Defining Physicalness: Inviting Physicalists to Weigh In

[nameless]

Please spare me, I am more than familiar with what you are talking about.

No you aren't...

But, instead of responding line by line and getting nowhere, I shall first offer a short quote by Richard Feynman from "Genius: The Life and Science of Richard Feynman".

"The Laws of Nature are not rules controlling the metamorphosis of what 'is' into what 'will be'. They are descriptions of patterns that exist, all at once, in the whole tapestry.. The four-dimensional space-time manifold displays all eternity at once."

Consider this just one 'gem' from a constantly expanding diadem of perspectival sources testifying to the absolute simultaneity (absolutely anti-intuitive) of each and every 'moment'.
Consider there is a convergence of this 'understanding' from widely varied sources, mostly arrived at 'independently'.

Well, if (as the most pregnant cutting edge of current thought from various disciplines is positing) 'all' exists at once, and there is no (despite your very best sensory information), 'time/linearity/motion', there can likewise be no 'cause and effect' as this is predicated on motion/time/linearity (not necessarily in that order.. *__- ).
Again, unless things happen at different times, one after the other, there can be no inherent reality in the notion of c&e.

I will, to a point, agree with you in that I'll concede that the notion of 'cause and effect' has apparent 'existence', though, solely within the very subjective 'dream of life'. So if you are of the opinion that any 'dream' is 'existing reality', then so would be 'cause and effect'. It is within this 'hologramic construct' that the notion of c&e has any validity or usefulness as it relates only to this subjective 'illusion'. The illusion of c&e is only 'useful' (within certain context) within the greater illusion of 'life'!

Again, I'm not trying to affect your 'beliefs', I'm just attempting to help you understand a perspective obviously alien to your own.

 

[nameless]

Les, here is another perspective closer to your own than mine. What becomes of your 'cause and effect' within 'this' context?

Excerpt from:
http://montalk.net/science/74/-time-reversible-or-irreversible"

Classical physics says time is reversible because its laws hold true whether time flows forward or backward. Thermodynamics says time only flows forward, because were it to reverse, entropy of an isolated system could decrease which would violate the second law of thermodynamics.
So is time reversible or irreversible? The answer cannot be deduced from either classical physics or thermodynamics because both are flawed in their assumptions.

Classical Systems are Timeless
Classical physics only deals with deterministic systems whose past, present, and future are entirely contained in a single timeless equation. As a result, for such systems time does not exist except as spatial increments marking the various aspects of a static pattern frozen in eternity. Moving one way or another on a static pattern does not change it, and for this reason the laws of classical physics hold true regardless of whether the time variable is positive or negative. Because time is not an intrinsic part of deterministic systems, classical physics has nothing valid to say about the real nature of time.

Thermodynamics Is Just A Suggestion
Thermodynamics is a statistical science that calculates trends rather than individual events. This means it sweeps complex molecular motion under the rug and only makes observations about the resulting lump. It is important to remember that according to classical physics, molecular motion is deterministic, implying that thermodynamic systems must also be deterministic because they are merely collections of deterministic molecules. If the components of a system are time reversible, then so must the system itself.
So why does thermodynamics claim time is irreversible? Because due to the overwhelming complexity in keeping track of every deterministic molecule, it is forced to ignore this level of precision where reversibility resides.
The illusion of time irreversibility in thermodynamics arises from two problems:

1) its inability to calculate a system with absolute precision, which prevents it from mathematically confirming time symmetry, and
2) that its laws are based on incomplete statistical observations and assumptions.

Time symmetry or reversibility requires that the laws of a system in question do not change when time is reversed. In classical physics, this is easy to check because past and future of a system can be calculated with absolute precision. But thermodynamics cannot completely know the total characteristics of a system because its molecular details are too complex to take into account. So it cannot even compare the forward and reversed systems to check for symmetry because they are too complex. On this point alone, thermodynamics is therefore inconclusive about the nature of time.

