Is Copenhagen the pragmatic or actual interpretation of quantum theory?

[Ken G]

You said in CI, the wave function is a mathematical tool. What is the problem if we force it to become real wavefunction "with physically actualized complex numbers adding up and cancelling each other at some location in space", what's wrong with this? For example, Dirac Equation is actually describe antimatter. Why can't we say the wave function in Schrodinger Equation is actually describing real wavefunction in space? What isn't this possible?

It is possible to say it, but to see the problem, take the statement "the wave function in Schrodinger Equation is actually describing real wavefunction in space" and just delete the words "actually" and "real", and read the sentence again. Has the scientific content changed? Does the scientist test anything differently, or do anything differently? No, so those words are scientifically empty when appended to the sentence, they are simply embellishment, hype even. If the science is the same without them, then they are not part of the science, they are part of something else, something that belongs in a separate box. That doesn't make them wrong, but it doesn't make them right either. If the reason for adding them to the sentence was not to alter the scientific content of the statement, then what was the reason for adding them, and what evidence do we have that they belong in the sentence?

 

[Varon]

It is possible to say it, but to see the problem, take the statement "the wave function in Schrodinger Equation is actually describing real wavefunction in space" and just delete the words "actually" and "real", and read the sentence again. Has the scientific content changed? Does the scientist test anything differently, or do anything differently? No, so those words are scientifically empty when appended to the sentence, they are simply embellishment, hype even. If the science is the same without them, then they are not part of the science, they are part of something else, something that belongs in a separate box. That doesn't make them wrong, but it doesn't make them right either. If the reason for adding them to the sentence was not to alter the scientific content of the statement, then what was the reason for adding them, and what evidence do we have that they belong in the sentence?

It's Occam's Razor. Something should be happening in between emission and detection. If you'd say that math after platonic processes simply produces the reality of interference without anything physically happening in between emission and detection, just like the math of curving space and time produces the reality of gravity, then from Occam's razor. It's simplier to assume that the wave function is actually in the system. Or one has to propose pilot waves or many worlds which are arbitrary and violate Occam's Razor. So the simplest explanation is, the wave function is actually in the object just like the math of Schroedinger Equation shows (like Dirac Equation giving rise to actual antimatter). So just after a particle is emitted in the double slit and if it's totally isolated. It physically shapeshifts or morphs into a wave and after detection, the wave reverts back to particle. This is as simple as can be without having to invoke platonic worlds or omnicient pilot waves or splitting billions of worlds in a single day.

 

[Ken G]

It's Occam's Razor. Something should be happening in between emission and detection.

That isn't what Occam's razor would say, Occam's razor would say the simplest explanation is the one that only explains what needs to be explained. If you add extraneous stuff to explain what does not need to be explained (because it is not evident anywhere in the scientific method, nor is formed as a testable hypothesis), then you are not following Occam's razor. Indeed I would call that a primary motivator of the CI-type approaches.

Or one has to propose pilot waves or many worlds which are arbitrary and violate Occam's Razor.

Most likely both proponents of many-worlds, and Bohm, have arguments why their approach is actually the one that satisfies Occam's razor. Indeed I've seen Max Tegmark give the argument that even the multiverse of worlds with different physical parameters than ours satisfies Occam's razor, on essentially the grounds that it completes the system and complete things are simpler than those with missing pieces. He gave an example like the even integers, and said that set is simpler than the particular set 2, 4, 6, 8, because it can be summed up in the single concept of "evenness", whereas the particular set requires additional description. I might counter that little children learn what 2, 4, 6, and 8 are generally before they get the abstraction of evenness, so we might take that as evidence there's something wrong with that argument, but the real point here is that Occam's razor is not an uncontroversial guidepost, much like the QM interpretations themselves.

So just after a particle is emitted in the double slit and if it's totally isolated. It physically shapeshifts or morphs into a wave and after detection, the wave reverts back to particle. This is as simple as can be without having to invoke platonic worlds or omnicient pilot waves or splitting billions of worlds in a single day.

