Tweet
Originally posted by Drogue
BeBro: Compatabalism
You are free to choose, but that freedom is an illusion.
BeBro: Compatabalism
You are free to choose, but that freedom is an illusion.
-
The freedom is NOT an illusion, though! The fact that you would make the same decision, every time, does not mean that you didn't have the freedom to make that decision! Freedom only disappears in the case of an OUTSIDE "coercive" force. -
The observer effect is more philisophical than "physical". It is essentially the application of Occam's razor. If you feel no effects of an actions (thus, you didn't observe it), then you have no evidence to claim that it exists, and therefore, by Occam's razor, it doesn't, for all practical purposes. The real thing with quantum theory that I have beef with (and that is really mind-boggling if true) is that somehow the multiple possibilities can affect each other.Originally posted by Drogue
With regards to the observer effect. It is just another way of putting the idea that if a tree falls in the woods, and no-one hears it, did it make a sound. I think a phenomenon can occur without being observed. If something needs to be observed before it can manifest itself in the physical world, then how can it? How can it be observed when it is not physical, so that it can be made physical? I never got the point of the observer effect. I don't believe there is a pre-existing conciousness, there is no evidence for that, nor does it seem to make sense, how something can be concious without a brain.Comment
-
Originally posted by Ben Kenobi
Unless you erase the memory, this will not be so.
He's talking about taking the SAME PERSON, as in EVERY SINGLE PARTICLE is in THE EXACT SAME PLACE. Thus, the memory NEVER EXISTED because you've got a previous "version" of the person.Comment
-
Sure, you can call it an algorithm.But how can one 'reason' without free-will? 'Reason' implies a process over which one has control. If your reasoning is predetermined by physical law then it is not reasoning at all, but algorithm.
A very sophisticated computer could be conscious. Although I wouldn't say "appearing" intelligent is a good enough criteria.Would you say that a computer which is sophisticated enough to appear intelligent to a human observer has consciousness?
Physics controls biological systems. Biology is an abstraction of the physics of these systems.Why bother to philosophize or get into quantum physics when the biology of the brain itself answers your question."Beware of the man who works hard to learn something, learns it, and finds himself no wiser than before. He is full of murderous resentment of people who are ignorant without having come by their ignorance the hard way. "
-BokononComment
-
I don't think you understand that correctly. What happens is that if you measure (say, a neuron interacts with a photon) a physical value of a system under most conditions (namely, when the system's current state isn't an eigenfunction of the operator that represents the physical value you're trying to measure), it doesn't have a single well-defined value, rather it's determined by a probability distribution. That doesn't mean that the physical system doesn't exist until you measure it, just that aspects of it don't have a value. Furthermore, there isn't any reason to say that "consciousness" is the only thing that can collapse a system into a single value. It makes the most sense to say that all you need is physical interaction (say, a photon collides with the system).There is a delicious irony in all this. Contemporary Western scientific theory postulates that human consciousness is solely a result of the workings of a physical brain, yet if the observer effect is correct, the physical matter comprising a brain cannot come into existence until it is the subject of observation by some pre-existing consciousness."Beware of the man who works hard to learn something, learns it, and finds himself no wiser than before. He is full of murderous resentment of people who are ignorant without having come by their ignorance the hard way. "
-BokononComment
-
Well, true, but you don't necessarily need to study physics to understand the brain is all I was saying.Originally posted by Ramo
Physics controls biological systems. Biology is an abstraction of the physics of these systems.
And as for the observer effect, we can observe our own brain, or more like our frontal cortex can observe the rest of the nervous system, its hard to explain if you don't have a background in this kind of thing.Comment
-
Skywalker
I totally agree. Drogue seems to be saying that even if it is probabilistic, given the same circumstances, the same would happen again. This is obviously wrong. If all the future is is a set of probabilities (whereas the past is certainties; hence we know of it), then saying it is predictable and deterministic is not credible.However, according to quantum theory (which actually IS supported by A LOT of evidence, despite your objections) , the universe is not deterministic, but probabilistic.www.my-piano.blogspotComment
-
You do at a fundamental level. If a non-physical "soul" controls how the brain works instead of physical laws, there is free-will.Well, true, but you don't necessarily need to study physics to understand the brain is all I was saying."Beware of the man who works hard to learn something, learns it, and finds himself no wiser than before. He is full of murderous resentment of people who are ignorant without having come by their ignorance the hard way. "
-BokononComment
-
JCC
I think a knowledge of physics and biology can harm one's understanding of the nature of the brain.Well, true, but you don't necessarily need to study physics to understand the brain is all I was saying.
By describing it as an accumulation of neurons and processes, the materialists here (like Drogue I think) aren't explaining how the subjective world of pain and colour can come about.www.my-piano.blogspotComment
-
We don't understand that. The brain is too complicated for physics to properly model. But there's no good reason to say that those aren't products of the physical laws."Beware of the man who works hard to learn something, learns it, and finds himself no wiser than before. He is full of murderous resentment of people who are ignorant without having come by their ignorance the hard way. "
-BokononComment
-
What does that mean?But there's no good reason to say that those aren't products of the physical laws.
Apparently, my line of thinking is similar to what is called panpsychism.www.my-piano.blogspotComment
-
What don't you understand?"Beware of the man who works hard to learn something, learns it, and finds himself no wiser than before. He is full of murderous resentment of people who are ignorant without having come by their ignorance the hard way. "
-BokononComment
-
The quote.www.my-piano.blogspotComment
-
Which part of it? "Those" referred to the subjective feelings you brought up..."Beware of the man who works hard to learn something, learns it, and finds himself no wiser than before. He is full of murderous resentment of people who are ignorant without having come by their ignorance the hard way. "
-BokononComment
-
Ramo: I am still not understanding what you mean by 'consciousness'. I think our definitions are differing because I can't see how a complex deterministic (or even quantum) system can be conscious.
In other words consciousness to me implies that one 'thinks'. But isn't thinking a manifestation of free-will. One chooses to think, and once thinking we choose the direction of thought.
PA: by the quote I think Ramo means that we could completely model the behaviour of the brain and thus someone's actions using physics laws (if we were clever enough to solve them). I don't think though that he is saying that there will only be one outcome, but rather we could predict the probability of each outcome.
If my interpretation was correct, this is not what I call consciousness.Comment
Comment