Consciousness

[untermensche]

No possible known mechanism. Within the realm of current knowledge. Which is not complete.

Claiming humans understand everything or even have access to all possible phenomena is not demonstrable.

Nor necessary.

QFT is complete at human scales. It is fundamental to the theory that forces have particles that carry them; and that those particles have predictable masses; and that sufficient energy will generate all particles below a given mass.

The LHC has demonstrated that the only possible unknown forces must either be too short-range to allow separation of the hypothetical soul from the body (by many orders of magnitude) or too long range to have measurable effects on scales smaller than that of Solar Systems.

There's plenty we don't know. But the things we DO know are sufficient to rule out a lot of hypothetical ideas - the whole point of scientific research is to start from 'anything is possible', and then eliminate impossible hypotheses until we are left with useful knowledge.

Amongst those things now known to be impossible are perpetual motion machines; homeopathic medicines; and dualism.

Lots of people still believe that these things are possible, and the technical term for such people is 'mistaken', 'uneducated' or simply 'wrong'. These things are NOT possible, and there's no unknown extra information that could arise to suddenly change that assessment, that would not also require the total abandonment of huge chunks of well established experimental evidence.

Big scientific revolutions don't do that. When relativity superseded Newton's theory of gravity, objects continued to fall when dropped; pendula continued to swing at predictable rates; and tides continued to ebb and flow.

We may well show that QFT is 'wrong', just as Einstein showed that universal gravitation was 'wrong'. But we can be sure that it's not wrong enough for any future discoveries to enable the existence of disembodied minds or souls. Just as we can be sure that any future correction to Relativity will not cause objects to fall up.

The term "complete" has no real meaning here.

What we can detect is what we can detect.

Maybe there is more out there we can't detect. Maybe there isn't.

There is no way to know, obviously.

 

[rousseau]

Great, I was hoping to read a long-winded conversation about dualism, and not what consciousness actually is.

 

[bilby]

Nor necessary.

QFT is complete at human scales. It is fundamental to the theory that forces have particles that carry them; and that those particles have predictable masses; and that sufficient energy will generate all particles below a given mass.

The LHC has demonstrated that the only possible unknown forces must either be too short-range to allow separation of the hypothetical soul from the body (by many orders of magnitude) or too long range to have measurable effects on scales smaller than that of Solar Systems.

There's plenty we don't know. But the things we DO know are sufficient to rule out a lot of hypothetical ideas - the whole point of scientific research is to start from 'anything is possible', and then eliminate impossible hypotheses until we are left with useful knowledge.

Amongst those things now known to be impossible are perpetual motion machines; homeopathic medicines; and dualism.

Lots of people still believe that these things are possible, and the technical term for such people is 'mistaken', 'uneducated' or simply 'wrong'. These things are NOT possible, and there's no unknown extra information that could arise to suddenly change that assessment, that would not also require the total abandonment of huge chunks of well established experimental evidence.

Big scientific revolutions don't do that. When relativity superseded Newton's theory of gravity, objects continued to fall when dropped; pendula continued to swing at predictable rates; and tides continued to ebb and flow.

We may well show that QFT is 'wrong', just as Einstein showed that universal gravitation was 'wrong'. But we can be sure that it's not wrong enough for any future discoveries to enable the existence of disembodied minds or souls. Just as we can be sure that any future correction to Relativity will not cause objects to fall up.

The term "complete" has no real meaning here.

What we can detect is what we can detect.

Maybe there is more out there we can't detect. Maybe there isn't.

There is no way to know, obviously.

And, demonstrably, no way for it to ever influence matter.

There's plenty we don't know. But that doesn't mean we can't rule some things out. And dualism is one of those things, whether you know it or not.

 

[untermensche]

The term "complete" has no real meaning here.

What we can detect is what we can detect.

Maybe there is more out there we can't detect. Maybe there isn't.

There is no way to know, obviously.

And, demonstrably, no way for it to ever influence matter.

There's plenty we don't know. But that doesn't mean we can't rule some things out. And dualism is one of those things, whether you know it or not.

There is no way to know what it could or could not influence.

