Is Mysticism Necessary for Advancing Modern Physics?

[jackle]

I think he is alluding to the experience of "blue" rather than the physics of it.

I once discussed the implications of me seeing "blue" as someone else's "red" and seeing their "red" as "blue". Of course, we both learned the right word to say when the teacher pointed at the colour "blue" but perhaps we experienced the colours in a mirror symmetry, each opposite to the other. We concluded that we could not discern this scenario in principle. Blue is blue but I can't say anything about someone else's experience of it so long as they behave consistently with what I have learnt.

 

[quantumcarl]

'problem of consciousness' (put forth by Canute)

Consciousness is easily explainable through neurophysiology, physics, biology etcetera. If the "problem" with consciousness is "why is there a consciousness" the answer is allusive but not unattainable. It may take a foray into metaphysics to discover it and it may not.

In actual fact, everytime we physically governed creatures try to study metaphysics we pollute our results with our own physciality. So, its best to stick with the physical laws that govern our as yet to be fully understood physical environment.

What you seem to be saying is that the problem is unsolvable by conventional means or that it is unsolvable period so just leave it at that. Those people who address the problem then give up are, in a way, simply giving into mysticism.

Further to our subtopic here: if we polled 100,000 people outdoors in California on a day with a clear blue sky and asked them only one question suchas: "what color is the sky, in your subjective opinion?" It would be highly probable that the answer would be approximately 98 percent "blue". 2 percent would either be blind, obstinant or have a challenge with their retinal cones. With this data we could then carry on our study of consciousness and perhaps arrive at a conclusion that I am not about to guess at without actually doing the research.

If I had to guess I would probably conclude that the sky is, in fact, radiating a blue colour due to certain conditions in our attmosphere and due to certain conditions that have to do with radiating light waves (not to mention the way many observers report the way their receptors receive and interpret said light waves.

Next people who capitalize on the question of perception will be undermining their own government by claiming NASA didn't land a lander on the moon. Or that there are no troops in Iraq and that its an on going movie project in Death Valley that was dreamed up to syphon hundreds of billions of dollars out of the American public.

 

[jackle]

Of course they would all say "blue". We are taught to assosciate our experience of "blue" with the sound "blue". This tell us that we all recognise the stimulus but doesn't tell us if we all experience "blue" the same.

 

[Canute]

I disagree. The questions you suggest aren't ones that are asked by many physicsts, and therefore it will not ever be difficult for them. Like it or not, many - I would argue most - physicsts spend very little time (or none at all) on the philosophy of science, and could go through the rest of their lives without facing any issue you brought up. They will produce exceptional science, some of which will change our lives, for better or worse, without having to jump that hurdle.

Therefore I think your post should be rephrased to address philosophers of science (and neuropsychologists), not physicists.

Recently scientists have decided that consciousness can be explained by physics. It's not me who thinks this, it is physicists themselves. It's certainly no good saying that just because some physicists don't work on it none of them need work on it.

 

[Canute]

So you regard the physical explanation of why photons of a certain energy range strike our eyes when we look an the unclouded sky as not worth while unless we also explain how (or why?) we perceive blue when those photons strike our eye? Suppose scientists were able to track all the neuronal interactions from the primary visual cortex (where they can already do so much) to the deeper section of the processing brain, which are as unknown now as central Africa was in 1805, and just as much filled with fantasy and myth by armchair geographers. Suppose the scientists could say "It all comes out here" and show you the actual neurons that got triggered when photons if that energy range fell on the eye and didn't get triggered in other circumstances. Would that then constitute a valid explanation in your terms?

This explanation does not mention the experience of blue, and the observed processes you describe would be identical for a zombie. So no, I wouldn't count it as an explanation of our perception of blue. How can an explanation of something not mention what it is supposed to explain?

