Rational, evidence-based, non-materialist model of mind-brain interaction

[Bernardo]

Originally Posted by Maaneli

What they show in that paper is just that nonlocal, non-contextual theories can't match the predictions of standard nonlocal QM. When they say in the end of their abstract that "Our result suggests that giving up the concept of locality is not sufficient to be consistent with quantum experiments, unless certain intuitive features of realism are abandoned", the intuitive feature they're referring to is noncontextuality

Nice to wake up to an informed physics discussion in this thread.

You guys are great, though 90% of what you are saying will likely fly over the heads of 90% of the people who read it, because of the jargon. So I think it's worth it that we delved a bit more into the specific point above. Maaneli's description of non-contextuality as entailing that the measured value equals the pre-measurement value is, of course, accurate, but I wonder if we all actually grasp what it means. So I will attempt to 'translate' it below. Please correct me if it's not accurate. I will on purpose avoid jargon.

Non-contextuality means that the properties of a physical entity exist in and by themselves, objectively, and do not depend on how they are measured. My ability to measure those properties influences only what I know about the physical entity, but does not change what the entity actually is. For instance, if I measure the speed of a car with a portable radar gun, I may get all kinds of errors, inaccuracies, which may all depend on how well I pointed the gun, whether the batteries are loaded, atmospheric conditions, etc. But none of that will change what the speed of the car actually was at the moment of measurement; it will only change what I can know about the speed of the car. This is non-contextuality. Correct?

Now, in QM, to 'measure' something also entails to 'perceive' it. When you look at something you are measuring it, your body being the measurement apparatus. (There is actually a strong line of thought in QM, going back to von Neumann, that subjective perception is the only actual form of measurement, since everything else is just a complexification of the state vector) So, in the below, I will use the verb 'to perceive' instead.

Non-contextuality is a crucial and highly intuitive idea behind Realism, which is the notion that reality exists 'out there,' regardless of how we perceive it. When you exclude non-contextuality, you are basically eliminating such very intuitive feature of Realism; perhaps the main feature of what regular people mean by Realism. Fair enough?

Now, to reconcile this with Realism, one has to imagine the human body as an objective measurement apparatus that interacts non-locally with the world around itself, changing that world instantly as it perceives it. So the world and the body both are assumed to exist objectively (Realism), but they are in this constant back-and-forth flux of interfering with one another and changing one another. Everything you see is partially the result of your perceptual processes; physically. Before you looked, the world existed objectively in state A; when you look, the world still exists objectively but now in state B. So you never actually see the world as it was (A), but as it becomes because you looked at it (B).

Nevermind that we don't have any theory to actually spell out and order this unbelievable mess; Whatever way, I think this is an extraordinary, tortuous, excruciating abstraction to get rid of something much simpler: There is no A. If there were, we could never see it anyway. So why not just bite the bullet and say, "Fine, all we can ever know is B, so we might just as well acknowledge that there is only B"? The latter is called Idealism.

Fair enough?

[Kamarling]

Originally Posted by Bernardo

You guys are great, though 90% of what you are saying will likely fly over the heads of 90% of the people who read it, because of the jargon.

Thank you, thank you for putting it in terms that even I can understand.

[Interesting Ian]

Originally Posted by Bernardo

Nice to wake up to an informed physics discussion in this thread.

You guys are great, though 90% of what you are saying will likely fly over the heads of 90% of the people who read it, because of the jargon.

It's just a complete and utter failure to communicate in standard proper English. If they want to convey something they should learn to communicate in a clear manner. I just skip over those posts.

[gabriel]

Originally Posted by Interesting Ian

It's just a complete and utter failure to communicate in standard proper English. If they want to convey something they should learn to communicate in a clear manner. I just skip over those posts.

I completely agree. People swap tentative theories and their associated acronyms as if they're accepted facts. I use jargon from my own discipline sometimes to show how ill-suited specialist academic concepts are to general discussion and nobody has a clue what I'm talking about. Even the most complex ideas are usually simple in essence, can we keep them so?

[Interesting Ian]

Originally Posted by Bernardo

Now, in QM, to 'measure' something also entails to 'perceive' it.

The skeptics on various discussions boards emphatically deny this. They state that to both observe and measure something, consciousness is not required.

Of course by definition to observe something entails a conscious perception. But this is just one example where scientists, and especially physicists, redefine words to mean something wholly unrelated to their standard accepted meaning. Many other examples can be given eg the word physical, proof, evidence, oh yes, and the word consciousness. This makes communication with them extremely difficult. This is rendered even worse by the fact that most scientists are unused to philosophical thought and argumentation, and hence are extremely poor at it.

But to get back to the main point. If I understand skeptics correctly they subscribe to the notion that sub-microscopic particles in certain contexts do not have definite values. But that they assume definite values when "observed" or "measured". By this they don't mean a conscious perception though, so I take it they mean when the particles concerned interact with some physical thing or process, this collapses the wave function so that these particles now assume definite values.

They also say (I think) that QM equations only apply to the microscopic realm. You can't have macroscopic objects lacking definite properties due to something they call "decoherence".

No idea if they talking bollox or not because I know next to nothing about QM (and that will remain the case due to peoples' inability to communicate clearly).

[Bernardo]

Originally Posted by Interesting Ian

The skeptics on various discussions boards emphatically deny this. They state that to both observe and measure something, consciousness is not required.

yes, I acknowledge what you are saying. But I was careful:

-- I am NOT saying that all measurement must be a conscious observation (though I actually think this);
-- But all conscious observations qualify as a measurement.

