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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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you post a picture of a fictional character, an anthropoid?
probably have to do better than that... Heptapods?
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High Fructose Corn Spirit
Gym climber
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probably have to do better than that... Heptapods?
But heptapods wouldn't really be as much a humiliation, would they?
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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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if the bacteria win (which they will) that would be humiliating
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WBraun
climber
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"one-way" street in which the "spiritual" can influence the "physical" but not the other way 'round.
The physical matter absolutely depends on the spiritual self to exist.
Without the spiritual self itself period, matter remains absolutely inanimate.
The fruitloop mental speculation consciousness that we're 100 percent mechanistic has no actual real foundation ever.
The real science proves that matter is always absolutely dependent and subordinate to the spiritual soul to exist and function .......
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High Fructose Corn Spirit
Gym climber
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if the bacteria win (which they will) that would be humiliating
Yeah, that's a good one too.
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Largo
Sport climber
The Big Wide Open Face
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Topic Author's Reply - Dec 2, 2018 - 08:44pm PT
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Some might find this TED talk by Chalmers to be interesting. There's no question that the investigation has reached an impasse per standard, western methods of investigation. Chalmers offers a few "radical ideas" as a way past the bottleneck.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uhRhtFFhNzQ
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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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when you're up against something difficult, it is easy to persuade yourself that something radically different is necessary to resolve it.
...Chalmers talks about 3 crazy ideas:
1) there is no conscious experience - Dennett - he doesn't pursue this one... obviously... but he also didn't refute it
2) consciousness is fundamental
"if you can't explain it in terms of existing fundamentals, then it's logical to propose that it is fundamental"
I actually don't see the logic in this at all, though it is a way to proceed and see where it takes you. It immediately runs into the problem that humans are not found in most of the universe for much of the time. It might be odd to expand a human characteristic to being something "fundamental" when the rest of the universe seems to go on quite nicely without humans being around.
Chalmers didn't really talk about this too much, except to mention it. I think Chalmers invoking Maxwell was not such a good example from physics...
He certainly offered no argument to justify the fundamentality of "consciousness."
3) consciousness is universal
"panpsychism," elements of raw subjective feeling exist in everything
he pursues the idea that there is a link between consciousness and "information"
speculates that with physics' equations there is a description of the flux of consciousness in nature.
very poetic, but why is it necessary?
I also don't think he made the case that there is an impasse.
It is only a TED talk, after all.
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Largo
Sport climber
The Big Wide Open Face
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Topic Author's Reply - Dec 3, 2018 - 10:12am PT
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Ed, you are running yourself ragged IMO trying to cling to an old paradigm. The mind investigation is not derived from what QM says, rather qm is referred to get some insight about observation as a phenomenon because of the raft of scientists working on the problem, and that is a useful point of reference to those people. While you are within your rights to question my understanding per the math behind qm, I am within my rights to question your insistence that quantifying is the one and only viable avenue to pursue.
I also think you might have misconstrued what led Chalmers (a self-described math geek) to go where he did. That is, he went to observation as possible line of inquiry because all the other lines have reached an impasse. He was the one who first posited consciousness as a "hard problem," and what made it "hard" was that initially he felt the only solution was to fashion a working theory about how phenomenological experience could be the linear/causal output of a physical process. He needed a physical mechanism.
Fact is, no one has a clue about how this can possibly be so. Every "explanation" as Chalmers points out, concerns objective functioning, NOT phenomenological experience. That is, all of these efforts are addressing what he calls the "easy problems." My sense of it you still believe that addressing the easy problem is in fact addressing the hard problem, and are unaware of the logical whoppers this entails.
What's more, while you assail my understanding of qm, it is preposterous that people like Penrose, Thisle, Hoffman and others are holding onto "quaint" notions of qm. While this is not the basis of their investigation, they well understand the field - we can be sure.
I look at your approach like a scientific version of socialism. First, socialists are loath to admit the limititation of their doctrine, and second, if it doesn't pan out as promised, it is always the fault of something or someone else, NEVER their approach itself, and so they carry on, just harder owing to blind faith in a limited approach.
Lastly, it's crucial to understand that observation and an observer are two different phenomenon. Few are saying that an individual observer "creates" reality, rather that observation and consciousness are fundamental, and reality as we see and measure derives accordingly.