All these processes are presumably relevant to our perception of blue, but they could all take place just as you describe in the complete absence of any experience of blue, so they tell us nothing about how or why experiences occur. (Although they do tell us something about why this particular experience (blue sky) occurs rather than some other experience).

 

[Canute]

'problem of consciousness' (put forth by Canute)

Consciousness is easily explainable through neurophysiology, physics, biology etcetera. If the "problem" with consciousness is "why is there a consciousness" the answer is allusive but not unattainable. It may take a foray into metaphysics to discover it and it may not.

You really ought to provide some evidence for these claims. Also, it is self-contradictory to say that science can explain consciousness and then to say that a foray into metaphysics may be required.

What you seem to be saying is that the problem is unsolvable by conventional means or that it is unsolvable period so just leave it at that. Those people who address the problem then give up are, in a way, simply giving into mysticism.

No, I'm not suggesting that the problem cannot be solved. It isn't even a problem according to many people. I was suggesting that it cannot be solved by sticking to the scientific method as it is curently defined.

Further to our subtopic here: if we polled 100,000 people outdoors in California on a day with a clear blue sky and asked them only one question suchas: "what color is the sky, in your subjective opinion?" It would be highly probable that the answer would be approximately 98 percent "blue". 2 percent would either be blind, obstinant or have a challenge with their retinal cones. With this data we could then carry on our study of consciousness and perhaps arrive at a conclusion that I am not about to guess at without actually doing the research.

Many scientists argue that first-person reports are not scientific data. After all many people report experiences of God. In the end it is impossible to study consciousness from the outside. From the outside it is not possible to know it exists.

If I had to guess I would probably conclude that the sky is, in fact, radiating a blue colour due to certain conditions in our attmosphere and due to certain conditions that have to do with radiating light waves (not to mention the way many observers report the way their receptors receive and interpret said light waves.

It is scientifically incorrect to say that sky radiates a blue colour.

Next people who capitalize on the question of perception will be undermining their own government by claiming NASA didn't land a lander on the moon. Or that there are no troops in Iraq and that its an on going movie project in Death Valley that was dreamed up to syphon hundreds of billions of dollars out of the American public.

I don't know what to say to that. Do you really think this is likely?

 

[Locrian]

Recently scientists have decided that consciousness can be explained by physics.

Well that's a statement you aren't in a position to show is true, because it isn't. Certainly some scientists think this, and others do not. When you say something is a "problem for physicists" or a problem for physics, it suggests something more than just an opinion that some number of people haven't substantiated yet.

What you really meant was that this is a problem for some physicists. That is a rather different proposition entirely.

 

[quantumcarl]

The convoluted conundrum that is the mystery of "experience" and consciousness provides a tempting incentive (for someone who gives a flying walley) to study the "problem of consciousness".

This is one example of why it's true to say that physics does require mysticism.

 

[loseyourname]

Well that's a statement you aren't in a position to show is true, because it isn't. Certainly some scientists think this, and others do not. When you say something is a "problem for physicists" or a problem for physics, it suggests something more than just an opinion that some number of people haven't substantiated yet.

What you really meant was that this is a problem for some physicists. That is a rather different proposition entirely.

I wouldn't go so far as to say it's a problem for physicists. The only scientists I've known of that made any substantial attempts at explaining this phenomenon are cognitive scientists and neurobiologists.

 

[Canute]

Physics is predicated on the reducibility of consciousness to physical substances and processes. In this case it would be very contradictory for physicists to turn around and say that consciousness is not a scientific problem. Consciousness ceases to be a scientific problem only if it can be shown that it does not exist.

 

[loseyourname]

Physics is predicated on the reducibility of consciousness to physical substances and processes.

I think you mean physical theories of consciousness are predicated on the entailment of consciousness by physical processes, because physics itself is predicated only on quantum electrodynamics at this point. Physics isn't going to fall apart because of the discovery of non-physical entities any more than biology falls apart because some matter isn't living.

