Dean Radin's Double Slit Experiments

What conflicts with quantum mechanics? Please tell me what specific principles and laws.
I'm not a physicist, so I can't give you laws.
  • No information can be transferred through entanglement.
  • Particles cannot become entangled remotely.
  • A measurement collapses to a random state.
  • Poking one of an entangled set of particles reduces or eliminates its entanglement.

I think psi requires some new science.

~~ Paul
 
I haven't read all the crazy QM experiments in awhile. I'll have to do that.

John Wheeler's delayed choice experiment with photons is a good one to think about, and once you have done that, check out the delayed-choice quantum eraser experiments.


Paul C. Anagnostopoulos said:
Except that one of the possibilities is for the secretary to hear the bell and then supposedly collapse the system. Yet how does the hear/not hear bifurcation happen without the printer collapsing the system first? One path has collapse and the other does not. I think the entire thing has to remaining superposed, even if the secretary hears the bell. Or the printer collapses the system.

I love this stuff.

~~ Paul

Check out the two experiments I just mentioned and it might provide some insight. But regarding what I highlighted in your quote in bold, the apparent issue is caused by thinking that all of these events happen in a classical way, the way in which we are used to experiencing the world. Nothing "happens" until observation in the von Neumann interpretation.

It should be stressed that I am using the von Neumann interpretation here, which while I think is the most consistent interpretation, I am not presenting it as the true interpretation. However, I am unable to use the other models to explain "what goes on" in any of these experiments very well, which is probably why I am biased towards the von Neumann interpretation.
 
I'm not a physicist, so I can't give you laws.
  • No information can be transferred through entanglement.
  • Particles cannot become entangled remotely.
  • A measurement collapses to a random state.
  • Poking one of an entangled set of particles reduces or eliminates its entanglement.

I think psi requires some new science.

~~ Paul

Cool, here we go. I will address these individually:

1. But quantum information can be teleported instantaneously. What is teleported is not the photons, but the quantum information of their state vector.

2. Particles can be entangled through time even though never being associated: http://arxiv.org/abs/1209.4191

3. Yes, this is a good one. The statistical outcomes of PK experiments have been attempted by Henry Stapp to be explained by a mild biasing of the statistical outcomes of the quantum mechanical equations. In his opinion as a pretty respected quantum physicist, this is not a big deal to allow for these biases.

4. Or creates another entangled state, like seen with teleportation.
 
By all means, explain psi with QM. That involves doing the math. Until then, the project runs the risk of:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_mysticism

For example, you have to do the math to show that information can, in fact, be transferred between entangled particles. You have to show how remote objects become entangled, especially when one object doesn't know the location of the other. You have to find the mechanisms in the brain that do this. You have to show how a person can force the collapse to specific states instead of random ones and still get the correlation at the other particle. So, you have to show that poking an entangled particle does not necessarily reduce or destroy the entanglement.

It's not just finding out how photosynthesis uses QM. It's inventing new and conflicting QM.

~~ Paul

I will give you a brief outline a model that extends the von Neumann interpretation (now referred to as VNI) to work towards explaining your questions. Since we have been introduced to the VNI is a bit more depth, what is then needed is some sort of description as to perhaps what consciousness is, what our brains have to do with it, whether other things can be conscious, etc.

This is where Giulio Tononi's Integrated Information Theory (IIT) comes in, which starts from the phemenology of consciousness and then creates a rigorous quantitative mathematical model for what consciousness is and how it is produced. In this model it is important to stress that consciousness is primary. Through certain mechanism say in our brain, possibilities are reduced, and through information integration, all but one possible experience is excluded. This could be "wave function collapse," which is a unitary information integrated experience within consciousness.

One might argue that IIT doesn't deal with quantum information, and this generally is true, but to what extent information processing and integration goes is not yet know. Cells, for example, process information and it seems may integrate that information as well, having a low phi, or small amount of conscious experience with limited vectors in their qualia space. It should be noted that information processing builds on more fundamental information processing, and the most fundamental information processing occurs at the fundamental level of the universe with quantum computations.

This is where quantum computational models of quantum theory come into play. They are essentially extensions of the Copenhagen interpretation, as they posit that information processing is fundamental to the quantum fields. Quantum information is processed at a fundamental level of the universe, and in a sense, then, matter is an emergent property of this information processing, as is conscious awareness that results from the emergent structures of matter.

It should be noted that IIT is compatible with Chalmer's Type B materialism and type F monism, yet if it is integrated with the VMI, type B materialism is ruled out and type F monism is the only viable position.

Essentially, consciousness itself is primary, and everything exists within it as quantum information, including matter, our brains, and the creation of conscious-awareness.

It is important to note that the quantum information fields exist non-locally. It is from this that everything emerges, or projects from in a holographic way. This is like the holographic principle Suskind speaks of. Consciousness is also non-local, and the information processing occurs within this consciousness. Consciousness is the ultimate substratum. Kind of like being the computer chip in a computer, where processing occurs, and then the video game world is "projected" onto the screen so it can be interpreted and experienced.

And perhaps since this information field exists non-locally, sometimes anomalous information gets integrated into one's conscious awareness. This is ESP. And through a top-down causation of our thoughts, although created through this information integration, can then write a query (in terms of programming language) that can then run this query on the quantum information field. Perhaps this is done through quantum search algorithms that allow multiple searches to occur at once. Perhaps this is how one can essentially ask a question and get an answer, such as "where is the subject now?" in remote viewing, where I query can be run and the exchange of information can be integrated into one's consciousness to allow for a conscious perception of the location. A query in this case is seen very strongly like a computer program, which in a google search I found the following definition that fits extremely well:

A query is a set of instructions that describes what data to retrieve from a given data source (or sources) and what shape and organization the returned data should have. A query is distinct from the results that it produces.

Those instructions are created via quantum information processing exploited by the brain, which then acts as a command to search the database of the non-local information field in perhaps a quantum search algorithm (which is why it seems to happen rather fast and easy, but does seem to also have limitations).

PK, then is not a dualist action, but since matter exists within consciousness as quantum information, it is only acting on itself. The intentions formed by thoughts can then influence the insertion or extraction of quantum information non-locally from systems, allowing for a biasing of the output of RNGs.

In this sense, space, time, matter, etc is all an emergent property of the processing and integration of information within consciousness.

But that's enough for now. I don't want to give everything away, but suffice it to say that this isn't some vague application of quantum theory or quantum mysticism.
 
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I will give you a brief outline a model that extends the von Neumann interpretation (now referred to as VNI) to work towards explaining your questions. Since we have been introduced to the VNI is a bit more depth, what is then needed is some sort of description as to perhaps what consciousness is, what our brains have to do with it, whether other things can be conscious, etc.

This is where Giulio Tononi's Integrated Information Theory (IIT) comes in, which starts from the phemenology of consciousness and then creates a rigorous quantitative mathematical model for what consciousness is and how it is produced. In this model it is important to stress that consciousness is primary. Through certain mechanism say in our brain, possibilities are reduced, and through information integration, all but one possible experience is excluded. This could be "wave function collapse," which is a unitary information integrated experience within consciousness.

One might argue that IIT doesn't deal with quantum information, and this generally is true, but to what extent information processing and integration goes is not yet know. Cells, for example, process information and it seems may integrate that information as well, having a low phi, or small amount of conscious experience with limited vectors in their qualia space. It should be noted that information processing builds on more fundamental information processing, and the most fundamental information processing occurs at the fundamental level of the universe with quantum computations.

This is where quantum computational models of quantum theory come into play. They are essentially extensions of the Copenhagen interpretation, as they posit that information processing is fundamental to the quantum fields. Quantum information is processed at a fundamental level of the universe, and in a sense, then, matter is an emergent property of this information processing, as is conscious awareness that results from the emergent structures of matter.

It should be noted that IIT is compatible with Chalmer's Type B materialism and type F monism, yet if it is integrated with the VMI, type B materialism is ruled out and type F monism is the only viable position.

Essentially, consciousness itself is primary, and everything exists within it as quantum information, including matter, our brains, and the creation of conscious-awareness.

It is important to note that the quantum information fields exist non-locally. It is from this that everything emerges, or projects from in a holographic way. This is like the holographic principle Suskind speaks of. Consciousness is also non-local, and the information processing occurs within this consciousness. Consciousness is the ultimate substratum. Kind of like being the computer chip in a computer, where processing occurs, and then the video game world is "projected" onto the screen so it can be interpreted and experienced.

And perhaps since this information field exists non-locally, sometimes anomalous information gets integrated into one's conscious awareness. This is ESP. And through a top-down causation of our thoughts, although created through this information integration, can then write a query (in terms of programming language) that can then run this query on the quantum information field. Perhaps this is done through quantum search algorithms that allow multiple searches to occur at once. Perhaps this is how one can essentially ask a question and get an answer, such as "where is the subject now?" in remote viewing, where I query can be run and the exchange of information can be integrated into one's consciousness to allow for a conscious perception of the location. A query in this case is seen very strongly like a computer program, which in a google search I found the following definition that fits extremely well:



Those instructions are created via quantum information processing exploited by the brain, which then acts as a command to search the database of the non-local information field in perhaps a quantum search algorithm (which is why it seems to happen rather fast and easy, but does seem to also have limitations).

