Materialism - Devastator of Scientific Method! / Observer Delusion

[tsig]

How can there being an observer under materialism, Dave?

As I said to Hans... imagine a machine intelligence has a gun to your head and is demanding you prove that there is someone who can see it. It's programmed to only accept an answer that meets materialist criteria. What would you say to it?

Time to talk and time to act, I'd do a ninja move take the gun and blast the evil metal.

(If I existed that is)

 

[tsig]

And you have yet to explain why there's no subject if materialism is true.

It allows him to beat on skeptics for not being consistent.

I must say that this non existent entity is remarkably persistent in proving his non existence,

 

[tsig]

Dave,

Can I just check something... does it occur to you for an instant to query why you're insisting that the brain is an observer? It's functioning perfectly well as a processor, isn't it. What purpose would this observer serve?

And how does it now become an observer? What extra bit needs to be added to make a processor into an observer?

The parity bit.

 

[Nick227]

I must say that this non existent entity is remarkably persistent in proving his non existence,

Who's saying anything about a non-existent entity?

 

[Nick227]

Time to talk and time to act, I'd do a ninja move take the gun and blast the evil metal.

Yes, for you that would definitely be a good option.

Though perhaps you could try the same approach that you've been using in this thread. The MI might be laughing so hard you could sneak away!

 

[Mojo]

As I said to Hans... imagine a machine intelligence has a gun to your head and is demanding you prove that there is someone who can see it. It's programmed to only accept an answer that meets materialist criteria. What would you say to it?

"You are a figment of Nick227's imagination, and since he doesn't exist, you don't exist."

 

[The Man]

The Observer is the brain's internalised reflection of God.

In assigning inside and outside so it created a watcher on the outside and a watcher on the inside.

Scientists have largely dealt with the watcher on the outside. But they must still bow and scrape daily to the idea of a watcher on the inside, for fear their travails might lose all meaning...

Ah, now we get down to it, a rather theistic definition of "Observer".

 

[The Man]

Feedback loops do not create an observer, Dan. Monitoring does not create an observer.

Again, observing creates an observer regardless of how else you want to classify that observer or that observation. Feedback loops and monitoring are forms of observation. Adhering to a criteria is a form of observation. Commenting on something noticed is a form of observation.

What is in front of you right now is neural representation, right? That's what's there, correct? No one is observing it. It is simply there. That is processing. That is what it is. There is no need for any observer, which is just as well, as a monist universe would be at a loss to create one.

What is in front of me right now is a computer screen and a keyboard (among other things) which I perceive through neural representations of sensory input. Allowing me to both observe (take note of) what is on the screen and through neurological motor output post observations (comments) about the content while remaining in compliance with (observing) the membership agreement of this forum. None of this is at odds with materialism, the scientific method or in any way theistically indicative.

The human brain has been so conditioned to believe in it's own personal God. Absolute zero evidence but it just goes on trying to wiggle it in.

A Sinclair ZX (c. 1981) could work it out in a second. But for the human brain the illusion has been so deeply internalised it will seemingly do anything rather than give it up. It will twist itself round in knots trying to justify the existence of an observer, constructing the most bizarre and ridiculous explanations to try and persuade itself that an observer can exist under materialism. Logic and reason go out the window first.

Funny, you're the only one here I see twisting and turning to try to shove god into observation evidently just as a rather poor defense of homeopathy. Again physically and from a material standpoint observation is just an interaction that results in a change of physical properties.

 

[Ron_Tomkins]

There's no subject. That's the point.

I don't know what deinition of "subject" you have in mind... But worry not, as that is, again, irrelevant. Let me repeat this once again: The only thing necessary for doing science is that experiments can be performed to test hypothesis, so that the results can be repeated. It doesn't matter if whichever entity performs this operation, qualifies as a "subject" or not. It doesn't matter whether it has real cosciousness or not.

 

[tsig]

Yes, for you that would definitely be a good option.

Though perhaps you could try the same approach that you've been using in this thread. The MI might be laughing so hard you could sneak away!

Are you laughing? If so who is the you that is laughing?

 

[JoeMorgue]

There is nothing more tedious then argument via definition.

"There's no such thing as 'somebody!'" is obviously a pointless semantic quibble.

Everyone knows perfectly well what people mean when they talk about identify. Defining it differently to disprove it is silly word games.

 

[LarryS]

So what is the claim of the OP?

1. There is no self or observer.
or
2. Materialism being the current paradigm can not explain a self or observer, or Materialism and the self/observer are straight up incompatible, so the self/observer must be an illusion.
or
3. Ultimately this is a trick, there is a self / observer, and since Materialism can't explain it, Materialism is a false diagnosis.
or
4. something else?

 

[JoeMorgue]

Again the argument seems to be that "science" is so rigid and stodgy that it shatters when faced with an abstract concept.

There's a common argumentative stonewall among science deniers that science has to rigidely define everything, and that if said thing can be broken down into smaller constitant pieces science can't deal with it.

We actually had an argument here not all that long ago along those lines, which made a lot of the same arguments just coming from a different direction. This person claimed that science couldn't describe, say, a tree because a tree is made of smaller things (molecules) which are in turn made of smaller things (atoms) and so forth and his argument, which was never actually made clear, was that science couldn't deal in anything if it could be broken down into something smaller.

 

[Myriad]

Observations can't testify in court. Only observers (aka witnesses) can. (See, e.g. the Sixth Amendment.) If you can prove there's no observer, then eyewitness evidence will no longer have any incriminating value.

