@SpamuelNeedbeef I already HAVE a university degree in physics. Besides, aside from the math which can get yucky looking, and the counterintuitiveness of the subject matter it's really not that difficult to grasp at a conceptual level.
"Take this up"
I have, two of my profs (one a quantum physicist the other a mathematician) actually agreed with me for the same reasons. In fact the physics prof wrote a paper way back arguing the same thing for the same reasons.
Dude, you are making big mistake by putting philosophy on equal level with science. 2000 years ago people used philosophy but they saw progress is impossible so they had to invent science. Now we finally have progress. Look at last 500 years. Philosophy is just useless nowdays and really cannot explain anything. It can just make bald assumptions which can never be prooven. One of those silly assumptions is this protophenomenal thing. I saw ur video about information, complety wrong reasoning
@janko1212 (additional comment "4of3") Ok, here's my big issue, you argue that testability is the ONLY criterion for figuring things out. But how do you philosophically justify that statement? You have to first solve the problem of induction -which is not something that can be tested. Why? Because it's the basis for saying why testability is a valid criterion for determining things in the outside world to begin with.
So how do you justify the testability criterion with empirical evidence alone?
Hameroff is so obviouslly a lunatic and attention seeker. Penrose i good physicist but this quantum mind theory is terrible mistake he did. And there is reason NOONE else supports this. Why do u think thats the case? Its really dumb idea obviously.
AGAIN, i repeat, illusion of self doesnt mean it does not exist....it just means it is not what it seems to be. Self is a mental process of electro-chemical activity, not some indivisible mumbo-jumbo. And unity of self is also illusion
Except that's not true. I know a lot of people in my physics dept. that buy into one kind of quantum mind theory or another -this includes some of my math and physics profs. And forms of panexperientialism or related ideas are quite popular in philosophy of mind. This is not fringe. I have friends -a post-doc who studies quantum gravity, as well as a math prof who buys it- for reasons you don't want to know.
Hahah Hameroff has no connection to science. He makes a fool out of himself awlays when he gives a lecture about his mumbo theory in front of group of scientists. Just check his lectures where people are asking questions at the end. Btw, if some people of yours also beleive in this theory that doesnt proove it. I said NOONE of the scientists does. Penrose is just one exception out of 10 000 of them. This should give u a good clue on how valuble this theory is
"they are finding several cases now with QM effects in the brain."
Stop making things up. They havent found anything that prooves QM consciousness.
"Only philosophy can say"
Ye right. Philosophy is used when people dont know what questions should they ask. Once they have proper questions than they use science and scientific method to get the answers. Philosophy can never get answers, it can only confuse things becouse it makes no testable predictions.
@janko1212 (1of3) "Stop making things up. They havent found anything that prooves QM consciousness."
Not directly, but we do with deductive reasoning, and we have found things with inductive reasoning in quantum biology that suggests it plays a much larger role than one might think. And what about Bierman's presponse and the Libet experiments? You can't get that kind of "effect before cause" behavior from a classical system.
You don't have any understanding of philosophy do you?
"proper questions than they use science and scientific method to get the answers."
No, because the scientific method is based on philosophy. Science isn't valid without philosophy.
"no testable"
Who said all answers are empirical? Testability is only a contingent criterion because philosophy said it was valid. There's no philosophic justification for having testability be epistemically primary.
Btw, im not confusing matter and mass. I gave u clear definition of matter becosue u said matter doesnt exist. Well we can test that and test show matter does exist. Protophenmenal states are not testable by scientific method so they can be regarded as useless concept with no real value what-so-ever. U can very well invent extra-super phenomenal states which are the basic blocks of protophenomenal states and say thats the real answer and they carry bits of consciousness hahaha
@janko1212 (1of2)I meant in an ontological manner. Obviously mass we can observe. What I was saying though, that there is no empirical observation we can make in principle to tell us what the nature of the "fundamental stuff" is. That's only for philosophy. If we change the fundamental stuff from matter to PP-states though we can solve the "hard problem", without contradicting any of the neuroscience that solves the "easy problem" though.
1)well u are wrong here.World of maths and physics is the world describing real world. Our perception of the world is just simulated reality in the brain. So by maths we can determine what is most fundamental stuff.String theory will proove it soon most likely. philosophy is completly useless for determining that. philosophy in this context is just a waste of time.
I agree, but only because I think all reality is mathematical/informational to begin with. Anything not defined informationally would necessarily be outside of it and not definable scientifically: watch?v=-ciWYGvpGII
"String theory will proove"
Actually Brian Greene agrees with my argument above. String theory also gives us the HP, which according to Lee Smolin demonstrates info monism.
"waste"
Then so is science as science is based on philosophy.
Neither is matter as defined as "stuff lacking phenomenal components." I don't mean matter as mass here. I'm saying we can't tell whether or not matter has a phenomenal element from experiment alone.
"useless"
For that matter anything other than subjective experience can be relegated to a "useless concept" though.
"carry bits of consciousness"
Not that I buy that, but in theory you could never tell about that either from experiment. Right?
"For that matter anything other than subjective experience can be relegated to a "useless concept" though."
This is not true either.Things can be tested objectively. Becouse if subjective experience is just a simulation of reality than its precisely this subjective experience that cannot be tested and cannot be used as proof for anything. Only objective things can be used as proof. And try to realize that there still exists observer independent world where u like it or not.
Not if the tests are part of a simulation you can't!
Not that I don't believe there isn't an objective reality -but made of PP-states, but I'm playing solipsist to prove my point that you don't know the nature of the "stuff" here. A shared simulation would produce the same test results. So is it matter or information? Empiricism can't tell.
You're making a big category error here confusing science and ontology. Both matter and experience can be transpersonal.
@janko1212 (3of3) "a mental process of electro-chemical activity,"
This is a scientific statement.
"not some indivisible mumbo-jumbo"
This is a philosophic statement.
"doesnt mean"
Firstly, you should really look into quantum biology they are finding several cases now with QM effects in the brain.
But let's suppose it is.Even if it's chemicals it doesn't answer the ontic nature of the "stuff" those chemicals are made of.Does matter have a protophenomenal element? Only philosophy can say.
@janko1212 (additional comment) To be precise theoretical physics is starting to get around to these issues of ontology that would be related to philosophy but only by changing it's assumptions about the world itself. Once you reduce the world to information (as much theoretical physics is doing now -see background independence) you are able to blur the line between science and philosophy so as to use science to answer other questions. (note how empirical and phenomenal info are still both info)
Matter is as anything that has mass and occupies volume. It is generated by higgs field. It can be verified experimentally so its not pointless concept like protophenomenal states. Claiming that "Protophenomenal states" exist and claiming that they generate consciosness is just rediculous.
Our brain is reality world generator. What we see is not illusion but it is very different presentation of outside world. We see it in colour while there are no colours outside for example
You're confusing the issue. Matter =/= mass. I'm discussing matter in regards to ontology.Having mass just means something has the observed property of interacting gravitationally.The content of empirical evidence can't answer questions of ontology.
"rediculous"
Less so then saying ontic matter with no phenomenal aspect as generates it.
"no colours outsid"
Right, but "red" is still an intrinsic platonic state in the mind -you can't reduce thought to non-thought.
so introspection doesnt proove anything since brain itself creates many illusions.
3) your belief in GOD is what deludes your common sense since you are not looking objectivly at things but looking at them in a way to justify your belief in god. And since this quantum mind theory can support your supernatural beliefs you think this is common sense.wave function collapse is just hypotesis. What i multiverse turns out to be true...is so called god than in multiverse or just in our universe :))
@janko1212 (1 of 4) "brain itself creates many illusions"
Yes, therefore science can't prove anything either since science is based on what we know, and knowledge is mental -which is an illusion. Do you understand how absurd this is?
3.) "supernatural beliefs"
Actually I'm not. Yes I did believe god exists before, but that had nothing to do with it here. I bought Orch-OR because it made sense philosophically when I was 15 -I didn't even know sane people believed in eliminativism before.
No it doesn't. Like I said, I bought Orch-OR when I was 15 for completely separate reasons, and my parents were unhappy I was trying to "explain the soul with QM." And it's the opposite of common sense to argue that one is a p-zombie.
"What i multiverse turns out to be true...is so called god than in multiverse or just in our universe"
Um, I said God is the wave-function of the universe = all possible states in superposition = multiverse.
@janko1212 (3 of 4) ...and I have to mention this again. "Matter" is just a pointless concept with no scientific base. Empirically verify for me matter.
Until you can, I will point out that neuroscience doesn't say one way or the other which is primary -it just gives correlates,
"brain is playing tricks"
If everything we see or think (even internally) is a trick or an illusion, then how can we trust our own thoughts on ANYTHING? Even science? Do you see how your position self-detonates?
No, no that's it's correlate. You can't seem to tell the difference. The subjective component of the experience of redness is not the same thing as it's objective component. And neuroscience is not qualified to tell the difference between a phenomenal state and it's correlate being separate and them being the same. You need philosophy of mind for that. Chalmers Hard Problem remember?
Wave function of universe collapsing is just a hypotesis of many-worlds theory. Cant see no "god" in there ;) But i can see why u are driven to mistical explanations rather than using common sense and scientific knowledge. Now it makes sense.
@janko1212 Where the god element comes in is not with many-worlds or collapse in itself but rather from the observation that the only way for the wave-function of the universe to collapse on a whole (since there is nothing outside to measure it) is through Orch-OR.
@janko1212 (cont.) Now as for "mystical reasons vs common sense" it's ironic you should say that because when I first ran into Penrose's ideas around 14 or so I liked them BECAUSE they made so much common sense. When I read the eliminativist responses I couldn't buy them precisely because their starting points made NO sense at all -namely that the "I" is an illusion qualia don't even exist etc. etc. To be honest I thought they were completely nuts. I was shocked to find so many people agreeing.
@janko1212 (cont -5) You seem to be saying that rational discussion here relies only on testability.But here's the thing.
1.)We CAN test whether or not consciousness, qualia, etc. exist. It's called introspection and if these are illusory then illusion IS them to them -meaning we can't be mistaken about them.
2.)How can the claim that empirical testability trumps a priori knowledge be epistemically justified?I'm not sure how we can continue if you don't know that a priori means a priori. A=A
@janko1212 Dude that's ridiculous, if you you say such a thing as "consciousness is an illusion" then how can you know if your conscious knowledge of brain chemistry isn't an illusion also?
"scientific knowledge"
If you say that consciousness is an illusion you may as well throw out all science to begin with, as science requires that there is an actual observer to gather observations.
What part of "the a priori is PRIOR to a posteriori" don't you understand? That's why it's called a PRIORi.
@janko1212 All neuroscience gives us is correlates between the mind and the brain.It doesn't and can't tell us if the brain is made of matter or protophenomenal "stuff" though. But if the latter is true then the mind is real and not an illusion.
We can deduce this a priori from metaphysics though: Existence can't precede essence (which is Platonic), since it wouldn't have an identity, and essence can't precede existence or it wouldn't exist. Thus existence = essence. therefore the "I" is real.
Stay out of philosophy or you wont be able to explain anything:) Unity of "I" and the "I" being separate from the body is an illusion fo the brain. Read my previous posts i already explained to Jonanan the cases in medicine which proove this fact.
@janko1212 (cont.) Well if you stay out of philosophy then you will have to stay out of science as well since science is based on philosophy. Thus if what you say is true then you can't explain anything with science either.
And that neuroscience only "proves" that if you interpret it as such. It's a much better argument for non-local holonomic brain activity as suggested by the physicist David Bohm.
@janko1212 What do you mean? If I stay out of philosophy I can never explain the subjective part of the mind/body problem. The cases in medicine only proves correlates that change or modify consciousness. They don't explain why.
Mind/body problem does not even exist. Mind is the product of the brain. And yes, to explain that and how does it arrise you have to resort to science and experiments, not some philosophical guessing theories. That leads nowhere.
@janko1212 Nope sorry, you can't explain something that is subjective and non-empirical with empirical observation. You'll never get anywhere bridging the objective/subjective explanatory gap like that.
Empirically show me the subjectiveness of my experiences.
U are right, its currently impossible to do that empirically but what u dont realize is the fact that philosophy can do even worse in explaining subjective experience. At least science provides some guide and leads into the right direction but philosophy cant do anything. It can just provide some concepts which have no way to be tested and verified.
@janko1212 Philosophy is all we have here though, that and how philosophy permits the topic to be integrated into science. We would have no knowledge of internal mental states were it not for the data that forms of the basis of philosophy of mind.
"It can just provide some concepts which have no way to be tested and verified. "
Here's your problem. You're trading the justification principle which is logically primary, for the verification principle which only applies to the empirical category.
@janko1212 "U know there is a reason why only a few lunatics among scientist support this theory."
Penrose, Eccles and Hameroff are all lunatics? Come on! What's lunacy is to deny that qualia or a self exist. I actually had to reread Dennett's Quining Qualia twice just to make sure I was reading what I thought I was. It's abject lunacy to say that there can be such a thing as an "introspective illusion."
And you still haven't explained the glaring self-contradictions of eliminativism.
...redness is qualia. And qualia is a process. So seeing red outisde or imagining red in dream comes from same process...a neural pattern in brain.
