19 hours ago, exchemist said:

Hmm, I have little time for Nagel on the issue of consciousness, I'm afraid. I'm with Massimo Pigliucci: https://philosophynow.org/issues/99/What_Hard_Problem

And I do not see that there is huge problem to solve with QM.

OK, if you are just point blank denying the existence of both the measurement problem and the hard problem then this discussion has nowhere to go. My theory is aimed at people who understand exactly why those aren't just minor problems but massive unsolved paradoxes. Accepting these are real problems is pre-requisite to understanding why my theory works, and why it is so important.

Just now, Geoff Dann said:

My theory is aimed at people who understand exactly why those aren't just minor problems but massive unsolved paradoxes. Accepting these are real problems is pre-requisite to understanding why my theory works, and why it is so important.

Sounds just like the preaching of Mahomed or the Mormons, and just about as arrogant.

1 hour ago, studiot said:

Sounds just like the preaching of Mahomed or the Mormons, and just about as arrogant.

It is mainstream philosophy. Saying that these are two massive unsolved paradoxes is not even controversial in philosophy. Most philosophers would agree with those statements.

I know you won't believe this is, but in fact it is true, which says far more about extremism in your belief system than it does about extremism in mine.

I will ask you to kindly observe the rules of this forum, and stop the personal attacks. If you cannot be civil, then just ignore my posts.

Edited June 23Jun 23 by Geoff Dann

3 hours ago, Geoff Dann said:

OK, if you are just point blank denying the existence of both the measurement problem and the hard problem then this discussion has nowhere to go.

It might be useful to acquaint oneself with the idea of a category error, as it applies to the invented "hard problem" of consciousness. The fact that we study some things with cognitive science and others with phenomenology shouldn't really be that strange. Houses look different from the outside than they do from the inside. That doesn't mean there's a Hard Problem of Architecture. Subjective experience, or qualia, are how brains appear from the "inside." That's just a different category of experience from looking at a PET scan or an EEG or other analytical tool used in neuroscience.

30 minutes ago, Geoff Dann said:

Saying that these are two massive unsolved paradoxes is not even controversial in philosophy

Saying that the Hard Problem is universally agreed upon in philosophy is simply wrong and reveals that you have not sufficiently delved into the field. The HPOC is quite controversial and debate on this has raged for many decades. You could at least follow up on the Pigliucci essay which @exchemist linked for you, and look at the ideas of some of the main players in this ongoing area of debate.

On 6/19/2025 at 11:50 AM, Geoff Dann said:

The implications are ambitious. If correct, ZPHF would offer not only a pre-quantum theory of cosmogenesis but also a new paradigm for understanding the emergence of order from nothingness. L’Heureux-Blouin gestures toward potential links with consciousness, but his work in that area remains preliminary. Nonetheless, the mathematical formalism he presents—grounded in octonion algebra, hyperspherical topology, and flux networks—is internally coherent....

The author "gestures" - science doesn't just gesture. It makes observations, forms an hypothesis, then tests it. Simply pointing at some speculative and unevidenced connection is conjecture, not a real theory. That the author claims internal coherence has zero probative value - fairy tales may have internal coherence. You don't ground anything in octonion algebra, you ground it in a correspondence to cosmological observations. If some octonionic construction maps well onto those observations, then you might have something.

Good points @TheVat +1

On 6/19/2025 at 3:30 PM, Geoff Dann said:

By the time I'd identified 15 of these major problems (with the help of another new theory called the Quantum Convergence Threshold model, which fits perfectly with the 2PC) this model offers natural solutions to, I decided to put it down in a "paper" on Zenodo, just to document that this is my idea so nobody can steal it: The Participating Observer and the Architecture of Reality: A unified solution to fifteen foundational problems.

You mentioned the specialist term 'model' three times in your first post.

So you presumably understand that Quantum Mechanics and wave fucntions are just models.

As such they enjoy the characteristic of all models in that no model is identical in all respects to the object being modelled.

I also note that not everyone (of note) agrees with you.

As regards telephathic control of a quantum process, which is what conscious intervention of any kind must mean, you are trying to take us back to the medieval days of witches, wizards and warlocks waving wands.

Of course they had tussles in their 'magic' to see who was the most 'powerful'.

