Re: The Brain Minds Whether We Believe in Free Will or Not
On Apr 21, 8:37 pm, Craig Weinberg whatsons...@gmail.com wrote: On Apr 20, 8:36 am, 1Z peterdjo...@yahoo.com wrote: On Apr 5, 1:37 pm, Craig Weinberg whatsons...@gmail.com wrote: What do you say the efficient cause of feeling is? Some priori brain state. What could make a brain state cause a feeling? A psychophsical law or identity. Otherwise I can just say that a deterministic universe includes libertarian free will, ghosts goblins, whatever. Libertarian free will contradicts the requirment for sufficent causes. No more than feeling. No, Feeling isn't defined in terms of the presence or absence of any kind of determinism or causality. Causality is a condition within feeling, says who? as is free will. Feeling gives rise to free will directly. Says who? Whoever is doing the feeling is ultimately determining the expression of their own free will. Says who? The others don;t contradict determinism. Why not? They are not defined in terms of it or its absence. You are the only one defining free will in terms of an absence of causality. I see clearly that causality arises out of feeling and free will. Maybe you could make that clear to the rest of us. What business does a feeling have being in a universe that is essentially a very sophisticated clock? Something happened that would cause a feeling. Are you being serious? Yes. Why shouldn't you have laws of the form If see kitten then feel warm and gooey ? Because there is no logic to it. Statements of scientific law tend not to be analytical in any case. If you are positing a universe ruled by laws of mechanistic logic, then you are required to demonstrate that logic somehow applies to feeling, which it doesn't. If you have mechanism, you don't need feeling. I dare say vast tracts of the universe are unnecessary. You can have data compression and caching without inventing poetry. Craig -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.
Re: Best book review?
On 23 Apr 2012, at 19:26, Digital Physics wrote: In 2003, Joe Weiss reviewed Stephen Wolfram's book A New Kind of Science. Has this become the highest-ranking review of ALL books at Amazon? 2,447 of 2,553 people found it helpful: The Emperor's New Kind of Clothes. 1 out of 5 stars: http://www.amazon.com/New-Kind-Science-Stephen-Wolfram/product-reviews/1579550088/ref=cm_cr_pr_redirect/180-1131347-4196011?ie=UTF8showViewpoints=0 Not even the Harry Potter reviews got as many helpful votes. But if you do know of an even more helpful book review, please post! The top non-book reviews are actually poems on milk :-) I am still waiting for your replies, DP. If interested you can present them (I think was an objection) in the FOAR list where the UDA is explained again from scratch. Look for the UDA thread. It shows Wolfram missed the new science, by anstracting too much from the quantum reality and the consciousness reality (like digital physics). FOAR: http://groups.google.com/group/foar?hl=en. Bruno DP -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com . For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en . http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/ -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.
Re: The Brain Minds Whether We Believe in Free Will or Not
On Tue, Apr 24, 2012 at 12:49 AM, Craig Weinberg whatsons...@gmail.com wrote: But are decisions that a person makes freely caused or uncaused? Both and neither. Just as a yellow traffic signal is neither red nor green but represents possibilities of both stop and go. We are the cause. We are influenced by causes but to varying degrees. We influence our body and by extension the world with varying degrees of freedom. EITHER something is determined/caused OR it's random/uncaused. This is standard use of language. You can define your own terms but then at least you should explain them in relation to the standard language: what everyone else calls green, I call red, and what everyone else calls a dog, I call a cat. By this reasoning nothing can ever have an adequate explanation, since if the explanation offered for A is B, you can always ask, But why should B apply to A?; and if the answer is given, Because empirical observation shows that it is so you can dismiss it as unsatisfactory. It depends what A and B are. If A is a cloud and B is rain, then you can see that there could be a connection. If A is a neural fiber and B is an experience of blue, then there is a gigantic gap separating the two which can't be bridged just because we are used to looking at physical objects relating to other physical objects and think it would be convenient if subjects behaved that way as well. If you're bloody-minded enough you can claim here isn't really an obvious connection between clouds and rain either. Sure, it's a matter of degree. If I squeeze an orange, it follows very logically that what comes out of it is orange juice. If I poke a microorganism like a neuron with an electrode, it does not follow very logically at all that comedy, symphonies or the smell of pineapple should ensue. At some point you have to decide whether sanity is real or reality is insane. I choose the former. But it's an empirical observation that if certain biochemical reactions occur (the ones involved in processing information) , consciousness results. That you find it mysterious is your problem, not nature's. -- Stathis Papaioannou -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.
Re: From 1905 the SRT doesn’t give sleep.
