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Author Topic:   The implications of quantum physics.
mitchellmckain
Member (Idle past 6422 days)
Posts: 60
From: Salt Lake City, Utah, USA
Joined: 08-14-2006


Message 1 of 39 (340055)
08-14-2006 6:16 PM


As a newcomer physicist to this forum I was rather disappointed to find the thread entitled What does quantum theory really say? closed. Apparently the OP was a bit too narrow, restricting the topic to a particular disagreement between two combatants. I thought to moderate a little between them only to find the topic closed. DARN!
In any case, the fundamental ways that quantum physics has changed our understanding of the world is too important of an issue to leave participants nowhere to go with questions, opinions, and discussion. I think there are important implications in this topic in regard to the main question of creationism versus evolution.
In regards to the previous discussion of Percy vs. cavediver. Percy is absolutely correct, but cavediver is a representative of a respectable minority beginning with Einstein that stubbornly refuses to accept the death of determinism in physics, and who continue to hope that futher advances in physics will overturn this conclusion.
The death of determinism in physics does not however resolve the philosophical question. The postulates of Bell's inequality are clear. The failure of Bell's inequality means that either determinism or the completeness of physics world view of an objectively observable local reality must be abandoned. Everett's Many Worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics preserves mathematical determinism (a description of reality by mathematical equations) by accepting a multiplicy of non-observable realities. Mathematical descriptions are inherently deterministic but if this description includes a superpostion of states on a macroscopic level then the it cannot be the same as ordinary determinism. David Bohm sought to preserve determinism by accepting a non-observable aspect of physical reality which is non-local. But I think that the consensus of the physics community is that physics cannot abandon the presumption of an objectively observable local reality and remain physics. I agree with this, but along with Eddington I also think that it is absurd to presume that the physical description of reality in terms of mathematics is a complete description of all that is real.
And so it is a matter of philosophy when I abandon both determinism and the completeness of the physical world view, acknowledging that other people have the freedom to make a different choice of postulates that lead them to different conclusions.
I believe there is an aspect of reality which lacks the definite-ness that is required to make it amenable to mathematical description. Furthermore, I think that the uncertainty principle defines the limits of the mathematically definite aspect of reality which I call the physical universe. The law of conservation of energy is an example of the kind of definiteness that describes the physical universe, for it means that the universe has a definite fixed quantity of energy that never changes. However, the uncertainty principle states that this conservation of energy fails during small intervals of time according to: delta-E times delta-t is approximately Planck's constant, where delta-t is the interval of time and delta-E is the quantity energy which is not accounted for in the conservation of energy. This can be considered a point of interaction between the mathematically definite physical reality and this other non-definite aspect of reality which I have suggested.
Now this above suggestion could be modified somewhat to preserve determinism even though I think the non-definiteness of this other aspect of reality precludes this, for certainly this idea is meant to suggest that some of the uncaused events in the physical description of reality (of which Percy gives a list of examples), has a cause in this other aspect of reality. However I believe that the fundamental experience of being human suggests that a determinsim based on the scientific idea of causality cannot be supported.
Aristotle suggested a much broader idea of causality in four different types: effective causality, material causality, formal causality, and final causality. I do not advocate all of these but rather look to this example of how causality might not be restricted to the material efficient causality which has been adopted by physics. Relating scientific causality to Aristotle's material and efficient causes may require explanation. Certainly science presumes that cause precedes effect as in Aristotles efficient causality, but the reductionist approch of physics to explain by composition and the ultimate adherence to locality also suggests to me a great similarity to Aristotle's material cause. One of the things which suggested reaching beyond the scientific ideas of causality to me was the suggestion by David Bohm and others of this nonlocal aspect of reality, which seemed to me to have some parallel's with Aristotle's idea of formal causality.
What I am suggesting comes from the idea that when people make choices, considering various reasons for all the different choices they could make, they ultimately choose the reasons for their choice when they make their choice. If the reasons for a choice can be called the cause then here is a case where the cause rather than preceding the effect, originates in the same event. Since the reasons for the choice are in fact part of the choice that is made, it suggests to me that the cause is a part of the effect. This is why I suggest an idea of causality which I call "self-causality". Another reason for this term is the simultaneous human experience that we have a self that is the cause of our actions and that our actions define this self.
Something else which suggests that in going beyond the physical universe in search for causality, we must abandon the usual scientific idea of causality is the trend of modern physics to see time, as part of the structure of the physical universe and the idea that the Big Bang was the origin of both time and space as well as all the matter in it. Time is a part of the mathematical relationships which tie all parts of the physical universe together into a definite whole. This suggests that in looking outside this structure in a non-definite aspect of reality, we may be looking outside of the time and space, which is a part of this structure, as well. But if this is the case then the scientific idea of cause always preceding effects loses some of its clarity.
Comments and questions about my ideas are welcome but I would prefer, if it is ok, to keep this discussion open to anyone's ideas about the implications of quantum physics.
Edited by Admin, : Change a referenced thread title into a link.