3) well we disagree here. Difference is that u have no proof at all to support your claims/model. Brain is real and made from matter while empirical protophenomenal states are not.
Cogito ergo sum results from illusion of indivisible ego. There is no central experiencer.
@janko1212 "..redness is qualia. And qualia is a process."
How do you know? If it has to do with neuroscience I will point out that we haven't established which is primary the material brain or the phenomenal states we observe. To demonstrate my point prove to me that we are not currently in a brain in a vat scenario and that our neurology is not vastly different and not a pattern or process at all but rather an intrinsic state in that out of the vat world.
1) First of all "brain in a vat" is just an useless philosophical concept. Brain need stimulus to function and it gets it from its body and 5 senses. So there u go. We cannot be brains in a vat. So the brain does exist, so do you and so does qualia.
2)Protophenomenal states are also useless philosophical concept, only made up to explain "cosmic consciousness", "god" , "we are all connected" and those funny things, becouse there is no proof of those states.
@janko1212 (part 4) "it gets it from its body and 5 senses."
No, that's an assumption that the 5 senses come from a material body. Why? We only think that because we think we have a material not a PP body. You're jumping too conclusions too quickly.
"only made up to explain"
No, they're not. One of the first proponents -Bertrand Russell was an atheist. "god"
Oh man you're not going to like to hear that the wave-fcn of the universe is self-collapsing or Zizzi' "Big Wow" then I take it! lol
I watched the video about quantum eraser. It doesnt proove anything, it just says matter at atomic scale is very different which is true offcourse but claiming that little atoms or packets of energy contain little bits of consciousness is just ridiculous.
3) Having no central experiencer doesnt self-contradict, all u have to do is get over the illusion of indivisible ego. Experience itself being an experiencer is compatible.
Did you see the "it from bit" part at the end? QIT entails that it's not matter but information. And if you put 2 and 2 together from that other video where they found qubits in microtubules it leads to the conclusion of that info being PP-states.
"contain little bits of consciousness"
But that's not the claim. PP-states are not mind.
"Experience itself being an experiencer"
It skews intuitons sure but that's STILL panexperientialism..
Its irrelevant if they found out qbits at some microscale, consciousness happens on macroscale and it is byproduct of brain cells. Well, if u say that brain does not exist, matter is no real, and that our a priori knowledge is primary than there is not much we can talk further about this as u than resort to mistical world of "unexplainable" "untestable" "unbelievable" hypotesis.
That's just an assertion. Just because it happens all over the brain does not mean it is macroscopic. This is based on emergentism and that's also just an assertion. There's no scientific basis for emergentism.
And no it's not "mystical" -that would be faith based- my epistemology rationalist here -namely that a priori truths and logic come first. Insisting that something that necessarily is non empirical (the mind) be tested is positivst -also not rational.
@janko1212 (cont.) I just realized this.You claimed my rationalist view was mystical. But I noticed you have an a priori untestable element in your view.
The idea that matter is nothing more than qualia or the PP-states connected to qualia is completely untestable, and unexplainable.Also if you realize that separating matter from qualia would imply dualism it's also unbelievable.
Youre making a category error by putting the M/B problem only in science. It's not all empirical by definition.
1)Consciousness only happes on macro scale. It has been prooven that when distant reagions of brain bind together with 40 Hertz oscilations than we can be conciuous. During sleep consciousness only happens locally so we are not aware of anything. Tested and prooved.
2)U know introspection cannot be accounted as a test. U need to learn scientific method and why subjective experience doesnt count. Mentally ill person can say he saw a pig flying...but u would not believe it??
@janko1212 1.) That just proves non-local correlations arranged by the 40 Hz signal. Non-locality across macroscopic spaces does not prove the system is itself macroscopic however. That's just an assumption. It's been known for some time (Bohm etc.) that holonomic brain activity occurs. That's not a problem.
2.) Yes it can, because all empirical evidence is known introspectively. You need to learn some philosophy.
1) Wrong.There is NOT non-locality in quantum sense. Neurons are connected via other neurons and we are talking about classical connection so when only local regions are involved we are not conscious, but if global regions of brain are binded than we are conscious. You cannot disprove this by quantum non-locality phenomenon which in this case hasnt been observed and has nothing to do with it on macroscale.
2)Wrong again. Scientific method is verfied by measurment aparatus.
This presumes it's macroscale again. It makes some sense that a signal would be there -that's how they entangle spin states in the first place.
"classical connection"
If the classical signal causes quantum entanglement how can you tell? And how can you explain the results of hemispherectomies?
2.) You still don't get it do you? We have to read the measurement apparatus with our eyes -ie perceive qualia. No empirical observation is independent of qualia.
1)noone is talking about entaglement. Brain processes are binded by 40 Hertz oscilations!! And btw, quantum entaglement looses coherence for anything larger than a molecule.
2)I get your point but thats no argument. U dont understand difference beetwen subjective qualia and objective observer independent world. Even if we are the ones who read the measurment aparatus, each person is different and we have to have an observer independet way to describe reality.
And measurment aparatus are objective. They talk in langueage of maths, not feelings of qualia. So that can be said to be objective and testable. Protophenomenal states on the other hand cannot be verified objectivly and besides they are just made up philosophical concept meant to support this quantum theory. U know there is a reason why only a few lunatics among scientist support this theory. In every large group of people u can always find few lunatics. Thats statistics
But objective what? Objective matter or objective PP-states that are causally connected to qualia? I'm not saying it's not objective, I'm just saying it doesn't not have a phenomenally related element either. You seem to be stuck between objective and subjective as though the only two choices are materialism and mentalism.
"Protophenomenal states"
Actually they can be. I'm verifying them right now. What CAN'T be empirically verified is matter.
@janko1212 "Cogito ergo sum results from illusion of indivisible ego. There is no central experiencer. "
Well then there's no knowledge of an experience either!;)Hence you're epistemology can't get off the ground and you can't justify whether or not scientific knowledge is actually knowledge by solving the problem of induction. (showing we're not brains in vats) Since this includes neuroscience this means you can't prove the brain is real either -as well the idea that brain patterns are qualia.
@janko1212 3) "u have no proof at all to support your claims"
On the contrary. I can't empirically verify the existence of matter hence you're model doesn't seem to have any more evidence than you say mine does.
"Brain is real and made from matter...empirical protophenomenal states are not."
You have no proof at all to support this claim. And as for empirical protophenomenal states I am empirically verifying the existence of several right now -the back screen as "blueness" on it.
@janko1212 (cont.) "Difference is that u have no proof at all to support your claims/model."
Actually that's not entirely true either. Not only can't I empirically verify matter, because I can't see it -only phenomenal sensations. I CAN empirically verify that there is no "stuff" behind our observations with quantum eraser experiments: watch?v=dEaecUuEqfc
Therefore there is no matter. (especially after 53 min -ignore dorky title)
BTW this is all proven in a theorem by Seth Lloyd.
@janko1212 (cont.) "Cogito ergo sum results from illusion of indivisible ego. There is no central experiencer."
My point is that when you say this your entire epistemology self-destructs. No non-illusory knower equates to no non-illusory knowledge. Thus you can't prove that the statement you just made is knowledge either instead of just something illusory that you only think you know.
Im surprised you dont defend Solipsism. Also useless concept which is the philosophical idea that only one's own mind is sure to exist. U see the problem with this? there is no proof for such extraordinary claim and same goes for ur concept. If you want to explain consciusness u must learn about neurology and biology....not physics and philosophy. That gets u nowhere...only in mistic world of quantum mind:)
@janko1212 No I don't, but I do defend a sort of "methodological solipsism" as that is how knowledge is obtained.
"U see the problem with this? there is no proof for such extraordinary claim and same goes for ur concept."
That's fine because I'm not claiming solipsism. Just that our a priori knowledge is primary and therefore that our a posteriori knowledge comes from and is justified by that. If you throw off a priori knowledge a posteriori knowledge isn't justified as true knowledge.
@janko1212 "must learn about neurology and biology....not physics and philosophy."
What kind of philosophy of mind rejects philosophy? Philosophers of mind would throw that out in a heartbeat. Neuroscience doesn't say anything about the mind itself -just correlates to consciousness.
Where you are going wrong is in putting science ahead of philosophy, and that is a huge no-no. When you do that you are automatically wrong. Because you need the latter to justify the former in the first place.
It is an illusion of itself - an illusion of unity and coherence. The first thing we know is mostly unconscious knowledge, the protofeeling of owning a body, feeling the presence of the world. Matter would exist even if we werent here to observe it so matter is primary. Most of what brain does is unconscious so we only need consciousness for better coordination. And one of those tricks that brain plays on us is this illusion of self. It is an transparent illusion so thats why many cannot see it
@janko1212 So the first thing we know according to you is the feeling of a body but who's the "knower"?
"matter is primary"
See perhaps I am colored by my background with physics,but it is my contention that matter does not exist at all but is rather itself a construct of information -which physics such as QIT and the holographic principle supports.This ties nicely in with philosophy with Whitehead's concept of "moments of experience" being primary.Thus phenomenality is primary not matter.
U first have to get rid of intuitive thinking that there is a knower.That leads into infinite regress fallacy.Consciousness is counterintuative-just like QM. There is no knower. All there is, is a collection of neurons which can be organized in patterns to grant survival. Most are unconscious, however those groups of neurons who can META-represent the low level representations of visual and auditory and tactice sensations can be said to be conscious.
2) Matter being primary or little loops of strings, which are packets of energy being primary does not make much difference. It has no relevance to consciousness. Holographic principle talks about information storage limit not about "information that conveys experience" :)) You are confusing mayor things bro. Just becouse quantum mechanich is spooky and counterintuative and same can be said for consciousness that does NOT mean they have anything in common. It wrong reasoning
@janko1212 No, that's not what I'm referring to. I'm referring to the philosophic shift spurred on by holography and quantum information theory which is telling us that all of the physical categories -energy included are themselves reduced to quantum information -which is more "thought-like" than "matter-like."
"information that conveys""
Well read Smolin's book Three Roads to Quantum Gravity. He's very specific about the world being more like a computer than something with actual "things."
Concluding that quantum information is more "thought-like" is funny. There is no proof or logical conclusion leading to this. Universe is made of energy, positive energy (matter) and negative energy (gravity) in balance, so saying that there is some universal flow of though flowing around is just religios nonsense. Speaking about free will i already mentioned Libet experiment which have been done in many other labs leading to same results.
I know and I'm not saying that. I'm saying that some of the specific qualities of QM are the same as some of the specific qualities of consciousness. Consciousness has free-will and can understand Godel statements. This means it has something that is not entirely deterministic.
Thus if we are to reduce it to something physical then we must reduce it to something that has an indeterministic element. And QM is all we have that fits that description.
Also to proove there is no free will you just have to look at people with Tourette syndrome and related tic disorders make involuntary movements and utterances, called tics, despite the fact that they would prefer not to do so when it is socially inappropriate. Or In alien hand syndrome, the afflicted individual's limb will produce meaningful behaviours without the intention of the subject. The affected limb effectively demonstrates 'a will of its own.'
@janko1212 Well no that's not a disproof of free-will that's a break down of free-will. With alien-hand syndrome as creepy as this might sound it is possible that there is another "person" "broken off" somewhere in the person's head that is doing those things of his/its own free-will.
We should really take this back to epistemology and first ask how we know things to begin with. Because you're placing the a posteriori ahead of the a priori, and that contradicts the definitions of those terms.
Its not another person but another part of the brain doing the control. Just that part is not conscious and does not have an illusion of self/agent added to the process.
"how we know things to begin with"
We know things by mentaly representing them in the brain. They are represented as patterns of firing neuronal acitvity. And there is no "experiencer"...the activity itself is the experience. For better control and managment brain than invented this illusion of self / agent
"Just that part is not conscious and does not have an illusion of self"
But how do you know? I mean this is one of the unsolved problems of philosophy -how to determine what is and is not conscious beyond yourself. We simply may never know here, excepting that it seems to pass a rudimentary Turing test.
Refering to your second question...We must take for granted that there are other minds beside ours. Solipsism is a conceps that says only our mind is what exist but we must abondon that idea as its it absurd and it would halt any progree. Most of the brain is unconscious so the alien hand is controled by unconscious part so therefore there is no free will. Its a random process. Just like our conscious part so the free will is complete illusion.
@janko1212 Yes we take it foregranted but that's not the point. How do we know? Until we know how we know we have no epistemic justification to say what is and is not conscious in the brain.
"Most of the brain is unconscious"
How do you know? Not that I don't disagree -I think only certain parts of the neurons are aware, but these are spread throughout the brain in all the neurons.
Yes those neurons that can metarepresent the low level representations can become conscious by 40 Hertz synchronization. Thats the whole magic. I can say that i know this becouse i trust what scientific experiments show and proove. Today we have fMRI, MEG scan, EEG scan, PET scan and many other techniques/tools to proove. Why would we relay on intuition if its false.I prefer to know the truth than to keep beleiving in a lie. Whats the point of laying to ourself just to confort us
Ok, you've got a correlate -assuming the patient relays his subjective sensation of consciousness and affirms that it does correlate.Fair enough.
