Empirical observations of consciousness demand a new understanding of physics

[Michael1991]

Link to blog removed by moderator

Empiricism and fallibilism are the foundations of science. No amount of evidence can ever prove a theory, but it only takes one piece of evidence to disprove a theory. “Evolution could so easily be disproved if just a single fossil turned up in the wrong date order. Evolution has passed this test with flying colours.” - Richard Dawkins. As Renee Descartes' philosophy put "I think therefore I am" and knowledge of one's existence as the foundations of knowledge, some aspects of experience can also share the same epistemological status of certainty. Scientific theory never obtains such status nor can any evidence obtained by it, hence its called falsifiable, and falsifying mainstream views of nature is what the following observations do.

 

Consciousness is a really existing phenomenon that physics is compelled to account for. We know what particles in the standard model the brain, neurons, and electromagnetism are composed of and yet how it all gives rise to consciousness remains a mystery. To be clear I'll define consciousness as perception; awareness of self or sensory experience. While quantum field theory considers particles as vibrations in continuous fields, the mainstream view of matter, even within QFT, is of independent (key word) particles, atoms, and molecules, with interaction between them taking place predominately through non-hidden local causal influence (Locality is influence from things in the immediate surrounding, non-locality is influence by things far away, and a hidden variable is an alternative local explanation for phenomena thought to be non-local like entanglement). It’s assumed that a reductive approach with this description of matter can explain consciousness but the idea that it ever could is an absurd one.

The prevailing view of consciousness in science concludes that it is located entirely in the brain and is premised upon 4 things,

1. There is only one type of substance matter, which is made up of particles

2. Non-hidden local interactions between particles and atoms predominates in the brain and nature.

3. Consciousness is composed of and reduces to matter

4. Consciousness arises post processing in the brain

If I am many particles all at once and my brain can be aware of this, how could purely local causation with no hidden-variable ever explain that? Continuous fields maybe able to account for unification but how could a system of exclusively local causation between particles and atoms ever have direct knowledge (direct- without intervening factors; knowledge- true belief; direct knowledge- knowledge direct from experience) of not just working as a whole but something being the whole? I am ever present throughout my body, the simultaneous awareness of each point in space at a single moment in time would be a faster-than-light phenomenon in this model as its awareness of everything, everywhere, all at once (Thanks Hollywood). Thus it demands a non-local or hidden variable explanation and therefore premise 2 is false.

 

God has given us eyes that could not see and ears that could not hear. In order to understand how nature works scientists studied the dust, and nature as though it was casting a spell put their minds to sleep. What we saw and heard was no longer outside of us but in our heads, colors were divorced from the objects they belonged to, a human was not one soul but a mere conglomerate of particles, and some even denied experience altogether. I experience my existence and so I know for certain that I exist. Experencio ergo sum, I experience therefore I am. I ask myself what am I? I sense my being, and I return a response. I am a single 3-dimensional object in the shape of a human passing through time. That I am traveling through time may mean that I am really a 4-dimensional object, however only the existence of the three spacial dimensions are obvious. My body is situated in a spacial environment that I also perceive to be only 3-dimensional, as again a 4th dimension of time or any higher dimensions if they exist aren’t immediately obvious, though I do perceive the passage of time in the environment. When I touch an object with my finger, the sensation of the touch occurs in the location where my finger is touching that object. When I hear a noise, the sound I sense is in the location of the sound’s creation, such that if I am standing on a sidewalk and a car passes by in the far away lane, the sound of the engine is in the location around the engine and the cars position in space can be known to me merely through sound alone. When I see an object, the sight of that object is in the location where that object is (unless something is distorting my perception). While it may seem obvious that all this is the case if you are like me, a sentient human, the phenomena of perceptions that I just described are inexplicable by the prevailing paradigm in physics and neuroscience.