On Apr 23, 9:20 pm, Jesse Mazer laserma...@gmail.com wrote: On Mon, Apr 23, 2012 at 12:45 PM, socra...@bezeqint.net socra...@bezeqint.net wrote: If we measure the speed of quantum of light in vacuum from different inertial frames the result will be the *same* - constant. Socratus Yes, that's exactly what I said. Jesse =. Why the result is constant ? Because all different inertial frames ( stars and planets of billions and billions galaxies ) exist in infinite motionless, stationary, fixed (rest) reference frame of Vacuum. Socratus Your because is a non sequitur argument though--you haven't given any logical argument as to why a rest frame of the vacuum is needed, or whether there could be any way to experimentally test this idea. As long as any single inertial frame measures (1) that rulers moving relative to that frame are contracted by the length contraction factor of relativity, and also measures (2) that clocks moving relative to that frame are slowed down by the time dilation factor, and as long as this frame also measures (3) that light rays have the same speed c in all directions in that frame, then you can prove mathematically that these conditions 1-3 are sufficient to guarantee that all other inertial frames will also measure light rays to move at c relative to themselves if they use their own rulers and clocks. So although it's possible there is some special inertial frame like the rest frame of the aether or what you call the reference frame of Vacuum, such a thing is in no way *needed* in order to guarantee that all inertial frames will measure light to move at c, all that's needed are that the 3 conditions I mentioned above hold in any one inertial frame (it doesn't matter which, since if they hold in any one they will hold in every other too). It would be mathematically impossible to come up with a theory where the conditions 1-3 above hold, but all inertial observers *don't* measure light to move at c in their own frame. === P.S. Remember gentlemen, we have not proven the aether does not exist, we have only proven we do not need it (for mathematical purposes).. / Einstein's University of Leyden lecture of May 5, 1920. / ==. I agree, but if a hypothesis is mathematically unnecessary and also leads to absolutely no new experimental predictions, it cannot really be considered an independent theory of physics, though one might adopt it as a sort of philosophical interpretation, similar to Bohm's interpretation of quantum mechanics described athttp://plato.stanford.edu/entries/qm-bohm/(which also makes no new testable predictions different from standard quantum mechanics). So, aether theories can be considered as philosophical interpretations of relativity, though some good arguments against the plausibility of such interpretations are offered athttps://groups.google.com/forum/?fromgroups#!msg/sci.physics.relativi... Jesse On Apr 23, 2:17 pm, Jesse Mazer laserma...@gmail.com wrote: On Sun, Apr 22, 2012 at 11:25 PM, socra...@bezeqint.net socra...@bezeqint.net wrote: No, none of the postulates take the vacuum as a reference frame, which doesn't make sense since a vacuum doesn't have a measurable rest frame (there are no landmarks in a vacuum that could be used to measure the velocity of the vacuum relative to anything else). One postulate does talk about the speed of light in a vacuum, but they're still talking about the speed of light as measured in an inertial frame--in a vacuum is just there to specify that it's not talking about a light beam moving through some measurable medium like water or air. Jesse ==. One postulate says: In vacuum the speed of quantum of light is constant. Yes, but in vacuum does not mean relative to the vacuum here, it just means that the light ray in question is moving through a vacuum rather than some medium like air or water. The speed of the light ray is still being measured relative to whatever inertial reference frame you choose to use. Because in vacuum the speed of quantum of light is maximum and time is stopped, become infinite, unlimited. It means that the reference frame of vacuum is also infinite, unlimited. By in vacuum do you mean relative to a vacuum rather than just light traveling through a vacuum? How would you to propose to measure the speed of light relative to the vacuum, or measure the speed of other objects (like the planet Earth) relative to the vacuum? If you can't measure these things then your statements aren't scientific ones, perhaps they are metaphysical beliefs of yours but you haven't given me any arguments for why I should agree with them. And infinity we cannot measure. But this doesn’t mean that infinite vacuum doesn’t exist. We have theories ( thermodynamics and quantum physics) which explain us the
Re: From 1905 the SRT doesn’t give sleep.
why a rest frame of the vacuum is needed, or whether there could be any way to experimentally test this idea. Jesse ===. # The problem of the exact description of vacuum, in my opinion, is the basic problem now before physics. Really, if you can’t correctly describe the vacuum, how it is possible to expect a correct description of something more complex? / Paul Dirac ./ # The most fundamental question facing 21st century physics will be: What is the vacuum? As quantum mechanics teaches us, with its zero point energy this vacuum is not empty and the word vacuum is a gross misnomer! / Prof. Friedwardt Winterberg / # Wikipedia : “ Unfortunately neither the concept of space nor of time is well defined, resulting in a dilemma. If we don't know the character of time nor of space, how can we characterize either? “ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spacetime # Now we know that the vacuum can have all sorts of wonderful effects over an enormous range of scales, from the microscopic to the cosmic, said Peter Milonni from the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico. # Although we are used to thinking of