See my relativistic physics of space flight simimulator at Astahost.com

Replies to this message:
 Message 3 by randman, posted 08-15-2006 9:22 AM mitchellmckain has replied
 Message 5 by cavediver, posted 08-15-2006 2:57 PM mitchellmckain has replied
 Message 8 by randman, posted 08-16-2006 5:58 PM mitchellmckain has replied
 Message 28 by GDR, posted 08-22-2006 5:13 PM mitchellmckain has replied

  
mitchellmckain
Member (Idle past 6422 days)
Posts: 60
From: Salt Lake City, Utah, USA
Joined: 08-14-2006


Message 4 of 39 (340317)
08-15-2006 1:55 PM
Reply to: Message 3 by randman
08-15-2006 9:22 AM


Re: determinism and causality
Well let me explain the connection to the evolution versus creationism question.
If determinism in physics holds then the scientific and religious pov are forever divided because there would be no room for non-physical causes (causes which are not objectively observable or measurable) in physical events. God could not then intervene in physical events without contravening the laws of physics, and every such action by Him must be ojectively observable and measurable. The lack of evidence for such intervention would then carry quite a bit of weight, and the claim by many that the objectively observable and the mathematical relationships between them are the sum total of reality, would also have much more merit. However, with the failure of determinism in physics, this is not the case, and we free to make up our own minds about the nature of reality and role of God in physical events.
With the failure of determinism in physics, the scientific description of evolution becomes only appearance with a possible underlying reality. Each physical event of the process is now open to the possibility of non-physical causation. This opens up the possibility of an itermediate pov which accepts both scientific description of evolution and an underlying reality of God creative participation.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 3 by randman, posted 08-15-2006 9:22 AM randman has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 7 by randman, posted 08-16-2006 5:41 PM mitchellmckain has replied
 Message 15 by duf31, posted 08-17-2006 8:37 AM mitchellmckain has not replied
 Message 39 by Dr Adequate, posted 04-15-2007 11:56 PM mitchellmckain has not replied

  
mitchellmckain
Member (Idle past 6422 days)
Posts: 60
From: Salt Lake City, Utah, USA
Joined: 08-14-2006


Message 6 of 39 (340375)
08-15-2006 7:03 PM
Reply to: Message 5 by cavediver
08-15-2006 2:57 PM


quote:
Philosophically, I only believe in wave-functions - actually, quantum fields specifically - so from that you may see where my point of determinism originates. It's not that I don't believe in a quantum world - it's that I don't believe in a classical world
I laughed out loud for five minutes after reading this. You provide an eloquent example of my maxim that not only are people free to believe anything they choose but that you will eventually find people that believe just about anything. I take this to mean that you do not believe in a division between a microscopic world of superpositions and a macroscopic world without superpositions, which I think is mathematically the same as Everett's Many Worlds Interpretation.
quote:
I should also stress that when I refer to decoherence, I'm refering to the strong version encompassed by "decoherent histories".
  —"cavediver"
Thanks for the hint. I will research a little to prepare.
quote:
This was never my field, though way back at the point of choosing my PhD thesis, i was invited to work with Isham on precisely this topic (and specifically addressing the problem of time from the POV of decoherent histories) so I always enjoyed learning and discussing its implications. Quantum Gravity and QFT are my own fields. However, I am now well over a decade from such times and my memory is fading fast
  —"cavediver"
That sounds like a wonderful opportunity. What school was that at, Imperial College London? My projects were not anywhere near as interesting at the Unversity of Utah. I was also working in the fields of Quantum Gravity and QFT but more on the fringe. One project had to do with the the Barbour-Bertotti model and the other was Lattice Simulations of the Nambu-Jona-Lasinio Model. In the second project that meant learning to write programs for big multiprocessor machines, which was cool I guess.
Edited by mitchellmckain, : correction

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mitchellmckain
Member (Idle past 6422 days)
Posts: 60
From: Salt Lake City, Utah, USA
Joined: 08-14-2006


Message 9 of 39 (340706)
08-17-2006 12:37 AM
Reply to: Message 7 by randman
08-16-2006 5:41 PM