PK, then is not a dualist action, but since matter exists within consciousness as quantum information, it is only acting on itself. The intentions formed by thoughts can then influence the insertion or extraction of quantum information non-locally from systems, allowing for a biasing of the output of RNGs.

In this sense, space, time, matter, etc is all an emergent property of the processing and integration of information within consciousness.

But that's enough for now. I don't want to give everything away, but suffice it to say that this isn't some vague application of quantum theory or quantum mysticism.


Neil, can you clarify what you mean by saying that Tononi's IIT holds that "Essentially, consciousness itself is primary, and everything exists within it as quantum information, including matter, our brains, and the creation of conscious-awareness."

As I understand it (see, for example this paper of his: Consciousness as Integrated Information: a Provisional Manifesto, from 2008 though perhaps he's changed from this position?)

While he does describe consciousness as a fundamental property, he does not (and I don't understand IIT to) suggest anything along the lines of consciousness being primary and everything existing within it as quantum information.

Rather, what he means when he describes it as a fundamental property (as I interpret it anyway), is that anytime information is integrated, conscious experience is generated. In fact, he states that "consciousness is one and the same thing as integrated information." That's not quite the same thing, as I read it, as saying that consciousness is primary and everything exists within it.

Consciousness, according to him, exists in any system that integrates information. But systems that don't integrate information, or a single particle for example, will not be conscious.

He also states that IIT isn't quite traditional panpsychism, which holds that everything in the universe is conscious. Rather:

Unlike traditional panpsychism, however, the IIT does not attribute consciousness indiscriminately to all things. For example, if there are no interactions, there is no consciousness whatsoever. For the IIT, a camera sensor as such is completely unconscious (in fact, it does not exist as an entity).

Note that its not just any information processing that produces consciousness, but only integrated information processing.

When he describes consciousness as intrinsic, he means something different from primary as well, I believe. What he means is that integrated system does not depend on the existence of anything outside of that system to exist - it will have some element of conciousness.

Tononi does mention quantum mechanics in a footnote, and I've seen papers looking at the role IIT may play in QM (see Integrated Information-induced quantum collapse for example). And the concept of conciousness (as integrated information) as somehow being the result of discrimination amongst all possibilities makes the head spin in a similar way to QM principles. But I don't think IIT presents all of this in the context of "matter exists within consciousness as quantum information." It might equate matter as information (have to look into this) but I don't think it would be accurate to say that matter exists within consciousness, according to IIT. Your use of "within consciousness" seems me to be more in the Bernardo sense but I don't think that's how IIT frames it (though I'm sure there's a lot of material I haven't read so I stand to be corrected!).

I enjoy your posts by the way, and your tone is unfailingly polite. I think you make a great addition to this forum!
 
Neil, can you clarify what you mean by saying that Tononi's IIT holds that "Essentially, consciousness itself is primary, and everything exists within it as quantum information, including matter, our brains, and the creation of conscious-awareness."

As I understand it (see, for example this paper of his: Consciousness as Integrated Information: a Provisional Manifesto, from 2008 though perhaps he's changed from this position?)

While he does describe consciousness as a fundamental property, he does not (and I don't understand IIT to) suggest anything along the lines of consciousness being primary and everything existing within it as quantum information.

Rather, what he means when he describes it as a fundamental property (as I interpret it anyway), is that anytime information is integrated, conscious experience is generated. In fact, he states that "consciousness is one and the same thing as integrated information." That's not quite the same thing, as I read it, as saying that consciousness is primary and everything exists within it.

Consciousness, according to him, exists in any system that integrates information. But systems that don't integrate information, or a single particle for example, will not be conscious.

He also states that IIT isn't quite traditional panpsychism, which holds that everything in the universe is conscious. Rather:



Note that its not just any information processing that produces consciousness, but only integrated information processing.

When he describes consciousness as intrinsic, he means something different from primary as well, I believe. What he means is that integrated system does not depend on the existence of anything outside of that system to exist - it will have some element of conciousness.

Tononi does mention quantum mechanics in a footnote, and I've seen papers looking at the role IIT may play in QM (see Integrated Information-induced quantum collapse for example). And the concept of conciousness (as integrated information) as somehow being the result of discrimination amongst all possibilities makes the head spin in a similar way to QM principles. But I don't think IIT presents all of this in the context of "matter exists within consciousness as quantum information." It might equate matter as information (have to look into this) but I don't think it would be accurate to say that matter exists within consciousness, according to IIT. Your use of "within consciousness" seems me to be more in the Bernardo sense but I don't think that's how IIT frames it (though I'm sure there's a lot of material I haven't read so I stand to be corrected!).

I enjoy your posts by the way, and your tone is unfailingly polite. I think you make a great addition to this forum!

You are pretty much correct from what I can tell. I mixed in my own opinions with the ideas of IIT. The part about consciousness being primary, in my opinion, comes from the first axiom of IIT that is essentially Decarte's "I think therefore I am." I have heard presentations of Tononi's where he talks about how everything including the world can be doubted, but one cannot doubt one's conscious experience, and off the top of my head I am pretty sure that is in one of his papers as well.

This is not to say that he thinks everything exists within consciousness. This is my idea that comes from combining IIT with the VMI and computational models of QM, and realizing that while IIT is compatible with type B dualism and type F monism, when combined with the VMI type B materialism absolutely does not work (since we have to have a non-material consciousness to collapse the wave function). Tononi has not gone here from what I can tell, as I have only seen the end note you mentioned on quantum theory.

I am extremely impressed with Toni's work as a neuroscientist since he approaches the problem from the phenomenal point of view and creates a rigorously quantitative and mathematical model. One could even hope if he is correct that it could possibly allow for insight into near-death research, if there is some activity in the brain like the mouse study and it ends up being associated with NDEs, one could even analyze responses of those that die by comparing the shapes in qualia space of NDE reporters and of those that die.

I also think that the field of neuroquantology is an important consideration, since I think it would bridge the gap even more between the more classical neuroscience ideas used in IIT and quantum models.

So in my sense, I take consciousness as a primary substratum in which all the information processing occurs. It seems that Tononi's would say the integrated information in a materialism sense is itself Conscious experience, I think this still does not explain the internal subjective experience. It still, in a sense, leaves the hard problem, and it is easily eliminated if consciousness is primary rather than matter (just switch from type B materialism to type F monism).

Tononi's insight on panpsychism is absolutely brilliant. I have always had a weird feeling about panpsychism, and I think he absolutely nails the reason why. I also think that IIT offers an explanation of why conscious experience is so tightly associated with brain activity, and in my overall idea, there is a tight correlation without conscious experience being reduced to just brain activity.

By the way, thank you for the article that you linked to. I am very interested in ideas related to to IIT and quantum theory.
 
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I should emphasize that I think the concepts of neuroquantology are vital for IIT to work. I just don't think you have have a unitive experience using classical concepts. Only with quantum concepts in neuroscience can you end up with a unitive state (the quantum state of the whole system), and in this case, the restrictions and subsequent exclusion for a single experience becomes even more important and in fact makes more sense.
 
Neil, can you clarify what you mean by saying that Tononi's IIT holds that "Essentially, consciousness itself is primary, and everything exists within it as quantum information, including matter, our brains, and the creation of conscious-awareness."

As I understand it (see, for example this paper of his: Consciousness as Integrated Information: a Provisional Manifesto, from 2008 though perhaps he's changed from this position?)

While he does describe consciousness as a fundamental property, he does not (and I don't understand IIT to) suggest anything along the lines of consciousness being primary and everything existing within it as quantum information.

Rather, what he means when he describes it as a fundamental property (as I interpret it anyway), is that anytime information is integrated, conscious experience is generated. In fact, he states that "consciousness is one and the same thing as integrated information." That's not quite the same thing, as I read it, as saying that consciousness is primary and everything exists within it.

Consciousness, according to him, exists in any system that integrates information. But systems that don't integrate information, or a single particle for example, will not be conscious.

He also states that IIT isn't quite traditional panpsychism, which holds that everything in the universe is conscious. Rather:



Note that its not just any information processing that produces consciousness, but only integrated information processing.

When he describes consciousness as intrinsic, he means something different from primary as well, I believe. What he means is that integrated system does not depend on the existence of anything outside of that system to exist - it will have some element of conciousness.

Tononi does mention quantum mechanics in a footnote, and I've seen papers looking at the role IIT may play in QM (see Integrated Information-induced quantum collapse for example). And the concept of conciousness (as integrated information) as somehow being the result of discrimination amongst all possibilities makes the head spin in a similar way to QM principles. But I don't think IIT presents all of this in the context of "matter exists within consciousness as quantum information." It might equate matter as information (have to look into this) but I don't think it would be accurate to say that matter exists within consciousness, according to IIT. Your use of "within consciousness" seems me to be more in the Bernardo sense but I don't think that's how IIT frames it (though I'm sure there's a lot of material I haven't read so I stand to be corrected!).