 

[Canute]

If those non-physical entities cannot be reduced to matter then physics will require a major overhaul. Physics must assume that consciousness reduces to matter or that it does not exist, or it must start to re-examine its underlying assumptions. It cannot simply admit the existence of something that it cannot measure or observe in principle and carry on regardless.

 

[selfAdjoint]

If those non-physical entities cannot be reduced to matter then physics will require a major overhaul. Physics must assume that consciousness reduces to matter or that it does not exist, or it must start to re-examine its underlying assumptions. It cannot simply admit the existence of something that it cannot measure or observe in principle and carry on regardless.

Boy are you ever out of touch with current science! Matter is not prior in the Standard Model. At the unification scale the particles would all be massless; they have rest masses because of interacting with Higgs particle. Nucleons have masses largely from thr binding energy of gluons. Gravitation in general relativity does not come promarily from mass but from momentum and anergy. And let nobody say momentum comes from mass and velocity because in Lagrangian and Hamiltonian systems, momentum is prior.

 

[Canute]

All this is surely besides the point. In short, physicists assume that the universe can be explained by physics. To prove this they have no choice but to explain consciousness. All this has nothing to do with being up to date with current physics. It was true long in the past and will be true long in the future.

As for matter, I'm happy to use the physicalist definition of it, matter, energy, information and so on. This is taken by orthodox physics to be fundamental, and all else, including consciousness, must reduce to it.

If fundamental particles are massless then what follows? They are still particles, and thus matter.

 

[Locrian]

I wouldn't go so far as to say it's a problem for physicists. The only scientists I've known of that made any substantial attempts at explaining this phenomenon are cognitive scientists and neurobiologists.

That was exactly my point!

 

[Locrian]

In short, physicists assume that the universe can be explained by physics.

I do not assume that, and I am a physicist. Every time you make an all inclusive statement like that you end up indefensibly wrong.

 

[Locrian]

Physics is predicated on the reducibility of consciousness to physical substances and processes.

No, it isn't. You've said several things in this thread that aren't excusable, but that is most certainly the worst of them all.

 

[Canute]

I do not assume that, and I am a physicist. Every time you make an all inclusive statement like that you end up indefensibly wrong.

You're absolutely right. That was very sloppy writing. I should have said physics, as in the orthodox view, not physicists. My apologies. It's a bit ironic really, since I regularly argue that quite a few physicists do not hold this view.

Having said that, wouldn't you agree that if we can show that consciousness is not reducible to brain then physics will be in for a bit of a shake up?

Originally Posted by Canute
In short, physicists assume that the universe can be explained by physics.

Locrian - I do not assume that, and I am a physicist. Every time you make an all inclusive statement like that you end up indefensibly wrong.

Oh dear. I really did have an off day. Even Stephen Hawking doesn't believe this. I apologise again. I suppose I meant to say that physics is practiced as if physics could explain everything. Would it be fair to say that it's the orthodox view, at the very least in the sense that physics is conducted and discussed as if it were true?

I hope I didn't say anything else indefensible. Let me know if I did. I do my best to avoid doing it.

 

[roamer]

I really apologize if my comment is redundant, but I quickly wanted to put down my perspective, even though I'm certainly not a physicist. It seems Bohr summed up my whole view on physics best in one line.
"...Physics concerns what we can say about nature." [J. C. Polkinghorne (1989), The Quantum World, Princeton University Press.] Later on he states "...for a physics without the physicist is unthinkable." So I am left to wonder a great deal about the closing passage.


"There is overwhelming evidence that Bohr was pursuing a philosophical agenda dating from long before quantum mechanics and having little to do with physics...'Bohr began by talking of the difficulties of language, of the limitations of all our means of expressing ourselves, which one had to take into account from the very beginning if one wants to practice science, and... how satisfying it was that this limitation had already been expressed in the foundations of atomic theory in a mathematically lucid way. Finally, one of the friends remarked drily, "But, Niels, this is not really new, you said exactly the same [thing] ten years ago.'"