Re: determinism and causality
quote:
There is no reason to impute God's actions to changing the laws of the universe, as God just as easily could have programmed back-doors and loopholes to deny classical physical ideas on what is possible, and as we march forward in physics, it appears QM begins to show us some of those loopholes, etc,....
That is exactly correct. Quantum physics is the loop hole.
quote:
I guess there are different aspects of determinism at issue here. I was thinking of the issue of asserting that randomness is real, and that imo, I think this is a presumption to claim that based on the Uncertaintly principle as it seems to be somewhat eclipsed by entanglement or non-locality.
On the contrary, quantum physics tells us that randomness is most definitely real. It is the attempt to dismiss this which is presumptive. A non-local aspect of reality is not acceptable within the framework of physics. It violates the Minkowsky structure of space-time, therefore any non-local aspect of reality is also non-physical. Causality for some events in quantum mechanics without physical cause can possibly be found in a non-physical non-local aspect of reality, but deterministic nonrandom causation for all such events is unreasonable. The vast majority of these events have no significance and no impact on anything. There is simply no reason to make a flat denial of the reality of randomness.
quote:
Part of the problem, from my perspective, is the erroneous classification of things as supernatural. Supernatural from a scientific perspective does not exist. So if God exists, He is material, natural, whatever....same with angels, spirits, or anything.
...
Just as we can act within the universe and possess a will, and yet are not outside the scope of science; so God too can and does act.
Yes this word "supernatural" perpetrates a fraud, but I don't think you have quite explained what that fraud is yet. The word "supernatural" confuses what cannot be explained by science with what violates science. So your phrase "scope of science" is a bad choice of words. You must distinguish between what is the proper study of science and what is in violation of science.
Not everything in the world is objectively observable or measurable. This is by definition the very limits of the subject matter of physics and science. Science cannot say that such things do not exist. It cannot say anything about them at all. Otherwise you are buying into a fraud perpetrated by atheists, who are trying to get you to adopt a philosophy that the only things which exist are those which are objectively observable or measurable.
quote:
Definitions of science need to be based on intrinsinc qualities, not relative ones, and so just because we technologically cannot observe or test for something at present, does not mean we could never do so.
Absolutely not. No scientist will let you destroy science in this manner. Science must be based on what it always has been (that which is objectively observable or measurable only), because that is what works. It is philosophy which must change NOT SCIENCE!!!! It is the philosophy that science is a complete descripiton of reality which must be abandoned. In the words of the famous physicist, Eddington, this philophy is absurd.
I truly believe that this property of being objectively observable or measurable is the defining difference between what is physical and what is spiritual. Let me explain. Energy is the substance of being. Everything which exists is a form of energy. But everything which is physical is really part of one enormous unified form of energy which we call the physical universe. Every bit of this energy is governed by deterministic mathematical laws which are defined by its complex geometrical shape or form in 10 dimension. Things of the spirit are also forms of energy but they are not a part of the huge mathematical structure or form that we call the physical universe. They interact with the physical universe from outside these mathematical relationships of time and space, so where you find this interaction is where the mathematical relationships end or fail - quantum physics - the true boundary of the physical world.
Your utter dislike for your obnoxious neighbor is irrelevent because you and he are just small parts of the same object, and the mathematical structure of this object which your are a part puts you in your neighbors space-time proximity whether you like or not. So you are going to have to learn how to put up with him, and who knows, maybe as you grow in spirit you will even learn to like him despite his shortcommings. Science is like your obnoxious neighbor because it represents everything about this world that everyone has to accept whether they like it or not (metaphorically speaking). Science only studies this structure of energy which we are all a part of.
But God is not a part of this structure of energy and there is nothing to force you to acknowledge His presence against your will. God and other things of the spirit are not objectively observable or measurable. And this is why God and all other things of the spirit can never have any part of science. It is the same thing that makes the spirit not be bound by these mathematical or deterministic laws and therfore not subject to death or corruption.

See my relativistic physics of space flight simimulator at Astahost.com

This message is a reply to:
 Message 7 by randman, posted 08-16-2006 5:41 PM randman has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 11 by randman, posted 08-17-2006 1:11 AM mitchellmckain has replied

  
mitchellmckain
Member (Idle past 6422 days)
Posts: 60
From: Salt Lake City, Utah, USA
Joined: 08-14-2006


Message 10 of 39 (340707)
08-17-2006 12:47 AM
Reply to: Message 8 by randman
08-16-2006 5:58 PM


Re: causality
quote:
Your last line (in the OP) suggests you think perhaps QM and physics in general is in the process of weaking the concept of linear causality, and by linear I just mean the cause preceding the effect in time. That's where I think things are heading, and that we need to go ahead and drop the hoary myth of a static time-line.
Absolutely not!!! I was very clear about this. It is a matter of philosophy NOT SCIENCE. To abandon the causality of science is to leave the realm of science and enter into philosophy. Do not forget that I am a scientist. I will defend science and its integrity with the same ferocity that I defend Christianity. It is critically important to know where the boundary lies. Creationism/ID, for example, crosses this boundary.
Do not be fooled into thinking that General relativity changes this. Space-time is still locally Minkowsky and although it does not use a line the two sided cone seperates past and future and preserves locally time-ordered causaltiy absolutely and irrevocably.
quote:
My suspicions are that alternate histories are probably real, but not comfortable with the idea that all alternative histories are always present and real beyond mere potentials, but then again, if that were the case, then the many-worlds interpretation may not be needed. The Many-Minds seems a little more on target to me as a layman. Maybe this thread can illuminate the idea a little more?
The Everett MWI may be useful in physics like the complex extention of a mathematical function into the imaginary plane, but I too, do not think there is any scientific or philosophical value in seeing these other worlds as anything but unrealized possibilities. Alternative histories and parallel worlds like ftl space ships and time travel are all great science fiction (no different that pure fantasy as I see it), but again, I see no scientific, philosophical or religious merit in any of them.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 8 by randman, posted 08-16-2006 5:58 PM randman has replied

Replies to this message:
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mitchellmckain
Member (Idle past 6422 days)
Posts: 60
From: Salt Lake City, Utah, USA
Joined: 08-14-2006


Message 22 of 39 (340903)
08-17-2006 7:06 PM
Reply to: Message 11 by randman
08-17-2006 1:11 AM