 

Consciousness is widely considered to be in the brain, with what we perceive through the senses occurring when matter of some sort, collides with our sense organs, which then propagate an electro-chemical chain reaction through the nervous system and into the brain to be processed, which is then followed by conscious perception. Since perception arises post-processing many conclude consciousness must be located in the brain. However, when my finger touches an object and it sends a chain reaction through the nervous system to the brain, the sensation that follows does not occur in the location of my brain, it occurs in the location of my finger, where the chain reaction began. Mainstream biology and neuroscience do not speak of a return sensory signal to the finger that tells it its having a sensation, yet the location of the sensation is fact, to dispute it means you reject empirically knowable truth, or your consciousness is different from my own, or you’re a philosophical zombie that doesn’t experience.

 

Perhaps I am a homunculus inside the brain? (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homunculus_argument) If so then the homunculus is THE THINKER not the brain that I would exist in, for I am now speaking of MY existence and can tell you of MY experience from a first-person perspective. Suppose I am a homunculus in the middle or the front of my brain, that would mean me and the environment I perceive is made up mostly of neurons and whatever else is in the brain. None of which I can experience for what it actually is, as I would be experiencing it only as the representations of what ever large scale objects are in the outside world and neural pathways, that I can’t detect, from outside this dome of experience would be sending information inside to MY finger, that causes MY finger to feel a sensation. The homunculus would then be able to tell the part of the brain responsible for cognition that IT felt the sensation in that location of space where the representation of my finger is. What about our current model of physics can explain the existence of or experience of the homunculus? When and how do ions flowing into and out of neurons turn into this computer? When I turn my head and look at something else, how do those same neurons turn into a completely different image? If I put a green triangle 10 inches in front of my face, and then trade it for a purple circle 10 inches in front of my face, wouldn’t it be the same group of neurons making both images? You might say that maybe the frequency at which the neuron fires changes the color. Why then would some neurons, that are virtually identical, produce sound, or taste, or smell, or touch and not color or the other sensory qualities? You might respond well those neurons are not processing vision and color. To which I respond what influence does any other neuron have on the neuron that turns green or purple besides the frequency at which it fires? If it were the case that the type of sensation (qualia) that arose was dependent on other neurons, it would have to be a non-local (or hidden variable) causal influence as the neurons involved in processing all the senses are virtually identical. Premise 2 would then would be false. Even so what plausible physical mechanism can one give using current theory for how neurons disguise themselves as the image and feeling of this computer or the sounds it produces when I type on it? Now lets say maybe the size or shape or some other known variable of the neuron could effect the type of sensation it produced, wouldn’t we be talking about phenomena and properties that physics knows nothing about? All you would really be saying in these counter-arguments is that a sensation is a function of more or less particles or ions being present in a neuron or how often particles or ions flow in and out of it. Would that not then be calling it an emergent property? Absent a theory of emergence consistent with physics would not such an appeal be as good as an appeal to magic? Perhaps there is magic, who knows? There is more to heaven and earth than is realized by your science O' Ratio.

 

It seems the homunculus concept isn't salvageable without an appeal to dualism or a new radically different understanding of matter. Now, suppose dark matter was a "field of consciousness", even if the neurons were interacting with dark matter to create a "realm" inside of the brain, what would be responsible for the organizing of experience into a self-aware 3-dimensional human shaped body? Would appeal to computation even make any sense in a reductive way or would it just be obfuscation? Not only would burden of proof be on those making the appeal but the burden of providing an intelligible description of a mechanism or at least explaining what it meant in a physical sense would also be on them. Would it not be more reasonable to conclude that the reason experience is organized in this way is because you're embodied in your actual body that is already organized this way? Until evidence to the contrary arises Occam's razor would suggest so. If neurons in the brain can be said to be interacting non-locally (or with a hidden variable) why not all the neurons in the whole body's nervous system? And if the body is interacting non-locally (or with a hidden variable) why presume that it’s not interacting in such a way with the actual environment around it?

