All mind, All matter, Dualistic
For a long time scientists have believed that the world is "All matter". That consciosness, Qualia, everything can be explained through the interactions of particles with their fundamental forces and moreover that the world is completely deterministic. After quantum mechanics many scientists now do not know what to make of mind. We explained so much without being able to dent the problem of how consciosness and minds come about. Heck we haven't even developed a way to measure if a system is conscious or not. This prompted some "All mind" theories like the copenhagen interpretation and panpsychism which argue that mind is either the fundamental building block instead of matter or is required for the existence of matter (more accurately for collapsing the wave function). Many however believe in a dualistic theory usually with one causing the other (Usually matter creating mind).
Which camp do you roughly fall into and what are your arguments for it?
Which camp do you roughly fall into and what are your arguments for it?
Comments (126)
Information entangles energy to create matter, and subsequently all that the matter can do is express this information via its form, and qualia.
Everything exists as a pattern of entangled information, energy, and matter. And it seems, the more complex the entanglement the more conscious the matter is.
I chose "Other". My view is hylomorphism, which is the Aristotelian view that reality, starting with the ordinary objects of experience, can be analyzed in terms of matter and form. My argument, as it were, is that it provides a useful framework for understanding the world. Aristotle himself introduced it in response to the problems posed in his day by Parmenides, Plato and others.
Quoting Form vs. Matter - SEP
So I guess all forms of qualia are not part of reality? They're not matter are they?
Comparing Copenhagen theory with panpsychism is like comparing astronomy with astrology. Copenhagen is a minimalist interpretation of quantum mechanics that does not care about consciousness but measurement, since measurement is the latest time we can establish that a system ceased behaving in a quantum way and was, by then, behaving in a classical way.
As an obvious illustration, consider a measurement apparatus that prints results to paper and does not need human oversight. Imagine it is measuring a process that at most takes an hour, but no one comes in to view the results for three days. The Copenhagen interpretation does not suggest that the wavefunction collapses when the paper is eventually looked at.
In addition, Copenhagen is not wavefunction realism. The wavefunction is interpreted as everything known about a system. In no way does Copenhagen suggest that reality is comprised of mind. It is, unlike panpsychism, a scientific, physicalist field.
Quoting khaled
Void. (re: Democritus ......... D. Deutsch)
From old thread discussions, excerpts of my 'anti-idealist, anti-supernaturalist, anti-nonphysicalist/immaterialist' speculative commitments:
Quoting 180 Proof
Quoting 180 Proof
Quoting 180 Proof
This is not accurate. There are interpretations of quantum mechanics that involve the mind (e.g. Neumann–Wigner), but as Kenosha Kid says, the Copenhagen interpretation is not it, nor are its main competitors. Mentalist interpretations of QM are pretty far from the mainstream.
I said many not all. Quantum interpretations that involve mind are generally not popular
As far as I know that is exactly what it suggests. The uncollapsed "result" is measured by a measuring system which then prints it to the paper at whichpoint we see it. The collapse happens somewhere in this process. What makes you think it happens at the paper? Why not at the measurement device? Or in the printer? Or in the cable leading to the printer? The copenhagen interpretation sets the collapse of the wave function to be at the point we can actually see it collapse, aka when we observe it. Because that is the only point at which we can actually know it collapsed. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CT7SiRiqK-Q&t=853s
But regardless it was weird of me to compare them since the copenhagen interpretation isn't exactly "All mind". Panpsychism and some rare forms of idealism are the only things that fit that category. The copenhagen interpretation doesn't actually say "The world is made up of mind" but rather "Things only exist in a definite state when we observe them". At least in my understanding.
Sounds like panpsychism to me. People like to diss it but I actually really like the theory. They cite the "Combination problem" as this massive dagger going right into the theory's heart then turn around and say "Sure we haven't found any way particles can lead to qualia and we haven't even developed a way of measuring qualia but materialism is still a valid belief". Materialism has a way worse combination problem if you ask me. At least panpsychism has the existence of qualia assumed just unkown how it combines while materialism doesn't even have that.
Yes. That is not the same as saying the collapse happens precisely when we look at a piece of paper printed three days ago.
Quoting khaled
That was precisely what I said doesn't happen.
Quoting khaled
It states that it occurs when a measurement is taken. It does not stipulate a requirement on consciousness. The process of measurement is considered mechanical, not mental.
Idealism is just as bad as it is more of an anthropomorphic projection of the human mind onto the world.
Dualism is flawed as it requires an explanation of how mind causally interacts with matter and vice versa.
With that said, I think that information is fundamental, and information is the relationship between cause and effect.
Quoting Kenosha Kid
It also says when an observation is made. So what it seems to stipulate is that consciousness is type of measurement. Measurements are only setup and used by conscious beings. How is a measurement taken without the idea of measurement?
I'll rephrase the explanation. A system begins in state A. An automatic spin measurement is made and printed a minute later that says it is in state B. A conscious measurement is a minute after that showing it to be in state A. A minute after that, someone reads the sheet of paper.
If consciousness is the trigger, the order of state measurement is: A, A, A, B. The second A is a continuation of the first. This is not what Copenhagen describes.
Instead, the state evolves as: A, B, A, A. I.e. the purely mechanical measurement gives A -> B, however we only know anything about that afterwards.
The Copenhagen wavefunction is a mathematical encoding of what we know. If what we know about the past changes, that change is encoded in the past, not at the moment of discovering the change.
Which is when the collapse allegedly occurs: when the (classical) measuring system interacts with the quantum system to produce a measurement. Measurement here is a technical (and quite contentious) term; it should not be interpreted by appealing to its common meaning outside of QM.
Some of the original proponents of the so-called Copenhagen interpretation also favored mentalist takes on QM, but what most physicists nowadays take to be the Copenhagen interpretation has nothing to do with mentalism.
I agree. That is the basis of my Enformationism worldview. This is not traditional Panpsychism though, but the cutting-edge concept of Information as the essence of Energy. It's a position held by several notable scientists, but it's still not a mainstream notion. Most people are only familiar with Shannon's narrow definition of Information, as equivalent to Entropy. But physicists have expanded that notion into a causal role in reality. That's what I call Enformy : the power to enform, to create. :smile:
Is Information Fundamental? : https://www.closertotruth.com/series/information-fundamental
Precisely! But, since Causal Information, or as I call it Enformy, includes both cause & effect, it is responsible for both Mind and Matter. Matter is the result of energy relationships (e.g. E=MC^2; hot/cold), while Mind is the awareness of those relationships (e.g. meaning). So, in answer to the OP, Information is "dualistic" in nature : both Matter and Mind, both Energy and Entropy. But it's much more than that. Information is Matter & Mind & Life, and everything else in the world. :smile:
Into the Cool : Energy Flow, Thermodynamics, and Life ...
" natural basis of life"
https://books.google.com/books/about/Into_the_Cool.html?id=wXK6R_ygxCgC
Quoting Gregory
What is DNA other then information? How dose a causal chain work?
Quoting khaled
The way I understand it : information determines matter, and subsequently the matter expresses the information that determined it - this we call qualia. Put another way : information informs matter how to be, so what matter expresses in its form is the information that determined it.
What about solipsism. Completely possible, and there are even variations on that theme. No matter involved in it whatsoever.
