patrick.net

Bap -

Yes, you can say that atheists are all for reason and it is opposing fundamentalism (which is based on ignorance).

Now if you want to live your life ignorantly, that's fine by me. I'm not going to force you to change or hurt you. I am going to state reasonable explanations for why you should not be ignorant, but I won't force you. You can take the horse to the water etc.

But think about the same thing from the fundamentalist point of view? Do you see the difference then?

Marcus -

If I can condense the gist of your argument: is there anything we don't comprehend today? Yes, lots of things. (I think we agree here).

But does that mean that we will never comprehend it tomorrow? Answer is highly likely to be No. (this is where we disagree). Human ingenuity has no bounds.

There's another part where we also disagree. Because we don't comprehend everything yet today, you need the word God. I don't.

uomo_senza_nome says

If I can condense the gist of your argument: is there anything we don't comprehend today? Yes, lots of things. (I think we agree here).

You so have no clue what I am saying. Hey, a man has to know his limitations.

I did change the subject away from God somewhat. If there is a god, in my view she isn't a being or a sky daddy and I have know idea what she might be if she exists. Perhaps all consciousness as deepcgi said. Beyond our comprehension in any case.

I don't have much time, but let me try, even if wasting time, because you only wish to insult me with bs ("Because we don't comprehend everything yet today, you need the word God").

I'm not arguing for gods existence. I'm taking issue with your reasoning that:

"It is an extremely likely conclusion based on cumulative scientific knowledge"

Scientific knowledge only deals with the knowable physical and space time reality as we know it or will know it.

LOGIC: How can science regarding this physical and knowable world, tell you about that which by definition, if it exists is beyond our knowable world, and or that which might only be glimpsed in small hints from our knowable world ?

If I believe in God, it is not because I rely on God to answer anything that can be answered by science.

My point: I believe that there may be truths, realities, or whatever you want to call them that are beyond science.

(not to worry - I believe that it's also fairly unlikely that you are both willing and able to get what I'm saying. Stick with your version if it makes you happy). I don't want to "collapse your wave function."

(please people - it's just a metaphor - I know that this doesn't apply to our gross level)

marcus says

even if wasting time, because you only wish to insult me with bs

That was not BS, that was a serious comment. Hilarious that you would take a simple comment like that as an insult.

marcus says

If I believe in God

marcus says

I believe that there may be truths, realities

marcus says

I believe that it's also fairly unlikely that you

I think we have established who is steeped in beliefs and who is not.

I get it. Take issue with semantics of believe versus conclude. You won't hear me, and that's all you've got. Still, I say you win. Well done.

Seriously, kudos to you !

Congratulations.

marcus says

You won't hear me, and that's all you've got.

If you imagine that I've closed my ears, then you are going to assume that I won't hear you.

I have clearly asked for evidence to the grand claim that consciousness preceeds chemistry. Looks like our quantum expert has become very quiet, LOL.

marcus says

Take issue with semantics of believe versus conclude

Not quite. You believe that there may be truths or realities beyond science's comprehension. So you actually believe in something without any evidence whatsoever.

Sorry, i've been away. There are hundreds of scholarly papers on the connections of consciousness with quantum physics. It is simply because it is one absolutely logical conclusion we must come to when we see wave function collapse in areas NOT being measured, only because the measuring choice made to be placed in the area where the particle "wasn't" is definitely related to the area where the particle was - even if that choice is made AFTER the particle has already passed through the key obstacle. The result of the experiment changes AFTER the event depending on what choice is made regarding measurement of areas which include those through which the photon may NEVER have passed. There is no limit to how late the decision can be delayed - as the summaries of the experiments indicate, it's possible that a photon emitted specifically for the purpose of such an experiment at the moment of the Big Bang could have it's wave function collapsed (or not) at any point in the past based on decisions which could be made this afternoon. In short, if we choose Method A we get result A with two possible configurations. If we choose Method B, we get result B with two completely different configurations, and those results will ALWAYS have been true all the way back 13 billion years ago.

