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

[Tor]

Originally Posted by mszlazak

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.



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.


------------------------------

First off, thank you for referring me to Kuttner's response to Nauenberg's article. I read Nauenberg's article a couple of months ago. I wasn't especially impressed then, and I wasn't now either when I reread it.

The main problem with Nauenberg is that he doesn't seem to acknowledge that decoherence does not solve the measurement problem beyond FAPP. Instead he boosts it as in fact doing just this (when he talks about irreversible amplifications). From what I've read on decoherence, this is not the case. This fact alone is enough to make us encounter consciousness.

I agree that QE is biased. It's just as biased as all the other perspectives out there on what the heck is going on in QT beyond FAPP. But I do not think it's misleading.

I think Kuttner gives a good enough response to Nauenberg. Readers of Foundation of Physics, that are interested in these issues, should be well aware that decoherence does not solve the measurement problem. And they would have noticed that Nauenberg conveniently jumps over this fact.

As to the quotes and their relevance, I'll just refer to Mermin in his review of QE:

Does quantum mechanics give consciousness a special role to play in our description of the physical world? Opinions range all over the map.

And who says that physics deals the wrong level of organization as it is relevant to consciousness? I would argue exactly the opposite (and have when I wrote about Stapp).

Anyway, I do think that enough empirical evidence (of the type I mentioned before) exists to seriously question the existing paradigm, independent of any theory be it QT or any other. A consideration of the QE just adds to the load.

[mszlazak]

Originally Posted by Tor

First off, thank you for referring me to Kuttner's response to Nauenberg's article. I read Nauenberg's article a couple of months ago. I wasn't especially impressed then, and I wasn't now either when I reread it.

The main problem with Nauenberg is that he doesn't seem to acknowledge that decoherence does not solve the measurement problem beyond FAPP. Instead he boosts it as in fact doing just this (when he talks about irreversible amplifications). From what I've read on decoherence, this is not the case. This fact alone is enough to make us encounter consciousness.

I agree that QE is biased. It's just as biased as all the other perspectives out there on what the heck is going on in QT beyond FAPP. But I do not think it's misleading.

I think Kuttner gives a good enough response to Nauenberg. Readers of Foundation of Physics, that are interested in these issues, should be well aware that decoherence does not solve the measurement problem. And they would have noticed that Nauenberg conveniently jumps over this fact.

As to the quotes and their relevance, I'll just refer to Mermin in his review of QE:



And who says that physics deals the wrong level of organization as it is relevant to consciousness? I would argue exactly the opposite (and have when I wrote about Stapp).

Anyway, I do think that enough empirical evidence (of the type I mentioned before) exists to seriously question the existing paradigm, independent of any theory be it QT or any other. A consideration of the QE just adds to the load.

So what if decoherence doesn't totally solve the measurement problem! This doesn't imply that consciousness does or has anything to do with resolving the issue. If you view consciousness as this inherently, subjective and ineffable thing then you guarantee no solutions to the measurement problem by definition!

What should impress you about the Nuremberg and Kuttner exchange is how quotes are being used in a misleadingly biased way with regards to the consciousness issue and how poor the arguments are in this regard. Remember, this QE book is about consciousness and QT. Also, I don't see any good reasons that Stapp provides something worth serious consideration.

The existence of neurology, cognitive science, computer science, psychology, philosophy of mind, etc, tells you that physics is the wrong level of organization. Also, probably most physicists will tell you that physics is the wrong level of organization when dealing with the consciousness issue.

---------------------------

[davidsmith73]

Originally Posted by mszlazak

If you view consciousness as this inherently, subjective and ineffable thing then you guarantee no solutions to the measurement problem by definition!

Surely, the pertinent aspect of consciousness we are talking about with respect to the measurement problem is the act of observation, not the qualitative character of the observation.

The existence of neurology, cognitive science, computer science, psychology, philosophy of mind, etc, tells you that physics is the wrong level of organization.

You still haven't explained why. Can you? or is this just your intuitive grasp of the situation?

[Tor]

Originally Posted by mszlazak

So what if decoherence doesn't totally solve the measurement problem! This doesn't imply that consciousness does or has anything to do with resolving the issue. If you view consciousness as this inherently, subjective and ineffable thing then you guarantee no solutions to the measurement problem by definition!

Originally Posted by davidsmith73

Surely, the pertinent aspect of consciousness we are talking about with respect to the measurement problem is the act of observation, not the qualitative character of the observation.

davidsmith73 answered that one for me

Originally Posted by mszlazak

What should impress you about the Nuremberg and Kuttner exchange is how quotes are being used in a misleadingly biased way with regards to the consciousness issue and how poor the arguments are in this regard. Remember, this QE book about consciousness and QT. Also, I don't see any good reasons that Stapp provides something worth serious consideration.

First off, I haven't read the book, and I haven't researched the sources of every quote in it. I remember that Rosenblum commented the Martin Rees quote in a podcast (don't remember where found it). From what I remember he had the written source of the quote, but apparently Rees had changed his mind since then. Rosenblum didn't know that until after they published the book from what I understood, but he felt this only illustrated how problematic this whole subject is for physicists.
But as I said, opinions range all over the place when it comes to interpretations of QT and consciousness. And I surely don't base my opinions on quotes. I do the digging myself.