 

The current paradigm in physics only talks about the one way causal chain reaction from the collision of outside matter with the body resulting in a signal propagated through the nervous system and brain but what is the orientation of your perception of sight and your perception of the thoughts about what you’re seeing? Vision is processed in the back of the brain by the occipital lobe and the temporal lobe, while thoughts are produced in the frontal lobe in the front of the brain, yet my conscious perception of what I see is external to my body in front of the internal perception of my thoughts. The conscious perception of sound is also occurring externally. Just by listening with my ears, I am capable of sensing being in a 3-dimensional environment and can hear sounds in the locations they are originating from. To clarify my conscious visual perception is not in my eyes or in my brain, its extending from my eyes over to the locations of whatever I am looking at. My hearing is not in my ears or my brain. My hearing, the conscious perception of sound, is outside of my body wherever the thing producing the sound is located. It is as though I am unified with the environment around me.

 

Given that I can speak of these phenomenal experiences, there seems to be a sort of feedback loop between the thing being phenomenally experienced and the brain, that is more than just a single return back to the location of experience. If you look at a tree, photons bouncing off the tree hit your eyes, cause an electro-chemical chain reaction through the brain to the visual processing center, it gets processed, then conscious visual perception extends out from the eyes to the tree, and then you have knowledge of the external perception of the tree (This is not to suggest that something ever moves at light speed back to the tree from the eyes, just that there is perception located between your eyes and tree). The greenness of a leaf is not in my brain, and as far as I can reason, it’s not a property of the photons that bounced off the leaf either, because the photons are not in the location of the leaf anymore, while the color is. The color thus seems to be some property of the leaf that can be detected when certain wavelengths of light bounce off of it and one has eyes and a brain capable of processing that color. When I say “the green is over there on the leaf”, I am making a statement about the qualia or the greenness of the green on the leaf, contained in the external perception of the leaf. It is knowledge of what the external perception of the leaf is like. The qualia itself must then be having a causal effect on the movement of the normal matter inside my brain in order for me to speak of it. Yet qualia is something that we become aware of post-processing of the matter that collided with our sense organs. The statement “the green is over there” seems to contain either post-experiential knowledge or knowledge gained simultaneously with experience. If we do know things about an experience post-experience or simultaneously with it and if experience is post-processing, where does the knowledge come from if not for a secondary processing, entanglement or some non-local (or hidden variable) interaction similar to entanglement occurring between the brain and the location of perception? Maybe quantum fields and non-local (or hidden variable) interaction of normal matter can account for the continuousness and unified working of the body and its connection with the environment, I do not know. If so then quantum field as substance should not be underestimated, for I am not just the particles but the space between them as well. On this note I think it's important to recognize that space is not nothing. "we may say that according to the general theory of relativity space is endowed with physical qualities; in this sense, therefore, there exists an ether. According to the general theory of relativity space without ether is unthinkable."- Albert Einstein https://www.researchgate.net/publication/358617464_Ether_and_the_Theory_of_Relativity. The nature of dark matter, or dark gravity, and whether or not it plays a role in this I do not know either, however it is an unknown substance, with unknown properties, that has only been detected through its gravitational effects. Since the mechanism of sensory perception has thus far evaded detection, if dark matter was responsible it would explain why. What ever the case may be, nature is not working the way it is believed to.

 

The most extraordinary of abilities is the power to answer the question of “what am I?”. The locus of “I” is in the brain and I extend outward through the whole body. I am not merely a system of separate particles bouncing around. If I am made up of particles, I am all of those particles for I am one. I am my whole being at a single instant in time and I can tell my frontal lobe, that that is what I am! The brain claiming that I'm the whole self and me actually being the whole self is not a mere coincidence of a delusional brain accidentally being correct. I have the power to verify the truth on demand at anytime by sensing myself when ever I so want to. Physicists speak of dust but I am a soul, a unified whole controlling the parts to speak of its existence. While there is much about my experience that is uncertain, there are some aspects of my experience that are undeniably real. The existence of these phenomena, are directly knowable to be certainly and incontrovertibly real via empirical observation, and as such should not be dismissed in order to protect favored theories and beliefs. I am not anti-science and its not anti-science to say that the scientific community needs to accept that their beliefs don’t match up with experience, it’s pro-empiricism. It’s time to awake from the sleep of the dust of the Earth and discover the truth of our reality

Edited July 29, 2022 by Phi for All
No advertising, please.