Except it's not simple. How does the wave know when to revert back to a particle? It has some prescience that it is approaching a detector that can detect its particle nature? Or is the detector itself what causes it to turn back into a particle? Then you are sounding downright CI.

 

[Varon]

That isn't what Occam's razor would say, Occam's razor would say the simplest explanation is the one that only explains what needs to be explained. If you add extraneous stuff to explain what does not need to be explained (because it is not evident anywhere in the scientific method, nor is formed as a testable hypothesis), then you are not following Occam's razor. Indeed I would call that a primary motivator of the CI-type approaches.
Most likely both proponents of many-worlds, and Bohm, have arguments why their approach is actually the one that satisfies Occam's razor. Indeed I've seen Max Tegmark give the argument that even the multiverse of worlds with different physical parameters than ours satisfies Occam's razor, on essentially the grounds that it completes the system and complete things are simpler than those with missing pieces. He gave an example like the even integers, and said that set is simpler than the particular set 2, 4, 6, 8, because it can be summed up in the single concept of "evenness", whereas the particular set requires additional description. I might counter that little children learn what 2, 4, 6, and 8 are generally before they get the abstraction of evenness, so we might take that as evidence there's something wrong with that argument, but the real point here is that Occam's razor is not an uncontroversial guidepost, much like the QM interpretations themselves.

Except it's not simple. How does the wave know when to revert back to a particle? It has some prescience that it is approaching a detector that can detect its particle nature? Or is the detector itself what causes it to turn back into a particle? Then you are sounding downright CI.

Recall that in Bohmian Mechanics, the wave function is omniscient and aware of any configuration changes in the universe even 200 billion light years away. So in Copenhagen, one can similarly claim that the wave function is really in the object and it can also detect configuration changes anywhere in the vicinity and detect it is about to hit detector and shapeshift or morph into a particle. What is the other problems of this idea of the wave function actually in the object in addition to being in the equations aside from this?.

 

[Varon]

Ken. You were the only one who can see through the weak measurement haze in the latest trajectory paper. So let me ask you something about Neumaier Thermal Interpretation. What is it all about. Simple. He took the field in QFT as real ontology. And he believes particles don't really exist. And with it he can explain the double slit experiment using purely the language of QFT and fields. And so far it has survived the scrutiny of many physicists. I'd like to you see if you can detect some subtle problem or conflict that can falsify or refute it. In the thread https://www.physicsforums.com/showthread.php?t=490492&page=6
I have asked him many questions. The following is collection of my questions to him and his answers in the form of a FAQ that focus particularly on the double slit experiment and how it can work with pure field and no particles.

Let us go to the beginning (this is related to this thread because it is seeing Copenhagen in the eyes of QFT):

Varon: Let us focus on the double slit experiment as Feymann said it's the main mystery. If it's solved, the entire quantum mystery solved.

I can't understand what you meant by "passing the screen turns the electron into a delocalized object". You said the electron is a particle before it passes the screen. Since it is already a particle, how can it turned into a delocalized particle at the screen?

Neumaier: The electron is always a quantum field. The quantum field can be regarded to describe a particle if and only if the field has a nonzero expectation only in a region small compared to the whole system considered. Thus we may say that the field is a particle as long as this condition is satisfied. Because of the dispersion of the field caused by the slits, this condition stops to be satisfied almost immediately after the field (with support large enough to cover both slits) passed the double slit. Thus it is no longer justified to talk about a particle.

The situation is similar as with a sphere of glass. If you throw it, you may regard it as a particle. But if it hits an obstacle and fragmentizes, it is no longer localized enogh to deserve the name of a particle.

Varon: Let's go from the beginner in the emission. So the electron is emitted. You believed it travels as particle? But where does it pass, the left or right slit? And what caused the interferences in the screen. Standard explanation says it interferes with itself because it is a wave after it is emitted.. and only become a particle at the detection screen. Pls. elaborate what happened to your electron after emission.. before it reaches the slits.. after it exits the slits and after detection in the screen.