All we can say is we detect no other influences.

You equate our limits of detection with the limits of possible existence.

 

[bilby]

And, demonstrably, no way for it to ever influence matter.

There's plenty we don't know. But that doesn't mean we can't rule some things out. And dualism is one of those things, whether you know it or not.

There is no way to know what it could or could not influence.

All we can say is we detect no other influences.

You equate our limits of detection with the limits of possible existence.

Nope. You are simply wrong about this.

Watch this from 5:15 (actually, you should watch the whole thing, but starting at 5:15 is the explanation of why you are wrong about this).

[YOUTUBE]https://youtu.be/Efk4py8HVMc?t=314[/YOUTUBE]

 

[untermensche]

There is no way to know what it could or could not influence.

All we can say is we detect no other influences.

You equate our limits of detection with the limits of possible existence.

Nope. You are simply wrong about this.

Watch this from 5:15 (actually, you should watch the whole thing, but starting at 5:15 is the explanation of why you are wrong about this).

[YOUTUBE]https://youtu.be/Efk4py8HVMc?t=314[/YOUTUBE]

His arguments are no better than yours.

We certainly can detect some things and we certainly have a complete model from the things we can detect.

This says absolutely nothing about what we might not be able to detect.

You are claiming we can detect all things.

Unsupportable.

 

[bilby]

Nope. You are simply wrong about this.

Watch this from 5:15 (actually, you should watch the whole thing, but starting at 5:15 is the explanation of why you are wrong about this).

[YOUTUBE]https://youtu.be/Efk4py8HVMc?t=314[/YOUTUBE]

His arguments are no better than yours.

We certainly can detect some things and we certainly have a complete model from the things we can detect.

This says absolutely nothing about what we might not be able to detect.

You are claiming we can detect all things.

Unsupportable.

I can try to explain it for you. But I am not going to try to understand it for you.

You are, as usual, dogmatic in your ignorance. That may prevent you from accepting that you are wrong; But it does nothing to prevent you from being wrong.

 

[fromderinside]

Is that dead thing laying on the philosophical floor actually dead? Sometimes it is better to just dead philosophical dogs (things) lay.

 

[DBT]

Great, I was hoping to read a long-winded conversation about dualism, and not what consciousness actually is.

It's probably coming to the point in the thread where the Homunculus gets a mention.

Which is essentially dualism.

 

[untermensche]

His arguments are no better than yours.

We certainly can detect some things and we certainly have a complete model from the things we can detect.

This says absolutely nothing about what we might not be able to detect.

You are claiming we can detect all things.

Unsupportable.

I can try to explain it for you. But I am not going to try to understand it for you.

You are, as usual, dogmatic in your ignorance. That may prevent you from accepting that you are wrong; But it does nothing to prevent you from being wrong.

You don't understand anything.

You have some bad ideas you can't possibly defend.

The models tell us about what we can detect.

They do not in any way demonstrate that there are no others things out there that we can't detect.

You will actually have to think about that to understand it from your position of dogmatic certainty.

 

[Kharakov]

A pinhole camera in spacetime's glimpse of the whole, although some pinholes get focused on other pinholes...... pinhole.

 

[fromderinside]

Why is it I get the sense that when I read a response to bilby on this thread I'm conscious of our (his, mine, and others) president? Maybe it's because bilby's philosophy is Australian? Yeah, that's the ticket.

 

[DBT]

Dualism is not supported by research or evidence. The available evidence does support the proposition of consciousness as a form of activity that a brain is doing.

 

[fromderinside]

Oh cummon. Beasts before lampreys had consciousness merely due to the fact that their visual systems could separate stuff that's edible from stuff that's not edible and they had the rest of the stuff necessary to act on it. But was it consciousness? Descartes would say no.

Easy experiment. Cut out the eye of a horseshoe crab, connect it up to electrodes and watch as it organizes stuff passed in front of the eye. While you're doing that apply a hot soldering iron to the rest of the crab as watch it's reaction.

Wallah. You have demonstrated necessary mechanisms of consciousness. Is not the demonstration dualistic?

