The problem consciousness poses for the old materialist paradigm

[Quid_estVeritas]

in metaphysical libertarianism, this means that the regularly accepted idea, that the universe is a closed system, is incorrect, and that the physical universe is open. which is why i made the comment concerning physics.

you shouldnt read that i dont like physics or science, i enjoy both very much actually, but i recognize their limitations.

The idea that the universe is a physically “closed system” originates from the Classical Physics of Newton, what is called “the causal closure of the physical”. We now understand from contemporary physics, i.e. quantum physics, that the physical world ***is not ***“causally closed”. The Orthodox Interpretation of quantum physics requires the intervention of a consciousness, (what John von Neumann called a “Process 1 intervention”) to bring about the collapse of the superpostion of quantum states in the evolving wavefunction to a defined single state. Like Mark Twain, classical physic’s pronounced death of Free Will was greatly exaggerated.

 

[warpspeedpetey]

Okay, it’s clear I’m using the terms free will and consciousness very differently than everyone else.

Edited to add: Here is an example of the kind of research that I think will lead to progress in the understanding of consciousness.

physical causation of free will, wouldnt be free will. it would have a cause not associated with a personal volition. that would just be programming, no matter how sophisticated.

concsiousness with physical causation has the same problem, no matter how sophisticated the programming a machine doesnt emerge an actual conciousness. just an exterior simulation.

though the idea is rough, it leads me to the general idea that free will and concsiouness might as well be the same thing. ill have to think this one out.

 

[warpspeedpetey]

The idea that the universe is a physically “closed system” originates from the Classical Physics of Newton, what is called “the causal closure of the physical”.

yup.

We now understand from contemporary physics, i.e. quantum physics, that the physical world ***is not ***

 

[Quid_estVeritas]

you can just say copenhagen.

 

[tonyrey]

I have a different view. I’m pretty sure dogs and other higher animals have consciousness and free will. I have free will, because I know I do. I assume other people have free will, because I can see in their faces that they are thinking about what they will do before they act, just like do. Similarly, my dog thinks about what he will do before he does it or does something different, so it appears to me that my dog has free will.

This to me is the basic evidence that science must construct a theory around. Free will isn’t the deep and profound conclusion of reasoning about physical theories. Free will is one of the basic facts that physical theories must account for.

Unfortunately the appearance of free will in your dog does not mean he has free will. Much as we are tempted to attribute to animals powers we possess the fact that we don’t take animals to court implies that there is no evidence that they are responsible for what they do. The consensus of opinion may be incorrect but I regret that the onus is on you to explain why.

 

[Just_Lurking]

Unfortunately the appearance of free will in your dog does not mean he has free will. Much as we are tempted to attribute to animals powers we possess the fact that we don’t take animals to court implies that there is no evidence that they are responsible for what they do. The consensus of opinion may be incorrect but I regret that the onus is on you to explain why.

I’ve just started reading Consciousness and Language by John Searle, and it’s making a lot of sense to me. Chapter 4 is called Animal Minds, but I’m still in chapter 1 right now. It could be that what I’m calling “free will”, Searle calls “intentionality”, so that may be the more standard terminology. What I mean is that animals make mental decisions about what they are going to do, and then put those decisions into action.

Animals don’t have moral responsibility for those decisions, however.

 

[warpspeedpetey]

Actually the Copenhagen Interpretation is more pragmatic, Bohr and the gang said the wavefunction collapes on “observation”, and they were pretty vague and slippery as to what constitutes an observation, does a measuring device observe? or a “classical” entity? They never really said that it was the human consciousness of an observer, even though it seemed that way from the quantum formalism and experiments. The Orthodox Interpretation stops hemming and and hawing and states plainly that the collapse happens with the intervention of a consciousness into the evolution of the quantum state. It’s my favorite interpretation, makes a hell of a lot more sense than Many World and all the others.

im going with a timeless GUT. its metaphysically accurate, and we can move on to even siller myths of physics, like an existent ‘nothing’.

