Consciousness and the brain as a filter - Some questions

[Kai]

The claim is not mine but from the worlds leading quantum experimentalist. It is called the quantum information interpretation. take it up with him. Information is a deeper level of reality.

Because quantum physics desrcibes physical reality! I said nothing of the system but the information. It is information transfered from one system to a new system. It makes no sense to say quantum information is physical Because it is what describes physicality. Alas matter is notman explanation for matter. It is the collapse that defines what is actualized in physicality. Physical laws are not made of matter, nor are they produced by particles. It is the particles that obey the physical laws. It is the information that is the descriptor of physical reality.


Realism is the notion that there is a concrete reality outside of consciousness. Hint, it has everything to do with it.

And hint this thread is not about you and your dogma, I did not impose my opinions on any one elses answers.

Qauntum physics is an *abstraction* of physical reality, as all "physics" is, as mathematics is, as "information" is too. All of this vocabulary is abstraction at the end of the day. It's not a question of opinion. There are no event-processes known that operate independently of physicality. Not.A.Single.One. There is no "outside" to experience in neutral monism; only in materialism. That doesn't alter the fact that experience is physical.

 

[LoneShaman]

Independantly is a word you introduced. Quantum information describes physical reality, how can it possibly be independant of it. Matter is not made of matter.

Knowing is what determines the physicality of the quantum state. Eg quantum cryptography.
From the perspective of physical reality it is meaningless to find independence to physicality. As it is all mediated through the physical body.
Unless you have no brain and body. So it is a pointless point of view.

The aspect of realism deals with there is physicality independent of consciousness. So the objection is easily flipped. Realism is on shaky ground. On a experimental basis.

 

[Max_B]

I would like opinions on the questions below. This is just a starting point, and I'd like to pursue some other lines of inquiry after I get a sense of where people are coming from. If you don't feel like answering the questions with some directness that's fine, but I would very much appreciate that the thread not be derailed with some other type of generalized commentary.

For clarification I'm using the dictionary definition of consciousness (1+2 especially), but if you have some other way to describe what it is please feel free to explain.

1. Is consciousness a "post filtered" event? By this I mean is consciousness the experience we have after it has been received and processed by the brain?

2. Is there something other than this (#1), and what are some examples of it?

3. Is there a correlation between the brain and consciousness?

4. Do changes in brain state, via alteration, damage, or any other kind of event effect consciousness?

5. The very existence of consciousness seems to be the go-to phenomenon when arguing against a materialist position. Are there any other tangible examples of something that is not physical in nature (and not related to consciousness) that carries the same weight?

Thanks and looking forward to your responses.

3. Yes
4. Yes

I don't really understand the other questions.

 

[David Bailey]

But there is a confusion here: physicalism -the modern materialism- does not claim that everything that exists is physical, but that everything that exists is physical or supervenes logically to the physical. The music supervenes logically to the physical (except perhaps the very experience of sound), so that's not a problem for physicalism.

Rather than focus on materialism, if consciousness is physical or not, etc., I prefer to approach the empirical study of psi and afterlife.

I certainly don't want to create confusion, and obviously Beethoven's Fifth Symphony can be 'explained' physically, if you can 'explain' the operation of his brain in physical terms.

Nevertheless, my point is that while we think of our life as being concerned primarily with physical things, in reality an amazing amount of what concerns us, and which we really value, is actually fundamentally non-physical - even though it requires some physical matter just to store it or reproduce it.

This website is sustained by a large number of computers and infrastructure, but that isn't why we value it!

I am also not trying to weaken the concept of a non-physical reality. That concept clearly requires that actual consciousness transcends the physical - not just that abstract ideas are stored there. I just think it is remarkable that we actually operate on a non-physical plane almost all the time!

David

 

[David Bailey]

Kai,

Your discussion of entanglement doesn't really take into account the nature of QM.

