The Tyranny of Physicalism: You’re Either a God or a Goofball

[Max_B]

Only if we can remember the past observations.

Yes it's no problem to remember measurements - past facts. That doesn't help your belief that there is an objective/physical state between measurements. Which there is not.

The particles are physically correlated. But you have no conscious control over the entanglement.

The particles are only physically correlated when you measure them.

Also when it comes to this type of QM measurement, you need a conscious observer to do anything with it. And concious observers still decide what to measure - no getting away from that.

 

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

I don't see how you can make such a positive statement when we do not understand memory.

If you take an integrated information theory of consciousness from Tononi, then the quantum information is part of what is processed and integrated to create conscious experience.

Agreed, but you are still not conscious of your memory storage and retrieval.

~~ Paul

 

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

I think the experiments testing the Leggett-Garg inequalities have demonstrated that micro realism is not true, which means there is no objective state prior to consciously observed measurement.

I think it's more complex than that.

http://arxiv.org/abs/1412.6139

~~ Paul

 

[Bucky]

I don't need to prove that a physical (or ideal) solution is possible. Proofs are only required if particular ontological solutions are to be rejected. Otherwise each on is still on the table.

Of course.
Materialists, just like good ship captains, won't abandon their boat. They will sink with it :)

Well, it's certainly superior scientifically, so far.

I don't know what you're talking about.
Science existed long before materialism and innumerable scientific discoveries have been done by scientists with different philosophical views.

cheers

 

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

I don't know what you're talking about.
Science existed long before materialism and innumerable scientific discoveries have been done by scientists with different philosophical views.

Excellent. Then the "science is stuck on a materialist treadmill" argument is a red herring.

~~ Paul

 

[Neil]

I think it's more complex than that.

http://arxiv.org/abs/1412.6139

~~ Paul

That's why I said micro realism, not macro realism.

 

[Neil]

Agreed, but you are still not conscious of your memory storage and retrieval.

~~ Paul

We are not conscious of almost all processes that occur. I don't see how that would prevent us from remembering.

 

[Bucky]

Excellent. Then the "science is stuck on a materialist treadmill" argument is a red herring.

I have no idea how you can deduce that from what I've said.
Materialism is certainly the dominant view in the academia and the scientific institutions, today.

 

[malf]

I have no idea how you can deduce that from what I've said.
Materialism is certainly the dominant view in the academia and the scientific institutions, today.

Why do you think that might be?

 

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

That's why I said micro realism, not macro realism.

Perhaps I don't understand what you mean by "objective state." There has to be state or else there is nothing. Do you mean that the system remains superposed? Why does transitioning to a macroscopic state require consciousness?

~~ Paul

 

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

We are not conscious of almost all processes that occur. I don't see how that would prevent us from remembering.

I think we've lost track of the context of the conversation. Or at least I have. My only point was that there are nonconscious processes at work. Claiming that they are some form of consciousness is not based on evidence, but is only an assumption.

~~ Paul

 

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

I have no idea how you can deduce that from what I've said.
Materialism is certainly the dominant view in the academia and the scientific institutions, today.

But you said that science has the ability to work from different views. Assuming that's so, then we needn't worry that scientific naturalism is a permanent state of affairs. Not that I'm worried; just sayin'.

~~ Paul

 

[Neil]

Perhaps I don't understand what you mean by "objective state." There has to be state or else there is nothing. Do you mean that the system remains superposed? Why does transitioning to a macroscopic state require consciousness?

~~ Paul

if there is an objective state prior to measurement, with defined position, trajectory, momentum, etc, that would violate the uncertainty principle.

The state of the system prior to a measurement is not a defined objective state, but rather does not exist in spacetime until measured/observed. Until then, it exists, as far as we can tell, as some form of non-local possibilities until manifested as matter.

 

[Neil]

I think we've lost track of the context of the conversation. Or at least I have. My only point was that there are nonconscious processes at work. Claiming that they are some form of consciousness is not based on evidence, but is only an assumption.

~~ Paul

I think I have as well. Most processes of ours are non-conscious. Or rather, I should say, is that very little of what goes on for humans is conscious, so I think we agree on that.

 

[Neil]

Why does transitioning to a macroscopic state require consciousness?

~~ Paul

Well we don't know for sure that it does. However I think that based on various PK experiments, the consistency of a conscious-collapse approach with respect to the paradoxes and experiments out there, what von Neumann said about needing something outside of the world to break the quantum chain of superpositions makes sense.

I personally think that the nature of conscious experience is needed for the world to exists as we see it because of the way we process and integrate information, which restricts both past and future, and most importantly excludes everything but the one unitive experience we have. I am a fan of information integration theory of Tononi where conscious awareness is a result of processing and integration of information, and I extend it to quantum computational models and the von Neumann interpretation. Essentially, I feel, the processing and integration of information results in conscious awareness, which is exclusive and unitary, which "collapses the wave function" and breaks the chain to make the world "real" in the sense of how we experience it. Without the integration, restriction, and exclusion of conscious experience, there is no world as we know it.

 

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

if there is an objective state prior to measurement, with defined position, trajectory, momentum, etc, that would violate the uncertainty principle.

Ah, that state. Agreed.

The state of the system prior to a measurement is not a defined objective state, but rather does not exist in spacetime until measured/observed. Until then, it exists, as far as we can tell, as some form of non-local possibilities until manifested as matter.

Yes, it is not in a classical state. I'm not sure what this has to do with consciousness.

~~ Paul

 

[Neil]

Ah, that state. Agreed.


Yes, it is not in a classical state. I'm not sure what this has to do with consciousness.

~~ Paul

Yeah sorry I didn't address the consciousness question from your post. I made a separate post to on that part.

 

[Psiclops]

An interesting article to consider:
https://ideas.aeon.co/viewpoints/philip-hughes-on-what-is-consciousness-for

 

[Bucky]

@Psiclops thanks for posting. The link is not working correctly, there's some garbage before the actual URL, so here it is again:
https://ideas.aeon.co/viewpoints/philip-hughes-on-what-is-consciousness-for

The moral that Frankish and his fellow illusionists (most famously and originally being Daniel Dennett) draw is that to lose physicalism is a price too high to pay, so it is consciousness that must be revised to fit in with the metaphysical position. The resulting efforts by the illusionists is, that consciousness can fit in only if doesn’t really exist at all, and rather as by way of explanation; it must be that we are tricked into apprehending something it is not, leaving mind to be fully explained in a functionalist manner. (This is understandable. Science endeavours to explain nature through reductionism and successfully so. So, why not with consciousness?)

Yes, I pretty much agree.
Consciousness is ultimately impenetrable from a materialistic standpoint, and physicalists won't let go of their convictions just because they have hit a brick wall.
It's simpler to hide the problem in the closet, whistling, as if nothing happened. :D

 

[Neil]

@Psiclops thanks for posting. The link is not working correctly, there's some garbage before the actual URL, so here it is again:
https://ideas.aeon.co/viewpoints/philip-hughes-on-what-is-consciousness-for


Yes, I pretty much agree.
Consciousness is ultimately impenetrable from a materialistic standpoint, and physicalists won't let go of their convictions just because they have hit a brick wall.
It's simpler to hide the problem in the closet, whistling, as if nothing happened. :D

I think the quoted portion demonstrates it is far worse than that. The only thing that cannot logically be denied is our conscious experience, yet this is what we must give up in order to maintain physicalism? That's stunning in how illogical it is, and shows what extreme blind faith there is in physicalism for some people.