[Bufofrog]

12 hours ago, Michael1991 said:

If I am many particles all at once and my brain can be aware of this, how could purely local causation with no hidden-variable ever explain that? Continuous fields maybe able to account for unification but how could a system of exclusively local causation between particles and atoms ever have direct knowledge (direct- without intervening factors; knowledge- true belief; direct knowledge- knowledge direct from experience) of not just working as a whole but something being the whole? I am ever present throughout my body, the simultaneous awareness of each point in space at a single moment in time would be a faster-than-light phenomenon in this model as its awareness of everything, everywhere, all at once (Thanks Hollywood). Thus it demands a non-local or hidden variable explanation and therefore premise 2 is false.

This boils down to, "I can't understand how a brain can be conscious, therefore this is not true".

12 hours ago, Michael1991 said:

Physicists speak of dust but I am a soul, a unified whole controlling the parts to speak of its existence.

That is simply a belief without evidence.  Science deals with observation and evidence, religion deals in faith and belief.

[Phi for All]

What's the objective here? Are you looking for critique, or is there an aspect of your idea you want to discuss with other members? This isn't your blog, and a LOT of this is just your personal musings about supernatural subjects, and NOBODY here is interested in unevidenced conjecture. Perhaps you could remove the religious aspects and focus on some science you want to discuss? 

[swansont]

14 hours ago, Michael1991 said:

The greenness of a leaf is not in my brain, and as far as I can reason, it’s not a property of the photons that bounced off the leaf either, because the photons are not in the location of the leaf anymore, while the color is.

"The leaf is green" means that the light that reflects off of a leaf (from a white-ish source) is predominantly green, as in it's centered around 500 nm, and is lacking in light at the far ends of the visible spectrum. So the photons are actually green photons, i.e. it is a property of the photons that bounced off the leaf.

There are other color perceptions that depend on how the eye processes the light, as well.

To some people the leaf might not be green, because of problems in the eyes or in the optic nerve, or the brain. Color perception is a little more complicated at times. But it's safe to say it's not just in the leaf.

[mistermack]

When you look at the animal kingdom, the bigger the brain, the higher the state of consciousness. Bit of a clue there. And a bang on the head leads to unconsciousness. Another clue. Brain scans show a difference when you are conscious, and unconscious. Another clue There are lots of other clues.

Look at all of the clues, and it becomes perfectly obvious. Our souls make us conscious, and humans have the biggest souls. 

[swansont]

2 minutes ago, mistermack said:

Our souls make us conscious, and humans have the biggest souls. 

Citation(s) needed

[mistermack]

2 minutes ago, swansont said:

Citation(s) needed

" I made you in my image"    God. 

[swansont]

19 minutes ago, mistermack said:

" I made you in my image"    God. 

What peer-reviewed science journal was that published in?

[mistermack]

1 hour ago, swansont said:

What peer-reviewed science journal was that published in?

Periodical Ironical Empironical. 

[Michael1991]

6 hours ago, Phi for All said:

What's the objective here? Are you looking for critique, or is there an aspect of your idea you want to discuss with other members? This isn't your blog, and a LOT of this is just your personal musings about supernatural subjects, and NOBODY here is interested in unevidenced conjecture. Perhaps you could remove the religious aspects and focus on some science you want to discuss? 

When did I ever mention supernatural subjects? God is used in a pantheist sense and soul is used to refer to the concept of the whole having control of the parts. You hear "religious" terms and shut your mind down just like a theist does when they hear something opposed to their views. What do I want to discuss? Yeah. Everyone's quick to dismiss but no counter arguments are given. I made 3 claims 1. consciousness demands a non-local or hidden variable explanation 2. Embodied is more reasonable to believe than being a homunculus in the brain and a homunculus is just as inexplicable by the current framework in physics as embodied is 3. the whole has control over the parts as the whole speaks of its experience and existence. 

Just ask yourself, do you sense everything, everywhere, all at once in your body? Is your vision and hearing external? And can you speak of these phenomenon while simultaneously experiencing them? Thats faster-than-light bro! Simultaneous awareness of many points in space. And an "entangled" like state between all these points in space can explain why they are able to work in unison as a unified whole.