That's the idealist side of the coin. You can doubt that others exist, but you would be wrong. Enter the materialist side and behold there are bodies that arouse shame, love, and emotion in you
Prove this. Please.
Well now I am wondering if only I exist. No, it makes no sense. I experience people are certainly as I experience myself. I cannot give you a syllogism though
- that others exist, since you experience them? Yes.
- that you exist only, since your experience requires nothing but yourself to be existing? Yes.
- both are equally likely? Yes.
- is there a proof to prove either one? No.
- is it your own sole decision to doubt one, the other, or both, saying that you don't know for sure? Yes.
You don't feel their feelings. You interpret their actions that they have feelings. You interpret your experience of others that the others exist.
No I feel their emotions. It's human
What emotion do I have right now? You claim you feel it. What emotion does a person feel who is not you? You can extrapolate, but I vehemently deny you feel their emotions. Empathy is not feeling their emotions... it is synchronizing their emotions and you know how they feel. But you don't actually feel their emotions.
What emotion does Mary Jakubinski feel right now? Or Greg Walker? Or Ngambani Ungemba? Please answer precisely.
I didn't say I feel everyone's emotions.
Yes, we can now define Reality in terms of invisible intangible immaterial mental Information. Some physicists now define "reality" in terms of fundamental Fields, from which Energy emerges, and in turn Matter is formed. Matter is the stuff that we know via our physical senses. But the Energy from which matter is made, exists as immaterial potential until it converts into matter. For example, in space, invisible energy (photons) are whizzing past astronauts from every direction. Yet they are unseen until they directly impact the retina, which converts photons into electrons and thence into neural chemistry. Which we then perceive (interpret) as Reality. But Energy -- the essence of matter -- can only be conceived in imagination : Ideality.
Those hypothetical invisible energy fields also exist in the dark of space, yet they are nothing but statistical Potential (Virtual Particles, vacuum energy) until a random (stochastic) quantum "fluctuation", for no apparent reason, pops it into actuality. Hence, the Real world is fundamentally made of immaterial Fields ( that I call information fields) that are capable of becoming real Particles. But in their normal "uncertain" Virtual state, they exist as mathematical Probabilities, not as actual matter. And mathematics is the essence of Information. I could go on, but this is just a taste of the New Reality. As physicist John Wheeler asserted : "everything is information". Have you ever seen or touched a particle of Information? And yet, we "read" it as Reality. :nerd:
Virtual : In quantum physics, a virtual state is a very short-lived, unobservable quantum state.
Virtual Particles : "Real particles" are better understood to be excitations of the underlying quantum fields. Virtual particles are also excitations of the underlying fields, but are "temporary" in the sense that they appear in calculations of interactions, but never as asymptotic states or indices to the scattering matrix. The accuracy and use of virtual particles in calculations is firmly established, but as they cannot be detected in experiments, deciding how to precisely describe them is a topic of debate
https://evolutionnews.org/2017/08/is-information-the-basis-for-the-universe/
Information Field : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Information_field_theory
Everything is Information : https://evolutionnews.org/2017/08/is-information-the-basis-for-the-universe/
Everything is : Particles : Fields : Information : https://futurism.com/john-wheelers-participatory-universe
Before life ever existed, who was being informed? These theories seem to make the term information so encompassing and broad that it becomes almost useless.
That is what I mean when I said that it makes the mind necessary for matter to be definite
Well materialists tend to have a hard time explaining how qualia exist but aside from that yes.
It would be if there wasn't a "Other" option
Quoting Francis
That sounds like option 3 to me to be honest. A classic dualism with mind being produced by matter.
Quoting khaled
That doesn't follow.
But this has nothing to do with mind, nor does knowing have anything to do with being. As described above, the measurement collapses the wavefunction, not knowing what the measurement is. It would be problematic if it came down to knowing, for reasons this conversation makes clear.
Knowing allows us to update what we know about the wavefunction. It is not a physical collapse mechanism. In the same way that knowing more about history doesn't change what happened in the past, merely changes our narrative about it.
Knowing the outcome of a measurement allows us to remove any inconsistent information in the wavefunction as of the time of measurement. For instance, a cat might make a measurement, but since we can't ask cats about experimental outcomes, we can't do anything about it. However if the radioactivity detector used to smash a vial of poison to kill a cat is also rigged up to a printer and we later discover that radioactive decay had been established before the cat was dead, we know that, when we open the box and the cat is dead, we didn't just collapse the wavefunction of the cat. If there's no such output, we do not know this so cannot assume the system to be in a pure alive or dead state before we open the box and check.
I don't know what you're trying to show with this phrase. How is the human body, including the brain, not mechanical? How do non-mechanical things interact with mechanical things? How is a non-mechanical observation made of a mechanical measurement?
Quoting Kenosha Kid
And how do we know that the difference in states is a characteristic of quantum processes rather a difference in measuring devices being used to measure some state?
According to the copenhagen interpretation (as i understand it) You can't know that so don't assume it it's unscientific. Had the wavefunction only began to collapse when the first human opened his eyes you'd get the same universe.
And this measurement is done by us, the conscious observer. If you do a double split experiment and no body looks at the results, the results remain uncollapsed. Because no one looking at the result = No one has made a measurement.
Quoting Kenosha Kid
US knowing the value of the measurement. In other words US looking at the measurement is what collapses it. Right?
Quoting Kenosha Kid
Again, when WE discover that the radioactive decay had been established. How do we do that? Why by looking at the experimental results through the printer. Which would also collapse the wavefunction of the cat, because the two are related.
Quoting Kenosha Kid
Exactly. So when we do not observe the outcome of a quantum mechanics experiment, the outcome is not collapsed yet, it is simultaneously every outcome. In other words, our mind collapses the wave function, again.
While I understand the notion of ‘information’, it is the question of what information is without the existence of mind that is problematic.
In my view it is relation that is fundamental.
You have been corrected on what the Copenhagen interpretation says and been shown three thought experiments that demonstrate that your claim that only consciousness causes wavefunction collapse, and therefore that mind creates reality, is demonstrably false. Without actually disagreeing, you still seem to end up concluding that therefore your claim is true.
Having established that, in your view, even NOT X leads to the conclusion X, I'll relieve myself of the burden of explaining my field to you, but as a scientific communicator myself, I do have a responsibility to pipe up when unscientific people attempt to appropriate and misrepresent scientific theory for, what amounts to in this case, religious ends. (Your belief that QM proves that mind creates reality is religious insofar as it is impervious to evidence or indeed what QM really tells us, and driven by belief.) Not for your benefit; for others who might take you seriously.
Just as, when we discover a historical artefact of importance, we change our knowledge of history but don't actually change the past, when we obtain information about what a quantum system was doing in the past, we change our knowledge about it but not the system itself.
This is exemplified in the double-slit experiment. Without the possibility of measurement of which electron goes through which slit, the electrons pass through both slits. On the other side of the slits, the wavefunction interferes with itself. We can see this by placing a film on the other side of the slits to capture the overall distribution of electrons after a number have gone through. When we measure this film without measuring what happens at each slit, we see stripes on the film.
