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Largo
Sport climber
The Big Wide Open Face
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Topic Author's Reply - Feb 11, 2019 - 10:38am PT
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John, because Quantum Consciousness stuff is experiential, take a lap through that link, do a few of the exercises and you can tell us what you think. Otherwise you're tying to use a figurative map to reckon the territory, which might lead to arguments about maps. etc., and draw you no closer to the pay dirt.
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jogill
climber
Colorado
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Feb 11, 2019 - 03:25pm PT
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Thanks for your reply, John. But I wonder if it might be better not to appropriate terms like these when discussing meditative adventures and psychology.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_mysticism
Just a thought.
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healyje
Trad climber
Portland, Oregon
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Feb 11, 2019 - 04:01pm PT
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Stephen Lowinski may have a lot of good to say about self, meditation, and introspection, but his adoption of 'Quantum' is entirely pop marketing woo devoid of any scientific basis.
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Largo
Sport climber
The Big Wide Open Face
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Topic Author's Reply - Feb 11, 2019 - 04:14pm PT
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I know when I use references to science it's mainly a case of using language that at least some people are familiar with. The other thing is that there is only one reality, so it's crazy to think that when speaking of quantum matters and mind we are somehow talking about separate worlds. No one credible that I know use either mind adventures or quantum data to "prove" the other, but drawing parallels has been a pretty obvious task (mostly by scientists) for ages. My sense of it is the quantum world doesn't square with the classical meta world because we are still fogged over by the trance of temporal/linear causal models, which is the way our logical mind works. This has proven so thorny to try and unpack that we can hardly blame people for using whatever seems to shed some light on the subject."
A curious thing is when people say some are using the "facts" from science to advance "outrageous claims," while at the same time, physicists like Henry Sapp and others say that Bell's Theorem unequivocally says there is no local cause in the physical universe and that there is no location there either. So if our view of mind is to be scientifically informed, why is it such notions get shunted aside when discussing mind, or Sapp is accused of "misinterpreting the data."
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eeyonkee
Trad climber
Golden, CO
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Feb 11, 2019 - 04:20pm PT
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Before I got into my purely evolutionary string of posts, I had stated my opinions on the relationship between intelligence, consciousness and mind. I wonder what the rest of you regular posters (or anyone) think about the relationship between these words -- particularly how intelligence fits in. My own take on the consciousness/mind boundary is that mind involves a feeling of responsibility for your actions that sits on top of consciousness.
With respect to intelligence, I would ask these questions.
* Can you have intelligence without consciousness?
* Can you have intelligence without mind?
* Can you have consciousness without intelligence?
* Can you have mind without intelligence?
Let's say I am a predator and have been in an evolutionary (DOH! sorry) arms-race with my prey. I have evolved intelligence to apply the right algorithms at the right times for the particular environmental situations to have a decent chance of catching my prey and surviving a while longer. Do I need consciousness for this? Do I need mind for this?
Based on my definition of consciousness and mind, you would definitely not need mind. I don't really see a need for consciousness either. Intelligence just requires agency -- a decider, like W (along with smarts, of course).
Based on this line of reasoning, I could see a truly intelligent robot with agency but not consciousness. We may already be seeing it in DeepBlue.
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Largo
Sport climber
The Big Wide Open Face
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Topic Author's Reply - Feb 11, 2019 - 04:50pm PT
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Actually, there's nothing "pop" about Wolinski whatsoever. He's a constant destroyer of New Age fluff and whatever he got from Quantum stuff was derived from a longstanding relationship with F. David Peat and John Briggs.
Again, Wolinski is appealing to science not to "prove" stuff about consciousness, but to try and adopt a common language that is not mired in classical thinking, which we all know runs aground per mind studies. It simply leaves mind out of the equation enmeshed as it is with the map.
Again, what is amazing to me is that QM IS mind boggling, but when a reputed scientist like Robert Lanza introduces Biocentricism, functionalists scramble around trying to dismiss him, offering no alternative.
Fact is, as these theories continue being developed, those still clinging to classical models of consciousness are bound to get left behind because they don't lead anywhere but to a robot.