I enjoy your posts by the way, and your tone is unfailingly polite. I think you make a great addition to this forum!

The paper you linked to about integrated quantum information and collapse is an interesting idea, but since it is an objective collapse model I don't really see how it fits experimental data.

If the wave function exists objectively and ontologically, then how can you explain delayed choice experiments? You start to get into contortionist explanations and signals going backwards in time to affect the past, which fine, maybe there could be something to it. But what about the EPR paradox? How can two separate objective wavefunctions be entangled? How could an objective collapse of one result in the instantaneous collapse of another that exists objectively in spacetime? By what mechanism is the second particle collapsing? You can't say it's one quantum system, because the wavefunctions are objectively real and exist in spacetime, so they would be separate.

How does it fit quantum teleportation? If quantum information describing the state vector is teleported instantaneously, if that state vector information exists objectively in spacetime, then it would violate special relativity since the objectively real wavefunction just traveled instantly across space.

I think treating the wavefunction as an objectively real object in spacetime creates a real mess.
 
0
1. But quantum information can be teleported instantaneously. What is teleported is not the photons, but the quantum information of their state vector.
Quantum teleportation requires transmission of classical information.

2. Particles can be entangled through time even though never being associated.
I'm not convinced that the required joint measurements happen in nature, but perhaps.

~~ Paul
 
Quantum teleportation requires transmission of classical information.

I'm not convinced that the required joint measurements happen in nature, but perhaps.

~~ Paul

Well your earlier point is spot on in that this requires new science. I do not think entanglement can explain telepathy in really any real way. It does, in my opinion, at least indicate some things that at least seem to have some similarity. I think that quite literally consciousness is a new domain, like how the quantum was a new domain.

My point about psi violating laws of physics is that I just don't see as a real argument against it. I personally see the transmission of information as a violation of special relativity, but I don't see this as a problem because I see this as a new domain, perhaps just like how QM violated Newtonian mechanics.
 
By the way, IIT might possibly have something to say about the mouse study where there was coherent brain activity. IIT describes how there can be coherent brain activity without consciousness, such as seizures, but I will have to read the details of the paper again to see if there is anything.
 
You are pretty much correct from what I can tell. I mixed in my own opinions with the ideas of IIT. The part about consciousness being primary, in my opinion, comes from the first axiom of IIT that is essentially Decarte's "I think therefore I am." I have heard presentations of Tononi's where he talks about how everything including the world can be doubted, but one cannot doubt one's conscious experience, and off the top of my head I am pretty sure that is in one of his papers as well.

You are correct about the quote by Tononi, which is actually from the paper we've been discussing:

Consciousness exists beyond any doubt (indeed, it is the only thing whose existence is beyond doubt). If consciousness is integrated information, then integrated information exists. Moreover, according to the IIT, it exists as a fundamental quantity—as fundamental as mass, charge, or energy. As long as there is a functional mechanism in a certain state, it must exist ipso facto as integrated information; specifically, it exists as an experience of a certain quality (the shape of the quale it generates) and quantity (its “height” ).

This quotation is good because it clarifies how IIT in this conception approaches the fundamental property aspect of conciousness. It is a property of matter such as mass, charge, energy - not some independent "stuff" that in turn produces matter (such as posited in idealism).

Bernardo makes a similar argument that consciousness being the only thing we can know for certain should lead us to start from the assumption that consciousness is the basis for everything and only depart from this if we find a more parsimonious approach. Now, Bernardo doesn't frame it in terms of Cogito (which is I think is a bit cheap, not giving Descartes his due ;)) but doing so brings up the point that the existence of consciousness is not the only thing we can know for certain - let's not forget the sum part! To take the same argument we should presuppose solipsism as well and not give it up unless we come up with something more parsimonious. Now, I don't think Bernardo applies parsimony correctly, but using the way he does it, we could frame it as solipsism requires nothing other than me and consciousness to exist and thus nothing could be more parsimonious than that! (again, I don't think this is an appropriate use of parsimony, as I understand it, but this is the way he seems to apply it).

So if we're going to postulate that consciousness is most likely primary due to Cogito we also have to stop at solipsism. Because, I think, any reason that one would use to postulate that there probably is some other things that exist apart from "me" (for whatever "I" am) those same reasons would lead us to drop the necessity of consciousness being primary as well.

I think cogito more properly applied should rightly put consciousness as fundamental and solipsism on the table for serious discussion. Though there's not much we can do about solipsism - it's the one thing that we do, I believe, have to basically just treat on a practical level as not true because there is absolutely no way to prove or disprove it. Really, once you accept solicipsm, where is there to go? But I digress!

This is not to say that he thinks everything exists within consciousness. This is my idea that comes from combining IIT with the VMI and computational models of QM, and realizing that while IIT is compatible with type B dualism and type F monism, when combined with the VMI type B materialism absolutely does not work (since we have to have a non-material consciousness to collapse the wave function). Tononi has not gone here from what I can tell, as I have only seen the end note you mentioned on quantum theory.

I'm not familiar with VMI (what does it stand for?) or Type B materialism (other than having just googled and skimmed the section in Chalmers'
Moving Forward on the Problem of Consciousness)

Tononi seems to be describing consciousness as a property of matter that is additional to structure and dynamics (see the quotation above). On the other hand, information theory seems to present information as structural as I understand it, and it is clear that structure and dynamics play an important part in his version of consciousness. So I'm not quite sure on this. I get the sense he is including something else that works with structure and dynamics in similar ways that mass and energy play different functions but work together. The structural description of qualia in that paper is pretty interesting - and pretty well blew me away. I don't have the acumen to evaluate the soundness of it.

Nor do I know if we have to have non-material consciousness to collapse the wave function. Does a detector have integrated information? Maybe. I understand the jury to be out on this at present in any event.

I'm not sure if you're doing this, but your argument here also has a hint of "I don't think it's X (ie: Type B materialism) so therefore it must be Y (ie: consciousness is primary).

What I'm not clear on, I guess, is how IIT is compatible with consciousness being primary and therefore everything existing within consciousness, at least on the way Tononi seems to describe it in the paper (I haven't watched the video you're referring to though I admit I much prefer to go through this stuff slowly with a highlighter and taking notes and cutting and pasting into google than to watch a video that makes it inconvenient to stop, rewind, go back up, down, etc.)

If you're going to posit consciousness as the primary unit then you're going to have to consider integrated information to be funamental and Tononi is very clear that he does not consider all information to be integrated. In fact, Tononi argues that a single fundamental unit cannot be integrated. You need at least two units to integrate. Those two units could form an integrated system that is conscious, but the primary unit itself cannot be conscious.

Tononi describes consciousness as a fundamental property of whatever is primary, not as the primary unit itself. Just like "dynamics" is not the unit itself, but a fundamental property of the unit.

I am extremely impressed with Toni's work as a neuroscientist since he approaches the problem from the phenomenal point of view and creates a rigorously quantitative and mathematical model. One could even hope if he is correct that it could possibly allow for insight into near-death research, if there is some activity in the brain like the mouse study and it ends up being associated with NDEs, one could even analyze responses of those that die by comparing the shapes in qualia space of NDE reporters and of those that die.

Heh, reading the paper I got the sense that Tononi thought that we were a long way off (if it is even possible) from mapping this stuff in real time in real living systems. The approach I think the IIT guys are taking are developing basic predictions based on very simple models and seeing whether they allow for accurate predictions on the larger system scale (I had a good paper that provided a good summary of the progress being made in IIT research to date but I can't seem to find it now, I'll post it if I manage to find it).

So in my sense, I take consciousness as a primary substratum in which all the information processing occurs. It seems that Tononi's would say the integrated information in a materialism sense is itself Conscious experience, I think this still does not explain the internal subjective experience. It still, in a sense, leaves the hard problem, and it is easily eliminated if consciousness is primary rather than matter (just switch from type B materialism to type F monism).

While I agree it doesn't quite solve the hard problem (in terms of describing exactly how the actual experience manifest) I think it does as good or better a job as simply declaring consciousness to be primary. Doing do tends to invoke a Bernardo-style Mind-at-Large type of consciousness which very well might exist, but seems to have little in common with the type of consciousness that we seem to experience. Now, that doesn't mean its false, but if the reason to believe MAL exists derives from our conscious experience it seems like a stretch. It's a good hypothesis, but the decision to accept it as a likely contender for being true needs a lot more!

I mentioned above the part of the paper dealing with qualia. I think everyone on this forum should read it to get a sense of the how Tononi is conceiving it. At the very least, it serves as a good reminder that just because we may not be able to imagine alternative ways to see these things doesn't mean we should assume that no-one will ever be that clever! His approach to the Mary thought experiment is also well worth reading. I'm not sure it quite solves the hard problem but in terms of detail it sure goes a lot farther than other proposals.



Tononi's insight on panpsychism is absolutely brilliant. I have always had a weird feeling about panpsychism, and I think he absolutely nails the reason why. I also think that IIT offers an explanation of why conscious experience is so tightly associated with brain activity, and in my overall idea, there is a tight correlation without conscious experience being reduced to just brain activity.