The problem is that in QM particles of a given type are indistinguishable, and as I tried to explain to you before, this fact is enshrined in the mathematical description. The nature of quantum entanglement is extremely interesting, and I'll have a go at explaining it, if you really want to know, but you can't really simplify QM in the way you just have in recent posts (which you possibly edited, so it is hard to quote a specific comment)!

Another way to look at this is that matter obeys equations that don't really correspond to what we call physical reality at all - that is why people have puzzled over the meaning of QM for so long!

David

 

[LoneShaman]

What are fields? Particles are not separate pieces of grit but part of a field. Some think they are just means of description, physicalism calls them physical because they have physical effects. But that changes nothing. These are just labels.

Our entire inner world is non physical. Although the argument would be it is not independant of the electrical activity. Well yes. But the electrical activity is not the content, it is not the experience Itself, just as information is not the medium that encodes it.

I am of the opinion that matter is not conscious but is in consciousness. Like the dreamer weaving the dream world but the dream world is not conscious. Physical reality is the excitation of conscious states, how we perceive it through our senses, nervous system and brain. All experience is by way of symbols, whether touch or sound or whatever. It does not mean things are not there when you are not looking at them. It may mean that physical reality is woven together with each collapse of the quantum state and is actualised. We perceive reality within our consciousness after all There is no way to exclude yourself in any independant way. This is our experience but the illusion insists that it is actually the opposite. It is just a shift in perception, no physics is required to change. And it certainly is not a fringe view, and is the very crux of the realism issue.

I Agree with Dave as well. Although I do say consciousness transcends the physical. There are not actually many options. Why should anyoe assume this narrow scope of experience is the true depth of reality? Kind of arrogant and short sighted.

 

[Chris]

Qauntum physics is an *abstraction* of physical reality, as all "physics" is, as mathematics is, as "information" is too. All of this vocabulary is abstraction at the end of the day. It's not a question of opinion.

How is mathematics an abstraction of physical reality?

 

[LoneShaman]

For the realist, which includes a great number of philosophical positions, including dualism, the wavefunction must be the reality but... It encodes all possible outcomes for all possible measurements, many realities. In empirical reality we only measure with deterministic measurements for specific observables only. The choice of what to observe. Think of a multi dimensional faceted object that collapses to just one 2 dimensional facet. We ask the question and it gives up a possibility, one of the facets.

There is a gap between the abstract model and the tested measured empirical reality of what we measure that is filled by another abstraction, the Born rule.
Only one observable can be observed, yet however even observables that are not and remain as possiblities can interact to affect the final outcome. That is what the Born rule allows to predict. But they do not exist in any empirical way, only as potential. How does the system know what is being observed to give the determined answer? Even after the fact as in quantum eraser experiments? All states co exist, but all states can not coexist as realism implies them to be as independant properties that do actually exist In reality. And that can't be unless you want a multi worlds thing. There is no logical or intuitive explanation. A potential state is not a state. The classical concepts even in regard to information do not apply. In the past this would be put down to ignorance from a classical view, but numerous experiments have shown that not only locality is violated but realism as well. It is mindboggling mad, but that is how it is. And I am pretty sure it counts as a yes for Bishops last question quite strongly.

Materialism demands realism and QM says sorry buddy not compatable, the plethora of theories are means of attempting to do away with what the implications are. But the experiments are not abstractions except in conception.

 

[Kai]

Independantly is a word you introduced. Quantum information describes physical reality, how can it possibly be independant of it. Matter is not made of matter.

Knowing is what determines the physicality of the quantum state. Eg quantum cryptography.
From the perspective of physical reality it is meaningless to find independence to physicality. As it is all mediated through the physical body.
Unless you have no brain and body. So it is a pointless point of view.

The aspect of realism deals with there is physicality independent of consciousness. So the objection is easily flipped. Realism is on shaky ground. On a experimental basis.

Don't mistake human descriptions of the world for the world. "Quantum theory" is a human construct that contains a number of useful abstractions from the world, just as conventional physics does. But physics is not the physical. That distinction is critical.