Which brings me to to my next 'philosophical' point or question.

If one mind can consciously affect a quantum process, then so can another or even many others.

What happens in they clash ?

And what happens if there is no consciousness available ?

What happens if an experiment is made or only proposed; would the outcome be the same in both cases ?

That is why I do not accept the consciousness proposal.

As to the alleged massive measurement problem, it is true that a few measurements yield unexpected results, but the vast overwhelming majority do not.

For example the technology by which we are communicating requires umpteen billions of electrons and holes as well as photons to perform exactly as expected, whoich fortunately they do.

The extremely occasional instance where something does not so perform is to be expected from the fact that we are expecting the model to behave exactly as that which is modelled, which goes under the name 'reality'.

So why is it suprising that occasionally something is different ?

That happens with all models, some more so than others.

3 hours ago, Geoff Dann said:

I will ask you to kindly observe the rules of this forum, and stop the personal attacks. If you cannot be civil, then just ignore my posts.

Commenting/editorializing on the material posted is not a personal attack.

10 hours ago, TheVat said:

It might be useful to acquaint oneself with the idea of a category error, as it applies to the invented "hard problem" of consciousness. The fact that we study some things with cognitive science and others with phenomenology shouldn't really be that strange. Houses look different from the outside than they do from the inside. That doesn't mean there's a Hard Problem of Architecture. Subjective experience, or qualia, are how brains appear from the "inside." That's just a different category of experience from looking at a PET scan or an EEG or other analytical tool used in neuroscience.

Saying that the Hard Problem is universally agreed upon in philosophy is simply wrong and reveals that you have not sufficiently delved into the field. The HPOC is quite controversial and debate on this has raged for many decades. You could at least follow up on the Pigliucci essay which @exchemist linked for you, and look at the ideas of some of the main players in this ongoing area of debate.

The author "gestures" - science doesn't just gesture. It makes observations, forms an hypothesis, then tests it. Simply pointing at some speculative and unevidenced connection is conjecture, not a real theory. That the author claims internal coherence has zero probative value - fairy tales may have internal coherence. You don't ground anything in octonion algebra, you ground it in a correspondence to cosmological observations. If some octonionic construction maps well onto those observations, then you might have something.

As already explained, I did not come here to argue about whether the Measurement Problem in QM or the Hard Problem of Consciousness are actually real problems. My theory is aimed at people who accept that these are real problems, and also who accept that the other 13 widely-recognised problems are real problems. Sure, if you want to go through all 15 and provide 15 different explanations as to why you don't think the problems are real then I can't stop you doing that. All I can do is point out that these are indeed widely understood to be problems, that they are usually considered as 15 different problems, and that I have a new proposal which makes sense of all 15 of them at the same time.

Which leaves people with a choice between 15 incompatible solutions to 15 different problems or ONE integrated solution to all 15. You are implicitly arguing that it is better to have the 15 incompatible the answers than the single solution to all 15.

That is your choice, but it ain't me who is suffering from cognitive dissonance here.

>>>If some octonionic construction maps well onto those observations, then you might have something.

Like this, you mean?: The Zero Point Hypersphere Framework and the Two Phase Model - The Ecocivilisation Diaries

QUOTE: "A bold new approach to cosmology and quantum gravity has emerged from the work of Stéphane L’Heureux-Blouin, culminating in his formalization of the Zero Point Hypersphere Framework (ZPHF). This suite of interrelated papers (written in March and April 2025) attempts nothing less than a first-principles derivation of quantum spacetime, dark matter behaviour, and cosmological structure from the postulate that the true ground of reality is a perfectly balanced Void composed of algebraic hypersphere nodes. L’Heureux-Blouin’s work is mathematically sophisticated, invoking octonion flux dynamics, topology, and a network of pre-geometric nodes known as void dots (“D_i”). It attempts to reconcile quantum field behaviour, holography, and gravity as emergent from a non-material substratum."

Stephane's unpublished octonion dynamics papers attached.

merged_file.pdf

8 hours ago, studiot said:

Good points @TheVat +1

You mentioned the specialist term 'model' three times in your first post.

And you are still trying to argue about semantics. I don't care what you call it. It doesn't matter.

