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

[Maaneli]

Originally Posted by gabriel

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.

And I would add that I did in fact try to explain jargon like "noncontextuality" in simpler terms and with analogies. If that wasn't good enough, you could have just asked me to elaborate.

[Maaneli]

Originally Posted by EthanT

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?

Obviously I don't know exactly what the instantaneous action at a distance mechanism could be. I'm just saying it's logically possible. An example of such a mechanism in a field theory is classical Newtonian gravity (gravitational fields propagate at infinite speed). Yes, it is speculation at the moment, but that's what we're doing - we're speculating on what new physics might be needed to explain psi. And my claim is just that this new physics could in principle be some field theory with instantaneous action at a distance without 1/r^2 dependence.

Originally Posted by EthanT

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.

I'm not talking about virtual particles here. Just an exchange of a force carrier (i.e. a boson). Like a photon or graviton or Z boson, but rather for mediating the psi mechanism. It would be a real particle just like the photon, etc.

Originally Posted by EthanT

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



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.

Yes, such particles would have counter-intuitive properties. But since they can't be manipulated to create causal paradoxes, there's nothing logically inconsistent about them being ontological (i.e. physically real). Also, without regarding virtual particles as ontological, you can't have a causal realist explanation for QM and QFT phenomena. Unless you posit that virtual particles are just some fictitious mathematical abstraction that somehow encodes the causal effects of underlying real physical particles. But then you'd need a deeper theory than QFT.

Also, about energy conservation being violated, it may interest you to know that it is violated globally in general relativity. So there is a precedent for it in classical physics. And no one as far as I know regards this global energy conservation violation as an argument for not regarding spacetime as physically real.

Originally Posted by EthanT

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.

OK, but it sure did seem like you were suggesting the reverse before. BTW, physics doesn't actually rule out FTL signals. Special relativity allows for tachyons, as you may know.

Originally Posted by EthanT

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.

Yes, me too. But that's what makes it exciting.

[gabriel]

Originally Posted by Maaneli

OK, so you meant it in a negative sense. There's nothing vague though about the language we've used. As for people of "normal intelligence" understanding the concepts, I don't think this is about intelligence, but rather knowledge. You can be brilliant and still not understand the concepts if you aren't familiar with the basics of QM. If you're lost about something in particular that we're talking about, you're always welcome to ask us about specifics. But, speaking for myself, I am not responsible for your background knowledge about QM or physics in general, and I don't think it would be productive to always talk about physics with someone like 4vektor and EthanT as if they are completely new to QM, just so I can try on the side to teach the basics of QM (which may or may not succeed) to posters who are novices at QM.

In what field? I don't think that's a fair judgment.

Most people on this board strike me as specialists in some field or other who could come at mind-brain interaction from a range of disciplines. If you believe quantum mechanics provides a special insight into how that interaction takes place, and explains some of the apparent anomalies, then a non-specialist public forum demands an approach which takes the majority of readers with him/her, or it becomes a peer oriented discourse.

There's nothing wrong with jargon per se, so long as the terms aren't used as keys to some absolute truth only the key holder and similar initiates enjoy. If professional knowledge is used for fundamentals it's incumbent on the user to take the reader with him. I do believe any theory worth its salt can be explained in simple steps even if the corollary of that progression appears complex.

[EthanT]

Originally Posted by Maaneli

And my claim is just that this new physics could in principle be some field theory with instantaneous action at a distance without 1/r^2 dependence.

I basically agree here on a qualitative level and think it's entirely possible.

Also, you mentioned nonlinearities when combing GR and QM. I like that idea too. Penrose talks about this, as well, so perhaps we're with good company there! (Although he doesn't talk about psi, just explaining consciousness in general, as far as I know)

Originally Posted by Maaneli

I'm not talking about virtual particles here. Just an exchange of a force carrier (i.e. a boson). Like a photon or graviton or Z boson, but rather for mediating the psi mechanism. It would be a real particle just like the photon, etc.

I might be misunderstanding you here. In QFT, the particles that mediate the force are virtual particles (i.e. a virtual boson of some type), in that they cannot be detected while carrying the force.