Re: determinism and causality
quote:
Or another way to say this is reality is not only physical, right?
You got it.
quote:
I think we are on the same page, but not exactly sure....Determinism as you use it, and I think of it can be a little different, and perhaps I am not hearing the physics term of the word. Maybe random here is a relative term? I definitely agree that physical causation alone cannot explain reality, and that reality supercedes the subluminal universe we think of as physical reality.
I am just saying that there is no need to flatly proclaim that nothing is random. It contradicts both scientific evidence and human experience that much is random. It enough to say that randomness is not universal or neccessary. Any particular event could be truly random but it also might not be.
quote:
I don't follow this. How can the term supernatural apply to anything as far as science. Nothing is supernatural according to a valid perspective of science.
Confusion! The supernatural has no part of any scienfic explanation or statement. Therefore science cannot say that "nothing is supernatural". Science is not equivalent to truth. Science is merely one technique for discovering truth about certain types of things.
quote:
1. Spiritual things by all account possess energy which interacts with the physical world. (note I see you covered this later, but the interaction still suggests principles and order and so potentially mathematical descriptions).
There is a mathematical description of the interaction and it is called the uncertainty principle. But the quantification of the interaction does not quantify the source even in an interaction between two physical objects. I do not think that quantity or measurability is inherent in energy itself and I certainly do not think that these are properties of spiritual forms of energy. Why would it be? All my experiences of spirituality suggest otherwise.
quote:
3. I disagree that everything is controlled by deterministic mathematical forumulas. Is the human will truly controlled by such formulas?
Macroscopically the universe is quite deterministic. Gravity always does the same thing whether we like it or not. It is only in certain types of processes described in the science of Chaos where quantum events which lack of physical causes can effect macroscopic events. The weather is certainly one example, living organisms is another.
quote:
4. If we are talking laws so that the structure of physical reality is controlled by deterministic mathematical formulas, there are laws for the spiritual arena as well, and not only just as strict,
...
But the spirit is bound by laws, just different laws than those that govern matter.
Wonderful. Such agreement is more than I could ever expect. Someone else who believe in the operation of natural law in the realm of the spirit is a rare treasure. I feel that any disagreements we could possibly have are dwarfed into insignificance by comparison.
Off the topic comment: An eternal hell could make sense as a consequece of a natural spiritual law even though it makes no sense at all as a punishment from God.
quote:
but if you accept the Bible and even other spiritual traditions, even more strict, and so it may well be those laws, like physical "laws" can be expressed as mathematical forumulas as well, if we can advance that far in math.
Never read that in the Bible. Strict is not the same thing as quantifiable. Is love quantifiable? Which of your children (family members if you have none) do you love most? How much more? Without quantity, mathematics does not apply. Are you really looking for spiritual truths in mathematics? God is not quantifiable, that I know for sure. Is anything about God quantifiable? And if nothing about God is quantifiable, then I think it is strange to that spiritual things are quantifiable.
quote:
5. You mention QM as the true boundary of the physical world, and thus presumably where it intersects with the spiritual world, and I agree. But terms like physical and spiritual are just different descriptions of subsets of reality.
Grrrr.. That is a little trite. Saying that they are different subsets of reality does not erase the difference between them. I think you have become a little shell-shocked in your battle with atheists, desperately chanting that spiritual things are just as real as physical things. ....relax.... Of course they are.
quote:
6. QM describes an ordered world nonetheless. So I am not so sure the following is correct.
You are missing the point. Of course QM describes an ordered world. It is physics. It describes the physical world!!!! The point is that in describing the physical world it describes a limit to that order. It describes a limit to the causality within it. If you are hoping that anything in physics will prove the existence of the spirit or God, this is pure fantasy. That will never happen. If God wanted such proof to exist He would have made it more readily available. You are looking for an non-existent shortcut. There are no shortcuts around faith. Don't put so much faith in science and rationalism, they are not worthy.
quote:
I guess what I am saying is we agree on a lot, but I think it's premature to say we cannot discover a mathematical description of the spiritual arena.
I don't think so. All the evidence of science and history is against this. The reconciliation of science and religion can only be found in the recognition of their limitations. I think you are refusing to see those limitations.
quote:
Are you sure? Paul states "In Him we live and move and have our being," and he wasn't talking to Christians when he said that, but referred to Greek philosophy, and so posited an immanent aspect to God's being. There are other spiritual traditions that emphasize this immanent aspect, some overemphasize it probably.
The boundary I am talking about is everywhere. God is not out there somewhere precisely because the boundary is not a spatial one. God is everywhere around us and in us. You cannot get more immanent than that. But it is not the immanence of pantheism. God is not the universe and we are not pieces of God. God is definitely other than us but He has an intimate but not neccessary relationship (it is by choice) with everthing.
quote:
I can accept there are aspects of God that are off-limits, but you said yourself we see in QM the intersection of the spiritual with the physical. If we see the effects (the intersection) then we are in a sense measuring something spiritual, right? We have accepted gravity for a long time but not measured it directly or hadn't done so for a long time if we even have now.
So I wouldn't say we cannot measure or detect spiritual things, and think we actually are measuring and detecting spiritual realms within QM.
No. As I explained QM describes nothing spiritual. It only describes a gap - a hole, which you can choose to see as empty or as filled. Spirituality will always be a choice between seeing meaning in things or not. Christianity is not deficient. The spiritual truths are there in the proper form. There is no advanced "scientific" version. There are only people who get confused about the difference between Christianity and science.
Your use of the words "off limits" is very strange to me, for it is like your are saying that only science has any access to truth!?!?
quote:
How can you be sure?
How can we know anything for sure? We accept the conclusions which are most consistent with our experiences as a human being and I have thought long and hard about all of these questions, with the faith that I could find the answers. I know this with the same certainty that I know that the scientific description of reality is not the complete one. My experience of life as a human being tells me that there is an aspect of reality which is not quantifiable, objectively observable or measurable. Your description of the spiritual reality would force me to believe in a third aspect of existence. But common sense tells me that, the more likely truth is simply that your idea of spiritual reality is wrong. Perhaps time will eventual tell us which of us is correct.
Edited by mitchellmckain, : missing important "not"

See my relativistic physics of space flight simimulator at Astahost.com

This message is a reply to:
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mitchellmckain
Member (Idle past 6422 days)
Posts: 60
From: Salt Lake City, Utah, USA
Joined: 08-14-2006


Message 24 of 39 (341171)
08-18-2006 6:32 PM
Reply to: Message 23 by Admin
08-17-2006 7:25 PM


Re: Randman Has Been Showcased
Well of course I object to moving the whole thread to Showcase. Randman is participant, but I have been opposed to making this thread restricted to any one person's (or even two persons') ideas from the beginning. I can continue my discussion with randman in a separate thread under Showcase.

