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

[Maaneli]

Originally Posted by Bernardo

Hey Maaneli,



Since you're the third person to have interpreted what I said in this manner, clearly I didn't express myself correctly. I meant to say that any conscious perception is a measurement, not that any measurement is a conscious perception. The latter is in fact my opinion, but I don't need it to make the argument I made in the post you're replying to, and I don't want to derail the thread by going into the measurement problem. See my reply to Ian earlier, in post #196.



My take here is as such:

-- As far as I know, these non-local realist theories make no empirical predictions that differ from those of classical QM;
-- There is no empirical evidence for the supposedly objective and physical hidden variables.

As such, I see these 'theories' rather as mathematical philosophy than theories. In my view, they are mathematical philosophy driven by a subjective preference for realism. QM alone makes all observable predictions without any add-on, and it is entirely coherent under Idealism (more on this below). From an empirical point of view, I would claim non-local hidden variables variations are entirely unnecessary and merely complexifying. They only satisfy a subjective need, not an objective empirical gap. (I use the terms 'objective' and 'subjective' metaphorically, since I am an Idealist )



Yes! Now we are really getting to the heart of the issue. These are the exact right questions and the exact right discussion to have.

Let me share my thoughts with you. When you think of "minds conspiring with one another" to create the illusion of objectivity, you are begging the question. Don't get me wrong, this is not an attack; bear with me. The very idea that minds are separate is an implication of realism, not of idealism. Here is the thought process:

(a) Minds are in material bodies;
(b) Material bodies are separate;
(c) from (a) and (b) minds are separate.

But (a) assumes realism is true, which is the point in dispute; so this cannot be used as an argument against idealism. You see, under idealism, bodies are in minds, not the other way around. It's difficult to wrap your head around it because we're so used to realist assumptions in our culture, but give this some thought.

So the fact that bodies are separate says nothing about the separation of minds. There is empirical evidence from depth psychology that the unconscious layers of mind are, in fact, not separate at all. This opens one possibility for how the illusion of objectivity arose, under Idealism: a common 'data stream' (for lack of a better metaphor) from the collective unconscious. Another complementary alternative has to do with the notion that reality may be partially a (weakly) emergent phenomenon of human language: The reality we perceive is largely the web of concepts with which we tile reality, as opposed to reality itself.

The question of how a consistent, persistent, seemingly autonomous, and shared reality emerges is the key challenge under Idealism. Under Realism, the key challenge is how subjective experience emerges from matter. So both face questions that have no obvious or intuitive answers. I talked a little about it in two recent videos, if you are interested:

Bernardo Kastrup - Real or Imagined? HD (Interview series, episode 3) - YouTube
Bernardo Kastrup - Reality as a Shared Dream HD (Interview series, episode 4) - YouTube

The videos just touch on the points (producers' request). Addressing this challenge of Idealism in more depth is what two of my books are about.



Part of a possible answer is what I discussed above: The problem perceived with the 'conspiracy' question is not there at all; it arises from a wrong starting assumption (namely, that minds are separate). I'll refrain from commenting on the time-related part of your question because it would derail this post; it's a complex topic in its own. I will come back to you on this separately, if you like to discuss further.



I will not try to convince you of Idealism here. It's cost me years thinking about it to begin to accept it as perfectly natural, and I have no reason to believe other people would see it the way I do. But I wanted to say just a couple of things, for what it's worth:

-- In my view, non-local hidden variable extensions to QM are as much philosophy as Idealism, with the disadvantage that they require more modeling/math and more assumptions (e.g. the hidden variables). Classical QM, as it is, is entirely coherent and sufficient under Idealism. Only its metaphysical interpretation is different from the usual: Under Idealism, QM models the regularities of the patterns of mind, not the regularities of the behavior of entities outside of mind;

-- I feel Idealism is also more parsimonious, in that it only postulates the existence of the patently obvious: Our experience of reality (i.e. state B in the post you're replying to). It does not require the existence of a forever inaccessible universe outside of experience (state A), nor the modeling that goes into describing that forever inaccessible universe. Idealism, with QM, explains and postulates only what we actually see;

-- Many of the objections to Idealism arise merely from a natural and understandable misconception about what assumptions should be made. The example of separate minds above is just one example. Since Realism is so ingrained in our culture, it is difficult to rid oneself from all realist assumptions before looking into Idealism with a neutral mind. I once wrote about it:

Metaphysical Speculations: Schizophrenic idealism

Cheers, Bernardo.