 

[rousseau]

In what ways are people different from a bacterium being attracted to specific types of molecules, or mice to a particular type of scent, moths to light.. and so on. The difference is in the complexity of our sensory system and adaptations to our social environment.

But fundamentally we're the same thing.

 

[untermensche]

There are two dogmatic positions.

1. There is definitely something beyond our detection.

2. There is definitely not something beyond our detection. Our models are complete. They are irreducible.

Two types of dogmatists.

 

[bilby]

There are two dogmatic positions.

1. There is definitely something beyond our detection.

2. There is definitely not something beyond our detection. Our models are complete. They are irreducible.

Two types of dogmatists.

And then there's the people who know that there are unknowns out there; but who are aware that this doesn't mean 'anything goes', because science has put limits on the unknown. And amongst the limits we have placed on the unknown is that we are able to show that no unknown interactions with matter exist at scales larger than atoms and smaller than solar systems.

Your ignorance of this doesn't constitute a rebuttal of it.

I am certain that we will never discover that if we drop a hammer it might actually fall upwards; Your (correct) claim that gravity is not fully understood doesn't change this one iota.

I am equally certain that dualism is impossible, because there cannot be any force or particle that could transfer information from a hypothesised 'soul' to a physical human. The existence of dark energy and dark matter that are not yet understood is of zero relevance here; we don't know what those things are, but we do know they don't influence individual humans, and we do know that there are no more unknowns at human scales. YOU may not know that, but the physics is unarguable, and free for anyone to learn. Ignorance of the laws of nature is no defence.

 

[untermensche]

I am equally certain that dualism is impossible, because there cannot be any force or particle that could transfer information from a hypothesised 'soul' to a physical human.

You don't know on what scale "consciousness" exists.

Is it a quantum effect of some kind?

 

[fromderinside]

There are two dogmatic positions.

1. There is definitely something beyond our detection.

2. There is definitely not something beyond our detection. Our models are complete. They are irreducible.

Two types of dogmatists.

And then there's the people who know that there are unknowns out there; but who are aware that this doesn't mean 'anything goes', because science has put limits on the unknown. And amongst the limits we have placed on the unknown is that we are able to show that no unknown interactions with matter exist at scales larger than atoms and smaller than solar systems.

Your ignorance of this doesn't constitute a rebuttal of it.

I am certain that we will never discover that if we drop a hammer it might actually fall upwards; Your (correct) claim that gravity is not fully understood doesn't change this one iota.

I am equally certain that dualism is impossible, because there cannot be any force or particle that could transfer information from a hypothesised 'soul' to a physical human. The existence of dark energy and dark matter that are not yet understood is of zero relevance here; we don't know what those things are, but we do know they don't influence individual humans, and we do know that there are no more unknowns at human scales. YOU may not know that, but the physics is unarguable, and free for anyone to learn. Ignorance of the laws of nature is no defence.

Why not use a dual perspective based on evidence. Earlier I suggested an experiment, one I conducted as part of symposium on bases of sensation and perception.

Easy experiment. Cut out the eye of a horseshoe crab, connect it up to electrodes and watch as it organizes stuff passed in front of the eye. While you're doing that apply a hot soldering iron to the rest of the crab and watch it's reaction.

Wallah. You have demonstrated necessary mechanisms of consciousness.

Then I suggested

Is not the demonstration dualistic?

Why not call the above an example of operational dualism? No God, no soul, just same being two conditions, a disembodied eye organizing experiment and a eyeless body effecting experiment. Operational dualism?

 

[bilby]

I am equally certain that dualism is impossible, because there cannot be any force or particle that could transfer information from a hypothesised 'soul' to a physical human.

You don't know on what scale "consciousness" exists.

Consciousness doesn't exist 'on a scale' - that's a category error. Consciousness is a property, not an object.

Is it a quantum effect of some kind?

No.

It's a property of brains; brains are too large and too hot for quantum effects to be relevant - at such enormous scales and temperatures, quantum effects sum to classical physics.

Quantum is not a magic word meaning 'any stupid woo I want to imagine'.