Life could only arise in an ordered world and consciousness can only fathom a world with a certain type of order. — Count Timothy von Icarus
I think the notion of ‘cause’ in ‘what causes wave collapse’ is problematical. The wave function is not physical, either, it’s simply a distribution of probabilities. It gives the answer to ‘where is the particle’ prior to it being measured in terms of probabilities. When the measurement is taken, it’s not longer a matter of probabilities but a certainty. That’s the ‘collapse’. — Wayfarer
It occured to me the other night that the von Neumann–Wigner interpretation of quantum mechanics, that consciousness is what causes wave collapse (or decoherence), solves the Fine Tuning Problem quite nicely. — Count Timothy von Icarus
And this then also neatly describes why consciousness is so impossible to find in all our myriad brain scans. This is puzzling because we think we should have the resolution of scans we need to be able to identify what it is that "causes," consciousness. But instead the brain is like an expert magician, who pulls a rabbit out of a hat even when he's inside an MRI. — Count Timothy von Icarus
Consciousness causes wave collapse - It is not currently possible to empirically differentiate between interpretations of quantum mechanics.
It seems likely, to me at least but also to many others, that there never will be. That means it's metaphysics, not science, at least until the issue is resolved.
Fine Tuning Problem - There is no fine tuning problem. It's just an expression of a fundamental misunderstanding of what probability means and how it works.
The hard problem of Consciousness - We have this argument over and over here on the forum. Many of us shake our heads when others tell us they can't conceive that consciousness and human experience can be understood scientifically.
I won't clutter your thread any more with my skepticism. I don't mean to be disruptive.
If an object is defined by its relations, then an object is actually continually becoming a different object; I am a different person when I'm in my dining room them when I'm in my living room, — Count Timothy von Icarus
The hard problem of Consciousness - We have this argument over and over here on the forum. Many of us shake our heads when others tell us they can't conceive that consciousness and human experience can be understood scientifically. — T Clark
I don't doubt that a scientific observation of quantum superposition results in a change of some kind. But the notion that a single mind's act of perception, can cause a physical change in a material object in the real world, not only sounds like Magic, but also faces the Solipsism paradox.Not that I am at all an advocate for "consciousness causes collapse," but sometimes exploring theories you don't like tells you important things about the ones you do like. In any event, in comparison to infinite parallel universes and infinite copies of ourselves, it doesn't seem that wild. If the Fine Tuning Problem is bad enough to make people embrace multiple worlds, maybe consciousness causes collapse is due for a resurgence? — Count Timothy von Icarus
The concern is generally that, if an object is nothing but its properties, and its properties change, then the object has become a different object. This might be less of an issue in fundemental physics though because it is generally accepted that fundemental particles lack haecceity, that they have no discrete identity. Or, as Wheeler put it, we could as well imagine that only one electron exists in the universe and it is just in many places as once. — Count Timothy von Icarus
Surely such is still interacting with the spacetime it exists within. Quantum fluctuations occur during every planck time duration, at every spacetime coordinate, do they not? So what is meant here by 'isolated proton or photon. Also, if QFT is correct and particles are in fact 'disturbances' in a field then again, the term 'isolated' or 'without interacting with anything,' seems incorrect.But I find it more concerning what Rovelli's model is supposed to say about what happens when isolated photons or protons go for a bit without interacting with anything. — Count Timothy von Icarus
maybe this is fixed if we think in terms of fields, which are always interacting, instead of particles. But his book mostly avoids talking in terms of fields, although that might be just to help make it accessible. If we take Wilzek's conception of space as a "metric field," or aether, then it seems it could resolve that problem since all "particles" are always interacting with spacetime. Although it still seems like certain of their properties are snapping into existence at some times and disappearing at others. — Count Timothy von Icarus
It is very frustrating to the point of willed ignorance that you keep misinterpreting/misrepresenting the hard problem of consciousness. In your own words, can you even summarize it correctly?? — schopenhauer1
The hard problem of consciousness is a philosophical problem concerning why and how humans and other organisms have qualia, phenomenal consciousness, or subjective experiences.[1][2] This is in contrast to the "easy problems" of explaining the physical systems that give humans and other animals the ability to discriminate, integrate information, perform behavioural functions, or provide behavioural reports, and so forth.[1]
The easy problems are considered "easy" not because they are literally easy, but because they are problems that are in principle amenable to functional explanations: that is, explanations that are mechanistic or behavioural, as they can be explained (at least in principle) purely by reference to the "structure and dynamics" that underpin the phenomenon in question.[3][4][1] Proponents of the hard problem argue that conscious experience is categorically different in this respect since no mechanistic or behavioural explanation could explain the character of an experience, even in principle. — Wikipedia - Hard Problem of Conscioiusness
I don't doubt that a scientific observation of quantum superposition results in a change of some kind. But the notion that a single mind's act of perception, can cause a physical change in a material object in the real world, not only sounds like Magic, but also faces the Solipsism paradox.