Neumaier: The field passes the doulbe slit in a fashion similar as a water wave would do, except with quantum corrections."

Varon: Interesting. But how come the detector detects one electron and not the fragmentized parts (after passing thru the slits)?

Neumaier: The quantum field does not fragmentize like a broken glass sphere. It just expands into a superposition of two spherical waves. The outer electrons of the detector respond to the incident quantum field by an approximate Poisson process with rate proportional to the incident density. This accounts correctly for the simple statistics obtained for an ordinary electron beam. See post #4 of this thread, and the longer discussion of the case of photons in
https://www.physicsforums.com/showthr...39#post3187039
and in the thread
https://www.physicsforums.com/showthread.php?t=480072

Varon: What "outer electrons"?

Neumaier: The detector wouldn't be able to respond if it hadn't loosely bound electrons that could be freed when responding to the impinging quantum field formed by your single electron. The response of the detector to the field is a multibody problem, and solving it in the semiclassical approximation gives the desired effect."

Varon: Are you saying your interpretation only work for an ensemble of electrons?

Neumaier: No. I am considering your situation: precisely one elctron moving theough the double slit. But once this electron reaches the detector is meets a host of electrons in the detector. The latter are responsible for the measurable response (since ultimately a current is measured, not the single electron)."

Varon: I want only one electron at a time. What do you mean "The detector wouldn't be able to respond if it hadn't loosely bound electrons that could be freed when responding to the impinging quantum field formed by your single electron." Please rephase it in clearer words. As I understand it. The emitter emits one electron. After it pass thru the slits, it became smeared. Now how does the smeared field converge back into a single electron detected at the screen?

Neumaier: It doesn't. It remains smeared. But one of the electrons in the detector fires and (after magnification) gives rise to a measurable current.. This will happen at exactly one place. Thus it _seems_ that the electron has arrived there, while in fact it has arrived everywhere within its extent.

If a water wave reaches a dam with a hole in it, the water will come out solely through this hole although the wave reached the dam everywhere. A detector is (in a vague way) similar to such a dam with a large number of holes, of which only one per electron can respond because of conservation of energy

Varon: But your theory doesn't explain one electron at a day double slit experiment or in instance where only one buckyball is sent out in a year. It still interferes with itself. Because after 20 years. The 20 buckyball would still form interference patterns added up one year at a time.
Hence your model may not tally with reality.

Neumaier: Each electron capable of responding has a response rate proportional to the intensity of the incident field. This is enough to correctly account for the interference pattern. No memory is necessary to achieve that.

If you send one buckyball a year in a coherent fashion (I doubt that one can prepare this, but suppose one could) then at positions of destructive interference the response rate would be zero while at positions of constructive interference, the resonse rate would be zero except once a year where it would be maximal. Thus it is most likely that the yearly recorded event comes from an electron sitting at a point of constructive interference. After 20 years, one would see the pattern emerging.

Varon: Something that puzzles me greatly. First of all. How many electrons do typical detectors have? Let's say there are a thousand.

Neumaier: Its more like 10^20.

Varon: How can the uniform quantum wave after the slits trigger just one of the electrons in the detectors and not others. How can the principle of energy conservation cause it? Pls. elaborate. Thanks.

Neumaier: Each electron feels just the piece of the quantum wave reaching it. The electron responds by random ionization, with a rate proportional to the intensity. It takes the energy from its surrounding.

The detector as a whole receives the energy everywhere, also with a rate proportional to the intensity. This energy is redistributed (fast, but with a speed slower than that of light) through the whole detector, roughly according to hydrodynamic laws.

Thus there is no violation of conservation of energy.

Varon: But in one-electron (or photon or buckyball) at a time double slit experiment, how does the wave after the slits select only one electron among the 10^20 in the detector?