It's difficult to point to one place to reference them, so the simplest place to begin might be:

Quantum Enigma: Physics Encounters Consciousness [Bruce Rosenblum, Fred Kuttner]

Now, here are some other scientific papers and scholarly articles addressing the topic, but remember...This is without a doubt THE most devisive and controversial topic in the history of science. It is as controversial as it is because Quantum Theory is the most battle tested Theory in history. The computers we use would not function if the effects were not predictable. The bizarre quantum behavior has never been proven to fail in experimentation. But coming to a conclusion that consciousness may change quantum reality, is just NOT palettable to many scientists. Certainly, the older ones. The younger generation is a different story. They seem to be able to think a bit out-of-the-box.

One new field which has arisen recently is a direct result of scientific attention finally being paid to the connection of consciousness and quantum behavior is Digital Physics. Most of its proponents are atheist or agnostic, so you might find it a fascinating (if not absurdly scifi-like) approach.

Just to be helpful, after years of study, I have one way of looking at Quantum mechanics that, if you keep it in mind while reading all of the heavy science, may be very useful. Here it is:

It is very possible that the building blocks of matter, the quantum elements of which we speak (which may be made to have mass only because of the Boson Field, by the way - to bring new research into the argument) DO NOT IN FACT EXIST AT ALL UNTIL REQUIRED TO EXIST. We tend to think of these particles as having regions of probability where they exist, like they are buzzing around, spinning and vibrating, but the uncertainty principle is making impossible for us to know their states without interfering with them. The more we research quantum mechanics however, the more it appears that these particles are actually NOWHERE AT ALL. They have mathematically probable regions and states where we can count on them existing at some point, but not until our observation requires it. I know that sounds crazy, but what it essentially means is that, when I say "observation", i am referring to all of the universe to which we all belong. Like we are all entangled together, and so the universe we all share has one past because your decisions effect all of us. How much time has passed is irrelevant because the past is as fluid as the future. It doesn't matter when our supposed common consciousness arose - only that the universe around us exists because it is required to exist.

There ARE in fact, PROOFS, that particles do not exist at all until required to. Science dubs the phenomenon Quantum Tunnelling, because it can't fathom the idea that the particles are actually nothing at all (only mathematical probabilities) until required to exist.

Lastly, the fact that, when broken down into it's basic fundamentals, everything we are made of is "granular" (quanta) - one way of considering our state of existence is to call it "Digital". Hence "Digital Physics". It may all sound like a mess, but if you keep the above interpretation in mind, it may save you a migraine or two.

Cheers everyone.

Quantum computation in brain microtubules? The Penrose–Hameroff ‘Orch OR‘ model of consciousness:
http://rsta.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/356/1743/1869.short

Albert, D. 1992. Quantum Mechanics and Experience. Harvard University Press.

Albert, D, and B. Loewer. 1988. Interpreting the many-worlds interpretation. Synthese 77, 195-213.

Barrett, J. 1994. The suggestive properties of quantum mechanics without the collapse postulate. Erkenntnis 42, 89-105.

Block, N. 1995. On a confusion about a function of consciousness. Behavioral and Brain Sciences 18, 227-87.

Byrne, A., and N. Hall. 1988. Chalmers, Papineau, and Saunders on probability and many minds interpretations of quantum mechanics. MS.

Chalmers, D. J. 1996. The Conscious Mind. Oxford University Press.

Dennett, D. C. 1991. Conciousness Explained. Little, Brown.

Deutsch, D. 1996. Comment on Lockwood. British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 47, 222-8.

Dretske, F. 1995. Naturalizing the Mind. MIT Press.

Everett, H. 1957. `Relative-state' formulation of quantum mechanics. Reprinted in J. Wheeler and W. H. Zurek, eds., Quantum Theory and Measurement, Princeton University Press, 1983.

Hall, N. 1996. Composition in the Quantum World. Ph.D. diss., Princeton University.

Harman, G. 1988. Wide functionalism. In S. Schiffer and S. Steele, eds., Cognition and Representation, Westview Press.