If we instead place a different coloured light source at each slit, and have a photon detector detect which coloured light was scatted by which electron, we can measure which slit each electron went through. This results in a different pattern on the film: instead of stripes, we see a double bell curve (kinda like a pair of boobies). This is because each electron wavefunction is collapsed before it can interfere with itself: no interference effects = no stripes.
We can turn these photon detectors off and on with one switch and we can turn the light sources off with another, which means we can turn our consciousness of which slit each electron went to off and on without effecting how each electron scattered light.
1. Lights off, detector off -> stripes, whether consciousness collapses states or not
2. Lights off, detector on -> stripes, whether consciousness collapses states or not
3. Lights on, detector on -> boobies, whether consciousness collapses states or not
4. Lights on, detector off -> ???
According to khaled's religious-like faith in the power of consciousness over reality, the pattern must be stripes because there was no conscious observation of which slit each electron went through. Without consciousness, each electron must have remained in the state of going through both slits.
In fact, the pattern is boobies. Even without an observer, the experimental setup resolves the question of which electron went through which slit, reason being that the experimental setup itself cannot possibly know whether we look at experimental outcomes or not. Consciousness is irrelevant: what matters is experimental set-up. Or, to put it another way, quantum mechanics is a science.
Perhaps observation of the film collapsed the state, I hear you ask! But no. If the film was in a superposition of a*|stripes> + b*|boobies>, then we would expect to see stripes a/(a+b)*100% of the time as we repeat the experiment. We see boobies 100% of the time. We can never get stripes with this experimental setup. Ergo each wavefunction is collapsed at the slit without consciousness of it.
Other reasons why Wigner was wrong... His argument was not valid. He was fine with measurement devices reporting contrary outcomes in superposition, he was fine with cats being alive and aware they are in boxes and simultaneously dead and aware of nothing, and yet his argument was that a human being couldn't possibly report that an outcome was one value and another. His theory was based on taste and ignorance. He couldn't seem to get his head around the idea that
Penrose pointed this out, and the paradox of a universe needing consciousness to collapse the universal wavefunction into a state that contained consciousness. A teeny weeny term in the wavefunction (representing the improbability of life on Earth) would be the only consciousness available to yield consciousness capable of collapsing wavefunctions.
I think it might have been him that also pointed out that conscious observers are high-temperature bodies and cannot mediate coherent superpositions. There's simply no way to get the information from a superposed live/dead sheet of paper through a human eyeball to a brain to collapse it to alive or dead. So even if consciousness could collapse wavefunctions and nothing else could, we'd never be able to test it because there are no coherent superpositions possible in conditions that human consciousnesses exist in. For that reason, Wigner's conjecture cannot be considered a scientific one.
Ultimately, any interpretation has to obey both the mathematics of QM and yield experimentally verifiable statistical outcomes. Wigner's does the first, but fails the second.
Is the term "All" useless or meaningless? Is the term "Whole" too broad for understanding? "Information" originally referred to the meaningful contents of a Mind. Then Claude Shannon applied that term to the 1s & 0s that computers process in the form of containers that can mean anything the programmer wishes. Now physicists and cosmologists are using that same term to describe the immaterial mathematical values (ratios; relationships) that define our reality.
So, it seems to me that "Information" is a very useful concept. And I have simply extended the essential meaning of Information [en-form-action : the ability to enform, to create order, to create meaning] to include the spooky stuff that ancient thinkers called "Spirit" or "Soul", as analogy with invisible life-giving Breath, and powerful Wind. That's because Information now seems to be the essence of everything in the world, both Matter & Mind, both Body & Soul, both Quanta and Qualia. However, by defining that essence in modern scientific terms, it no longer seems to be so mysterious & magical. Instead, it is simply natural --- Information is the essence of Nature. But, in order to distinguish that all-inclusive meaning from Shannon's particular usage, I spell it "Enformation", where the "E" stands for Energy, which is EnFormAction, and for Essence, which the substance of each thing.
Regarding "who was being enformed", the answer is "everything & everyone". The original Singularity contained only Potential. But from the Information in that Program was created Energy, Matter, Life & Mind. In other words, everything that is included under the heading of "Universe" . . . that's who. :smile:
Mass, Energy, Information equivalence : https://aip.scitation.org/doi/10.1063/1.5123794
Spirit :
[i]1.the nonphysical part of a person which is the seat of emotions and character; the soul.
2. those qualities regarded as forming the definitive or typical elements in the character of a person, nation, or group or in the thought and attitudes of a particular period.[/i]
___Wiki
Synonyms for Spirit :
[i]2 life, mind, consciousness, essence.
5 apparition, phantom, shade.
6 goblin, hobgoblin.
7 genius.
14 enthusiasm, energy, zeal, ardor, fire, enterprise.
15 attitude, mood, humor.
17 nature, drift, tenor, gist, essence, sense, complexion.
19 intention, significance, purport.
___https://www.dictionary.com/browse/spirit[/i]
As verbs, the difference between inform and enform :
is that Inform is (archaic|transitive) to instruct, train (usually in matters of knowledge) while Enform is (obsolete|transitive) to form; to fashion.
https://wikidiff.com/enform/inform
Note : to fashion (verb) -- construct, create, shape, form
Actually, a Photon is a hypothetical particle. No one has ever seen or touched an elemental photon. Like Energy, we know that photons exist only by their effects on matter. We know photons by the sixth sense of Reason, not by the five senses of matter. :smile:
What are photons? Are these particles real or it's a hypothetical particle? : "Mainstream science theories seem to always try to explain things in terms of physical material, even when certain things (like photons) are not physical material."
https://www.quora.com/What-are-photons-Are-these-particles-real-or-its-a-hypothetical-particle
Quoting tim wood
See my reply to Francis above. :nerd:
Why is light not matter? : Now I emphasize, what we call “matter” is a human choice, a lexicographical choice.
https://www.quora.com/Why-is-light-not-matter/answer/Viktor-T-Toth-1?ch=99&share=af0a9a64&srid=ozk3M
It can, with some footwork, but at the cost of metaphysical extravagance. But then mind/matter dualism is already pretty extravagant, and if you've already payed that price, then Wigner comes at little additional cost.
Quoting Kenosha Kid
So like I said, you have to go with Everett up to a point, assuming that decohered states continue to exist side by side until the mind cognates the "true" state, at which point the "counterfactual" state (along with the counterfactual observer's body!) vanishes. Or something like that. Heady stuff, but so is dualism.
Sounds to anthropomorphic to me. Humans weren't the first organisms with eyes, nor are eyes the first sensory organ (measuring device) to have evolved.
In the same way, humans have physical operations and intentional operations. We effect changes to the world, not by only by raw physical movement, but by intentional movement. As there is no primitive in natural science that corresponds to intention or awareness, no matter how we inter-relate the basic concepts of natural science, we will never construct a theory that concludes "and therefore there is awareness."
It is the same human being, a unified being, that performs both physical and intentional operations. Duality does not exist in nature, it arises in the mind. We separate the physical and intentional in thought, but it is not separated in nature. I decide to go shopping and effect that decision by walking, riding or driving to the store.