Are you thinking of a theory where this is changed to real particles mediating the force? Seems like that wouldn't work ...

I guess we're kinda drifting away from the topic of the thread here, though.

Originally Posted by Maaneli

Also, about energy conservation being violated, it may interest you to know that it is violated globally in general relativity. So there is a precedent for it in classical physics. And no one as far as I know regards this global energy conservation violation as an argument for not regarding spacetime as physically real.

Yeah, I love that, lol. Isn't that still a bit controversial, though?

For one, GR is an incomplete theory, so perhaps it's just 'wrong' here.

Here's my take on the rest of arguments I've read on this: It's not so much that the total energy of space-time is violated in GR, but rather that it is undefined in GR (i.e. there is no time-like Killing vector) for an expanding spacetime (i.e one with a dynamic scale factor). You can define a total energy for a stationary space-time (ala the Komar Integral), but unfortunately our Universe is not stationary. However, IIRC, the argument is that despite this, the total energy may not be violated IF you can include the energy of the gravitational field itself. Don't quote me on that, though, because it's been awhile since I looked into this. Sean Carrol had some blogs going on this a little ways back. Maybe you're more familar with all that?

Regardless, I still don't understand how that can all be reconciled with the fact that spacetime is expanding and the vacuum energy is constant for any region of space. Seems like a violation of CoE right there.

Now, we're really drifting from the thread topic, lol.

Originally Posted by Maaneli

OK, but it sure did seem like you were suggesting the reverse before. BTW, physics doesn't actually rule out FTL signals. Special relativity allows for tachyons, as you may know.

Sorry, didn't mean to suggest that - probably didn't express what I was trying to say clearly enough.

I did not know about the Tachyons part - cool! How does that work out?

Originally Posted by Maaneli

Yes, me too. But that's what makes it exciting.

Agreed ;-)

[EthanT]

Originally Posted by EthanT

Sean Carrol had some blogs going on this a little ways back.

Yeah, a quick Google search brought one of these up.

Energy Is Not Conserved | Cosmic Variance | Discover Magazine

Not quite as enlightening as I remembered. One of those times when you feel like they answer the question by not answering it in a very wordy way

In particular, a lot of folks would want to say “energy is conserved in general relativity, it’s just that you have to include the energy of the gravitational field along with the energy of matter and radiation and so on.” Which seems pretty sensible at face value.

There’s nothing incorrect about that way of thinking about it; it’s a choice that one can make or not, as long as you’re clear on what your definitions are. I personally think it’s better to forget about the so-called “energy of the gravitational field” and just admit that energy is not conserved, for two reasons .....

[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.

OK, thanks for the clarification.

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.

Not quite true and true. The dynamical collapse theories do make testable predictions that differ for QM. Specifically for the predicted average values of observables (e.g. position, momentum, energy, etc.). I can give references if you're interested.

Also, as I've mentioned before on this thread, nonlocal hidden variable theories like de Broglie-Bohm and stochastic mechanics do contain within them the logical possibility of probability distributions over the hidden variables that deviate from |psi|^2.

There are also a couple of theorems showing that, in the context of these hidden variable theories, |psi|^2 can be considered a state of maximum entropy (i.e. an equilibrium state) for the hidden variables, and that for the overwhelming majority of well-behaved initial non-equilibrium probability distributions over hidden-variables, they will dynamically evolve towards the numerical value of |psi|^2, just like a box of gas molecules initially bunched up into a corner of the box are overwhelmingly likely to evolve to the equilibrium state of maximum entropy (where the gas molecules are uniformly distributed throughout the box).

Also, it has been shown by Valentini that if there are non-equilibrium distributions of hidden variables in de Broglie-Bohm (and the same conclusions apply to stochastic mechanics), then one can make measurements more precisely than allowed by the uncertainty principle (thereby making measurements to directly observe the hidden variables) and one can also do superluminal signaling. And there are serious theoretical arguments for why our universe might not have immediately started out in a |psi|^2 state, but rather a nonequilibrium state. If that's the case, then there can be observable differences in the predictions of de Broglie-Bohm as compared to standard QM, as Valentini has also shown.

