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Post by dividavi on Dec 31, 2022 19:57:35 GMT
I'm not sure if this Religion, Faith, and Spiritually forum is the proper venue for this post but this is my best guess.
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Post by dividavi on Dec 31, 2022 20:22:44 GMT
Here's a related article from Live Science which asks this: What is conciousness? It's on-topic for a religion discussion group, kind of, you know. |
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Post by faustus5 on Dec 31, 2022 20:51:02 GMT
I'm not sure if this Religion, Faith, and Spiritually forum is the proper venue for this post but this is my best guess. There is no special connection between consciousness and quantum physics. That there is such a connection is a myth that generally gets spread by folks of a New Age bent who don't really understand either consciousness or quantum physics. |
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Post by clusium on Dec 31, 2022 20:52:59 GMT
From an essay I got on Quora.com"
"This is going to be a very detailed answer, so feel free to skip to the parts you find most relevant! Ready? Here we go!
Atheism vs. some sort of supernatural power.
For me, this is the trickiest step to argue, because it involves a lot of very abstract philosophical arguments which don’t have many real-world parallels. However I think that it’s possible to construct a strong rational case for the supernatural for a couple reasons.
The existence of consciousness. Thanks to science, we know that the human brain works by taking in electrical signals, running them through circuits, and outputting more electrical signals. This means that the brain is nothing more than a machine, albeit a very complex one. However no machine can ever be conscious of its decisions, or experience what we call the “theater of the mind”. This means that humans must have an immaterial part of our existence, which we call the soul.
The design of the universe. When we play a computer game, we observe how the world in the game operates according to consistent rules, according to the dictates of a programming language. In the same way, our universe has consistent rules, which are in the language of Mathematics. Humans never “invented” math, math is written in the very fabric of the universe. And just like a programming language could never exist without an intelligent programmer, how could the laws of the universe come about without an intelligent entity?
The fine-tuning argument. Building on to my last point, not only are the laws of the universe beautifully written in math, but they are very specifically-tuned to allow for life. Stanford University physicist and cosmologist, Leonard Susskind, says, “ If the value of this ratio [electrons to protons] deviated more than 1 in 10^37, the universe, as we know it, would not exist today. If the ratio between the electromagnetic force and gravity was altered more than 1 in 10^40, the universe would have suffered a similar fate. Furthermore he states that “If the expansion rate of the universe deviated by more than 1 in 10^37, or the mass density of universe varied more than 1 in 10^59, there wouldn’t be a single habitable galaxy or planet in the universe.[1] For a great article about this, see Science Increasingly Makes the Case for God.
Also, the chance of life on Earth developing by accident is also infinitesimally small. Even the most “simple” multicellular organisms are immensely complex, with over 100,000 DNA base pairs and very complex interlocking mechanisms. Even the random creation of a few working proteins is statistically impossible. To watch scientist Stephen Meyer do some mathematical calculations, look at this video:
In my opinion, believing that all of these things happened by chance takes a lot more faith than believing in God." ~ Gabriel Dionisi.
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Post by faustus5 on Dec 31, 2022 21:23:47 GMT
However no machine can ever be conscious of its decisions, or experience what we call the “theater of the mind”. This means that humans must have an immaterial part of our existence, which we call the soul. This, of course, is a wild assertion that goes completely against the mainstream consensus of scientists and philosophers who study this issue, who long ago rejected the very idea of a soul.
(And actually, some who have studied consciousness seriously would even deny that humans have something that is usefully called a "theater of mind", as this metaphor is misleading once you start digging into the data.)
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Post by shadrack on Dec 31, 2022 21:29:53 GMT
No. This theory arises from the notion that quantum mechanics requires an "observer" to collapse the wave function, but an "observer" used in this context is not what you and I mean when we use the word in ordinary conversation.
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Post by general313 on Dec 31, 2022 22:00:56 GMT
I'm not sure if this Religion, Faith, and Spiritually forum is the proper venue for this post but this is my best guess. There is no special connection between consciousness and quantum physics. That there is such a connection is a myth that generally gets spread by folks of a New Age bent who don't really understand either consciousness or quantum physics. I agree with your view on the subject, but there is at least one important exception to what I bolded above, from Oxford physicist Roger Penrose. Roger Penrose On Why Consciousness Does Not Compute
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roger_Penrose#ConsciousnessThe wikipedia article mentions experts in artificial intelligence that disagree with Penrose's view, most notably Marvin Minsky. Penrose is justifiably famous for playing a crucial role in developing black hole physics, and has made many extremely important contributions to physics and mathematics, but I think he has really gone off the deep end with Orch-OR. |
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Post by faustus5 on Dec 31, 2022 22:24:56 GMT
Penrose is justifiably famous for playing a crucial role in developing black hole physics, and has made many extremely important contributions to physics and mathematics, but I think he has really gone off the deep end with Orch-OR. Yep, he certainly has. He obviously wouldn't fall into the "doesn't understand quantum physics" camp, but he does fall into the "doesn't understand consciousness" one.
