[Scott Bakker]

That it is.

But the brain is a mechanism, and all the phenomena of subjective consciousness clearly seem to depend upon it - though no one has the foggiest as to what consciousness is.

What this means is that every aspect of your experience, including the experiences of choosing and willing, are a product of neural functioning, which neither chooses nor wills. The longer you ponder this, the bleaker things seem to become. There's a lot of apologists out there, but we humans are geniuses when it comes to spinning comforting rationales. And the fact is, no one has been able to come up with anything as remotely as forceful as this obvious implication of neuroscience.

All we can do, it seems to me, is take things like choice, purpose, and morality on faith, which is what I do.

[Hereford Eye]

Recently treated myself - it's all Gary's fault, of course - to The Teaching Company's offering of The Great Ideas of Philosophy, 2nd Edition presented by Daniel N. Robinson. From that, I respond to your last with Wittgenstein...I think. At my age I probably have him confused with somebody else whose name I can't remember. That syllabus is around here somewhere....I'm certain that it is. Give me a day or two to find it.

[Dawnstorm]

Ad intentionality:

I agree that "correlating neuro-imaging with real world activities is the primary challenge." Where I'm skeptic, is that, at the current state of knowledge, this question can be tackled on the ground of the natural sciences. Until we have a workable physical description of cognitive processes (especially self-observation and decision making), the usefulness of the data will be limited.

Coming up with marketing decisions is a matter of planning action. My suspicion is that marketing folks will (a) not understand the limitations of the data, (b) want too much from it, and (c) not apply the insight to themselves.

I agree that getting rid of intentionality would be an advantage; but I do think that, at the current state of affairs, this is more a point of ignoring it that circumventing it.

I hypothesise that self-observation is physical function of the brain. The ability of the brain to re-wire itself (meditation, functional recovery from physical damage...) I see as supporting this.

I speculate (stab-in-the-dark-manner) that self-observation may not be a localised funtion of the brain, but a structural property.

I feel that we need additional, different methodologies (as opposed to just better current ones), to really circumvent intentionality. I doubt that fMRI (which I'm talking about, because that's what they talk about in the article) is tool enough to do it.

***

What this means is that every aspect of your experience, including the experiences of choosing and willing, are a product of neural functioning, which neither chooses nor wills. The longer you ponder this, the bleaker things seem to become. There's a lot of apologists out there, but we humans are geniuses when it comes to spinning comforting rationales. And the fact is, no one has been able to come up with anything as remotely as forceful as this obvious implication of neuroscience.

The longer I ponder this, the more confused I get. Because, you see, I'll have to acknowledge that I'm not really pondering; it's just the effect of my brain firing neurons. And, thus, whatever part of me is conscious is clad in paradox. I(?)'m not yet at a stage where I(?) can see(?) this as bleak. :confused:

[Scott Bakker]

OK. I think I can see where our main disagreement lies, D. You're an intentional optimist - you actually believe the things we experience play an efficacious role in the things we do. I think the evidence is trending in the opposite direction. I think neuromarketers are just beginning their neural taxonomies, and that the correlations to various generalizations of real world behaviour will continue apace - and that subjective self-reporting will drop more and more out of the picture, until brains are all that we will be to them. Brains with wallets, that is.

If I'm wrong about this, then I think your skepticism of neuro-imaging constituting an added danger is likely warranted.

The social question, however, the question of whether we want to live in an 'atmosphere of ambient manipulation' remains open.

The longer I ponder this, the more confused I get. Because, you see, I'll have to acknowledge that I'm not really pondering; it's just the effect of my brain firing neurons. And, thus, whatever part of me is conscious is clad in paradox. I(?)'m not yet at a stage where I(?) can see(?) this as bleak.

That's it. Keep pondering... :D

Recently treated myself - it's all Gary's fault, of course - to The Teaching Company's offering of The Great Ideas of Philosophy, 2nd Edition presented by Daniel N. Robinson. From that, I respond to your last with Wittgenstein...I think.

