My New Argument for a Nonphysical Consciousness

[ryan]

So you are saying that different people experience the universe differently? No shit, Sherlock.

A subjective experience is a dual reality to another's subjective universe or to an objective universe.

Jane in U has a different account for what exists from John's account in U*. In other words U /= U*. Specifically, there is a proper subset (non equal subset) U** of U* and U. This is duality.

 

[bilby]

So you are saying that different people experience the universe differently? No shit, Sherlock.

A subjective experience is a dual reality to another's subjective universe or to an objective universe.

Jane in U has a different account for what exists from John's account in U*. In other words U /= U*. Specifically, there is a proper subset (non equal subset) U** of U* and U. This is duality.

This is horseshit.

If you can only establish duality by reference to an imaginary additional universe, then you have done nothing to establish duality.

Sadly, even with an imaginary additional universe, your argument is void of merit.

Jane and John are different people. They have different experiences, regardless of whether they are in two different universes or just in different locations in the same universe. No duality is needed for this to be the case.

 

[Kharakov]

I hope the burgers aren't moldy, I'm going to BBQ them in a couple hours. Although... I don't know if mold minds being eaten or not. Is it sentient, like shrooms?

Ask a Stilton cheese.

I can't.. I actually threw out the little tiny dried out rind of the Stilton yesterday after we BBQed the burgers for lunch (the leftover 5 are for tonight).

 

[ryan]

A subjective experience is a dual reality to another's subjective universe or to an objective universe.

Jane in U has a different account for what exists from John's account in U*. In other words U /= U*. Specifically, there is a proper subset (non equal subset) U** of U* and U. This is duality.

This is horseshit.

If you can only establish duality by reference to an imaginary additional universe, then you have done nothing to establish duality.

Sadly, even with an imaginary additional universe, your argument is void of merit.

Jane and John are different people. They have different experiences, regardless of whether they are in two different universes or just in different locations in the same universe. No duality is needed for this to be the case.

You couldn't possibly think that I don't know that, so I will just assume that you have no idea what I am talking about.

P(1) The sensation of Jane's pain is S.
P(2) John cannot account for S.

C(1) There are overlapping realities.

 

[bilby]

This is horseshit.

If you can only establish duality by reference to an imaginary additional universe, then you have done nothing to establish duality.

Sadly, even with an imaginary additional universe, your argument is void of merit.

Jane and John are different people. They have different experiences, regardless of whether they are in two different universes or just in different locations in the same universe. No duality is needed for this to be the case.

You couldn't possibly think that I don't know that, so I will just assume that you have no idea what I am talking about.

A very fair assumption. I would take it further and suggest that you don't, either.

P(1) The sensation of Jane's pain is P.
P(2) John cannot account for P.

C(1) There are overlapping realities.

WTF is 'Cannot account for' supposed to mean here?

Jane looks out of her window and sees the Sydney Opera House. John is in Perth and cannot account for the Sydney Opera House? That's meaningless.

Only people in Sydney can see the Opera House. Only people in pain feel pain. If Jane feels pain, it is because she has been exposed to a painful stimulus (or because her brain state is such as to give her the impression of such a stimulus). Expose John to the same stimulus (or modify his brain in the same way) and he too feels pain.

There is one reality. There as many points of view as there are observers. I have no idea what 'overlapping realities' are supposed to be, but they don't seem to form any part of either a useful or a necessary hypothesis.

 

[ryan]

You couldn't possibly think that I don't know that, so I will just assume that you have no idea what I am talking about.

A very fair assumption. I would take it further and suggest that you don't, either.

P(1) The sensation of Jane's pain is P.
P(2) John cannot account for P.

C(1) There are overlapping realities.

WTF is 'Cannot account for' supposed to mean here?

Jane looks out of her window and sees the Sydney Opera House. John is in Perth and cannot account for the Sydney Opera House? That's meaningless.

Only people in Sydney can see the Opera House. Only people in pain feel pain. If Jane feels pain, it is because she has been exposed to a painful stimulus (or because her brain state is such as to give her the impression of such a stimulus). Expose John to the same stimulus (or modify his brain in the same way) and he too feels pain.