Right, the human brain/body system is simply an integrated system. As he states in the paper, nothing prevents non-human systems from also being integrated. In fact, it is likely that many other living systems are also integrated, to one extent or another.

By the way, thank you for the article that you linked to. I am very interested in ideas related to to IIT and quantum theory.

Np. This has been a really good discussion, so thank you as well!
 
You are correct about the quote by Tononi, which is actually from the paper we've been discussing:

This quotation is good because it clarifies how IIT in this conception approaches the fundamental property aspect of conciousness. It is a property of matter such as mass, charge, energy - not some independent "stuff" that in turn produces matter (such as posited in idealism).

I will have to read some more because I am not sure I am clear on this. In one sense, I feel that he says that consciousness or integrated information is the only thing that one cannot doubt and that one could doubt the material world, but what, then, is the integrated information a result of? He says that it is a result of material mechanisms. Perhaps I am just confused, but his exact position is not really clear to me yet. Perhaps I have interpreted it differently because my own ideas, since I think that neuroquantology principles are needed for a truly integrated perception (which is the quantum state of the whole system) and that fundamental to quantum theory is quantum information.

Arouet said:
Bernardo makes a similar argument that consciousness being the only thing we can know for certain should lead us to start from the assumption that consciousness is the basis for everything and only depart from this if we find a more parsimonious approach. Now, Bernardo doesn't frame it in terms of Cogito (which is I think is a bit cheap, not giving Descartes his due ;)) but doing so brings up the point that the existence of consciousness is not the only thing we can know for certain - let's not forget the sum part! To take the same argument we should presuppose solipsism as well and not give it up unless we come up with something more parsimonious. Now, I don't think Bernardo applies parsimony correctly, but using the way he does it, we could frame it as solipsism requires nothing other than me and consciousness to exist and thus nothing could be more parsimonious than that! (again, I don't think this is an appropriate use of parsimony, as I understand it, but this is the way he seems to apply it).

I would argue that sum is much more important and fundamental than cogito, and as per IIT, thought is not needed for conscious experience. Tononi mentioned in one of his papers that it is the potential for the activity of integrated information that can result in experience, not activity itself. So essentially the system could be quiet, yet it could result in experience because of the potential for integrated information. He mentions essentially mystical experience in this context, which I find fascinating since perhaps this is the potential for the experience of "pure being" without any contents of consciousness (cogito), and without actual activity of certain portions of the brain that create a feeling of separation between self and not self, it could be a unitive experience of pure being. This mystical experience seems more fundamental than Decarte's introspection, in my opinion.

I have not yet read Bernardo's books so I cannot comment on his application of parsimony to these ideas.

Now for my own ideas at least, I do not posit idealism because of parsimony. I tend to be a bit cautious with using parsimony as an argument, because I am not convinced that it is a valid reason to reject a particular theory. I think that it may be a guide, but alone I don't find it very convincing. I came to idealism because of theoretical necessity: If I feel the VMI is the most consistent interpretation with respect to experimental data, it requires a unitive consciousness to avoid the Wigner's Friend paradox, and also requires that the consciousness transcends spacetime. I could be wrong that this is the best interpretation, but at least it is necessary to be consistent and coherent.

Arouet said:
So if we're going to postulate that consciousness is most likely primary due to Cogito we also have to stop at solipsism. Because, I think, any reason that one would use to postulate that there probably is some other things that exist apart from "me" (for whatever "I" am) those same reasons would lead us to drop the necessity of consciousness being primary as well.

I disagree: In principle, at least, I feel that proper variations of retroPK experiments could potentially provide evidence of Von Neumann chains, and therefore the VMI, since the measurement could be separated from the observation. Now if one were to imagine that the evidence supported this notion, and someone other than myself ran these experiments, how could I attribute this separation of measurement and observation and subsequent collapse of the wave function if I am supposed to be the only consciousness that exists, and all Von Neumann chains end at me? In other words, how could Wigner's friend demonstrate collapse when Wigner is the only one supposed to cause collapse?

Another twist to solipsism is that in my opinion, solipsism is true, but it is not the ego self (mind-body and ego) that is all that exists, but the single fundamental self that is pure existence.

Arouet said:
I think cogito more properly applied should rightly put consciousness as fundamental and solipsism on the table for serious discussion. Though there's not much we can do about solipsism - it's the one thing that we do, I believe, have to basically just treat on a practical level as not true because there is absolutely no way to prove or disprove it. Really, once you accept solipsism, where is there to go? But I digress!

I think that in principle it may be possible to disprove as I mentioned with the PK experiments above. Certainly it requires a lot of "ifs," but in principle it seems possible. I would think if the evidence indicated retroPK and conscious collapse, and someone other than the ego self could empirically demonstrate this, I would have to say that QM is then inconsistent if I wanted to maintain solipsism. At that point, I would think solipsism should be rejected.

Arouet said:
I'm not familiar with VMI (what does it stand for?) or Type B materialism (other than having just googled and skimmed the section in Chalmers'
Moving Forward on the Problem of Consciousness)

Sorry, VMI = von Neumann Interpretation. I just got tired of typing that out. Type B materialism is that phenomenal states and physical states are identical, viz. the specific electrical signals are the pain. It's like saying consciousness is to integrated information as water is to H2O. To me it seems that this is more like Tononi's position, but like Chalmer's, I feel that it still leaves the hard problem. Now instead of relying on purely philosophical reasoning, when I combined IIT with the VMI, this type B materialism is untenable because of the requirements of the consciousness in VMI, and I am left with the type F monism which is compatible with both IIT and VMI.

Arouet said:
Tononi seems to be describing consciousness as a property of matter that is additional to structure and dynamics (see the quotation above). On the other hand, information theory seems to present information as structural as I understand it, and it is clear that structure and dynamics play an important part in his version of consciousness. So I'm not quite sure on this. I get the sense he is including something else that works with structure and dynamics in similar ways that mass and energy play different functions but work together. The structural description of qualia in that paper is pretty interesting - and pretty well blew me away. I don't have the acumen to evaluate the soundness of it.

He does stress the point that the information in IIT is different from the Shannon concept of information. Information in this sense is distinctions or differences that are intrinsic, and as he says, differences that make a difference. To me this sounds an awful lot like quantum information. Information processing builds on more fundamental information processing, and it seems one cannot go more fundamental than quantum information processing that occurs which is more fundamental than matter. To me this only makes sense--the universe itself is processing and integrating information quantum mechanically, which allows for quantum processes to occur that undoubtedly do in the brain, and at the same time, with a quantum state of the whole system (as opposed to classical independent parts), it allows for there to be a truly unified perception within the mind.

Arouet said:
Nor do I know if we have to have non-material consciousness to collapse the wave function. Does a detector have integrated information? Maybe. I understand the jury to be out on this at present in any event.

That is an awesome question! I never really thought about it that way! According to Tononi, certain electrical devices can have minimal phi, like the photodiode that has one bit of phi. Is this enough consciousness to cause collapse? Is there a greater collapse influence with greater consciousness? Could a photodiode cause collapse of very minimal systems, where a human can have very wide ability to collapse (like looking at the moon)? Awesome questions; I think you may be on to something there.

Perhaps certain measuring devices can cause collapse because of how they integrate information. This seems testable in principle, where retroPK experiments could be done with using measuring devices that have zero phi and another that has a level of phi and seeing if the retroPK effect goes away with the device with phi since it already collapsed the result.

Arouet said:
I'm not sure if you're doing this, but your argument here also has a hint of "I don't think it's X (ie: Type B materialism) so therefore it must be Y (ie: consciousness is primary).

In a way it is, but I think it is more nuanced than this, since I am in a way applying the falsification principle to empirical evidence. First start with our most fundamental physics, try to eliminate interpretations that don't seem consistent with empirical evidence, and continue from there, eliminating ideas that don't fit. Now if the interpretation of QM ends up being wrong, I have to start over, but there still remains data that needs to fit into whatever hypothesis that may result in. It is speculative, but in my mind it is consistent so far with a lot of data from many different areas.

I feel this speculation is important since observations are always theory laden. Without some sort of framework to interpret data, you just have a collection of seemingly random and conflicting data, and I feel that is what is occurring in science to a degree since we have a jumble of data from things like parapsychology, NDEs, quantum theory, neuroscience, and consciousness research that just doesn't seem to make any sense or fit. With trying to formulate some sort of structured hypothesis, it can offer a frame in which to interpret the data, and at the same time offering predictions that could in principle be tested to see if it is on the right path. Without some sort of speculative attempt at a structured hypothesis, predictions that offer a way to test things and make progress in understanding are much more difficult, being more shots in the dark and hoping something might hit at some point. In this sense, I believe in what Kuhn speaks of with respect to paradigms being needed to practice science properly, and without it, you have very disordered data collection that makes progression of knowledge difficult because you're really not even sure what you're looking for.