See my relativistic physics of space flight simimulator at Astahost.com

This message is a reply to:
 Message 23 by Admin, posted 08-17-2006 7:25 PM Admin has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 25 by Admin, posted 08-18-2006 6:45 PM mitchellmckain has replied

  
mitchellmckain
Member (Idle past 6422 days)
Posts: 60
From: Salt Lake City, Utah, USA
Joined: 08-14-2006


Message 26 of 39 (341379)
08-19-2006 12:16 PM
Reply to: Message 25 by Admin
08-18-2006 6:45 PM


Re: Randman Has Been Showcased
Well according to randman everyone else who has participated agrees so I guess we should give it a try.

See my relativistic physics of space flight simimulator at Astahost.com

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 Message 25 by Admin, posted 08-18-2006 6:45 PM Admin has not replied

  
mitchellmckain
Member (Idle past 6422 days)
Posts: 60
From: Salt Lake City, Utah, USA
Joined: 08-14-2006


Message 29 of 39 (342667)
08-23-2006 5:47 AM
Reply to: Message 28 by GDR
08-22-2006 5:13 PM


Re: Hameroff and Penrose
Hameroff writes:
"Consciousness remains a profound mystery. It touches not only science and medicine, but the nature of reality, our place in the universe. There can be no sense of spirituality or serenity without consciousness occurs".
Consciousness is far more than the brain acting like a computer.
I believe that consciousness is a universal property of the life process. It is, however, quantitative as all life is quantitative, so although all life has consciousness, that does not mean that all forms of life are equally conscious. There are measurable differences of complexity, sensitivity, freedom, and time scale. Human consciousness can develop these measures to such a high degree because the human lifeform is not only biological. The human brain provides a place for such a free interaction of sensory and motor information that it gives birth to a complex of life processes that operate on a much faster time scale as well as higher sensitivity and freedom. This lifeform which lives in the human brain is none other than what is commonly known as the human mind. So I cannot agree with Hameroff more when he says that consciousness is more than the brain acting like a computer. Indeed, I see no similarity between the human mind and the operation of a computer at all.
Hameroff writes:
"Evidence from various directions suggests non-local interactions-spooky action-at-a-distance as Einstein called it-among people, and a connection to the most basic level of reality. The best way to understand this is through quantum physics which describes how the universe actually is, at least at small scales. The problem is 'how small is small?' Where is the boundary, the edge between the quantum world and our everyday world?"
Well I think that boundary is described by the uncertainty principle because I do not think this can all be explained away with non-local physical processes. Certainly there are deterministic non-local physical processes , and I cannot blame physicists for seeking such an explanation of quantum physics, but since this leaves no room for the spiritual reality as I have experienced it, I cannot believe that it will succeed.
Hameroff writes:
In the quantum world there are deep interconnections and multitudes of possibilities. Time doesn't exist. In some sense our unconscious dream world is a lot like the quantum world. In fact, dreams may actually occur in the quantum world. Its not a different dimension, just the other side of our everyday reality.
I certainly would not put things this way because I do not think of the quantum world as anything but the scale on which we can see the limitation of physicical causality. Instead this suggests to me that that the quantitative energies bound to the physical form of the universe interact (in accordance with the limitations imposed by the uncertainty principle) with energy from outside the space-time physcical law structure of the universe. I envision a sea of non-quantitative energy (with no space or time measures), within which forms of energy can exist independent of one another and defined and "ruled" only by their own internal structure. This is what I call the spiritual world/realm/reality.
Yet I would hesitate to completely attibute human dreams to the experience of this spiritual reality. I think it is very similar but suspect, at most, something more like a sympathetic correspondence rather a direct experience of the spiritual. I think that dreams are more of a physical phenomena consisting of the experience of life (or state of consciousness) that the human mind has when the brain is asleep. I find it quite likely, however, that the human mind becomes even more sensitive to its spiritual environment when the brain shuts down the mind's connection to most of the physical senses.
Notice that I do not attribute the human mind and its activities to anything non-physical. It think that this confusion of the mental with the spiritual is a product of ignorance. But on the other hand I believe that all the activities of any living organism, including the human mind, involves a relationship between the physical process and a spiritual entity which is created by the choices made. It seems quite possible to me that this spiritual entity also represents a means by which the living organism can interact with other spiritual entities transcending time and space.
Hameroff writes:
But our everyday reality is different. Consciousness has something to do with that. Some say the conscious observer chooses our reality. That may be true but it doesn't explain what the conscious observer actually is."