empty space as containing nothing at all, and therefore having zero energy, the quantum rules say that there is some uncertainty about this. Perhaps each tiny bit of the vacuum actually contains rather a lot of energy. If the vacuum contained enough energy, it could convert this into particles, in line with E-Mc^2. / Book: Stephen Hawking. Pages 147-148. By Michael White and John Gribbin. / # Somehow, the energy is extracted from the vacuum and turned into particles...Don't try it in your basement, but you can do it. / University of Chicago cosmologist Rocky Kolb./ # Vacuum -- the very name suggests emptiness and nothingness – is actually a realm rife with potentiality, courtesy of the laws of quantum electrodynamics (QED). According to QED, additional, albeit virtual, particles can be created in the vacuum, allowing light-light interactions. http://www.aip.org/pnu/2006/768.html # Dark energy may be vacuum http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2007-01/uoc-dem011607.php # An experiment. According to QED Electron in interaction with vacuum has infinity parameters ( energy, mass …etc ) Physicists do not understand what to do with infinite sizes, and therefore they have invented a method of renormalization, The method of renormalization is a method to sweep the dust under the carpet. / Feynman./ # When the next revolution rocks physics, chances are it will be about nothing—the vacuum, that endless infinite void. http://discovermagazine.com/2008/aug/18-nothingness-of-space-theory-of-everything ! ==. # - Philosophy of ‘ Vacuum.’ ( Part 1 - My opinion.) 1. In beginning was Vacuum an Infinite / Eternal continuum. 2. Vacuum is not Empty space. ‘ Virtual particles’, ‘ dark matter’ and ‘zoo of elementary particles’ exist in the Vacuum. 3. Now (!) the physicists think (!) that the Universe as whole has temperature: T= 2,7K . The parameter T=2,7K is not constant. It is temporal and goes down. In the future it will come to T= 0K. 4. The simplest question: Which geometrical form can have the ‘ virtual particles’, ‘ the particles of dark matter’ , the ‘ zoo of elementary particles’ in reference frame T= 2,7K - –-- T= 0K ? The answer is: ‘ They must be flat particles.’ Why? Because according to Charle’s law and the consequence of the third law of thermodynamics as the thermodynamic temperature of a system approaches absolute zero the volume of particles approaches zero too. It means the particles must have flat forms. They must have geometrical form of a circle: pi= c /d =3,14 . . . . . . Best wishes. Israel Sadovnik. Socratus. … -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.
Re: The Brain Minds Whether We Believe in Free Will or Not
On Apr 24, 8:59 am, Stathis Papaioannou stath...@gmail.com wrote: On Tue, Apr 24, 2012 at 12:49 AM, Craig Weinberg whatsons...@gmail.com wrote: But are decisions that a person makes freely caused or uncaused? Both and neither. Just as a yellow traffic signal is neither red nor green but represents possibilities of both stop and go. We are the cause. We are influenced by causes but to varying degrees. We influence our body and by extension the world with varying degrees of freedom. EITHER something is determined/caused OR it's random/uncaused. This is standard use of language. You can define your own terms but then at least you should explain them in relation to the standard language: what everyone else calls green, I call red, and what everyone else calls a dog, I call a cat. It is a standard use of language to say that people are responsible in varying degrees for their actions. I don't understand why you claim that your binary determinism is 'standard language' in some way. When we talk about someone being guilty of a crime, that quality of guilt makes no sense in terms of being passively caused or randomly uncaused. It is you who should explain your ideas in relation to the standard language: what everyone else calls intention, I call irrelevant. By this reasoning nothing can ever have an adequate explanation, since if the explanation offered for A is B, you can always ask, But why should B apply to A?; and if the answer is given, Because empirical observation shows that it is so you can dismiss it as unsatisfactory. It depends what A and B are. If A is a cloud and B is rain, then you can see that there could be a connection. If A is a neural fiber and B is an experience of blue, then there is a gigantic gap separating the two which can't be bridged just because we are used to looking at physical objects relating to other physical objects and think it would be convenient if subjects behaved that way as well. If you're bloody-minded enough you can claim here isn't really an obvious connection between clouds and rain either. Sure, it's a matter of degree. If I squeeze an orange, it follows very logically that what comes out of it is orange juice. If I poke a microorganism like a neuron with an electrode, it does not follow very logically at all that comedy, symphonies or the smell of pineapple should ensue. At some point you have to decide whether sanity is real or reality is insane. I choose the former. But it's an empirical observation that if certain biochemical reactions occur (the ones involved in processing information) , consciousness results. That you find it mysterious is your problem, not nature's. If I turn on a TV set, TV programs occur. That doesn't mean that TV programs are generated by electronics. Fortunately I just spent a week at the consciousness conference in AZ so I now know how deeply in the minority views such as yours are. The vast majority of doctors and professors researching in this field agree that the Explanatory Gap cannot simply be wished away in the manner you suggest. I don't find it mysterious at all that consciousness could come from configurations of objects, I find it impossible, as do most people. Craig -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.