 

[Quid_estVeritas]

im going with a timeless GUT. its metaphysically accurate, and we can move on to even siller myths of physics, like an existent ‘nothing’.

never heard of timeless GUT but my choice for number one silly physics myth is Stephen Hawking’s quantum cosmology “idea” of imaginary time. So Stephen, you don’t like the standard Big Bang “Singularity Theorems” that you and Roger Penrose came up with because they look too much like a “creation event”? OK, just *ad hoc *throw some imaginary numbers in the formulas and . . . ta da! the singularity is gone! Who cares if it’s just some guy *ad hoc *adding the square root of -1 to the formulas with the sole purpose of fudging away a philosophical implication he doesn’t like.

 

[warpspeedpetey]

never heard of timeless GUT but my choice for number one silly physics myth is Stephen Hawking’s quantum cosmology “idea” of imaginary time. So Stephen, you don’t like the standard Big Bang “Singularity Theorems” that you and Roger Penrose came up with because they look too much like a “creation event”? OK, just *ad hoc *throw some imaginary numbers in the formulas and . . . ta da! the singularity is gone! Who cares if it’s just some guy *ad hoc *adding the square root of -1 to the formulas with the sole purpose of fudging away a philosophical implication he doesn’t like.

i mean that the Grand Unified Theory, when one is acheived, will not have ‘time’. yeah, science is completely corrupted by the peer review process and internal politics. it isnt so important now what is true, as to what you can keep out of a journal or put in to please an audience.

real science must be conducted free of bias and influence. or it isnt worth anything.

 

[Just_Lurking]

yeah, science is completely corrupted by the peer review process and internal politics. it isnt so important now what is true, as to what you can keep out of a journal or put in to please an audience.

real science must be conducted free of bias and influence. or it isnt worth anything.

Science has a self-correcting mechanism in that the guy who gets the right answer, as verified by experiment, will eventually win out. Even the Soviets couldn’t push Lysenkoism forever, because in the end it just didn’t work.

I don’t see that other fields, e.g. metaphysics, have this self-correcting nature.

 

[warpspeedpetey]

Science has a self-correcting mechanism in that the guy who gets the right answer, as verified by experiment, will eventually win out. Even the Soviets couldn’t push Lysenkoism forever, because in the end it just didn’t work.

I don’t see that other fields, e.g. metaphysics, have this self-correcting nature.

i dont think there is a self correcting mechanism in any field.

if hackers hadnt stolen the ipcc data the experimental data wouldnt have mattered because it wouldnt have seen the light of day. thats a huge flaw in th process. if science isnt entirely free of influence and bias, then its not really science its propoganda. ergo, the peer review process is flawed, another paradigm is needed, science and its practitioners can no longer be trusted to be neutral actors.

 

[Just_Lurking]

if hackers hadnt stolen the ipcc data the experimental data wouldnt have mattered because it wouldnt have seen the light of day.

Maybe the data they stole was doctored already, or just plain wrong. Or maybe the hackers changed it themselves. Who knows?

The self-checking comes in to play because other scientists can replicate the analyses using their own independent data. Or in a hundred years we will know whether global warming happened or not. The right answer is out there, and will be discovered one way or another. That’s the self-checking part.

 

[warpspeedpetey]

Maybe the data they stole was doctored already, or just plain wrong. Or maybe the hackers changed it themselves. Who knows?

everybody knows, they admitted the emails were theirs. they were hiding and altering data, misattributing it and avoiding FOIA requests, the only reason they arent in jail is because the british statute of limitations is only 6 months on the issue. now india has withdrawn from the ipcc over the issue.

The self-checking comes in to play because other scientists can replicate the analyses using their own independent data. Or in a hundred years we will know whether global warming happened or not. The right answer is out there, and will be discovered one way or another. That’s the self-checking part.

i understand the supposed benefit of self checking. but its not a rational system. we dont allow self auditing in any important endeavors. banks dont self audit, corporations dont, non-profits dont. even the government tries to keep the CBO independent. so given that we know the pitfalls of allowing interested parties to self audit, why should there be an exeption for science?
its not like only a certain group of people can understand the data and its implications, its needs to be a completely transparent process.