Now as to the exact mechanism. (to make sure you're really sure of your methodology) You said before that the subjective aspects of consciousness are illusory -this would include qualia. So how do we read these scans? With visual qualia right? But qualia are illusory so how do you know?
1)I didnt say qualia doesnt exist. I just said its not what it seems to be. Meaning qualia is just a process, a pattern of neural activity, for example...experience of pain is a process which releases certain chemicals and generates apropriate action taken by the brain. Pleasure on the other hand releases serotonin and other "happy" chemicals ...but again its just a process of neural activity.
2) I assume u are dualist and thats not a priori knowlegde....thats pure intuition.
@janko1212 1.) Ok, so qualia reduce to certain patterns in the brain. But the problem is is that when I look at a brain I see that that brain and the neurons re already defined in terms of qualia -grayness, wetness etc. So isn't what you're doing circular?
2.) No, I'm not a dualist. I'm a panexperientialist/neutral monist/informationalist. I think the world is made of protophenomenal "platonic stuff" and that empirical and phenomenal are two ways this same protophenomenal stuff is perceived.
1) what is circular about it? Only thing important here is to comprehend that there is no experiencer seperate from the experience and consciousness is not a thing...its a process.
2) Superficially, panpsychism seems to be a form of property dualism, since it regards everything as having both mental and physical properties. I respect your point of view but since there is no empirical evidence for this i dont see a point in supporting this view of consciusness.
1.) Well because we empirically observe that matter is made out of qualia and/or other causally connected protophenomenal states we don't observe. So if the matter of the brain is made out of qualia,(grayness, wetness, spatial extension) and we explain qualia with the brain, then we are explaining qualia with itself.
2.) But there's no empirical evidence of matter. All we ever observe empirical is experience, which is completely consistent with panexperientialism.
1) U are confusing things again. Matter does exist even if we dont. Matter is made out of matter. But our subjective experience of matter is qualia.
2) Matter does exist.There still exists observer independent world. The fact that we are conscious of world around us just means we additionally represent the world in our brain. Remember, there are no colours outside..so our brain is a reality generator.
1.) I should have said protophenomenal (PP) states then (those are mind-independent -also "Redness" &the natural numbers existed before there were people to think them). They are made of PP states. We know this because they are causally connected to the phenomenal states we subjectively sense. Hence they can't be different in kind, because of interactionism.
2.) If your brain tricks you when seeing the outside, then how do you know your brain scan readings are correct?
1) Hehe,only problem is that there are no protophenomenal states. Redness didnt exist. There is no colour out there...only EM radition. Our brain percieve certain EM waves as certain colour as that was addaptive in evolution. Thats all. Same goes for other qualia. Its all construct of the brain. So brain is our reality world generator.
2)Brain scans are correct as they are interpreted in language of mathematics. So they are objective, thats quite unlike our subjective qualia.
@janko1212 1.) Sure they do. Concepts have an intrinsic Platonic existence just like math -which you said is objective.
2.) "There is no colour out there...only EM radition."
So what is redness made of when we observe it in a dream? Let's suppose we do neuroscience in this dream and discover a completely different brain physiology. If this is a lucid dream how do we distinguish the real world from the dream world -with their respective brain physiologies?
1) Platonic realism exist only in philosophy. Not in real world governed by math. Remember math is just a tool to describe the world...it does not represent matter.
2)Redness of red is qualia of red. Already mentioned before thats just neural pattern of electric activity. The reason why we percieve it as red is becouse our brain found that to be addaptive during evolution. Cats and dogs dont percieve red colour but they see other colours..so they had different addaptive values
@janko1212 "Platonic realism exist only in philosophy. Not in real world governed by math"
But philosophy proves math is Platonic.Therefore philosophy proves that the real physical world is based on a real Platonic world.Actually (and I've seen Brian Greene make this exact same argument in defense of Tegmark's Modal Realism) if physical reality ever differs from mathematical reality it can no longer be defined scientifically.Hence the world is no more than Platonic stuff: watch?v=-ciWYGvpGII
@janko1212 (cont.) 3.) "Hehe,only problem is that there are no protophenomenal states." "Its all construct of the brain."
Only problem is that there is no physical brain. It's all a construct of empirical protophenomenal states. ;-)
So we have an impasse. Is the brain an illusion of P(&PP) states or are P states an illusion of the brain? Both models axe off the foundation of the other and both are consistent with the correlates found by neuroscience. We have to resolve this epistemically.
@janko1212 (#3 cont.) Since we can't tell which is primary and which is secondary (both models refer to the explanans of the other as the illusion and disagree as to what needs the explaining) from neuroscience alone we need to dive into epistemology.
At the onset, let me point out that mine is more parsimonious, I just need qualia. You need our experience of qualia, matter, and the idea that 1 is an illusion of 2.
But beyond that you're placing the a posteriori ahead of the a priori.
@janko1212 (#3 cont) The problem is that you don't start with what you know a priori and build from that. Before external experience all we know is we exist(Cogito ergo sum) as to doubt that would imply a doubter -hence an I. After we've established an I nothing we deduce afterwards can contradict our foundation.
Since the problem of induction (establishing how external knowledge can be had and the brain in a vat problem surmounted) is based on this empirical knowledge can never contradict it.
Sometimes it is.But that's still not substance dualism.In any case though we needn't have that.Remember qualia are all we ever empirically observe,(the greeness of the electronic readout of the brain scan,the grayness of the brain etc.).As a result the illusion of matter is simply generated by phenomenal qualia states-hence no dualism.
"intuition"
Oh no, I was referring to the a priori knowledge of the "I" and how doubting it leads to self-contradiction.
@janko1212 "We know things by mentaly representing them in the brain."
Right, and representing them to whom?
"And there is no "experiencer"...the activity itself is the experience."
To have an experience you must have an experiencer.
"brain than invented this illusion of self / agent"
As a rhetorical question how do you know? If you don't know if you really exist as an experiencer how do you know your experiences are valid either? Might you're knowledge of your brain be an illusion also?
No you dont need an experiencer. I know that this is how it seems but that leads to INFINITE regress. Its a logical fallacy. Activity itself is the exprience. Once you comprehend this than there is no mistery. Again i repeat...self as illusion doesnt mean self doesnt exist..it means self is different from what it seems to be. Its a collection of memories, feeling, toughts which are currently present. Its not a united entity in form of soul ect...thats the illusion of brain.
@janko1212 (part 1)"learn about neurology and biology....not physics and philosophy"
What kind of philosophy of mind rejects philosophy? Philosophers of mind would throw that out in a heartbeat. Neuroscience doesn't say anything about the mind itself -just correlates to consciousness.
Where you are going wrong is in putting science ahead of philosophy, and that is a HUGE no-no. When you do that you are automatically wrong. Because you need the latter to justify the former in the first place.
Qualia on the other hand does exist but only in a form of neural maps in the brain. Its a pattenr or a process if you would like to call it...its not something physical other than electrical activity in brain. Now i dont expect you to agree with me but what i dont understand is why you and others who blindly follow quantum mind theory do so if all experimental evidence gathered by fMRI, PET scan, EEG ect+ brain experiments....show that there are other theories which explain this much better
@janko1212 (1of3)Well that's the correlate. You are forgetting to distinguish between the empirical correlate and the phenomenal sensation.
"which explain this much better"
Well the issue is primarily Chalmers "hard problem." If we keep matter qua matter we will never solve it. Sure they explain correlates, but correlates =/= qualia. To resolve the mind/body problem we need to reexamine what fundamental substance at the fundamental level of nature. And the fundamental level is QM.
I think that your reasoning here is not correct and that qualia does = neural correlates. So that also solves your hypotetical scenario. If both are the same than they came at same time and there is no problem. Speaking about hard problem, i think best answer comes from Damasio where he argues that qualia evolved from simple organism in order to regulate homeostasis of the organism and as such not only it should feel like something but it actually must feel like something.
@janko1212 (2of3) Now this is a strange and rather tangential hypothetical but what do you make of the following scenario:
We take a brain scan of the occipital lobe while the patient is watching the same brain scan of the occipital lobe activity of him watching his occipital lobe activity of him watching... In this scenario would the qualia and its correlate be the same?
Notice here that the correlate itself is defined via empirical qualia. So what come first the correlate or the qualia?
@janko1212 (3of3) BTW on a different note if you want to see it via PM I have very strong evidence of quantum superposition being connected to phenomenal sensations. My brother actually collected screenshots of the "results" of this experiment. (It's a little crazy but it quite definitely works repeatedly -as we can both attest to.) One experiment broke odds of 57 orders of magnitude. Unfortunately we aren't the first though, I found similar experiments on Hameroff's website.
1) speaking about illusion...the unity of self is the illusion and the irreducible subjectivity is illusion. Becouse the moment we try to define the self it becomes vague and not so clear any more.
2)i suggest watching this videos for more info, they explain quite well much about consciousness
@janko1212 I've seen arguments like this before. The first was Dennett's "Quining Qualia" paper in philosophy of mind. The problem with all these arguments is that they end up being self-refuting. For example if the self is an illusion then what SELF is the self an illusion to? See the problem?
Now yes some of these things such as the self&qualia become vague, but that may actually prove my point -that they can only be explained by themselves or are "intrinsic" -recall Penrose's Godel argument.
I dont see any problem with self being an illusion. This doesnt mean that self doesn exist...it just means that its not irreducible becouse all it is composed of many many neurons which are interconnected in different networks. Thats all. Human brain is evolved enough to have given this process an agency/ a protagonator in the brain but Libet experiments confirm that this is not necessary for survival. Many animals can live without this illusion of self just fine
@janko1212 So it's an illusion of itself or an illusion to itself?Perhaps I should "dial back" a bit and ask a more basic question.Epistemically, what is the first thing we know? Like before we know anything else in the world? I feel we've begun to take matter as primary while forgetting that we only know of matter because of experience.
BTW Hameroff has an interesting take on the Libet experiments, which ties into what I was showing you in the PM. You check it out "Bierman's presponse."
Dude get urself educated a bit on consciousness. It isnt that hard and definitelly not misterious so to be explained by quantum mechanics. Ur other videos about Holographic principle are ok but u are waaaaaay of with this microtubule bullshit becouse this has nothing to do with consciousness per se.
@janko1212 Well it's not that it's mysterious perse. I mean once you get used to QM it becomes pretty mundane, it's just that there are several aspects of consciousness that we can only explain with QM. If you combine the Free Will theorem with Lucas's Godel based theorem you kind of have to accept the mind has some QM properties.
Now as for microtubules I can see why this could be problematic with warm brains and all, though they have recently found qubits in microtubules last October.
Well if u look down at the micro level than everything is governed by quantum mechanics however thats irrelevant on large scales. Using QM to explain consciousness is like trying to measure Earths orbit around the Sun using quantum mechanics. Also quantum entaglement which is used as proof in microtubules is absurd becouse of quantum coherence which breaks down in much less than a microsecond.
Consciousness consis of neural maps in the brain and is nothing else but bunch of correlated electrical impulses. Experiments reveal that brain creates consciousness by 40 Hertz waves so that binding is achieved.
@janko1212 Maybe entanglement happens at 40 Hz. I guess what I'm wondering is how one explains consciousness with classical EM alone. There are some features of the mind that only seem to be explicable with QM. The binding problem, holonomic brain activity, "impenetrability," and then free will. With the last if you combine Lucas's Godel based proof, with the Conway-Kochen theorem it's hard to see how QM isn't involved.
And then there are topological qubits found last year: watch?v=VQngptkPYE8
@janko1212 (continued) There is another personal reason I suspect the mind is related to the collapse process and therefore quantum in nature based on some experiments my brother and I were doing. It's very convincing* but it's something I would prefer to discuss it in private. It's based on the Elitzur-Vaidman bomb-testing thought experiment. PM me if you're curious.
1) Entaglement doesnt happen at 40 Hertz. What does happen is Gamma wave oscilations which bind different regiaons of brain. This solves binding problem nicely
2) Free will does not exist. Libet experiments confirm that.
3) holonomic brain activity is only a myth so far not supported with ANY evidence like all other aspect of quantum mind theory. The idea itself of consciousness existing outside a body is absurd and doesnt make sense.
4) i dont know what you meant by "impenetrability tho?
Sure the QM plays a role on a microscale but on microscale there is not consciousness. It only emerges on MACROscale as coherent activity of many neurons. And QM plays no role on macrosale as its effects can be neglected.
@janko1212 Well remember QM also operates on the meso-scale and the neurons are meso-scale. They've been finding a lot of various quantum processes in meso-scale biological systems as of late not all of them in brains but they are there. Photosynthesis is apparently added via the "quantum walk algorithm." As for microtubules, they've found topological qubits in them as of last October: watch?v=VQngptkPYE8
"Impenetrability" means you can't break the phenomenal "I" into anything more fundamental.
Photosynthesis QM happens on micro scale of molecules. I heard about that and also QM playing some role in our sense of smell however thats also on micro level of molecules. Consciousness happens on macro level when different region of whole brain are binded together to form a meta-representation of low level representations. When we sleep for example there is no binding on global scale but only locally. And we are not conscious during sleep.