Arouet said:
What I'm not clear on, I guess, is how IIT is compatible with consciousness being primary and therefore everything existing within consciousness, at least on the way Tononi seems to describe it in the paper (I haven't watched the video you're referring to though I admit I much prefer to go through this stuff slowly with a highlighter and taking notes and cutting and pasting into google than to watch a video that makes it inconvenient to stop, rewind, go back up, down, etc.)

You go through things like I do! But I don't think you will find Tononi saying what I am saying. As I mentioned I am heavily influenced by the VMI, which is what started me on all this more than 12 years ago. Since then the computational models of QM have become much more popular as the field of quantum information theory is developing. A lot of these speculative ideas that use the analogy of video games are very compatible with the Copenhagen interpretation, and really just seem to be a more fundamental description of the Copenhagen interpretation. Using computational models to describe what is going on in the VMI is what led me to think that the information exists within consciousness, and IIT was what then brought the two together to describe how our conscious awareness may arise within this type of world. Qubits are the "differences that make a difference," and that difference is made to consciousness itself.

Arouet said:
If you're going to posit consciousness as the primary unit then you're going to have to consider integrated information to be funamental and Tononi is very clear that he does not consider all information to be integrated. In fact, Tononi argues that a single fundamental unit cannot be integrated. You need at least two units to integrate. Those two units could form an integrated system that is conscious, but the primary unit itself cannot be conscious.

I think there may be a level of incommensurability with respect to the term consciousness. In western science, consciousness has many definitions, but none of them include the definition of consciousness that is needed in the VMI or as used in spiritual literature such as Hindu Vedantic texts. Consciousness is defined usually by the content of consciousness, and pretty much synonymous with awareness. Perhaps the term protoconsciousness would be more appropriate for the most fundamental consciousness, or perhaps to use the phrase 'conscious awareness' to denote what we have, and consciousness is the baseline capacity for experience in which conscious awareness can arise. I am not sure which might be better.

Another interesting distinction is found in Hindu Vedantic literature, where there are four states of consciousness: Waking, dream, deep sleep, and the forth, turiya, is the fundamental capacity for experience in which the other three states occur. Perhaps what I mentioned with the consciousness without any brain activity (due to the potential) that Tononi mentioned might allow for experience of this baseline state of protoconsciousness or "pure consciousness." Regardless of whether or not these distinctions are the best way to describe this is hopefully secondary to trying at least describe the differences in the use of the word consciousness. In the way it is used in western science, it is stupid to say that consciousness is the ground of all being.

Arouet said:
Tononi describes consciousness as a fundamental property of whatever is primary, not as the primary unit itself. Just like "dynamics" is not the unit itself, but a fundamental property of the unit.

Hopefully the paragraphs immediately prior to this one might help clarify what I mean.

Arouet said:
Heh, reading the paper I got the sense that Tononi thought that we were a long way off (if it is even possible) from mapping this stuff in real time in real living systems. The approach I think the IIT guys are taking are developing basic predictions based on very simple models and seeing whether they allow for accurate predictions on the larger system scale (I had a good paper that provided a good summary of the progress being made in IIT research to date but I can't seem to find it now, I'll post it if I manage to find it).

Oh yeah, they are nowhere close. Even relatively simple systems are extraordinarily complex. Mapping qualia spaces for a human seems almost impossible at this point (I don't think it is, I am just saying it seems really far off). I think if considering the liklihood of quantum processing in the brain, this complexity then increases by orders of magnitude. We would need powerful quantum computers to possibly be able to compute all this.


Arouet said:
While I agree it doesn't quite solve the hard problem (in terms of describing exactly how the actual experience manifest) I think it does as good or better a job as simply declaring consciousness to be primary. Doing do tends to invoke a Bernardo-style Mind-at-Large type of consciousness which very well might exist, but seems to have little in common with the type of consciousness that we seem to experience. Now, that doesn't mean its false, but if the reason to believe MAL exists derives from our conscious experience it seems like a stretch. It's a good hypothesis, but the decision to accept it as a likely contender for being true needs a lot more!

I agree. For a long time I was saying consciousness was primary because of influence from the VMI, but it wasn't at all clear how anything really occurred. This is where I think quantum computational models and IIT really helped me to bring it together to explain how any of it might occur. Saying consciousness is primary is, frankly, an extremely old idea and it would be sad if we just left it at almost the same spot that Hindus did over 3000 years ago. The concept of mind at large is similar to the Hindu belief in Brahma or Hiranyagarbha. I never thought that much of this idea, but if IIT is true and if it is all unified at a level of non-local information fields and consciousness, is it possible that minds are all interconnected to a degree (like evidenced by telepathy) and that it might be possible for the universe itself to integrate all our information? I don't know about that, and I am doubtful, but the idea popped in my head.

Arouet said:
I mentioned above the part of the paper dealing with qualia. I think everyone on this forum should read it to get a sense of the how Tononi is conceiving it. At the very least, it serves as a good reminder that just because we may not be able to imagine alternative ways to see these things doesn't mean we should assume that no-one will ever be that clever! His approach to the Mary thought experiment is also well worth reading. I'm not sure it quite solves the hard problem but in terms of detail it sure goes a lot farther than other proposals.

I agree. It is a huge step forward, even if not really correct. It shows that consciousness could be quantitative and mathematical even if approached from the phenomenological end.

Arouet said:
Right, the human brain/body system is simply an integrated system. As he states in the paper, nothing prevents non-human systems from also being integrated. In fact, it is likely that many other living systems are also integrated, to one extent or another.

I agree. I wonder how far down it goes. Do cells have consciousness? Not in the sense that we do, but in a weak sense like he talks about photodiodes having one bit of consciousness. I am inclined to think that this is the case, and it wasn't human minds that were needed to collapse the wave function of the universe in Wheeler's participatory anthropic principle.
 
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Ok, this reply got way too long so I'm going to break it up.

I will have to read some more because I am not sure I am clear on this. In one sense, I feel that he says that consciousness or integrated information is the only thing that one cannot doubt and that one could doubt the material world, but what, then, is the integrated information a result of? He says that it is a result of material mechanisms. Perhaps I am just confused, but his exact position is not really clear to me yet. Perhaps I have interpreted it differently because my own ideas, since I think that neuroquantology principles are needed for a truly integrated perception (which is the quantum state of the whole system) and that fundamental to quantum theory is quantum information.

Careful here. He says that consciousness cannot be doubted, not that integrated information can't be doubted.

Remember, cogito applies only to confirm without a doubt that "I" exist and that "I" am conscious (that is, have experiences). It does not establish without a doubt anything else related to what "I" am or what "consciousness" is.

Integrated information is his hypothesis of what consciousness is.

He writes: "If consciousness is integrated information, then integrated information exists."
He makes it very clear that this is a hypothesis, he is not stating it as beyond all doubt.

Integrated information is included in the set of things that are to be doubted. This logically follows from the fact that he says consciousness is the only thing whose existence is beyond doubt (I think we can read in that the "I' aspect of cogito be included in this as well). This naturally implies that everything else is considered doubtful, including what consciousness actually is.

Because everything other than the brute fact the "I" exist and am consciouss is subject to doubt we cannot use cogito alone in drawing other conclusions. The brute fact of our existence does not help us confirm what "I" is and whether anything other than "I" exist, or why "I" am conscious.

So while I agree that I too would like to read more into what he considers information to exactly be, I think we need to separate this from cogito. Really, what cogito should do is reinforce 100% certainty is an untenable goal and should not be used as a standard.

Note, by the way, that though he calls consciousness a fundamental property, and compares it to mass, charge and energy, he doesn't actually write: "Consciousness is a fundamental property of X". I don't know if anything is to be read into this and he might better describe this elsewhere, but I found this interesting (if slightly frustrating!). I kind of get it though.

I would argue that sum is much more important and fundamental than cogito, and as per IIT, thought is not needed for conscious experience.

I think the argument is the same and Descartes could have easily framed it as "I experience, therefore I am." Thought is an example of a conscious experience. I'm treating them as the same for all intents and purposes (and just writing "cogito" is pithier than writing "Consciousness is the only thing we cannot doubt, in addition to the existence of "me").

Tononi mentioned in one of his papers that it is the potential for the activity of integrated information that can result in experience, not activity itself. So essentially the system could be quiet, yet it could result in experience because of the potential for integrated information. He mentions essentially mystical experience in this context, which I find fascinating since perhaps this is the potential for the experience of "pure being" without any contents of consciousness (cogito), and without actual activity of certain portions of the brain that create a feeling of separation between self and not self, it could be a unitive experience of pure being. This mystical experience seems more fundamental than Decarte's introspection, in my opinion.

I'm not sure which paper you're talking about. In the paper I posted, I think he discussed how certain brain processes being operational but not firing a particular moment would result in different integration of information than if the brain process was broken and didn't play a role at all in the overall integration process. Is that what you are getting at? I'm too lazy to dig up the quote right now but I will if you can't find it. If you're thinking of something else can you let me know which paper?

I have not yet read Bernardo's books so I cannot comment on his application of parsimony to these ideas.