Re: The Brain Minds Whether We Believe in Free Will or Not
Craig, Can you give us a synopsis of the consciousness conference? Is there any convergence of their thinking or is it still rather scattered? Richard On Tue, Apr 24, 2012 at 1:19 PM, Craig Weinberg whatsons...@gmail.comwrote: On Apr 24, 8:59 am, Stathis Papaioannou stath...@gmail.com wrote: On Tue, Apr 24, 2012 at 12:49 AM, Craig Weinberg whatsons...@gmail.com wrote: But are decisions that a person makes freely caused or uncaused? Both and neither. Just as a yellow traffic signal is neither red nor green but represents possibilities of both stop and go. We are the cause. We are influenced by causes but to varying degrees. We influence our body and by extension the world with varying degrees of freedom. EITHER something is determined/caused OR it's random/uncaused. This is standard use of language. You can define your own terms but then at least you should explain them in relation to the standard language: what everyone else calls green, I call red, and what everyone else calls a dog, I call a cat. It is a standard use of language to say that people are responsible in varying degrees for their actions. I don't understand why you claim that your binary determinism is 'standard language' in some way. When we talk about someone being guilty of a crime, that quality of guilt makes no sense in terms of being passively caused or randomly uncaused. It is you who should explain your ideas in relation to the standard language: what everyone else calls intention, I call irrelevant. By this reasoning nothing can ever have an adequate explanation, since if the explanation offered for A is B, you can always ask, But why should B apply to A?; and if the answer is given, Because empirical observation shows that it is so you can dismiss it as unsatisfactory. It depends what A and B are. If A is a cloud and B is rain, then you can see that there could be a connection. If A is a neural fiber and B is an experience of blue, then there is a gigantic gap separating the two which can't be bridged just because we are used to looking at physical objects relating to other physical objects and think it would be convenient if subjects behaved that way as well. If you're bloody-minded enough you can claim here isn't really an obvious connection between clouds and rain either. Sure, it's a matter of degree. If I squeeze an orange, it follows very logically that what comes out of it is orange juice. If I poke a microorganism like a neuron with an electrode, it does not follow very logically at all that comedy, symphonies or the smell of pineapple should ensue. At some point you have to decide whether sanity is real or reality is insane. I choose the former. But it's an empirical observation that if certain biochemical reactions occur (the ones involved in processing information) , consciousness results. That you find it mysterious is your problem, not nature's. If I turn on a TV set, TV programs occur. That doesn't mean that TV programs are generated by electronics. Fortunately I just spent a week at the consciousness conference in AZ so I now know how deeply in the minority views such as yours are. The vast majority of doctors and professors researching in this field agree that the Explanatory Gap cannot simply be wished away in the manner you suggest. I don't find it mysterious at all that consciousness could come from configurations of objects, I find it impossible, as do most people. Craig -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.
Re: The Brain Minds Whether We Believe in Free Will or Not
On Apr 24, 1:33 pm, Richard Ruquist yann...@gmail.com wrote: Craig, Can you give us a synopsis of the consciousness conference? Is there any convergence of their thinking or is it still rather scattered? Richard The conference had a good mix of well known names, professors and grad students doing presentations. For others like me they had a gallery of billboards/posters where we had a designated time to stand around and answer questions or chat with people. It has been going on for several years now, so I don't know if there has been any real progress as far as coming to a consensus, but in the lectures I attended and the people I talked to, I was surprised to find that there was a lot of overlap. Really Susan Blackmore was the only speaker that I saw who advocated a purely materialist view and she was practically booed when she put up a slide that said Consciousness is an Illusion. Microtubules were well represented, as were fractals and Higher Order Theories, but nowhere was the kind of knee-jerk instrumentalism that I encounter so often online. It seemed to me that variations on panpsychism were more popular. There is a link to abstract book here: http://www.consciousness.arizona.edu/ if you want to read about all of the presentations. Craig On Tue, Apr 24, 2012 at 1:19 PM, Craig Weinberg whatsons...@gmail.comwrote: On Apr 24, 8:59 am, Stathis Papaioannou stath...@gmail.com wrote: On Tue, Apr 24, 2012 at 12:49 AM, Craig Weinberg whatsons...@gmail.com wrote: But are decisions that a person makes freely caused or uncaused? Both and neither. Just as a yellow traffic signal is neither red nor green but represents possibilities of both stop and go. We are the cause. We are influenced by causes but to varying degrees. We influence our body and by extension the world with varying degrees of freedom. EITHER something is determined/caused OR it's random/uncaused. This is standard use of language. You can define your own terms but then at least you should explain them in relation to the standard language: what everyone else calls green, I call red, and what everyone else calls a dog, I call a cat. It is a standard use of language to say that people are responsible in varying degrees for their actions. I don't understand why you claim that your binary determinism is 'standard language' in some way. When we talk about someone being guilty of a crime, that quality of guilt makes no sense in terms of being passively caused or randomly uncaused. It is you who should explain your ideas in relation to the standard language: what everyone else calls intention, I call irrelevant. By this reasoning nothing can ever have an adequate explanation, since if the explanation offered for A is B, you can always ask, But why should B apply to A?; and if the answer is given, Because empirical observation shows that it is so you can dismiss it as unsatisfactory. It depends what A and B are. If A is a cloud and B is rain, then you can see that there could be a connection. If A is a neural fiber and B is an experience of blue, then there is a gigantic gap separating the two which can't be bridged just because we are used to looking at physical objects relating to other physical objects and think it would be convenient if subjects behaved that way as well. If you're bloody-minded enough you can claim here isn't really an obvious connection between clouds and rain either. Sure, it's a matter of degree. If I squeeze an orange, it follows very logically that what comes out of it is orange juice. If I poke a microorganism like a neuron with an electrode, it does not follow very logically at all that comedy, symphonies or the smell of pineapple should ensue. At some point you have to decide whether sanity is real or reality is insane. I choose the former. But it's an empirical observation that if certain biochemical reactions occur (the ones involved in processing information) , consciousness results. That you find it mysterious is your problem, not nature's. If I turn on a TV set, TV programs occur. That doesn't mean that TV programs are generated by electronics. Fortunately I just spent a week at the consciousness conference in AZ so I now know how deeply in the minority views such as yours are. The vast majority of doctors and professors researching in this field agree that the Explanatory Gap cannot simply be wished away in the manner you suggest. I don't find it mysterious at all that consciousness could come from configurations of objects, I find it impossible, as do most people. Craig -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to