Every act of knowing has both a known object and a knowing subject, but when we do natural science, we decide to fix our attention on the known object to the exclusion of the knowing subject. As a result, and by choice, science has no data on subjects as subjects, but only as objects. As it has no data on subjective awareness, it can draw no conclusion about it. Failing to recognize this gives rise to the so-called "hard problem of consciousness." Of course, it is not a problem at all, for it has no possible solution. Instead, it is the result of forgetting that we left the relevant data on the table when we started.
So, we live in a world in which some acts are physical, some intentional, and many both physical and intentional. Separating physicality and intentionality in our mind is no more a warrant for dualism than our ability to separate the sphericity from the rubber of a ball in our mind is a warrant to say the ball is made of spherical stuff and rubber stuff.
I think it is a practice in anthropomorphism to single out mind from the rest of reality. Mind is just one type of processing information and matter is the other types of processes.
Information and meaning are the same thing. They are both the relationship between cause and effect. So you could say that meaning is fundamental.
Intentionality is the process that uses information, or values information. The information/meaning is there prior to interacting with intention, and coupled with the process of memory, the process of mind emerges.
Quoting Possibility
Relationships (cause and effect), process, information, are all terms I think more accurately get at what is fundamental.
Quantum fields.
In modern physics, the concept of physical law is archaic. Instead, you have interaction fields. These are ambiguous, but considered material. That is, they have properties, state, dynamics, etc.
Quoting Dfpolis
Laws evolve. It's not a 'exactly true'/'complete fiction' dichotomy. You can send a probe bouncing around the solar system and landing in your back garden with Newton's laws alone. But they are still only approximations to Einstein's, which in turn will be approximations to something else like string theory, which will be an approximation to etc.
Quoting Dfpolis
This is a fallacy. If you want to make God laugh, start a sentence with 'Science will never'.
Tegmark, 2000, “Importance of Quantum Decoherence......” in refutation of Orch-OR, Penrose/Hameroff, 1994.
Unless you’re talking about something else, in which case.......never mind.
Boom! Thank you!
No. Quantum fields are subject to the laws of nature. The laws themselves have no extension that can be measured, while quantum fields do. To have extension is to have parts outside of parts, but the laws of nature do not have such parts.
Quoting Kenosha Kid
Baloney. If you think this is true, provide a reputable reference.
Quoting Kenosha Kid
Bosonic fields, like all physical fields, are subject to the laws of nature. They correspond to the propagators (Green's functions) in the equations describing the laws of motion.
Quoting Kenosha Kid
Indeed, they do. Most also have mass and all interact gravitationally. The laws of nature have no mass and have no gravitational interactions.
Quoting Kenosha Kid
There is no evidence of this. What has evolved is our understanding off the laws. You are confusing the laws of physics, which are approximate descriptions, with the laws of nature they seek to describe.
Quoting Kenosha Kid
It is not a fallacy to say that if a theory contains no term x, it will never have a proposition containing x as a term. For example, Euclidean geometry has no mass concept, and so you will never deduce from it alone that something has mass.
And which laws are they?
Quoting Dfpolis
That's quite lazy. I just Googled 'physical law in quantum theory' and there's plenty of reputable references on page 1'. First result is: https://www.quantamagazine.org/there-are-no-laws-of-physics-theres-only-the-landscape-20180604/
Quoting Dfpolis
Propagators are not laws. They are tools.
Quoting Dfpolis
W bosons. Z bosons. Gluons possibly. The Higgs boson definitely. In fact, pretty much all of them. Even photons have gravitation. You might have heard of Einstein and Eddington?
Quoting Dfpolis
This is the exact opposite of your earlier claim that I responded to, in which you said:
Quoting Dfpolis
All descriptions of laws are approximate: neither exact nor fiction. Youre employing a false dichotomy fallacy.
Quoting Dfpolis
Science is not a theory, so this is irrelevant. To say that because there is no theory containing the term X, there will never be a theory containing the term x, is fallacious. Compounding it with a straw man fallacy doesn't help.
Yes. In the Enformationism thesis, human "Mind" is defined as the emergent function of human Brain, as it processes Information. But the ultimate "Cosmic Mind", as some call it, is defined as the Enformer or Creator of the whole system that we call "Nature". This is not an anthro-morphic concept, but a philosophical, perhaps mathematical, Principle similar to Plato's metaphorical non-personal rational Logos, and to the Hindu universal principle Brahman. But, since Intention is an emergent property (qualia) of our universe, the creative principle of the universe must necessarily possess the Potential for Intention, which on a local scale we experience as human Will, projecting personal power into the world and into the future. But is our Will free? You are free to decide for yourself.
I have no idea how that future-oriented teleological creative aspect of Logos/Brahman works. But the same necessity applies to the hypothetical Multiverse, which is simply Universe (mind & matter) multiplied by infinity. Both of those explanations for the sudden emergence of our world from a pinpoint of Potential are educated guesses, and both require that the First Cause of the Big Bang must be self-existent. Multiverse proponents must assume as axiomatic that the Laws of Nature, and Nature's enforcer Energy exist eternally. Hence organized Power & Intention are inevitable. Call it "Nature", or "God", or "G*D", or "Brahman", or "Logos", all local processing of Information, and values (meaning) attached to it, can be traced back via cause & effect to the eternal creative power of Intention. :nerd:
Note : "Logos" and "Brahman" have been given many different interpretations over the millennia. Some view them as a> gods themselves, others as b> the servant of gods, and others simply as c> the inherent Causal Principle (organizing, enforming, creating) of Nature, that results in progressive Evolution, including the eventual emergence of rational human minds. Since I have no knowledge of anything outside our world, the latter
Quoting Kenosha Kid
You hadn't cited a case of a wavefunction collapsing WITHOUT conscious observation until now. Check it. Even if we printed the results of an experiment on paper you have not shown that our conscious observation is not what collapsed it but rather that it was the recording of the results.
Quoting Kenosha Kid
This is literally the first example you have given where "observation" is done without a conscious human. Why couldn't you just start with that?
Quoting SophistiCat
Now I'm interested in how this would hold up. In the example given, even before the mind cognates the "true" state, it had already been decided by the measurement devices placed. If a measurement device measures which slit the electron goes through, and we NEVER get a case of a striped pattern, isn't it safe to assume that the measurement is what collapsed the wave function not us? If it were us we should get a striped pattern.
Those of quantum field theory, e.g. the Dirac and Klein-Gordon equations.
Quoting Kenosha Kid
I am truly unimpressed. I already said you are confusing the laws of nature with the laws of physics. The fact that you have no more than a title is a sure sign of intellectual slackness.
Quoting Kenosha Kid
They are a mathematical mechanism used to represent the mediation of Fermion-Fermion interactions by Boson fields -- in other words, to describe the laws by which quanta interact.
Quoting Kenosha Kid
I am getting tired of this. You do not know what you're talking about, The particles you mention are extremely massive.
Quoting Kenosha Kid
:sweat:
:up: :up: :up:
:clap:
Quoting SophistiCat :100:
Right, that would be the orthodox Copenhagen interpretation: the electron interacts with the detector and the wavefunction collapses from a superposition of two states into a single pure state right at that moment, way before anyone conscious can come to know about what happened.