Lewis, D. K. 1980. A subjectivist's guide to objective chance. Reprinted in his Philosophical Papers, vol. 2., Oxford University Press, 1986.

Lewis, D. K. 1983. New work for a theory of universals. Australasian Journal of Philosophy 61, 343-77.

Lewis, D. K. 1986. On the Plurality of Worlds. Basil Blackwell.

Lockwood, M. 1989. Mind, Brain and the Quantum. Basil Blackwell.

Lockwood, M. 1996. `Many minds' interpretations of quantum mechanics. British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 47, 159-87.

Loewer, B. 1996. Comment on Lockwood. British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 47, 229-32.

Lycan, W. G. 1996. Consciousness and Experience. MIT Press.

Russell, B. 1950. An Inquiry into Meaning and Truth. Allen & Unwin.

Searle, J. 1990. Is the brain a digital computer? Proceedings and Addresses of the American Philosophical Association 64, 21-37.

Shoemaker, S. 1982. The inverted spectrum. Journal of Philosophy 79, 357-81.

Tye, M. 1995. Ten Problems of Consciousness. MIT Press.

Zachary says

Famous Scientists Who Believed in God...

And your point is?

I believe what you are referring to was discussed at length in this thread:
http://patrick.net/?p=1189351

Scholarly != Scientific

This is the appeal to authority fallacy.

In any case you've Book Bombed us with various titles, most of which do not deal with Quantum Physics and Consciousness together, but appear to deal with each subject separately. I find it hard to believe in all the popular shows and books about Physics, I've yet to come across an argument about Consciousness preceding Physics.

Certainly, as somebody impressed by the idea that Consciousness precedes Physics, you can give us a synopsis with perhaps a few examples or at least analogies.

My understanding of Physics is below basic, but isn't some of this explained by the Uncertainty Principle?

thunderlips11 says

I've yet to come across an argument about Consciousness preceding Physics.

I agree. And all these references cited by deepcgi are not specific to the assertion being made, which is consciousness precedes chemistry.

deepcgi, why don't you name just 1 specific scientific paper (published in a reputed conference/journal) where it is argued that consciousness precedes chemistry?

Claiming there's a connection between consciousness and quantum physics is one thing. Claiming consciousness precedes physics is a totally different beast altogether.

I knew you wouldn't pay attention, which is why I made the list I did. The very first item in the list is also the only one which contained a hyperlink to a carefully chosen and highly controversial scientific paper. Roger Penrose (Oxford).

A full half of the books in the list are written by scientists who disagree with the consciousness preceeds chemistry argument. Also in the list were authors and researchers from MIT, Cal Tech and others you may have mentioned earlier. That is how I know you are being intellectually dishonest and weren't truly paying attention.

Roger Penrose is a very brave man for taking the approach he has, but also one of great notoriety, whom you should not easily discount. You may recall Roger Penrose's other scientific papers in the recent past regarding the concentric ring distortions that have been detected in the Microwave Background Radiation field. It made world-wide news because it represented the first potential evidence of physical activity preceeding the big bang. It may in fact be the first evidence of the existence of universes other than our own.

I'm being very nice and open-minded for you. I don't recommend starting a battle with me over Quantum Mechanics. Feel free to read up on the alternative explanations for the Delayed Choice Quantum Eraser experiment. The alternative cause-and-effect explanations are as mind-blowingly ridiculous as anything involving consciousness. Most of them involve the semantics of discussing time as relative to a point of view which can be entangled with alternative points of view. There is no easy way out of this Quantum Mess. I didn't start it. Don't blame me.

One thing which I guarantee is soon to occur is macroscopic evidence of quantum effects. For the past 70 years it was easy to ignore quantum effects and how they differ from the Newtonian Physics we experience everyday, because the effects only took place with single photons or groups of photons.

Today, however, we are entangling molecules and clusters of millions of ATOMS with one another. The structures entangled have now become large enough that experiments will soon make the entanglement behavior visible to the naked eye. It will be impossible for us to believe that our universe is not the result of quantum weirdness. Ten years ago, arguments I had like this one always ended in my opponent saying that the quantum effects would never be visible on a macro scale. If it hasn't happened already, it soon will. Some have already claimed it.