Perhaps the preconcieved philosophies and ideas we bring to physics truly does affect what we see? Anways just thought I'd add my reflection.

 

[JohnBarchak]

Later on he states "...for a physics without the physicist is unthinkable."

These are Max Planck's words.

 

[Philocrat]

Physics logically gives up at COP (Critical Observation Point) and Mysticism is mistaken to begin at COP where physics purportedly ends. This loss of breath and sense of direction at COP amounts to what one may call 'INTELLECTUAL LAZINESS'. For there is no (and there has never been any) causal relations between Physics and Mysticism. The Former is real and the latter is pure fiction, something equivalent to absolute nothingness. The fundamental questions that I have repeatedly asked are these:

1) When you visually track a given object of perception from one scale of reference to the next up to COP, does that thing stop being physical or what it has always been both in strtucture and in function?

2) When you visually track a given object of perception from one scale of reference to the next up to COP, does that thing suddenly turn itself into 'NOTHINGNESS'?

3) When something moves at a vanishing speed such that it becomes visually unobservable, does that thing stop being physical or whatever it has always been?

4) When something moves at a vanishing speed such that it becomes visually unobservable, does that thing suddenly manfest or turn into 'NOTHINGNESS'?

These are the questions that need HONEST and PRECISE answers. We can continue to pretend as much as we like, sooner or later the scientific communities must confront these questions head on. At the moment everyone is busy intellectually escaping. This disease of 'INTELLECTUAL ESCAPISM' must eventually come to an end one way or the other. Physics and science in general must now answer the following two fundamental questions:

(a) Is it these things that are making themselves unobservable by the humans (hide themselves from human perception)?

Or;

(b) Does the problem of Observation or perception rest in the humans themselves? That is, signaling the hard fact that the humans are perceptually or visually limited?

If we cannot give honest answers to these questions, then we might as well call it a day, intellectually, and kiss goodbye to the notion of 'CLEAR HUMAN SENSE OF DIRECTION'. Physics that this concerns the most must answer these questions if it is to give Mysticism a good kicking in the backside!

NOTE: When these things start to behave as if they are mystical as they approach COP and beyond, should we take them as losing their logical directedness and preciseness? Why should the eratic behaviour of physical things at COP and beyond suddenly amount to mysticism? Are we losing the plot here? Most importantly, note also that there is nothing fundamentally wrong or mysterious about things behaving magically, provided we fully understand and appreciate that such MAGIC IS FULLY AND INESCAPABLY PROCEDURAL AND LOGICAL IN SCOPE AND IN SUBSTANCE.
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Save our Planet...Stay Green! May the 'Book of Nature' serve you well and bring you all that is good!

 

[Philocrat]

If we accept that humans are perceptually or visually limited, then the next and most important question to confront and give a coherent and logically precise answer would be:

CAN THE HUMANS BE PERCEPTUALLY OR VISUALLY IMPROVED, LET ALONE PERFECTED?

If we can do this, then the days of mysticism should be construed as numbered! We shoud start saying 'AUFWIEDERSHEN MYSTICISM!"

 

[Canute]

The inability of humans to decide metaphysical questions has got nothing to do with our perceptual or visual limitations. It to do with conceptual limitations and the limits of formal reasoning. This is why metaphysics is part of philosophy and not part of physics. If we could see all the way to down to the level of quarks and all the way out to the boundaries of the universe it would not help us answer any questions about the underlying nature of reality.

I don't understand your view of mysticism. Do you think it involves abandoning reason, or has something to do with magic?

 

[Philocrat]

The inability of humans to decide metaphysical questions has got nothing to do with our perceptual or visual limitations. It to do with conceptual limitations and the limits of formal reasoning. This is why metaphysics is part of philosophy and not part of physics. If we could see all the way to down to the level of quarks and all the way out to the boundaries of the universe it would not help us answer any questions about the underlying nature of reality.