Heh, my apologies. I've been wanting to start a thread discussing his books and ideas but everytime I think about it I think that it would be a massive job to do any kind of full review so I think I've been sneaking in bits and pieces into other threads. I honestly thought though that you probably had been exposed to some Bernardo stuff because you use similar language at times. I'll try and refrain from bringing him into this discussion going forward.

Now for my own ideas at least, I do not posit idealism because of parsimony. I tend to be a bit cautious with using parsimony as an argument, because I am not convinced that it is a valid reason to reject a particular theory. I think that it may be a guide, but alone I don't find it very convincing. I came to idealism because of theoretical necessity: If I feel the VMI is the most consistent interpretation with respect to experimental data, it requires a unitive consciousness to avoid the Wigner's Friend paradox, and also requires that the consciousness transcends spacetime. I could be wrong that this is the best interpretation, but at least it is necessary to be consistent and coherent.

Honestly, I can't say if this is right, wrong, not even wrong, brilliant, or nonsense. I do not feel that I even remotely understand QM well enough to draw firm conclusions based on it. I recognise that this hampers my analysis somewhat but on the other hand I think most people don't have a firm grip on QM (and some experts claim no one does) so I think I'm in pretty good company here!

What I think I can ask, though, is how you get from "human consciousness can collapse wavefunctions" to "there must exist a primary consciousness within which everything else derives." If human consciousness is collapsing the wavefunction then the primary consciousness did not collapse it.

I disagree: In principle, at least, I feel that proper variations of retroPK experiments could potentially provide evidence of Von Neumann chains, and therefore the VMI, since the measurement could be separated from the observation. Now if one were to imagine that the evidence supported this notion, and someone other than myself ran these experiments, how could I attribute this separation of measurement and observation and subsequent collapse of the wave function if I am supposed to be the only consciousness that exists, and all Von Neumann chains end at me? In other words, how could Wigner's friend demonstrate collapse when Wigner is the only one supposed to cause collapse?

While I can't comment on the VN aspect, this actually reinforces the point I was making, which was about drawing the conclusion based solely on the fact that consciousness is the only thing that we cannot doubt. What you're doing here is in line with what I suggest, which is to take consciousness as being primary as a hypothesis, then try and find collaborative info on it.

Unfortunately, and again I apologise, I can't even formulate an opinion on the substance of what you've just written.

I think that in principle it may be possible to disprove as I mentioned with the PK experiments above. Certainly it requires a lot of "ifs," but in principle it seems possible. I would think if the evidence indicated retroPK and conscious collapse, and someone other than the ego self could empirically demonstrate this, I would have to say that QM is then inconsistent if I wanted to maintain solipsism. At that point, I would think solipsism should be rejected.

Don't get me wrong, I think we have much reason to doubt solipcism - just that it can never be entirely ruled out. My point about solipcism was more related to if you're going to consider consciousness fundamental based largely on the fact that it it is certain to exist then you have to bring solipcism along with you, for it is part of what cannot be doubted to exist. I don't think now that you're using this argument, so I probably doesn't apply to you. That's how your argument appeared to me at first but I think you've clarified that now.

Sorry, VMI = von Neumann Interpretation. I just got tired of typing that out. Type B materialism is that phenomenal states and physical states are identical, viz. the specific electrical signals are the pain. It's like saying consciousness is to integrated information as water is to H2O. To me it seems that this is more like Tononi's position, but like Chalmer's, I feel that it still leaves the hard problem. Now instead of relying on purely philosophical reasoning, when I combined IIT with the VMI, this type B materialism is untenable because of the requirements of the consciousness in VMI, and I am left with the type F monism which is compatible with both IIT and VMI.

Thanks for clarifying. Again, I'm not sure if it fits the particular conception of type b materialism or not as Chalmers conceives of it, but Tononi is pretty clear that his hypothesis is that consciousness IS integrated info. Any time information is integrated the system will have some unit of experience. His discussion of Mary's Room I read to be his was of saying that we can never really describe consciousness in a manner that describes the hard problem because a description is different that being. His goal is not, as I see it, to solve the hard problem exactly but to give as much details as we practically can and in a manner that let's us make accurate predictions going forward - which is the best that a theory of consciousness is liable to do (I accept that he doesn't actually write this and that I too be projecting my own thoughts onto him).

Like I've said though, I don't think simply declaring consciousness to be primary solves the hard problem either (or at least not in any meaningful way) and creates its own set of issues.

Personally, I think not solving the hard problem cancels out amongst all the hypotheses and should therefore be left out of the evaluation of any theory unless it specifically claims to have solved it.

He does stress the point that the information in IIT is different from the Shannon concept of information. Information in this sense is distinctions or differences that are intrinsic, and as he says, differences that make a difference. To me this sounds an awful lot like quantum information. Information processing builds on more fundamental information processing, and it seems one cannot go more fundamental than quantum information processing that occurs which is more fundamental than matter. To me this only makes sense--the universe itself is processing and integrating information quantum mechanically, which allows for quantum processes to occur that undoubtedly do in the brain, and at the same time, with a quantum state of the whole system (as opposed to classical independent parts), it allows for there to be a truly unified perception within the mind.

Sure. if the information that Tononi is referring to is physical, and QM accurately describes physics then if IIT is correct it will have to reconcile in some manner with QM. I don't see him arguing differently.

That is an awesome question! I never really thought about it that way! According to Tononi, certain electrical devices can have minimal phi, like the photodiode that has one bit of phi. Is this enough consciousness to cause collapse? Is there a greater collapse influence with greater consciousness? Could a photodiode cause collapse of very minimal systems, where a human can have very wide ability to collapse (like looking at the moon)? Awesome questions; I think you may be on to something there.

Thanks! Unfortunately asking them when it comes to this question is probably as far as I can practically take it. Hopefully enterprising researchers will work on answers... :)

Perhaps certain measuring devices can cause collapse because of how they integrate information. This seems testable in principle, where retroPK experiments could be done with using measuring devices that have zero phi and another that has a level of phi and seeing if the retroPK effect goes away with the device with phi since it already collapsed the result.

I'm not sure if this is on the this track: but a paper I found yesterday talks about how different measuring devices can alter the interference pattern of the double slit: http://phys.org/news/2011-01-which-way-detector-mystery-double-slit.html

I watched the video in the quantum thread where this guy provided a really good demonstration of how the delayed quantum double slit experiment worked. As he was describing it I was thinking to myself: isn't it possible that it behaves exactly the same way each time, and that only our manner of measurement determines how it presents. Then he presented that as his theory as well (I don't know if something in his presentation biased me in that direction or not, but he seemed at least to just be describing it step by step in the first part).

I wondered if there was any evidence of this in the normal double slit experiment as well. I think this paper suggests that there might be something to that.

I honestly don't know, but its part of why I'm very wary of drawing too many philosophical conclusions based on QM at present. I don't think we're there yet. For now I think we have to be content with shut up and calculate.

In a way it is, but I think it is more nuanced than this, since I am in a way applying the falsification principle to empirical evidence. First start with our most fundamental physics, try to eliminate interpretations that don't seem consistent with empirical evidence, and continue from there, eliminating ideas that don't fit. Now if the interpretation of QM ends up being wrong, I have to start over, but there still remains data that needs to fit into whatever hypothesis that may result in. It is speculative, but in my mind it is consistent so far with a lot of data from many different areas.

I hear you, and I appreciate your appreaciation of nuance! I do too and recognize that often the way we first write something, and even more when we speak it, will not fully convey the nuances of our position. (that's why I ask a lot of questions!)

For what its worth, I assume all philosophies have at least some of it wrong, and I'm not particularly concerned about plopping in my ideas into any presented-as-a-package-wrapped-in-a-bow philosophy. I take for granted that we don't fully understand the properties of matter. That's why you'll see me typically refer to "this stuff that we've called matter" rather than just directly stating it as matter. The way I see it, however it got here we have identified this stuff we've called matter and know about some of its properties to the point that we can make accurate predictions. There might be other stuff out there than matter, but we haven't yet identified it or know anything about its properties. This could include some sort of primary consciousness.

I feel this speculation is important since observations are always theory laden. Without some sort of framework to interpret data, you just have a collection of seemingly random and conflicting data, and I feel that is what is occurring in science to a degree since we have a jumble of data from things like parapsychology, NDEs, quantum theory, neuroscience, and consciousness research that just doesn't seem to make any sense or fit. With trying to formulate some sort of structured hypothesis, it can offer a frame in which to interpret the data, and at the same time offering predictions that could in principle be tested to see if it is on the right path. Without some sort of speculative attempt at a structured hypothesis, predictions that offer a way to test things and make progress in understanding are much more difficult, being more shots in the dark and hoping something might hit at some point. In this sense, I believe in what Kuhn speaks of with respect to paradigms being needed to practice science properly, and without it, you have very disordered data collection that makes progression of knowledge difficult because you're really not even sure what you're looking for.

I basically agree with this. I fully support taking a hypothesis and running with it. That's what the IIT guys are doing, that's what Penrose and Hammerhoff are doing, and I fully support any idealists from doing the same.

