I addressed this in my post no 242, which you just ignored, and decided to go on veiled personal attack instead. I get that its frustrating for you, its frustrating for me too. For cerebellum, read "pins in a fairground game"

If you damage a pin in the fairground game, will this affect the result? yes, of course. And you can claim that this proves that the pins control the result. But I am trying to point out that this isnt the whole story.


I keep addressing this as well. The science does not show that a self exists. In the same way that showing that lapland exists, that christmas day exists, that sledges and reindeer exist, does not show that santa claus exists.

That was not the psych paper I was referring to (hence the "more than a month to respond").

Regardless, if you seriously think your pinball examples is a considered response I don't know how to progress. I've given you the context that every other human uses "control" and you're just returning to your own personal definition like a chatbot that's got stuck in a loop.

Let me make this explicit: if you are going to make claims that no-one can control thoughts (e.g. attention) then you need to be defining 'control' (and 'thoughts', and 'you') the same way other people are. Just circling back to your own definition is pointless.

Let me make the super-explicit: since your views on attentional control directly contradict established science, there are two hypotheses that might explain it. 1) that you misunderstand the relationship between determinism/materialism and control. 2) that every other person who spends their lives studying these sorts of things misunderstand it.

And?

Firstly, your claim is meaningless, as you've demonstrated no understanding of what "self" means. It sounds here a hell of a lot like you're back to imagining the self as some homunculus that could be extracted from the brain, kicking and squealing "help me! help me!" in a tiny chipmunk voice.

Secondly, if you actually do understand what 'self' means, what you are asking is the same thing as asking me to prove that proprioception exists, and then denying that the ability to sense the position of ones limbs (and that disorders can remove this ability) is sufficient to show there is some model worth calling proprioception.

You remember (some of) your life. You don't remember my life. You have dispositions and preferences that differ (sometimes) from my dispositions and preferences. This is the self. That's essentially all there is to it. You're arguing against a position that was refuted when men wore tights and bubonic plague was still a major concern.

Please don't use me as an example like this. Aside from how it makes me feel, it's not going to work and it's not true anyway. Whilst I've often been in a minority, the conditions you set there have only been met once that I remember ** and most of the time there are people who have similar or even identical positions. Nor do I consider myself a lone genius.

Let me assure you both, I do exist, and I'm actually a real person, reading these posts.

**(the Pariedolia thing, and there are reasons why I stuck to my guns for so long before conceding because the numbers of people disagreeing with me forced me to re-evaluate, something I've never stopped paying for...)

Fair enough.

By which I mean, I won't use you as an example again.

Even less charitable than I expected.

Your get out was that you could have stuck to only claiming that this is 'often said' to me, not that it was true that I've often been in situations where I've had 'literally everyone disagreeing with me' (paraphrasing obv) but still refuse to accept that there might be a problem with my thinking.

Now however you seem to be admitting that you were using me as an example of someone who often claims to be correct regardless of literally everyone disagreeing with them. Ok, go ahead and list all the times you think that's happened. I gave you one but I'm pretty sure there aren't any others, certainly not enough for them to constitute 'often', and that I'll usually be able to find at least one person who wasn't in disagreement with me. Should be easy for you though if it's 'often'.

I added to the caveat post to make it more clear that - while I'm accepting your request - I don't accept your overly literal interpretation of what I'm claiming you do. And there is no way I'm getting derailed into this conversation when there's even the remotest chance of getting this "there is no you" argument over and done with.

Ah, my apologies for the overly literal interpretation, it must have been your use of the word 'literally' that confused the issue for me. I shouldn't have taken literally literally.

Perhaps I'm making the same overly literal mistake with the word 'often' which you presumably meant as 'not actually often, maybe occasionally, or once or twice'.


OK, well good luck with that, especially now you can't appeal to Neeel's distaste at your comparing his behaviour to mine. My apologies also for being offended about that, I'm such a sensitive soul.

Look, MB, you can't very well claim hurt feelings, ask me to desist in the comparison, and then reject my acceptance of your request. Not unless you want me to express my point more clearly, and risk hurting your feelings again.

I haven't rejected your acceptance of my request, which, for clarity, was that you not use me as an 'example', wording that you haven't disputed, from which I'm assuming I've correctly interpreted that your intent was to use me as an example of someone who 'often', despite 'literally everyone' disagreeing with me, refuses to accept that I have made some critical error in my thinking.

I don't agree that I'm guilty of this and asked you to show that it's true, at which point you suggested that I was taking you too literally. But, I'm really not sure how there's any way to interpret that other than how it reads, nor, if it genuinely wasn't intended to be taken literally, was your acceptance an apology for the hyperbole (or a retraction), that not surprisingly I took personally, which is why I haven't let this drop yet.

For me, the worst interpretation of what you said would be a literal one, which you've assured me is not how it was meant to be interpreted. A less literal version of it might even be true, so, I dunno, it's up to you what you express next.

If that's the case then I can understand some of your frustration, but not all of it.

Psychology adopts a version of 'self' that can be further studied and predicted. This doesn't necessarily make this version true, any more than choosing an empirical viewpoint over a solipsist one. This version of self is chosen because it allows for further inquiry and has the potential to improve our lives: just as empiricism is chosen for the same reasons.

If we're defining what methodological lens is more likely to be true by the amount of utility and prediction it facilitates then we're engaging in circular reasoning.

For example:

(1) The lens that views the 'self' as distinct from the world around it facilitates utility and prediction far better than

(2) the lens that views the 'self' as indeterminate.

This doesn't necessarily make (1) more likely to be true than (2), unless we define it so from the outset (hence engage in circular reasoning).

Ugh, just lost my response. Here's the very quick version.

Neeeel needs to make a list of things he considers "real". Given his mereological nihilism (MN), this probably only includes 'simples'.

If he only thinks simples are real, then why does he focus on the self? Just argue for MN.

If, on the other hand, he thinks (or accepts that others do) that natural selection is real, then why is the psychological self different. E.g. If I change your quote to:

"Biology adopts a version of 'natural selection' that can be further studied and predicted. This doesn't necessarily make this version true, any more than choosing an empirical viewpoint over a solipsist one. This version of natural selection is chosen because it allows for further inquiry and has the potential to improve our lives: just as empiricism is chosen for the same reasons."

... would neeeel want to say that natural selection is real, but the psychogical self not (this would be the interesting arguments).

This vacillating between ontological positions is a big problem. With his MN hat on he denies the reality of essentially everything other than simples. But with his empiricist hat on he denies the existence of mental models because "I don't see any mental models" but allows the existence of thoughts and sensations because "I [...] see thoughts and sensations".

The frustration comes because not only have I addressed these points many times before, I've addressed them in this very thread:

If he is indeed mixing methodological lenses, perhaps he will provide us with reasons as to why or how such a mixture can be compatible or potentially unified using his philosophy.

Ok. I waited a couple of days to see if this thread picked up, it didn't yet. So we'll let this offensive and inaccurate remark slip out of site until everyone (except me, and presumably you) forgets that you made it.

You know what you're doing is kinda like the Fine Tuning argument. MB is often in a minority and doesn't give up easily (although he's always prepared to change his mind or accept that there's some error in his thinking), therefore MB is the kind of person who often has minority views but refuses to consider errors in his thinking, to be wielded like a weapon of shame against others of his ilk.

In fact, I don't post on forums or threads where I share the majority views, it's boring being in agreement, it doesn't necessarily make me right or help me learn anything. So the reason I posted here so much was precisely because I encountered so much disagreement on some of my views, the more the merrier IMO. Hence, my being in a minority happened a lot because of the conditions that exist that caused the posts that you read.