What is "Mind?"

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Largo

Sport climber

The Big Wide Open Face

Topic Author's Reply - Mar 25, 2019 - 10:29am PT

you need to do the work.

That's been my admonition to you for ages - that until you study the observer, all you will come up with are figures with the observer left out. An excellent strategy - till you get to mind.

You you HAVE done the work per QM, so maybe tell us what your take is per what the paper is saying, and where, specifically, do you take issue with the conclusions. If in fact you do.

glacial haste

Trad climber

the confounded range

Mar 25, 2019 - 11:27am PT

mind isn't.

MH2

Boulder climber

Andy Cairns

Mar 25, 2019 - 02:14pm PT

An excellent strategy - till you get to mind.

What is mind?

eeyonkee

Trad climber

Golden, CO

Mar 25, 2019 - 04:04pm PT

Algorithm is to genotype as mechanism is to phenotype. Thanks for making me figure this out, HFCS! I'm reconsidering my stance on the gene. I'm going with DNA, instead. Moving up a boss, as it were. As a coder I'm thinking, what can you do with gene = protein? Not much without when to begin the making of the protein and when to stop making it. The when is really the only other thing you got as a coder. But if you time everything just right, you got life.

Ed Hartouni

Trad climber

Livermore, CA

Mar 25, 2019 - 09:09pm PT

You you HAVE done the work per QM, so maybe tell us what your take is per what the paper is saying, and where, specifically, do you take issue with the conclusions. If in fact you do.

it isn't a published paper yet... I suspect it is submitted to Physical Review Letters, I'll wait for it to appear there before spending any time on it.

d-know

Trad climber

electric lady land

Mar 25, 2019 - 10:17pm PT

Heisenberg and Schrödinger get pulled over for speeding.

The cop asks Heisenberg "Do you know how fast you were going?"

Heisenberg replies, "No, but we know exactly where we are!"

The officer looks at him confused and says "you were going 108 miles per hour!"

Heisenberg throws his arms up and cries, "Great! Now we're lost!"

The officer looks over the car and asks Schrödinger if the two men have anything in the trunk.

"A cat," Schrödinger replies.

The cop opens the trunk and yells "Hey! This cat is dead."

Schrödinger angrily replies, "Well he is now."

An oldy but goody.😁

zBrown

Ice climber

Mar 26, 2019 - 08:47am PT

This choice, however, requires us to embrace the possibility that different observers irreconcilably disagree about what happened in an experiment.

WBraun

climber

Mar 26, 2019 - 09:54am PT

embrace the possibility that different observers irreconcilably disagree about what happened in an experiment.

Yes, that's true.

But!!!

The absolute truth observer is also there.

The gross materialists never use the absolute truth observer ever.

They makeup st00pid "There's no need for this"

That's why they always ultimately remain clueless and spend all their time guessing .....

Trump

climber

Mar 26, 2019 - 04:19pm PT

They never ever use the absolute truth observer ever, huh? It’s good to know the absolute truth about stuff like that.

For me, I’m pretty sure I am the absolute truth observer. And it won’t surprise me if you believe the same about yourself instead of about me. Or if you believe that you use the absolute truth observer better or more effectively than I or those gross materialists do in order for you to see the truth.

How hard do we cling to a seemingly stand-alone, objective world existing independent of an observer. Our rational minds are built to give us that iteration of "reality" and so we go with it.

When is that ever not true? When is it that we see through the veil and see ourselves seeing things according to the way our mind was built to see things, and then change gears and just see things as they actually are instead?

Who exactly among us is able to transcend the way our minds were built to see things, and then see things instead the way they actually are?

Or maybe more to the point, who among us believes they can or claims they can? Seems like we all do that part pretty well. Maybe THAT’S how our minds were built to see things.

You really are clueless more than ever.

Mostly what we seem to see is OTHER people seeing things the way their minds were built to see them, instead of them seeing the truth. We don’t seem all that great at seeing ourselves doing the same thing.

And if perchance (or per our superior ability to use the absolute truth observer) we do see it in ourselves, we’re usually quick to imagine that we’ve transcended doing it. When we learn that we’re wrong about something, we don’t seem very good at learning that we’re wrong about some things, what we learn is that NOW we’re right! Just like we believed about ourselves the moment before learning we were wrong ...

Conscious? Ok, if our minds were built to see and say so.

zBrown

Ice climber

Mar 26, 2019 - 04:20pm PT

What happens when you narrow your focus way down?

You lose track of the big picture.

WBraun

climber

Mar 26, 2019 - 04:20pm PT

I’m pretty sure I am the absolute truth observer.

No you are not.

Nor ever.