I agree as well that the findings to date of parapsychology present problems that need to be solved. Doing so may lead to an advancement in our understanding of the nature of the universe or might not. Personally, I'd like to see more money devoted to it in order to really have a chance at some solid conclusions. I get that there are also plenty of other scientists competing for the same dollars and the pot is not unlimited.
 
You go through things like I do! But I don't think you will find Tononi saying what I am saying. As I mentioned I am heavily influenced by the VMI, which is what started me on all this more than 12 years ago. Since then the computational models of QM have become much more popular as the field of quantum information theory is developing. A lot of these speculative ideas that use the analogy of video games are very compatible with the Copenhagen interpretation, and really just seem to be a more fundamental description of the Copenhagen interpretation. Using computational models to describe what is going on in the VMI is what led me to think that the information exists within consciousness, and IIT was what then brought the two together to describe how our conscious awareness may arise within this type of world. Qubits are the "differences that make a difference," and that difference is made to consciousness itself.

I hear you, I just wonder whether as you currently envision it this primary consciousness plays much of an active role in practice. That is: if you just described your overall conception without referring to what is primary at all, does the situation look different?

As I said above: even if conciousness is required for collapse, why would this imply the existence of some primary consciousness being as we've described it.

Bringing it together with IIT let's assume some basic argument:

P1: Wavefunctions exist.
P2: Consciousness is required to collape wavefunctions (the VMI as I understand it)
P3: Consciousness is integrated information. (IIT)
P4: Information that is not integrated is not conscious.
P5: Some information systems in the universe are integrated, others are not intergrated.
P6: Humans are a type of system that integrates information and collapses wavefunctions.
P7: A human or other integrated system cannot collapse a wavefunction unless it is not previously collapsed.

C1: Therefore wavefunctions collapsed by humans (or other integrated system) were not collapsed by a primary consciousness.
C2: A primary consciousness, if it exists, does not necessarily collapse wavefunctions.
C3: If no integrated information systems exist then no such wavefunctions would be collapsed by information systems.
C4: This would leave us with two options: the universe's wave functions would either:

a) remain in an uncollapsed state, or
b) be collapsed by some other entity, which could include a primary consciousness.

The fact that consciousness can collapse wave-functions therefore doesn't help us conclude that there must be a primary consciousness that creates both non-integrated and integrated information systems. The reason is C4(a): why assume that wave function collapse must occur?

Again, this doesn't preclude the possibility of such a primary consciousness, just that we can't get there based on these premises.

Again, I fully accept that my premises might be naive and please correct me if you disagree with any of them or think any should be added!



I think there may be a level of incommensurability with respect to the term consciousness. In western science, consciousness has many definitions, but none of them include the definition of consciousness that is needed in the VMI or as used in spiritual literature such as Hindu Vedantic texts. Consciousness is defined usually by the content of consciousness, and pretty much synonymous with awareness. Perhaps the term protoconsciousness would be more appropriate for the most fundamental consciousness, or perhaps to use the phrase 'conscious awareness' to denote what we have, and consciousness is the baseline capacity for experience in which conscious awareness can arise. I am not sure which might be better.



Another interesting distinction is found in Hindu Vedantic literature, where there are four states of consciousness: Waking, dream, deep sleep, and the forth, turiya, is the fundamental capacity for experience in which the other three states occur. Perhaps what I mentioned with the consciousness without any brain activity (due to the potential) that Tononi mentioned might allow for experience of this baseline state of protoconsciousness or "pure consciousness." Regardless of whether or not these distinctions are the best way to describe this is hopefully secondary to trying at least describe the differences in the use of the word consciousness. In the way it is used in western science, it is stupid to say that consciousness is the ground of all being.



Hopefully the paragraphs immediately prior to this one might help clarify what I mean.[/quote]

I think you're getting at what I was saying that what is meant by primary conciousness is different than our consciousness. The question is how does your definition of primary consciousness fit in with the definitiions used by VMI and IIT

Oh yeah, they are nowhere close. Even relatively simple systems are extraordinarily complex. Mapping qualia spaces for a human seems almost impossible at this point (I don't think it is, I am just saying it seems really far off). I think if considering the liklihood of quantum processing in the brain, this complexity then increases by orders of magnitude. We would need powerful quantum computers to possibly be able to compute all this.

Agreed, and some manner of being able to accurately identify integration in progress.

I agree. For a long time I was saying consciousness was primary because of influence from the VMI, but it wasn't at all clear how anything really occurred. This is where I think quantum computational models and IIT really helped me to bring it together to explain how any of it might occur. Saying consciousness is primary is, frankly, an extremely old idea and it would be sad if we just left it at almost the same spot that Hindus did over 3000 years ago. The concept of mind at large is similar to the Hindu belief in Brahma or Hiranyagarbha. I never thought that much of this idea, but if IIT is true and if it is all unified at a level of non-local information fields and consciousness, is it possible that minds are all interconnected to a degree (like evidenced by telepathy) and that it might be possible for the universe itself to integrate all our information? I don't know about that, and I am doubtful, but the idea popped in my head.

I hear you, and don't discount the possibility. As I showed above I just think we have a hard time getting there from these principles.

That said, I'm not sure nostalgia alone should be the primary impetus for pursuing the hypothesis. Personally, my feeling is to continue to work out based on what we know so far. We don't need to jump to the end. Keep on plugging, try diffrerent things out and see where we get.

I agree. It is a huge step forward, even if not really correct. It shows that consciousness could be quantitative and mathematical even if approached from the phenomenological end.



I agree. I wonder how far down it goes. Do cells have consciousness? Not in the sense that we do, but in a weak sense like he talks about photodiodes having one bit of consciousness. I am inclined to think that this is the case, and it wasn't human minds that were needed to collapse the wave function of the universe in Wheeler's participatory anthropic principle.

I'm with you!

Shit, this was long (I'm off friday afternoons so its ok, but this took awhile!) Very much enjoying the discussion!
 
I hear you, I just wonder whether as you currently envision it this primary consciousness plays much of an active role in practice. That is: if you just described your overall conception without referring to what is primary at all, does the situation look different?

As I said above: even if conciousness is required for collapse, why would this imply the existence of some primary consciousness being as we've described it.

Bringing it together with IIT let's assume some basic argument:

P1: Wavefunctions exist.
P2: Consciousness is required to collape wavefunctions (the VMI as I understand it)
P3: Consciousness is integrated information. (IIT)
P4: Information that is not integrated is not conscious.
P5: Some information systems in the universe are integrated, others are not intergrated.
P6: Humans are a type of system that integrates information and collapses wavefunctions.
P7: A human or other integrated system cannot collapse a wavefunction unless it is not previously collapsed.

C1: Therefore wavefunctions collapsed by humans (or other integrated system) were not collapsed by a primary consciousness.
C2: A primary consciousness, if it exists, does not necessarily collapse wavefunctions.
C3: If no integrated information systems exist then no such wavefunctions would be collapsed by information systems.
C4: This would leave us with two options: the universe's wave functions would either:

a) remain in an uncollapsed state, or
b) be collapsed by some other entity, which could include a primary consciousness.

The fact that consciousness can collapse wave-functions therefore doesn't help us conclude that there must be a primary consciousness that creates both non-integrated and integrated information systems. The reason is C4(a): why assume that wave function collapse must occur?

Again, this doesn't preclude the possibility of such a primary consciousness, just that we can't get there based on these premises.

Again, I fully accept that my premises might be naive and please correct me if you disagree with any of them or think any should be added!







Another interesting distinction is found in Hindu Vedantic literature, where there are four states of consciousness: Waking, dream, deep sleep, and the forth, turiya, is the fundamental capacity for experience in which the other three states occur. Perhaps what I mentioned with the consciousness without any brain activity (due to the potential) that Tononi mentioned might allow for experience of this baseline state of protoconsciousness or "pure consciousness." Regardless of whether or not these distinctions are the best way to describe this is hopefully secondary to trying at least describe the differences in the use of the word consciousness. In the way it is used in western science, it is stupid to say that consciousness is the ground of all being.



Hopefully the paragraphs immediately prior to this one might help clarify what I mean.

I think you're getting at what I was saying that what is meant by primary conciousness is different than our consciousness. The question is how does your definition of primary consciousness fit in with the definitiions used by VMI and IIT



Agreed, and some manner of being able to accurately identify integration in progress.



I hear you, and don't discount the possibility. As I showed above I just think we have a hard time getting there from these principles.

That said, I'm not sure nostalgia alone should be the primary impetus for pursuing the hypothesis. Personally, my feeling is to continue to work out based on what we know so far. We don't need to jump to the end. Keep on plugging, try diffrerent things out and see where we get.



I'm with you!

Shit, this was long (I'm off friday afternoons so its ok, but this took awhile!) Very much enjoying the discussion![/quote]

Thank you very much for your response! I need to take some time to respond since you have asked some great questions that I need to think about and I want to dig up the quote I mentioned about experience with no activity.

I really appreciate your comments; it is really helping me refine my ideas.
 