Neumaier: The wave selects nothing. It arrives at the various places of detector with different intensities, and these intensities stimulate all the electrons. But because of conservation of energy, only one can fire since the first one that fires uses up all the energy available for ionization (resp. jumping to the conduction band), and none is left for the others.

Varon: In other words. There are really no particles?

Neumaier: Particles are semiclassical approximations for field phenomena concentrated along narrow beams. It is not very different from water - which is in particle form if a tab is dripping but not if the water flows in a river.

The particle concept loses its meaning when applied outside its domain of applicability. Trying to keep the concept then leads to all sorts of weird things.

Varon: So in the photoelectric experiment, what makes each electron eject from the material?

Neumaier: Its the same principle as in the double slit experiment. This is explained in the entry ''The photoelectric effect'' in Chapter A4 of my theoretical physics FAQ at http://arnold-neumaier.at/ph...photodetection ,
and discussed in the thread
https://www.physicsforums.com/showthread.php?t=480072

Varon: Come on PF members. If Neumaier was right. Others would have figured this out already for more than a century.

Neumaier: How could this have been figured out before 1911, at a time where not even the Schroedinger equation was discovered? The reason why it hasn't been discovered is that those working on the foundations rarely also work on quantum fields, and those who work on the latter usually have more pressing things to do than to indulge in foundational issues. So the interface between foundations and quantum fields has been very little explored.

Varon: I'll start with Camboy criticism (A. Neumaier, pls. comment on it):

"I'm sorry - this sounds like nonsense to me. He says only 1 electron in the detector responds because of conservation of energy. What happens when the screen is the inner surface of a hollow sphere a light-year across, and the emitter is a point source dead in the middle emitting a spherical moving quantum field? How is the energy transported across space via the quantum field? Across the whole wave front? In which case, what kind of process involving conservation of energy takes place around the whole surface of the sphere instantaneously when the wave hits the screen? How does this work? if you wish to provide an 'interpretation' one must do more than simply state something happens."

Well?

Neumaier: A quantum field transports the energy in the same way as a classical field, namely by evolution according to the field equations. The energy of a radially expanding field is distributed uniformly.
So an extremely tiny amount of energy arrives at any place of the hollow sphere, integrating over the sphere to the energy of one electron. Thus energy is conserved. The probability of response anywhere is extremely tiny, too, so that uncertainties in the sphere by far dominate the effect, and nothing can be concluded.

--------

Ken. Can you see any flaw or experimental facts that can falsify it or put it into question? Thanks.

 

[my_wan]

I will go on a tangent at the bottom outlining a mechanical model of consciousness for the purpose of illustrating the lack of relevance of QM in the context of consciousness.

Have you studied Parapsychology too? What have you found out? Totally hoax eh?

I have studied the results of many such test of parapsychology. Especially the Princeton PK stuff. Unfortunately all such data to date simply sucks and the intellectual honesty is rampantly self deceptive. Some of these test have been observed in progress with the researcher openly breaking protocol giving feedback to the test taker. Right in front of professional witnesses! When asked about it the response was: "What? That was nothing." Even without these incidence the data just sucks.

Certain other groups asked to have the test repeated for verification with the Princeton groups help. They were told by the Princeton group "We are not interested in proving it works, we are interesting in figuring out what it means"! In fact, like the QM interpretations, what it means is the result of actual test, showing actual effects to explain. Meanwhile they closed their Princeton shop to go into business selling their 'special' random number generators. Robert Jahn was one of the first showing results. Only whenever sample sizes are increased the 'result' would remained about the same in absolute terms while the sample sizes were increased many orders of magnitude. Hmm..

If you want to do parapsychology experiments why not go to triple blinding with built in meta-analysis? That way there are no numbers to fiddle with and you get a 100% or nothing result no matter how small the effect is so long as the sample size sets are large enough to see the effect. Instead they claim a lot of results from a handful of crap data then do meta-analysis a dozen different times on this same crappy data and call all those data sets and each meta-analysis on the crappy data separate evidence of results.