There is one reality. There as many points of view as there are observers. I have no idea what 'overlapping realities' are supposed to be, but they don't seem to form any part of either a useful or a necessary hypothesis.

Please address the following. Jane has evidence of J by a personal account. Assume Jane is actually telling the truth. Yet, nobody else can observe this by the assumption that nobody else can be Jane. It does not exist for anyone that isn't Jane.

Claiming an unobservable entity like pain is like saying that there is a dinosaur in your backyard that only you can observe.

 

[Kharakov]

Please address the following. Jane has evidence of J by a personal account. Assume Jane is actually telling the truth. Yet, nobody else can observe this by the assumption that nobody else can be Jane. It does not exist for anyone that isn't Jane.

Claiming an unobservable entity like pain is like saying that there is a dinosaur in your backyard that only you can observe.

No it isn't. Very few of us have  congenital insensitivity to pain, although apparently one or 2 might have congenital insensitivity to logic.

 

[ryan]

Please address the following. Jane has evidence of J by a personal account. Assume Jane is actually telling the truth. Yet, nobody else can observe this by the assumption that nobody else can be Jane. It does not exist for anyone that isn't Jane.

Claiming an unobservable entity like pain is like saying that there is a dinosaur in your backyard that only you can observe.

No it isn't. Very few of us have  congenital insensitivity to pain, although apparently one or 2 might have congenital insensitivity to logic.

I don't know what this has to do with my post.

 

[Kharakov]

No it isn't. Very few of us have  congenital insensitivity to pain, although apparently one or 2 might have congenital insensitivity to logic.

I don't know what this has to do with my post.

If someone claims that a burn or a swollen ankle is painful, I'd believe them, because I've had both. If I get a friend to eat a yellow scorpion pepper... I'll call them a moron and laugh while I crack them a couple ice cold brews.

Pain without a verifiable source and an fMRI only indicates the brain of a drug addict (direct pain stimulus of the claimed pain area lights up a different part of the brain, and provokes an emotional and physical reaction that indicates real pain in the area is.. well, real)? Could be a hustle.

 

[ryan]

I don't know what this has to do with my post.

If someone claims that a burn or a swollen ankle is painful, I'd believe them, because I've had both. If I get a friend to eat a yellow scorpion pepper... I'll call them a moron and laugh while I crack them a couple ice cold brews.

Pain without a verifiable source and an fMRI only indicates the brain of a drug addict (direct pain stimulus of the claimed pain area lights up a different part of the brain, and provokes an emotional and physical reaction that indicates real pain in the area is.. well, real)? Could be a hustle.

So if they aren't lying, then do you agree that pain exists dually with the physical?

 

[Kharakov]

If someone claims that a burn or a swollen ankle is painful, I'd believe them, because I've had both. If I get a friend to eat a yellow scorpion pepper... I'll call them a moron and laugh while I crack them a couple ice cold brews.

Pain without a verifiable source and an fMRI only indicates the brain of a drug addict (direct pain stimulus of the claimed pain area lights up a different part of the brain, and provokes an emotional and physical reaction that indicates real pain in the area is.. well, real)? Could be a hustle.

So if they aren't lying, then do you agree that pain exists dually with the physical?

No. The pain is another part of the physical that is localized in their conscious state.

I don't divorce physical from mental, although what is defined as a personal mental state is not ever the whole physical state, and may not even correspond to an external physical state.

 

[ryan]

So if they aren't lying, then do you agree that pain exists dually with the physical?

No. The pain is another part of the physical that is localized in their conscious state.

I don't divorce physical from mental, although what is defined as a personal mental state is not ever the whole physical state, and may not even correspond to an external physical state.

waaat thaaa

That seems like some serious B.S., like political debate type B.S.

Do you or don't you believe that a physical process in the brain is exactly and completely the experience of pain? Saying yes means that pain is a process of the elementary particles and not anything else.

 

[bilby]

No. The pain is another part of the physical that is localized in their conscious state.

I don't divorce physical from mental, although what is defined as a personal mental state is not ever the whole physical state, and may not even correspond to an external physical state.

waaat thaaa

That seems like some serious B.S., like political debate type B.S.

Do you or don't you believe that a physical process in the brain is exactly and completely the experience of pain? Saying yes means that pain is a process of the elementary particles and not anything else.

