Dmitry67
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All definitions of consciousness are pure blah blah unless they help to solve the
so called hard problem of Consciousness.
so called hard problem of Consciousness.
Does a tree exist if no one is there to observe it?
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WaveJumper
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The real question is what is 'woods' in the 'If a tree falls in the woods and there is no one around...'?
It's an unmeasured supperposition of states that we mistake for woods. The Uncertainty principle does not state that two complementary properties cannot exist together; it merely states that we cannot know the two complementary properties simultaneously.
The uncertainty in the behaviour of particles is an extremely important feature of the nature. The form in which objects are manifested to us is the creation of our brain.
I cannot make a definite statement about the physical state of any entity until I make an observation to determine the actual state of that entity. This forces me to keep all the possibilities open and the best I can do is calculate the probability of finding a specific physical state when I make an observation. Schrödinger's equation allows me to calculate these probabilities, but the fact that a measurement/observation is required to 'collapse' the eigenstates to single outcomes is the core of the measurement problem. It's a powerful insight into the nature of reality and our role in it. If one takes modern physics seriously and assumes that human logic is valid and the right tool to describe reality(incredibly important assumption), then we are living in a relational universe.
It's an unmeasured supperposition of states that we mistake for woods. The Uncertainty principle does not state that two complementary properties cannot exist together; it merely states that we cannot know the two complementary properties simultaneously.
The uncertainty in the behaviour of particles is an extremely important feature of the nature. The form in which objects are manifested to us is the creation of our brain.
I cannot make a definite statement about the physical state of any entity until I make an observation to determine the actual state of that entity. This forces me to keep all the possibilities open and the best I can do is calculate the probability of finding a specific physical state when I make an observation. Schrödinger's equation allows me to calculate these probabilities, but the fact that a measurement/observation is required to 'collapse' the eigenstates to single outcomes is the core of the measurement problem. It's a powerful insight into the nature of reality and our role in it. If one takes modern physics seriously and assumes that human logic is valid and the right tool to describe reality(incredibly important assumption), then we are living in a relational universe.
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baywax
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WaveJumper said:
Hi Wavejumper, perhaps the macro physical state is too course to "experience" the micro quantum or atomic/electro/magnetic states. Being unaware of a state does in no way prove that one or the other state does or does not exist.
Consciousness is a really bad way of saying "awareness". Somehow its been hijacked by the whoo hoos of the world and is now something you pay money to attain. What it may be trying to convey is the idea that when one is aware of process, causes and effects and the overall picture, they reach a conscious-awareness that is supported by experience and existing, stored knowledge. This way one's experiential awareness is bolstered by a consciousness of facts that add to the experience of the phenomenon. Who knows!?
WaveJumper
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baywax said:
Hi Baywax,
My stance is not that the quantum doesn't exist, but that the macro scale impression of how matter, time and space exist is either wrong or incomplete. It must have felt similar in the 16th century when Coprnicus tried to get across the message that the hardwired and very intuitive notion of a flat Earth was wrong. The concept of a flat Earth was so intuitive for the primitive human perception that there are today vocal proponents of the flat Earth nonsense.
Maybe it's because we have zero knowledge of the important fundamental concepts. I'd stay away from naive models of reality, though.
baywax
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WaveJumper said:
Hi WaveyGravy! I have a feeling that if the emergent phenomenon you're calling a macro scale impression of matter didn't exist, we wouldn't be talking about it right now. The other thing about your statement is... is it wrong or right... its neither. When you see green as red its neither wrong or right... its either a trick of simultaneous colour contrast or a trick of the light. There are always mechanisms creating impressions and illusions and they are the subject of our fun inquiries. There's a lot of top physicists who think the universe is flat. That would make Earth pretty flat too.
WaveJumper
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baywax said:
Yes, it probably exists but the fact that we are talking about a consensus event does not mean that the event exists outside our conscious perception in the way it is manifested to us.
Sorry, i don't see your point.
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A little off-topic, but...
WaveJumper, I have a question for you since you obviously knows quite a lot of quantum mechanics. What are your views on the classical interpretations of QM like the "Many-worlds theory" and the "copenhagen interpretation"?