I have no problem with parapsychology research, but the junk that is rampantly called research in that field is outrageous.

I have done that already. I have over 30 neuroscience books and know every part of the brain and every conceivable things about it as well as network theories of neural circuits. All major brain researchers I'm familiar with their works and collect their books and read them thoroughly.. like Antonio Damasio, Edelman, Koch, Gray, Ramachandran.. all of them. So I'm done with brain part. Now just want to study new physics model to get a clue of the Hard Problem.

Gerald Edelman is cool. Where is Daniel Dennett? He may be a philosopher but he knows how to constrain his arguments with empirical data and has some very definite things to say about the so called hard problem.

What do you think "new physics model" has to do with it? "new physics" is not even a model. It is old physics wrapped in a bunch of new age psychobabble. It is about as meaning as caliming I am a faith healer because I made your pain subside and made you feel better. Meanwhile jumping out and saying "boo", with all the adrenaline, heart rate, etc., is somehow no big deal deal and has nothing to do with it. Wrong.

I just want to have idea what interpretation to start out in deriving at the possible full theory. Whether Copenhagen, Bohmian or Many Worlds or others. One hope of Copenhagen is along the line of Zurek Existential Interpretation where quantum stuff is informational. I can't decide whether it is or Bohmian or Many Worlds or even combination of them that can explain the Hard Problem + additional thing.

Even if we derived a "full theory" from some interpretation. We could then take another interpretation and show it works to. It is like saying you want to know which way is "really" up from the center of Earth.

Btw.. if you will read Jeffrey Gray Creeping Up the Hard Problem. You may agree that the Hard Problem is not answerable by present Neuroscience. It is additional.

Jeffrey Gray is not bad. He certainly knows better than to overlook established neural correlates of consciousness and avoids dualism. He adds language, science and beauty to the things not presently provided neural correlates which consciousness requires. In my modeling attempts I use a 2 channel feedback from a Hebbian and anti-Hebbian network as the workhorse. Based loosely on a connection between slime mold intelligence and neuroglia. This models sensory brain function and fits the memory and neural probe data. Our memory is a compression of actual sensory data to fit within preexisting connections. So your memories are not memories of the event itself, but a reconstruction of details based on expectation of details. Hence it crosses over into many memories and makes false memories almost trivial to create. Yet the get consciousness you need to take part of this network and in place of sensory data provide feedback information about brain states as if it was sensory data. It allows your attention to go to your own thoughts in some sense. You then learn to model a theory of mind the same way you model a theory of the world around you through the other senses.

The hard problem will not really be solved till we have the hardware to demonstrate, but I do not see that as a real problem. I also think this biggest technical hurdle is the self organization of the system. Most of the artificial neural hardware uses all kinds of feed forward, feedback, etc., with separate mode for operation and training. Yet self organization of feedback loops through resonance is fairly ubiquitous in nature. Here is a demonstration using only mechanical metronomes, which in effect wire themselves together:

Here is 5 of them doing the same thing:


These metronomes in some ways just did what is common in QM but does not need QM to explain. To encode memories you merely need a more plastic base that allows the synchronization potential between metronomes to vary. The sensory input units merely excite certain metronomes which causes experientially related metronomes to synchronize or excite. The Hebbian learning is the variability in base plasticity, like a memory foam that returns to original shape slowly, while the anti-Hebbian learning is the slow return to the ground state of the base plasticity, not the neurons which do so far faster. This compresses out unimportant details of an experience and preferentially maintains those common features of experience that you are most familiar with. Hence sensory inputs work on exactly the same principle that action outputs work, since an action is merely the activation of neurons in the brain and nervous system.

To get something much closer consciousness you simply need to provide sensory input to the brain from other neural states rather than the primary senses, with a working memory so that manipulating those brain states is no different than playing with a toy fire truck. Fire the neorons and see which other neurons fire in response. Creativity is simply the result of one experience, memory, or notion triggering related neurons and you noticing the connection as a result of watching your own brain states. The anti-Hebbian potential requires you to seek a common systemic model to make sense of the entire world in a consistent way. Belief systems are predicated on the best way to do this.