I'm not sure which paper you're talking about. In the paper I posted, I think he discussed how certain brain processes being operational but not firing a particular moment would result in different integration of information than if the brain process was broken and didn't play a role at all in the overall integration process. Is that what you are getting at? I'm too lazy to dig up the quote right now but I will if you can't find it. If you're thinking of something else can you let me know which paper?

The quote is from Tononi's paper on Integrated Information Theory 3.0. Here is the PDF of this paper:

http://www.ploscompbiol.org/article....1371/journal.pcbi.1003588&representation=PDF

Giulio Tononi et al said:
Thus, IIT predicts that, even if all the neurons in a main complex were inactive (or active at a low baseline rate), they would still generate consciousness as long as they are ready to respond to incoming spikes. An intriguing possibility is that a neurophysiological state of near-silence may be approximated through certain meditative practices that aim at reaching a state of "pure" awareness without content. This corollary of IIT contrasts with the common assumption that neurons can only contribute to consciousness if they are active in such a way that they can "signal"...

(Page 17. Note: emphasis added.)

So I think this is different from what you were thinking. To me it seems that you are thinking about how he discusses how inactive or relatively inactive portions of the brain, or mechanisms, still contribute to a conscious experience because of how it contributes to the repertoire of possible states, allowing one to have a greater ability to have a unique experience since there is a greater number of possible states to discriminate from.
 
I hear you, I just wonder whether as you currently envision it this primary consciousness plays much of an active role in practice. That is: if you just described your overall conception without referring to what is primary at all, does the situation look different?

As I said above: even if conciousness is required for collapse, why would this imply the existence of some primary consciousness being as we've described it.

Bringing it together with IIT let's assume some basic argument:

P1: Wavefunctions exist.
P2: Consciousness is required to collape wavefunctions (the VMI as I understand it)
P3: Consciousness is integrated information. (IIT)
P4: Information that is not integrated is not conscious.
P5: Some information systems in the universe are integrated, others are not intergrated.
P6: Humans are a type of system that integrates information and collapses wavefunctions.
P7: A human or other integrated system cannot collapse a wavefunction unless it is not previously collapsed.

C1: Therefore wavefunctions collapsed by humans (or other integrated system) were not collapsed by a primary consciousness.
C2: A primary consciousness, if it exists, does not necessarily collapse wavefunctions.
C3: If no integrated information systems exist then no such wavefunctions would be collapsed by information systems.
C4: This would leave us with two options: the universe's wave functions would either:

a) remain in an uncollapsed state, or
b) be collapsed by some other entity, which could include a primary consciousness.

The fact that consciousness can collapse wave-functions therefore doesn't help us conclude that there must be a primary consciousness that creates both non-integrated and integrated information systems. The reason is C4(a): why assume that wave function collapse must occur?

Again, this doesn't preclude the possibility of such a primary consciousness, just that we can't get there based on these premises.

Here is my take on this--I think that there are concerns about some of the premises:

P1: Wavefunctions exist - This one is a can of worms. What does it mean to state that it "exists"? We have to be careful with the ontological status of the wavefunction. If we say what exists is a phenomenon that occurs in spacetime, in the same way that we would say how matter exists, then we have a very serious problem: If the wavefunction has this type of existence, then how do you establish a single quantum state of an entangled pair? You have what would otherwise be two separate wavefunctions, which would somehow be correlated at a distance and be considered a single quantum system. Not only that, if the wavefunction exists in spacetime like matter, then how can the delayed choice experiments possibly give the results that they do? I will refrain from going into too many details at this time, but these are problems that face objective collapse models and certain others. The Copenhagen interpretation essentially views the wavefunction as "unreal," in the sense that it does not have existence in spacetime. The wavefunction transcends spacetime, and the matter emerges from this and becomes "real." I will have to set aside the issue of the "unreal" becoming the "real" for now, but suffice it to say that this is a statement of the ontological status of the entities within the Copenhagen interpretation, and is, in my opinion, a relative ontological status from our reference frame.

Quantum computational models clarify this question within the Copenhagen interpretation. Everything is fundamentally computational, and this computation of quantum information necessarily must occur non-locally. Local computational models cannot explain quantum theory. These quantum computations, and the informational fields themselves, must exist non-locally, and spacetime and matter are emergent. The analogy often used is that of a video game. If I am playing Grand Theft Auto and traveling through the world, the dots on the screen represent spacetime and matter, but this appearance is a result of processing that occurs outside of this spacetime, which is located in the processors. All of the phenomena that I experience in the game are emergent from the processing, and the processing, since it is outside of the spacetime created in the game, is not bound to the same rules of physics. To return to quantum theory, the reason that you can have an entangled pair of photons that remain a single quantum system even if they travel to different galaxies, and collapse of one wavefunction collapses the other instantly, is that the processing of this system's information is occurring beyond spacetime, and the observed photons are emergent properties that now "exist" in spacetime.

Now to return to the "unreal" ontological status of the wavefunction in the Copenhagen interpretation. "Unreal" does not mean complete non-existence, because this is obviously not the case. It is a relative position that is a statement of the theory and from our frame of reference. However, I think whatever the substratum of this non-local information field is, is consciousness itself. The word causes problems, I admit, but this is an extremely abstract entity. In vedantic literature, specifically of the Sankara school, is the concept of nirguna brahman, which nirguna breaks down into 'nir' without and 'guna' qualities. It is the most fundamental level of existence, which has the capacity for experience, and is extremely abstract. So this is not a consciousness in the sense of some being, or in any real way of how we tend to think of consciousness because of our conscious experience.

P2: Consciousness is required to collape wavefunctions (the VMI as I understand it)
P3: Consciousness is integrated information. (IIT)

Here again language is tricky. Consciousness itself doesn't cause collapse, but rather conscious awareness, or we could call this phi (integrated information). I also don't like the word "collapse" but it is convention. It implies a wavefunction that exists in spacetime that collapses instantly into a single outcome, which is not correct. If I were to describe it differently, how I view it, the wavefunction is a non-local processing of quantum information, and through integration of information, one of the outcomes is then experienced. The integrated information is what enables the experience to occur, but it is the fundamental consciousness that has true ontological existence and the capacity for experience, and is essentially what allows for experience of the single outcome to occur.


C1: Therefore wavefunctions collapsed by humans (or other integrated system) were not collapsed by a primary consciousness.
C2: A primary consciousness, if it exists, does not necessarily collapse wavefunctions.

This may be a chicken and the egg type of situation. Without the integrated information, there would be no collapse and no experience, since consciousness itself cannot collapse the wavefunction. But without consciousness itself, there would be no capacity for experience of the integrated information.

So if matter exists as information, and we then view everything as information, then some questions arise:

1. How can information causally affect its own state?

2. Saying everything exists as information is deferring the hard problem, because why would information have any more capacity for experience than matter?

3. If the potential for integrated information can lead to a conscious experience (from the Tononi quote in my last post), then what is going on? If consciousness is integrated information, how can one have a conscious experience without any information being integrated?

Perhaps you may then ask does the non-local quantum information field itself just have the capacity for experience? I guess perhaps in one sense, that would be the case. I guess I am trying to go "all the way down" to find the ultimate ontological status. Some sort of something that allows for anything to exist or to be experienced. Lawrence Krauss for example speaks of the universe popping out of absolute void, but, aside from this being a purely metaphysical statement, I find this to be unsatisfying. The existence of something beyond spacetime, some sort of "field" that is a singularity of abstract existence that has some sort of capacity for experience, allows for a universe to emerge. Perhaps in my mind, this is what is needed to say why there is the capacity for experience.

This may be jumbled, but this is good because in being questioned and trying to write it out, it helps to clarify my thinking, so any criticisms of these ideas is most welcome.
 
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This may be a chicken and the egg type of situation. Without the integrated information, there would be no collapse and no experience, since consciousness itself cannot collapse the wavefunction. But without consciousness itself, there would be no capacity for experience of the integrated information.

3. If the potential for integrated information can lead to a conscious experience (from the Tononi quote in my last post), then what is going on? If consciousness is integrated information, how can one have a conscious experience without any information being integrated?

Hopefully this inconsistency of mine is noted. Any thoughts?

Edit: Could this possibly theoretically be the transcendental mystical experience? Somehow without any collapse there is a direct experience of transcendental consciousness? But how could this possibility occur if no collapse occurs? Is it possible there is a discontinuity that makes all this possible?
 
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See my previous post. The secretary's consciousness is only involved on one path.
  • If the secretary hears the bell, then the secretary causes the collapse.
  • If the secretary does not hear the bell, then there is no collapse.
But collapse is required for the if choice to be made.

~~ Paul
If it is the secretary's awareness which represents the collapse, then she has that awareness in either case (if she knows about the experiment). But now that there has been an admission that it is supposedly only awareness of the experiment which causes collapse, then scenarios which build conscious organisms into them (like a secretary), but which fail to collapse unless there has been a non-conscious collapse, do look like good candidates to demonstrate that consciousness is not necessary (so I take back what I said).

Or we have to be willing to believe that we are in a state of superposition, even now.

Linda
 
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