The European Tribune is a forum for thoughtful dialogue of European and international issues. You are invited to post comments and your own articles.
Please REGISTER to post.
It would suggest things that would compel us to CORRECT OUR BEHAVIOR.
It's actually not hard to understand what the problem is. Although the Western Mind (including Colman's, at a guess) shrinks back in horror from mysticism and explicit dualism, it still works on the assumption that Mind is separate from Reality, and that the only way to understand Reality is by making Mind (i.e. abstracted pattern recognition) and Reality as separate as possible.
You can experiment on Reality, but you're not allowed to admit that you take part in the experimental experience directly. That's called being subjective, and it's a terrible sin.
Put simply, we don't see ourselves as an organic part of the physical world. We see ourselves as separate and detached from it. It happens to us and around us, but it's not a deeply felt or experienced part of us.
So physics is still a theory of distant-mindedness rather than a theory of participation, and Goedel is the inevitable result of trying to find a theory of mind which isn't grounded in experience - a castle in the air with no foundation, because foundational axioms are based in participation and experience and can't be derived from pure pattern matching.
Relativity and QM have been suggesting - inconclusively, so far - that participation is a pre-requisite for deep understanding.
This is very uncomfortable for rational dualists, and they're still not sure what to make of it.
Inevitably the disconnection leads to ravings and mania like the international economic system, where pure algorithms of value disconnect from reality so completely that they're in serious danger of destroying themselves.
This won't change until the detachment ends. It doesn't have to end in a naive participation mystique, because that's often every bit as superficial as it seems to be. Doing lots of drugs and saying 'Hey, wow, that's like, really cool' isn't any more insightful and useful than it seems to be.
But the common factor among mystics is that they don't feel the separation, either between themselves and physical reality, or between themselves and others. And that makes them consicous participants with a personal relationship to their surroundings, rather than slightly confused and anxious passengers who feel embattled and detached from them.
Very neat and clean. :) The Fates are kind.
Although the Western Mind (including Colman's, at a guess) shrinks back in horror from mysticism and explicit dualism, it still works on the assumption that Mind is separate from Reality, and that the only way to understand Reality is by making Mind (i.e. abstracted pattern recognition) and Reality as separate as possible.
Thank you for attributing idiotic views to me. I always appreciate that, especially when they're diametrically opposed to my actual views. I guess I'll just have to become a mystic so I can truly understand things. <sigh>
Turns out that earlier I was discussing with Migeru in IM that the distinction between observer and the observed is entirely artificial. Mind you, mysticism doesn't help at all, because it moves the observer further from the observed, not closer - the observer is really outside reality, floating around in a higher state of consciousness with the other enlightened souls, man.
Could you develop that point further, or any chance of posting that segment of your IM chat?
(Or maybe Migeru is already planning to include it in his diary on quantum mechanics and ontology?) Truth unfolds in time through a communal process.
what is an object? take the physics of quasiparticles and the whole idea of objects falls apart what constitutes the identity of an object? take the physics of fermion, boson, anyon statistics and compare with maxwell-boltzmann; take the Gibbs paradox but if these topics are a prerequisite for discussing ontology, who can take part in the discussion? it takes the fun out of philosophy </lecture>
but if these topics are a prerequisite for discussing ontology, who can take part in the discussion?
it takes the fun out of philosophy </lecture>
Migeru: it's funny how QM philosophical problems always end up at the conscious observer ... but I think it's about philosophy, not about quantum consciousness Colman: Yes. Migeru: it's like the philosophhy of probability: it's also broken Colman: It's an artificial split between system and observer. Or somethign along those lines. Migeru: do you know about the holographic principle in quantum gravity? Colman: I've heard of it. But I forget... Migeru: it says roughly... you can put a boundary wherever you want the area of the boundary is a bound on the information entropy of either half it appears likely to be a key principle of the new theory but quite what it has to do with consciousness... though it does seem to have something to do with these boundaries between systems Colman: Hm. Migeru: subject and object, etc Colman: Could do. The distincition is artifical. Migeru: the problem is since we don't understand consciousness we can't do a toy model of a self-aware entity Colman: No. Migeru: so there's no way to put that in QM and talking about QM as the basis of consciousness just confuses things even more!