Well the conscious observer may choose his reality in the spiritual world but in the physical world choice has very little to do with it. In regards to the physical reality the conscious observer can only choose how to respond to what is observed. I believe that the observer in QM which collapses the wave function need not be something conscious at all. I think that it only requires a simple physical amplification process which makes the particular property, which is undetermined in the wave function, effect the behavior of many particles in a macroscopic effect.
To understand what the conscious observer is, I believe you have to understand what the life process is. The life process is a cyclical process that can only be described by non-linear equations because the cyclical nature involves the feedback phenomenon, which is capable of amplifying insignificant disturbances into macroscopic results. The bifurcation phenomenon discovered in the science of chaos explains how such processes can respond to changes in the environment with choices in how they will change their struture both as temporary behavioral responses and as permanent adaptations. We can see the simplest examples of such processes in the weather patterns of the earth (and other planets). And even in these simple patterns we see how such cyclical structures draw energy from their environment to maintain themselves as living things do.
In what we call living organisms, cyclical chemical processes interact with other cyclical chemical process to form cyclical processes on higher and higher levels of organization. It is easy to imagine how such structures could have formed step by step in response to environmenal changes to achieve higher degrees of stability and sensitivity to the environment. In this way, creativity and the ability to learn are ultimately basic properties of this life process. We just see its most complex, sensitive, and intensive realization in human creativity and learning.
Hameroff writes:
"Penrose suggested that Plato's world of pure forms, mathematical truth, ethical and aesthetic values actually exist in the quantum world, in the most basic level of the universe. That level is described through string theory, quantum gravity and so forth but is far, far too tiny to be measured. It is what makes up empty space, the fabric of nothingness. It's tiny, but vast; wherever we go, there it is! We can't see it, but according to Roger, we can feel it. He suggested that conscious thought connects to, and is influenced by, these Platonic values.
I am not much of a fan of Plato's ideas, and do not believe in pure forms of any kind, but if ideas and values exist as independent entities then I would expect to find them in that sea of non-quantitative energy that I call the spiritual realm. But if these are to influence human consciousness, we should consider how.
I have painted a picture of reality in which we are submerged in this sea of energy I call the spiritual realm, and so it might seem that it influences everything. But the physical evidence suggest that for the most part, "uncaused" events on the quantum level have little or no influence on macroscopic events that we can see. But there are notable exceptions. Chaos science has discovered that non-linear systems can only be predicted if you know the initial conditions to an infinite degree of precision. This means that such non-linear systems do amplify the effects of quantum events to macroscopic consequences. One result is the ultimate unpredictability of the weather. Another result is that wave collapse can play a role, via the bifurcation phenomenon, in the choices that living things make in behavioral and adaptive responses to environmental change.
Hameroff writes:
The basic idea is that consciousness is, in itself, a transition between the quantum and everyday classical worlds. So it isn't so much that the conscious observer causes a 'collapse of the wave function', as it's called. Rather, consciousness IS a collapse-a particular type of self-collapse. Consciousness is a process on the edge between the quantum world and our everyday world. I get this funny image in my head of someone-me, I guess, but anyone -surfing on the edge, like a wave breaking between the two realms.
As I explained in my first post I believe these choices represents an interaction between physical and spiritual in a self-causal event, that simultaneously determines the result of the wave collapse and re-creates the spirit as the subject of the choice which is made. So there is certainly some similarities in our ideas but (just like between me and randman) there are some big differences. They are looking for consciousness (or spirit) in the physics where they find the hints of possibility, whereas I do not expect to find these thing in quantum phenomena at all. I see the consciousness already in an important physical process (described more by the mathematics of chaos science than quantum physics) and I see the spirit as being ultimately unreachable by science because the spiritual is by its very nature unquantifiable and unmeasurable.

See my relativistic physics of space flight simimulator at Astahost.com

This message is a reply to:
 Message 28 by GDR, posted 08-22-2006 5:13 PM GDR has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 30 by GDR, posted 08-23-2006 11:12 AM mitchellmckain has replied

  
mitchellmckain
Member (Idle past 6422 days)
Posts: 60
From: Salt Lake City, Utah, USA
Joined: 08-14-2006


Message 32 of 39 (342773)
08-23-2006 2:18 PM
Reply to: Message 30 by GDR
08-23-2006 11:12 AM