I was a Wittgensteinian once. Until I realized how easy it was to demolish his views. Once you realize there's no way to answer "What is a 'language game'?" without begging the question "We have to look at the kinds of language games it's used in," things start to fall apart pretty quickly. It's simply performative first philosophy. ;)

[Hereford Eye]

What I had in mind referencing Ludwig was the idea that language is a social convention, which makes eminent sense to me. And, from that, "the limits of my language mean the limits of my world." Language was, is, and will be a manipulative factor. Consider the term "weapons of mass destruction" for a vivid example of the proposition.
Since the propagandists, commercial or otherwise, have been, are, and will continue to be engaged in this attempted manipulation, the idea of using a new tool to support their efforts is no more scary than the tools currently in vogue.

[Dawnstorm]

OK. I think I can see where our main disagreement lies, D. You're an intentional optimist - you actually believe the things we experience play an efficacious role in the things we do.

That's very likely the gist of it. I must admit surprise, though, as I'm not often called an "optimist" in any respect. ;)

[Scott Bakker]

Since the propagandists, commercial or otherwise, have been, are, and will continue to be engaged in this attempted manipulation, the idea of using a new tool to support their efforts is no more scary than the tools currently in vogue.

This has been self-consciously exploited by the republicans in the US, to great effect. Think of the euphemistic renaming of inheritance taxes as 'death taxes.' Since money is ultimately the control over other peoples' actions - which is to say, power - and since the inheritance of control over other people's actions is something counter to egalitarian society, most countries levy large taxes against inheritances. This cuts against the tendency for wealth to flow along hereditary lines (against the kind of rapid class stratification that even has some republicans worried in the US), and the concentration of power and the distortion of public institutions that typically results. Not to mention, it mitigates the obvious problem of individuals reaping the labour of thousands without contributing anything in return - simply because an accident of birth.

It's a damn good argument, and it was entirely undone by a euphemism.

But I don't understand how this translates into a reason for not fearing the spectre of neuroscientific tools falling into marketers hands. It sounds like you're saying 1 wrong plus 1 wrong only equals 1 wrong. If anything, we should be doubly alarmed, shouldn't we?

That's very likely the gist of it. I must admit surprise, though, as I'm not often called an "optimist" in any respect.

You should change your avatar to Pollyanna, D... ;)

[Dawnstorm]

But I don't understand how this translates into a reason for not fearing the spectre of neuroscientific tools falling into marketers hands. It sounds like you're saying 1 wrong plus 1 wrong only equals 1 wrong. If anything, we should be doubly alarmed, shouldn't we?

That's strange arithmetics.

Neuroscientific tools without application aren't scary at all. Marketer's attitudes aren't scary either, whithout the proper methods. But, of course, they have a scare potential. So, it's more like "0.5 wrong + 0.5 wrong = 1 wrong".

Also, note that the 0.5 above is not an attempt at statistical represntation of a hidden scare potential factor, but a symbolic representation of incompleteness along the lines of yin/yang.

To represent the difference in function we will have to use modifiers: wrong(t) [t: tool] and wrong(a) [a: attitude].

So we have: 0.5 wrong(a) + 0.5 wrong(t) = 1 fear potential.

On their own, 0.5 wrongs are irrelevant. Paired with an "inconsequential complementary 0.5 wrong" they can illicit many reactions: ridicule, pity... Fear is unlikely.

So: This is not an actual formula, mind you. You're not supposed to assign actual values (though you can, if you wish to simulate accuracy). What's important here is relations.

So, I think we all would agree to the following:

0.5 wrong(a:m) + 0.5 wrong(a:X) = 1 fear potential
[m=Marketing] [X=set of all effective Marketing tools]

What's at question:

0.5 wrong(a:m) + 0.5 wrong(a:X+NS)>0.5 wrong(a:m) + 0.5 wrong(X)
[X+NS = this I use to indicate the addition of neuroscientific tools to the set of all effective marketing tools; any similarity of the abbreviation for neuro-scientific tools is purely accidental...]