Also, I myself have recently done some work on incorporating gravity into stochastic mechanics in a semiclassical way (i.e. keep matter quantized but keeping the gravitational field a classical field). I am convinced that it will make different predictions from standard semiclassical gravity theory (which is the combo of standard QM for matter with classical GR). The work is unpublished at the moment.

In sum, the empirical predictions of standard QM turn out to be a special case of the dynamics of these hidden variables. Another way of putting it is this - standard QM is to these nonlocal hidden variable theories as classical thermodynamics is to classical statistical mechanics. That is, the former is an operationalist theory that makes the right predictions in all known experiments, while the latter provides the underlying ontological basis and justification for many of the postulates of the operationalist theory (e.g. |psi|^2 is just postulated to be the probability density for measurement outcomes).

Originally Posted by Bernardo

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).

So I hope I've persuaded you that they're not just mathematical philosophy.

Originally Posted by Bernardo

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 )

Empirically thus far, yes, they are unnecessary, but that's not the primary reason for having nonlocal hidden variables IMO. The primary reason is because standard QM (i.e. the Copenhagen interpretation) is too vague and doesn't have anything in its mathematical structure that could provide a comprehensible physical ontology for the world we experience, either in the description of measurement processes or in periods between measurement events. These are not subjective needs, but logical needs. A fundamental physical theory of the world needs an ontology (I think this is true of Idealism too, BTW), and one that can explain the apparent ontology of matter in 3-space that we experience. As I said, standard QM doesn't seem to have that.

Originally Posted by Bernardo

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.

First, in what sense do you think idealism is non-realist? Because I don't think it's accurate to call it non-realist. It is certainly realist, but just asserts that the real world is fundamentally composed of different stuff - mental stuff rather than ordinary physical stuff. (It also seems from your exchanges with Paul that you concede this point.) So saying that (a) assumes realism is true seems to me a non-sequitur.

Second, the assumption that minds are in material bodies is actually due to something much more basic - just the fact that it appears that way given the vast majority of our conscious experiences. We make some specific changes to the brain, consciousness changes correspondingly in some specific way. When we communicate with other conscious entities, we see the conscious entities localized in a physical body. When a physical body dies, we (after all the NDE stuff happens) no longer observe that other conscious entity (I'm leaving out mediums here because the interpretation of what's going on there is controversial, even among parapsychologists). In other words, (a) is the most natural hypothesis given all our experiences with conscious entities.

Originally Posted by Bernardo

You see, under idealism, bodies are in minds, not the other way around.

Yes, I get that on some rough metaphorical level.

Originally Posted by Bernardo

There is empirical evidence from depth psychology that the unconscious layers of mind are, in fact, not separate at all.

Not sure I understand. Can you clarify what you mean by "unconscious layers of mind" and give references for this from "depth psychology"? I'm not familiar with this area.

Originally Posted by Bernardo

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.

I'm not sure I see how this common data stream solves that problem. What is this data stream composed of, what created this data stream (or is it eternal?), where does the data stream live, and why does it contain info about things like the big bang and biological evolution and solar system formation and things like that, as opposed to other logically possible pre-human events (e.g. Hoyle's static universe cosmology)?

And what exactly are the minds of individuals in this view? How do they form from the data stream? How does the data stream pass along the relevant info from the "collective unconscious" to all human minds to make sure our beliefs about the pre-human past are consistent? Furthermore, where does this collective unconscious reside? Where did it come from? Does it reside somewhere different from the data stream? And what is it composed of exactly? How does the data stream come from the collective unconscious and into the minds of individual humans? Do you have a mathematical model of any of this, or is it all metaphor at this point?

Originally Posted by Bernardo

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.

I still don't see how this approach gets around the aforementioned problems.

Originally Posted by Bernardo

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.

Yes, that seems reasonable.

Originally Posted by Bernardo

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.

Thanks, will take a look soon.

Originally Posted by Bernardo

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.

Yes, I would.

Originally Posted by Bernardo

-- 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).