Hopefully this illustrates why QM and "new science" is a non-issue to the consciousness issue.

 

[Varon]

I will go on a tangent at the bottom outlining a mechanical model of consciousness for the purpose of illustrating the lack of relevance of QM in the context of consciousness.


I have studied the results of many such test of parapsychology. Especially the Princeton PK stuff. Unfortunately all such data to date simply sucks and the intellectual honesty is rampantly self deceptive. Some of these test have been observed in progress with the researcher openly breaking protocol giving feedback to the test taker. Right in front of professional witnesses! When asked about it the response was: "What? That was nothing." Even without these incidence the data just sucks.

Certain other groups asked to have the test repeated for verification with the Princeton groups help. They were told by the Princeton group "We are not interested in proving it works, we are interesting in figuring out what it means"! In fact, like the QM interpretations, what it means is the result of actual test, showing actual effects to explain. Meanwhile they closed their Princeton shop to go into business selling their 'special' random number generators. Robert Jahn was one of the first showing results. Only whenever sample sizes are increased the 'result' would remained about the same in absolute terms while the sample sizes were increased many orders of magnitude. Hmm..

If you want to do parapsychology experiments why not go to triple blinding with built in meta-analysis? That way there are no numbers to fiddle with and you get a 100% or nothing result no matter how small the effect is so long as the sample size sets are large enough to see the effect. Instead they claim a lot of results from a handful of crap data then do meta-analysis a dozen different times on this same crappy data and call all those data sets and each meta-analysis on the crappy data separate evidence of results.

I have no problem with parapsychology research, but the junk that is rampantly called research in that field is outrageous.

Then you haven't met me and my kind. We are the ultimate data. We don't deal with statistics but direct effect.

Gerald Edelman is cool. Where is Daniel Dennett? He may be a philosopher but he knows how to constrain his arguments with empirical data and has some very definite things to say about the so called hard problem.

I have Daniel Dennett book Consciousness Explained too.. but I don't like it.. because he tried to redefine consciousness to make it go away.

What do you think "new physics model" has to do with it? "new physics" is not even a model. It is old physics wrapped in a bunch of new age psychobabble. It is about as meaning as caliming I am a faith healer because I made your pain subside and made you feel better. Meanwhile jumping out and saying "boo", with all the adrenaline, heart rate, etc., is somehow no big deal deal and has nothing to do with it. Wrong.

Because of active non-locality which we can wield. It's difficult to describe and it's against forum rule but you can check on distant healing and therapeutic touch or reiki or pranic healing in the internet. My experience is the ultra kind because we can manipulate the bio-field and even map it into our mind forming a kind of synesthesia where we can perceive the bio-field visually and manipulate it directly. But let's avoid this in this forum lest this thead be locked for forum violation ("wild overly spectulative post" and one more I'll be banned already... so if you won't hear from me again.. I'm already banned).

Even if we derived a "full theory" from some interpretation. We could then take another interpretation and show it works to. It is like saying you want to know which way is "really" up from the center of Earth.


Jeffrey Gray is not bad. He certainly knows better than to overlook established neural correlates of consciousness and avoids dualism. He adds language, science and beauty to the things not presently provided neural correlates which consciousness requires. In my modeling attempts I use a 2 channel feedback from a Hebbian and anti-Hebbian network as the workhorse. Based loosely on a connection between slime mold intelligence and neuroglia. This models sensory brain function and fits the memory and neural probe data. Our memory is a compression of actual sensory data to fit within preexisting connections. So your memories are not memories of the event itself, but a reconstruction of details based on expectation of details. Hence it crosses over into many memories and makes false memories almost trivial to create. Yet the get consciousness you need to take part of this network and in place of sensory data provide feedback information about brain states as if it was sensory data. It allows your attention to go to your own thoughts in some sense. You then learn to model a theory of mind the same way you model a theory of the world around you through the other senses.