5) Speaking about irreducible phenomenom "I"....well, the unity of "I" is another illusion created by the brain. To see that this is true and that "i" is composed of many different parts u have to look at different cases in medicine where certain parts of brains have been damaged. Split brain patients, phantom limb patients, unilateral hemi-neglect(where patients deny left part of their world) ....different agnosias and so on...
@janko1212 Right, but those are only reduced to other "I"'s though. This is likely because "I" is based on entanglement, and you can split the system up and each new system will look the same -in regards to having an "I."
The point with "impenetrability" though is that we know from a priori from self-awareness that the phenomenal can't be reduced to anything not phenomenal. Maybe you can cut the "I" up but only into other "I"s.
I disagree that other "I" are just the same as the original "I". You have for example patients with multiple personality disorder who have many "I"...or people with Cotard syndrome who dont posses "I" but yet are conscious. Or some cases of autism where no "self" is present. So that shows that the self is an illusion created by the brain whose function is to provide the unity and better managment of functions. So the "I" is composed of many different parts to produce self.
@janko1212 Well yes, but what I'm getting at is that those separate "I"'s all started out as the same I. They are separate now, and the bigger "I" "broke down" but it broke down into other "I"'s.
"Or some cases of autism where no "self" is present."
Well they may not be explicitly thinking about it but I have heard autistic kids refer to "I."
I mean I get that we have these corpus callosum experiments where you can make two separate I's from one I but the I doesn't reduce to non-I.
Well see now that part I will have to disagree. I think the eliminativists are kind of silly when they try to argue for this. I mean I personally can refute it directly. I know that it irrefutably exists since it's existence is intrinsic knowledge. You know; "I think therefore I am."
But now if we take this to it's logical conclusion at face value then whom is it an illusion to? If consciousness is an illusion then consciousness IS the illusion.
@janko1212 (cont.) So first we have the self as an illusion but the very idea that the self is an illusion entails that it is an illusion to the self, which therefore presupposes the self by denying it. Hence self-contradiction.
But now let's suppose we took this further.
Dennett&company often argue that qualia don't exist either. But now science is done via the gathering of empirical sensation -which is qualia. So if you take eliminative materialism to it's conclusion it eliminates itself.
After all that rambling I just want to reiterate that I completely agree that the human mind is quantum mechanical. I just don't see where / why / how this "free will" thingy comes in. I don't perceive a contradiction between being able to act according to my decisions and my decisions being determined by past (or to some extent even future if QM allows that) mental states and external input. And I don't see why how it would be better if there was.
@LaserBlowFish Well the general thing that enables it is HUP, but as for the exact mechanism that is combo of Orch-OR and the Zeno effect. In the Zeno effect one can alter the behavior of a wave-function by observing it -thus manipulating the probable outcomes to some extent. However in Orch-OR we have a special kind of collapse -the wave-fcn is doing it to itself, and so a wave-function that collapses via Orch-OR would be able to circularly manipulate its own probabilities with the Zeno effect.
"enables it" .. please define "it" because under any of my definition(s) "it" doesn't need anything to enable it, there's no problem to solve.
"circularly manipulate".. by that do you mean a recursive relation between the current wave function and the next .. under some definition of current / next ?
And since we also know that we are able to make decision based on external input, that next wave function will also depend on those ?
@JohananRaatz I might be wrong but since I agree with Einstein and Penrose that God does not play dice with the universe then HUP does not imply free will i.e quantum mechanics is still deterministic just not in the temporal sense maybe. That it manipulates itself circularly sounds to me like you are just explaining the evolution of the wave function with respect to previous states and external input, no free will there.
So how are you self aware of your free will ? How do you test it ?
@LaserBlowFish Ok perhaps I should redefine this circularity as an isomorphic relationship. The way in which the wave-function affects itself is tautologous, just that within the wave-function it's complex yet self-defining -and so can define itself in any possible way.
/watch?v=sygiQmcbFwQ&feature=related or maybe that's what you mean to be free will ? So if I do the experiment one way and I get a result and then I do it another way and get a different one but I can't prove that there's any "force" that comes into play then it can only be my choice ? To me that only proves that my choices have an effect on my surroundings, not that my choices are somehow "free".
I've no reason to doubt your conclusion but the free will argument at least seems to fail. You said that "we know we have free will because we are self aware of our free will" but it seems to me the state of being having free will and not having it are indistinguishable. Maybe you use a different definition but if it's just that I have the ability to decide to do something then that just raises the problem that decision is causal so you can trace back all decisions as a result of all input.
@LaserBlowFish Also, do you think causality and randomness are a dichotomy ? Or does Godel's theorem predict a third alternative somehow, something that "transcends" causality/deductive reasoning and yet still falls in line with what you can call "free" in free will ?
@LaserBlowFish Maybe causality is not the right word so if you define free will as the opposite of determinisim then the problem is I can't really give any definite examples of decisions which aren't determined somehow. And determinism is consistent with QM as well afaik. Just because we can't predict it given all information starting from the beginning of the universe doesn't mean it's not predetermined.
@LaserBlowFish You're not up on your quantum. Before a wave-function is collapsed the particle has no definite state and exists in a whole bunch of different states in superposition simultaneously.
@JohananRaatz I know that .. but how do you explain which state gets chosen. Why is it more "free" if that particular state gets chosen over another ?
@LaserBlowFish Ok maybe "how is that determined" is a stupid question but what makes it "free" is not, I maintain. Same goes for my other questions which are not necessarily QM in nature. Also don't worry about any moral consequences of saying there's no free will. If you just say moral accountability is consequentialism then you can still say retributivism is the "right" answer in particular cases. You can create a morality that matches our own yet applies just as well to robots.
@LaserBlowFish So if for example you define free will as the collapse of the wave function then you are just raising another question. How exacly does the collapse of the wave function make us responsible for our actions ? Or better, why is the collapse of the wave function _necessary_ for us to be responsible for our actions ? I think the answer is that it's not and I haven't heard any refutation of that which doesn't use circular logic like "we have free will because we just have it".
@LaserBlowFish Alternatively you might define free will as the equivalent of moral accountability. That's fine but then it doesn't actually explain anything about it.
By the way, sorry if I'm taking up too much space on your comment section. Feel free to PM me if you would like to continue this conversation through PMs.
@JohananRaatz Yeah, especially interesting conversations @_@. Maybe we'll have to continue the conversations later since it's getting late. Nice talking to you!
I just am not understanding why you are trying to paint a picture that the brain is unique. All evidence suggests that the brain follows the exact same universal laws as everything else.
@Aleprechaunist1987 I'm not saying it's not. It does follow the exact same universal laws. It's just that it likely exploits quantum mechanical aspects of those laws based on what we know about the mind. None of the classical approaches to the problem have gotten anywhere.
@JohananRaatz Exploits through holonomic brains and tunneling? I would like to see the papers containing the evidence.
Exploits through established biochemical (and thus quantum mechanical) mechanisms? Yes, there are years of research that has painted the modern understanding of the brain supported by a large amount of evidence.
Classical approaches haven't gotten us anywhere? On the contrary, hearing aides that replace the cochlea, neurological implants, neurological medicines, etc.
@Aleprechaunist1987 "On the contrary, hearing aides that replace the cochlea, neurological implants, neurological medicines, etc."
I meant in regards to explaining consciousness. Obviously we can explain the mechanics of the chemical correlates, but how do these chemicals give rise to such things as a Cartesian ego, free will, phenomenality etc.? Classical physics hasn't given us much in that regard. Remember chemicals are small enough for QM behavior.
@JohananRaatz Well, I think that's a much deeper physics question that isn't specific only to the brain. Does the universe follow cause and effect or is it randomly changing? Is reality instantaneous or continuous? Etc.
If we know the universal laws, then it would be reasonable to assume that the brain falls within that domain.
The same forces that destined the minerals inside your computer to end up on your desk in the form that it is in would be the same forces that shape brains.
@JohananRaatz We have made progress in understanding self. For example, we understand the mechanisms that lead a person to not be able to recognize their own hand. We have also made alot of progress determining the initial pathways of the senses. Etc. The problem isn't that neurology is hitting a dead end. The problem is that there is just ALOT to take in.
You might be interested in a TED talk by Professor Henry Markram or Sebastian Seung.
@Aleprechaunist1987 Unfortunately I can't post links on YT comments but Eccles paper is "Quantum aspects of brain activity and the role of consciousness."
I also have a video on Eccles paper with the link in the sidebar: watch?v=4CtaxhlqM4M
And then just wiki "holonomic brain"
None of this contradicts known brain science I might point out -it's merely additional to it.
@SpamuelNeedbeef I already HAVE a university degree in physics. Besides, aside from the math which can get yucky looking, and the counterintuitiveness of the subject matter it's really not that difficult to grasp at a conceptual level.
"Take this up"
I have, two of my profs (one a quantum physicist the other a mathematician) actually agreed with me for the same reasons. In fact the physics prof wrote a paper way back arguing the same thing for the same reasons.
JohananRaatz 1 month ago
Dude, you are making big mistake by putting philosophy on equal level with science. 2000 years ago people used philosophy but they saw progress is impossible so they had to invent science. Now we finally have progress. Look at last 500 years. Philosophy is just useless nowdays and really cannot explain anything. It can just make bald assumptions which can never be prooven. One of those silly assumptions is this protophenomenal thing. I saw ur video about information, complety wrong reasoning
janko1212 7 months ago
@janko1212 (3of3) "big mistake"
Well it's not just equal to it, it's above it. That's because the scientific method is based on philosophy.
"Philosophy is just useless nowdays"
You haven't studied any of it have you? It explains things science can't explain due to it being outside of the domain of science.
"silly assumptions"
Well you haven't proven your philosophic assumption -matter exists.
And my argument in the vid was similar to Greene's for the same conclusion.
JohananRaatz 7 months ago
@janko1212 (additional comment "4of3") Ok, here's my big issue, you argue that testability is the ONLY criterion for figuring things out. But how do you philosophically justify that statement? You have to first solve the problem of induction -which is not something that can be tested. Why? Because it's the basis for saying why testability is a valid criterion for determining things in the outside world to begin with.
So how do you justify the testability criterion with empirical evidence alone?
JohananRaatz 7 months ago
Hameroff is so obviouslly a lunatic and attention seeker. Penrose i good physicist but this quantum mind theory is terrible mistake he did. And there is reason NOONE else supports this. Why do u think thats the case? Its really dumb idea obviously.
AGAIN, i repeat, illusion of self doesnt mean it does not exist....it just means it is not what it seems to be. Self is a mental process of electro-chemical activity, not some indivisible mumbo-jumbo. And unity of self is also illusion
janko1212 7 months ago
@janko1212 (2of3) "a lunatic"
How so? He backs it all up with science.
"NOONE else"
Except that's not true. I know a lot of people in my physics dept. that buy into one kind of quantum mind theory or another -this includes some of my math and physics profs. And forms of panexperientialism or related ideas are quite popular in philosophy of mind. This is not fringe. I have friends -a post-doc who studies quantum gravity, as well as a math prof who buys it- for reasons you don't want to know.
JohananRaatz 7 months ago
@JohananRaatz
Hahah Hameroff has no connection to science. He makes a fool out of himself awlays when he gives a lecture about his mumbo theory in front of group of scientists. Just check his lectures where people are asking questions at the end. Btw, if some people of yours also beleive in this theory that doesnt proove it. I said NOONE of the scientists does. Penrose is just one exception out of 10 000 of them. This should give u a good clue on how valuble this theory is
janko1212 7 months ago
@JohananRaatz
"they are finding several cases now with QM effects in the brain."
Stop making things up. They havent found anything that prooves QM consciousness.
"Only philosophy can say"
Ye right. Philosophy is used when people dont know what questions should they ask. Once they have proper questions than they use science and scientific method to get the answers. Philosophy can never get answers, it can only confuse things becouse it makes no testable predictions.
janko1212 7 months ago
@janko1212 (1of3) "Stop making things up. They havent found anything that prooves QM consciousness."
Not directly, but we do with deductive reasoning, and we have found things with inductive reasoning in quantum biology that suggests it plays a much larger role than one might think. And what about Bierman's presponse and the Libet experiments? You can't get that kind of "effect before cause" behavior from a classical system.
JohananRaatz 7 months ago
@janko1212 (2of3) "Philosophy is used"
You don't have any understanding of philosophy do you?
"proper questions than they use science and scientific method to get the answers."
No, because the scientific method is based on philosophy. Science isn't valid without philosophy.
"no testable"
Who said all answers are empirical? Testability is only a contingent criterion because philosophy said it was valid. There's no philosophic justification for having testability be epistemically primary.
JohananRaatz 7 months ago
@JohananRaatz
Btw, im not confusing matter and mass. I gave u clear definition of matter becosue u said matter doesnt exist. Well we can test that and test show matter does exist. Protophenmenal states are not testable by scientific method so they can be regarded as useless concept with no real value what-so-ever. U can very well invent extra-super phenomenal states which are the basic blocks of protophenomenal states and say thats the real answer and they carry bits of consciousness hahaha
janko1212 7 months ago
@janko1212 (1of2)I meant in an ontological manner. Obviously mass we can observe. What I was saying though, that there is no empirical observation we can make in principle to tell us what the nature of the "fundamental stuff" is. That's only for philosophy. If we change the fundamental stuff from matter to PP-states though we can solve the "hard problem", without contradicting any of the neuroscience that solves the "easy problem" though.