When it comes to Stapp, I've already said what I think about this so I'm not going to repeat it. I do think there are good reasons to take his work seriously.
From what you have said throughout this forum, it seems to me that you truly believe that consciousness is an illusion, a nonexistent fantasy. To me consciousness is beyond logic. As I said, it is the one thing I can not doubt, the foundation that everything I know is built on.
I do not define consciousness in a fancy philosophical way. It is simply the essence of my being, my awareness.

Originally Posted by mszlazak

The existence of neurology, cognitive science, computer science, psychology, philosophy of mind, etc, tells you that physics is the wrong level of organization. Also, probably most physicists will tell you that physics is the wrong level of organization when dealing with the consciousness issue.

---------------------------

Why does it tell us that? What you are talking about is one perspective, nothing more. As to what other physicists will tell me, I can think and reason on my own. That said, having been in academia and discussed this with fellow physics students, professors etc, I've found that (as Mermin said) opinions range all over the map. Some are pro consciousness/QT some are not. But most are agnostic and open minded.

[Open Mind]

Originally Posted by Paul C. Anagnostopoulos

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.

Telepathy fits that definition, what would you accept as 'positive evidence' of the existence of weak telepathy? What information do I need to provide you with?

[Open Mind]

Originally Posted by Paul C. Anagnostopoulos

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.

But oxygen deprivation producing tunnels actually strengthens the case for a Near Death Experience being due to an external consciousness! .... Here is why .....

(1) Let us assume oxygen deprivation causes tunnels (as in air pilot training due to anoxia) why do the tunnels stop during Near Death Experience then full field vision return for people to very vividly 'hallucinate' meeting dead relatives, scenery, beings of light or whatever. If the brain is heading towards inactivity due to oxygen deprivation, why do the tunnels suddenly stop and full field visual clarity beyond the capacity of normal dreams increase? Why should an oxygen deprived dying brain hallucinate more vividly than a normal healthy brain state?

(2) Now by agreeing the tunnels could be oxygen deprivation. We have a timing marker of the state of the brain in relation to the Near Death Experience reported. We know the oxygen deprivation must come before the brain becomes electrically dead (about 14 seconds after cardiac arrest). So what occurs after the tunnel is leading to brain inactivity. Yet now a very vivid hallucination follows on!

(3) Some people report returning back through a tunnel i.e. That means the oxygen is returning to brain after electrical inactivity? The vivid sequential hallucinatory experience is jammed between two markers –during which the period the brain is electrically dead, yet hallucination continues more vividly than dreams? Hello external consciousness, skeptics don't believe you exist

(4)Air pilots during oxygen deprivation (anoxia) see tunnels, but they do not report dying or vivid, coherent hallucinations. It is more confused, unpleasant and unclear. Therefore it is arguably more coherent to believe that the vividness is due to an external mind freeing itself from brain.

This is the whole point of this topic ......Can you prove the brain generates hallucinations? If not we have to seriously consider that so called 'hallucinations' (during brain electrical activity) are virtually real experiences of a non material source. Dream telepathy and Ganzfeld experiments suggest that when brain function moves towards dreaming, telepathy becomes stronger than during more wide awake hours. If telepathy becomes even stronger during brain death (and yes telepathy with other 'virtual' beings, is a feature in many NDE reports) well a virtually reality arguably has already evolved and we are evolving non physically as well as physically.

In otherwords what NDE patients see during NDEs do NOT need to match our physical reality perfectly to be considered virtually real and survival of brain death could indeed be true. If what is witnessed during NDEs is not knowable by normal means yet still matches our physical reality to *any* degree beyond statistical chance we still seriously need to consider that such experiences survive brain death.

[Open Mind]

Originally Posted by Paul C. Anagnostopoulos

It's of no significant disadvantage if [false memory] 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.

I'm not satisfied with this answer, if we evolved the capacity to remember to any degree why has memory become so malleable? Why not evolve further to be less mallable or a mechanism develop to know better when memory has been tampered with. If our physical world is the only reality then due to natural selection the brain should have evolved not necessarily a perfect memory but one that cannot be so readily made false, a very accurate memory would be a major evolutionary advantage over a faulty 'false memory'.

OK I think you will argue next that the mind is 'filling in the gaps' but for whom? The answer must be the consciousness yet you believe the consciousness is an user illusion. For example if the mind only remembers points of information and fills in the gaps, the brain would evolve to fill in the gaps with common occurrences that follow physical reality, not with occurrences that do not model physical reality. Natural Selection means an evolutionary advantage to this physical world *if* our physical world is all there was but since our minds are not doing that they are modeling things not belonging to physical reality.