 

[Quid_estVeritas]

Science has a self-correcting mechanism in that the guy who gets the right answer, as verified by experiment, will eventually win out. Even the Soviets couldn’t push Lysenkoism forever, because in the end it just didn’t work.

I don’t see that other fields, e.g. metaphysics, have this self-correcting nature.

True, but sometimes it takes hundreds or even thousands of years for a incorrect paradigm to fall. Geocentrism, was “science”, the aristotelian philosophers in Italy were as upset with Galileo’s ideas as was the Church, the Luminiferous Aether was science, the enternal static universe was science, a lot of times the paradigms don’t fall until there’s either overwelming evidence against them or their promoters die off, I think Thomas Kuhn held the latter idea.

 

[Quid_estVeritas]

Just saw this, an interview two weeks ago with radiation oncologist Dr. Jeffrey Long in Time magazine for his new book Evidence of the Afterlife: The Science of Near-Death Experiences. I actually feel the data we’ve compiled on NDE’s over the last 20 years is the strongest evidence we have that consciousness is not dependent on the brain, there’s been too many people “seeing” and “hearing” what was going on around them during resuscitation while their brain waves were completely flat.

btw, Pim Van Lommel, the doctor who’s research I mentioned in the O.P. finally has his book coming out in June, *Consciousness Beyond Life *

 

[tonyrey]

Just saw this, an interview two weeks ago with radiation oncologist Dr. Jeffrey Long in Time magazine for his new book Evidence of the Afterlife: The Science of Near-Death Experiences. I actually feel the data we’ve compiled on NDE’s over the last 20 years is the strongest evidence we have that consciousness is not dependent on the brain, there’s been too many people “seeing” and “hearing” what was going on around them during resuscitation while their brain waves were completely flat.

btw, Pim Van Lommel, the doctor who’s research I mentioned in the O.P. finally has his book coming out in June, *Consciousness Beyond Life *

That evidence is certainly very impressive and a headache for the sceptics! Taken in conjunction with the evidence for the power of the mind and the fact that our only direct knowledge is of our thoughts and feelings there is a formidable case against materialism.

 

[rvilbig]

The Gödelian argument is weak because humans tend to feel incomplete and are often inconsistent, so many may conclude that they are in fact no more than Gödelian machines. Furthermore, Gödel’s proof is really no more than the liar’s paradox and since many souls don’t heed the eighth commandment, it seems no generalization about human minds can be made based on this line of reasoning.

There are, in my opinion, three *good *arguments that the mind is non-material.

1. Richard of St. Victor points out that minds are capable of responding to ontologically different questions than matter. He wrote that the person answers, not to the question “What?”, but rather to the question “Who?”. Nothing material has the ability to be the answer to the question “Who?”.
2. In Thomistic mechanics, it can be argued that the soul is not a body but that which brings a body to act, and is thus a unifying principle that organizes matter rather than being organized from matter: As Aquinas wrote "[A] body is competent to be a living thing or even a principle of life, as such a body. Now that it is actually such a body, it owes to some principle which is called its act. Therefore the soul, which is the first principle of life, is not a body, but the act of a body; thus heat, which is the principle of calefaction, is not a body, but an act of a body” (Aquinas, Summa Q 75, 1).
3. In artificial intelligence discussions, John Searle proposed a thought experiment known as the Chinese Room: Suppose you’re in a room with two slots and have a code book with two columns of Chinese characters. Someone passes in the message in Chinese which says “Do you speak Chinese?”, and you pass out a message from the corresponding column which says “Yes” in Chinese characters. You achieved this based on your character recognition in the code book; however, you never had a conscious experience of understanding the question because you simply recognized characters. This is essentially how computers act: they recognize characters as (name removed by moderator)ut information and then unconsciously send output information. This argument has been extended to the brain, and the lesson is that things that react to stimuli won’t necessarily be conscious; hence, souls must be hypothesized as those entities which are conscious by their very nature.

-Ryan Vilbig
ryan.vilbig@gmail.com