I asked a friend over at Caltec what could possibly be in place for an intelligent scientist to cling so rigidly to a mode that is bearing no fruit per consciousness, and she said, "He is married to a belief in quantum decoherence. This allows him to believe that the total superposition of the wave-function still exists. Take that away and your friend will likely find himself in freefall."
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High Fructose Corn Spirit
Gym climber
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So insofar as we ARE fully-caused 100 percent mechanistic vitifers, then it means that we are more or less the equivalent of sims in a simulation.
We are the equivalent of sims in a simulation.
Coming to terms with this insight from science and engineering, just as Carolyn Porco said, might be asking too much of us. Maybe not just for our generation either but for many if not all generations of Sapiens.
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healyje
Trad climber
Portland, Oregon
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Largo: There's no question that the investigation has reached an impasse per standard, western methods of investigation.
Utter nonsense.
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WBraun
climber
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No ... it is true. ^^^^^
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BASE104
Social climber
An Oil Field
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When you rebel against the Absolute truth or remain ignorant of it you get thrown into the material universe.
Just as a criminal gets thrown into jail or a disobedient son/daughter punished by father.
Maybe you should re-think that. You are stuck in Yosemite. Nice rock, but as a place to live, it is like Disneyland. I couldn't imagine a worse place to live.
And what is this anthropomorphism? Did someone actually say that no objective reality exists without humans there to witness it? Like the tree falling in the forest?
People have no concept of real time. Our lives are a blink of the eye. Our civilization is not much longer. Real time is almost beyond comprehension. All of the sciences agree. The Earth is Billions of years old, and the Universe is around 3 times as old as the Earth. Humans aren't important except in our own fishbowl. A rock. You people who feel so important. The pinnacle of evolution. We are destroying our ecosystems. Our population growth is out of control. We have already stripped the planet of its easy to find resources. We are bad house keepers. Humans, who seem so important, have only been around for a couple of million years. Dinosaurs were around for the entire Mesozoic. The age of mammals is still quite young.
You simply cannot refute this. It is plain as day. I would still recommend visiting the Creationist Museum in Tennessee to see some real lying.
For Ed: Does quantum entanglement happen instantly over great distance? Meaning does it happen faster than the speed of light?
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BASE104
Social climber
An Oil Field
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, I am within my rights to question your insistence that quantifying is the one and only viable avenue to pursue.
Post up! I want to see a cat fight!
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paul roehl
Boulder climber
california
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(2) a First Contact, say Vulcan like, in which it's immediately obvious the species is stronger, faster, smarter, more wise and more attractive than H. sapiens.
The assumption of a higher intelligence is tied to the experience of a continuum of intelligence in animals here on earth. Speculation of a higher intelligence begs the question how high? How have you not opened the door to the expectation or equally valid speculation/assumption of the existence of God?
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Don Paul
Social climber
Washington DC
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Did someone actually say that no objective reality exists without humans there to witness it?
Yes that is the current theory here on supertopo. Perhaps by biocentricity. Or by analogy to icons on a computer screen. Yet no good explanation exists for why everyone's perceptions of it match up. You would have to study the Schrodinger equations to understand that.
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WBraun
climber
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Base104 -- " Humans aren't important except in our own fishbowl."
Says the wannabee imposter god .....
The minute you say there is no God you try immediately to take his place and do a piss poor job of it
and simultaneously destroying yourself and everything connected to your poor mental speculations.
You're a terrible scientist .....
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WBraun
climber
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Redundant testing done with defective instruments leads to defective ultimate conclusions.
That IS the result of modern material science which tries to masquerade itself as ultimate authority .......
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healyje
Trad climber
Portland, Oregon
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paul roehl: How have you not opened the door to the expectation or equally valid speculation/assumption of the existence of God?
Not really...
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MH2
Boulder climber
Andy Cairns
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Every "explanation" as Chalmers points out, concerns objective functioning, NOT phenomenological experience.
Can you explain why objective functioning cannot produce phenomenological experience?
eventually [science] reaches the various ultimate trenches dug by philosophical thought, and, quite heedless of the fact that it is not supposed to be able to cross those final barriers to the intellect, goes right on.
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paul roehl
Boulder climber
california
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Not really...
How so? What is the limit of intelligence predicated on but the realization that there are certainly less intelligent life forms than our own. Well then what is the upper limit of intelligence and at what point does that intelligence reach the periphery of deity?
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