The latter is what I meant, and all I need to make the point I was trying to make.

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

Originally Posted by Bernardo

Now, in QM, to 'measure' something also entails to 'perceive' it. When you look at something you are measuring it, your body being the measurement apparatus. (There is actually a strong line of thought in QM, going back to von Neumann, that subjective perception is the only actual form of measurement, since everything else is just a complexification of the state vector) So, in the below, I will use the verb 'to perceive' instead.

Why isn't human perception also simply change in the state?

Now, to reconcile this with Realism, one has to imagine the human body as an objective measurement apparatus that interacts non-locally with the world around itself, changing that world instantly as it perceives it. So the world and the body both are assumed to exist objectively (Realism), but they are in this constant back-and-forth flux of interfering with one another and changing one another. Everything you see is partially the result of your perceptual processes; physically. Before you looked, the world existed objectively in state A; when you look, the world still exists objectively but now in state B. So you never actually see the world as it was (A), but as it becomes because you looked at it (B).

Sounds like human perception is change in the state.

Nevermind that we don't have any theory to actually spell out and order this unbelievable mess; Whatever way, I think this is an extraordinary, tortuous, excruciating abstraction to get rid of something much simpler: There is no A. If there were, we could never see it anyway. So why not just bite the bullet and say, "Fine, all we can ever know is B, so we might just as well acknowledge that there is only B"? The latter is called Idealism.

Because a coherent description of B requires A.

Idealism requires a world outside of my perceptions. Otherwise there is no way to explain why the trees in my yard look the same after I return from holiday as they did before I left. We could argue that there is no way for me to know that they are the same, but that requires giving up memory.

Now, that external world might just be more mental stuff, but it's not my mental stuff, and it's not your mental stuff, so it's some sort of objective external world.

~~ Paul

[Bernardo]

Originally Posted by Paul C. Anagnostopoulos

Why isn't human perception also simply change in the state?

See my reply to Ian. I'm fine with that. All I need for my argument to work is that conscious observation qualifies as measurement, even if other stuff also qualifies as measurement (which is not my personal opinion).

Originally Posted by Paul C. Anagnostopoulos

Because a coherent description of B requires A.

If that WERE the case, fine. But it's not.

Let's not lose sight of the layers upon layers of speculation and bias we have here:

-- No non-local hidden variables have ever been observed. As far as I or anyone knows, they are pure fiction;
-- There is no non-local hidden variables theory today that provides a complete and coherent explanation for B;
-- There is an elegant, coherent explanation for B today that does not require A: It's called QM and is the most spectacularly successful theory ever conceived, as far as empirical observation. QM is perfectly coherent and functional under Idealism. Only a certain type of understandable prejudice (i.e. the intuition of realism) drives people to think we need to 'add' anything to it.

So your argument would be OK in a different 'reality,' but not according to the facts we have today.

Originally Posted by Paul C. Anagnostopoulos

Idealism requires a world outside of my perceptions. Otherwise there is no way to explain why the trees in my yard look the same after I return from holiday as they did before I left. We could argue that there is no way for me to know that they are the same, but that requires giving up memory.

Idealism requires a world outside of your self-awareness (egoic awareness), but not outside of your mind. It may not even require a world outside of consciousness; just a world outside of self-reflective consciousness (i.e. the so-called 'unconscious', which in my view is a bad choice of word).

Originally Posted by Paul C. Anagnostopoulos

Now, that external world might just be more mental stuff, but it's not my mental stuff, and it's not your mental stuff, so it's some sort of objective external world.

Any psychologist or psychiatrist will tell you that your 'unconscious' is pretty much your mind, and it drives your decisions, feelings, and perceptions every minute of every day. It may appear objective (Jung called the 'unconscious' the 'objective psyche') in the sense that it seems to fall outside of your egoic will. But it's not objective in the sense of existing independent of your mind. Think of people with addiction or obsessive disorders, to mention a less convoluted example: The drive of addiction and obsession falls outside the will, understanding, and control of the subject; it's like a 'demon' that takes control over them; but nobody would deny that it's part of their minds. These people are treated often by bringing that part of their minds under their field of self-awareness.

[4vektor]

Originally Posted by Bernardo

Now, in QM, to 'measure' something also entails to 'perceive' it.

your use of 'also' suggests that by 'perceive' you mean something distinct from measurement. i don't agree with this. obviously any consciously perceived interaction constitutes a measurement, but you are asserting the converse which is not true. for example, we know from eraser experiments that it is sufficient for the which path info to be obtained by the apparatus. do you mean that the apparatus perceives? unless by perceive you mean something else, but different from usual QM measurement/observation, in which case i do not understand what that is.

[4vektor]

Originally Posted by Interesting Ian

But to get back to the main point. If I understand skeptics correctly they subscribe to the notion that sub-microscopic particles in certain contexts do not have definite values. But that they assume definite values when "observed" or "measured". By this they don't mean a conscious perception though, so I take it they mean when the particles concerned interact with some physical thing or process, this collapses the wave function so that these particles now assume definite values.

you get a definite real number but it is an expectation value. the property itself that you measured does not necessarily assume that definite value.

No idea if they talking bollox or not because I know next to nothing about QM (and that will remain the case due to peoples' inability to communicate clearly).

so you don't know anything about QM and complain but it's the fault of people who do for not communicating it to you the way you like. besides constantly deriding them as a group as being logically and philosophically inept. ok...