word in and sigh
if anyone acquries this ability i will make it my lifes work to murder them anyways. mwaha.
shennong posted:dm posted:
the mind is not the brainappearances can be deceiving
such as connectionist networks
but really the statement "the mind is not the brain" is compatible with a mind-brain identity theory as long as you are willing to accept that the relationship is contradictory (which would at least be honest)
dm posted:shennong posted:dm posted:
the mind is not the brainappearances can be deceiving
such as connectionist networks
but really the statement "the mind is not the brain" is compatible with a mind-brain identity theory as long as you are willing to accept that the relationship is contradictory (which would at least be honest)
cette papier n'est pas un papier, monsieur dm!!
and heres a blog talking about it a little under the unfortunate title "all your brain are belong to us: neuroscience goes to war"
but hes not getting graded on it so i doubt he will do those things
noavbazzer posted:
my friend whos a brain chemistry major keeps going on about how in the next hundred years were going to be able to live forever and the technology is there and she gets so worked up that you cant even get a word in and sigh
i was watching a thing on RT about a community south of the black sea that had tons of 100+ yo people, the theory being that they had integrated older people into local governance etc and found a nice way for them to do important things. and then after that they go into some wackjob brit scientist that starts with "my inspiration for creating a cyborg is from some hollywood movie". RT is mostly kinda dumb but it can be really funny
noavbazzer posted:
my friend whos a brain chemistry major keeps going on about how in the next hundred years were going to be able to live forever and the technology is there and she gets so worked up that you cant even get a word in and sigh
that's adorable.
i guess my counterpoint is that my friends who are on the bleeding edge of neuroscience research are still having significant issues in probing neuron response, but it's a next step that's within reach over the next decade.
the real problem is direct mapping the brain for signal/response and realistic modeling which, well, is a long ways away.
noavbazzer posted:
my friend whos a brain chemistry major keeps going on about how in the next hundred years were going to be able to live forever and the technology is there and she gets so worked up that you cant even get a word in and sigh
maybe she means, like, the metaphorical sense of living forever through death and by technology she means genetically modified airborn virus strains
guidoanselmi posted:
the real problem is direct mapping the brain for signal/response and realistic modeling which, well, is a long ways away.
there are pretty good 3d maps annotated w/ genetic info for fly brains (which develop pretty stereotypically), and we're starting to get there w/ some other organisms, like we've got some circuits in zebrafish mapped and the optogenetic stuff in mice is being developed pretty quickly. but even if you have the complete map of an organisms' neurons across its lifespan and you have all the activity info for every neuron and a complete timeseries transcriptome for evrey neuron theres still the question of what you actually do with the information.
like how do you turn that dataset from a purely phenomenological descriptive one into something that can address important questions about cognition or whatever you're interested in? i dont think anybody is even really addressing that systematically, its just like, MAP EVERY NEURON and let someone else sort out the big picture
shennong posted:
like how do you turn that dataset from a purely phenomenological descriptive one into something that can address important questions about cognition or whatever you're interested in? i dont think anybody is even really addressing that systematically, its just like, MAP EVERY NEURON and let someone else sort out the big picture
people try to do that, for example, in neurolinguistics and other fields, but they keep running into this pesky little problem that
littlegreenpills posted:
cognition is purely phenomenological. i mean, wouldn't it be cool if it was
i mean phenomenological in the scientific sense, the data don't speak to any particular underlying theoretical constructs
EmanuelaOrlandi posted:shennong posted:
like how do you turn that dataset from a purely phenomenological descriptive one into something that can address important questions about cognition or whatever you're interested in? i dont think anybody is even really addressing that systematically, its just like, MAP EVERY NEURON and let someone else sort out the big picturepeople try to do that, for example, in neurolinguistics and other fields, but they keep running into this pesky little problem that
Spoiler!
neurolinguistics is basically shoving people in MRIs and doesn't give you the kind of resolution or activity information that optogenetic approaches do. i mean we can literally watch action potentials in an active, freely moving mouses' brain and localise them to specific neurons. so i'm not comfortable saying we'll never be able to understand how it works, i think we understand a significant amount about the cell & tissue biology of the CNS, but if you mean we'll never be able to connect the biology completely to a model of cognition i think that's probably correct and is in large part why i stopped caring about neuroscience
shennong posted:
...but even if you have the complete map of an organisms' neurons across its lifespan and you have all the activity info for every neuron and a complete timeseries transcriptome for evrey neuron theres still the question of what you actually do with the information.
like how do you turn that dataset from a purely phenomenological descriptive one into something that can address important questions about cognition or whatever you're interested in? i dont think anybody is even really addressing that systematically, its just like, MAP EVERY NEURON and let someone else sort out the big picture
there's a prof at caltech who's trying to do this... http://www.klab.caltech.edu/~koch/
my acquaintance who's under him has been there for like 5 years with no end in sight. haven't really bugged him much about his work, though.