JohananRaatz 7 months ago
@JohananRaatz
1)well u are wrong here.World of maths and physics is the world describing real world. Our perception of the world is just simulated reality in the brain. So by maths we can determine what is most fundamental stuff.String theory will proove it soon most likely. philosophy is completly useless for determining that. philosophy in this context is just a waste of time.
janko1212 7 months ago
@janko1212 (2of2) "maths and physics"
I agree, but only because I think all reality is mathematical/informational to begin with. Anything not defined informationally would necessarily be outside of it and not definable scientifically: watch?v=-ciWYGvpGII
"String theory will proove"
Actually Brian Greene agrees with my argument above. String theory also gives us the HP, which according to Lee Smolin demonstrates info monism.
"waste"
Then so is science as science is based on philosophy.
JohananRaatz 7 months ago
@janko1212 (2of2) "not testable"
Neither is matter as defined as "stuff lacking phenomenal components." I don't mean matter as mass here. I'm saying we can't tell whether or not matter has a phenomenal element from experiment alone.
"useless"
For that matter anything other than subjective experience can be relegated to a "useless concept" though.
"carry bits of consciousness"
Not that I buy that, but in theory you could never tell about that either from experiment. Right?
JohananRaatz 7 months ago
@JohananRaatz
"For that matter anything other than subjective experience can be relegated to a "useless concept" though."
This is not true either.Things can be tested objectively. Becouse if subjective experience is just a simulation of reality than its precisely this subjective experience that cannot be tested and cannot be used as proof for anything. Only objective things can be used as proof. And try to realize that there still exists observer independent world where u like it or not.
janko1212 7 months ago
@janko1212 "tested objectively"
Not if the tests are part of a simulation you can't!
Not that I don't believe there isn't an objective reality -but made of PP-states, but I'm playing solipsist to prove my point that you don't know the nature of the "stuff" here. A shared simulation would produce the same test results. So is it matter or information? Empiricism can't tell.
You're making a big category error here confusing science and ontology. Both matter and experience can be transpersonal.
JohananRaatz 7 months ago
@janko1212 (3of3) "a mental process of electro-chemical activity,"
This is a scientific statement.
"not some indivisible mumbo-jumbo"
This is a philosophic statement.
"doesnt mean"
Firstly, you should really look into quantum biology they are finding several cases now with QM effects in the brain.
But let's suppose it is.Even if it's chemicals it doesn't answer the ontic nature of the "stuff" those chemicals are made of.Does matter have a protophenomenal element? Only philosophy can say.
JohananRaatz 7 months ago
@janko1212 (additional comment) To be precise theoretical physics is starting to get around to these issues of ontology that would be related to philosophy but only by changing it's assumptions about the world itself. Once you reduce the world to information (as much theoretical physics is doing now -see background independence) you are able to blur the line between science and philosophy so as to use science to answer other questions. (note how empirical and phenomenal info are still both info)
JohananRaatz 7 months ago
@JohananRaatz
Matter is as anything that has mass and occupies volume. It is generated by higgs field. It can be verified experimentally so its not pointless concept like protophenomenal states. Claiming that "Protophenomenal states" exist and claiming that they generate consciosness is just rediculous.
Our brain is reality world generator. What we see is not illusion but it is very different presentation of outside world. We see it in colour while there are no colours outside for example
janko1212 7 months ago
@janko1212 (1 of 3)"Matter"
You're confusing the issue. Matter =/= mass. I'm discussing matter in regards to ontology.Having mass just means something has the observed property of interacting gravitationally.The content of empirical evidence can't answer questions of ontology.
"rediculous"
Less so then saying ontic matter with no phenomenal aspect as generates it.
"no colours outsid"
Right, but "red" is still an intrinsic platonic state in the mind -you can't reduce thought to non-thought.
JohananRaatz 7 months ago
so introspection doesnt proove anything since brain itself creates many illusions.
3) your belief in GOD is what deludes your common sense since you are not looking objectivly at things but looking at them in a way to justify your belief in god. And since this quantum mind theory can support your supernatural beliefs you think this is common sense.wave function collapse is just hypotesis. What i multiverse turns out to be true...is so called god than in multiverse or just in our universe :))
janko1212 7 months ago
@janko1212 (1 of 4) "brain itself creates many illusions"
Yes, therefore science can't prove anything either since science is based on what we know, and knowledge is mental -which is an illusion. Do you understand how absurd this is?
3.) "supernatural beliefs"
Actually I'm not. Yes I did believe god exists before, but that had nothing to do with it here. I bought Orch-OR because it made sense philosophically when I was 15 -I didn't even know sane people believed in eliminativism before.
JohananRaatz 7 months ago
@janko1212 (2 of 4) "deludes your common sense"
No it doesn't. Like I said, I bought Orch-OR when I was 15 for completely separate reasons, and my parents were unhappy I was trying to "explain the soul with QM." And it's the opposite of common sense to argue that one is a p-zombie.
"What i multiverse turns out to be true...is so called god than in multiverse or just in our universe"
Um, I said God is the wave-function of the universe = all possible states in superposition = multiverse.
JohananRaatz 7 months ago
@janko1212 (3 of 4) ...and I have to mention this again. "Matter" is just a pointless concept with no scientific base. Empirically verify for me matter.
Until you can, I will point out that neuroscience doesn't say one way or the other which is primary -it just gives correlates,
"brain is playing tricks"
If everything we see or think (even internally) is a trick or an illusion, then how can we trust our own thoughts on ANYTHING? Even science? Do you see how your position self-detonates?
JohananRaatz 7 months ago
@janko1212 (4 of 4) "And qualia is a process."
No, no that's it's correlate. You can't seem to tell the difference. The subjective component of the experience of redness is not the same thing as it's objective component. And neuroscience is not qualified to tell the difference between a phenomenal state and it's correlate being separate and them being the same. You need philosophy of mind for that. Chalmers Hard Problem remember?
JohananRaatz 7 months ago
Wave function of universe collapsing is just a hypotesis of many-worlds theory. Cant see no "god" in there ;) But i can see why u are driven to mistical explanations rather than using common sense and scientific knowledge. Now it makes sense.
janko1212 7 months ago
@janko1212 Where the god element comes in is not with many-worlds or collapse in itself but rather from the observation that the only way for the wave-function of the universe to collapse on a whole (since there is nothing outside to measure it) is through Orch-OR.
JohananRaatz 7 months ago
@janko1212 (cont.) Now as for "mystical reasons vs common sense" it's ironic you should say that because when I first ran into Penrose's ideas around 14 or so I liked them BECAUSE they made so much common sense. When I read the eliminativist responses I couldn't buy them precisely because their starting points made NO sense at all -namely that the "I" is an illusion qualia don't even exist etc. etc. To be honest I thought they were completely nuts. I was shocked to find so many people agreeing.
JohananRaatz 7 months ago
@janko1212 (cont -5) You seem to be saying that rational discussion here relies only on testability.But here's the thing.
1.)We CAN test whether or not consciousness, qualia, etc. exist. It's called introspection and if these are illusory then illusion IS them to them -meaning we can't be mistaken about them.
2.)How can the claim that empirical testability trumps a priori knowledge be epistemically justified?I'm not sure how we can continue if you don't know that a priori means a priori. A=A
JohananRaatz 7 months ago
@janko1212 Dude that's ridiculous, if you you say such a thing as "consciousness is an illusion" then how can you know if your conscious knowledge of brain chemistry isn't an illusion also?
"scientific knowledge"
If you say that consciousness is an illusion you may as well throw out all science to begin with, as science requires that there is an actual observer to gather observations.
What part of "the a priori is PRIOR to a posteriori" don't you understand? That's why it's called a PRIORi.
IoPizzaPlanet 7 months ago
@janko1212 All neuroscience gives us is correlates between the mind and the brain.It doesn't and can't tell us if the brain is made of matter or protophenomenal "stuff" though. But if the latter is true then the mind is real and not an illusion.
We can deduce this a priori from metaphysics though: Existence can't precede essence (which is Platonic), since it wouldn't have an identity, and essence can't precede existence or it wouldn't exist. Thus existence = essence. therefore the "I" is real.
Jasonator1000 7 months ago
@Jasonator1000
Stay out of philosophy or you wont be able to explain anything:) Unity of "I" and the "I" being separate from the body is an illusion fo the brain. Read my previous posts i already explained to Jonanan the cases in medicine which proove this fact.
janko1212 7 months ago
@janko1212 (cont.) Well if you stay out of philosophy then you will have to stay out of science as well since science is based on philosophy. Thus if what you say is true then you can't explain anything with science either.
And that neuroscience only "proves" that if you interpret it as such. It's a much better argument for non-local holonomic brain activity as suggested by the physicist David Bohm.
JohananRaatz 7 months ago
@janko1212 What do you mean? If I stay out of philosophy I can never explain the subjective part of the mind/body problem. The cases in medicine only proves correlates that change or modify consciousness. They don't explain why.
Jasonator1000 7 months ago
@Jasonator1000
Mind/body problem does not even exist. Mind is the product of the brain. And yes, to explain that and how does it arrise you have to resort to science and experiments, not some philosophical guessing theories. That leads nowhere.
janko1212 7 months ago
@janko1212 Nope sorry, you can't explain something that is subjective and non-empirical with empirical observation. You'll never get anywhere bridging the objective/subjective explanatory gap like that.
Empirically show me the subjectiveness of my experiences.
Jasonator1000 7 months ago
@Jasonator1000
U are right, its currently impossible to do that empirically but what u dont realize is the fact that philosophy can do even worse in explaining subjective experience. At least science provides some guide and leads into the right direction but philosophy cant do anything. It can just provide some concepts which have no way to be tested and verified.
janko1212 7 months ago
@janko1212 Philosophy is all we have here though, that and how philosophy permits the topic to be integrated into science. We would have no knowledge of internal mental states were it not for the data that forms of the basis of philosophy of mind.
"It can just provide some concepts which have no way to be tested and verified. "
Here's your problem. You're trading the justification principle which is logically primary, for the verification principle which only applies to the empirical category.
Jasonator1000 7 months ago
@janko1212 "U know there is a reason why only a few lunatics among scientist support this theory."
Penrose, Eccles and Hameroff are all lunatics? Come on! What's lunacy is to deny that qualia or a self exist. I actually had to reread Dennett's Quining Qualia twice just to make sure I was reading what I thought I was. It's abject lunacy to say that there can be such a thing as an "introspective illusion."
And you still haven't explained the glaring self-contradictions of eliminativism.
JohananRaatz 7 months ago
...redness is qualia. And qualia is a process. So seeing red outisde or imagining red in dream comes from same process...a neural pattern in brain.
3) well we disagree here. Difference is that u have no proof at all to support your claims/model. Brain is real and made from matter while empirical protophenomenal states are not.
Cogito ergo sum results from illusion of indivisible ego. There is no central experiencer.
janko1212 7 months ago
@janko1212 "..redness is qualia. And qualia is a process."
How do you know? If it has to do with neuroscience I will point out that we haven't established which is primary the material brain or the phenomenal states we observe. To demonstrate my point prove to me that we are not currently in a brain in a vat scenario and that our neurology is not vastly different and not a pattern or process at all but rather an intrinsic state in that out of the vat world.
JohananRaatz 7 months ago
@JohananRaatz
1) First of all "brain in a vat" is just an useless philosophical concept. Brain need stimulus to function and it gets it from its body and 5 senses. So there u go. We cannot be brains in a vat. So the brain does exist, so do you and so does qualia.
2)Protophenomenal states are also useless philosophical concept, only made up to explain "cosmic consciousness", "god" , "we are all connected" and those funny things, becouse there is no proof of those states.
janko1212 7 months ago
@janko1212 (part 4) "it gets it from its body and 5 senses."
No, that's an assumption that the 5 senses come from a material body. Why? We only think that because we think we have a material not a PP body. You're jumping too conclusions too quickly.
"only made up to explain"
No, they're not. One of the first proponents -Bertrand Russell was an atheist. "god"
Oh man you're not going to like to hear that the wave-fcn of the universe is self-collapsing or Zizzi' "Big Wow" then I take it! lol
JohananRaatz 7 months ago
@JohananRaatz
I watched the video about quantum eraser. It doesnt proove anything, it just says matter at atomic scale is very different which is true offcourse but claiming that little atoms or packets of energy contain little bits of consciousness is just ridiculous.
3) Having no central experiencer doesnt self-contradict, all u have to do is get over the illusion of indivisible ego. Experience itself being an experiencer is compatible.
janko1212 7 months ago
@janko1212 (part 5) "matter at atomic"
Did you see the "it from bit" part at the end? QIT entails that it's not matter but information. And if you put 2 and 2 together from that other video where they found qubits in microtubules it leads to the conclusion of that info being PP-states.
"contain little bits of consciousness"
But that's not the claim. PP-states are not mind.
"Experience itself being an experiencer"
It skews intuitons sure but that's STILL panexperientialism..