And Eeyonke said: Based on this line of reasoning, I could see a truly intelligent robot with agency but not consciousness. We may already be seeing it in DeepBlue
I think we are, though like Searle, I would swap out intelligent with advanced data processing. The China Room TE was meant to show that intelligence, as we humans understand it, implies conscious understanding. Beep Blue, conversely, has no understanding or consciousness or experience about BEING a machine, or doing a task, or any of it. DeepBlue is blank inside. There's just a program running. When we look at mind in terms of a program, we only get the processing aspect (and our brain IS a great processor), not the consciousness aspect.
A common misconception about mind is that consciousness is linked to or is in some way the causal fruit of data processing. Others (all linear-causal models = classical) include the belief that structure "creates" mind, or that mind is a function that in learned.
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eeyonkee
Trad climber
Golden, CO
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Feb 11, 2019 - 05:14pm PT
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But Largo, I'm actually not suggesting that. I'm really kind of meeting you halfway. I'm saying that consciousness is more on the feeling spectrum than the data processing spectrum. That's my whole point in distinguishing between intelligence and consciousness/mind. The first is data processing-related; the second is data processing + feeling-related. You just can't code that into a robot (at this point).
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WBraun
climber
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Feb 11, 2019 - 05:51pm PT
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* Can you have intelligence without consciousness?
Absolutely not, impossible and it's never happened ever.
* Can you have intelligence without mind?
NO
* Can you have consciousness without intelligence?
NO not ever.
* Can you have mind without intelligence?
NO
Because you ultimately have no real clue to what consciousness really is you will never understand it by any material means .....
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Largo
Sport climber
The Big Wide Open Face
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Topic Author's Reply - Feb 11, 2019 - 05:57pm PT
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Have you ever been able to observe your feelings? Label your feelings (anger, lust, joy?) Can you get some sense for the difference between the observer and that (in this case, a feeling or emotion) which you observe?
The radical thing here is that in my experience, as you plow deeper into consciousness studies, you realize that the observer and the observed are both made of the same stuff, figuratively speaking, but they are not selfsame.
An interesting point is that QM seems to start with nothing, or void, or a quantum field, from which stuff spontaneously arises. We don't start with stuff and have the field arise. So maybe Biogenesis is onto something by having consciousness as the starting point, and building the universe from there. It's certainly counterintuitive - I'll give you that. At this point, judging by what I've learned in the just the last 6 months, I'm no longer certain about ANYTHING except impermanence and flux/ That every thing is constantly changing, especially my own feelings. The constant is that I somehow remain aware of and are conscious of a tiny little part of what is going on. But I'm certain of nothing.
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MH2
Boulder climber
Andy Cairns
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Feb 11, 2019 - 06:04pm PT
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When we look at mind in terms of a program, we only get the processing aspect (and our brain IS a great processor), not the consciousness aspect.
Previously you have said that consciousness is a process, as opposed to a thing.
Though the brain does not work like the digital computers we have designed to do particular jobs, the brain's processing abilities are probably providing your consciousness. If you say it isn't, tell us how it can't.
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jogill
climber
Colorado
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Feb 11, 2019 - 09:03pm PT
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JL: "what is amazing to me is that QM IS mind boggling, but when a reputed scientist like Robert Lanza introduces Biocentricism, functionalists scramble around trying to dismiss him, offering no alternative."
From what I hear, QM is about what works, strange as the processes might seem. For example, Feynman with his comment about not understanding why his integral "works". What about biocentrism "works"? What predictions from it are accurate?
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healyje
Trad climber
Portland, Oregon
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Feb 12, 2019 - 02:00am PT
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eeyonkee: No on all for counts for me (can't believe I'm agreeing with the duck again).
Largo: Lanza isn't really a scientist of the scope necessary to allow him to make the leaps he makes. He is an experimental geneticist mentored by larger than life figures and clearly needs to believe genetics is by design and hence the universe. I have enough genetics background to appreciate why he would get lured into that perception, but in the end, Biocentrism is just a variation on Intelligent Design.
Again, Wolinski is appealing to science not to "prove" stuff about consciousness, but to try and adopt a common language...
Might have been ok had it not been for "What The Bleep Do We Know?" forever spoiling that pot...
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eeyonkee
Trad climber
Golden, CO
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Feb 12, 2019 - 08:24am PT
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I'm surprised that I'm not getting more traction from you on this, healyje. We both agree I think that our decisions are actually made subconsciously and that the subconscious is where nearly all of the action is. So, why the need for consciousness to be intelligent? And even more, why the need for mind to be intelligent?