Edited July 29, 2022 by Michael1991

[Phi for All]

1 hour ago, Michael1991 said:

When did I ever mention supernatural subjects? God is used in a pantheist sense and soul is used to refer to the concept of the whole having control of the parts. You hear "religious" terms and shut your mind down just like a theist does when they hear something opposed to their views. What do I want to discuss? Yeah. Everyone's quick to dismiss but no counter arguments are given. I made 3 claims 1. consciousness demands a non-local or hidden variable explanation 2. Embodied is more reasonable to believe than being a homunculus in the brain and a homunculus is just as inexplicable by the current framework in physics as embodied is 3. the whole has control over the parts as the whole speaks of its experience and existence. 

Just ask yourself, do you sense everything, everywhere, all at once in your body? Is your vision and hearing external? And can you speak of these phenomenon while simultaneously experiencing them? Thats faster-than-light bro! Simultaneous awareness of many points in space. And an "entangled" like state between all these points in space can explain why they are able to work in unison as a unified whole.

!

Moderator Note

This section is for defending non-mainstream science concepts using mainstream mechanisms. All of your theistic arguments are supernatural in that regard, so you'd never be able to support your arguments to the extent we require for Speculations. It's not a matter of my mind shutting down so much as enforcing rules the site owner has in place.

I'm going to move this to Philosophy. If you prefer Religion, I can move it there instead. We still like supportive evidence along with our claims, in any section.

 

[Michael1991]

7 minutes ago, Phi for All said:

!

Moderator Note

This section is for defending non-mainstream science concepts using mainstream mechanisms. All of your theistic arguments are supernatural in that regard, so you'd never be able to support your arguments to the extent we require for Speculations. It's not a matter of my mind shutting down so much as enforcing rules the site owner has in place.

I'm going to move this to Philosophy. If you prefer Religion, I can move it there instead. We still like supportive evidence along with our claims, in any section.

 

What are you a philosophical zombie? The supportive evidence is empirical observations of consciousness that anyone who is conscious can verify for themselves which physics is compelled to account for. Sorry everybody that first-person subjectivity is a little hard to measure but thats just a fact of nature, its the problem with explaining consciousness that is acknowledged by EVERY person in the field, that's consciousness 101 and it doesn't mean science can just assume it away! And I'm not a theist! Mainstream mechanism how about the holographic universe theories that say everything is entangled and entanglement is responsible for gravity? Same shit but if I say the same concept is necessary to explain consciousness then everyone be like "that's supernatural and unscientific". Say that to Leonard Suskin (holographic universe) or Sir Roger Penrose (entanglement between microtubules is responsible for consciousness) or Sean Carrol (entanglement is responsible for gravity). You won't.

[Ghideon]

2 hours ago, Michael1991 said:

Thats faster-than-light bro!

As far as I know there are no established models allowing faster than light* communication. What mechanism do you propose?

*) Faster than speed of light in vacuum, c

[mistermack]

 

 

 

22 hours ago, Michael1991 said:

Consciousness is a really existing phenomenon that physics is compelled to account for. We know what particles in the standard model the brain, neurons, and electromagnetism are composed of and yet how it all gives rise to consciousness remains a mystery

No it doesn't. It remains to be fully explained. That doesn't make it a mystery. We have the mechanisms but the finer points and complicated interactions are not fully nailed down, and might never be, because they ARE complicated. Not because of some missing element. Complicated things take a lot of time and effort to analyse. Very often it's not worth the money or effort. That's not a fundamental mystery, it's just a fact of life.

22 hours ago, Michael1991 said:

If I am many particles all at once and my brain can be aware of this, how could purely local causation with no hidden-variable ever explain that?

Why shouldn't it? What's to explain? 

Your OP comes across just an immense word salade, with throw-away questions like the above, that don't seem to have any real meaning.

Explain in ordinary words why an ordinary biological brain could NOT be conscious, without the acres of spiel. 

 

 

[Michael1991]

9 minutes ago, mistermack said:

 

 

 

No it doesn't. It remains to be fully explained. That doesn't make it a mystery. We have the mechanisms but the finer points and complicated interactions are not fully nailed down, and might never be, because they ARE complicated. Not because of some missing element. Complicated things take a lot of time and effort to analyse. Very often it's not worth the money or effort. That's not a fundamental mystery, it's just a fact of life.