Re: The Brain Minds Whether We Believe in Free Will or Not
On Apr 24, 4:21 am, 1Z peterdjo...@yahoo.com wrote: On Apr 21, 8:37 pm, Craig Weinberg whatsons...@gmail.com wrote: On Apr 20, 8:36 am, 1Z peterdjo...@yahoo.com wrote: On Apr 5, 1:37 pm, Craig Weinberg whatsons...@gmail.com wrote: What do you say the efficient cause of feeling is? Some priori brain state. What could make a brain state cause a feeling? A psychophsical law or identity. An omnipotence law could cause omnipotence too. Otherwise I can just say that a deterministic universe includes libertarian free will, ghosts goblins, whatever. Libertarian free will contradicts the requirment for sufficent causes. No more than feeling. No, Feeling isn't defined in terms of the presence or absence of any kind of determinism or causality. Causality is a condition within feeling, says who? The notion of a cause is an idea - a feeling about order and sequence. To have cause you have to have memory and narrative pattern recognition. Without that, there really is no difference between a cause and a non-cause. Only disconnected fragments. as is free will. Feeling gives rise to free will directly. Says who? Says most people who have ever lived. If I feel like doing something, that feeling allows me to possibly try to do it. It's very straightforward. Whoever is doing the feeling is ultimately determining the expression of their own free will. Says who? According to you nobody can say anything except what they are determined to say, so what possible difference could it make who happens to say it? The others don;t contradict determinism. Why not? They are not defined in terms of it or its absence. You are the only one defining free will in terms of an absence of causality. I see clearly that causality arises out of feeling and free will. Maybe you could make that clear to the rest of us. By writing this sentence I am causing changes in a computer network, your screen, your eyes, and your mind. Do you doubt that I am choosing to do this? What physical law do you claim has an interest in what I write here? What business does a feeling have being in a universe that is essentially a very sophisticated clock? Something happened that would cause a feeling. Are you being serious? Yes. Why shouldn't you have laws of the form If see kitten then feel warm and gooey ? Because there is no logic to it. Statements of scientific law tend not to be analytical in any case. But there is nothing to it whatsoever. You are saying that it should help solve a math problem if the computer can smell spaghetti just because we seem math on one side and spaghetti on the other. If you are positing a universe ruled by laws of mechanistic logic, then you are required to demonstrate that logic somehow applies to feeling, which it doesn't. If you have mechanism, you don't need feeling. I dare say vast tracts of the universe are unnecessary. Then your insistence upon mechanism is devoid of anything except arbitrary sentiment. Why not have a classical pantheon of gods? We could say they improve computation too. Craig -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.
Re: The Brain Minds Whether We Believe in Free Will or Not
On Apr 24, 2:57 pm, David Nyman da...@davidnyman.com wrote: The article in the NS, taken as a whole, suggests that her position is more nuanced than the slogan you quoted might suggest. The context was a War of the Worldviews presentation, where she was sort of head-to-head with Deepak Chopra, so yes, it was probably not the most well rounded look at either of their worldviews (or the others on the panel). She likes to be provocative anyhow. I still don't see how calling it a mirage or illusion gets around the hard problem at all. A mirage to whom? Why or how is it there at all? For me the issue was never the veracity of the content of consciousness compared to external measurements, it is that there can be any content in the first place. Craig -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.
Re: The Brain Minds Whether We Believe in Free Will or Not
On 24 April 2012 20:07, Craig Weinberg whatsons...@gmail.com wrote: I still don't see how calling it a mirage or illusion gets around the hard problem at all. A mirage to whom? Why or how is it there at all? For me the issue was never the veracity of the content of consciousness compared to external measurements, it is that there can be any content in the first place. Yes, but her position is that empirical science has no purchase on the latter question (that's why it's Hard), but may be able to make progress on correlating brain activity with conscious states, and in the process perhaps re-describe either or both sides of the coin in helpful ways. I recently read an interesting interview with Patricia Churchland - pretty much universally regarded as the High Priestess of Denialism with respect to consciousness - and she vigorously rejected the idea that she had ever sought to do any such thing. In fact, she and Paul now regret ever adopting the sobriquet eliminative materialism, which she attributes to Richard Rorty (a bloody philosopher!). Again, the Churchlands' project, like Blakemore's, is correlation and categorisation, not metaphysics. Trouble is, as you say, if you've got Deepak Chopra in the other chair, the conversation is apt to get somewhat polarised. But, political posturing aside, away from the public gaze there is often lot more doubt than the slogans would suggest. David On Apr 24, 2:57 pm, David Nyman da...@davidnyman.com wrote: The article in the NS, taken as a whole, suggests that her position is more nuanced than the slogan you quoted might suggest. The context was a War of the Worldviews presentation, where she was sort of head-to-head with Deepak Chopra, so yes, it was probably not the most well rounded look at either of their worldviews (or the others on the panel). She likes to be provocative anyhow. I still don't see how calling it a mirage or illusion gets around the hard problem at all. A mirage to whom? Why or how is it there at all? For me the issue was never the veracity of the content of consciousness compared to external measurements, it is that there can be any content in the first place. Craig -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.