 

[Kai]

Kai,

Your discussion of entanglement doesn't really take into account the nature of QM.

The problem is that in QM particles of a given type are indistinguishable, and as I tried to explain to you before, this fact is enshrined in the mathematical description. The nature of quantum entanglement is extremely interesting, and I'll have a go at explaining it, if you really want to know, but you can't really simplify QM in the way you just have in recent posts (which you possibly edited, so it is hard to quote a specific comment)!

Another way to look at this is that matter obeys equations that don't really correspond to what we call physical reality at all - that is why people have puzzled over the meaning of QM for so long!

David

There are multiple "interpretations" of QM. But I (and NM) do not require a "concrete external reality" to exist in order for experiential hierarchies to exist. Unless one believes that humans are the only experiencing system (which reminds of the hubris that the universe doesn't exist unless there is "someone" to observe it) then this is not a difficult problem. All existing systems are "observers" by dint of being systems. What I do think exists is an "energy-experience" reality which (may) have a closer description in terms of QM than it had in Newtonian Classical Physics, but again, theories are abstractions of the world, they are not the world itself. Mathematics is an abstraction of the world, and something that only human beings do. There is no "math" out there in the world. There is something, to be sure, that math is an abstraction of, and that "something" bears the properties of experience and physical energy currency.

 

[David Bailey]

There are multiple "interpretations" of QM. But I (and NM) do not require a "concrete external reality" to exist in order for experiential hierarchies to exist. Unless one believes that humans are the only experiencing system (which reminds of the hubris that the universe doesn't exist unless there is "someone" to observe it) then this is not a difficult problem. All existing systems are "observers" by dint of being systems. What I do think exists is an "energy-experience" reality which (may) have a closer description in terms of QM than it had in Newtonian Classical Physics, but again, theories are abstractions of the world, they are not the world itself. Mathematics is an abstraction of the world, and something that only human beings do. There is no "math" out there in the world. There is something, to be sure, that math is an abstraction of, and that "something" bears the properties of experience and physical energy currency.

You might find it interesting to actually learn some QM - rather than reason in such a vague way.

David

 

[Kai]

You might find it interesting to actually learn some QM - rather than reason in such a vague way.

David

I don't think I'm vague on QM David. The philosophical debate on mathematical Platonism v mathematical pragmatism is old and well tread. The argument about QM is really a variant on that. I accept that QM offers a partially successful description of the world, but then I accepted that for Newtonian Classicism too. I don't mistake either for the world itself though. There is no abstraction of the world that can substitute for nature itself.

 

[LoneShaman]

Don't mistake human descriptions of the world for the world. "Quantum theory" is a human construct that contains a number of useful abstractions from the world, just as conventional physics does. But physics is not the physical. That distinction is critical.

Singing my song. Why I call it an abstraction. So I am not making that mistake. Quantum theory may be replaced with a refined version or something entirely different but the experimental results will not change.

And remember projecting consciousness onto matter is a human construct too. In fact that is all it is in the complete abscence of any evidence what so ever.

It is just excuses to deny what does not work for you.

 

[Kai]

Singing my song. Why I call it an abstraction. So I am not making that mistake. Quantum theory may be replaced with a refined version or something entirely different but the experimental results will not change.

And remember projecting consciousness onto matter is a human construct too. In fact that is all it is in the complete abscence of any evidence what so ever.

It is just excuses to deny what does not work for you.

I really don't know what you mean. It's puzzling to me from the beginning that people in this thread would try to use quantum mechanics and the influence of the observer *against* the philosophy of panpsychism, when panpsychism is precisely the view that nature consists of observers and that "the influence of the observer" exists because the subjective cannot be rooted out of worldly reality. That just seems like crossed wires, to be honest.

 

[LoneShaman]

There is absolutely no evidence that atoms are having an experience of any kind. Not only that but given the empirical evidence they must also be telepathically communicating. But you don't believe in that nonsense even at the level of what we know is conscious.