Why shouldn't it? What's to explain? 

Your OP comes across just an immense word salade, with throw-away questions like the above, that don't seem to have any real meaning.

Explain in ordinary words why an ordinary biological brain could NOT be conscious, without the acres of spiel. 

 

 

Yes its a mystery, we do not have a mechanism. It's called the hard problem of consciousness for a reason, everyone scratches their head at it. The point of my paper is that consciousness cannot be reduced to the building blocks of physics as the building blocks are currently understood. Computation or information integration are just terms that may or may not have mathematical sense but have no physical sense. In other words the math of physics has real physical correlates while consciousness as computation or information integration theory do not.

Current theory is like suggesting a trillion marbles bouncing in a big box can develop consciousness, but by comparison consciousness is like being the trillion marbles and all the space in between and all the trillion marbles understanding that they are a single unified whole not just the trillion marbles. In other words people think of particles as discrete and independent building blocks but in reality nature is fundamentally continuous and unified in that there must be some hidden-variable medium or non-local connection between everything. This is not unheard of. Holographic theories suggest everything is entangled and entanglement is responsible for gravity and the scientific field takes those theories and their theorists seriously. But if someone comes along saying that an explanation of consciousness depends on it then everyone starts assuming you're just a quack. You assume the mainstream model is correct but every physicist knows that its not they just don't know whats wrong with it.

53 minutes ago, Ghideon said:

As far as I know there are no established models allowing faster than light* communication. What mechanism do you propose?

*) Faster than speed of light in vacuum, c

First off, not having an established model doesn't mean a phenomenon doesn't require one. When someone discovers something new that established physics can't explain, they look for a new physics, that how science works. But yeah as for a mechanism there's a reason I say non-locality and not entanglement, while holographic theories suggest that everything is entangled and entanglement is responsible for gravity I have no idea if its the same thing or just another type of non-local phenomenon and whether or not a local hidden-variable exists that is responsible for both. TBH I'm leaning towards a medium acting as a hidden-variable for example something like pilot-wave theory, but continuous fields with non-local connections everywhere is something I just have to say to make the physicists happy. Their timid creatures and too much newness can scare them off as it already has.

[mistermack]

7 minutes ago, Michael1991 said:

The point of my paper is that consciousness cannot be reduced to the building blocks of physics as the building blocks are currently understood.

You're massively overstating your case. "Cannot" implies that it's impossible. That has not been established, nor is it even a consensus. Change "cannot" to "cannot yet" and it's a more truthful statement, but your whole case collapses like a pack of cards.

[Michael1991]

10 minutes ago, mistermack said:

You're massively overstating your case. "Cannot" implies that it's impossible. That has not been established, nor is it even a consensus. Change "cannot" to "cannot yet" and it's a more truthful statement, but your whole case collapses like a pack of cards.

I do not overstate my case. You protect your faith with the same dogmatic mentality as a religious person denying evolution. Instead of trying to attack my argument you presume you're correct and I'm wrong so matter of factly. Ya'll could try respecting me as a serious thinker but I've yet to get a serious response on this website.

Edited July 29, 2022 by Michael1991

[mistermack]

1 minute ago, Michael1991 said:

I do not overstate my case. You protect your faith with same dogmatic mentality as a religious person denying evolution. Instead of trying to attack my argument you presume you're correct and I'm wrong so matter of factly. Ya'll could try respecting me as a serious thinker but I've yet to get a serious response on this website.

I responded to your written submission by quoting your actual words and responding to them with specific argument. You've just replied with hysterical rubbish. Is that how "serious thinkers" operate? 

Not in my experience.  

[Michael1991]

For fucks sake. I am ever present throughout my body, the simultaneous awareness of each point in space at a single moment in time would be a faster-than-light phenomenon in the absence of a hidden-variable as its awareness of many points in space simultaneously. That is the standard for considering something to be spooky action at a distance, meaning non-local or locality with a hidden variable. If its said of particles no one bats an eye, if its said of consciousness all of a sudden I’m a quack. Why? I’m in all of those points of space, and all the points of space in between simultaneously and information about perception from each point is simultaneously known.