The Everett (Many Worlds) interpretation does away with the wavefunction collapse, so that the superposition persists, but now the two states are effectively independent and non-interacting - decohered. If you would like to play along with the mind collapse theory, this parallel-world state would allow you to stall for as long as it takes a person to read off the result from the paper - only there are now effectively two persons, one in each of the two decohered branches of the wavefunction. One of the two, the ensouled one, then collapses the other branch of the wavefunction, together with her mirror twin, and the sanity is restored.
I am just making shit up here, as you've probably guessed. I don't know how the actual proponents of mentalist interpretations deal with decoherence, and can't be bothered to look it up, to be honest, because I don't take this very seriously. But if you are interested, the information must be out there. I'd wager that a deft and committed theoretician can come up with a robust enough interpretation - if you can swallow the metaphysics. It is ultimately a matter of taste.
I haven't been an ass about your ignorance at all. Your mode of conversation is: anything goes in; the same thing comes out. This is good for making sausages and nothing else. As I said, always interpreting NOT X as evidence for X demonstrates not ignorance but a complete indifference toward facts that conflict with your belief.
Quoting khaled
All my examples demonstrated the same thing. But glad this one nailed it for you.
You're really flip-flopping on this issue. First you say that theory must be accurate or else complete fiction, i.e. you cannot have a good theory that isn't perfectly representative of nature, then you say:
Quoting Dfpolis
And now you're back to theory being law itself. Can you have this argument by yourself and let me answer the winner? It will save time.
Quantum field theories do not have 'laws'. As I said, this is archaic language. Instead, it has fields and those fields have properties and those properties dictate classical physical law.
You do have a general mathematical framework which dictate other laws like conservation laws, but again these are categories (symmetry groups), not independent dictates on behaviour. You have probability laws too, though those aren't unconnected to symmetry groups.
Quoting Dfpolis
Greens functions tell us the probability of a particle being at position (x, y, z) at time t given that it was at position (X, Y, Z) at time T. It is a function of the time-dependent wavefunction. So you're effectively saying that each wavefunction is a law.
Quoting Dfpolis
Yes, that was the point. Your argument was that mediators of physical law aren't massive and don't gravitate. Most of them are massive and all if them gravitate. In QFT these are what replace the laws of physics like Coulomb's law. As I keep saying, at the level of the quantum field, the idea of these being laws is not useful. They are *things*.
Who says that actually cited a case of a wavefunction collapsing without consciousness? Wouldnt they have to provide a theory of consciousness to assert such a thing? Its interesting that KK is avoiding that, yet still want to assert that consciousness doesnt necessarily collapse the wave function. KK has to assume that some measuring device isn't conscious - whatever that means as KK is unwilling to address it so they are leaving a huge gap of an explanation in their explanation.
Isn't the film another measuring device in the experiment? Is not every process some electron interacts with a measuring device as the effect some electron has on something else is a measurement of some kind if state of the electron at some point in time. But then isnt it also a measurement of the state of the detector as well? Is not the human body and other measuring devices composed of electrons? In other words, and interaction between 2 or more things results in effect that provides information, or a measurement, about all those things not just one of them.
So what is it about consciousness that allows it to collapse the wave function sometimes but not other times? What is it about measurements that collapses the wave function?
What if we replaced some of our biological parts with mechanical parts and observed the experiment? Would the wave function collapse for an observing cyborg?
Why would you need a theory of consciousness to examine an experimental setup where consciousness is absent? That's absurd.
Quoting Harry Hindu
There's no gap. Not assuming that non-living objects are unconscious is consistent with every single element of scientific understanding of consciousness. Yours is the outrageous claim. I defend your freedom to believe incredible things, but don't push your burden of proof onto me.
Again, you'd have to define consciousness to assert when it absent and when it isn't. If it were absent at what point do you observe the results. If the results are on a sheet of paper, is not the paper composed of electrons? When does the wave function of the paper containing ink marks collapse - when looked at by human eyes or when it was printed out? Did the printer collapse the wave function?
When the doctor asks you to look at a sheet of paper on the wall and report what you see, they are trying to get information on the state of your visual system, not the sheet of paper. This is because your measurement of what is on the wall contains information about the state of your measuring devices - your eyes. The same goes for the results of the experiment.
Quoting Kenosha Kid
So no, my idea that consciousness is a measurement isn't outrageous. The fact that you claim that there is a scientific understanding consciousness when there Is no scientific theory of consciousness is a joke. Don't confuse me with Khaled. I am not proposing that consciousness is fundamental or creates reality.
None of this impacts the particular thought experiment described. QM is a statistical theory. If there is a possibility of getting stripes instead of boobies, then as you repeat the experiment you ought to get stripes some of the time. Claiming the film is in superposition until observed is experimentally falsifiable.
Quoting Harry Hindu
I have never disputed that a conscious observation can or would collapse a wavefunction. The claim was that consciousness is essential for wavefunction collapse. This is what I hope I have demonstrated is false.
There is no scientific theory of consciousness? Are you absolutely sure about that? Do you not instead mean there is no complete theory? That is true, and my wording reflected that.
True enough, but what experiment can be set up, and by association, what experimental setup can there be, that doesn’t have a conscious agency for its causality?
The several I mentioned above. Sure, a person needs to set it up at the start and, sure, a person needs to check something at the end. But there are variables in between in which we can retrospectively determine whether a system remained in superposition or collapsed without conscious intervention.
Can you supply an accessible reference for that colored light/boogie double slit experiment? Accessible meaning free.....I’m a YankeeVirgoBabyboomer, and paying for stuff for which I have no real use is anathema to me. But it is new and therefore interesting, so.....I’d appreciate it.
I grant the notion that consciousness in and of itself doesn’t necessarily collapse a wavefunction, but at the same time, I find it entirely irrelevant what happens in Nature, if no consciousness is aware of it, and is capable of relating such natural events to itself.
It's in Feynman's Lectures on Physics Vol 3 which, far from free, is quite expensive. I'll find something though when I get a mo.
Thanks. I had a feeling it would be Feynman, from your statement on fields being real, which Feynman declared by “...By a field, you remember, we mean a quantity which depends upon position in space....” (CalTech lectures, Vol2, Ch2), which would seem to make explicit fields are indeed real, at least in some particular sense.
That, and this wonderful piece of intellectual incredulity: “....They split in half and …” But no!...”, the exclamatory part which you repeated herein. Pretty easy to see where your sympathies lay, I must say.
Those lectures are here: https://feynmanlectures.caltech.edu, In which Vol3 has a nice easy dissertation on varieties of double slits , but nothing about......er......boobies. Or colored lights.
Anyway.....I just want to satisfy myself that bell curves aren’t merely a different manifestation of the standard interference pattern.
Anyway, to your point that an experimenter has to be involved, that's true of literally everything, ever, even when we are not talking about scientific experiments. You cannot come to know something without your mind being involved in the process one way or another. But why then make it a special point about quantum mechanics?
I am a fine Feynman man!
Quoting Mww
The lights are in there. The boobies are not, however they do feature in 'Surely You're Joking, Mr Feynman' viz. his nude portrait of Marie Curie discovering radium.
I never said any such thing. In fact, I have said that Newton's theory, being adequate in the classical domain is true in that domain.
Quoting Kenosha Kid
No. I am using the description to identify an the of reality it seeks to describe.
Quoting Kenosha Kid
I suggest that you reflect on your willingness to make categorical claims that every physicist recognizes as false. QFT conserves charge, momentum and energy among other quantities.