Just now, Geoff Dann said:

And you are still trying to argue about semantics. I don't care what you call it. It doesn't matter.

The fact remains that you have not addressed a single point made by your critics.

That is not discussion or deabate in either Philosophy or Physics.

The tradition of hypothesisors welcoming critics an dtheir criticism goes back to Aristotle and Plato.

So does the fact that attempting to dismiss the criticism by dismissing the critics themselves, without addressinf their criticism, is not acceptable.

39 minutes ago, studiot said:

The fact remains that you have not addressed a single point made by your critics.

That is not discussion or deabate in either Philosophy or Physics.

The tradition of hypothesisors welcoming critics an dtheir criticism goes back to Aristotle and Plato.

So does the fact that attempting to dismiss the criticism by dismissing the critics themselves, without addressinf their criticism, is not acceptable.

This is pointless. I am not responsible for your inability to understand what I am saying. I will not be engaging with any more of your posts because it is a purposeless waste of time, I am responding to everybody else.

Have a nice life. :-)

Edited June 24Jun 24 by Geoff Dann

On 6/20/2025 at 11:24 PM, Geoff Dann said:

On 6/20/2025 at 8:42 PM, KJW said:

This looks to me like an argument from incredulity.

Well, it isn't. I'm not arguing that MWI must be false because it is unbelievable in this way. I am merely pointing out that most people do indeed find it unbelievable, and that is one of the main reasons that it has remained a fringe theory instead of commanding a consensus.

That's an argument from incredulity. And your interpretation seems to rely on MWI being untenable, so your reliance on an argument from incredulity is especially problematic.

On 6/20/2025 at 11:24 PM, Geoff Dann said:

At the moment people who believe MWI tend to do so not because it is particularly believable, but because they consider all of the alternatives to be even worse.

Well, I believe in some form of MWI because it provides a genuine explanation for the intrinsic randomness of quantum mechanics.

On 6/20/2025 at 6:25 AM, Geoff Dann said:

You cannot disagree that there is a measurement problem.

As I see it, a measurement of a quantum state, which can be regarded as a superposition of basis states corresponding to the possible values of the observable being measured, is an interaction between the quantum state and the macroscopic measuring device such that the measuring device responds differently to each of the different basis states, producing a superposition of macroscopic measuring device states that are in quantum entanglement with the superposition of basis states of the quantum state. When we observe the superposition of measuring device states, the resulting superposition of conscious states became quantum entangled with the measuring device states and hence also with the basis states of the quantum state. Each conscious state of the superposition subjectively experiences a single measuring device state of the superposition because the individual states of the macroscopic superposition are orthogonal, and orthogonal states do not exhibit interference. Note that macroscopic states are almost always orthogonal because arbitrarily chosen vectors in a high-dimensional Hilbert space are almost always orthogonal.

On 6/20/2025 at 6:25 AM, Geoff Dann said:

The problem is that there is absolutely no consensus within science about what "measurement" actually means in QM, but it is not possible to get rid of it. That is the problem.

If the problem is that there is no consensus, then that is a problem you will never solve.

1 hour ago, KJW said:

That's an argument from incredulity. And your interpretation seems to rely on MWI being untenable, so your reliance on an argument from incredulity is especially problematic.

Firstly it is not an argument from incredulity, because I am not arguing that MWI must be wrong on the grounds that not many people find it believable. I am merely pointing out that this is itself an empirical fact: not many people find it believable. This is part of the general problematic of the measurement problem: none of the current interpretations are able to command a consenus. This establishes as an undeniable fact that the measurement problem is a real problem, and cannot simply be dismissed.

Secondly, my model incorporates MWI has Phase 1. I am saying it becomes unbelievable only after the point the where consciousness exists.

1 hour ago, KJW said:

Well, I believe in some form of MWI because it provides a genuine explanation for the intrinsic randomness of quantum mechanics.

I am offering you an alternative model which provides a unified, integrated solution to 15+ major foundational problems. Why would you instead choose a model with only solves one of them (the measurement problem) and only does that at the cost of claiming our minds continually split?

Which has the most explanatory power? Answer: my model by several orders of magnitude. So why choose a model with minimal explanatory power instead one which overflows with it?

6 hours ago, Geoff Dann said:

That is your choice, but it ain't me who is suffering from cognitive dissonance here.