Do you even know what you're arguing about? Einstein thought that there must be a hidden variable, of course non-locality is preferred today. Pilot-wave theory is an example of a hidden-variable theory, it doesn't work but some think its evidence that a better-hidden variable theory could be developed. Some physicists like Sean Carrol think that in a holographic universe everything would be entangled which is considered non-local and entanglement would be responsible for gravity. All I've done is make empirical observations of consciousness that demand a non-local or hidden variable explanation, and physics just has to deal with it because thats how science works. To state it plainly its like we're in a holographic universe where everything is entangled and you're arguing about how I'm stupid for thinking it is the very nature of the holographic universe we live in that is responsible for consciousness and without it we would not be conscious. That is not to suggest that we are in a holographic universe. If you want to attack the substance of the argument please do.

54 minutes ago, mistermack said:

I responded to your written submission by quoting your actual words and responding to them with specific argument. You've just replied with hysterical rubbish. Is that how "serious thinkers" operate? 

Not in my experience.  

All you have to do is explain how local cause and effect between a system of particles can account for simultaneous awareness of all the particles in that system and produce knowledge of that awareness in the absence of a hidden variable, and then my entire argument will fall like a stack of cards. Let me help you out. Draw a bunch of dots on a piece of paper, now play connect the dots, when do the dots become a sentient whole?

[mistermack]

46 minutes ago, Michael1991 said:

For fucks sake. I am ever present throughout my body, the simultaneous awareness of each point in space at a single moment in time would be a faster-than-light phenomenon in the absence of a hidden-variable as its awareness of many points in space simultaneously.

You seem to be confusing awareness and existence. Each part of me can exist, without me having to be aware of it. I'm hardly ever aware of the hairs on my back, but they still exist. 

So why do you suppose that awareness of EVERYTHING is necessary for consciousness? I haven't even thought of those back-hairs till just now. But I'm still conscious. I'm unaware of the folds in my brain, but it's still working well enough to write this post. No faster-than-light phenomena involved here. 

[Michael1991]

2 hours ago, mistermack said:

You seem to be confusing awareness and existence. Each part of me can exist, without me having to be aware of it. I'm hardly ever aware of the hairs on my back, but they still exist. 

So why do you suppose that awareness of EVERYTHING is necessary for consciousness? I haven't even thought of those back-hairs till just now. But I'm still conscious. I'm unaware of the folds in my brain, but it's still working well enough to write this post. No faster-than-light phenomena involved here. 

One last try here. Let's simplify to a consciousness of two particles to make this easy for you. Particle 1 and particle 2 share information with each other, the states of particle 1 and particle 2 depend on each other, such that if something happens to particle 1, particle 2 is instantly effected and vice versa. No matter the distance between the two particles they share information instantly, faster-than-light, as if they were connected or were in fact a single thing. Particle 1 and particle 2 despite the distance between them act as a single particle. Sound crazy? That's ENTANGLEMENT! (And no i don't think their conscious, its a rhetorical trick)

Now imagine it on the scale of trillions of particles. That's us because we are far more than trillions of particles at a single instant in time and the system built from those particles has knowledge of this which requires those particles to be working as a whole in an "entangled" like state. The trillions of particles that make up my frontal lobe, is aware they are simultaneously unified with the trillions of particles in each of my hands and feet in separate locations of space. And no I'm not discounting the local cause and effect between the particles in the process, I mention it clearly in my paper. That is the non-perceptible process that occurs before perception. What I'm talking about is the awareness or perception of many points in space at the same time that arises post-processing. And yes we've entangled more than 2 particles at once, https://www.livescience.com/50280-record-3000-atoms-entangled.html

Edited July 30, 2022 by Michael1991

[Ghideon]

8 hours ago, Michael1991 said:

But yeah as for a mechanism there's a reason I say non-locality and not entanglement, while holographic theories suggest that everything is entangled and entanglement is responsible for gravity I have no idea if its the same thing or just another type of non-local phenomenon and whether or not a local hidden-variable exists that is responsible for both.

