@fishfry:

"Not defined" does not mean that you are free to choose the result.

Which solution has n = n+1?

Certainly not 42.

Suppose Icarus writes the number of the step on a piece of paper with each step, erasing the previous number. What number will be on the paper at the end?

It cannot be finite. If it were n, why not n+1?

It cannot be infinite because no step has the number infinite.

Icarus reaches an infinitely distant location after one minute. This place can be named with a number with an infinite number of digits before the decimal point, e.g. ...444444 . You can add or subtract one to this number, but you can't get back to finiteness with a finite number of steps.

I don't understand.

The task is quite simple. Name a few amounts that are in a set of envelopes and it becomes quite clear where the paradox is.

You can be sure that the expected value for the other envelope is 5/4 of that of the one you have.

The math is completely OK.

But the experiment cannot be set up because the distribution of the envelopes is not producible.

Give an example of a set of envelopes and I'll demonstrate.

Sensory information passes through different layers of processing in the brain and the conscious part is just on of those layers. — Harry Hindu

But nowadays artificial neural networks do the same. Can a feeling also develop on the layers of an artificial neural network?

The hard problem is resolved by a monistic view that information or process is fundamental - not matter and/or mind. — Harry Hindu

This does not explain why information-processing organic matter has feelings and information-processing inorganic matter does not.

That is not true. A rock absorbs sunlight, heats up on this side and processes this information through heat conduction. How do you know it doesn't feel that?

From the logic there is no experiment to separate subjective from objective. We only have a "similarity principle", which says that what is objectively more similar to us, is also subjectively more similar to us.

Monism and dualism share the same problem. They have to determine the limit above which complexity subjectivity arises.

If you want to explain the hard problem to John Doe, just ask him which animals and which plants feel something.

Obviously, it's not a bogus problem because it affects people's behavior, one is an animal rights activist, another is an animal abuser, the next doesn't care.

Nothing I've written claims or implies that "animals (are) non-sentient machines". — 180 Proof

It is part of the "hard problem" whether animals have sentience or not. So much would be easier if they didn't have any. And if human political opponents didn't have sentience either, then you could dispose of them without a guilty conscience.

"The hard problem" is a pseudo-problem due to assuming an unwarranted confusion / conflation of an ontological duality with semantic duality compounded subsequently by observing that polar opposite terms "subjectivity" and "objectivity" cannot be described in terms of one another, which amounts to framing the "problem" based on a category mistake. There isn't an "hard problem" to begin with, schop. — 180 Proof

"The hard problem" is not only a real problem, but even extremely important. If you see animals as non-sentient machines, there is no reason at all for animal welfare for the sake of animals, and you could recycle the animals as we do with plants

Do you really think demented people have no feelings?

..., but consciousness is always a process of intelligence. — Jackson

Does a person with dementia have no consciousness?

The idea I'm contemplating is that the "suddenness" of the onset of conscious experience may be due to the nature of conscious experience, rather than to the sudden crossing of some threshold. — Daemon

The assumption that something is conscious or not is based solely on the idea of being an entity. You can probably imagine yourself to be another human being, maybe a dog, but not a stone.

There is no conception of being half an X.

The potential for superconductivity is there. — Daemon

There is no contradiction between potential and jump point. The potential for superconductivity results from the material, below a certain temperature superconductivity suddenly occurs.

Zero is not a number; it’s a limit. — Possibility

If I have nothing in my wallet, then there are zero dollars. That's not a limit, that's a fact.

If one has no consciousness, then the objective time runs infinitely fast opposite the subjective time (like divide by zero), one is "beamed" directly to the awakening, i.e. one has felt no subjective time in between. If one feels something, then one also feels subjective time.

I like to compare consciousness with superconductivity. At a certain constellation the electric resistance suddenly jumps to zero, the conductivity accordingly to infinite.

Again when certain types of anaesthetic are administered we can see a gradual diminution in neuronal activity, corresponding to a greying out of conscious experience. — Daemon

Either the awareness is there or it is not. Consciousness is also present in a dampened state. It is like numbers, a number is either zero or not zero. There is nothing in between.

For me, this is by process of elimination - it's the only theory of consciousness that doesn't have fatal objections. — bert1

However, essential questions are not answered. What does panpsychism say about the consciousness of plants? What about subsets of consciousness, e.g. do the two hemispheres of the brain each have their own consciousness? Then there would already be three of me, my two brain hemispheres and both together.

But your broader point, which is commonly stated by skeptics is this - why does an all good, all knowing, all loving God allow innocent people (especially children) to suffer and die in their millions?

This might demonstrate some contractions (but not disprove) in a literalist, fundamentalist version of the Christian god. But that's not a difficult thing. — Tom Storm

This is a very very difficult thing for an aaa god.