Thermodynamics Makes Statistical Laws Apply to Individual CasesResorting to statistical observations, it forces a match between limited laboratory observation and mathematics by fatally assuming that instead of collections of deterministic particles, things are made of perfect fluids. This is done as a matter of practicality to smooth over the randomness of molecular motion, which unfortunately throws out its inherent deterministic and time reversible nature.
Assuming a perfect fluid is like assuming that each family in America has exactly 1.3 children, to match the national statistic. While this is a neat mathematical device, when it gets taken too seriously any family’s claim to have two children is seen as an impossibility because it would “violate the statistical law.”
Likewise, when time is reversed and entropy decreases, the resulting violation of the second law of thermodynamics should be no cause for alarm because the second law is only a unique statistical trend, not an absolute pillar of physics as its supporters claim. It seems universal only because the mathematics apparently support it, but remember that the math in thermodynamics is built upon the assumption that systems are made of perfect fluids.
While the systems to which science has restricted its observations do show increasing entropy, this says nothing about the ignored systems. What applies to the minority need not be universal for the majority. In truth, a decrease of entropy violates nothing because it is not an impossibility – it simply has lower probability than were the system to increase in entropy. Therefore, the mathematical and observational proof in thermodynamics are insufficient to claim that time is irreversible.

Proper Definition of Time IrreversibilitySo how do we determine whether time is reversible or irreversible, being that classical physics and thermodynamics have now been eliminated from the debate? We see that thermodynamics is on the right track – stated another way, time seems irreversible because the future is more uncertain than the past. While the past can be clearly observed from observation of what transpired in a system, if calculations are unable to perfectly predict the future as well, the future will seem murkier. So the future seems always “in the making” which gives rise to an apparent forward flow of time.
But this murkiness of the future is only due to incomplete information concerning the individual particles of a thermodynamic system. Were we to know them in detail, we could indeed see that the future is as certain as the past and that time in that case is reversible. The nearsightedness of an observer says nothing about the intrinsic fuzziness of the object observed; that science cannot determine the future state of a system does not mean the system itself is nondeterministic.

Quantum Mechanics Proves Direction of Time
It should now be clear that only nondeterministic systems are time irreversible. Time cannot be symmetric in systems whose future is not already contained in some tidy equation connecting it with the past.
Do such systems exist? Yes, quantum processes are nondetermistic by nature. What state a wave function collapses into cannot be predicted mathematically. Quantum mechanics is a lot like thermodynamics in the sense that its laws deal with the statistical trends of random processes, except there is one crucial difference: the unpredictability of a quantum system comes not from shallowness of an observer’s perception, but on the intrinsically nondeterministic nature of the system itself.
Then how exactly does time arise? By consciousness sequentially choosing which aspects of quantum wave functions to manifest as physical experience. Choice is nondeterministic because were it not, it would already be pre-decided, leaving no choice. Choice necessitates freewill, so the irreversibility of time ultimately stems from freewill being neither predictable nor easily undoable.
Perhaps this sounds like new age mumbo jumbo to you, but all this is self evident from the mathematics of quantum mechanics. There are no hidden variables in quantum theory, only those created on the spot by conscious selection. Nothing in quantum physics contradicts this idea.

Consciousness and Quantum Phase
The phase of a wave function is entirely “arbitrary” according to physics, and it is precisely this phase that creates huge consequences for how a time-dependent wave function evolves and interacts with other wave functions. In truth, this phase factor is not arbitrary, but deliberately chosen at some level of consciousness because being detached from the deterministic (statistical) parts of quantum theory, phase is left entirely at the discretion of choice. This shows how mind ultimately affects physical reality, not by violating its classical laws, but by working through nonlinear systems to amplify “arbitrary” quantum fluctuations into macroscopic effects.
Time dependent wave functions show how consciousness creates time. The only reason they appear to evolve through time is that they consist of multiple stationary states (wave functions independent of time) whose various phases change to produce a “moving” wave function. But these phases are chosen by consciousness, and since it is the phases that give rise to the seeming time-dependence of a wave function, it should be beyond debate at this point that consciousness creates time.
Furthermore, once a wave function has “collapsed” (one disc of the jukebox selected to be played), it cannot “uncollapse”. The collapse of a wave function is not time reversible because mathematics cannot calculate it equally well forwards and back. Only linear systems which are perfectly predictable are time reversible. So once more, time is irreversible when, and only when, it comes to quantum systems and freewill choice.