Largo

Sport climber

The Big Wide Open Face

Topic Author's Reply - Mar 27, 2019 - 07:15am PT

https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/observations/physics-is-pointing-inexorably-to-mind/

Great quote here (per the above):

Where we get lost and confused is in imagining that what we are describing is a non-mental reality underlying our perceptions, as opposed to the perceptions themselves. We then try to find the solidity and concreteness of the perceived world in that postulated underlying reality. However, a non-mental world is inevitably abstract. And since solidity and concreteness are felt qualities of experience—what else?—we cannot find them there. The problem we face is thus merely an artifact of thought, something we conjure up out of thin air because of our theoretical habits and prejudices.

Verily, the imagined observer-independent "objective" world of facts is crumbling away by the minute.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/startswithabang/2018/02/07/the-biggest-myth-in-quantum-physics/#5e20a78653fa

WBraun

climber

Mar 27, 2019 - 08:42am PT

The Forbes article describes how it really is all mental speculations made in the defective gross materialists observer's fertile mind.

Then the poor clueless layman gobbles it all up as authoritative for lack of even having any clue to any real authoritative personality.

Thus the illusionary dream goes on and on within the mind of brainwashed gross materialistic only conscious humanity ......

MikeL

Social climber

Southern Arizona

Mar 27, 2019 - 10:30am PT

MH2: I am not sure whether he [MikeL] would agree that knowing the taste of cheeseburger is elusive in the same sense he intends when he expresses his doubts on the reliability of other kinds of knowledge, but it seemed funny to me.

Sorry. I've been in hospital for the last 5 days; unintended consequences are showing up all over for me and my medical team. I may not be tracking the conversation all that well.

My view is that there is no difference at all between the subjective and the objective. When I say that one doesn't know what any thing is finally, accurately, or completely, I mean that one cannot *say* what any of those attributes are in those ways. All of it appears as displays (as I see them).

The notions of finality, accuracy, and completeness with regards to definitiveness of what things are will probably be supplemented or implies that no thing should be taken concretely or seriously--cheeseburgers notwithstanding. I'd say one should *play* with such ideas, for even ideas appear to be seen by most people as "objects" (Lakoff & Johnson). That recognition suggests that there is no separation between what appears tangible and what appears intangible.

Sorry if I'm not very cogent today.

Largo

Sport climber

The Big Wide Open Face

Topic Author's Reply - Mar 27, 2019 - 10:38am PT

Get well Mike and keep us informer per your status.

eeyonkee

Trad climber

Golden, CO

Mar 27, 2019 - 04:05pm PT

Yeah, best wishes, Mike!

Largo quoted.

Where we get lost and confused is in imagining that what we are describing is a non-mental reality underlying our perceptions, as opposed to the perceptions themselves.

I think it's where YOU get lost. Of course there is an independent reality. How can it be that we all agree on so many things? How could we all have a (for the most part) common view of history unless it didn't exist independently? "Physicalism" explains the whole shooting match pretty well. What does bringing in individual perceptions really add to the explanatory story? You could be a madman.

Edit: Largo, I've brought this up many times and I don't think that I have ever gotten a decent answer. Tomorrow, there are any number of brain lesions that could be inflicted on you given the right circumstances. In some cases, you might not be able to form new memories. In others, you can understand, but you can't speak. In others you can speak but not understand. These are all lesions to the brain -- the meat. They have demonstrable and particular effects, depending on the location of the lesion in the brain. So, you want me to believe that any particular individual's subjective experience has precedence over an underlying objective reality? That's nuts.

Like it, d-know!

eeyonkee

Trad climber

Golden, CO

Mar 27, 2019 - 04:36pm PT

Back to my little fascination with the coding of life and mind. My second-to-last post suggested that the gene is somehow subservient to DNA. I had forgotten that the basis for turning the gene on and off are actually considered part of the gene. They typically occur at the beginning or end, but sometimes in the middle of the protein-generating sequence of bases. So, back to the gene on top, in my book.

More than anything, I am admiring of the simplicity of it all. How all of the complexity and richness of life can be generated from the humble parts of genes and proteins. If you could substitute for Mother Nature as the coder, you would only have these things to choose from.

* Create this protein rather than that protein in this cell
* Turn on the protein-building of this gene in this cell
* Turn off the protein-building of this gene in this cell

That's it! The fact that the things that genes build, proteins, can turn around and regulate (turn on or off) other genes, is the secret sauce to making the whole enterprise nearly limitless in it's creative power. It also scales, like a Mandelbrot set.

Here's an example of the idea. Once you have neurons established as part of the design, there has to be code that creates the neuron as well as code that maintains the neuron as well as code that establishes connections between the neighboring neurons. Each of these code bases is prone to mutation. A mutation at each level can be expected to have significantly different effects on the phenotype.

Largo

Sport climber

The Big Wide Open Face

Topic Author's Reply - Mar 27, 2019 - 05:04pm PT

eeyonkee - you have a blind spot, and you're missing it. What do you suppose it is?

Hint - that the brain and consciousness are the same thing, or put differently, the brain "creates" consciousness.

What some are suggesting is way more radical than what you are imagining, but flubbing, IMO.

All of those first assumptions are already in place before you put your thinking cap on. Kant got that much centuries ago.