Re: Hameroff and Penrose
GDR writes:
When you say that consciousness is a universal property of the life process I'm wondering what you would include in the term life process. Does an ant have consciousness; does an amoeba or a rose?
Yes of course. The quantitative measure of consciousness may differ by factors of millions to one, but yes; the ant much more conscious than the rose which is much more conscious than the amoeba. Although all of these may be more conscious as a species than as individuals (not sure though). Life processes occurs not only in these individual organisms but also in communities and even in the species as a whole. Certainly mankind is much more conscious as individuals than as a species or as communities. The development of the community consciousness of man is an important part of the next stage of human "evolution."
GDR writes:
Do you see the human mind and human consciousness as being synonymous?
No. Human consciousness is however primarily an inherent property of the life process of the human mind. But human consiousness doubtless includes a consciousness of the body as well.
GDR writes:
Would you say that the brain acts like a computer with the mind providing input to the brain?
More like the other way around, but I don't think the brain is anything like a computer at all. The human brain is certainly a very complex thing and there are many aspects to it and many ways to think about it. I am characterizing it as a living environment for a living organism whose substance on the most basic level is electro-chemical information. From the information of the senses and motor function is formed a hierarchy of cyclical structures of information from raw data, to concepts, beliefs and personality.
GDR writes:
Gerald Shroeder suggests, in his book "The Hidden Face of God",
that each particle in QM is in reality a little bit of thought or information. Would you agree with him?
Not really. There may be truth in this as an analogy, but ultimately I do not see QM as anything but the limitation of physical causality.
GDR writes:
When you talk about a sea of non-quantitative energy would you consider this to function along the line of the Higgs field?
No I would not. The Higgs field would be quantitative, because it is a concept of physics.
GDR writes:
Is this the same thing as decoherence?
Only in the sense that both are trying to describe the measurement process. My description is certainly a lot less developed.
GDR writes:
While I'm at it I'm wondering what you think would be left of the universe if all consciousness ceased to exist. If a tree falls in a forest and there is no consciousness to observe or measure it does it make a sound?
Well as I said before consciousness is an inherent property of life. So you could only have a universe without consciousness if the universe was without life of any kind.
For your second questions there are many ways to think about that but one way is in terms of the physical definitions of the words in which case the answer would be yes. I do not think that existence of the physical universe or any part of it depends on the existence of consciousness.
GDR writes:
As we are spiritual beings do you see our consciousness as being the part of us that survives physical death? If not, then what is the relationship of the mind, consciousness and soul.
I see the spirit as the part of us that survives death. The spirit participates in the life process we have now and that it is part of consiousness. It is in fact the true subject of consciousness. It is the "I" which ultimately claims our actions and thoughts as its own. But the spirit does not contain our current consciousness, which is a process that involves the body and mind as well. Since the body and mind dies, our consciousness must at least be transformed if it survives. For there to be consciousness there must be life and life requires interaction. So religion claims that spiritual life ultimately requires a relationship with God.
The meanings of the words spirit and soul do have specific meanings in Christian tradition, but I do not find them particularly helpful. If you want to describe what you think these terms mean I could comment on this. In any case, I use the word mind for a physical but living entity that lives in the human brain. Like all living things the mind is connected with a spirit which it identifies as the subject of its thoughts and actions, and the choices of the mind recreates the spirit in the process. The mind dies but its spirit continues to exist.
GDR writes:
What do you mean by a coscious observer choosing his reality in the spiritual world.
Well the the spirit is created by the choices of the living organism, and it is not ruled by any laws except its own. It is like a separate universe and its reality is of its own choosing. The movie "What Dreams May Come" gives a pretty good illustration of what I am talking about.
What can no longer be taken for granted is the connection between things. In the physical world we are all part of one being and bound into space-time relationships by our place in its structure, but no such connection exist externally in the spirit world. You must have forged the connections to others within yourself by the choices you make in life, or you will be alone. In the movie, Christy (played by Robin Williams) cannot find his children until he reaches past what he believed and wanted them to be to the real connections he made with them in life, so that he can see past appearance to the reality underneath. One of the moments of greatest danger is when Christy is about to go chasing after the illusion of his wife, and only the warning of a friend pulls him back.
GDR writes:
I have no scientific training and is there a simple way of explaining to me what you mean by non-linear equations?
Well we are talking about differential equations, and these are of two types: linear and non-linear. Non-linear equations are difficult if not impossible to solve except perhaps by numerical methods using computers. So for a long time scientist approximated the non-linear equations in nature with linear ones. It was eventually discovered however that the non-linear equations had properties that greatly differed from the linear ones, and so by using such approximation we were over-simplifying reality. This discovery was the beginning of the science of chaos, or chaotic dynamics. I can reccommend the book "Chaos" by James Gleick for more explanation.
GDR writes:
I know I have a lot of questions, but that is only because I have so few answers.
The more answers you have the more questions you have. But it is the questions which are the true key to understanding.
Edited by mitchellmckain, : answer incomplete

See my relativistic physics of space flight simimulator at Astahost.com

This message is a reply to:
 Message 30 by GDR, posted 08-23-2006 11:12 AM GDR has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 33 by GDR, posted 08-23-2006 4:00 PM mitchellmckain has replied
 Message 38 by miosim, posted 04-15-2007 2:03 PM mitchellmckain has not replied

  
mitchellmckain
Member (Idle past 6422 days)
Posts: 60
From: Salt Lake City, Utah, USA
Joined: 08-14-2006


Message 34 of 39 (342819)
08-23-2006 5:01 PM
Reply to: Message 33 by GDR
08-23-2006 4:00 PM