In light of your lack of qualification, there is no point in responding further.
I think the special point with respect to QM is direct experience, and the habitual proclivity of human intelligence to mandate empirical knowledge on it alone. Because direct experience is impossible on some small scale, the experimenter inserts himself, by the construction of his experiments, into situations he cannot actually witness, and he experiments in compliance to the mathematics he has himself invented. In effect, he justifies his inventions, but doesn’t witness Nature as it actually is, the classic example being the collapsing wavefunction, which of course, does not exist.
Another one is “spooky action at a distance”, which, last I knew, was up to a whopping 11 miles!!! So we end up with the altogether classical connundrum of knowledge that (spooky action is a fact), but not the knowledge of (wtf IS it?). So, the mind is certainly involved, but at the same time is completely left out.
Carrying the involvement of the mind to extremes, we arrive at stuff like....e.g., electrons, don’t even exist as real objects....as opposed to non-contradictory objects of reason....until they are determined by measurement of the effect of their intrinsic causality. This only makes sense if it is true human empirical knowledge is absolutely predicated on direct experience and experience has intuitive structure, which QM has shown to be suspect.
Oh. Sorry....guess I wasn’t understanding what you were saying....about why the special point regarding QM. Are you, sorta rhetorically, just saying the mind of the experimenter is just as involved in QM theories as it is in everything else, without exercising any causality of its own? If so, I agree.
Who has represented himself as a purely mentalist interpreter?
Quoting Mww
Well, Wigner (who came up with Wigner's Friend thought experiment) was one famous proponent who has been mentioned here. von Neumann was another before him. Both were big names in mathematics and theoretical physics, especially Neumann, so one doesn't dismiss them lightly.
Thanks.
I wonder though, did Wigner actually come right and declare explicitly that consciousness causes collapse, or did somebody take his “....consciousness is necessary for the completion of any quantum experiment...” and translate it thus. Because in order for any experimental result to mean anything, which would indicate a completion of it, it must be presented to some conscious agency for understanding. That much would seem to be the case, but doesn’t say consciousness was the reason the experimental result manifested as the measuring device prescribes.
Even von Neumann stated the wavefunction collapse can happen anywhere on the chain from measuring device to “subjective perception”, but subjective perception is not necessarily consciousness, but only a partial constituency of it. And happening at, is not the same as causality for.
Anyway....the beat goes on. All the way to the fridge for a beer. Or better yet....ice for a cocktail.
Quoting Kenosha Kid
These two statements contradict no?
Quoting Kenosha Kid
Incorrect. You never gave an example where we get the same result from the experiment every time following a measurement. You never actually said what the experimental results were for any previous examples. If you had said, for instance, that when we record the results on paper we get the exact same results 100% of the time after we observe said paper, that would convince me that it was the paper doing the collapsing not the mind.
Anyways I'm done wasting time on you. You never went into this with the spirit of conversation, and you are no scientific communicator. You don't actually care to help others understand, rather you use someone's ignorance to justify being an asshole. You can't call yourself a scientific communicator while attacking people for trying to understand.
My understanding is that was his view, since that seems to be the view he recanted later. He argued (unreasonably) that, while it's fine for the lab with an unconscious measuring device to be in superposition, it couldn't be in superposition with a human observer inside, thus the human observer inside must have collapsed the wavefunction of the lab before Wigner did.
Quoting Mww
And Von Neumann was not a wavefunction realist.
Quoting khaled
Thank you for exemplifying my point: anything in, sausages out.
Quoting Kenosha KidYou haven't because in order to do so, you'd have to define consciousness. If my claim is that consciousness is a measuring device, then how do we know that some other measuring device isn't conscious as well? If consciousness is simply a processing of information in memory, then "mechanical" (your term that I questioned your use of and which you have not clarified, not mine) devices qualify as conscious.
Quoting Kenosha KidNo, I mean that there is no falsifiable theory, which basically means that there is no scientific theory of consciousness, only philosophical ones.
Quoting SophistiCat
The mind does directly affect the world, and the world directly affects the mind. The experiment started off as an idea in some mind. The experiment is designed in such a way that produces results observable for human sensory organs. So for KK to claim that consciousness isn't involved is utter nonsense.
With all that, beginning with that double-damned double slit, it’s easy to see where human consciousness could be deemed responsible for the actions outside itself. Leave it to a human, to attribute that of which he has precious little understanding, as being responsible for that of which he has, arguably, only slightly more.
And yet the experiment proves it is not. Yet more as sausage-making.
Quoting Harry Hindu
Beyond the broad gist that is unscientific, I have no idea what you're trying to say.
Quoting Harry Hindu
Sure, and if by "in superposition" we mean "is made of wood", the table is in superposition. So what?
Quoting Harry Hindu
No falsifiable theory means no testable theory. Again, are you absolutely sure you've done your research here?
Quoting Mww
Haha yes! :100: And to make a law of ignorance.
Gives new meaning to the 1965 AM radio hit song, “I fought the law, and the law won...”
I think the argument goes 'Thinking correlates with certain brain activities. If those brain activities cease, then so does the experience of thought. So apparently, thought is dependent upon brain activity, which is a material object, so apparently thought is dependent upon the material world. There is no evidence of thinking still going on after the brain activity has ceased, and so there is good reason to think that thinking depends on the material brain.
True, thought correlates with brain activity. Change or eliminate the activity, and so do you change or eliminate the thought, apparently.
However, the same correspondance argument can be applied in reverse, to the brain(and matter in general) being merely a thought in the mind, by the idealist.
An idealist can argue the brain is a thought the mind is having. And changes in their thinking correlate with changes in their brain activity, so that brain activity, and the material world altogether are reducible to thought. And they can say that there is no evidence of matter existing independent of mind, since all experience of the material world will necessarily correlate with mental activity.
So, summarized...all mental activity corresponds with material activity, and all material activity corresponds with mental activity. They seem to always correspond, and it seems impossible to demonstrate how one could have activity without corresponding with the other having activity.
And that's just brains. There's toasters, rope, jelly, shoes, trees, water, air, chinken nungents, mud, sand, oil, car keys, bedsheets, cups, and so on, all material things that show no evidence of thought, that we would be astonished to discover had thoughts. And no evidence of thoughts without some material foundation.
You expressed a tautology (if I use that word right) that can apply to any thing.
a materialist can say:
A brain can exist without activity. But brain activity can't exist without a brain.
An idealist can say;
A mind can exist without activity. But mental activity cannot exist without a mind
(I hope I didn't miss your point)
Quoting Kenosha Kid
Do ideas think? Are ideas mental? Conclusion: Both ideas and material objects show no clear signs of thought. Whether or not something has thoughts is irrelevent to whether or not that things is an idea or a material object, since thoughtlessness can apply to either.
Further, how do you recognize if a material object is or isn't showing signs of thought. For example, do brains show signs of thought? If so, what are the signs?
Quoting Kenosha Kid
I had edited my original post quite a bit. I tried to explain that correspondance between mental activity and material activity does not in itself prove either one to be the foundation of the other.
Does that make any sense? I can try to explain why from the idealist position, what we call material objects are actually mental objects, if you want.