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Largo
Sport climber
The Big Wide Open Face
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Topic Author's Reply - Feb 12, 2019 - 10:14am PT
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Largo: Lanza isn't really a scientist of the scope necessary to allow him to make the leaps he makes.
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Lord. The guy on the cover of Time lacks "scope."
Who, in your opinion, has the scope required?
More importantly, why do you think Lanza and others have taken the path they have? Do you believe that some of the science is "lost" on Lanza, that he too has "misinterpreted the data?"
What, specifically, do you disagree with per his ideas.
Do you consider Bohm's Implicate Order to be another version of Creationism? Do you realize that Creationism is just another version of physicalism (linear-causal)? Are the fundamental forces "proof" of an Implicate Order?
And from John: What about biocentrism "works"? What predictions from it are accurate?
I think you misunderstand what Lanza is saying. He's NOT saying to ditch stuff that works, or the means we have of making predictions. Why would any scientist ever say that? He's simply advancing a model that includes consciousness, basically melding 1st and 3rd person perspectives into a unified whole. It goes some way in correcting the insane hope of understanding who we are as conscious beings by way of an investigative model that leaves out what we are seeking: consciousness. Or worse, seeks to conflate the two as the same phenomenon.
It will, of course, all issue from what we have as starting points, or what we call fundamental, though this might not be the right term.
Piet Hut put it this way:
Everything we know in science is tested by the fact that we report experiential evidence, whether in the laboratory or in the field. However, every act of experience contains a subject pole, an object pole, and a form of interaction between the two. I I see a pen, I am the subject, the pen is the object, and seeing is the form of interaction between the two.
Natural science so far has focused on stydying objects. For each form of experimentation, subjects and interactions are needed, but the results are typically described in objective ways, by listing changes in objects. By doing so we have left but two-thirds of human experience. You could say that physics and biology is only one third empirical, by focusing on objects and leaving out an equally detailed study of subjects qua subjects, and interactions qua interactions.
A physicalist typically comes back claiming that we "don't need" any of this subject-interaction stuff to do our experiments and make our
predictions. The challenge arises when we get down to presumed origins or the belief that purely physical (objective) mechanistic "causes" created life and consciousness. Old wisdom traditions and recent scientific approaches have cited the seemingly magical factors (effectively zero statistical probability) by which this would be possible as a cue to consider other angles and perspectives, and to raise doubts about the first assumptions of physicalism.
In Ed's belief system, classical down to the last detail, a physical universe exists entirely separate from and dualistically opposed to the life and consciousness that is in it, and which was the physical/causal
output of linear-causal, timebound processes. That is, the world exists exactly as we perceive it, as a kind of open ended fairground in which we arise, live and die while the fairground remains essentially the same, and in which consciousness plays no meaningful or operate role.
Biogenesis flips this paradigm and says consciousness is fundamental on the level of manifestation and that space, time, matter and forms are all aspects of consciousness.
Actually, wisdom traditions go much deeper then this, saying that consciousness itself is just another phenomenon that arises, and that not even void, and not-void are fundamental. Burt this goes so far into the rabbit hole that I won't attempt to go there with words.
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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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Feb 12, 2019 - 07:29pm PT
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In Ed's belief system, classical down to the last detail...
you have no idea, really...
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jogill
climber
Colorado
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Feb 12, 2019 - 07:44pm PT
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You made your point very well about biogenesis, John. I simply don't agree that consciousness is fundamental. I think awareness is peripheral to reality. But I welcome attempts to convince me otherwise.
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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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Feb 12, 2019 - 08:15pm PT
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thanks for the link Werner
a quick read doesn't really reveal anything more than the same slogans you've been stating, over and over again.
the slogans certainly appeal to a "common experience" but little else to support them.
saying "it's obvious" is one thing, showing what is obvious is quite another... and not something undertaken in the article.
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WBraun
climber
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Feb 12, 2019 - 08:50pm PT
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Quick read is worthless as you know for fact that you are very biased.
The experiment in every scientific endeavor must be done to confirm.
With consciousness, one must do the experiment on oneself.
There's no other way ......
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