WTF else might it be?

We know there isn't anything else that can interact with the physical world on relevant scales. If it is able to interact via electromagnetism, gravity, or even one of the intranuclear forces, then it's physical. If it isn't able to interact by one of those mechanisms, then it can't interact at all. Pain can be caused by physical trauma; so that rules out the second possibility; ergo, pain can only be a process of the elementary particles of the standard model. Or quantum mechanics is completely wrong.

We can rule out pain being due to ANYTHING not in this diagram, because we KNOW that we are made of electrons, quarks and photons; and that there is nothing not in this diagram that can interact with any of those things, and that exists at energies a human could survive.

We can also most likely rule out anything in the second or third columns; so pain can only possibly be the interaction of some combination of the two quarks and two leptons in the first column, and the five bosons on the right hand side of this diagram.

It is highly unlikely that neutrinos, or any bosons other than the photon, are necessary for the process we call 'pain'; so it can in principle be boiled down to the interactions of just four fundamental particles - albeit in huge numbers and interacting in a monumentally complex fashion.

As can almost everything else in human experience.

There is no room for woo. The god of the gaps is dead, and he took mind-body dualism with him.

Knowing all about bricks doesn't mean you know all about every possible structure you could ever build from bricks - not by a long shot - but it does mean that you can be sure that there are no undiscovered kinds of brick, and no interactions with bricks that you don't know about.

 

[DBT]

They cannot be identical minds if the memory content of either one is different. Memory encoding is a physical change to the brain which alters patterns of firings in conscious activity, which is experienced as mind. One not being identical to the other...

You could be a clone that was replaced in your sleep last night, and your memories would be the same as the original DBT tricking you into thinking that you experienced them.

Doesn't make any difference to the argument for location and object separation. The clone would perceive himself to be the original with a lifetime of memories, as would I.

 

[ryan]

waaat thaaa

That seems like some serious B.S., like political debate type B.S.

Do you or don't you believe that a physical process in the brain is exactly and completely the experience of pain? Saying yes means that pain is a process of the elementary particles and not anything else.

WTF else might it be?

We know there isn't anything else that can interact with the physical world on relevant scales. If it is able to interact via electromagnetism, gravity, or even one of the intranuclear forces, then it's physical. If it isn't able to interact by one of those mechanisms, then it can't interact at all. Pain can be caused by physical trauma; so that rules out the second possibility; ergo, pain can only be a process of the elementary particles of the standard model. Or quantum mechanics is completely wrong.

We can rule out pain being due to ANYTHING not in this diagram, because we KNOW that we are made of electrons, quarks and photons; and that there is nothing not in this diagram that can interact with any of those things, and that exists at energies a human could survive.

We can also most likely rule out anything in the second or third columns; so pain can only possibly be the interaction of some combination of the two quarks and two leptons in the first column, and the five bosons on the right hand side of this diagram.

It is highly unlikely that neutrinos, or any bosons other than the photon, are necessary for the process we call 'pain'; so it can in principle be boiled down to the interactions of just four fundamental particles - albeit in huge numbers and interacting in a monumentally complex fashion.

As can almost everything else in human experience.

There is no room for woo. The god of the gaps is dead, and he took mind-body dualism with him.

Knowing all about bricks doesn't mean you know all about every possible structure you could ever build from bricks - not by a long shot - but it does mean that you can be sure that there are no undiscovered kinds of brick, and no interactions with bricks that you don't know about.

How do we know that multiple particles exist if we are individual particles in isolated interactions? Shouldn't we only know one interaction at a time in each part of the brain? How can there be this holistc phenomena if everything is individualized to particles in space and time?

 

[bilby]

WTF else might it be?

We know there isn't anything else that can interact with the physical world on relevant scales. If it is able to interact via electromagnetism, gravity, or even one of the intranuclear forces, then it's physical. If it isn't able to interact by one of those mechanisms, then it can't interact at all. Pain can be caused by physical trauma; so that rules out the second possibility; ergo, pain can only be a process of the elementary particles of the standard model. Or quantum mechanics is completely wrong.

We can rule out pain being due to ANYTHING not in this diagram, because we KNOW that we are made of electrons, quarks and photons; and that there is nothing not in this diagram that can interact with any of those things, and that exists at energies a human could survive.