As a simple to-get-us-started primer, the following is agreed upon by everyone on both sides of the argument. (though BOTH is a bad word to use...who knows how many sides there are?)....

Zeno's Paradox has always been lots of fun. If I walk halfway to the wall and then walk halfway to the wall again and again and again...although i'm always making forward progress, I never reach the wall.

Well, Quantum Mechanics has messed up everyone's philosophical fun. According to Quantum Mechanics...Yes, you DO reach the wall. When you reach the Planck length you are there. You cannot take another halfway step to the wall, because nothing exists between those two positions. In terms of cause and effect, we assume when something moves from point A to point B, that it moves continuously and fluidly between them. Now we know that space at these dimensions is quantized. There is a minimum length and a minimum time (Planck Time). An object in motion actually jumps from one position to the next, it does not move smoothly between them. There is no paradox because there is no such thing as infinity at that scale (possibly not at the macro scale either). The building blocks of our existence are granular. Some say "digital". Not necessarily because there is someOne out there running a simulation like the Matrix, but perhaps just because "granular" and quantized is the most EFFICIENT form of existence.

The Penrose paper discusses the physical limitations of the human brain in relation to these facts, and whether it is indeed possible at all for the physical firing of neurons and related electrical activity to be fast enough and complex enough to result in what we define as consciousness. Penrose is at odds with the Singularity crowd (like Ray Kurzweil and other computer science types) who believe that not only are all of the calculations necessary for our minds to exist possible within the single physical structure of the human brain, but that it is inevitable that we will reproduce it digitally (in the form of Artificial Intelligence) and that at the moment the "Singularity" occurs where there is no difference between the consciousness that results from our AI calculations and those within our own brains.

If you think the Singularity crowd sound as nutty and religious as the Consciousness crowd, you're not the only one. Ironically, both sides are stuffed full of atheists. Penrose included. It is the Quantum weirdness forcing them to these conclusions, not their fear of death. These are logical conclusions.

Is Measurement=Consciousness ?

uomo_senza_nome says

You believe that there may be truths or realities beyond science's comprehension. So you actually believe in something without any evidence whatsoever.

Actually it isn't anything in particular I believe. I just find it highly unlikely that there is nothing beyond our reach.

Some truths or realities could be beyond our reach in any one of a number of ways. For example physically beyond our reach as in other universes, or other so called "planes of existence." I know this sounds all "cosmic," or whatever, but that's only because I don't really have language to describe possibilities of realities or intelligence that are totally beyond my comprehension.

Humans long ago thought that the countries they lived in were the center of the world. Later they got to where they thought Earth was the center of the universe. Even now, some think as if there can't be anything beyond what we now know ?

You realize and assert that we can learn much more than we know now.

I'm taking it only one step further and saying that even when you take what we can know to it's limit, it seems likely that this is not knowing anything close to everything. Many great thinkers in science and philosophy have shared views similar to this, taking this more or less to be an obvious axiom.

It's basically acknowledging that humans are limited, and our potential is limited. Some even think of us as severely limited.

This is not an assertion of gods existence, or me falling on the word 'god' for things we don't understand, nor is it me hoping for life after this life. As I said:

marcus says

By the way about afterlife: I find it to be extremely unlikely that my ego, personality, memories, or anything that I think of as "I," will persist after I die. Logic helps me conclude this, but it's a belief. (but this semantics - believe versus conclude is not interesting to me).

Maybe the problem is again semantics.

Maybe to you, knowing "everything" would mean knowing everything that we can possibly know. I'm simply saying, why would that be everything there is ?

leoj707 says

In the full quote Dostoevsky's response to the idea actually sounds a little like a response you would write Dan...

Ah, another quote taken out of context. Yet more reason not to appeal to authority.

leoj707 says

Zachary says

Famous Scientists Who Believed in God...

And your point is?