Bernardo, excellent replies, I will reply to all this later today.

[fls]

Originally Posted by Bernardo

My take here is as such:

-- As far as I know, these non-local realist theories make no empirical predictions that differ from those of classical QM;
-- There is no empirical evidence for the supposedly objective and physical hidden variables.

As such, I see these 'theories' rather as mathematical philosophy than theories. In my view, they are mathematical philosophy driven by a subjective preference for realism. QM alone makes all observable predictions without any add-on, and it is entirely coherent under Idealism (more on this below). From an empirical point of view, I would claim non-local hidden variables variations are entirely unnecessary and merely complexifying. They only satisfy a subjective need, not an objective empirical gap. (I use the terms 'objective' and 'subjective' metaphorically, since I am an Idealist )

I agree with this.

This opens one possibility for how the illusion of objectivity arose, under Idealism: a common 'data stream' (for lack of a better metaphor) from the collective unconscious.

The question of how a consistent, persistent, seemingly autonomous, and shared reality emerges is the key challenge under Idealism. Under Realism, the key challenge is how subjective experience emerges from matter. So both face questions that have no obvious or intuitive answers.

I agree with this as well. My intuitive answer has been that a collective unconsciousness wouldn't come up with gauge symmetry.

Linda

[EthanT]

Originally Posted by Bernardo

Yes, I like pure QM. But then again, I think pure QM is entirely intuitive under Idealism!

Bernardo,

How do you feel about Time Symmetric Quantum Mechanics? Also, do you see TSQM jiving up with Idealism? It seems like it could, but I have a hard time wrapping my mind around that one.

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

Originally Posted by Maaneli

Yes, I explained my reasons about the Groblacher experiment in post #182. Which other forum are you talking about? Physics forum?

No, the JREF forum. But the fellow has since said that he is not familiar with contextuality.

Originally Posted by fls

That would be odd. Groblacher specifically states that Bohm would be excluded from this class - the class depends upon particles having a specific angular momentum when they leave the emitter and in Bohm's theory they don't. Bohm is contextual, not non-contextual.

Right.

~~ Paul

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

Originally Posted by Bernardo

(a) Minds are in material bodies;
(b) Material bodies are separate;
(c) from (a) and (b) minds are separate.

But (a) assumes realism is true, which is the point in dispute; so this cannot be used as an argument against idealism.

Can you give some sort of informal logical demonstration that (a) requires realism? I realize that it seems true at first glance, but I think you may be making a glib assumption.

-- I feel Idealism is also more parsimonious, in that it only postulates the existence of the patently obvious: Our experience of reality (i.e. state B in the post you're replying to). It does not require the existence of a forever inaccessible universe outside of experience (state A), nor the modeling that goes into describing that forever inaccessible universe. Idealism, with QM, explains and postulates only what we actually see;

But it does require an external universe, or else there is nothing to maintain the consistency of the trees in my yard. You can't mean that it requires nothing but experience.

I don't see why you would think that some other metaphysic could possibly be significantly simpler and still model the world as we know it. We have to model the world as it behaves. This requires a certain amount of complexity in the model.

~~ Paul

[EthanT]

Originally Posted by 4vektor

but that's what i am saying. you can't account for this (information from the future available to the past, etc) w/o violating them. so yes, you would need new or revised theories.

how so? looked like you want to stay on both sides of the fence with 'effective' or 'apparent' superluminal info transfer, etc. either you have it or you don't. if you have it, then you need a different theory bc existing is violated.

I think we're mostly in agreement here 4vektor.

When I used 'effective' above I meant it in the same way folks sometimes use it in discussing wormholes. A wormhole is a 'shortcut' through space, so maybe (one day in the far, far, far future) you can use one to 'effectively' travel faster than light, without ever actually traveling faster than light ;-)

I think it may be somewhat similar with psi. It may be an exotic phenomenon, which due to our currently very limited understanding of the 'mechanism' behind it, gives the appearance of a need for superluminal information transfer. However, in the end, maybe it won't need that at all.

I also have a hard time imagining current theories being extended to include superluminal information transfers, while not violating them as they stand now.

[EthanT]

Originally Posted by Maaneli

I mean, just as a logical possibility, there could be a field theory model where two spatially separated fields interact with each other through an instantaneous action at a distance mechanism, without a 1/r^2 dependence.