This proof should therefore be worth millions to high-profile defense attorneys.

Get to it, Nick. Once you're a multimillionaire and law courts everywhere are dismissing cases left and right for lack of admissible evidence, your assertions will be a lot more convincing.

 

[ehcks]

"You don't exist."
"Says who?"
"Says me."
"You don't exist."

Are we past that yet?

 

[marplots]

As I said to Hans... imagine a machine intelligence has a gun to your head and is demanding you prove that there is someone who can see it. It's programmed to only accept an answer that meets materialist criteria. What would you say to it?

"Please don't shoot me."



ETA: Side issue - Who is selling guns to machine intelligences?

 

[Myriad]

"Please don't shoot me."

Yep, that should about do it.

The thing is, Nick, that even if I were to doubt my self as an observer (perhaps out of fear of being tricked by some deceptive memeplex), I notice (or if you prefer, noticing consistently occurs) that everyone else behaves as an observer of me. People see me and say things like, "Is that a new haircut?" or "How did you injure that arm?" or "Please don't play that trombone during this flight." Even my dog observes when I pick up her leash and starts jumping at the door.

(The machine intelligence must of course reach the same logical conclusion, upon detecting people saying or implying by their behavior "I see you have a gun.")

So, being forced to conclude that everyone else I meet is, at least at times, an observer, why should I entertain the hypothesis that I myself am the only exception? By far the more parsimonious hypothesis is that I am similar to everyone else in such regards.

(The machine intelligence may or may not reach the same conclusion. If it has never encountered any other machine intelligences, the hypothesis that the nature of its cognition is unique and therefore might be fundamentally different from everyone else it sees would be vastly more plausible, so it may or may not doubt that it is an observer.)

 

[IanS]

The Observer is the brain's internalised reflection of God.

In assigning inside and outside so it created a watcher on the outside and a watcher on the inside.

Scientists have largely dealt with the watcher on the outside. But they must still bow and scrape daily to the idea of a watcher on the inside, for fear their travails might lose all meaning...

So the answer is "God"? Your claims are some sort of religious mysticism?

You say scientists "must still bow and scrape daily to the idea of a watcher on the inside", that is a "fact" is it (you expressed no caution in saying it)? OK, so you can you now present the evidence showing that scientists have indeed agreed that they are now "bowing and scraping" to a "watcher on the inside"? Where is the evidence that any scientists have said any such thing?

Remember it was you who said scientists must do that. So if it's a certainty (ie "must" be true, according to you), then they "must" be doing it. So please show where any scientists agree that they are indeed "bowing and scraping" to any such thing? Or is it just a worthless semantic word-game from you?

 

[Dancing David]

Somehow I can't say I am shocked that now 'observer', 'subject',etc..., have become God

 

[Darwin123]

Sensory organs are part of the observer. The brain does the observing.

I am reading about 'quantum Darwinism' (QD). I do not claim to be an expert on QD. However, let me present what I conjecture is the 'observer' in QD. As far as I understand it:

The observer is any complex system with discrete 'indicator states'. A 'complex system' is a quantum system with a very large number of degrees of freedom. In other words, it is a 'wave function' with lots of independent variables. An indicator state is a sum of eigenvalues that correspond to what humans have evolved to call 'measurements'. If the indicator states were really isolated from the rest of the observer, then they could remain in mixed states. However, these mixed states are unstable in the complex wave function. Eventually, the wave function of the complex system evolves into a pure state.

The sensory organs are one type of observer. The wave functions for a typical sensory organ contain many degrees of freedom.

The mammalian retina is one example. The typical retina can have millions atoms whose eigenvalues each of which will transition in the course of time over a large range of eigenvalues. There are molecules attached to the retina that we designate by the chemical name 'rhodopsin'. The 'indicator states' are geometric configurations of the rhodopsin molecule. They are affected by the presence of an electromagnetic wave which is also a quantum system.

Light can cause the rhodopsin molecule to be in a mixed state of geometric states. However, the rest of the retina makes the mixed state unstable. So the system 'collapses' into a pure indicator state.

Whew! Well, I am just starting with QD. Never the less, the brain is not in and of itself causing the collapse. The 'collapse' occurs in a short time within the retina. The collapse, also called decoherence, is basically a thermal process. It is random in the sense of unpredictable only because the observer is too complex to be known in its entirety.

The following analogy is conjectured by me. The observer is basically a wave with so much complexity that no one can characterize it completely. The quantum system is random in the sense that turbulence is random. While turbulence involves complex systems made of classical particles, quantum Darwinism involves complex wave forms consistent with quantum mechanics. In the way

The brain, as I see it, is sufficient but not necessary for decoherence. The brain is very complex in the sense of having a large number of degrees of freedom. It also has a large number of indicator states which refer to the most stable combinations of wave functions. So it can itself be an observer in the sense of causing decoherence. However, one can have decoherence without a brain.

Experiments have been done demonstrating decoherence of a quantum system triggered (electrons, molecules) merely by thermal radiation. The thermal radiation is obviously not a 'brain' in any sense. Yet, it does what physicists would call a 'measurement'. The 'measurement' IS the onset of decoherence.

I would state it this way. Observation, as described by physicists, is the onset of decoherence. The decoherence is caused by a very complex quantum system, the measurement apparatus, interacting with a simpler quantum system. The complex system does not have a brain or even consciousness, whatever that is. The 'observer' just has to be very complex.

Even thermal radiation can be an 'observer', in this sense. Thermal radiation is very complex, in that it has a large number of independent components.