It's another attempt to appeal to authority, which is a fallacy. Furthermore, most of the scientists quoted came from centuries where you'd be burned alive at the stake for coming out as an atheist. Funny how there were never any gay scientists until the 20th century as well. Come to think of it, no one was gay before the 20th century, if you go by what people claim to be when the Inquisition comes a-knocking.

Woo.

the drawing fails to show the next step of liberal thought, where the presenter of the baseball is made to prove the ball is a baseball, and then is attacked for pointing out the differences between types of balls.

And the Conservative Christian view might make sense like this: ... we see the baseball diamond, the bleachers, the baselines, the bases, the pitcher's mound, the pitcher's toe plate, the home plate, a team out in the field, a team in the dugout, a batter in the batter's box, a bat in the batter's hands, an umpire behind home plate, a crowd, an announcer, and everyone is looking at the pitcher's glove ... where we are pretty sure there is a baseball in there, and not a football or basketball, but we can't see it .... we just have faith that there is a baseball. Everything points to a baseball. Bob Uecker would be proud.

Bap33 says

the Conservative Christian view

LOL, that isn't "the conservative Christian view" (as if there were only one anyway), and in general their views are better summarized here:

"It’s almost as if these people are unaware that the Enlightenment, the scientific revolution, various civil rights movements, and the entirety of social progress over the previous several centuries even occurred..."

In America or at least the GOP, "conservative Christian" has become a euphemism for divide and misrule. Everything in the universe doesn't really point to a baseball, nor a giant celestial teapot, although some Christians (unlike other religions) have sought "scientific proof" of Christianity. (I do take Marcus' point that the Templeton prize isn't expressly about Christianity, but only time will tell how they react to scientific disproofs of core elements, i.e. will they acknowledge that these lead to better understanding or will they react like the Vatican to Galileo.) If you can look upon your fellow human beings with love, then you can be said to understand the best of Christianity, but if you allow yourself to be caught up in a crusade to take away other people's marriages or their lives, then you've lost and your loss is the preachers' and politicians' gain.

We see crabgrass, infants dying of typhoid, that we're on a small arm of an average galaxy not centrally located at all, that religious people don't seem to live longer/better/happier lives than the non-religious, that all religious claims are non verifiable. Every prediction of religion: That we were the center of the universe/solar system, that prayer works better than medicine, etc. have been shown to be untrue. The measure of a theory's worth is it's predictive power.

Therefore, everything points to no deities.

But, like astrology, religion keeps trying to make a correct prediction, to find that hiding place for Yahweh. Now, apparently, it's in the behavior of subatomic particles. So the Triune Man-God Carpenter-Mountain Deity spend their time fiddling with the paths of particles, basically.

curious2 says

but if you allow yourself to be caught up in a crusade to take away other people's marriages or their lives, then you've lost and your loss is the preachers' and politicians' gain.

Care to elaborate?

freak80 says

Care to elaborate?

What part did you not get, the reference to the Crusades or Prop H8? I'll guess that you're familiar with the history of the Crusades, and thus answer with some links regarding Prop H8:

Poor saps donate life savings in favor of Prop 8

"We’re going to lose this campaign if we don’t get more money"

There Is a Dark Side to Mormonism

The campaign to pass [H8] is being organized primarily through churches and other houses of worship.

In every example, the syllogism is the same:
(1) We the preachers represent an omnipotent god who somehow needs your help;
(2) give us money and do what we say and you will be rewarded, or ignore us at your peril.
No refunds of course.

Conventional Logic: Non-metaphysics in your estimation.
Theistic: Metaphysics.

Philosophy= something that expresses itself through a life lived but the which has its principle in the mind for starters.
Are you than based off of your proposition above leading us to believe that because we cannot show "a philosophy" or an idea that it does not exist? That would be beyond fallicious. Philosophy and faith both can claim this. Theism like philosophy professes itself in a creedal way...it's propositions express itself "Incarnationally" through humans or through CREATION. I personally see evolution as a grand proof of God's existance and not of His non-existance. "Energy" is neither created nor destroyed according to thermodynamics...or as the Church Fathers would say "We are sparks off of the divine essence."