Perception vs. Reason
Based on some conversations with posters at this forum along with my own thoughts, the following seem apparent:
First, qualitative experience is a sort of quantum resonance intrinsic to matter, during which entangled molecules superposition (blend) into hybrid wavelengths, an additive effect comparable to the visible electromagnetic spectrum. This, loosely speaking, subjective "color" consists in both dimensionality and properties of fragmentary feeling, so that organic matter is infused with rudiments of consciousness. The large array of superposition forms results in the wide variety of perceptual types: visual, auditory, olfactory, gustatory, tactile, interoceptive and introspective.
Second, matter does not have to be in organic form to possess these rudiments, so that components of consciousness can exist beyond the body, a sort of collective soul suffused throughout the biosphere.
Third, these rudiments of collective consciousness (particles in entanglement, superposition, etc.) are the same physical materials proven to participate in retroactive causality during lab experiments, so it is logical to conclude that soul transcends the space and time parameters of physiology and traditional thermodynamics.
So perception is almost fundamental to matter, its basic elements active at the nanoscale, with our cognition and behavior largely organized for responding to these perceptions. But then we have reasoning, set apart somewhat as a further layer of functionality which assesses environments in predictive fashion. What is the relationship between perception and reason, how do these facets of the mind influence will and action? It has been shown that both can be explained in materialistic terms, but which has precedence and in what ways or situations, and where does the physical distinction between them reside?
First, qualitative experience is a sort of quantum resonance intrinsic to matter, during which entangled molecules superposition (blend) into hybrid wavelengths, an additive effect comparable to the visible electromagnetic spectrum. This, loosely speaking, subjective "color" consists in both dimensionality and properties of fragmentary feeling, so that organic matter is infused with rudiments of consciousness. The large array of superposition forms results in the wide variety of perceptual types: visual, auditory, olfactory, gustatory, tactile, interoceptive and introspective.
Second, matter does not have to be in organic form to possess these rudiments, so that components of consciousness can exist beyond the body, a sort of collective soul suffused throughout the biosphere.
Third, these rudiments of collective consciousness (particles in entanglement, superposition, etc.) are the same physical materials proven to participate in retroactive causality during lab experiments, so it is logical to conclude that soul transcends the space and time parameters of physiology and traditional thermodynamics.
So perception is almost fundamental to matter, its basic elements active at the nanoscale, with our cognition and behavior largely organized for responding to these perceptions. But then we have reasoning, set apart somewhat as a further layer of functionality which assesses environments in predictive fashion. What is the relationship between perception and reason, how do these facets of the mind influence will and action? It has been shown that both can be explained in materialistic terms, but which has precedence and in what ways or situations, and where does the physical distinction between them reside?
Comments (50)
I'm not sure perception has been explained in material terms. You might explain fractions by drawing a cake and showing it cut up into segments. But if someone concludes that without cake there would be no fractions then they missed the point.
Can you rephrase?
Let's talk about gobbledegook then, what isn't too legit to quit for you?
Quoting Cuthbert
Its like saying quantum elements of perception are as richly varied as the English language, and all the sensations are analogous to combinations of words, technically entangled superpositions amongst molecules, though the concept of a molecule of course does not come close to exhausting the range of possibilities for embodied substance.
What seems apparent to me, if this is a reflection of posters on this forum, is that many posters on this forum are stringing together words that don’t really say anything of philosophical substance.
Can you reiterate the OP in plain English and/or expand on the terminology used and its context to the heading of ‘Perception vs Reason’ because I’m not convinced you’re using these terms - and others - in any context I’m familiar with.
Thank you
superposition: wave blending
entanglement: synchronous interaction, variously proximal or remote
All particles have wavelike properties, making them in actuality "wavicles".
These wavicles entangle into shapes and blend into superpositions as they interact.
Superposition states amongst wavicles are responsible for qualia, just as additive wavelength is responsible for variability in the characteristics of electromagnetic quanta.
Qualitative experience is an emergent property of these qualia when they inhere in entangled particles such that the structure of their superpositions are highly organized, coordinated and sustained.
I can't make it any simpler than that, vanquishing illusions of the nonphysical!