Panpsychism place consciousness within the matrix of matter, within the realm of realism. it is completely consistant with physicalism and merely sidesteps the hard problem by inserting the problem with matter. To also do away with emergence of course, but still implies emergence from some proto mind or whatever that is to full blown human consciousness. It smells of nothing but a cop out.

The empirical reality of our experience simply does not show it. Nature does not show it. Experiments do not show it. It remains as nothing but an obscure metaphysic, cooked up by philosophers. A human construct completely! There is no evidential reason for it at all.

It is kind of funny how you complain about what is lacking in empirical evidence in all the things you deny such as NDE and PSI and then fall back into a position that is completely devoid of it.

 

[bishop]

There are lots of things that are non-physical in essence - basically the whole of human culture!

For example, is Beethoven's fifth symphony physical? Well you need physical instruments to play it, and you need physical paper (or computers) to store it, but are these the essence of what people mean when they refer to this music?

Most cultural artifacts are like this - from scientific theories, to poetry, to films.

Thanks for the post. I agree, but these things relate directly to consciousness. I was looking for something other than consciousness.

 

[bishop]

The linked to definition is:

And using that definition I don't see the validity in your questions. That definition also lead to the confusion shown in your #5 where you seem to think that when people posit consciousness as primary, they are using that definition. What you define is more accurately described as human perception.

Ok. But I'm sure you understand where I'm coming from with my line of questioning. Could you please give your own definition of consciousness and then give the questions a shot?

 

[bishop]

3. Yes
4. Yes

I don't really understand the other questions.

#1. Conscious experience as you have it. Is that thing (consciousness), the thing you are experiencing, something that has already been filtered by the brain. Are you experiencing something in a "post filtered" state?

 

[Kai]

There is absolutely no evidence that atoms are having an experience of any kind. Not only that but given the empirical evidence they must also be telepathically communicating. But you don't believe in that nonsense even at the level of what we know is conscious.

More importantly though, there's absolutely no evidence that they don't. It's really just based on a prejudice. People *think* that they have a confident basis for asserting that basic physical entities, or basic physical forces cannot have an experiential component, but the basis of their assumption is (essentially) poorly examined and unsecure. In addition to this, the only "evidence" I have that even other people are "having an experience" is circumstantial, and this is because science does not give us access to the subjective dynamic of existence. It doesn't have the language or the tools for it.

Panpsychism place consciousness within the matrix of matter, within the realm of realism. it is completely consistant with physicalism and merely sidesteps the hard problem by inserting the problem with matter. To also do away with emergence of course, but still implies emergence from some proto mind or whatever that is to full blown human consciousness. It smells of nothing but a cop out.

On the contrary, neutral monism is a very different ontological picture from materialism. Materialism asserts that things can exist or happen without any presence of consciousness or experience. Neutral monism denies this. The world is something *completely different* under NM as set beside materialism. It's a problem I have trying to explain this to people, all the time. They misunderstand NM for materialism, and they misunderstand ("the physical world is all that exists"), a statement I happen to support, for materialism...which it is not, unless the sister assumption is made (that things can exist or happen remote from any experience). NM only assumes at best that a potential is all that exists prior to realization, and that potential cannot even be described as "real" in any ordinary sense. If there is a parallel to mathematics or quantum mechanics, it would be here.

The empirical reality of our experience simply does not show it. Nature does not show it. Experiments do not show it. It remains as nothing but an obscure metaphysic, cooked up by philosophers. A human construct completely! There is no evidential reason for it at all.

I'm wondering what experiments you imagine have been conducted which would show that electrons either do OR do not...have an experiential dimension. Can you share them please?

It is kind of funny how you complain about what is lacking in empirical evidence in all the things you deny such as NDE and PSI and then fall back into a position that is completely devoid of it.

Again, that's back to front. The fact of ourselves as embodied experience is the one and ONLY thing we actually DO know about the world with 100% certainty.

 

[LoneShaman]

Pffft..... weak.