True, but this is true for almost every interpretation of quantum mechanics. — Count Timothy von Icarus
Right, but this is true of virtually all of quantum foundations. Mach famously held that atoms were unfalsifiable and unscientific. Quarks were held to be unfalsifiable pseudoscience until just a few years before they were "verified." Lots of elements of string theories are unfalsifiable. — Count Timothy von Icarus
My counterargument would be that if you bracket off these issues as non-scientific it puts a stigma on them (and indeed a prohibition on research in quantum foundations was dogmatically enforced from on high until the late-90s). Philosophers in general lack the skills and resources to pursue these ideas; they have to be done by physicists. In many cases, we see theories that are initially attacked as unscientific coming to mature and eventually develop means of testing the theory against others. — Count Timothy von Icarus
Per Poppers evolutionary view of science, we need such suppositions because they are the "mutations," that allow science to keep "evolving." Of course, most mutations result in the death of the organism (or the scientific career), but occasionally they are hugely successful. — Count Timothy von Icarus
In any event, we currently have a number of theories about what causes quantum phenomena that are empirically indiscernible given our current technology and knowledge. By what rights should we select any of them as canonical? The idea behind enforcing the Copenhagen Interpretation as orthodoxy was that this secured science against metaphysics, but this is not what it did. Instead, it enshrined a specific type of metaphysics and epistemology as dogmatism. — Count Timothy von Icarus
How so? Certainly it's a problem that is taken seriously. The rapid coalescence of support for the Many Worlds Interpretation over that past decade is often based around the conception that the interpretation is "more likely," because it answers the Fine Tuning Problem. — Count Timothy von Icarus
But the question remains, "why do the origins of consciousness yield so slowly to the same methods that have allowed us to understand so many other phenomena with a great level of depth." — Count Timothy von Icarus
what happens when isolated photons or protons go for a bit without interacting with anything. In this case, it seems they should have ceased to exist. — Count Timothy von Icarus
Many of us shake our heads when others tell us they can't conceive that consciousness and human experience can be understood scientifically. — T Clark
Chalmers explains the persistence of this question by arguing against the possibility of a “reductive explanation” for phenomenal consciousness (hereafter, I will generally just use the term ‘consciousness’ for the phenomenon causing the problem). A reductive explanation in Chalmers’s sense (following David Lewis (1972)), provides a form of deductive argument concluding with an identity statement between the target explanandum (the thing we are trying to explain) and a lower-level phenomenon that is physical in nature or more obviously reducible to the physical. Reductive explanations of this type have two premises. The first presents a functional analysis of the target phenomenon, which fully characterizes the target in terms of its functional role. The second presents an empirically-discovered realizer of the functionally characterized target, one playing that very functional role. Then, by transitivity of identity, the target and realizer are deduced to be identical. For example, the gene may be reductively explained in terms of DNA as follows:
The gene = the unit of hereditary transmission. (By analysis.)
Regions of DNA = the unit of hereditary transmission. (By empirical investigation.)
Therefore, the gene = regions of DNA. (By transitivity of identity, 1, 2.)
Chalmers contends that such reductive explanations are available in principle for all other natural phenomena, but not for consciousness. This is the hard problem.