Quoting Enrique
“Husserl showed that in order to reach the transcendental or foundational level, one must not rely on any of the areas of being or experience that one is trying to found or ground.
These areas that are founded but not foundational include psychology, anthropology, and the natural sciences, physics in a broad sense. Heidegger says the same thing in his Introduction to Being and Time. Therefore, if one claims that naturalism is foundational, then one is taking one of the founded areas of experience and making it foundational. But this move begs the question. It is a vicious circle. Naturalism refers to one region of being, the region of nature. As one region among many, like the human and the animate,
the ontological region of nature requires grounding. When one uses one of the things requiring grounding to be the ground, you are basically copying the foundation off the
founded. I have already alluded to this circular reasoning when we were discussing immanence and materialism.”
Leonard Lawler
Incisive quote. In my view no foundation exists, only positivistic evolution (hopefully progress), so the question of grounding is moot. Naturalism as the essence of our episteme is circular because problem-solving is a recursion towards successor theories (structural frameworks of explanation), and standard presentation of the scientific method succinctly conveys this.
What they are arguing is that empirical nature is based on mathematicized objectivity, a concoction of Descartes and Galileo that amounts to a restricted view , a view with blinders on. It is an idealized scheme that doesn’t know it is a scheme, and instead thinks that it is without foundation. The fact that many scientists now say that they reject naive , metaphysical realism in favor of a representational realism indicates that they acknowledge science operates with foundational presuppositions which change over time. A number of social and psychological scientists are taking one step further and moving beyond the foundations guiding most in the hard sciences. The changes in philosophy of science over the centuries reflects changes in foundational scientific assumptions about objectivity , reality , subjectivity and their relations.
Is there a very basic summary, written simply and succinctly that careful lays out this essential position as a starting point? When it comes to language, I am in the Orwellian, plain English camp and I am allergic to the circumlocutions so often present in academic writing.
It seems to me that people are not understanding this perspective partly out of an internalized deference to the dominant culture but also because the ideas are hard to convey in a way that sticks in the mind of a newbie.
https://dl1.cuni.cz/pluginfile.php/610970/mod_resource/content/1/09%20-%20Evan_Thompson_-_Mind_in_Life~_Biology%2C_Phenomenology%2C_and_the_Sciences_of_Mind.pdf
:up:
Quoting Tom Storm
Have a read of this Aeon essay, The Blind Spot. Evan Thomson is one of the authors.
If you read this and didn't flinch, you haven't adopted the critical approach that is the essence of rationality.
Feel welcome to criticize, that's what I enjoy! This forum is like a small slice of heaven compared to my daily life lol
By quantum resonance, I mean waves waving, I thought it was fairly comprehensible.
That's nonsense. Non-sense; without meaning.
Maybe slice of scapegoat pseudopurgatory would be more accurate, don't lay into me too much.
Do you think this is a version of panpsychism?
[quote=Wikipedia; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panpsychism] In the philosophy of mind, panpsychism is the view that mind or a mindlike aspect is a fundamental and ubiquitous feature of reality. It is also described as a theory that "the mind is a fundamental feature of the world which exists throughout the universe." It is one of the oldest philosophical theories, and has been ascribed to philosophers including Thales, Plato, Spinoza, Leibniz, William James, Alfred North Whitehead, Bertrand Russell, and Galen Strawson. In the 19th century, panpsychism was the default philosophy of mind in Western thought, but it saw a decline in the mid-20th century with the rise of logical positivism. Recent interest in the 'hard problem of consciousness' has revived interest in panpsychism.[/quote]
:up: Also put http://michel.bitbol.pagesperso-orange.fr/Schrodinger_India.pdf on your reading list.
The most precise label for it I've come across is panprotopsychism, an unwieldy term that I think was invented by Bertrand Russell. Basically my view is that qualia (many types of superposition) are a feature of matter slightly more emergent than shape and size, but transient enough to not constitute consciousness at the most basic levels. In highly organized material systems such as Earth's organisms qualia conglomerate to give qualitative experience. The most novel aspect of this theory for science is that it distinguishes consciousness from the body while still regarding it as a material entity, providing possible avenues for mechanistically modeling the paranormal frontiers of psychology.