Thanks for the conversation, hope it stays fun! peace
If so, for me that is not obviously true. It's obviously true IF materialism is true, but its not true from an idealist point of view...
So maybe I can ask. Can you show why its necessarily true without having to first assume materialism is true?
Then that is your problem because you keep using referring to mental properties when describing the experiment, as I pointed out. So maybe the problem isn't a misunderstanding of QM, but of language-use? Maybe it's a problem with how scientists are using words as well because they talk about photons knowing that they are being observed.
Quoting Kenosha Kid
Then I have no idea what you are trying to say by bringing up this experiment in a thread about the fundamental nature of reality. What is it that you are trying to show if not some understanding about the fundamental nature of reality?
How can any understanding of the fundamental nature of reality NOT include some kind of explanation, or definition, of consciousness? When the only thing that you can ever talk about is the contents of your conscious mind, which includes your observation of the results of the experiment, then how is it that consciousness is never involved?
Quoting Mww
If consciousness can never be deemed responsible for the actions outside itself, then how is that these scribbles appeared on this screen, or are you saying that the scribbles on this screen are part of your consciousness and not outside of it? How did your intent to say this result in these scribbled appearing on this screen if human consciousness isn't responsible for the actions outside of itself - like you typing a post and the post appearing on my computer screen?
Either consciousness is everywhere, and nothing is outside of it, or things outside of consciousness can't interact causally with consciousness. If the former, then you are arguing for solipsism. If the latter, then how is it that an observer can know about the results of some experiment that lies outside of it's consciousness, or move past conceiving of an experiment to it existing apart from the consciousness that conceived it? It appears that the lack of understanding here lies in your language-use.
How did the the experiment begin if not as an idea in someone's mind? It's incoherent to assert that consciousness isn't involved when it has been involved from the beginning to the end in conceiving of the experiment and then observing the results. If you want to ignore consciousness and it's relationship with the fundamental nature of the world you are attempting to explain, then you are only doing a half-assed job of explaining the fundamental nature of the world.
Oh, dear. Harry, please consider this: cum hoc ergo propter hoc.
You and your scribbles. Do you have any idea how BOOOORRRRING that is?!?!
Anyway, I’ll be happy to discuss this stuff with you, as soon as you see the point actually being discussed.
Hi.
In neuroscience, brain function is mind. You're quite right that a non-materialist can define mind differently, but then she cannot speak about the mind of neuroscience in the same breath. Insisting on a difference is problematic in two ways:
1. If you wish to claim that a mental activity that corresponds to a brain activity is not causally linked, one has to reproduce the success of neuroscience at explaining such correlations without the benefit using what is apparently to neuroscientists accurate, predictive and obvious. It's a difficult position to be in.
2. Otherwise one ends up in a turf war that dualism can only lose. You might accept that yes that brain activity does indeed describe a particular mental activity, but that's -not all that mind is-. As neuroscience explains more and more, this separable dualistic component must necessarily retreat, else resort to (1) above.
An experiment that does not demonstrate a dependence on consciousness where it is claimed there should be one. I think the problem is you're not really talking about QM. If there is a superposition to be collapsed by consciousness, say 0.5*alive + 0.5*dead, what that means is that if you run the experiment 1000 times, you expect approx 500 alives and 500 deads.
In the case I cited, there are not 500 stripes and 500 pairs of boobies. There are 1000 pairs of boobies. You may still insist that nonetheless it was human consciousness that collapsed those boobies (ouch!) But let's be very clear: we are then no longer discussing QM, but rather some QM- inspired hippy dippy shit.
Quoting Harry Hindu
Why does my not understanding your language mean you no longer understand my point? I wasn't confused by your argument: I didn't know what it was.
How are they my scribbles if you're rejecting that I had something to do with causing their existence? I'll be happy to discuss this stuff with you when you think about what you say before typing it and submitting it. What is being discussed is Mind, Matter and Dualism. If you dont include Mind in your explanation then you're explanation is missing what is being discussed.
If there is no causal relation between the world and your mind then how can you say that you can observe the results if some experiment that is apart from your mind? Is observation not a causal process? There would be no reason to assert that what you experience is about the world in any way. Hence any interpretation you have wouldnt be about the world either. Materialism ends up pulling the rug out from under itself by ignoring consciousness - the very thing that interprets the world as being physical.
Quoting Kenosha Kid
I already showed that the experiment is dependent upon it being conceived in a mind before its assembled with "mechanical" devices that produce results for conscious beings to observe. How does a conception become an experiment that isn't dependent upon the conception? How does a non-mechanical idea become a mechanistic experiment?
That is not particular. The experiment above still distinguishes between such systems that demonstrate consciousness-dependence and those that don't. And they don't. Again, it's not an argument about QM, which would predict statistical outcomes for superposed terms of consciousness was required for collapse. Pointing at another bit where consciousness is involved doesn't effect that. It wouldn't if consciousness *was* responsible for that particular collapse either.
As I've said before, I don't protest the claim that consciousness can collapse wavefunctions, only the claim that consciousness is the only thing that collapses wavefunctions.
You word the above like the idea is astonishing. But it's extremely mundane and everyday. If I drop a pebble into the river from the bridge, I know I'm responsible for the result. I don't need to renew my responsibility to ensure that result. That the pebble splashes into the water is an inevitable consequence of me dropping it, not of my observing it thereafter. Likewise the boobies pattern is an inevitable consequence of me forcing the electrons to scatter in an in principle discernible way, not of my actually discerning it. It is thus the measurement apparatus, not the knowledge of the measurement, that is crucial. And this is the Copenhagen interpretation. Which is all I was saying.
It seems to me that you'd need a proper definition of consciousness to make such an assertion. What it is about consciousness that collapses some wavefunctions and not others?
Quoting Kenosha Kid
If I intended to appear astonished, I would have added an exclamation point as well as the question mark at the end. I was merely asking for clarification of your prior claims.
Quoting Kenosha Kid
My point is that the way the world, which includes some experiment, appears is dependent upon some state of consciousness and your visual system. How do you know that what you experience when looking at the results of some experiment is a product of only the results of the experiment and not about the state of your visual system and mental state as well when doctors use your report of the contents of your conscious experiences to get at the state of your visual system and not at the paper with letters on the wall? How much of the shape on the film is a product of the experiment vs a product of your consciousness?
If what you experience doesn't include information about your mental and visual system, then how can you say that you are even observing (using your sensory organs) the results of some experiment? I'm not saying that consciousness reaches out and changes the results of some experiment. I'm saying that how it appears in consciousness is dependent upon more than just the results of the experiment, but dependent upon your mental state. How the results of the experiment appear in consciousness determines how the results are interpreted - physical, mental, particle, wave, etc. The fact that we are visual thinkers is another thing to take into account when interpreting the visual experience of some experiment.
If you are forcing the electrons to scatter in a principle discernable way, then you are forcing the electrons to form the shape of "two boobies" - what you end up discerning. "Two boobies" is the result of a measurement, one that is made consciously. Who or what is measuring, or discerning, the shape on the film?
And in Christian Science only God and mind have ultimate reality. Calling something a science doesn't necessarily make it one. And a "scientific" discipline can have an admixtur of actually rational guidelines mixed with unfounded assumptions or dogma, which I would say is possibly the case with most materialism-based scientific traditions. Idealogy seems to form when masses of people get together with a common vision, even if they all genrally share values like objectivity...so it seems to me. Maybe its part of human tribalistic nature...sorry for small tangent.