Re: The Brain Minds Whether We Believe in Free Will or Not
On 4/24/2012 1:03 PM, David Nyman wrote: On 24 April 2012 20:07, Craig Weinbergwhatsons...@gmail.com wrote: I still don't see how calling it a mirage or illusion gets around the hard problem at all. A mirage to whom? Why or how is it there at all? For me the issue was never the veracity of the content of consciousness compared to external measurements, it is that there can be any content in the first place. Yes, but her position is that empirical science has no purchase on the latter question (that's why it's Hard), but may be able to make progress on correlating brain activity with conscious states, and in the process perhaps re-describe either or both sides of the coin in helpful ways. I recently read an interesting interview with Patricia Churchland - pretty much universally regarded as the High Priestess of Denialism with respect to consciousness - and she vigorously rejected the idea that she had ever sought to do any such thing. In fact, she and Paul now regret ever adopting the sobriquet eliminative materialism, which she attributes to Richard Rorty (a bloody philosopher!). Again, the Churchlands' project, like Blakemore's, is correlation and categorisation, not metaphysics. Trouble is, as you say, if you've got Deepak Chopra in the other chair, the conversation is apt to get somewhat polarised. But, political posturing aside, away from the public gaze there is often lot more doubt than the slogans would suggest. David As I've posted before, when we know how look at a brain and infer what it's thinking and we know how to build a brain that behaves as we want, in other words when we can do consciousness engineering, the hard problem will be bypassed as a metaphysical non-question, like Where did the elan vital go? Brent -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.
Re: The Brain Minds Whether We Believe in Free Will or Not
On 24 April 2012 21:22, meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net wrote: As I've posted before, when we know how look at a brain and infer what it's thinking and we know how to build a brain that behaves as we want, in other words when we can do consciousness engineering, the hard problem will be bypassed as a metaphysical non-question, like Where did the elan vital go? You may well be right, for all practical purposes. But yet the parallel with elan vital is inexact, as Chalmers - I think defensibly - points out. In the latter case, as he puts it, it isn't controversial (at least, not these days) that all that ever required explanation was structure and function; what was surprising was that gross matter could in fact evince just such fine-grained structure and function. Hence, a full elucidation in those terms need omit nothing relevant to the explanation that was originally demanded. But that doesn't necessarily apply in the case of consciousness, since it seems as if one can still ask for more explanation even after a perfected correlation of structure and function with conscious states. It's a bit like A Universe from Nothing. Krauss is (extremely) exasperated with moronic philosophers who pester him with demands for an even more vacuous nothing than the quantum vacuum, and future brain researchers may be similarly frustrated by those who won't accept that systematic correlation of one domain with another has exhausted what can possibly be meant by explanation. In the end, it probably comes down to personal temperament and taste. David On 4/24/2012 1:03 PM, David Nyman wrote: On 24 April 2012 20:07, Craig Weinbergwhatsons...@gmail.com wrote: I still don't see how calling it a mirage or illusion gets around the hard problem at all. A mirage to whom? Why or how is it there at all? For me the issue was never the veracity of the content of consciousness compared to external measurements, it is that there can be any content in the first place. Yes, but her position is that empirical science has no purchase on the latter question (that's why it's Hard), but may be able to make progress on correlating brain activity with conscious states, and in the process perhaps re-describe either or both sides of the coin in helpful ways. I recently read an interesting interview with Patricia Churchland - pretty much universally regarded as the High Priestess of Denialism with respect to consciousness - and she vigorously rejected the idea that she had ever sought to do any such thing. In fact, she and Paul now regret ever adopting the sobriquet eliminative materialism, which she attributes to Richard Rorty (a bloody philosopher!). Again, the Churchlands' project, like Blakemore's, is correlation and categorisation, not metaphysics. Trouble is, as you say, if you've got Deepak Chopra in the other chair, the conversation is apt to get somewhat polarised. But, political posturing aside, away from the public gaze there is often lot more doubt than the slogans would suggest. David As I've posted before, when we know how look at a brain and infer what it's thinking and we know how to build a brain that behaves as we want, in other words when we can do consciousness engineering, the hard problem will be bypassed as a metaphysical non-question, like Where did the elan vital go? Brent -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.
Re: Who am I ?