The Interface Between Quantum and Classical SystemsHow does all this fit with the systems of classical physics? Classical systems are merely series of deterministic effects, while conscious choice is the original nondeterministic cause.
The interval between deterministic events is known as linear time, which is illusion for the simple fact that the span between first and last effect is redundant and thus nonexistent except to the observer choosing to observe it as real. Deterministic systems appear to move only because our consciousness slides its observational focal point along the eternally static pattern of the system, not because the system itself is changing.
As an analogy, the songs on a CD do not change with time because they all exist simultaneously as data on a disc, and any illusion of time between beginning and end of a song arises solely from them being played as such. When a CD is played, it progresses at a default sequence, direction, and speed – but these can be changed if one chooses to skip tracks, increase the speed, or listen to it backwards, all without actually changing the CD itself.
True time does not span intervals of deterministic sequences, but rather intervals of freewill choice. If consciousness were to choose to view the static pattern backwards, sideways, or in jumps, then that is perfectly permissible. The term “irreversible” only means that there exists a tendency for time to progress in the direction that conscious choices are made.
Thus, reality progresses in piecewise deterministic jumps. This can be compared to how road trips consist of roads and intersections. What roads have been traveled determine which new roads are available at an intersection, but not which particular road will be chosen. Quantum physics equations show what roads are available, but consciousness ultimately decides which to follow.
And so it is with reality – the choices we make determine what choices are available, but not which ones we’ll end up making. Thus, classical and quantum processes interact to give rise to the rich dynamic fractal we call life.

 

[Les Sleeth]

No you aren't...

Just because I'm not falling down worshipping your interpretations of things doesn't mean I am not acquainted with the concepts!

Just listen for a minute, okay?

I am not saying, and never have, that once we get to the ultimate state of things that cause and effect continue to hold.
Let's say you are a person who sees what is ultimately true. My experience has been that absolutists think about everything in absolutes. I would agree that there is something absolute, and that nothing can stand up to it in terms of significance.
However, if we assume this perspective we must conclude that from the absolute all things relative emerge. One of the relative situations that would have to have emerged from the oneness of the absolute is cause and effect. In that model, is cause and effect absolutely real (i.e., if held next to the true Absolute)? Of course not. But for now, and in one spot, cause and effect are functioning.

I can prove, beyond all doubt, that cause and effect occur here in this universe. If you try to deny it you will prove yourself to be other than a realist. If you hit your "g" key, a "g" will appear you your monitor. Cause and effect. If you drill a hole in your head, you will bleed and possibly hear an echo. Cause and effect. If you fail to say "yes dear" when your wife is premenstral, you are in for trouble. Cause and effect.

My point is, within the greater realm of the absolute, relative situations exist, and they have sets of rules. The rules may be temporary, the rules may be just in this location, but they still exist here and now.

For this thread I asked participants to contemplate the rules that define what we call "physical" HERE AND NOW. I don't have any illusions that physicalness is absolutely real everywhere and forever (though I know some people believe it is). I was simply trying to come up with some ideas about what establishes physicalness HERE AND NOW.

Then you come along and seem to say it's all an illusion, that there is no such thing, that part of the very foundation of physicalness (cause and effect) are obsolete concepts.

The problem is, you are philosophizing in the realm of the absolute, and this thread is about a relative situation. I don't think it is right for you to demand we only talk about what is absolute. And I feel insulted that you treat me like I am a moron because I dare talk about something other than the absolute.

If you were to check all my posts and threads, you would see that I am more than capable of talking about the ultimate thing, and that I am a lover of it far more than relative situations. I just think it is important to understand all of it, not just what I favor.

 

[nameless]

Didja miss this part?
I will, to a point, agree with you in that I'll concede that the notion of 'cause and effect' has apparent 'existence', though, solely within the very subjective 'dream of life'. So if you are of the opinion that any 'dream' is 'existing reality', then so would be 'cause and effect'. It is within this 'hologramic construct' that the notion of c&e has any validity or usefulness as it relates only to this subjective 'illusion'. The illusion of c&e is only 'useful' (within certain context) within the greater illusion of 'life'!

Which seems to relate to your rant.

Why, do you think, do you NEVER actually respond to the interesting (for thinking people, anyway) points that I am offering?

 

[Les Sleeth]

. . . you get personal

I get personal? Who said, ". . . if that is the definition of a moron, then I'm afraid you are wearing the shoe, you lie outright, you dissemble, you whine and rant and demand things . . ."

I believe I've tried to reason with you. The problem for me has been that you hijack the thread to expound your personal philosophy. What I've "demanded" is that you get on topic; and yes I got a little impatient in these last posts.