The hard problem will not really be solved till we have the hardware to demonstrate, but I do not see that as a real problem. I also think this biggest technical hurdle is the self organization of the system. Most of the artificial neural hardware uses all kinds of feed forward, feedback, etc., with separate mode for operation and training. Yet self organization of feedback loops through resonance is fairly ubiquitous in nature. Here is a demonstration using only mechanical metronomes, which in effect wire themselves together:

Here is 5 of them doing the same thing:

Gerald Edelman has also built many machines that simulate basic neural networks.

These metronomes in some ways just did what is common in QM but does not need QM to explain. To encode memories you merely need a more plastic base that allows the synchronization potential between metronomes to vary. The sensory input units merely excite certain metronomes which causes experientially related metronomes to synchronize or excite. The Hebbian learning is the variability in base plasticity, like a memory foam that returns to original shape slowly, while the anti-Hebbian learning is the slow return to the ground state of the base plasticity, not the neurons which do so far faster. This compresses out unimportant details of an experience and preferentially maintains those common features of experience that you are most familiar with. Hence sensory inputs work on exactly the same principle that action outputs work, since an action is merely the activation of neurons in the brain and nervous system.

To get something much closer consciousness you simply need to provide sensory input to the brain from other neural states rather than the primary senses, with a working memory so that manipulating those brain states is no different than playing with a toy fire truck. Fire the neorons and see which other neurons fire in response. Creativity is simply the result of one experience, memory, or notion triggering related neurons and you noticing the connection as a result of watching your own brain states. The anti-Hebbian potential requires you to seek a common systemic model to make sense of the entire world in a consistent way. Belief systems are predicated on the best way to do this.

Hopefully this illustrates why QM and "new science" is a non-issue to the consciousness issue.

I have many books about Memory like Larry Squire Memory and Brain, Arthur Hudson The Physiological Basis And Quantum Versions of Memory And Consciousness, Eric Kandel In Search of Memory , Mari Jibu Quantum Brain Dynamics, Wilber Penfield Mystery of the Mind, Karl Pribram Brain and Perception: Holonomy and Structure in Figural Processing, etc. I have complete collection of the best brain books. This I do to explain my extraordinary consistent experience.

There is no problem that neurons have a part in holding memory. But how is it stored exactly is the issue and the problem. Pribram said it could be holographic (in a local patch by patch manner). How it all work is the mystery. I'll check out the website you mentioned. Say. Do you subscribed to the Journal of Consciousness Studies? I do. If you don't. You will miss so much. All the latest research about consciousness is mentioned in JCS.

 

[Ken G]

He took the field in QFT as real ontology. And he believes particles don't really exist. And with it he can explain the double slit experiment using purely the language of QFT and fields.

That doesn't surprise me. I may not like all the language he chooses, but I think it is fundamentally true that the physics we do, and the predictions we make with it, and the understanding we glean from it, can be packaged and repackaged in very many ways, some sounding almost totally unrelated (witness the QM interpretations), yet underneath it all, it is really still the same physics. This is the importance of predictions and empirical tests, and it must be said, the ultimate justification of "shut up and calculate." We have an essentially unique physics, supported by a vast array of different ways to think about what that physics is. We need the ontological constructs to help us visualize what we are doing, but differences in them usually do not imply different physics.

This rule plays out in all fields of physics, even the relatively mundane "classical mechanics." We say these mechanics are underpinned by Newton's laws, but I could easily teach a course in classical mechanics that empowered my students to solve all the same problems as Newton's laws can, without ever mentioning those laws or Newton himself for that matter. The students would hear about Lagrange and Poincare and Hamilton, but no Newton at all-- yet they could solve all the same problems. This is just an important element of physics, and probably all of science-- a lot of roads can lead to Rome. But I will give you my opinions on that interview with Neumaier, in a bit.