Socratus, and discussion friends: are we so simpletons, indeed? does a flat EM (field?) plus the 'variety' of cells constitute a 'person'? does it justify our psychological mistakes? (I mention deliberately those, not the regularities, to divert from 'rules we know'). I think (?) a sort of pattern functionality (or rather: relations) may be needed and as I read in these discussions: nobody feels knowledgeable enough to go into that. This is the 'part' we did not (yet???) learn and I call it the complexity of a person within the wider complexity of everything. It is just NOT *THIS AND THAT*.* * Would you reduce us into - let us say - a million varieties of cells (OK, make it a billion) plus the one and only EM field - even if in a million variables of control in interference. I think (in the ongoing theoretical views) even the RNA has to be directed into directing the DNA - which still may be only one imaginary factor we speak about for a genetic (?) ordering. And - all this in believing in 'atoms' and a 'physical world'. (And photons?) As I wrote within my diatribe Science Religion in 2003. I stick to my agnosticism, smile upon my 50+ years actively and result fully working as a chemist-Ph.D. and a polymer Science D.Sci. with my 38+ patents and papers, books, and my journal published. Now, past 90 I can afford to 'not knowing' about what I was brainwashed into in college (1940-44). JM On Thu, Apr 19, 2012 at 5:59 AM, socra...@bezeqint.net socra...@bezeqint.net wrote: Cells make copies of themselves. Different cells make different copies of themselves. Cells come in all shapes and sizes. Somehow these different cells are tied between themselves and during pregnancy process of 9 months gradually ( ! ) and by chance ( or not by chance ) they change own geometrical form from zygote to a child. Cells come in all shapes and sizes, and then . . . they are you. Cells they are you ( !? ) This is modern biomechanical /chemical point of view. # Maybe 99% agree that ‘Cells - they are you .’ But this explanation is not complete. Cells have an energy / electrical potential. Cells have an electromagnetic field. Therefore we need to say: ‘ Cells and electromagnetic field - they are you.’ ===. Is this formulation correct? Of course it is correct. Why? Because: Bioelectromagnetism (sometimes equated with bioelectricity) refers to the electrical, magnetic or electromagnetic fields produced by living cells, tissues or organisms. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bioelectromagnetism What does it mean? It means there isn’t biological cell without electromagnetic fields. It means that in the cell we have two ( 2 ) substances: matter and electromagnetic fields. And in 1985 Richard P. Feynman wrote book: QED: The Strange Theory of Light and Matter The idea of book - the interaction between light ( electromagnetic fields ) and matter is strange. He wrote: ‘ The theory of quantum electrodynamics describes Nature as absurd from the point of view of common sense. And it agrees fully with experiment. So I hope you accept Nature as She is — absurd. ‘ / page 10. / # Once again: 1. Cells and electromagnetic field - they are you. 2. We cannot understand their interaction and therefore we don’t know the answer to the question: ‘ who am I ?’ ===. Socratus. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.
Re: The Brain Minds Whether We Believe in Free Will or Not
On Apr 24, 4:03 pm, David Nyman da...@davidnyman.com wrote: Yes, but her position is that empirical science has no purchase on the latter question (that's why it's Hard), but may be able to make progress on correlating brain activity with conscious states, and in the process perhaps re-describe either or both sides of the coin in helpful ways. Yes, in a sense I agree that the Easy Problem of Consciousness has more to offer in terms of scientific promise, but I see a real danger in allowing that to define the culture of consciousness research. As it filters down to the public at large also, I think what you get is a lot of teachers and students who are quite satisfied with the idea that everything that they experience is an illusion and that reality lies permanently elsewhere in microcosmic obscurity. As recent experiments have shown the negative impact of disbelief in free will, I think there are many other social consequences which follow from a worldview in which the world is ultimately unviewed and the viewer is ultimately unworlded. It's especially important for me because I can see clearly that the principle of sense cuts through this mistake and allows us to be present in a world that is real in many overlapping and underlapping private and public ways. I recently read an interesting interview with Patricia Churchland - pretty much universally regarded as the High Priestess of Denialism with respect to consciousness - and she vigorously rejected the idea that she had ever sought to do any such thing. In fact, she and Paul now regret ever adopting the sobriquet eliminative materialism, which she attributes to Richard Rorty (a bloody philosopher!). Again, the Churchlands' project, like Blakemore's, is correlation and categorisation, not metaphysics. Trouble is, as you say, if you've got Deepak Chopra in the other chair, the conversation is apt to get somewhat polarised. But, political posturing aside, away from the public gaze there is often lot more doubt than the slogans would suggest. You are probably right, probably a lot of political pundits are likewise not so opinionated in private. There is always a need for people who will represent politically incorrect opinions in public. Craig -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.
Re: The Brain Minds Whether We Believe in Free Will or Not
On Apr 24, 4:22 pm, meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net wrote: As I've posted before, when we know how look at a brain and infer what it's thinking and we know how to build a brain that behaves as we want, If w can build a brain that behaves as we want rather than how it wants, then it isn't a brain. in other words when we can do consciousness engineering, the hard problem will be bypassed as a metaphysical non-question, like Where did the elan vital go? The hard problem cannot be bypassed because there is no functional reason for consciousness to exist. It doesn't matter that every time I push this button I know that the March Hare materializes in mid-air, it still doesn't make any sense that he could or would appear. Craig -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.