I mean there's no risk from Jupiter attacking Earth and there's still funding for that - there'll always be some risk from the terrestrial environment that bears monitoring.
You can take matters in your own hands and look at the raw data yourself: http://gcmd.nasa.gov/ and attend conferences such as AGU (http://www.agu.org/meetings/) that have extensive talks and posters on research so you can understand how people arrived at their conclusions.
guidoanselmi posted:
You can take matters in your own hands and look at the raw data yourself: http://gcmd.nasa.gov/ and attend conferences such as AGU (http://www.agu.org/meetings/) that have extensive talks and posters on research so you can understand how people arrived at their conclusions.
agreed and ultimately all scientific conclusions should be ratified by popular referendum.
Ironicwarcriminal posted:
Here's a science related question: Why should I trust predictions of the effects of climate change from people whose continued funding relies on propagating the fear of such an event.
youre allowed to examine them in conjunction with predictions funded by energy companies, and then see which is most convincing. the marketplace of ideas is great isnt it
Ironicwarcriminal posted:
Also lol at the idea of “raw data”
I dunno the earth science data set, but the Planetary Data Set (pds.nasa.gov) has calibration and engineering data everywhere I've looked - that's just about as 'raw' as you can get. i think it's safe to say we're beyond discussion of observer modifies the observed or similar issues w/r/t this topic. if not, then say it. i can talk about instrumentation a little bit.
gyrofry posted:
agreed and ultimately all scientific conclusions should be ratified by popular referendum.
It's not like the community is a monolithic block with no room for dissent, it's very much the opposite. "Scientific conclusions," or rather findings, are incremental and diverse as the community itself.
I can only really speak to the planetary science community, but for instance there's like at least three different ways to model Titan's atmosphere that come up with fairly similar results despite different assumptions of body geometry, heat xfer. With respect to:
Ironicwarcriminal posted:
Why are they any different from say, people in the DEA or CIA. An organization which obviously produces harmful outcomes based on false information but everybody has to keep the charade up to protect their positions and privileges as prophets of fear.
their findings - or even their consistency with each other - don't necessarily impact further funding. It's the thoroughness of the proposal and study plan and feasibility of the plan in addressing the science questions that matter. Their findings and the aggregate message from the community is just as suspect as any peer-reviewed body of knowledge with the same epistemological issues.
In otherword, I wouldn't take issues with the scientists themselves as they operate at a level below the funding agencies themselves. They're not funded from fear but institutional inertia. You're more right to take more issue with CBO, Congress, OMB, and administrative, HQ-level people and how they drum up political support but these people wouldn't know the slightest about the investigations and findings themselves. they in turn depend on skkkum like me to interpret the science findings and explain them and their programmatic or whatever impact in managementese. *cue management joke from dilbert* 
Edited by guidoanselmi ()
guidoanselmi posted:
^^
I dunno the earth science data set, but the Planetary Data Set (pds.nasa.gov) has calibration and engineering data everywhere I've looked - that's just about as 'raw' as you can get.
presumably he's referring to the choice of instrumentation, the selection of what data to collect, and ultimately the questions and concerns which prompt interrogating nature in such a manner so as to elicit measurable results which refer back to models of climate change. either that or its merely some crude objection to ever trusting the data received through what he considers a potentially corrupted institution, its probably this second one, since hes being typically lazy in this troll
i mean, there's really a somewhat finite selection of measurements to make to help understand climate and develop models. i mean specific spectrometers, imagers, in situ measurements or whatever. you can make your investigations increasingly complex, but there's a reasonable understanding of the higher level measurements you need. it's the issue of understanding what those measurements mean and how they play together that's the hard part and really limits the demand of data gets collected.