:up:

"Hamlet" is a string not a character.

The first is the third character and the third is the first character. Thus any x2x is solution with x<>2.

Or the special solution 111.

The brain creates the states, ... — Garrett Travers

But the question is, what is a brain? Does a jellyfish have a brain? Does a jellyfish have mental states? Is an electronic brain a brain? Does your computer have mental states?

Nothing is explained.

When a 'particle' collides with a physical object it leaves a trace effect in physical spacetime (eg a spot on a photographic plate). — EnPassant

Also a physical object consists of particles, thus the distinction makes no sense.

I have already presented the solution. Every particle and also every group of particles sees another wave function, a section of the universal wave function.

It is comparable with mankind. Every group thinks it would be the most intelligent, but universally seen all are only part of the big stupidity. :)

But nothing collapses in real terms. Possibilities vanish, that is all. — EnPassant

The difference between classical probability and quantum mechanics is interference and this refutes the concept of a pure notion of the wave function. Back to the origin => double slit.

Detection only requires the particle to collide with a physical system. All this 'observer determines outcome' is bunkum. — EnPassant

Interference has also been demonstrated for molecules. Inside the molecule, however, the atoms interact with each other and would collapse the wave function.

Is the wave function collapsed or not?

The pattern: Every time we reduce reality to a single substance, we're faced with the problem of having to reconcile contradictory qualities, something impossible. Does it make more sense to insist that monism is true and that all contradictions are illusions or to abandon monism as nonsensical. The choice: contradiction OR no to monism. — TheMadFool

This is not an argument against monism. The fact that a circle is not a square is also no argument against geometry. Monism means that everything consists of only one substance. In the broadest sense matter is, what something weighs, applies also to light.

I've already given an example: the electric moment of ground state hydrogen. — Kenosha Kid

In Bohmian mechanics, in the ground state of hydrogen, the electron is at rest relative to the proton. However, the electric dipole is not measurable, since any approach of an electric charge immediately sets the electron in motion. The guiding equation always results in no difference to quantum mechanics.

Life without pain does not work. — Miller

What would be in heaven then? That is, by definition, a life without pain. But such a life should not be possible => You have contradicted yourself.

From the point of view of an electron, you would have a reduced wave function, which does not mean that an electron is conscious. It is only the idea of being in the place of an electron.

One speaks also of the temperature inside the sun, although nobody will ever bring a themometer there.

As I have described, the universal wave function does not collapse, the observer-specific one does.

All paradoxes dissolve, if each observer has his own wave function. Of course, all are compatible with each other.

Maybe you can just look at it this way: There is a universal wave function of the universe, where everything is only probabilities. However, every single elementary particle "knows" where it is located. Thus it sees a reduced wave function, because it has an information about itself. Also measuring instruments "know" where they are. And humans also. Each particle and each group of particles sees another wave function.

Most atoms are going to be transparent to radio waves simply because, whatever energy levels the electrons are at, jumping to the next one up will require more energy. — Kenosha Kid

It is not about atoms. Why can't a single free electron interact with radio waves or infrared radiation in the apparatus?

The particle would collapse upon scattering with the photon and the pattern that would build up would be a classical double Gaussian rather than the stripes characteristic of interference. — Kenosha Kid

One always has interactions with radio waves or neutrinos. How then can there ever be interference patterns?

One should consider the Bohmian mechanics. But after the measurement empty wave functions arise. But since one already knows where the particle is, this no longer corresponds to Born's rule.

A consciousness can "think away" the empty wave functions.

Is it possible that a star has a wave function that is distributed over the whole galaxy? I don't see any mathematical problem there.

Either it is possible, then also huge objects can be non-collapsed or the mathematics of the Schrödinger equation is wrong.

Just think classic: Wigner's friend is standing in front of the box with the cat. Its condition is only a probability for him. When he opens it, this probability collapses into certainty. For Wigner outside the room it is still only a probability.

Wigner and Wigner's friend have also classically a different view. For Wigner's friend the cat is either alive or dead, for Wigner it is in a "probability cloud".

It is irrefutable that only a consciousness brings the wave function to collapse. The consciousness connects here with the electronic eye and brings also its wave function to the collapse. With several consciousnesses, each has its own wave function (-> Wigner's friend), which are consistent with each other and correspond to the respective information state.

omnipotent: "The most powerful a being can be."
omniscient: "The most knowledgeable and aware a being can be."
omnibenevolent: "The most good a being can be."

Basically, God might be the best in what is possible, but God is limited by what is possible. — Wirius

God could fulfill all three. Imagine a sadist who takes pleasure in torturing others. God does not prevent it, because free will. Nevertheless, God could simply play him a world in which all others are only avatars.