The reason that reductive explanation fails for consciousness, according to Chalmers, is that it cannot be functionally analyzed. This is demonstrated by the continued conceivability of what Chalmers terms “zombies”—creatures physically (and so functionally) identical to us, but lacking consciousness—even in the face of a range of proffered functional analyses. If we had a satisfying functional analysis of consciousness, zombies should not be conceivable. The lack of a functional analysis is also shown by the continued conceivability of spectrum inversion (perhaps what it looks like for me to see green is what it looks like when you see red), the persistence of the “other minds” problem, the plausibility of the “knowledge argument” (Jackson 1982) and the manifest implausibility of offered functional characterizations. If consciousness really could be functionally characterized, these problems would disappear. Since they retain their grip on philosophers, scientists, and lay-people alike, we can conclude that no functional characterization is available. But then the first premise of a reductive explanation cannot be properly formulated, and reductive explanation fails. We are left, Chalmers claims, with the following stark choice: either eliminate consciousness (deny that it exists at all) or add consciousness to our ontology as an unreduced feature of reality, on par with gravity and electromagnetism. Either way, we are faced with a special ontological problem, one that resists solution by the usual reductive methods. — Hard Problem of Consciousness - IEP
The first presents a functional analysis of the target phenomenon, which fully characterizes the target in terms of its functional role. The second presents an empirically-discovered realizer of the functionally characterized target, one playing that very functional role. Then, by transitivity of identity, the target and realizer are deduced to be identical. — Hard Problem of Consciousness - IEP
I don't think this accurately represents the understanding of those who believe that phenomenal consciousness can be studied effectively using scientific methods. — T Clark
Taken literally, that subject = object notion sounds like a figment looking at its own concept, as illustrated in Escher's hand-drawing-hand image. However, Idealism & Panpsychism seem to assume that the subject is immersed in a non-local ideal world (e.g. God's world model), and who interprets the contents of his personal consciousness as-if they are non-self objects existing locally even when the subject is not looking. Hence, Berkeley's "quad" explanation that what we "see" is figments of God's imagination, that for all practical (scientific) purposes are real & objective.Because unlike objective phenomena, consciousness is both the subject doing the investigating and the object of investigation. — Wayfarer
Moderator note: the comments specifically about the hard problem of consciousness have been moved to the most recent thread on that topic, so as to maintain the focus of this thread on the OP. Please feel free to carry on with that conversation in the other thread. — Wayfarer
This is not reasonable — T Clark
We just finished this same argument a few days ago and I'm not ready to start up again. — T Clark
Well sure, if we take the Copenhagen Interpretation as a given then other interpretations are wrong, but what's the grounds for doing that? — Count Timothy von Icarus
The OP said nothing about 'the hard problem', that was introduced by you. — Wayfarer
And this then also neatly describes why consciousness is so impossible to find in all our myriad brain scans. This is puzzling because we think we should have the resolution of scans we need to be able to identify what it is that "causes," consciousness. But instead the brain is like an expert magician, who pulls a rabbit out of a hat even when he's inside an MRI. — Count Timothy von Icarus
And finally, the posts were not deleted, they were moved to more relevant thread, so as to keep this thread more on topic, which is already a complex and contentius topic in its own right. — Wayfarer
And this then also neatly describes why consciousness is so impossible to find in all our myriad brain scans. This is puzzling because we think we should have the resolution of scans we need to be able to identify what it is that "causes," consciousness. — Count Timothy von Icarus
As far as we know, none of the various interpretations of quantum mechanics can be verified even in principle. They are all equivalent. There is no difference except, perhaps, a metaphysical one.
Unverified is not the same thing as unverifiable. If I'm wrong and one interpretation of QM can be verified, then your argument will mean something. Modeling the behavior of matter at the smallest scales as atoms and quarks allows generation of predictions of behavior that can be tested. QM interpretations do not.
As I noted, if I'm wrong and the various QM interpretations can be tested, then we can have this discussion. I'm not the only one who thinks that is unlikely. I acknowledge I am far from qualified to render an opinion on this. I'm not a physicist. I'm basing my understanding on reading what other more qualified people have written.
They are not "a number of theories" they are a number of interpretations of one theory. The reason the Copenhagen Interpretation is in any way canonical is that it's really not an interpretation at all. It just describes how quantum level phenomena behave. Shut up and calculate is not metaphysics. It's anti-metaphysics.
This is a straw dog or straw man or straw something argument. The social and psychological mechanisms of consciousness have been studied for decades, centuries, millennia, with some success. The neurological mechanisms of consciousness have not been because the technology has not been available. Over the past few decades, those technologies have been evolving rapidly. Again, this is an argument that has been gone through many times on the forum without resolution.
The question I have, then, is what is the problem with the Copenhagen interpretation?
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