Is it possible to perceive a world which is external to our perceptions?

[UndercoverElephant]

Yep, but thats a complex subject. The best way to do it is to stand in a place where language becomes useless. There is such a place, but I guess it is not relevant for the discussion at hand.

I dont think anyone can do it. Do you? I bet you dont. It is interesting to try, but obviously you want to advance to somewhere else, am I right?

That's what post #388 is about.

 

[chriswl]

If the neuroscience says nothing about metaphysics then it cannot invalidate my argument.

But the results of neuroscience must map onto our subjective experience in some way. Assuming the self-reports of experimental subjects regarding their conscious experiences can be trusted, than we can easilly correlate the two. We can't put up a firewall between the brain and the mind.

 

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

Paul, please stop using the word "begging" where it does not belong.

It's real because it stipulates a direct connection between the perception and the object, a connection which the BIV lacks.

It's begging, even if it's not begging the question.

This QM thing is proposing that there is a direct QM interaction between the chair and neurons? Are you sure?

Because in the case of the BIV there is no real chair for the quantum connections to connect to.

This is just getting silly.

Correct, but my argument leads to a claim that whatever the BIV would be experiencing it would not be the same as a veridical experience. I am denying that the same brain state is achievable in hallucinations because there are two causal factors of the brain state: one empirical, one quantum. No quantum links --> no identical brain state --> BIV-argument collapses.

Yikes.

~~ Paul

 

[UndercoverElephant]

It's begging, even if it's not begging the question.

It's not "begging" at all, Paul. There is nothing fundamentally wrong with proposing the solution I proposed.

This QM thing is proposing that there is a direct QM interaction between the chair and neurons? Are you sure?

Yes. Why is this surprising? It's no different to Schroedinger's cat. That thought experiment ends up with a cat being dead and alive at the same time, until it is obverved. That sounds to me like a pretty direct connection between the cat and the brain of the observer. They are Bohms "hidden variables".

 

[UndercoverElephant]

But the results of neuroscience must map onto our subjective experience in some way.

Yes.

Assuming the self-reports of experimental subjects regarding their conscious experiences can be trusted, than we can easilly correlate the two. We can't put up a firewall between the brain and the mind.

Nobody is doing that. You are only seeing a firewall because you're thinking of everything within physicalism. QM should have stopped people from doing this years ago.

 

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

Yes. Why is this surprising? It's no different to Schroedinger's cat. That thought experiment ends up with a cat being dead and alive at the same time, until it is obverved. That sounds to me like a pretty direct connection between the cat and the brain of the observer. They are Bohms "hidden variables".

You've just walked over the edge of the Cliff of Quantum Mechanics.

So let's pretend that the chair is in some superimposed state, then I look at it and collapse the wave function. What does that have to do with eliciting consciousness in my brain? Schrodinger's thought experiment says nothing about that.

Also, what happens if someone else is already looking at the chair when I look at it? Do I not see it then?

This is so hoksterious that I'm looking forward to discussing it.

~~ Paul

 

[UndercoverElephant]

You've just walked over the edge of the Cliff of Quantum Mechanics.

So let's pretend that the chair is in some superimposed state, then I look at it and collapse the wave function. What does that have to do with eliciting consciousness in my brain? Schrodinger's thought experiment says nothing about that.

No, shroedinger's thought experiment leads to an absurd conclusion. It was supposed to be a reductio ad absurdum, not an explanation of what actually happens. But it does serve to draw attention to the fact that the interpretation of QM inevitably leads to the same issues we are discussing here. The interpetation of QM my position draws from is Bohm's, not Schroedinger. Schroedinger was an idealist, Bohm was a neutral monist.

 

[chriswl]

Bohm was a neutral monist.

That figures. I tried to read "Wholeness and the Implicate Order" many years ago. It didn't make any sense to me at all.

 

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

No, shroedinger's thought experiment leads to an absurd conclusion. It was supposed to be a reductio ad absurdum, not an explanation of what actually happens. But it does serve to draw attention to the fact that the interpretation of QM inevitably leads to the same issues we are discussing here. The interpetation of QM my position draws from is Bohm's, not Schroedinger. Schroedinger was an idealist, Bohm was a neutral monist.