So I strongly disagree that nonlocal HV models are as much philosophy as Idealism. They are precisely mathematically formulated (which is a good thing, btw) whereas Idealism does not seem to be. Also, they all make empirically testable predictions that have been confirmed by experiments thus far, and they make new predictions under certain conditions that are also empirically testable. By contrast, Idealism (at least as you've described it) seems to me too imprecise to even say that it makes any testable empirical predictions.

Originally Posted by Bernardo

Classical QM, as it is, is entirely coherent and sufficient under Idealism.

How is classical QM entirely coherent under idealism? How does Idealism solve the measurement problem in QM? How do you get from the dynamics of QM the patterns of mind that give rise, in the classical limit, to the appearance of stuff moving around in 3-D space (e.g. people, tables, chairs, etc.)? Does the configuration space in QM get interpreted as implying that this data stream or collective unconscious or our individual minds all fundamentally reside in configuration space? Or is configuration space something fictitious?

Originally Posted by Bernardo

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;

Sure, I get that.

Originally Posted by Bernardo

-- 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.

I would be inclined to agree if, Idealism as you describe it, could precisely and consistently model our separate experiences of reality. But it seems to me far off from being able to do that. But maybe you have some ideas along these lines.

Originally Posted by Bernardo

Idealism, with QM, explains and postulates only what we actually see;

This claimed natural connection between Idealism and QM is still not clear to me.

Originally Posted by Bernardo

Metaphysical Speculations: Schizophrenic idealism

Cheers, Bernardo.

Thanks.

[Maaneli]

Originally Posted by EthanT

I basically agree here on a qualitative level and think it's entirely possible.

Also, you mentioned nonlinearities when combing GR and QM. I like that idea too. Penrose talks about this, as well, so perhaps we're with good company there! (Although he doesn't talk about psi, just explaining consciousness in general, as far as I know)

Yes, I learned about it from Penrose's work originally. Yes, he doesn't talk about psi. I wonder what he thinks of it though.

Originally Posted by EthanT

I might be misunderstanding you here. In QFT, the particles that mediate the force are virtual particles (i.e. a virtual boson of some type), in that they cannot be detected while carrying the force.

Are you thinking of a theory where this is changed to real particles mediating the force? Seems like that wouldn't work ...

You're right about that in QFT. I wasn't clear that I was thinking about a classical force carrier (i.e. like the force propagating through the classical electromagnetic field). Yes, in a QFT version of this psi mechanism, it would presumably have to be a virtual boson.

Originally Posted by EthanT

I did not know about the Tachyons part - cool! How does that work out?

The particle mass becomes imaginary, and the tachyon never travels slower than c. So it always remains in the space-like regions of a spacetime diagram.

[EthanT]

Originally Posted by Maaneli

Yes, I learned about it from Penrose's work originally. Yes, he doesn't talk about psi. I wonder what he thinks of it though.

Yes, I always wondered too. I think he plays it cool on that stuff for professional reasons, personally. I don't know how you can hang out with Hameroff and not entertain it at least a lil bit ;-)

Originally Posted by Maaneli

The particle mass becomes imaginary, and the tachyon never travels slower than c. So it always remains in the space-like regions of a spacetime diagram.

Ahhh, tricky! Thanks Maaneli, I'll have too look into that some more - interesting.

[Maaneli]

Originally Posted by EthanT

Yes, I always wondered too. I think he plays it cool on that stuff for professional reasons, personally. I don't know how you can hang out with Hameroff and not entertain it at least a lil bit ;-)




Ahhh, tricky! Thanks Maaneli, I'll have too look into that some more - interesting.

I agree, I'm sure he's open-minded to it.

[Michael Larkin]

Bernardo,

I've just discovered this thread and have been wading through it. Now I have to go off and read your paper. Maybe I should have done it the other way round, but there you go...

One thing for now: if I recall correctly, you've said that under Idealism, QM becomes intuitive. I'd be very interested if you could explain that in more detail. Also, just how literally do you mean it? I mean, if we had all been brought up under Idealism rather than Realism, would we all think naturally in terms of QM? Have there been periods in history where Idealism was ascendent where people came up with the basic principles behind QM?