I should think an Idealist could practice any science that deals with observing the material world. It's just from their point of view, the material world is a sub-set of mind. Just like one person can take psychedelics and experience hallucinations and believe the hallucinations are real, or mind independent, while another can take psychedelics and experience the same kinds of hallucinations yet believe or know they are mind based, rather than objectively real.
Another example: two people can play a videogame together, learning the rules of the game, with one of them thinking the three-dimensional world of the video-game is fundamentally as it appears, with literal 3d space, while another recognizes that the 3d space only appears there due to mental projection, and that the video-game world in general is a sub-set of a more necessary reality outside of the videogame, which is also a sub-set of mind.
Quoting Kenosha Kid
So neuroscientists have demonstrated that there is not only correspondance but causation between mental and brain activity? How can one ever prove that corresponce is not only correspondance, but that one actually is the cause of the other? Further, you said before that to neuroscience brain activity is mind activity. If brain activity IS mind activity, then there is no causation between one or the other, rather there is no separation between the two in the first place. If one can cause the other, then there are two things. But I don't think an idealist has to disprove any neuroscience findings, he just has to show that materiality is an idea.
Quoting Kenosha Kid
Here is a simple argument why I think, if monism is the case, mind is the fundamental rather than the material world.
You can't locate consciousenss in the material world. But you can locate the appearance of the material world within consciousness.
Edit: Here is a thought experiment:
Say you are talking to Jim. Jim has access to his awareness, thoughts, feelings, etc. He knows what it is like to exist as himself from his first person experience.
You have access to a 3rd person perspective of Jim. You see him objectively. You can observe all you want (lets say you can also observe the insides of his body)
Question: Which side of Jim is more essential? How he appears to you from the outside. Or how he experiences himself from the inside? I would argue that, from observing the body, you don't actually see Jim at all. You just see a body, not a being. Jim is the subjective being.
Consider the fact that if consciousenss correlates with bran activity, that for each person, their experience of themselves and the world will correlate with brain activity. Eliminate the activity of the brain which corresponds to someone's sense of self, and presumably they will not expereince themselves as a self.
Eliminate the brain activity that corresponds to someone's experience of the world, and presumably they will not experience a world.
How is it not special pleading to in effect say that some brain activity corresponds to the mind and nothing beyond the mind, while some other brain activity corresponds with the mind but also something beyond the mind? Why is the experience of self reduced to a mere experience with no external correspondance except with brain activity, but the expereince of the world corresponds not only with brain activity but also with a world outside of the brain?
Anyway, here is the thought experiment which is based on the same problem as above.
Imagine we found an actual physical super-meta brain that is the brain of the universe. All features of the universe and its activity correspond with the brain activity of the brain of the universe. Would this prove that the universe is merely brain activity within the brain of the universe? I would say that that would seem to be the case, but that would mean the universe is within itself... which leads to an infinite regress. The brain of the universe you see is really just a thought of the brain of the universe, and you can't find the final true objective brain of the universe...because it too will have to be a thought of the universe, rather than the thinker. The only way to resolve the infinite regress, is if the brain of the universe doesn't exist in just in the brain of the universe, but in the mind of reality. If this is true, it means the Brain of the universe is a representation of the mind of the reality. But it's not the mind of reality itself.
Well, you can. So...
Quoting Yohan
This doesn't mean anything. What does it mean to have access to one's awareness?
Quoting Yohan
It's a false dichotomy, and the conclusion you're aiming for does not prove anything. Let's agree that the thing that makes Jim Jim is his mind. Outside of some religious idea of a soul -- i.e. if we're to remain in the realm of science and reason not hocus or pocus -- this doesn't mean that mind is more fundamental.
Brain function is clearly not more fundamental than brain. For brain function, you need a brain. The opposite is not true.
You just mean if a human is located then consciousness is located, right?
Then why have a mind at all if all we need are brains and their functions?
Are electrons and their wave functions more fundamental than brains and their brain functions? If so, then are brains and other material objects just how these electrons and their wave functions are measured/modeled by the mind?
How can you assert that brains are fundamental but not mind when you only know about brains by virtue of your mind. So far, the only place we know that brains exist is in minds, just like mirages and illusions.
We can only point to the contents of our minds when speaking. How do we know that the contents of our mind are about the world to be talking about the world when talking about the contents of our mind?
Scientists tell us that colors don't exist outside the mind, yet we refer to colors when talking about the world. How do you know that we don't have the same problem when talking about the observed results of some QM experiment?
Is it other minds out there or other brains that are out there? Why do I experience the content of my mind but not the content of my brain like I would when looking where your mind is? When looking at you, why do I experience a brain and not another mind? It seems like mind is modeling other minds as other brains. If that were the case then mind would be fundamental, no?
It comes down to how much you believe of your conscious experience is a model of the world rather than a clear window to the world. Is the world how it appears in consciousness, or is consciousness a model/measurement of the world?
Quoting Kenosha KidDoes consciousness collapse wave functions or do brains collapse wave functions? And what is it about consciousness that allows it to collapse wave functions like "mechanucal" devices do?
That's a purely dualistic question: from a physicalist point if view, we do not have brain function *and* mind; they're the same thing. But from that dualistic perspective, it's a fine question. What is the point of a non-materialist mind in addition to brain function? None that I can see, which is what I meant by:
Quoting Kenosha Kid
I'm getting severe deja vu here. Have we had this exact conversation already?
Its not from a dualist perspective. I'm a monist, but not a physicalist or idealist. The point was why is there a difference in appearances of mind vs brain in the first place.
Scientists tell us that colors don't exist outside the mind, yet we refer to colors when talking about the world. How do you know that we don't have the same problem when talking about the observed results of some QM experiment or observing brains?
And you keep avoiding this question:
Quoting Harry Hindu
If
1. Brains are physical objects and possess consciousness that collapses wave functions
2. Physical, mechanical measuring devices (without consciousness?) collapse wave functions too.
3. Brain activity and conscious activity are the same thing
Then how do you know that mechanical activity isn't conscious activity if brain activity (which is just another a physical, mechanical device) is the same as mental activity?
I think this is your argument, which kind of reads in a confusing way...:
1. The mind is a brain function.
2. For a brain function you need a brain
3. However a brain doesn't require a brain function to exist. (not relevant)
4. Therefor the mind requires a brain.
Can you see what is wrong with this argument? If you want to convince anybody of your argument, you need to start with a premise that is self evident or easily testable so that everyone will agree at the starting point. Otherwise you have offered a valid argument but not a sound one.
Nope, seems pretty solid. If you accept premises 1 and 2, 4 follows. 1 is, as I say, the neuroscientific definition of the mind. 2 is self-evident.
source https://aphilosopher.drmcl.com/2008/01/04/argument-by-definition/
Quoting Yohan
Quoting Kenosha Kid
Quoting Kenosha Kid
If mind and brain are one and the same then how can you say that you need one to have the other? Is the mind an effect of the brain? If so, then the mind and brain are not the same thing.
I'm looking for the phrase... Oh yes!
Quoting Harry Hindu