So how does Bohm explain consciousness in terms of QM?

~~ Paul

 

[UndercoverElephant]

So how does Bohm explain consciousness in terms of QM?

~~ Paul

http://noosphere.cc/bohm.html

 

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

Well, I read the section titled "Consciousness" and it didn't tell me crap all. The word neuron does not appear in the article. Neither does microtubule.

The operation of intelligence, for Bohm, has to be beyond any factors that can be included in any knowable law. The "ground of intelligence must be in the undetermined and unknown flux, that is also the ground of all definable forms of matter."

I guess I'm never going to get an explanation.

Pffffft.

~~ Paul

 

[UndercoverElephant]

That figures. I tried to read "Wholeness and the Implicate Order" many years ago. It didn't make any sense to me at all.

Had it made sense to you, so would I.

 

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

I'm going out on a limb here to say that it makes sense if you can set the same mood as Bohm, but not otherwise.

~~ Paul

Edited to add: Time will tell.

 

[UndercoverElephant]

Well, I read the section titled "Consciousness" and it didn't tell me crap all. The word neuron does not appear in the article. Neither does microtubule.


I guess I'm never going to get an explanation.

Pffffft.

~~ Paul

I didn't say that Bohm theorised about microtubules. All I was saying was that my position is compatible with Bohm's, not Schroedinger's. The point about Bohm's theory is it allows everything to be connected to everything else. The root of "consciousness" is what holds the whole thing together - it's the nexus (Bohms calls it "plenum").

 

[UndercoverElephant]

Paul,

You aren't going to find anything out there in cyberspace which puts all this stuff together on one page. What I am describing is a combination of a controversial new QM/consciousness theory from Penrose and an equally controversial new metaphysical defence of direct realism by A.D.Smith. They just happen to fit nicely together.

Geoff

 

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

I guess I'll have to wait for the Dummies book.

~~ Paul

 

[UndercoverElephant]

I guess I'll have to wait for the Dummies book.

~~ Paul

Metaphysics for Dummies? 2nd verse of the Tao Te Ching.

 

[Ichneumonwasp]

You are trying to have it both ways. One the one hand you are arguing that neuroscience challenges this metaphysical argument, on the other you are stating that the physical descriptions you are giving say nothing about metaphysics.

I never said anything of the kind. What I said was that the way you have phrased it has left the metaphysics in the assumptions and the argument in the epistemic realm.

I never said that the descriptions I am giving say nothing about metaphysics. Where did you ever get that idea?

So let's go back to the beginning. What I said was that if you allow for the causal neural chain, then there is only an epistemic issue with the BIV example. If you don't allow the causal neural chain, then you must end with a homonculus. A homonculus is simply "mind". This can be conceived as independent from matter in dualism in which some form of interaction is required, or it may be seen as the ultimate cause of the "real world" in idealism, ar your chosen "Awareness".

There is no homonculus in physicalism. There can be no homonculus, properly speaking. There can be a form of a homonculus, something that serves that purpose; and that is relatively easy to construct -- I've argued how in earlier posts and given a simple wiring "diagram" for it.

The metaphysics is all contained in the way you pose this problem. Paul kept asking earlier what you meant by "direct realism" I thing because it wasn't clear how you were loading your metaphysical dice. So, how are you loading your metaphysical dice?

 

[UndercoverElephant]

So, how are you loading your metaphysical dice?

I have spent the whole thread explaining my position. Why are you asking me this question?

 

[Z]

That's not quite true. There's plenty of reason to suspect such a connection but no proof.

Well, let's hear these 'reasons'. I mean, other than vague ponderings by people who have no idea what 'quantum entanglement' actually means.

To enhance survival chances. This makes no difference to evolutionary theory at all. You still need to evolve senses. Both causal factors are neccesary.

What's the point of evolving senses, which perceive through a billiard-ball chain of events, if there's a direct method of sensing things? That makes no sense.