A big problem with the interpretation of Quantum Mechanics is actually disentangling the philosophy of probability from specifically quantum mechanical conceptual problems. We have met the enemy, and he is us — Pogo
This seems to be a good thing because otherwise you end up in a solipsistic universe, where you personally are a cause of the Big Bang and all 13 and a bit billion years of everything that happened afterwards. (For varying and approximate values of 'you', at least.)
Assuming consciousness is essential seems to be another spin around the implicit dualism of mind over matter. Although it looks as if it's saying that mind and matter are linked, the implication is really that matter only appears when mind decides it does - which could be a little bit suspect, I think.
How much of a mind do you need before it's conscious enough to start deciding observables?
There's a neat paradox which says that if you try to kill yourself in a quantum experiment, you can't do it. If you did you wouldn't be able to observe the result of the experiment. So it would never happen.
Your colleagues meanwhile can see a quantum suicide note, and possibly a dead body.
Back to the beginning, consciousness is not essential but unless a conscious observer is involved, philosophical problems with quantum mechanics seem rather mild to nonexistent, which again suggest a philosophical problem, not a problem with quantum mechanics. The central question is: how are entanglement or interference perceived? Remember Bohr's "no phenomenon is a phenomenon unless it is an observed phenomenon". We have met the enemy, and he is us — Pogo
http://www.watchingyou.com/woowoo.html
There are 41 statements to the Woo Woo credo, many of which demonstrate that it is a term coming out of Usenet flamewars--or somesuch. To understand if a person is a woo woo, one would have to run their comments via the list--and if they matched up, you can then call them "woo woos" and start an argument--it's an argumentative term, with some humour but clearly aimed at a certain Usenet type of character (the kind who reports you to the sys admin etc.) The list does have some enjoyable moments. I recommend numbers 4, 8, 9, 12, 22...wow, 22! But I don't recommend using it as shorthand because it is clearly meant to be derogatory. Don't fight forces, use them R. Buckminster Fuller.
It doesn't try to define what really happens, it doesn't assume that wave functions are 'real' or even that they evolve. All it says is that if you measure a system at time t, the probabilities of the different outcomes are the real part of etc.
The fact that states can be in various baroque non-local superpositions before the interaction doesn't change this. The probabilities will still be consistent and computable.
Migeru:
What none of them address is the (not quantum-mechanical but probabilistic) problem of actuality (which of the actual histories is realised), which is basically the (probabilistic, not quantum mechanical) problem of assigning a probability to a single event.
"It's random within probabilistic constraints" seems to be all that QM can tell you.
There may be a theory which defines the ontology in more detail. But QM doesn't seem to be it.
The only difference between an observer and a non-observer is that the observer is consciously aware of a measured value. But that doesn't define the value.
What's annoying about QM is that it tries to conflate different issues. There's a difference between the physical interaction needed to make a measurement and the mental process of experiencing the measurement. There's also non-locality, which supposedly makes everything very spooky and has somehow - for some reason which has never been properly explained, because it's not really needed - been linked to mental experience, even though it's completely distinct.
Consciousness Micro to macro amplification ('measurement') Non-locality etc 'It's all one' woo woo
are all different. I'll take the middle two. I won't accept the other two until someone does an experiment in which two observers measure two contradictory observables from the same quantum system at the same time.
Remember Bohr's "no phenomenon is a phenomenon unless it is an observed phenomenon".
That's almost makes sense, but doesn't, because in the limit it says that nothing in the universe exists unless it's observed. Which seems unlikely - otherwise you're back to solipsism again, with every possible wave function in the entire history of the universe converging on your viewpoint.
Regarding Bohr, isn't that very similar to what Kand said about noumenon and phenomenon? Aren't there serious epistemological issues at the core of all this?
