Re: Kurt Godel: Unpublished Philosophical Essays, by F. A. Rodriquez-Consuegra and Kurt Godel

From: Glen M. Sizemore (gmsizemore2_at_yahoo.com)
Date: 05/07/04 

Date: Fri, 07 May 2004 18:42:13 GMT

KD: But of course you are vastly allergic to the idea that
behavior can be tied to the detailed physical mechanisms
that trigger that behavior, being a "black box" psychologist
of the "adamant to the point of lunacy" persuasion, and so
can find it well within your pointless existence's bill of
rights to insult a Nobel laureate rather than demonstrate
the humility appropriate for a pathetic whining
non-contributor to science like you.

GS: Wrong, as usual, Commander Serotonin. Longley doesn't have any problem
with the notion that physiology mediates behavioral function (and neither do
I for that matter). Nor did Skinner. What we both argue is that "mental"
terms like beliefs, desires, goals etc. etc. etc. can't be used to build a
successful science of behavior*, and they certainly can't be used to tie
physiology to behavior. It would be inappropriate NOT to defer to Kandel on
certain issues, just as it is inappropriate TO defer to him on certain
others. His work has almost nothing to do with the fanciful metaphors of
storage and retrieval, and the proof is that if he simply referred to the
changes in Aplysia AS changes, nothing would change, and the significance of
his work would remain. Understanding this is not, speaking colloquially,
beyond your "intellect;" you're simply not intellectually honest enough to
accurately represent his position.

*I can't speak for Longley here, but I would say mental terms were once
frank references to behavior (eg, "intend" and "attitude" etymologically
suggest something about the postures of those with, hehehe, certain
inclinations), and there is a sense in which they still are. We still apply
mental terms on the basis of behavioral observations but, when asked about
it, we have a repertoire foisted upon us by academic philosophy.

"Kent Paul Dolan" <xanthian@well.com> wrote in message
news:1218daa8c95847b7565c3ea256582a96.48257@mygate.mailgate.org...
> "David Longley" <David@longley.demon.co.uk> wrote:
>
> > No you woolly headed ape
>
> You've started right off with your usual recourse to sweet
> reason when an argument has exceeded your resources, I
> notice, with my usual laughter at the shallowness of your
> mind, David.
>
> > you are not in the same league as Kandel and even Kandel
> > is prone to say some silly things.
>
> All the experts are wrong when they disagree with your
> manifest idiocy? Why am I _so_ skeptical (and amused)?
>
> Now people with fewer axes to grind seem to disagree with
> you, and in fact to hold Kandel in rather high regard:
>
> "In the year 2000, the Nobel committee awarded the
> Prize for Physiology or Medicine to three
> neuroscientists, Arvid Carlsson, Paul Greengard, and
> Eric R. Kandel. Their research revealed basic
> processes at work in animal brains. Carlsson
> identified dopamine as at brain neurotransmitter.
> Greengard revealed the molecular cascade inside
> neurons initiated by the dopamine signal. Kandel
> realized that the molecular basis of learning should
> be studied in simple animal systems as the basis for
> understanding learning in human brains. He spent
> many years studying the nervous system of Aplaysia,
> the Moon Snail. His 1976 text _The Cellular Basis of
> Behavior_ can be considered a classic in the study
> of nervous systems."
>
> http://www.nutramed.com/Philosophy/neuroscience.htm
>
> But of course you are vastly allergic to the idea that
> behavior can be tied to the detailed physical mechanisms
> that trigger that behavior, being a "black box" psychologist
> of the "adamant to the point of lunacy" persuasion, and so
> can find it well within your pointless existence's bill of
> rights to insult a Nobel laureate rather than demonstrate
> the humility appropriate for a pathetic whining
> non-contributor to science like you.
>
> > You have no grasp of what is being done or said.
>
> David, you take "no grasp" to heights the rest of us can
> only crane our necks to admire.
>
> >> BTW, did you see the latest Sci Am where Kandel is
> >> mentioned as one of a who's who of neuroscientists that
> >> are looking again at the work of Freud and how well his
> >> theories map to what is known factually about brain/mind
> >> now? Interesting article.
>
> > No, I don't read popular science magazines!
>
> Being so threatened as you are by any modern works, which
> have the disagreeable habit of proving each of your claims
> to be arrant nonsense, I'm sure your interest in the
> writings of real scientists, popularized or in the original,
> stopped cold at a spot some decades in the past, and you
> stick to reading the backs of cereal boxes any more, so that
> you can avoid those unpleasant encounters with modern
> methods and understandings of the function of the human mind
> as illuminated by direct physical investigation of the brain
> in the process of implementing mind.
>
> > Freud started his work in neurology. Go and read Freud's
> > "Project". But before you do so, try to read some of
> > Kandel's research first-hand, and try to grasp what he
> > actually did and how he did it without treating it as a
> > damned ink-blot!.
>
> Wow! Everyone who gives deferrence to a world class expert
> in the field (who happens to disagree with the all-knowing
> "David Longley") is a mindless zombie True Believer, in your
> opinion? Too bad you cannot grasp that the better
> description is "well informed participant in an ongoing new
> understanding of the workings of 'mind'".
>
> > It is precisely because his "popularism" or "salesmanship"
> > encourages idiots like you to infer no end of gibberish
> > that Glen and I are so critical of what he (and others
> > like him) are doing.
>
> It couldn't have something to do with the fact that he is in
> the forefront of science, making new discoveries that prove
> you to be a bad imitation of a scientist, that arouses this
> ire in you, instead? That he, by doing real science, is
> getting all the fame and glory which you think you deserve
> even though you contribute nothing of value to science?
> A bit of jealousy or envy, in other words, driving your
> inability to be happy for his success?
>
> > You have no grasp of this, because you're an ignorant
> > self-opinionated twit who doesn't know how to read
> > science, and won't be told what's going on by those who
> > can!
>
> Certainly, with a proof by thousands of examples to the
> contrary, this does not include one "David Longley",
> contributor of nothing but mendacity, insult, and hot air.
>
> Semir Zeki seems to have had precisely you and your ilk in
> mind, when writing this in A Vision of the Brain:
>
> It is...fortunate that neurobiologists are not
> philosophers, for they might otherwise find
> themselves immersed, like the philosophers, in an
> endless and ultimately fruitless discussion of the
> meaning of words such as 'unconscious,' or
> 'inference' or 'knowledge' and 'information' instead
> of trying to unravel important facts about the
> brain. They would, in brief, end up contributing as
> meagrely to an understanding of the brain and of the
> mind as philosophers have. This last point is not a
> trivial one for ultimately the problems that
> cortical neurobiologists will be concerned with are
> the very ones that have preoccupied the philosophers
> throughout the ages - problems of knowledge,
> experience, consciousness and the mind - all of them
> a consequence of the activities of the brain and
> ultimately only understandable when the brain itself
> is properly understood. The path toward the
> millennial future lies more with neurobiologists and
> some philosophers acknowledge this...It is only
> through a knowledge of neurobiology that
> philosophers of the future can hope to make any
> substantial contribution to understanding the mind.
>
> as quoted in this document arguing in _favor_ of your
> muddled viewpoint:
>
>
>
http://www.bbsonline.org/documents/a/00/00/05/53/bbs00000553-00/bbs.gold.htm
l
>
> Sadly, much like one of your epistles, I couldn't finish
> that one, the process of setting up strawmen never included
> in the writings of the authors whose ideas were being
> disputed, against which to battle, was so nakedly obvious as
> to be repulsive. Intellectual dishonesty among its
> proponents does not lend your position much grace, David.
>
> xanthian.
>
>
>
> --
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