Re: The Brain Minds Whether We Believe in Free Will or Not
On 4/24/2012 6:19 PM, Craig Weinberg wrote: On Apr 24, 4:22 pm, meekerdbmeeke...@verizon.net wrote: As I've posted before, when we know how look at a brain and infer what it's thinking and we know how to build a brain that behaves as we want, If w can build a brain that behaves as we want rather than how it wants, then it isn't a brain. So because my children behave as I want they don't have brains!? Brent in other words when we can do consciousness engineering, the hard problem will be bypassed as a metaphysical non-question, like Where did the elan vital go? The hard problem cannot be bypassed because there is no functional reason for consciousness to exist. That should make it easy to bypass. We'll make intelligent, compassionate robots and people like you will want to ban them from lunch counters and make them live in ghettos. Brent It doesn't matter that every time I push this button I know that the March Hare materializes in mid-air, it still doesn't make any sense that he could or would appear. Craig -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.
Re: Who am I ?
Thank you Mr. John Mikes. My opinion. Quantum electrodynamics: Who am I ? =. In 1904 Lorentz proved: there isn’t em waves without Electron It means the source of these em waves must be an Electron The electron and the em waves they are physical reality Can evolution of consciousness of life begin on electron’s level? ==. Origin of life is a result of physical laws that govern Universe Electron takes important part in this work. # 1900, 1905 Planck and Einstein found the energy of electron: E=h*f. 1916 Sommerfeld found the formula of electron : e^2=ah*c, it means: e = +ah*c and e = -ah*c. 1928 Dirac found two more formulas of electron’s energy: +E=Mc^2 and -E=Mc^2. According to QED in interaction with vacuum electron’s energy is infinite: E= ∞ Questions. Why does the simplest particle - electron have six ( 6 ) formulas ? Why does electron obey five ( 5) Laws ? a) Law of conservation and transformation energy/ mass b) Maxwell’s equations c) Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle / Law d) Pauli Exclusion Principle/ Law e) Fermi-Dirac statistics. Nobody knows. . What is an electron ? Now nobody knows In the internet we can read hundreds theories about electron All of them are problematical. We can read hundreds books about philosophy of physics. But how can we trust them if we don’t know what is an electron ? . Quote by Heinrich Hertz on Maxwell's equations: One cannot escape the feeling that these mathematical formulae have an independent existence and an intelligence of their own, that they are wiser than we are, wiser even than their discoverers, that we get more out of them than was originally put into them. . Ladies and Gentlemen ! Friends ! The banal Electron is not as simple as we think and, maybe, he is wiser than we are. =. Once again: Brain and Electron. Human brain works on two levels: consciousness and subconsciousness. The neurons of brain create these two levels. So, that it means consciousness and subconsciousness from physical point of view ( interaction between billions and billions neurons and electron). It can only mean that the state of neurons in these two situations is different. How can we understand these different states of neurons? How does the brain generate consciousness? We can understand this situation only on the quantum level, only using Quantum theory. But there isn’t QT without Quantum of Light and Electron. So, what is interaction between Quantum of Light, Electron and brain ? Nobody knows. Therefore I say: we must understand not only the brain but electron too. And when we understand the Electron we will know the Ultimate Nature of Reality. =. Socratus ==. On Apr 25, 12:09 am, John Mikes jami...@gmail.com wrote: Socratus, and discussion friends: are we so simpletons, indeed? does a flat EM (field?) plus the 'variety' of cells constitute a 'person'? does it justify our psychological mistakes? (I mention deliberately those, not the regularities, to divert from 'rules we know'). I think (?) a sort of pattern functionality (or rather: relations) may be needed and as I read in these discussions: nobody feels knowledgeable enough to go into that. This is the 'part' we did not (yet???) learn and I call it the complexity of a person within the wider complexity of everything. It is just NOT *THIS AND THAT*.* * Would you reduce us into - let us say - a million varieties of cells (OK, make it a billion) plus the one and only EM field - even if in a million variables of control in interference. I think (in the ongoing theoretical views) even the RNA has to be directed into directing the DNA - which still may be only one imaginary factor we speak about for a genetic (?) ordering. And - all this in believing in 'atoms' and a 'physical world'. (And photons?) As I wrote within my diatribe Science Religion in 2003. I stick to my agnosticism, smile upon my 50+ years actively and result fully working as a chemist-Ph.D. and a polymer Science D.Sci. with my 38+ patents and papers, books, and my journal published. Now, past 90 I can afford to 'not knowing' about what I was brainwashed into in college (1940-44). JM On Thu, Apr 19, 2012 at 5:59 AM, socra...@bezeqint.net socra...@bezeqint.net wrote: Cells make copies of themselves. Different cells make different copies of themselves. Cells come in all shapes and sizes. Somehow these different cells are tied between themselves and during pregnancy process of 9 months gradually ( ! ) and by chance ( or not by chance ) they change own geometrical form from zygote to a child. Cells come in all shapes and sizes, and then . . . they are you. Cells they are you ( !? ) This is modern biomechanical /chemical point of view. # Maybe 99% agree that ‘Cells - they are you .’ But this explanation is not complete. Cells have an energy / electrical potential. Cells have an electromagnetic field. Therefore