I don't understand your view of mysticism. Do you think it involves abandoning reason, or has something to do with magic?

Well, the so-called 'Analytical Philosophers' in the like of Logical Positivists tried to playdown and completely analyse Metaphysics out of Philosophy and hence out of existence, but failed. They failed because they naively tried to destroy Logic with Logic? Metaphysics, by proper definition, is Logic. How can you destroy logic with Logic? When I sometimes talk about metaphysics being able to continue to explain things logically where physics or science in general purportedly stops, I am merely paraphrasing the fact that something that is structurally and functional logical at the surface macroscale level must continue to be logical as it is being visually tracked from one scale of reference to the next, right up to COP and beyond.

So, things must continue to be logical, regardless of their scales of reference!

Here, I am only talking about BAD HABITS in the scientific observations and measurements, and I have no stamina of logging my self onto the stalmate of fruitlessly and endlessly trying dicide whether Conceptualism has its origin in the physical or not, or whether something is physical or non-physical. My last posting is only asking specific questions that demand specific answers. I know my own position on all these questions, and anyone that wants to have ago at answering them are very much welcome. This does not mean that I am not open to a wide range of options if something concrete turns up.

NOTE: People often pride themsleves of being versed in formal logic, or different forms of Logic, without the slightest realisation that it is the persistent and careful study of Metaphysics in Philosophy that systematically exposes the finner and clearer formal structures of Logical Space and the Physical World. And as soon as they see the practicality of any aspect of it, they hastily rush to the betting office for a bet!

 

[Philocrat]

Mysticism, if it exists at all and whatever it means, must be wholly and inescapably Logical in scope and in substance!

 

[Canute]

How do you define 'mysticism' and 'logic'? All these pronouncements don't mean much until you clarify those definitions. At the moment it seems as if you're using non-ordinary definitions.

It may be just me, but I've read all you posts here and I still don't know what you're saying about metaphysics and logic, (except that nobody understands it as well as you do). I'm not even sure whether I agree or disagree with you.

 

[quantumcarl]

physics, inside out.

How do you define 'mysticism' and 'logic'? All these pronouncements don't mean much until you clarify those definitions. At the moment it seems as if you're using non-ordinary definitions.

It may be just me, but I've read all you posts here and I still don't know what you're saying about metaphysics and logic, (except that nobody understands it as well as you do). I'm not even sure whether I agree or disagree with you.

Metaphysics means "beyond physics". This implies that the study of metaphysics is outside the physical. This doesn't mean its the study of the illogical as may well be imagined but that the study is outside of the gradient boundary between the physical and the metaphysical.

Mysticism means the study of the mysterys. This implies studying the unknown. It is understandable that we, as physical entities, are unable to fully comprehend the non-physical or metaphysical laws since we are physical and governed by physical laws.

We tend to interpret non-physical constructs (if these are possible) as being governed by certain laws that intersect with the physical. Take for example the old mystical and metaphysical law that you get out only that which you put into a project. Whatever you put in is what you'll pull out of the effort. Or another, similar metaphysical law is like Karma where one's actions determine one's fate hence forth from the action. Simple axioms if you will but they are considered metaphysical and of a certain type of mystery.

These metaphysical and mystical laws have qualities that match physical laws. Take, for example 'for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction'. This is a physical law that has perhaps been used to interpret what is considered a metaphysical law like Karma. It doesn't mean that this is how Karma works, in a physical sense. The two princibles simply tend to harmonize in terms of cause and effect.

To really see those worlds beyond the physical world the blinders need to be removed. Our physical bias and our constant, exclusive clinging only to what we can see and touch and so forth needs to be questioned or let go.

It doesn't mean discarding the physical laws, moreover, it means incorporating these laws perhaps analogically (does this mean without logic!?) or metaphorically in order to see, perhaps, a bit beyond this physical sphere... this mortal coil!