Quote:
Originally Posted by Paul C. Anagnostopoulos  Changing everything from "material" to "quantumish" does nothing to change the fundamental problems. The only thing that's consciousness-like in QM is stuff made up by people who seem satisfied with made-up solutions. If there is a hard problem, and if it is solved with QM, it will simply be because some quantum mechanical mechanisms are required in the brain.
So I'm happy for Stapp to continue his work. It might prove fruitful. But I don't think we're going to find libertarian free will in there.
~~ Paul |
In one sense I don't disagree with you. Substituting one mechanism for another in the brain does not solve the mind body problem, at best it can only be a step in that direction, and unfortunately the word 'quantum' does occasionally get uttered by someone who don't know what it means!!
I go with Chalmers when he says that the universe must contain 'mind stuff' that interacts with matter, but which is not reducible to existing physics. For this to solve the mind body problem, it seems to me that it is probably going to be a form of irreducible consciousness. Yes, that is something of a cop-out, but no more so than writing down the inverse square law and stating that there is an invisible gravitational field that just obeys that law for no particular reason.
Possibly we are iterating towards the crux of this matter (as in your fear of mechanism link, except the other way round).
Anything that can qualify as a mind, can't be reduced to mechanism.
David