ThatBritGuy:
"It's random within probabilistic constraints" seems to be all that QM can tell you. There may be a theory which defines the ontology in more detail. But QM doesn't seem to be it. The only difference between an observer and a non-observer is that the observer is consciously aware of a measured value. But that doesn't define the value.
sniff, sniff Chris, is that you cooking up another batch of your pudding somewhere? Truth unfolds in time through a communal process.
That depends what you expect physics to do. There's a difference between explaining reality, modelling reality, and defining reality.
I think realistically (sic) the best you can hope for is models of increasing sophistication and usefulness. Explaining reality is best left to theologians. (Not that they have a clue either, but it keeps them busy.)
No one should be trying to define reality, ever, but it's easy to fall into the trap of believing that a theory with predictive power is what's going on ontologically.
Too much physics is still cursed by Platonism. According to Penrose et el., models supposedly float around outside reality telling it what to do.
But there's a huge gap between using experimental recipes to predict what's going to happen next, and assuming there's a Central Recipe Database running things behind the scenes.
One is pattern recognition, the other is metaphysics. One assumes that reality works consistently and the consistency can be enumerated. The other makes unwarranted assumptions about the mechanisms which create that consistency.
Turns out that earlier I was discussing with Migeru in IM that the distinction between observer and the observed is entirely artificial.
It's not artificial, it's a useful way of relating to the world.
What it isn't is the only useful way of relating to the world.
And there's a bit of a gap between thinking it as an interesting concept and living it, even a little.
Colman:
Mind you, mysticism doesn't help at all,
If you know it's all lazy woo woo by definition, it wouldn't.
the observer is really outside reality, floating around in a higher state of consciousness with the other enlightened souls, man.
It's lucky you never find any of that in science, isn't it?
This is a very strange description of mystical experience. It is not like anything I know, or anything I have heard of. Where does it come from? The Fates are kind.
This passage helped me finally to understand (I think) the root of Gaianne's concern about our metaphysics and its adequacy (or lack thereof) to equip us for dealing with social and environmental crises.
But maybe I missed this earlier because, agreeing with you that
the Western Mind ... shrinks back in horror from mysticism and explicit dualism,
I do not believe that the Western mindset can be equated with "rational dualism" (which indeed is not adequate for dealing with the results of modern science and logic, nor with the real world crises we face).
I would go further that if
it [the Western Mind] still works on the assumption that Mind is separate from Reality, and that the only way to understand Reality is by making Mind (i.e. abstracted pattern recognition) and Reality as separate as possible
then even this is a modern manifestation of a Platonist, Manichean hold-over that has persisted in our culture in various forms (with some tragic consequences), but is divergent from a more fundamental Western "metaphysics" that construes reality as both spiritual and material (in a complementary, non-contradictory relationship), and that understanding comes from both personal reflection and contemplation as well as from experience and participation within the material world and within society among other people. Truth unfolds in time through a communal process.
by IdiotSavant - Jan 15 14 comments
by Frank Schnittger - Jan 14 12 comments
by Oui - Jan 16 4 comments
by Oui - Jan 13 57 comments
by gmoke - Jan 16
by Frank Schnittger - Jan 8 77 comments
by Oui - Jan 14 21 comments
by Frank Schnittger - Jan 6 68 comments
by Oui - Jan 171 comment
by Oui - Jan 164 comments
by IdiotSavant - Jan 1514 comments
by Oui - Jan 1421 comments
by Frank Schnittger - Jan 1412 comments
by Oui - Jan 1357 comments
by Oui - Jan 1177 comments
by Oui - Jan 1046 comments
by Frank Schnittger - Jan 877 comments
by Oui - Jan 772 comments
by Frank Schnittger - Jan 710 comments
by Frank Schnittger - Jan 668 comments
by Frank Schnittger - Jan 611 comments
by Oui - Jan 659 comments
by Frank Schnittger - Jan 229 comments
by Frank Schnittger - Dec 3151 comments
by Oui - Dec 3122 comments
by Oui - Dec 2834 comments
by gmoke - Dec 28