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To be honest, I see nothing less reasonable in the above than Stapp's proposal. But I suspect it would not appeal to someone looking for a bridge to a mystical realm or hoping to incorporate their religious views into science.
Quote from: alancalverd on 02/01/2014 19:13:47I might be convinced to read Stapp on the subject if someone can provide a one-line quote: what is Stapp's definition of consciousness? Don't hold your breath alan, Doc. Don is quite incapable of meaningful and efficient one liners................................
I might be convinced to read Stapp on the subject if someone can provide a one-line quote: what is Stapp's definition of consciousness?
1 more thing , just concerning the collapse of the wave function : are the observing or measuring device + the observer human not made of atoms ,sub-atoms .....themselves ? So, how can't they not have effects on the observed ? In the case of the human observer scientist , how can his mind or consciousness not have causal effects on the observed as well ?
1 more thing , just concerning the collapse of the wave function : are the observing or measuring device + the observer human not made of atoms ,sub-atoms .....themselves ? So, how can't they not have effects on the observed ? In the case of the human observer scientist , how can his mind or consciousness not have causal effects on the observed as well ?In short :
Quote from: cheryl j on 02/01/2014 21:33:14To be honest, I see nothing less reasonable in the above than Stapp's proposal. But I suspect it would not appeal to someone looking for a bridge to a mystical realm or hoping to incorporate their religious views into science. The integrated information hypothesis is a good start - consciousness clearly involves the integration of information, and but it's debatable precisely what information must be integrated, and how. Unless you're careful, it can end up being a circular argument - the information required by consciousness must be integrated in a way that results in consciousness... but the information theory approach using connectedness & synergy looks promising and does at least give some crude quantifiability.
Quote from: dlorde on 03/01/2014 00:16:25The integrated information hypothesis is a good start - consciousness clearly involves the integration of information, and but it's debatable precisely what information must be integrated, and how. Unless you're careful, it can end up being a circular argument - the information required by consciousness must be integrated in a way that results in consciousness... but the information theory approach using connectedness & synergy looks promising and does at least give some crude quantifiability.There's probably a lot of problems with the theory. But I don't see how it is any more vague or abstract than a physicist saying (as in Don's James Jeans quote) that information, and not physical matter or energy, is the true basis of everything in the universe, and hence explains consciousness.
The integrated information hypothesis is a good start - consciousness clearly involves the integration of information, and but it's debatable precisely what information must be integrated, and how. Unless you're careful, it can end up being a circular argument - the information required by consciousness must be integrated in a way that results in consciousness... but the information theory approach using connectedness & synergy looks promising and does at least give some crude quantifiability.
There's probably a lot of problems with the theory. But I don't see how it is any more vague or abstract than a physicist saying (as in Don's James Jeans quote) that information, and not physical matter or energy, is the true basis of everything in the universe, and hence explains consciousness.
Why can I not use the Zeno effect to change the outcome of anything in the macro world that might be have some non-deterministic, quantum element? There would certainly be a huge evolutionary pay off if I could.
Thus a true Zeno effect requires the system to "know" that you are waiting for it to do something, without you having "told" it in any way. Therefore either the entire universe is predestined down to the last photon, or there is no Zeno effect.
Quote from: DonQuichotte on 02/01/2014 19:51:211 more thing , just concerning the collapse of the wave function : are the observing or measuring device + the observer human not made of atoms ,sub-atoms .....themselves ? So, how can't they not have effects on the observed ? In the case of the human observer scientist , how can his mind or consciousness not have causal effects on the observed as well ?How so? are you unaware how vision works? Did you forget what a measuring device or observer actually is in QM?
However, the boundary betweenour empirically described selves and the physically described systemwe are studying is somewhat arbitrary. The empirically described measuringdevices can become very tiny, and physically described systemscan become very large, This ambiguity was examined by von Neumann(1932) who showed that we can consistently describe the entire physicalworld, including the brains of the experimenters, as the physically describedworld, with the actions instigated by an experimenter’s streamof consciousness acting directly upon that experimenter’s brain.