His entire argument depends on a completely bogus application of Godel's theorem to AI. Godel's argument only applies very specific kinds of computational systems, and there is no reason to think a conscious AI would have to mimic any of that kind of system's properties, at least not those which run into the roadblock Godel uncovered.
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Post by paulslaugh on Jan 1, 2023 3:05:31 GMT
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Post by paulslaugh on Jan 1, 2023 3:12:16 GMT
I'm not sure if this Religion, Faith, and Spiritually forum is the proper venue for this post but this is my best guess. There is no special connection between consciousness and quantum physics. That there is such a connection is a myth that generally gets spread by folks of a New Age bent who don't really understand either consciousness or quantum physics. Consciousness is the result of physical properties, therefore does consciousness itself have physical characteristics that can be localized and identified? If so, are the characteristics rooted in quantum particles? |
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Post by paulslaugh on Jan 1, 2023 3:13:32 GMT
No. This theory arises from the notion that quantum mechanics requires an "observer" to collapse the wave function, but an "observer" used in this context is not what you and I mean when we use the word in ordinary conversation.
Does the observer require an observer? |
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Post by shadrack on Jan 1, 2023 3:25:04 GMT
No. This theory arises from the notion that quantum mechanics requires an "observer" to collapse the wave function, but an "observer" used in this context is not what you and I mean when we use the word in ordinary conversation.
Does the observer require an observer? That's stretching the limit of my understanding, but I THINK the answer is no because the observer is not in superposition at that time. |
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Post by paulslaugh on Jan 1, 2023 3:31:02 GMT
Does the observer require an observer? That's stretching the limit of my understanding, but I THINK the answer is no because the observer is not in superposition at that time. If the universe is strictly determined, is consciousness an illusion? |
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Post by shadrack on Jan 1, 2023 3:56:24 GMT
That's stretching the limit of my understanding, but I THINK the answer is no because the observer is not in superposition at that time. If the universe is strictly determined, is consciousness an illusion? I don't think the universe is deterministic, and I don't have any particular opinion as to whether consciousness is an illusion or not. |
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Post by paulslaugh on Jan 1, 2023 4:23:55 GMT
If the universe is strictly determined, is consciousness an illusion? I don't think the universe is deterministic, and I don't have any particular opinion as to whether consciousness is an illusion or not. What is your on conscience? |
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Post by shadrack on Jan 1, 2023 4:28:20 GMT
I don't think the universe is deterministic, and I don't have any particular opinion as to whether consciousness is an illusion or not. What is your on conscience? Huh? |
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Post by faustus5 on Jan 1, 2023 12:23:17 GMT
There is no special connection between consciousness and quantum physics. That there is such a connection is a myth that generally gets spread by folks of a New Age bent who don't really understand either consciousness or quantum physics. Consciousness is the result of physical properties, therefore does consciousness itself have physical characteristics that can be localized and identified? If so, are the characteristics rooted in quantum particles? Well, everything is "rooted in quantum particle" depending on how generous you want to be with that phrase. My point is that no one has discovered any kind of quantum process that is essential for consciousness in any unique way that stands out and is worth making note of. |
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Post by faustus5 on Jan 1, 2023 12:26:38 GMT
That's stretching the limit of my understanding, but I THINK the answer is no because the observer is not in superposition at that time. If the universe is strictly determined, is consciousness an illusion? I don't think determinism has any bearing on the question of whether some aspects of consciousness are an illusion or not. The types of things scholars point to when discussing aspects of consciousness that are illusory are still robustly present in both deterministic and non-deterministic approaches to the universe. |
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Post by general313 on Jan 1, 2023 23:25:22 GMT
That's stretching the limit of my understanding, but I THINK the answer is no because the observer is not in superposition at that time. If the universe is strictly determined, is consciousness an illusion? Illusion requires consciousness, or as Descartes put it "I think therefore I am". |
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Post by paulslaugh on Jan 1, 2023 23:42:01 GMT
If the universe is strictly determined, is consciousness an illusion? Illusion requires consciousness, or as Descartes put it "I think therefore I am". I’m interested in how a collective consciousness like religion can dominate individual consciousness, as if the super consciousness has a “mind of its own” that will “fight” for its own self preservation. |
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