If the marketing budget does not increase, and if it's true that neuroscientific methods are more expensive, then the amount of manipulitian (measured in number of attempts) would probably decrease, if neuroscientific methods are actually used. This makes marketing a lot more dependant on the effectiveness of one method. Add to that the risk that - in real life - actual brain behaviour may evolve more rapidly than neuroscientific tools (if such evolution occurs, this is inherent: as NS needs said developments as data to improve); and the application of neuroscientific tools becomes an evolutionary risk.

Short term effects, therefore, are hard to gauge.

0.5 wrong(a:m) + 0.5 wrong(a:X+NS)<0.5 wrong(a:m) + 0.5 wrong(X)

is a possibility.

Long term effectiveness depends strongly on the extent to which we understand universals in neuro-science. I do not yet see this extent as threatening (and if I'm not mistaken, neither does HE).

If we factor in the "human ineptitude factor" (hif), the relationship would look like this:

[0.5 wrong(a:m) + 0.5 wrong(a:X+NS)]/hif:[0.5 wrong(a:m) + 0.5 wrong(X)]/hif

It will not change what mathematical sign (=,<,>) applies, if you compare them, but it will decrease the amount of the difference (if there is one).

Whether the hif can take a specific value with any accuracy, depends largly on the extent that people can define their goals. But I do suspect that this is true:

[0.5 wrong(a:m) + 0.5 wrong(a:X+NS)]/phif>[0.5 wrong(a:m) + 0.5 wrong(X)]/hif

phif = perceived human ineptitude factor.

***

Not even I know to what extent I was serious in the above... :eek:

You should change your avatar to Pollyanna, D... ;)

Tempting, but for some reason I cause enough gender confusion as it is... ;)

[Scott Bakker]

Now that strikes me as about as convincing as the Drake Equation.

But an entertaining read, nonetheless. :D

[KatG]

So you're not so concerned with effectiveness but with the fact that they're doing it and the possible fall-out?

I won't argue with you, and I can't argue with Dawnstorm. (Ouch, my unscanned brain hurts.)

Right now, I'm absorbing the news that my child is pathological. She's so pathological that she conned us into giving garage sale proceeds to a disabled children's charity. Of course, her parents watched a lot of t.v. and ads growing up, so we may just be pathological too and so not realize it. In any case, it's too late, so I guess I have to write us all off. Only the people who live off the grid in Montana and don't watch t.v. will be non-pathological.

I agree with you that people mucking around with unconscious aspects of human minds without really knowing what they're doing is disturbing. It's just that they've been doing it for years, and the government has been doing plenty of other things to disturb me already. People in power, a good number of them want to play with people's minds and at least trick them. This is the sort of thing my husband studies, actually, both behavior and action.

But part of me is very curious to see if they can actually make it work. Because there is so much about the brain that we have no clue about. We've come up with drugs to help with manic depression and schizophrenia, but not yet figured out cures. We still don't know how hypnosis works exactly. We know that one quarter of the male victims of child molestors will become molestors themselves, but not why. We have techniques and drugs to help molestors keep control of themselves, but we don't know yet how to cure them. We have a whole pharmaceutical treasure chest for depression, yet medications have to be tailored for individual brains, cause unusual side effects in some and often don't work. We're still working out addiction (latest -- cocaine changes DNA in cells.) We just found out some new stuff about fear and the brain. And we're still working things out. On the one hand, studies say that if my daughter gets more than 1 hour of t.v. a week, she'll be a useless human being forever (like her dad and me,) but other studies say that if kids watch Sesame Street every day, they learn to read and write more quickly than kids who don't.

But back to the fact that they are doing it at all -- yes, it's icky and scary. Every new discovery is incredibly dangerous and incredibly useful, and usually some of the people who can control the new discovery are very frightening. I'm just not sure that this particular development, out of all the other developments, is the one to be most scared about. There are other unconsious attempts and remaking attempts that are just as and possibly more scary to me.