We have the ability to lucidly dream, you claim this is a theatre of illusion created by the brain for an the illusion of consciousness and freewill .... this is so contrived .... we have the ability to consciously change our lucid dreams (which don't match physical reality) How did all of this evolve via physical (only) natural selection? The solution IMHO is that we are evolving invisibly to our material existence which has been shut down by the physical senses to interface with physical reality. Our true minds may not be physical brains, but modellers of virtual realities, that can be shared with others (as indicated by dream telepathy experiments). Logically these virtual realities would strengthen when telepathy strengthens and evolve. And arguably telepathy strengthens after brain death.

Therefore 'false memory' arguments used by materialistic debunkers to be dismissive of psychic experiences are logically flawed. Natural selection favoured a memory recall process that doesn't rigidly follow physical reality

The illusion of consciousness evolved so that the illusion of will could evolve.

Paul that just sounds teleological and a contradiction of Neo Darwinism which is your materialistic model. Your model of reality states evolution is supposed to be a blind process, it has no direction. You are now adding a requirement of illusion of willand 'will' implies a teleological process too. How could such steps of necessary illusion evolve via physical natural selection alone, when such illusions are contradictions of physical reality? It is one thing to argue imagination is an evolutionary advantage is it quite another thing to state it can evolve through a purely physical process of natural selection.

The reason the illusion of will is so useful is that it causes me to decide that I have control over my actions.

No evolutionary advantage here. As a materialist, I thought you believed the brain is making your decisions unconsciously and consciousness is a 'user illusion' as Dennet puts it? Do you believe that? Do you have free will or not, if yes, why are you talking about an 'illusion of will'? If you have free will, tell me the evolutionary advantage of an 'illusion of will' or if humans don't have free will tell me evolutionary advantage of deluded ourselves we have free will?

Materialists are hallucinating they are biological machines

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

Originally Posted by Open Mind

Telepathy fits that definition, what would you accept as 'positive evidence' of the existence of weak telepathy? What information do I need to provide you with?

I don't think telepathy is the same thing as a metamind. It's existence certainly doesn't imply that my consciousness is seated somewhere other than my brain.

~~ Paul

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

Originally Posted by Open Mind

I'm not satisfied with this answer, if we evolved the capacity to remember to any degree why has memory become so malleable? Why not evolve further to be less mallable or a mechanism develop to know better when memory has been tampered with. If our physical world is the only reality then due to natural selection the brain should have evolved not necessarily a perfect memory but one that cannot be so readily made false, a very accurate memory would be a major evolutionary advantage over a faulty 'false memory'.

I don't think that false memories affect day-to-day activities such as finding food, fighting off predators, resting, etc. At least not enough to be a significant evolutionary disadvantage.

Let me get back to this later.

Paul that just sounds teleological and a contradiction of Neo Darwinism which is your materialistic model. Your model of reality states evolution is supposed to be a blind process, it has no direction. You are now adding a requirement of illusion of willand 'will' implies a teleological process too. How could such steps of necessary illusion evolve via physical natural selection alone, when such illusions are contradictions of physical reality? It is one thing to argue imagination is an evolutionary advantage is it quite another thing to state it can evolve through a purely physical process of natural selection.

Yes, sorry, I stated it in a teleological manner. As usual, each step of consciousness that evolved had survival value, until we reached the current state of affairs.

No evolutionary advantage here. As a materialist, I thought you believed the brain is making your decisions unconsciously and consciousness is a 'user illusion' as Dennet puts it? Do you believe that? Do you have free will or not, if yes, why are you talking about an 'illusion of will'? If you have free will, tell me the evolutionary advantage of an 'illusion of will' or if humans don't have free will tell me evolutionary advantage of deluded ourselves we have free will?

Please stop calling me a materialist. I'm not calling you an idealist or a dualist.

Libertarian free will is a different topic. Libertarian free will is an incoherent concept. Feel free to start a thread on it.

My brain may make some decisions nonconsciously, but once they are made I know about them. Then I can ponder them and, with my feeling of will, decide that I should do something different next time, or reinforce the current action, or leave town. There is a giant feedback loop.

~~ Paul

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

Originally Posted by Open Mind

(1) Let us assume oxygen deprivation causes tunnels (as in air pilot training due to anoxia) why do the tunnels stop during Near Death Experience then full field vision return for people to very vividly 'hallucinate' meeting dead relatives, scenery, beings of light or whatever. If the brain is heading towards inactivity due to oxygen deprivation, why do the tunnels suddenly stop and full field visual clarity beyond the capacity of normal dreams increase? Why should an oxygen deprived dying brain hallucinate more vividly than a normal healthy brain state?

Do you feel comfortable assuming that the events actually occurred in the order that people remember them? I don't.

I'm willing to stipulate that NDEs may be some portal to another world, just as I'm willing to stipulate that a person lifting heavy objects to free a trapped child may be a portal to another world of immense strength. I'm sorry, I just can't get excited about drawing conclusions from aberrant brain activity.

(4)Air pilots during oxygen deprivation (anoxia) see tunnels, but they do not report dying or vivid, coherent hallucinations. It is more confused, unpleasant and unclear. Therefore it is arguably more coherent to believe that the vividness is due to an external mind freeing itself from brain.

Perhaps what you hallucinate depends on your prior thoughts about what is going to happen?

~~ Paul