WaveJumper, I have a question for you since you obviously knows quite a lot of quantum mechanics. What are your views on the classical interpretations of QM like the "Many-worlds theory" and the "copenhagen interpretation"?
baywax
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WaveJumper said:
That's all we have to go on. This is no indication that the event is not as we perceive it to be. There are countless accounts of artifacts and phenomenon being misinterpreted. Take the canals on Mars for example. There's millions of examples. But, all its taken is advances in technology (in this case telescoping) and concentrated effort to prove a phenomenon is what we think it is or that its something else.
WaveJumper said:
That doesn't mean it is non-existent...
I think I was trying to point out that what you see is not always what you get... but that is neither wrong or right nor does it point to the non-existence of a phenomenon.
WaveJumper
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Jarle; said:
I have not seen an interpretation that i would embrace as true. There is something fundamentally missing from our knowledge of reality and all these interpretational efforts are kind of premature and incomplete(bordeing on religion). We need a theory of QG and new insights into the nature of space and time, before an interpretation starts to fit the greater picture more convincingly, IMO.
WaveJumper
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baywax said:That's all we have to go on. This is no indication that the event is not as we perceive it to be. There are countless accounts of artifacts and phenomenon being misinterpreted. Take the canals on Mars for example. There's millions of examples. But, all its taken is advances in technology (in this case telescoping) and concentrated effort to prove a phenomenon is what we think it is or that its something else.
That doesn't mean it is non-existent...
I think I was trying to point out that what you see is not always what you get... but that is neither wrong or right nor does it point to the non-existence of a phenomenon.
This is how science works - making conclusions(often wrong) from incomplete evidence. You could say this is what gives us an edge over other animals and let's us predict phenomena and make progress.
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WaveJumper said:
I can agree with you on the Many-worlds theory, but I find the Copenhagen Interpretation to be a rational view.
Dmitry67
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Jarle said:
Copenhagen? The abandoned one? Ha ha!
baywax
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WaveJumper said:
I don't know. Animals make predictions about the kinds of phenomena that might be on the other side of a log before they jump over it. Then they deal with the reality once they hit the other side. They wouldn't be making the leap if they didn't have a fairly good calculation and prediction of what they were jumping into. (We are still in the philosophy section, right?!)
In fact sometimes we could learn methods of prediction from animals. Here's one possibility.
http://bssa.geoscienceworld.org/cgi/content/abstract/90/2/312
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Dmitry67 said:
"abandoned"?
Dmitry67
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Yes. MWI is now the #1.
Recently there was a good thread in this forum... damn, I don't remember the title about the CI... nobody here is seriously defending the CI. Anybody, what was the thread title?
Recently there was a good thread in this forum... damn, I don't remember the title about the CI... nobody here is seriously defending the CI. Anybody, what was the thread title?
WaveJumper
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Jarle said:
I think the problem with establishing what reality is, lies elsewhere and deeper. If it's about personal beliefs, I think matter, space, and time are as real as the colour 'red' and the solidity of matter, i.e. they are wrong/misleading interpretations of something greater and much different than we've been able to account for so far. Because all the interpretation of the 'outside' reality happens somehow in the brain, and we have no way to directly verify how true and correct that interpretation is(though its consensual), and experiments have been proving time and again that the interpretational mechanism in what is perceived as 'brain' is often flawed, it is necessary to put to test everything that is 'automatically' interpreted as true. The concepts of matter, space and time have failed to stand to the test of our perception so far.
I'd say that I believe only fields exist and some kind of awareness that turns those dynamical fields into an interpreted classical reality - the netbook i hold in my lap, the room i am in, the planet we are on, ... it's all interpretation in my head. Wrong at that. My perspective is that we shouldn't ascribe too much importance to automatic interpretations. It is the task of science to establish the truthfulness of the perceptions and the interpretations. So far, there have been far too many experiments that contradict our in-built interpretations of what exists out there, to continue to hold onto what is termed 'realism'. What interests me most is what lies behind the interpretation of matter, space and time. What are the fields, what are they made from and what is the awareness that generates for me the often contradictory reality we perceive as classical?