We can also most likely rule out anything in the second or third columns; so pain can only possibly be the interaction of some combination of the two quarks and two leptons in the first column, and the five bosons on the right hand side of this diagram.

It is highly unlikely that neutrinos, or any bosons other than the photon, are necessary for the process we call 'pain'; so it can in principle be boiled down to the interactions of just four fundamental particles - albeit in huge numbers and interacting in a monumentally complex fashion.

As can almost everything else in human experience.

There is no room for woo. The god of the gaps is dead, and he took mind-body dualism with him.

Knowing all about bricks doesn't mean you know all about every possible structure you could ever build from bricks - not by a long shot - but it does mean that you can be sure that there are no undiscovered kinds of brick, and no interactions with bricks that you don't know about.

How do we know that multiple particles exist if we are individual particles in isolated interactions? Shouldn't we only know one interaction at a time in each part of the brain? How can there be this holistc phenomena if everything is individualized to particles in space and time?

Who said we were individual particles in isolated interactions?

We are gazillions of interacting particles in a dynamic state of not-quite-equilibrium. There is nothing 'isolated' about any of it.

I have no idea what you mean about a 'holistic phenomenon' (NB 'Phenomena' is a PLURAL). What is this phenomenon, and what is it made of, if not particles and their interactions from the Standard Model?

Everything is made of particles, and big blobs of closely interacting particles exhibit all kinds of phenomena at larger scales.

But it is ALL particles (which in some circumstances may be better understood as fields); there isn't anything else.

 

[ryan]

You could be a clone that was replaced in your sleep last night, and your memories would be the same as the original DBT tricking you into thinking that you experienced them.

Doesn't make any difference to the argument for location and object separation.

It would allow an external observer to know which DBT is the original, and the observer would be correct. The non-physical difference that I claim exists would be preserved by the observer.

The clone would perceive himself to be the original with a lifetime of memories, as would I.

I agree.

 

[bilby]

Doesn't make any difference to the argument for location and object separation.

It would allow an external observer to know which DBT is the original, and the observer would be correct. The non-physical difference that I claim exists would be preserved by the observer.

That's a property of the observer, not of either clone.

 

[ryan]

How do we know that multiple particles exist if we are individual particles in isolated interactions? Shouldn't we only know one interaction at a time in each part of the brain? How can there be this holistc phenomena if everything is individualized to particles in space and time?

Who said we were individual particles in isolated interactions?

We are gazillions of interacting particles in a dynamic state of not-quite-equilibrium. There is nothing 'isolated' about any of it.

I have no idea what you mean about a 'holistic phenomenon' (NB 'Phenomena' is a PLURAL). What is this phenomenon, and what is it made of, if not particles and their interactions from the Standard Model?

Everything is made of particles, and big blobs of closely interacting particles exhibit all kinds of phenomena at larger scales.

But it is ALL particles (which in some circumstances may be better understood as fields); there isn't anything else.

Do you think your mind is reducible to particles? If not, then what makes your mind any less fundamental than the elementary particles?

 

[bilby]

Who said we were individual particles in isolated interactions?

We are gazillions of interacting particles in a dynamic state of not-quite-equilibrium. There is nothing 'isolated' about any of it.

I have no idea what you mean about a 'holistic phenomenon' (NB 'Phenomena' is a PLURAL). What is this phenomenon, and what is it made of, if not particles and their interactions from the Standard Model?

Everything is made of particles, and big blobs of closely interacting particles exhibit all kinds of phenomena at larger scales.

But it is ALL particles (which in some circumstances may be better understood as fields); there isn't anything else.

Do you think your mind is reducible to particles? If not, then what makes your mind any less fundamental than the elementary particles?

Of course the mind is reducible to particles. What the fuck else could possibly be an ingredient?

This is physics. It's as solidly certain as any knowledge in the history of mankind.

If your philosophy contradicts science, then it is fiction.

The various philosophies of mind might be a useful addition to science, but they cannot overrule it.

It makes far more sense to hypothesise that the
Moon is made of cheese than it is to hypothesise that the Standard Model is sufficiently wrong to allow for any other particles or forces to interact with humans.