You say, "Why, do you think, do you NEVER actually respond to the interesting (for thinking people, anyway) points that I am offering?" Well, I have responded, not directly to your personal philosophy, but by trying to get you to discuss the theme of this thread. So far your perspective has hardly been relevant to this discussion. For example:

Didja miss this part?
I will, to a point, agree with you in that I'll concede that the notion of 'cause and effect' has apparent 'existence', though, solely within the very subjective 'dream of life'. So if you are of the opinion that any 'dream' is 'existing reality', then so would be 'cause and effect'. It is within this 'hologramic construct' that the notion of c&e has any validity or usefulness as it relates only to this subjective 'illusion'. The illusion of c&e is only 'useful' (within certain context) within the greater illusion of 'life'!
Which seems to relate to your rant.

Now, you offered that to me as your concept of being responsive to this thread's topic, yet 98% of the statement is your personal philosophy. The only thing you said that was even close to being on subject was the "apparent existence" of cause and effect, and then you were right back to your "dream" concept.

That you believe your philosophy is "interesting to thinking people" shows how out of touch with modern philosophy you are. Philosophical idealism is pretty much the bane of philosophy at a science forum because there is no way to prove or falsify its claims. Then you act like if I only understood what you were talking about then . . . Well, I do understand it. In fact, I've heard so much of it that now I try to ignore it hoping whoever is talking about it will get the hint and embrace a more factual way of philosophizing (a former member was even banned here for incessantly trying to explain physics with it). So it is nothing new, it isn't the slightest bit novel.

But let's say you are right, and this is all an illusion. What does that have to do with defining physical? If it is an illusion, then fine, define what physical is in that illusion. Why use every opportunity to push your philosophy? I didn't ask you to explain the ultimate meaning of things, I asked you to define physical. Start your own thread if you want to argue the merits of idealism.

 

[sameandnot]

wow!
<breathing for the posters.>
hhuuhhhhh... hahhhhhhhhhhhh... (does not stop, of course).

notices: object is perceived by subject.
realizes: object is within subject, as a perception.
further: perception is subject.
concludes: object is subject.
thinks: how to know object, without knowing subject?

<breathing... silence.>

 

[octelcogopod]

While sameandnot has a point..

In THIS world, so to speak, where we are in a sense observing a physical reality, I would define physical as anything that isn't subjective.
Heh, while that may be a broad statement, just tihnk about it for a second.
In my personal world view, almost everything is physical, up to the point where everything is physical.
However, I think that some things, like a subjective state, which I wrote about in a thread in General Philosophy, is somehow a transcending state of physicality.

I believe therefore, that to simply define physical as everything that isn't physical, is the simplest solution.
YES, I do know that we haven't defined physical, we haven't defined subjective, but then again who can do that?

 

[sameandnot]

isn't it amazing how all of these threads, which we perceive as seperate, are really trying to make sense of the same thing?! all of the posts of all the threads are so innately One, that we cannot help but talk about the topics of other threads in the context of a "different" one.

wow! this is something that is truly fascinating!

we are all really pointing at the One; be it with "different" ideas and varying crudity of perception of It (which forms the basis of our "pointing").

 

[octelcogopod]

Haha, I agree sameandnot.

 

[Les Sleeth]

I think that some things, like a subjective state, which I wrote about in a thread in General Philosophy, is somehow a transcending state of physicality.

Okay, and a lot of us agree with you about that (most around here don't).

I believe therefore, that to simply define physical as everything that isn't physical, is the simplest solution.
YES, I do know that we haven't defined physical, we haven't defined subjective, but then again who can do that?

The problem with such a definition is that while it might be a practical way to identify the physical, it doesn't tell anything about physicalness. As I explained to Nameless earlier, I started this thread mostly because in past debates (usually about the nature of consciousness) between physicalist theorists and those who believe existence involves at least "something more," sometimes there would be a problem in the debate about where physical begins-ends and non-physical begins-ends.

For example, I often claim that physicalists attribute behaviors to physicalness never before observed, such as the quality of self-organization needed for chemistry to have organized itself into life. Similarly, accidental utterly dumb genetic variation and natural selection alone are believed to have built high-functioning organs and organisms. Yet in both cases, no such ability of chemistry or genetic variation/natural selection have been observed achieving what's attributed to them.

It seemed important therefore to distinquish what physical is and can actually do from what it isn't and can't do.

In this thread, I have argued that mass and its effects/products seem to cover all that's physical. Gravity, for instance, isn't mass, but it doesn't reveal itself until mass is present. EM is emitted by mass, matter is composed of mass, heat is the combustion of mass or the vibrations of something radiated by mass, etc.