I think this sounds okay and qualitatively may be just what psi is. But, what is this instantaneous action at a distance mechanism (EDIT: which allows for information transfer)? Isn't that more fantasy at this point than anything?

Originally Posted by Maaneli

Or, where the two fields exchange a force particle that propagates between the two fields at faster than c.

Sounds like you're talking about virtual particles here, which is another area the mainstream doesn't seem to have a whole lot of agreement on, whether they are 'real', or not.

Most folks seem to feel they are a mathematical artifcat that arise from using an approximation scheme such as perturbation analysis, and are taken too literally. Indeed, if you take the Feynman diagrams completely literally, every interaction involves an infinite number of virtual particles.

I personally like Prof Matt Strasler's take on VPs, which also seems to be the view physicsforums.com has adopted as their 'official' view on it.

Virtual Particles: What are they? | Of Particular Significance

Virtual particles can already have a host of whacky properties if you take them too literally, as pointed about by Arnold Neumeier, one of the most vociferous opponets of virtual particles (being actual particles) on physicsforums.com

http://www.mat.univie.ac.at/~neum/ph...topics/virtual

While this gives the Feynman diagrams an intuitive interpretation, it is impossible to give this intuition a deeper foundation in terms of processes happening in space and time. The attempt to do so leads to a phantastic view of the microscopic world. In this phantastic world view, all sorts of unobservable, nonphysical behavior (e.g., imaginary mass, violation of the conservation of energy, violation of causality, traveling faster than light or backwards in time, popping in and out of the vacuum via ''vacuum fluctuations'', etc.) must be postulated in order to reconcile the mathematical properties of virtual particles with their alleged existence in space and time.

So, I guess based on this and other ideas, I have a hard time imagining how a field theory, as we currently understand them, can involve a causal influence that propagates through space faster than c.

But, maybe I misinterpreted you here, or am missing something.

Originally Posted by Maaneli

It should be noted that nothing about the psi evidence actually rules out conventional faster than light signals, so I'm at a loss to see why you feel that this possibility has to be immediately dismissed.

It's not that I see psi evidence ruling out faster than light signals. It's more that I see our current models of physics ruling out faster than light signals, which is part of the reason I think psi has to be something more subtle than a conventional signal.

I personally feel many of the observations of psi are genuine and need to fit into future theories, but I guess I have a hard time imagining specifically how that's going to happen.

[Maaneli]

Originally Posted by Paul C. Anagnostopoulos

No, the JREF forum. But the fellow has since said that he is not familiar with contextuality.

Ah, so he was ass-talking. Way too many of those at JREF!

[Bernardo]

Originally Posted by EthanT

Bernardo,

How do you feel about Time Symmetric Quantum Mechanics? Also, do you see TSQM jiving up with Idealism? It seems like it could, but I have a hard time wrapping my mind around that one.

Hey Ethan,
As you probably noticed, I have been avoiding discussions about time in this thread. I recently read Julian Barbour's "The End of Time" and it started a typical "Bernardo thing": my mind starts off on a wild, unstable, and unreliable ride. Experience tells me I should avoid making pronouncements during the "wild ride" :-), waiting until things firm up again.
So I will tell you my earlier impression of TSQM: There are some analogies and symmetries with Whitehead's thought (mental causal influences from the future) but, overall, it doesn't resonate much with me. Perhaps this is unjustified and I am missing out on important things regarding TSQM (would love to hear from you why you think TSQM is a good formulation). Maybe I should look at it again.
Barbour's book, although I ultimately disagree with his particular formulation of a timeless physical theory, reinforced in a more palpable way my intuition that time may actually not exist at all; that the entire configuration space (guys, sorry for the jargon, but this would take too long otherwise), which he calls "Platonia," exists statically as a histogram (the histogram part captures an analogous of QM's probability distributions). I'm still wrestling with that in my mind. I feel there is something to that, though I can't articulate it yet to myself in a coherent way...
Cheers, Bernardo.

[gabriel]

Originally Posted by Maaneli

Also, I think it's a gross simplification to say that if a theory is true then it can be explained without recourse to jargon.

By jargon I mean "language that is characterized by uncommon or pretentious vocabulary and convoluted syntax and is often vague in meaning" or anything that gets in the way of people of normal intelligence understanding the concept.

I'm educated to masters degree level but find most of these discussions are about physicists competing with mathematicians to find the most arcane explanation for phenomena many ordinary people experience.