Challenge to debunkers: Can you prove hallucinations are generated inside brain :-)

[Open Mind]

Originally Posted by Paul C. Anagnostopoulos

why just about every sort of memory is affected by damage to the brain?

This is debatable (more on this later) but regardless the hypothesis I've suggested that the brain is fundamentally filtering, it is all rather expected.

Here is my evidence: Every single memory we have found so far is located in the brain. That suggests they all are, until evidence appears to the contrary.

This is close to non falsifiability. Yes, if you probe the brain and you find a memory triggered, tell me how would you decide a thought was not in the brain by such a method? Unless you can create unique detailed thought in someone's mind and trigger it constantly as memory, it is still only suggestive at best.

You have to look elsewhere to for falsifiability such as psi or say the Near Death Experiences. Incidentally, which is your favoured NDE explanation?

(1) People hallucination they are dying before they have died
(2) The electrically dead brain hallucinates more vividly than normal dreams
(3) People hallucinate they are dying when coming back to life.
(4) Agnostics, atheists, skeptics and infant children invent those after narrowly escaping death?

How would they explain the purpose of the Internet connection?

Wireless internet connections exist. It is analogy of course. I have suggested mind (or a more fundamental consciousness) can divide can evolve into complex systems due to the brain filtering past memory/ telepathy.

There is no evolutionary advantage to "false memories." There simply is no significant disadvantage to having them. Things only have to evolve to work well enough for survival.

So you are telling me an animal not correctly remembering or mixing up the location of food is 'no significant disadvantage'? If we have the capacity to remember accurately, why did the capacity to remember wrongly survive? If things only need to work 'well enough for survival'? in that case why did the materialists idea of a 'user illusion' of consciousness evolve at all?

[Tor]

Originally Posted by mszlazak

The book "Quantum Enigma" also does not claim that understanding quantum mechanics requires a conscious observer. In fact, the authors (Rosenblum and Kuttner) are explicit that understanding quantum mechanics, for all practical purposes, need not address the issue of consciousness.

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Yes you are right; for all practical purposes. But if they were satisfied with that they would never have written the book in the first place.

As they say in their FAQ:

Can’t a not-conscious robot be programmed to do the observation?

That’s a common argument. For all practical purposes, yes. But if you’re interested in what’s going on beyond merely practical purposes, introducing the robot will not dispel the encounter with consciousness. (Page 182) .

--

Originally Posted by mszlazak

Also, I think you're distorting the situation with your remarks about people scoffing at the QM/consciousness connection. No one I've read scoffs at it, they just point out what's presumed, why arguments are fallacious and why it's most likely a step-backwards.

Well, I've had personal experience with this. Some physicists/scientists get really emotional and angry because someone dare suggest that consciousness is involved in QT. A few of them even resort to ridicule.

[davidsmith73]

Originally Posted by Tor

Well, I've had personal experience with this. Some physicists/scientists get really emotional and angry because someone dare suggest that consciousness is involved in QT. A few of them even resort to ridicule.

Probably to the same ones who endorse organised scepticism

[jacob]

Originally Posted by Paul C. Anagnostopoulos

... why just about every sort of memory is affected by damage to the brain?

For example, because the receiver (or filter) is malfunctioning.
When you hit a radio or tv and it works bad, it's not that it's memory is bad.

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

Originally Posted by Open Mind

This is close to non falsifiability. Yes, if you probe the brain and you find a memory triggered, tell me how would you decide a thought was not in the brain by such a method?

By finding the origin of the thought somewhere else. The people who think that thoughts originate from somewhere else have to come up with positive evidence for their hypothesis.

If the existence of a thing is indistinguishable from its nonexistence, we say that thing does not exist.
---Yahzi

Incidentally, which is your favoured NDE explanation?

(1) People hallucination they are dying before they have died
(2) The electrically dead brain hallucinates more vividly than normal dreams
(3) People hallucinate they are dying when coming back to life.
(4) Agnostics, atheists, skeptics and infant children invent those after narrowly escaping death?

What sort of NDE are you referring to? The fancy flashes, tunnels of light, and so forth? I suspect that's just the brain playing tricks when deprived of oxygen and other nutrients.

So you are telling me an animal not correctly remembering or mixing up the location of food is 'no significant disadvantage'? If we have the capacity to remember accurately, why did the capacity to remember wrongly survive? If things only need to work 'well enough for survival'? in that case why did the materialists idea of a 'user illusion' of consciousness evolve at all?

It's of no significant disadvantage if it does not happen too often. Note that false memories rarely include disremembering where the pasta in your pantry is. We don't have the capacity to remember accurately, only well enough.

The illusion of consciousness evolved so that the illusion of will could evolve. The reason the illusion of will is so useful is that it causes me to decide that I have control over my actions. That, in turn, causes me to plan future actions, particularly by thinking of possible dangers and how to avoid them before they occur. It is quite useful to believe that I can respond to stimuli of my own free will, because then I develop intelligent responses.

~~ Paul

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

Originally Posted by Jacob

For example, because the receiver (or filter) is malfunctioning.
When you hit a radio or tv and it works bad, it's not that it's memory is bad.

I'd be willing to consider this possibility if there were specific places in the brain where damage messed up my memories: the places where the receiver(s) are. That doesn't appear to be the case, so it's proposed that the receivers are ubiquitous and undetectable.

The theory that the entire brain is full of receivers and filters for external thoughts, and that these receivers and filters are magical and operate on the quantum mechanical level, is virtually unfalsifiable. It is of no interest to most proponents of this idea that QM is one of the most robust theories in science, and that no evidence of such equipment appears in the math, and that people working on controlling quantum events for purposes of quantum computing have not stumbled upon the equipment. No hypotheses have been put forward to test the theory. No math has been developed to describe the equipment. It's a vapid theory that desperately needs someone to champion it. Having said that, by all means, I'd love for someone to do so.