What predictions does your theory make which could be put to the empirical test? I'll wait.

1 hour ago, Geoff Dann said:

none of the current interpretations are able to command a consenus.

Why would they? They are a matter of personal preference, i.e. subjective rather than objective.

If you’re going to argue that something is right, there needs to be objective evidence of it, and a mathematical model to compare with the experimental results. You have to pick one or the other (subjective or objective) What you can’t do is jump between the two as a matter of convenience

6 hours ago, Geoff Dann said:

As already explained, I did not come here to argue about whether the Measurement Problem in QM or the Hard Problem of Consciousness are actually real problems. My theory is aimed at people who accept that these are real problems, and also who accept that the other 13 widely-recognised problems are real problems.

But you are making the argument that the HPOC is real and that you've solved it. People are warranted in asking if you can "solve" a non-existent problem. Just as if I were to tell you, "I have solved the long enduring mystery of how Santa Claus fits down 6 inch flue pipes." You might point out this isn't a real problem because (SPOILER ALERT) Santa Claus doesn't exist and ergo there is no mystery to be resolved. If you construct an interpretation on certain assumptions, then those assumptions may be questioned legitimately. What if consciousness works perfectly well on classical mechanics, in the warm, wet, and noisy tissue of the brain? Max Tegmark, for example, has calculated that the decoherence timescale of microtubule entanglement in the brain would be extremely brief, on the order of femtoseconds, which is far too short for meaningful neural processing to occur.

5 minutes ago, TheVat said:

But you are making the argument that the HPOC is real and that you've solved it.

Yes. So people who actually understand why it is a real problem are likely to be interested in the solution, but people who still haven't even understood the problem will dismiss it without understanding what they are dismissing.

I am 100% not interested in trying to get die-hard materialist dogmatists to acknowledge the reality of the hard problem. They will eventually catch up, but they are not going to be among the first wave of people who understand the new paradigm. They will be the ones who resist it, just as you are resisting it now.

You aren't my target audience. I'm after the deep thinkers.

26 minutes ago, swansont said:

Why would they? They are a matter of personal preference, i.e. subjective rather than objective.

So you believe it is OK to have 30 incompatible, competing answers to a major foundational problem, with no hope of ever agreeing on answer?

I don't. I think there has to be a correct answer, and that when it arrives people will eventually recognise it.

It has arrived. You haven't recognised it, yet.

26 minutes ago, swansont said:

If you’re going to argue that something is right, there needs to be objective evidence of it, and a mathematical model to compare with the experimental results. You have to pick one or the other (subjective or objective) What you can’t do is jump between the two as a matter of convenience

This theory fits the existing empirical evidence far better than any other theory anybody has ever proposed. What do you think "evidence" is, if that isn't evidence?

Edited June 24Jun 24 by Geoff Dann

5 minutes ago, Geoff Dann said:

Yes. So people who actually understand why it is a real problem are likely to be interested in the solution, but people who still haven't even understood the problem will dismiss it without understanding what they are dismissing.

I am 100% not interested in trying to get die-hard materialist dogmatists to acknowledge the reality of the hard problem. They will eventually catch up, but they are not going to be among the first wave of people who understand the new paradigm. They will be the ones who resist it, just as you are resisting it now.

You aren't my target audience. I'm after the deep thinkers.

Dismissing criticism of some of your premises with an hominem (they're not deep thinkers, they have cognitive dissonance, they just don't understand, etc) is a shoddy and weak argument. But keep the insults coming. It just assures me that you can't really support your theory with any empirical evidence. E.g. solid evidence for quantum computation in cellular microtubules that gets us around the decoherence problem as it applies to quantum mechanisms in the brain.

4 hours ago, Geoff Dann said:

This is pointless. I am not responsible for your inability to understand what I am saying. I will not be engaging with any more of your posts because it is a purposeless waste of time, I am responding to everybody else.

Have a nice life. :-)

Moderator Note

In a discussion about YOUR ideas, you are responsible for persuading those involved that they have merit. You've done little to persuade, and instead have ridiculed your critics for their inability to comprehend. They didn't start the thread, you did, and chose not to participate in discussion in favor of standing on a soapbox preaching.

Thread closed, don't bring this up again.