JohananRaatz 7 months ago
@JohananRaatz
Its irrelevant if they found out qbits at some microscale, consciousness happens on macroscale and it is byproduct of brain cells. Well, if u say that brain does not exist, matter is no real, and that our a priori knowledge is primary than there is not much we can talk further about this as u than resort to mistical world of "unexplainable" "untestable" "unbelievable" hypotesis.
janko1212 7 months ago
@janko1212 "on the macroscale"
That's just an assertion. Just because it happens all over the brain does not mean it is macroscopic. This is based on emergentism and that's also just an assertion. There's no scientific basis for emergentism.
And no it's not "mystical" -that would be faith based- my epistemology rationalist here -namely that a priori truths and logic come first. Insisting that something that necessarily is non empirical (the mind) be tested is positivst -also not rational.
JohananRaatz 7 months ago
@janko1212 (cont.) I just realized this.You claimed my rationalist view was mystical. But I noticed you have an a priori untestable element in your view.
The idea that matter is nothing more than qualia or the PP-states connected to qualia is completely untestable, and unexplainable.Also if you realize that separating matter from qualia would imply dualism it's also unbelievable.
Youre making a category error by putting the M/B problem only in science. It's not all empirical by definition.
JohananRaatz 7 months ago
@JohananRaatz
1)Consciousness only happes on macro scale. It has been prooven that when distant reagions of brain bind together with 40 Hertz oscilations than we can be conciuous. During sleep consciousness only happens locally so we are not aware of anything. Tested and prooved.
2)U know introspection cannot be accounted as a test. U need to learn scientific method and why subjective experience doesnt count. Mentally ill person can say he saw a pig flying...but u would not believe it??
janko1212 7 months ago
@janko1212 1.) That just proves non-local correlations arranged by the 40 Hz signal. Non-locality across macroscopic spaces does not prove the system is itself macroscopic however. That's just an assumption. It's been known for some time (Bohm etc.) that holonomic brain activity occurs. That's not a problem.
2.) Yes it can, because all empirical evidence is known introspectively. You need to learn some philosophy.
JohananRaatz 7 months ago
@JohananRaatz
1) Wrong.There is NOT non-locality in quantum sense. Neurons are connected via other neurons and we are talking about classical connection so when only local regions are involved we are not conscious, but if global regions of brain are binded than we are conscious. You cannot disprove this by quantum non-locality phenomenon which in this case hasnt been observed and has nothing to do with it on macroscale.
2)Wrong again. Scientific method is verfied by measurment aparatus.
janko1212 7 months ago
@janko1212 1.) "macroscale"
This presumes it's macroscale again. It makes some sense that a signal would be there -that's how they entangle spin states in the first place.
"classical connection"
If the classical signal causes quantum entanglement how can you tell? And how can you explain the results of hemispherectomies?
2.) You still don't get it do you? We have to read the measurement apparatus with our eyes -ie perceive qualia. No empirical observation is independent of qualia.
JohananRaatz 7 months ago
@JohananRaatz
1)noone is talking about entaglement. Brain processes are binded by 40 Hertz oscilations!! And btw, quantum entaglement looses coherence for anything larger than a molecule.
2)I get your point but thats no argument. U dont understand difference beetwen subjective qualia and objective observer independent world. Even if we are the ones who read the measurment aparatus, each person is different and we have to have an observer independet way to describe reality.
janko1212 7 months ago
@janko1212 2.) (cont)
P1.) Introspection can't be counted as a test.
P2.) Qualia is raw sensory scientific evidence.
P3.) Qulia is known only through introspection.
P4.) The Sci-method needs sci-evidence.
C1.) Therefore scientific evidence is known through introspection. (C2&C3)
C2.) Therefore scientific evidence does not count as a scientifically testable. (P1&C1)
C3.) Therefore we can not use scientific evidence in the scientific method. (P4&C2)
Thus your position self-implodes.
JohananRaatz 7 months ago
@JohananRaatz
And measurment aparatus are objective. They talk in langueage of maths, not feelings of qualia. So that can be said to be objective and testable. Protophenomenal states on the other hand cannot be verified objectivly and besides they are just made up philosophical concept meant to support this quantum theory. U know there is a reason why only a few lunatics among scientist support this theory. In every large group of people u can always find few lunatics. Thats statistics
janko1212 7 months ago
@janko1212 "are objective."
But objective what? Objective matter or objective PP-states that are causally connected to qualia? I'm not saying it's not objective, I'm just saying it doesn't not have a phenomenally related element either. You seem to be stuck between objective and subjective as though the only two choices are materialism and mentalism.
"Protophenomenal states"
Actually they can be. I'm verifying them right now. What CAN'T be empirically verified is matter.
JohananRaatz 7 months ago
@JohananRaatz
....and i have to mention this again. "Protophenomenal states" are just pointless concept with no scientific base.
"Actually they can be. I'm verifying them right now."
You think that you are verifying but all that is happening is that your brain is playing tricks on you and you are not able to see past the illusion.
janko1212 7 months ago
@janko1212 "Cogito ergo sum results from illusion of indivisible ego. There is no central experiencer. "
Well then there's no knowledge of an experience either!;)Hence you're epistemology can't get off the ground and you can't justify whether or not scientific knowledge is actually knowledge by solving the problem of induction. (showing we're not brains in vats) Since this includes neuroscience this means you can't prove the brain is real either -as well the idea that brain patterns are qualia.
JohananRaatz 7 months ago
@janko1212 3) "u have no proof at all to support your claims"
On the contrary. I can't empirically verify the existence of matter hence you're model doesn't seem to have any more evidence than you say mine does.
"Brain is real and made from matter...empirical protophenomenal states are not."
You have no proof at all to support this claim. And as for empirical protophenomenal states I am empirically verifying the existence of several right now -the back screen as "blueness" on it.
JohananRaatz 7 months ago
@janko1212 (cont.) "Difference is that u have no proof at all to support your claims/model."
Actually that's not entirely true either. Not only can't I empirically verify matter, because I can't see it -only phenomenal sensations. I CAN empirically verify that there is no "stuff" behind our observations with quantum eraser experiments: watch?v=dEaecUuEqfc
Therefore there is no matter. (especially after 53 min -ignore dorky title)
BTW this is all proven in a theorem by Seth Lloyd.
JohananRaatz 7 months ago
@janko1212 (cont.) "Cogito ergo sum results from illusion of indivisible ego. There is no central experiencer."
My point is that when you say this your entire epistemology self-destructs. No non-illusory knower equates to no non-illusory knowledge. Thus you can't prove that the statement you just made is knowledge either instead of just something illusory that you only think you know.
JohananRaatz 7 months ago
@JohananRaatz
Im surprised you dont defend Solipsism. Also useless concept which is the philosophical idea that only one's own mind is sure to exist. U see the problem with this? there is no proof for such extraordinary claim and same goes for ur concept. If you want to explain consciusness u must learn about neurology and biology....not physics and philosophy. That gets u nowhere...only in mistic world of quantum mind:)
janko1212 7 months ago
@janko1212 No I don't, but I do defend a sort of "methodological solipsism" as that is how knowledge is obtained.
"U see the problem with this? there is no proof for such extraordinary claim and same goes for ur concept."
That's fine because I'm not claiming solipsism. Just that our a priori knowledge is primary and therefore that our a posteriori knowledge comes from and is justified by that. If you throw off a priori knowledge a posteriori knowledge isn't justified as true knowledge.
JohananRaatz 7 months ago
@janko1212 "must learn about neurology and biology....not physics and philosophy."
What kind of philosophy of mind rejects philosophy? Philosophers of mind would throw that out in a heartbeat. Neuroscience doesn't say anything about the mind itself -just correlates to consciousness.
Where you are going wrong is in putting science ahead of philosophy, and that is a huge no-no. When you do that you are automatically wrong. Because you need the latter to justify the former in the first place.
JohananRaatz 7 months ago
It is an illusion of itself - an illusion of unity and coherence. The first thing we know is mostly unconscious knowledge, the protofeeling of owning a body, feeling the presence of the world. Matter would exist even if we werent here to observe it so matter is primary. Most of what brain does is unconscious so we only need consciousness for better coordination. And one of those tricks that brain plays on us is this illusion of self. It is an transparent illusion so thats why many cannot see it
janko1212 7 months ago
@janko1212 So the first thing we know according to you is the feeling of a body but who's the "knower"?
"matter is primary"
See perhaps I am colored by my background with physics,but it is my contention that matter does not exist at all but is rather itself a construct of information -which physics such as QIT and the holographic principle supports.This ties nicely in with philosophy with Whitehead's concept of "moments of experience" being primary.Thus phenomenality is primary not matter.
JohananRaatz 7 months ago
@JohananRaatz
U first have to get rid of intuitive thinking that there is a knower.That leads into infinite regress fallacy.Consciousness is counterintuative-just like QM. There is no knower. All there is, is a collection of neurons which can be organized in patterns to grant survival. Most are unconscious, however those groups of neurons who can META-represent the low level representations of visual and auditory and tactice sensations can be said to be conscious.
janko1212 7 months ago
@JohananRaatz
2) Matter being primary or little loops of strings, which are packets of energy being primary does not make much difference. It has no relevance to consciousness. Holographic principle talks about information storage limit not about "information that conveys experience" :)) You are confusing mayor things bro. Just becouse quantum mechanich is spooky and counterintuative and same can be said for consciousness that does NOT mean they have anything in common. It wrong reasoning
janko1212 7 months ago
@janko1212 No, that's not what I'm referring to. I'm referring to the philosophic shift spurred on by holography and quantum information theory which is telling us that all of the physical categories -energy included are themselves reduced to quantum information -which is more "thought-like" than "matter-like."
"information that conveys""
Well read Smolin's book Three Roads to Quantum Gravity. He's very specific about the world being more like a computer than something with actual "things."
JohananRaatz 7 months ago
@JohananRaatz
Concluding that quantum information is more "thought-like" is funny. There is no proof or logical conclusion leading to this. Universe is made of energy, positive energy (matter) and negative energy (gravity) in balance, so saying that there is some universal flow of though flowing around is just religios nonsense. Speaking about free will i already mentioned Libet experiment which have been done in many other labs leading to same results.
janko1212 7 months ago
@janko1212 (cont.) "It wrong reasoning."
I know and I'm not saying that. I'm saying that some of the specific qualities of QM are the same as some of the specific qualities of consciousness. Consciousness has free-will and can understand Godel statements. This means it has something that is not entirely deterministic.
Thus if we are to reduce it to something physical then we must reduce it to something that has an indeterministic element. And QM is all we have that fits that description.
JohananRaatz 7 months ago
@JohananRaatz
Also to proove there is no free will you just have to look at people with Tourette syndrome and related tic disorders make involuntary movements and utterances, called tics, despite the fact that they would prefer not to do so when it is socially inappropriate. Or In alien hand syndrome, the afflicted individual's limb will produce meaningful behaviours without the intention of the subject. The affected limb effectively demonstrates 'a will of its own.'
janko1212 7 months ago
@janko1212 Well no that's not a disproof of free-will that's a break down of free-will. With alien-hand syndrome as creepy as this might sound it is possible that there is another "person" "broken off" somewhere in the person's head that is doing those things of his/its own free-will.
We should really take this back to epistemology and first ask how we know things to begin with. Because you're placing the a posteriori ahead of the a priori, and that contradicts the definitions of those terms.
JohananRaatz 7 months ago
@JohananRaatz
Its not another person but another part of the brain doing the control. Just that part is not conscious and does not have an illusion of self/agent added to the process.
"how we know things to begin with"
We know things by mentaly representing them in the brain. They are represented as patterns of firing neuronal acitvity. And there is no "experiencer"...the activity itself is the experience. For better control and managment brain than invented this illusion of self / agent
janko1212 7 months ago
@janko1212 "but another part of the brain"
But doesn't consciousness arise from the brain?
"Just that part is not conscious and does not have an illusion of self"
But how do you know? I mean this is one of the unsolved problems of philosophy -how to determine what is and is not conscious beyond yourself. We simply may never know here, excepting that it seems to pass a rudimentary Turing test.
JohananRaatz 7 months ago
@JohananRaatz
Refering to your second question...We must take for granted that there are other minds beside ours. Solipsism is a conceps that says only our mind is what exist but we must abondon that idea as its it absurd and it would halt any progree. Most of the brain is unconscious so the alien hand is controled by unconscious part so therefore there is no free will. Its a random process. Just like our conscious part so the free will is complete illusion.
janko1212 7 months ago
@janko1212 Yes we take it foregranted but that's not the point. How do we know? Until we know how we know we have no epistemic justification to say what is and is not conscious in the brain.
"Most of the brain is unconscious"
How do you know? Not that I don't disagree -I think only certain parts of the neurons are aware, but these are spread throughout the brain in all the neurons.
"so the free will is complete illusion"
How do you know either of those though?
