1. There Are No Ghosts in Your Brain

Comment #120931 by fernaoorphao on February 2, 2008 at 7:12 pm

c4chaos is correct.


There's not such a thing as reducing an explanatory understanding of behavior and human activity exclusively to the nitty-gritty of action potentials and neurotransmitter release.

"mind" in modern science means no more than a functional, information-processing description of what the brain does, such as extracting a 3D representation out of a 2D retinal image or extracting a pitch sensation from an acoustic signal. This is unavoidable. All experiments (invasive or not) are made in the context of carefully designed tasks or information-processing activities performed by experimental subjects, and must be understood from this perspective.

The tricky and fascinating issue is how to relate our computational theories of what the brain is doing to physiological descriptions of how the "wetware" behaves under such and such conditions.

This is so obvious that it hardly merits discussion. I haven't watched the vids in full, but if PZ Myers really falls in this nominalistic trap of old-school, hard-nosed and outdated behaviorists I'm deeply sorry for him since I tend to admire his opinions and his work.

2. George Scales, War Hero and Generous Friend of RDFRS

Comment #111657 by fernaoorphao on January 15, 2008 at 10:41 am

Get well soon George!

My grandparent's older brother also fought in WW II.

Kindest regards from Brazil.

3. Beyond Belief 07: Enlightenment 2.0

Comment #93648 by fernaoorphao on December 3, 2007 at 7:47 pm

Duuuuuuuuude......I`ve been waiting for this....

Thanxs !!!