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That's worrying. AFAIK any useful definition of consciousness involves a nervous system or some other means of receiving stimuli, so demands the presence of a material object, whose existence and functions are entirely moderated by quantum mechanics.
IMHO it is not a good idea to try to guess what Don means. That way madness lies.
Quote from: DonQuichotte on 17/11/2014 17:43:05Quote from: alancalverd on 16/11/2014 23:09:37Thank you for this scintilla of intellectual honesty. Admitting ignorance is the first step towards being a scientist, or at least the first step away from being thought a fool. Tell that to materialist scientists mainly , Alan , like yourself, ironically enough, who have been taking their materialistic pseudo-scientific inexplicable magical voodoo for granted as science or as the scientific world view ,without question, since the second half of the 19th century at least,and counting ... . Neither you nor the rest of the other materialist scientists would admit that dogmatic ignorance of theirs,despite all that overwhelming evidence against materialism . and now you've gone and spoilt it with a silly rant. Maybe I'll communicate again when you have grown up.
Quote from: alancalverd on 16/11/2014 23:09:37Thank you for this scintilla of intellectual honesty. Admitting ignorance is the first step towards being a scientist, or at least the first step away from being thought a fool. Tell that to materialist scientists mainly , Alan , like yourself, ironically enough, who have been taking their materialistic pseudo-scientific inexplicable magical voodoo for granted as science or as the scientific world view ,without question, since the second half of the 19th century at least,and counting ... . Neither you nor the rest of the other materialist scientists would admit that dogmatic ignorance of theirs,despite all that overwhelming evidence against materialism .
Thank you for this scintilla of intellectual honesty. Admitting ignorance is the first step towards being a scientist, or at least the first step away from being thought a fool.
author=dlorde link=topic=52526.msg444800#msg444800 date=1416328091]Quote from: DonQuichotte on 17/11/2014 19:48:11The interpretation of quantum theory has not been solved yet , if ever , so, all its interpretations are relatively "equally " valid ,since none of them has been proven conclusively .But , the most simple interpretation of quantum theory of them all has been the one that involves the role of the observer in it : Occam's razor : that 's the most valid one .If you can bring yourself to read it, this article may help you understand why the 'Many Worlds' interpretation becoming increasingly popular, and why it has the fewest assumptions (Ockham's Razor). I don't expect you to agree with it, but perhaps it will correct some of your misapprehensions about it: Why 'Many Worlds' Is Probably Correct'.
The interpretation of quantum theory has not been solved yet , if ever , so, all its interpretations are relatively "equally " valid ,since none of them has been proven conclusively .But , the most simple interpretation of quantum theory of them all has been the one that involves the role of the observer in it : Occam's razor : that 's the most valid one .
Incidentally, in his new book 'Life on the Edge', in a chapter about quantum consciousness theories, Jim Al-Khalili says (p.270), "There is actually no evidence that quantum mechanics is needed at all to account for consciousness".
Quote from: alancalverd on 17/11/2014 23:24:01Quote from: DonQuichotte on 17/11/2014 17:43:05Tell that to materialist scientists mainly , Alan , like yourself, ironically enough, who have been taking their materialistic pseudo-scientific inexplicable magical voodoo for granted as science or as the scientific world view ,without question, since the second half of the 19th century at least,and counting ... . Neither you nor the rest of the other materialist scientists would admit that dogmatic ignorance of theirs,despite all that overwhelming evidence against materialism . and now you've gone and spoilt it with a silly rant. Maybe I'll communicate again when you have grown up.That was no rant , just a fact : Instead of pretending to be able to lecture people about their foolish or unscientific rant , you'd be try to to detect all that materialistic pseudo-scientific inexplicable magical voodoo at the very heart of materialist science , Alan .Good luck with that .
Quote from: DonQuichotte on 17/11/2014 17:43:05Tell that to materialist scientists mainly , Alan , like yourself, ironically enough, who have been taking their materialistic pseudo-scientific inexplicable magical voodoo for granted as science or as the scientific world view ,without question, since the second half of the 19th century at least,and counting ... . Neither you nor the rest of the other materialist scientists would admit that dogmatic ignorance of theirs,despite all that overwhelming evidence against materialism . and now you've gone and spoilt it with a silly rant. Maybe I'll communicate again when you have grown up.
Tell that to materialist scientists mainly , Alan , like yourself, ironically enough, who have been taking their materialistic pseudo-scientific inexplicable magical voodoo for granted as science or as the scientific world view ,without question, since the second half of the 19th century at least,and counting ... . Neither you nor the rest of the other materialist scientists would admit that dogmatic ignorance of theirs,despite all that overwhelming evidence against materialism .
alancalverd even denied the very existence of the wave/particle duality itself, ironically enough .
... Just tell me, dlorde : since the observer cannot but make an intrinsic and inescapable part of the universe or reality he/she is observing , how can he/she be assumed to be separated from that observed reality ?
Quote from: DonQuichotte on 19/11/2014 18:13:38... Just tell me, dlorde : since the observer cannot but make an intrinsic and inescapable part of the universe or reality he/she is observing , how can he/she be assumed to be separated from that observed reality ?Ah. Clearly you either didn't read the article or you didn't understand it. If there's something in particular you didn't follow, just ask, and I'll try to help you understand it. The whole point of 'Many Worlds' is that the observer becomes part of the system being observed. When a system in quantum superposition is measured by interaction with some apparatus (or observer), the interacting apparatus becomes part of the superposition (the superposed wavefunction encompasses both system & apparatus), and when the apparatus interacts further with the environment, the environment becomes part of the superposition too. By this point, the initial superposition is said to have decohered because it has spread irretrievably into the environment. Each 'aspect' of the superposition sees one outcome of the measurement. This is just an extended evolution of the overall wavefunction of the whole ensemble - no magical 'collapse' involved. What part of this do you find difficult to follow?If it will help you see the reality of superposition, here's the first undergraduate MIT lecture in quantum mechanics, called 'Introduction to Superposition', which explains very simply and clearly the empirical evidence for superposition, which is all the 'Many Worlds' interpretation relies on. By all means object to the interpretation, but for your objection to be worth anything, it must be based on what the interpretation actually says, not a misunderstanding of what it says. So what are your particular grounds for objecting to it ? (bearing in mind that the superposition at the core of QM has been empirically confirmed many times).
I have explained why the notions of duality and paradox exist only in the mind, and indeed only in the minds of the arrogant. There's a lot of Zen in good science.There is no "why" in the cosmos as a whole. Why is a construct of mortal beings who require or desire motive and order in their lives. The scientific question is "how" - at least as far as physics is concerned - and although we don't have a full understanding of how quantum effects occur, we have a good handle on what to expect when they do. Anyway, enough from my side of the fence. Let's hear the sales pitch for your product. What does your nonmaterialist science predict more accurately or more efficiently than the methods you decry? If there are paradoxes, which ones does it unravel? I'm quite prepared to believe it is a superior approach if you can show rather than tell.
How can you deny the wave /particle duality a such ? ,while it has been demonstrated to occur even at the level of some large molecules ...Many experiments have shown that , not to mention the famous double slit experiment ...Many physicists even say that the whole universe is quantum "mechanical " ,so , the wave/particle duality might exist even at the level of our relatively large-scale human world : it just can't be detected as such ..yet , that is . )
I will just refer you to what the authors of "Quantum Enigma ..." said about that many worlds' interpretation <snipped long copypasta>
There’s an unresolved problem with the Many Worlds interpretation:What constitutes an observation? When does the world split? The splittinginto two worlds is presumably just a way of speaking. Are infinitely manyworlds continuously created?