JohananRaatz 7 months ago
@JohananRaatz
Yes those neurons that can metarepresent the low level representations can become conscious by 40 Hertz synchronization. Thats the whole magic. I can say that i know this becouse i trust what scientific experiments show and proove. Today we have fMRI, MEG scan, EEG scan, PET scan and many other techniques/tools to proove. Why would we relay on intuition if its false.I prefer to know the truth than to keep beleiving in a lie. Whats the point of laying to ourself just to confort us
janko1212 7 months ago
@janko1212 "conscious by 40"
Ok, you've got a correlate -assuming the patient relays his subjective sensation of consciousness and affirms that it does correlate.Fair enough.
Now as to the exact mechanism. (to make sure you're really sure of your methodology) You said before that the subjective aspects of consciousness are illusory -this would include qualia. So how do we read these scans? With visual qualia right? But qualia are illusory so how do you know?
A priori knowledge =/= intuition.
JohananRaatz 7 months ago
@JohananRaatz
1)I didnt say qualia doesnt exist. I just said its not what it seems to be. Meaning qualia is just a process, a pattern of neural activity, for example...experience of pain is a process which releases certain chemicals and generates apropriate action taken by the brain. Pleasure on the other hand releases serotonin and other "happy" chemicals ...but again its just a process of neural activity.
2) I assume u are dualist and thats not a priori knowlegde....thats pure intuition.
janko1212 7 months ago
@janko1212 1.) Ok, so qualia reduce to certain patterns in the brain. But the problem is is that when I look at a brain I see that that brain and the neurons re already defined in terms of qualia -grayness, wetness etc. So isn't what you're doing circular?
2.) No, I'm not a dualist. I'm a panexperientialist/neutral monist/informationalist. I think the world is made of protophenomenal "platonic stuff" and that empirical and phenomenal are two ways this same protophenomenal stuff is perceived.
JohananRaatz 7 months ago
@JohananRaatz
1) what is circular about it? Only thing important here is to comprehend that there is no experiencer seperate from the experience and consciousness is not a thing...its a process.
2) Superficially, panpsychism seems to be a form of property dualism, since it regards everything as having both mental and physical properties. I respect your point of view but since there is no empirical evidence for this i dont see a point in supporting this view of consciusness.
janko1212 7 months ago
@janko1212 "what is circular"
1.) Well because we empirically observe that matter is made out of qualia and/or other causally connected protophenomenal states we don't observe. So if the matter of the brain is made out of qualia,(grayness, wetness, spatial extension) and we explain qualia with the brain, then we are explaining qualia with itself.
2.) But there's no empirical evidence of matter. All we ever observe empirical is experience, which is completely consistent with panexperientialism.
JohananRaatz 7 months ago
@JohananRaatz
1) U are confusing things again. Matter does exist even if we dont. Matter is made out of matter. But our subjective experience of matter is qualia.
2) Matter does exist.There still exists observer independent world. The fact that we are conscious of world around us just means we additionally represent the world in our brain. Remember, there are no colours outside..so our brain is a reality generator.
janko1212 7 months ago
@janko1212
1.) I should have said protophenomenal (PP) states then (those are mind-independent -also "Redness" &the natural numbers existed before there were people to think them). They are made of PP states. We know this because they are causally connected to the phenomenal states we subjectively sense. Hence they can't be different in kind, because of interactionism.
2.) If your brain tricks you when seeing the outside, then how do you know your brain scan readings are correct?
JohananRaatz 7 months ago
@JohananRaatz
1) Hehe,only problem is that there are no protophenomenal states. Redness didnt exist. There is no colour out there...only EM radition. Our brain percieve certain EM waves as certain colour as that was addaptive in evolution. Thats all. Same goes for other qualia. Its all construct of the brain. So brain is our reality world generator.
2)Brain scans are correct as they are interpreted in language of mathematics. So they are objective, thats quite unlike our subjective qualia.
janko1212 7 months ago
@janko1212 1.) Sure they do. Concepts have an intrinsic Platonic existence just like math -which you said is objective.
2.) "There is no colour out there...only EM radition."
So what is redness made of when we observe it in a dream? Let's suppose we do neuroscience in this dream and discover a completely different brain physiology. If this is a lucid dream how do we distinguish the real world from the dream world -with their respective brain physiologies?
JohananRaatz 7 months ago
@JohananRaatz
1) Platonic realism exist only in philosophy. Not in real world governed by math. Remember math is just a tool to describe the world...it does not represent matter.
2)Redness of red is qualia of red. Already mentioned before thats just neural pattern of electric activity. The reason why we percieve it as red is becouse our brain found that to be addaptive during evolution. Cats and dogs dont percieve red colour but they see other colours..so they had different addaptive values
janko1212 7 months ago
@janko1212 "Platonic realism exist only in philosophy. Not in real world governed by math"
But philosophy proves math is Platonic.Therefore philosophy proves that the real physical world is based on a real Platonic world.Actually (and I've seen Brian Greene make this exact same argument in defense of Tegmark's Modal Realism) if physical reality ever differs from mathematical reality it can no longer be defined scientifically.Hence the world is no more than Platonic stuff: watch?v=-ciWYGvpGII
JohananRaatz 7 months ago
@janko1212 (cont.) 3.) "Hehe,only problem is that there are no protophenomenal states." "Its all construct of the brain."
Only problem is that there is no physical brain. It's all a construct of empirical protophenomenal states. ;-)
So we have an impasse. Is the brain an illusion of P(&PP) states or are P states an illusion of the brain? Both models axe off the foundation of the other and both are consistent with the correlates found by neuroscience. We have to resolve this epistemically.
JohananRaatz 7 months ago
@janko1212 (#3 cont.) Since we can't tell which is primary and which is secondary (both models refer to the explanans of the other as the illusion and disagree as to what needs the explaining) from neuroscience alone we need to dive into epistemology.
At the onset, let me point out that mine is more parsimonious, I just need qualia. You need our experience of qualia, matter, and the idea that 1 is an illusion of 2.
But beyond that you're placing the a posteriori ahead of the a priori.
JohananRaatz 7 months ago
@janko1212 (#3 cont) The problem is that you don't start with what you know a priori and build from that. Before external experience all we know is we exist(Cogito ergo sum) as to doubt that would imply a doubter -hence an I. After we've established an I nothing we deduce afterwards can contradict our foundation.
Since the problem of induction (establishing how external knowledge can be had and the brain in a vat problem surmounted) is based on this empirical knowledge can never contradict it.
JohananRaatz 7 months ago
@janko1212 (cont.) "property dualism,"
Sometimes it is.But that's still not substance dualism.In any case though we needn't have that.Remember qualia are all we ever empirically observe,(the greeness of the electronic readout of the brain scan,the grayness of the brain etc.).As a result the illusion of matter is simply generated by phenomenal qualia states-hence no dualism.
"intuition"
Oh no, I was referring to the a priori knowledge of the "I" and how doubting it leads to self-contradiction.
JohananRaatz 7 months ago
@janko1212 "We know things by mentaly representing them in the brain."
Right, and representing them to whom?
"And there is no "experiencer"...the activity itself is the experience."
To have an experience you must have an experiencer.
"brain than invented this illusion of self / agent"
As a rhetorical question how do you know? If you don't know if you really exist as an experiencer how do you know your experiences are valid either? Might you're knowledge of your brain be an illusion also?
JohananRaatz 7 months ago
@JohananRaatz
No you dont need an experiencer. I know that this is how it seems but that leads to INFINITE regress. Its a logical fallacy. Activity itself is the exprience. Once you comprehend this than there is no mistery. Again i repeat...self as illusion doesnt mean self doesnt exist..it means self is different from what it seems to be. Its a collection of memories, feeling, toughts which are currently present. Its not a united entity in form of soul ect...thats the illusion of brain.
janko1212 7 months ago
@janko1212 (part 1)"learn about neurology and biology....not physics and philosophy"
What kind of philosophy of mind rejects philosophy? Philosophers of mind would throw that out in a heartbeat. Neuroscience doesn't say anything about the mind itself -just correlates to consciousness.
Where you are going wrong is in putting science ahead of philosophy, and that is a HUGE no-no. When you do that you are automatically wrong. Because you need the latter to justify the former in the first place.
JohananRaatz 7 months ago
I am however open to any evidence so i would like to see what you have to show in support of QM theory.
janko1212 8 months ago
Qualia on the other hand does exist but only in a form of neural maps in the brain. Its a pattenr or a process if you would like to call it...its not something physical other than electrical activity in brain. Now i dont expect you to agree with me but what i dont understand is why you and others who blindly follow quantum mind theory do so if all experimental evidence gathered by fMRI, PET scan, EEG ect+ brain experiments....show that there are other theories which explain this much better
janko1212 8 months ago
@janko1212 (1of3)Well that's the correlate. You are forgetting to distinguish between the empirical correlate and the phenomenal sensation.
"which explain this much better"
Well the issue is primarily Chalmers "hard problem." If we keep matter qua matter we will never solve it. Sure they explain correlates, but correlates =/= qualia. To resolve the mind/body problem we need to reexamine what fundamental substance at the fundamental level of nature. And the fundamental level is QM.
JohananRaatz 8 months ago
@JohananRaatz
I think that your reasoning here is not correct and that qualia does = neural correlates. So that also solves your hypotetical scenario. If both are the same than they came at same time and there is no problem. Speaking about hard problem, i think best answer comes from Damasio where he argues that qualia evolved from simple organism in order to regulate homeostasis of the organism and as such not only it should feel like something but it actually must feel like something.
janko1212 8 months ago
@janko1212 (2of3) Now this is a strange and rather tangential hypothetical but what do you make of the following scenario:
We take a brain scan of the occipital lobe while the patient is watching the same brain scan of the occipital lobe activity of him watching his occipital lobe activity of him watching... In this scenario would the qualia and its correlate be the same?
Notice here that the correlate itself is defined via empirical qualia. So what come first the correlate or the qualia?
JohananRaatz 8 months ago
@janko1212 (3of3) BTW on a different note if you want to see it via PM I have very strong evidence of quantum superposition being connected to phenomenal sensations. My brother actually collected screenshots of the "results" of this experiment. (It's a little crazy but it quite definitely works repeatedly -as we can both attest to.) One experiment broke odds of 57 orders of magnitude. Unfortunately we aren't the first though, I found similar experiments on Hameroff's website.
JohananRaatz 8 months ago
1) speaking about illusion...the unity of self is the illusion and the irreducible subjectivity is illusion. Becouse the moment we try to define the self it becomes vague and not so clear any more.
2)i suggest watching this videos for more info, they explain quite well much about consciousness
/watch?v=ZFjY1fAcESs
/watch?v=jTWmTJALe1w&feature=related
/watch?v=Q_25uUpippE
/watch?v=mthDxnFXs9k (long version of first one)
janko1212 8 months ago
@janko1212 I've seen arguments like this before. The first was Dennett's "Quining Qualia" paper in philosophy of mind. The problem with all these arguments is that they end up being self-refuting. For example if the self is an illusion then what SELF is the self an illusion to? See the problem?
Now yes some of these things such as the self&qualia become vague, but that may actually prove my point -that they can only be explained by themselves or are "intrinsic" -recall Penrose's Godel argument.
JohananRaatz 7 months ago
@JohananRaatz
I dont see any problem with self being an illusion. This doesnt mean that self doesn exist...it just means that its not irreducible becouse all it is composed of many many neurons which are interconnected in different networks. Thats all. Human brain is evolved enough to have given this process an agency/ a protagonator in the brain but Libet experiments confirm that this is not necessary for survival. Many animals can live without this illusion of self just fine
janko1212 7 months ago
@janko1212 So it's an illusion of itself or an illusion to itself?Perhaps I should "dial back" a bit and ask a more basic question.Epistemically, what is the first thing we know? Like before we know anything else in the world? I feel we've begun to take matter as primary while forgetting that we only know of matter because of experience.
BTW Hameroff has an interesting take on the Libet experiments, which ties into what I was showing you in the PM. You check it out "Bierman's presponse."
JohananRaatz 7 months ago
Dude get urself educated a bit on consciousness. It isnt that hard and definitelly not misterious so to be explained by quantum mechanics. Ur other videos about Holographic principle are ok but u are waaaaaay of with this microtubule bullshit becouse this has nothing to do with consciousness per se.
janko1212 8 months ago
@janko1212 Well it's not that it's mysterious perse. I mean once you get used to QM it becomes pretty mundane, it's just that there are several aspects of consciousness that we can only explain with QM. If you combine the Free Will theorem with Lucas's Godel based theorem you kind of have to accept the mind has some QM properties.
Now as for microtubules I can see why this could be problematic with warm brains and all, though they have recently found qubits in microtubules last October.
JohananRaatz 8 months ago
@JohananRaatz
Well if u look down at the micro level than everything is governed by quantum mechanics however thats irrelevant on large scales. Using QM to explain consciousness is like trying to measure Earths orbit around the Sun using quantum mechanics. Also quantum entaglement which is used as proof in microtubules is absurd becouse of quantum coherence which breaks down in much less than a microsecond.
janko1212 8 months ago
Consciousness consis of neural maps in the brain and is nothing else but bunch of correlated electrical impulses. Experiments reveal that brain creates consciousness by 40 Hertz waves so that binding is achieved.
janko1212 8 months ago
@janko1212 Maybe entanglement happens at 40 Hz. I guess what I'm wondering is how one explains consciousness with classical EM alone. There are some features of the mind that only seem to be explicable with QM. The binding problem, holonomic brain activity, "impenetrability," and then free will. With the last if you combine Lucas's Godel based proof, with the Conway-Kochen theorem it's hard to see how QM isn't involved.