Re: Hameroff and Penrose
GDR writes:
I wouldn't have thought you'd go as far as a rose.
You have to understand what I mean when I say consciousness is quantitative. Clearly the rose does not think like we do, none of the living things on this planet do. But the rose bush is aware and self aware on some level because it responds to the environment and regulates its own internal activities. It could, however, be more conscious on a cellular level in which case its superiority over the amoeba would be mostly in the numbers of cells.
GDR writes:
Can you expand on the next phase of human evolution?
Evolution occurs in stages because the evolution of individual ceases in some respect when it becomes a part of communal evolution. When communities are formed they start to protect the weaker members of the community. This greatly reduces the effect of natural selection on the individual and opens up a great new range of variation for the individual. In this next stage the individual adapts to specialized roles in the community which makes a community technology possible, which in turn increases the communities ability to protect weaker members and even compensate for their inabilities. Certainly such a next stage of evolution happened in the development of multicellular organisms, but it surely happened many many times before that. Clearly the same thing is happening to the human community now in both the protection of weaker members, giving them productive new roles in the community and compensating for inabilities with technology.
GDR writes:
If time and space are merely illusions that are perceived by consciousness then how does change happen at all?
Well I don't believe that they are. Time and space are part of the mathematical structure of the physical universe that relate all its parts to each other.
GDR writes:
Your contention is that human consciousness is made up of mind, brain and spirit. (I think) You said that the mind is a part of the brain and that both mind and brain cease with physical death. I still don't understand then the difference that you see between the brain and the mind. I understand that the brain is an organism but then it follows that the mind must be as well doesn't it?
The brain is a part of a biological organism whose substance is chemical reactions. In other words biological life consists of a self-organizing structure of chemical reactions cycles. The mind is not a biological organism. The mind is a living organism whose substance is information (sensory data comming in from the body and and motor responses that are returned. An infant's motor responses start out as largely random but the infant's ability to see its own movements creates an information feed back loop which are part of a rudimentary lifeform which can learn (evolve) much much faster than biological organisms since its material requirements are minimal.
Of course it always helps when living organisms do not have to start from scratch, so they inevitably have means to pass on what they have learned to the next generation by some type of inheritance. The learning process of biological organisms is largely that of evolution and the inheritance is by means of DNA. The human mind passes on its inheritance to its offspring by means of verbal (and non-verbal) communication. The stories of the rare child who has survived on its own in the wilds (so called feral children) indicate what is left when we are deprived of that inheritance.
The point is to understand that the human difference largely derives from the fact that we are not really biological life-forms. Our ability to learn and make choices is one a whole different time scale because of this. The other animals have brains and thus some of our innate abilities but they do not have a mind, unless the dolphins and whales are an exception.
GDR writes:
GDR writes:
Why does spiritual life then require relationship with God? Wouldn't interaction with community suffice? (Not that I don't think that relationship with God is a very good thing.)
The spirit is eternal but life depends on external relationships. In the physical world these are supplied externally against your will. In the spiritual world these external relationships must come from within you and subject to your own will. The spirit of a person who hates everyone will be alone. The relationships to finite beings will provide only limited life, only a relationship to an infinite God can provide eternal life. To oversimplify you could say that the death of the spirit is a death of boredom, isolation, and stagnation.
Edited by mitchellmckain, : spelling

See my relativistic physics of space flight simimulator at Astahost.com

This message is a reply to:
 Message 33 by GDR, posted 08-23-2006 4:00 PM GDR has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 35 by GDR, posted 08-23-2006 5:33 PM mitchellmckain has replied

  
mitchellmckain
Member (Idle past 6422 days)
Posts: 60
From: Salt Lake City, Utah, USA
Joined: 08-14-2006


Message 36 of 39 (342850)
08-23-2006 7:42 PM
Reply to: Message 35 by GDR
08-23-2006 5:33 PM


Re: Hameroff and Penrose
GDR writes:
I am still curious then if you believe that all consciousness is eternal.
Spirit is eternal. Consciousness is relational. I don't have all the answers but I would guess that the spirit of a human being would have some innate capacity for what I think you would call consciousness after the death of the body.
GDR writes:
Do you consider this human evolution to be physical or spiritual?
Just as physical as any other evolution. But evolution is a life process which means it is never entirely physical. In fact, I would think that the higher the life form the greater the role that the spirit plays in its evolution.
GDR writes:
What is the mind then? Is it physical, spiritual or both?
Purely physical.
In some sense you could say that the mind is our true physical form. Our body is just an animal, but we are not animals at all. Yet the mind depends on and mostly controls the body and so we think of it as part of us, just as our hair and fingernails are a part of us. But of course the same is true of the earth. We depend on it and are unopposed in our control of it. Now if only we can come think of it as just as much a part of us as our bodies are.
Remember that the mind is a living organism. The highest form of life on the planet. And so its connection to the spirit is greater than any other living thing. As with all living things, all the actions and choices of the mind are claimed by its spirit. Everything we experience can in the immediate sense be traced to a physical cause. But this sense that we are the author of our choices and actions is a delusion unless it points to a spirit.
GDR writes:
I assume by that then the our memory is stored in the mind and that the brain then interprets information from the mind and responds.
... Wouldn't that mean then that the spirit after physical death would no longer have a memory of this life?
Memory is still one of the great mysteries, but I expect a physical explanation. The idea of memory belonging to the mind would go along with holographic ideas of memory that I have heard.
The spirit is created by the choices that the living organism makes, but those choices are somewhat inseperable from the context in which they are made. So in some sense each choice makes the whole universe as it is known by the living organism a part of the spirit. So the spirit retains a kind of memory independent of body and mind.
GDR writes:
I think then that you are saying that the brain as a physical organism just performs as it is designed to do in the same way our heart does, but the mind evolves with time and experience throughout our life time.
In a general sense, yes. But to be perfectly accurate the brain is alive and so it is neither designed nor does it simply perform as it was made to do, although by comparison to the mind this is a fair statement.

See my relativistic physics of space flight simimulator at Astahost.com

This message is a reply to:
 Message 35 by GDR, posted 08-23-2006 5:33 PM GDR has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 37 by GDR, posted 08-23-2006 10:25 PM mitchellmckain has not replied

  
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