We won't account for consciousness with a flawed version/interpretation of what's out there. Ever. And this consciousness/awareness being the interpretor of the supposed outside reality of fields, is IMO a contributor to the paradoxes and a possible solution to foundational problems in physics - time running only in one direction, time flowing, distance between objects(locality vs non-locality), localised objects, all the weirdness of QM, somethings out of nothings, etc. i think are flaws of our interpretation of what's out there. The macro world of fixed, immutable objects in space is a mirage, a phantasm created by awareness that we seem to be. This is somewhat inline with Wheeler's participatory universe, but it deviates on some other important points.
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The copenhagen interpretion is not a realist view at all. It is actually quite similar to an instrumentalist view (purely pragmatic). It says only about how we should/can interpret the information given, not what the information says about some external world. One of its main points is the focus on how our consciousness can comprehend the world and understand observations. Of course the interpretation is not definite, it is a view under constant change, but it's main points are somewhat like I can agree with. The changes of it are for the better I think. It is very similar to a Kantian perspective.
The many-worlds theory is a realist and deterministic view however, and I don't find it appealing at all.
It doesn't matter what most scientists subscribe to
That the many-worlds theory is the most popular one is irrelevant. It is not at all "abandoned", many scientists still subscribe to CI.
The many-worlds theory is a realist and deterministic view however, and I don't find it appealing at all.
It doesn't matter what most scientists subscribe to
That the many-worlds theory is the most popular one is irrelevant. It is not at all "abandoned", many scientists still subscribe to CI.
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WaveJumper
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In 20, 50 or 100 years the people who believe in realism(objects having definite existence in space) will be able to cramp into a mid-size car.
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WaveJumper said:
What?
WaveJumper
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Jarle said:What?
How many people can board a mid-size car?
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WaveJumper said:
I won't participate in your games
WaveJumper
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WaveJumper said:
...is the same as saying:
"In 20, 50 or 100 years the people who believe in realism(objects having definite existence in space) will be 4 or 5", i.e. they will fit into a mid-size car.
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WaveJumper said:
I doubt it. Realism is a persistent view.
You said something like "matter, space and time is a real as the color red". I don't agree with this. It is not that matter, space and time are "things" beyond human recognition, but that they are fundamental to human experience. Kant argued that we cannot transcend the notion of time and space in our experience, not even in our concepts. Hence a copenhagen-like perspective. I'm not talking about an external reality (which we cannot speak of), but the basis of human conception and perception. The color red differs from the concepts of space and time because color is not a necessary form in which perception and conception must take.
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WaveJumper
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Jarle said:
I didn't say colour red was matter or space. I meant that their reality is comparable, i.e. they are interpretations of the inteactions of quantum fields(as best as we can tell) by the interpreting mechanism inside your head.
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WaveJumper said:
That's not what I meant. Red differs in essence form time and space is perhaps wording myself better. The point is the time and space are forms in which experience and conception must take, whereas color isn't. They differ in this way, not in terms of equality. Time and space are also interpretations (and forms of conception) in our brain, but this doesn't mean they don't function as parts of the fundamental structure conception and interpretation of experience must have.
baywax
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Jarle said:
It is possible that realism, abstraction and conceptualism along with the rest of the schools of thought exist... that is, actually exist, along side each other. In this way "many worlds" would make sense.
If we didn't have a concept like matter, air, organisms etc... we would not have concepts and so we would not be discussing any of the differences between wave function and solid matter.
Briefly about red... without the colour red plants would simply grow indefinitely. Its the red spectrum of the sun that triggers the reproductive cycle in many plants and we get flowers and something to harvest out of this.
It seems to me that people are too busy looking for one component to existence instead of taking all the components and using them to construct a congruent and interconnected model of reality... or whatever you want to call it.
Entropee
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Things are only real because we tell ourselves they are. The world is always as it should be because we instigate it with life by talking to ourselves.
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baywax said:
Yes, realism might be true. But it is no reason to assume such an absurd thing when we know that our brains structures perception. Realism is not a necessary view.
I think what wavejumper meant about red was the subjective interpretation of the wavelength which we correspond to the color red, not the photons themselves.
baywax
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Jarle said:
If what you're saying here is true... and real... then you're not really being real and why would anyone believe what you say.
This makes realism real in the sense that it has to be true in order to make a statement like that in the first place.
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baywax said:
Not in any way.