POETIX

[Clinamenic]

In any case I don't think any or all of neuroscience renders phenomenology obsolete. They're approaching much of the same subject matter, just from different angles (science/gnosis).

Phenomenological bracketing is an abstract mental exercise, whereas pinging iron atoms with EM waves is a physical exercise.

 

[Clinamenic]

And this isn't an ultimate apologia for empiricism. I think data's usefulness is limited and situational, and needs to be leveraged on pragmatic terms not absolute terms. I also think that insisting that data is objective is often, if not always, a misguided effort.

 

[Clinamenic]

I do think we'll eventually, quite possibly in my lifetime, be able to "push the buttons" of consciousness, so to speak, in a shockingly comprehensive fashion.

 

[WashYourHands]

Whereas phenomenology has yielded all sorts of interesting insights fmris have mainly been ground for a little bit of knowledge but largely a bunch of pretension to knowledge and inflated belief in how much we know because we're able to point out what part of the brain lights up. It's basically like aliens thinking they understand human culture because they watch how the lights turn on in cities all around the globe and when they turn off again. It's really just not that useful. And yet wyh suggests that neurology has made phenomenology obsolete? An absurd claim

Im inclined to agree with suspended but I would like to hear @WashYourHands retort

But to be fair WYH was talking specifically about understanding sensory processing and I forgot that his claim was narrower and he may be speaking on something in neurology I don't know about, which is lots of things! I just jumped to the generalization that phenomenology was made obsolete by neurology and that may not actually have been his claim

you got there eventually

 

[sus]

Okay so tell us

What have we learned about sensory processing from neurology you think outcompetes phenomenological insights

 

[woops]

this is great it's like the old dissensus but i can almost understand it.

 

[Clinamenic]

Not that you're asking me, but the fact that our photoreceptors only pick up certain wavelengths of EM waves reveals a colossal factor in how our world impresses upon us.

 

[Clinamenic]

I think we even have something comparable to a framerate, which would also be a consequential finding in terms of how we understand how we understand our world.

 

[Clinamenic]

Also that our nervous system involves imperfect signaling that can be faked/tricked, so to speak, as in phantom limb syndrome, if I'm not mistaken.

 

[Clinamenic]

And we've also talked about olfactory signals, mere receptors in a nasal cavity that are autopoietically tailored to certain molecules, activating certain neural pathways. How those neural pathways "translate" to the likeness of that experience of aroma, is utterly unknown, to my knowledge.

 

[sus]

Vision science is a mature field: do we have more than that? Do we actually understand how nervous system signaling misfires in type 1 errors or do we just know it happens

 

[Clinamenic]

Whats a type 1 error?

 

[sus]

Oh gosh it might be a type 2 but

False positive. Input where there isn't. Top down projection. Whatever you wanna call it

 

[Clinamenic]

As in phantom limb syndrome?

edit: Getting sensations from a limb that isn't there, sounds like what you are describing.

 

[Clinamenic]

Vision science is a mature field: do we have more than that? Do we actually understand how nervous system signaling misfires in type 1 errors or do we just know it happens

Anyway, I don't know the research here, but my best guess is psychosomatic response. That is, conscious thought processes and/or instincts can maybe short circuit and supplant nervous signaling circuitry. Indicates that pain and other sensations can be activated in a (almost?) purely immanent way, rather than being exclusively determined by nervous signals.

 

[sus]

Do you know anything about back pain Stan I had something around my neck during my walk through the woods and now I'm very sore in the mid section below the shoulder blades

 

[Clinamenic]

My guess as to the evolutionary justification of this function: the ability to anticipate pain before any physical contact is made, the organism "using" pain as reins to steer itself away from a dangerous situation.

On the other hand (no pun intended) it could just be a spandrel, some circumstantially unavoidable side effect of a more essential evolutionary development.

 

[Clinamenic]

Do you know anything about back pain Stan I had something around my neck during my walk through the woods and now I'm very sore in the mid section below the shoulder blades

I don't, but I've heard acupuncture could work, and while I don't understand it yet, I suspect it isn't superstition or pseudoscience as some people seem to assume it is.

Something to do with how the nervous system unfurls from the fetal form, and how there is a certain telesthetic nervous correspondence between remote areas of the body.

 

[Clinamenic]

A relative of mine just said acupuncture worked wonders on his soreness, and he presumably had back pain of some kind.

edit: he also said it was quite painful, but ultimately worthwhile. I'd be interested in this treatment myself.

 

[Clinamenic]

Also maybe look into this fun hipster pillow that is claimed to be better for spinal alignment during rest:

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