And then there are topological qubits found last year: watch?v=VQngptkPYE8
JohananRaatz 8 months ago
@janko1212 (continued) There is another personal reason I suspect the mind is related to the collapse process and therefore quantum in nature based on some experiments my brother and I were doing. It's very convincing* but it's something I would prefer to discuss it in private. It's based on the Elitzur-Vaidman bomb-testing thought experiment. PM me if you're curious.
*Very convincing = odds >> 1 in 2.4x10^57
JohananRaatz 8 months ago
@JohananRaatz @JohananRaatz
1) Entaglement doesnt happen at 40 Hertz. What does happen is Gamma wave oscilations which bind different regiaons of brain. This solves binding problem nicely
2) Free will does not exist. Libet experiments confirm that.
3) holonomic brain activity is only a myth so far not supported with ANY evidence like all other aspect of quantum mind theory. The idea itself of consciousness existing outside a body is absurd and doesnt make sense.
janko1212 8 months ago
@JohananRaatz
4) i dont know what you meant by "impenetrability tho?
Sure the QM plays a role on a microscale but on microscale there is not consciousness. It only emerges on MACROscale as coherent activity of many neurons. And QM plays no role on macrosale as its effects can be neglected.
janko1212 8 months ago
@janko1212 Well remember QM also operates on the meso-scale and the neurons are meso-scale. They've been finding a lot of various quantum processes in meso-scale biological systems as of late not all of them in brains but they are there. Photosynthesis is apparently added via the "quantum walk algorithm." As for microtubules, they've found topological qubits in them as of last October: watch?v=VQngptkPYE8
"Impenetrability" means you can't break the phenomenal "I" into anything more fundamental.
JohananRaatz 8 months ago
@JohananRaatz
Photosynthesis QM happens on micro scale of molecules. I heard about that and also QM playing some role in our sense of smell however thats also on micro level of molecules. Consciousness happens on macro level when different region of whole brain are binded together to form a meta-representation of low level representations. When we sleep for example there is no binding on global scale but only locally. And we are not conscious during sleep.
janko1212 8 months ago
@JohananRaatz
5) Speaking about irreducible phenomenom "I"....well, the unity of "I" is another illusion created by the brain. To see that this is true and that "i" is composed of many different parts u have to look at different cases in medicine where certain parts of brains have been damaged. Split brain patients, phantom limb patients, unilateral hemi-neglect(where patients deny left part of their world) ....different agnosias and so on...
janko1212 8 months ago
@janko1212 Right, but those are only reduced to other "I"'s though. This is likely because "I" is based on entanglement, and you can split the system up and each new system will look the same -in regards to having an "I."
The point with "impenetrability" though is that we know from a priori from self-awareness that the phenomenal can't be reduced to anything not phenomenal. Maybe you can cut the "I" up but only into other "I"s.
JohananRaatz 8 months ago
@JohananRaatz
I disagree that other "I" are just the same as the original "I". You have for example patients with multiple personality disorder who have many "I"...or people with Cotard syndrome who dont posses "I" but yet are conscious. Or some cases of autism where no "self" is present. So that shows that the self is an illusion created by the brain whose function is to provide the unity and better managment of functions. So the "I" is composed of many different parts to produce self.
janko1212 8 months ago
@janko1212 Well yes, but what I'm getting at is that those separate "I"'s all started out as the same I. They are separate now, and the bigger "I" "broke down" but it broke down into other "I"'s.
"Or some cases of autism where no "self" is present."
Well they may not be explicitly thinking about it but I have heard autistic kids refer to "I."
I mean I get that we have these corpus callosum experiments where you can make two separate I's from one I but the I doesn't reduce to non-I.
JohananRaatz 8 months ago
@JohananRaatz Cont.) "the self is an illusion"
Well see now that part I will have to disagree. I think the eliminativists are kind of silly when they try to argue for this. I mean I personally can refute it directly. I know that it irrefutably exists since it's existence is intrinsic knowledge. You know; "I think therefore I am."
But now if we take this to it's logical conclusion at face value then whom is it an illusion to? If consciousness is an illusion then consciousness IS the illusion.
JohananRaatz 8 months ago
@janko1212 (cont.) So first we have the self as an illusion but the very idea that the self is an illusion entails that it is an illusion to the self, which therefore presupposes the self by denying it. Hence self-contradiction.
But now let's suppose we took this further.
Dennett&company often argue that qualia don't exist either. But now science is done via the gathering of empirical sensation -which is qualia. So if you take eliminative materialism to it's conclusion it eliminates itself.
JohananRaatz 8 months ago
If we were not all so excessively interested in ourselves, life would be so uninteresting that none of us would be able to endure it.
K4inan 1 year ago
After all that rambling I just want to reiterate that I completely agree that the human mind is quantum mechanical. I just don't see where / why / how this "free will" thingy comes in. I don't perceive a contradiction between being able to act according to my decisions and my decisions being determined by past (or to some extent even future if QM allows that) mental states and external input. And I don't see why how it would be better if there was.
LaserBlowFish 1 year ago
@LaserBlowFish Well the general thing that enables it is HUP, but as for the exact mechanism that is combo of Orch-OR and the Zeno effect. In the Zeno effect one can alter the behavior of a wave-function by observing it -thus manipulating the probable outcomes to some extent. However in Orch-OR we have a special kind of collapse -the wave-fcn is doing it to itself, and so a wave-function that collapses via Orch-OR would be able to circularly manipulate its own probabilities with the Zeno effect.
JohananRaatz 1 year ago
"enables it" .. please define "it" because under any of my definition(s) "it" doesn't need anything to enable it, there's no problem to solve.
"circularly manipulate".. by that do you mean a recursive relation between the current wave function and the next .. under some definition of current / next ?
And since we also know that we are able to make decision based on external input, that next wave function will also depend on those ?
LaserBlowFish 1 year ago
@JohananRaatz I might be wrong but since I agree with Einstein and Penrose that God does not play dice with the universe then HUP does not imply free will i.e quantum mechanics is still deterministic just not in the temporal sense maybe. That it manipulates itself circularly sounds to me like you are just explaining the evolution of the wave function with respect to previous states and external input, no free will there.
So how are you self aware of your free will ? How do you test it ?
LaserBlowFish 1 year ago
@LaserBlowFish Ok perhaps I should redefine this circularity as an isomorphic relationship. The way in which the wave-function affects itself is tautologous, just that within the wave-function it's complex yet self-defining -and so can define itself in any possible way.
JohananRaatz 1 year ago
@JohananRaatz Somehow I feel nomatter how long we continue discussing this, I will always be able to ask something similar to:
"Ok but why does it define itself in a particular way ?"
And if at any point you respond that you don't know or maybe it's even unknowable, unpredictable then I can always say:
"Unpredictability does not imply freedom"
This infinite regress indicates to me that absolute freedom is meaningless.
LaserBlowFish 1 year ago
/watch?v=sygiQmcbFwQ&feature=related or maybe that's what you mean to be free will ? So if I do the experiment one way and I get a result and then I do it another way and get a different one but I can't prove that there's any "force" that comes into play then it can only be my choice ? To me that only proves that my choices have an effect on my surroundings, not that my choices are somehow "free".
LaserBlowFish 1 year ago
I've no reason to doubt your conclusion but the free will argument at least seems to fail. You said that "we know we have free will because we are self aware of our free will" but it seems to me the state of being having free will and not having it are indistinguishable. Maybe you use a different definition but if it's just that I have the ability to decide to do something then that just raises the problem that decision is causal so you can trace back all decisions as a result of all input.
LaserBlowFish 1 year ago
@LaserBlowFish Also, do you think causality and randomness are a dichotomy ? Or does Godel's theorem predict a third alternative somehow, something that "transcends" causality/deductive reasoning and yet still falls in line with what you can call "free" in free will ?
LaserBlowFish 1 year ago
@LaserBlowFish Maybe causality is not the right word so if you define free will as the opposite of determinisim then the problem is I can't really give any definite examples of decisions which aren't determined somehow. And determinism is consistent with QM as well afaik. Just because we can't predict it given all information starting from the beginning of the universe doesn't mean it's not predetermined.
LaserBlowFish 1 year ago
@LaserBlowFish You're not up on your quantum. Before a wave-function is collapsed the particle has no definite state and exists in a whole bunch of different states in superposition simultaneously.
JohananRaatz 1 year ago
@JohananRaatz I know that .. but how do you explain which state gets chosen. Why is it more "free" if that particular state gets chosen over another ?
LaserBlowFish 1 year ago
@LaserBlowFish and by "chosen state" i mean .. the state into which it collapses .. how is that determined ?
LaserBlowFish 1 year ago
@LaserBlowFish Ok maybe "how is that determined" is a stupid question but what makes it "free" is not, I maintain. Same goes for my other questions which are not necessarily QM in nature. Also don't worry about any moral consequences of saying there's no free will. If you just say moral accountability is consequentialism then you can still say retributivism is the "right" answer in particular cases. You can create a morality that matches our own yet applies just as well to robots.
LaserBlowFish 1 year ago
@LaserBlowFish So if for example you define free will as the collapse of the wave function then you are just raising another question. How exacly does the collapse of the wave function make us responsible for our actions ? Or better, why is the collapse of the wave function _necessary_ for us to be responsible for our actions ? I think the answer is that it's not and I haven't heard any refutation of that which doesn't use circular logic like "we have free will because we just have it".
LaserBlowFish 1 year ago
@LaserBlowFish Such definitions of free will essentially make it completely meaningless.
LaserBlowFish 1 year ago
@LaserBlowFish Alternatively you might define free will as the equivalent of moral accountability. That's fine but then it doesn't actually explain anything about it.
LaserBlowFish 1 year ago
By the way, sorry if I'm taking up too much space on your comment section. Feel free to PM me if you would like to continue this conversation through PMs.
Aleprechaunist1987 1 year ago
@Aleprechaunist1987 Ok I might do that. Thanks. I know these discussions can get quite long lol!
JohananRaatz 1 year ago
@JohananRaatz Yeah, especially interesting conversations @_@. Maybe we'll have to continue the conversations later since it's getting late. Nice talking to you!
Aleprechaunist1987 1 year ago
@Aleprechaunist1987 You to!
JohananRaatz 1 year ago
@JohananRaatz Awesome! Thanks. :)
JohananRaatz 1 year ago
I just am not understanding why you are trying to paint a picture that the brain is unique. All evidence suggests that the brain follows the exact same universal laws as everything else.
Aleprechaunist1987 1 year ago
@Aleprechaunist1987 I'm not saying it's not. It does follow the exact same universal laws. It's just that it likely exploits quantum mechanical aspects of those laws based on what we know about the mind. None of the classical approaches to the problem have gotten anywhere.
JohananRaatz 1 year ago
@JohananRaatz Exploits through holonomic brains and tunneling? I would like to see the papers containing the evidence.
Exploits through established biochemical (and thus quantum mechanical) mechanisms? Yes, there are years of research that has painted the modern understanding of the brain supported by a large amount of evidence.
Classical approaches haven't gotten us anywhere? On the contrary, hearing aides that replace the cochlea, neurological implants, neurological medicines, etc.
Aleprechaunist1987 1 year ago
@Aleprechaunist1987 "On the contrary, hearing aides that replace the cochlea, neurological implants, neurological medicines, etc."
I meant in regards to explaining consciousness. Obviously we can explain the mechanics of the chemical correlates, but how do these chemicals give rise to such things as a Cartesian ego, free will, phenomenality etc.? Classical physics hasn't given us much in that regard. Remember chemicals are small enough for QM behavior.
JohananRaatz 1 year ago
@JohananRaatz Well, I think that's a much deeper physics question that isn't specific only to the brain. Does the universe follow cause and effect or is it randomly changing? Is reality instantaneous or continuous? Etc.
If we know the universal laws, then it would be reasonable to assume that the brain falls within that domain.
The same forces that destined the minerals inside your computer to end up on your desk in the form that it is in would be the same forces that shape brains.
Aleprechaunist1987 1 year ago
@JohananRaatz We have made progress in understanding self. For example, we understand the mechanisms that lead a person to not be able to recognize their own hand. We have also made alot of progress determining the initial pathways of the senses. Etc. The problem isn't that neurology is hitting a dead end. The problem is that there is just ALOT to take in.
You might be interested in a TED talk by Professor Henry Markram or Sebastian Seung.
Aleprechaunist1987 1 year ago
@Aleprechaunist1987 Unfortunately I can't post links on YT comments but Eccles paper is "Quantum aspects of brain activity and the role of consciousness."
I also have a video on Eccles paper with the link in the sidebar: watch?v=4CtaxhlqM4M
And then just wiki "holonomic brain"
None of this contradicts known brain science I might point out -it's merely additional to it.
JohananRaatz 1 year ago
@JohananRaatz Thanks! I read the abstract, and it looks interesting. I'll read the rest tomorrow when I get a little time.
Aleprechaunist1987 1 year ago