It doesn't reach any conclusion, just hand-waving.
Haha I stopped reading at precisely this point, whoops!
Quoting Banno
And so much special pleading and of-the-gaps fallacy. An article enumerating the problems with the article would be much longer than the article.
There is a sciencephilosophy forum where I believe you may find some guidance in terms of expressing whatever it is you’re trying to express.
GL
I'm sorry my model was so overwhelming to your intellect, it would be a scientific revolution if you could only see the truth lol
“...quantum coherence lives as long as 300 femtoseconds at biologically relevant temperatures...”
Support for Penrose/Hameroff, “Orch-OR”, 1998, rejection of refutation by Tegmark, 2007?
I thought Tegmark nailed it, but apparently he didn’t. Our mental imaging is pretty damn quick, but still........femtoseconds??? YIKES!!!
Youtube video claims scientists have determined that the phosphates in ATP molecules may be capable of superpositions lasting nearly a second.
Are ATP molecules considered major neurotransmitters?
I only know enough about this stuff to get myself in trouble if I talk too much.
lol, I know the feeling. ATP is adenosine triphosphate, the primary energy storage molecule in cells. ATP synthase is the enzyme in a mitochondria's inner membrane that bonds a phosphate to ADP (adenosine diphosphate), one of the steps in energy capture that occurs during cellular respiration. Its not a neuromolecule specifically, but very fundamental to biological function.
Ok. Thanks.
Organic matter being infused with rudiments of consciousness sounds entirely reasonable to me.
We can't perceive matter without consciousness anyway. So there has to be contact between matter and consciousness at some point.
Maybe there is an intermediate state where consciousness and matter intersect and intermingle to some extent?
Alternatively, matter may ultimately be a form of consciousness.
Nope. ATP is the compound storing, transporting and availing chemical energy to other molecules, in pretty much all living cells.
Then I can’t hold them responsible for the network that makes me to detest Lima beans.
I thought the large array of senses results in the wide variety of perceptuall types. What purpose do the senses have if perception doesn't require senses? Why is it if I cover my eyes, not my form of superposition,, that I loose my sense of sight?
Quoting Harry Hindu
Those are the million dollar questions for research:
a. What is the fundamental substrate of reality that transcends electromagnetism, and how does it fit together with conventional matter?
b. Where in the senses, brain, and environment generally do quantum processes of perception reside? Perception is very synthetic, so distinguishing the locations of all the quantum biochemistry involved is no simple task. Obviously covering your eyes does not greatly hinder perception, there is still a lot going on in the mind, but it does have an effect. If my theory is accurate, experiencing must involve superpositions to the extent that it includes qualia aspects like stream of consciousness rather than only trillions of molecules. These superpositions will be located wherever conscious awareness is present.
If information is lost during Hawking radiation, then it can exist apart from matter.
I'm skeptical of viewing information as fundamental, seems like a reification of mathematical concepts. Whenever we get a new model we get a new body of information because our minds are structured to assimilate the environment as such, but that means nil for the metaphysical or ontological primacy of any particular form of information or even information in general. It might be possible for an organism or being to perceive or conceive in a way that is not even analogizable to current human awareness, mathematical or otherwise, in which case thinking of the phenomenon as essentially informational could be erroneous.
As far as I know, Hawking radiation results from the separation of a matter/antimatter particle pair at the boundary of a black hole, so it is very much a radiation of matter.
The spin of entangled particles is information for contemporary humans.
Seems to me that information theory is fallacy, and we shouldn't elevate it to the status of dogma.
Not bad as a thought experiment, but ultimately better for computers than humans if given paradigmal primacy.
I think Cheshire is suggesting the simulation theory there which is of course unverifiable at the moment as of course is God.
Is there one? Why should reality have a fundamental substrate?
More essential, not absolutely fundamental is a better way to put it.
More essential than electromagnetic/nucleic matter by itself, I'm thinking dark matter, dark energy, and nonlocal forces.
The answer is most probably yes.
Further, once we reached this more fundamental level, there will still most probably be a more fundamental level to explore.... And again and again.