Thanks for your reply, it does not answer the question how faster than light signalling is possible but raise more questions. I'm also curious why there is no example of evolution resulting in some more efficient or competitive use of this phenomenon you describe. 

11 hours ago, Michael1991 said:

Just ask yourself, do you sense everything, everywhere, all at once in your body?

Some questions: Per your idea, how does for instance kidney donation work? How do the particles of a kidney "transfer" from one human consciousness to another? Do conjoined twins, according to you, have a single consciousness or separate ones?  

 

 

[mistermack]

Michael1991 , you respond as if I'm a bit thick, but even though that's true, the problem was made by you. 

Your OP was far too long and wordy, and consequently, people will skim it to try and get the essence of it, so don't blame others for not immediately getting what you are getting at. If you had produced a more compact summary, that wouldn't happen.

I am aware of the entangled pair phenomenon, although very much not expert in it's intricate details. However, your proposition doesn't explain how those entangled paired particles end up in the same human being. They could end up anywhere in the universe. The matter in my brain will be from a totally different source to the matter in my foot. While my body might contain particles that have entangled pairs, the chances of one of them being in my body are absolutely tiny. And yet you seem to be talking as if every particle in my body has it's entangled pair somewhere else in my body. 

What possible process could make that happen? 

Edited July 30, 2022 by mistermack

[TheVat]

Kind of a sticking point with "instantaneous" awareness in this chat, given that there's zero evidence of quantum processing in brains (Hameroff claims notwithstanding) and much evidence that human responses take a little time, as do nerve impulses.  Things that feel instant, when tested, prove not to be.  Our minds paper over time lags and provide an illusion of "instant."

Subjective impressions can be deceiving.  Emergent phenomena like consciousness may feel holistic and irreducible, but that's not evidence that they are.  But that feeling of unity provides a useful narrative for a biological organism that has to survive a challenging environment.

As is often noted, the brain is "too hot, noisy, and wet" for quantum processing.  Penrose's OR remains hypothetical at this point.

[exchemist]

15 hours ago, Michael1991 said:

Yes its a mystery, we do not have a mechanism. It's called the hard problem of consciousness for a reason, everyone scratches their head at it. The point of my paper is that consciousness cannot be reduced to the building blocks of physics as the building blocks are currently understood. Computation or information integration are just terms that may or may not have mathematical sense but have no physical sense. In other words the math of physics has real physical correlates while consciousness as computation or information integration theory do not.

Current theory is like suggesting a trillion marbles bouncing in a big box can develop consciousness, but by comparison consciousness is like being the trillion marbles and all the space in between and all the trillion marbles understanding that they are a single unified whole not just the trillion marbles. In other words people think of particles as discrete and independent building blocks but in reality nature is fundamentally continuous and unified in that there must be some hidden-variable medium or non-local connection between everything. This is not unheard of. Holographic theories suggest everything is entangled and entanglement is responsible for gravity and the scientific field takes those theories and their theorists seriously. But if someone comes along saying that an explanation of consciousness depends on it then everyone starts assuming you're just a quack. You assume the mainstream model is correct but every physicist knows that its not they just don't know whats wrong with it.

First off, not having an established model doesn't mean a phenomenon doesn't require one. When someone discovers something new that established physics can't explain, they look for a new physics, that how science works. But yeah as for a mechanism there's a reason I say non-locality and not entanglement, while holographic theories suggest that everything is entangled and entanglement is responsible for gravity I have no idea if its the same thing or just another type of non-local phenomenon and whether or not a local hidden-variable exists that is responsible for both. TBH I'm leaning towards a medium acting as a hidden-variable for example something like pilot-wave theory, but continuous fields with non-local connections everywhere is something I just have to say to make the physicists happy. Their timid creatures and too much newness can scare them off as it already has.

Plenty of respected thinkers don't consider there to be a "hard problem of consciousness" in the first place: https://philosophynow.org/issues/99/What_Hard_Problem

For the little it may be worth, I think Pigliucci is spot-on.