In the meantime, I see no reason to believe that this incredibly baroque equipment and its supporting infrastructure exist.

~~ Paul

[mszlazak]

Originally Posted by Tor

Yes you are right; for all practical purposes. But if they were satisfied with that they would never have written the book in the first place.

Being not satisfied with FAPP doesn't imply the need for consciousness and Rosenblum and Kuttner agree it doesn't.

All Rosenblum and Kuttner mean by an "encounter" with consciousness is "to meet, usually unexpectedly."

That means it was surprising that someone even bothered to bring it up! Those "someones" probably thought they had good reasons to bring it up (e.g. von Neumann, Wigner, etc.) but it doesn't mean they really had good reasons and they didn't. I wouldn't put much stock in what physicists say about consciousness because it's not their field of expertise and once you read what people in consciousness related field say then it really shows that physicists are "out of their league."

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[Tor]

Originally Posted by mszlazak

All Rosenblum and Kuttner mean by an "encounter" with consciousness is "to meet, usually unexpectedly."

Yes, surly they at least mean this, but don't they even hint at something more? Look at this quote by Kuttner:

Originally Posted by mszlazak

So, finally, does quantum mechanics reintroduce the transcendent, or the spiritual, into science? Can one honestly view the quantum enigma and deny all spiritual implications? Physics has encountered a profound mystery involving the essence of our humanity, our consciousness. This contradicts the mechanistic Newtonian worldview that many people incorrectly think science requires. The quantum enigma presents more questions than answers. But if you look at the undisputed physics facts with a mind that's at open, I don't see how you can avoid seeing something profoundly involving our humanity.

Originally Posted by mszlazak

That means it was surprising that someone even bothered to bring it up!

Oh.. It was surprising they bothered? Then why did so many think it was relevant to bring it up? Having studied this enigma, I don't think it is strange to bring it up at all.

Originally Posted by mszlazak

Those "someones" probably thought they had good reasons to bring it up (e.g. von Neumann, Wigner, etc.) but it doesn't mean they really had good reasons and they didn't. I wouldn't put much stock in what physicists say about consciousness because it's not their field of expertise and once you read what people in consciousness related field say then it really shows that physicists are "out of their league."

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Who says they didn't have a good reason and why?
We can probably list names on both sides here until our fingers start to bleed. It's a matter of interpretation and assumptions.
I do believe that there is something there to be taken seriously.
Do you think any of the no-consciousness interpretations solves anything beyond FAPP?

Why shouldn't physicists have anything to say about this?
First off, what is the paradigm of what you call consciousness related fields (I'm assuming you are thinking of psychology, neuroscience and philosophy)?

It's materialistic determinism.

And what is the basic science that describe this paradigm?

It's physics!

So if physics encounters consciousness, or say that the world is not the billiard ball table of Newton's time, then shouldn't this influence the way these other fields view things? Or is it alright for them to live with their 1800's ideas of how the universe really works?

[davidsmith73]

Originally Posted by mszlazak

...once you read what people in consciousness related field say then it really shows that physicists are "out of their league."

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How so?...

[mszlazak]

Originally Posted by Tor

Yes, surly they at least mean this, but don't they even hint at something more? Look at this quote by Kuttner:







Oh.. It was surprising they bothered? Then why did so many think it was relevant to bring it up? Having studied this enigma, I don't think it is strange to bring it up at all.



Who says they didn't have a good reason and why?
We can probably list names on both sides here until our fingers start to bleed. It's a matter of interpretation and assumptions.
I do believe that there is something there to be taken seriously.
Do you think any of the no-consciousness interpretations solves anything beyond FAPP?

Originally Posted by Tor

Why shouldn't physicists have anything to say about this?
First off, what is the paradigm of what you call consciousness related fields (I'm assuming you are thinking of psychology, neuroscience and philosophy)?

It's materialistic determinism.

And what is the basic science that describe this paradigm?

It's physics!

So if physics encounters consciousness, or say that the world is not the billiard ball table of Newton's time, then shouldn't this influence the way these other fields view things? Or is it alright for them to live with their 1800's ideas of how the universe really works?

Here is Nauenberg's critique of "Quantum Enigma" (QE) which gives plenty of quotes, even ones of people that Rosenberg and Kuttner quote but actually say the opposite things. I'll let you read Nauenberg to see why. But it's not just quotes it's reasons that are in Nauenberg's critique of consciousness and the book QE. QE is a biased misleading presentation of these issues.

http://physics.ucsc.edu/~michael/qefoundations.pdf

Here is Kuttner's response to Nauenberg which admits: "that the encounter of physics with consciousness likely has no practical consequences for physics. It is metaphysics." He then fails to give a detailed response to Nauenberg lengthy critique.

http://arxiv.org/pdf/0710.2361

I suggest you read Nauenberg completely before reading Kuttner.

Originally Posted by Tor

Why shouldn't physicists have anything to say about this?
First off, what is the paradigm of what you call consciousness related fields (I'm assuming you are thinking of psychology, neuroscience and philosophy)?

It's materialistic determinism.

And what is the basic science that describe this paradigm?

It's physics!

So if physics encounters consciousness, or say that the world is not the billiard ball table of Newton's time, then shouldn't this influence the way these other fields view things? Or is it alright for them to live with their 1800's ideas of how the universe really works?

I didn't say physicists should not say anything. They're free to say what they want.

AND

Physics deals with the wrong level or organization. That is why QT is irrelevent to brain/mind/consciousness/psychology issues. So generally, physicists are out of their league.


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