I am not insisting that's the right definition, but with that sort of definition we give physical its own "is-ness" at least. We acknowledge it has characteristics that define it. The type of definition which explains it simply as what we perceive with the senses, or in terms of what everything else isn't doesn't tell anything about the "is-ness" of physicalness, and so we are right back to the vagueness that we started with when I posed the question.

 

[octelcogopod]

Ah. Thanks.

Anyway what I was aiming for with my post, is that the problem lies also in seperating what is subjective with what is objective.
While stating that mass and its effects covers most of the physical world, we do not know the strict line between what we perceive and what is a true objective state.

For instance, consciousness.
If I eat an apple, and I have some emotions regarding that, then defining the physicality of this action and its emotions, and seperating it from the subjective, becomes hard.
We don't even know if the emotions and thoughts themselves are physical in nature(although on a level we are unable to testi n the lab at the moment at least.)

Another problem is also that we just don't know.

The problem with these consciousness and physicality threads is that nobody knows where one begins and the other ends.
We don't know if they are one and the same, or if they are seperated, or if there are other layers to reality, transcending layers, that we can't see or feel.

BUT, for the purpose of discussing, I would say that mass and all its effects is a good definition.
But as you already know, there are other issues to take into consideration too.

I'm having a hard time putting my thoughts into words here, regarding this issue.
But, let's define physical as mass, then say that everything subjective is what a conscious observer creates in his head, combined with his thoughts and emotions and senses.

Seperating the two would be easy it seems, just say that everything the observers creates in his head is subjective, and everything NOT created in any observers head, aka the unconscious eventsi n the universe, as physical.
But the problem is that we ourselves are completely subjective, even the tools we use in the lab, the concepts we create, they are all subjective altered and perceived incomplete images of reality.
I don't mean to reinvent the wheel because you already know what I've just said, my point is just that I'm almost at the point now where I feel that discussing what the physical and subjective is, is a waste of time.
This view will always be incomplete, and so I've almost given up and left it to the scientists to figure it out.

 

[debeng]

Debates about physicalism are sometimes hampered because participants can't seem to agree what "physical" is. I'd like to invite all physicalists and those who believe they are clear about what physicalness is to create an exact definition.
I'll offer my opinion first. I think physicalness is mass, immediate effects of mass, and all that which has come about from the presence of mass. Since all mass we know of is believed to have originated with the Big Bang, then I'd also restrict the definition of physical to how mass and mass effects have developed from that event.
In a past thread I posted the following in support of my definition:
Princeton's Word Reference site give the definition of physical science here:
- the science of matter and energy and their interactions
On the same page you can find a definition for physicalness:
- the quality of being physical; consisting of matter
The Word Reference site gives several relevant definitions of physical here:

1* physical - involving the body as distinguished from the mind or spirit . . .
2* physical - relating to the sciences dealing with matter and energy; especially physics; "physical sciences"; "physical laws"
3* physical, tangible, touchable - having substance or material existence; perceptible to the senses; "a physical manifestation"; "surrounded by tangible objects"
4* physical - according with material things or natural laws (other than those peculiar to living matter); "a reflex response to physical stimuli"
6* physical - concerned with material things; "physical properties"; "the physical characteristics of the earth"; "the physical size of a computer"

Of Physicalism the Wikipedia says:
Physicalism is the metaphysical position that everything is physical; that is, that there are no kinds of things other than physical things. Likewise, physicalism about the mental is a position in philosophy of mind which holds that the mind is a physical thing in some sense. This position is also called "materialism", but the term "physicalism" is preferable because it does not have any misleading connotations, and because it carries an emphasis on the physical, meaning whatever is described ultimately by physics -- that is, matter and energy.

Actually there is no such word that independently would be written as physical unless it is in the form of adjectives. it is just like asking what is good?or how good is good? we say 'physical properties' , 'physical mass', perhaps 'physical being'.
try this, have you heard about Dr. Ivan pavlov and russian cummunist leader Starlin. when Starlin saw Pavlove's experiment about conditional and unconditional reflex behaviour mmodification taht was carried out on a dog with a bell and food, he just asked if he could do the same with the humans. that may be something 'PHYSICAL' u wanted to know about. may be it means "huamn can be physical" or "can be governed bys ome physical laws"