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Causal exclusion problem

SelfSim

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Hans Blaster said:
OK. I appreciate your response. You may not appreciate mine.
Sure .. but I'll listen to it very carefully, nonetheless. I appreciate your input.
The only point I was trying to make there, is that we can easily see the difference between a 'subjective' recount of someone's experience of seeing blue ... as being completely distinct from scientist's experience when reading a spectral analyzer and seeing a graph portrayed on a screen that peaks in a selected part of the spectrum .. (even where the scales happen to be arbitrarily designated and attributed as being at the 'blue' end of it). The ratios of the Balmer series lines of hydrogen is obviously hardened physics, in both the theoretical and empirical senses.

The two experiences there, are entirely distinct from eachother, (whilst still being experiences).
Hans Blaster said:
This leaves only two possiblitites: 1. We understand nothing in physics
.. which is clearly not a supportable conclusion going by simple observations of the contents of, say, physics textbooks.
Hans Blaster said:
or 2. the mind of the physicist is irrelevant. I'm going for the latter.
Hmm ..ok .. if you mean that the physics isn't skewed by any beliefs/'subjective' views the physicist holds, then I'd whole-heartedly agree.
Clearly we rely, (very much), on their minds in their coming up with say, (for example), the designs of various quantum reality tests.
Hans Blaster said:
I said nothing of the sort. Minds are thing to be studied by science, for the rest of us the are not of import to the results.
Ok. Fair enough. Apologies for any non-deliberate misattribution implications I may have created there. (I got too informal).
Hans Blaster said:
I don't know from realism or not, MIR or MDR, or whatever, but after the consideration I don't see any practical impact to most of science from this question. Cheers.
I think I can largely agree there .. I have no idea about what the impacts of any conclusions made in the fields of neurobiology, psychology etc might be into the future.

The point I'm making mostly only impacts the type of silly unpithy debates that rage in these forums .. and not the science done by those doing the hard work.

Somewhere back in this thread I said something about angels dancing on a pin head ... such appears to be our bread and butter in this place, unfortunately ..

Cheers & Rgds.
 
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Ana the Ist

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Sure .. but I'll listen to it very carefully, nonetheless. I appreciate your input.

Didn't you take a shot at me for appealing to the physics expert in the room?


Hmm ..ok .. if you mean that the physics isn't skewed by any beliefs/'subjective' views the physicist holds, then I'd whole-heartedly agree.

That would be a mind independent reality lol.

Clearly we rely, (very much), on their minds in their coming up with say, (for example), the designs of various quantum reality tests.

Again.
 
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SelfSim

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So, I see a need to elaborate on this:
So, one might ask: what happens, if and when, we examine evidence that has direct bearing on mental representations?

The answer from the MDR viewpoint, would be that we generate a more sophisticated MDR that includes our role in that MDR. Yep, it'll be a challenge, but we have no other choice from that viewpoint .. that is the only thing we can do if we want to study the process of how we build an MDR in a way that includes the undeniable fact that we are engaging in a process of building an MDR. All that is happening here is that we are so used to getting away with ignoring that 'truth', that we have forgotten that we are ignoring it.

We ignore all kinds of facts when we do science, because they are inconvenient and we can get away with ignoring them.
We pretend there is an 'experimenter' and an 'experiment', when in fact there is a system of identical particles in both the experimenter and the experiment that cannot, by our own best physics, be distinguished 'in reality'.
There are fields and particles, in our current MDR picture, that are always being exchanged between the experimenter and the experiment .. all ignored, all pretended to not exist.
Yes .. we get away with these simplifications, because they are usually not important, and indeed it's the whole point of scientific thinking to ignore what is not important ... but that's very different from pretending they are not there, from pretending that the experimenter/experiment dichotomy is physically true! (Aka" MIR).
 
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SelfSim

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So, further to post #443; its clear that we don't put minds in most of our models .. we don't give the rock a mind to let it fall, or the tree a mind so it can fall in the woods. It doesn't really matter if we are modeling stimulus/response or weather prediction, if we don't need a mind in our model, we don't put it in. But the 'mind dependence' of a model, includes the meaning we give to the words we use to express the model, so the model is part of us, part of how we think.
.. And judging how well the model works, is also part of us, part of how we think, so we might imagine modeling that too, we imagine modeling our own thought processes and not put a mind explicitly in there. We could treat the mind as something emergent from the model, without us putting it in manually.

And that's probably just where we will start that process (and indeed, we already have). But models that look like that, look like a tiger chasing its own tail, because the models themselves will always depend on the minds that are using them to understand themselves .. (at the moment, there's no known way for us to 'escape' our own minds there). And there will always have to be something in those minds that say: 'yes, I have a good model, I understand this, I have achieved my goal here', and that will depend on those minds to say that.

Will the minds then be able to say 'I now understand my own mind in a way that is mind independent?' No, the mind dependence there, is still quite demonstrable, (almost palpable, really). It should never even have been our goal to understand our minds in a mind independent way ... our goal is to understand our minds in the way that our minds understand ... we seek a mind-dependent understanding of reality, ultimately including our own minds .. (enter the psychologists and neurobiologists).
 
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SelfSim

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So, the classic example which provides a deeper demonstration of the role of the mind in a scientific model, comes from quantum mechanics (QM).
So in QM, if all that exists is a quantum system and a measuring apparatus, there's no need for any interpretation of quantum mechanical formalism. This is quite clear because quantum mechanical formalism yields a 'density matrix'. So then its recognized that all quantum mechanical predictions that can be tested, refer only to the density matrix, and nothing else. None of that is particularly controversial. So since all interpretations yield the same density matrix, as does no interpretation at all, there's no need for any interpretations at this point.
So why do we have them?

The reason we need interpretations is that we don't just have a quantum system and a measuring apparatus, and we don't just have a density matrix .. we also have a physicist who is using the apparatus to check a theory and gain understanding too. That physicist creates a significant problem .. they perceive a single outcome of the measurement. So some will say: 'no, it's just a physical effect', (words that I have no idea what they actually mean by that), because 'many worlds', (for eg), is surely not a 'physical effect' ... it is an interpretation of quantum mechanics.

Ok, so nothing in quantum mechanical formalism .. nothing ..., has any idea how to handle or account for the fact that the physicist perceives a single outcome. There just isn't a single outcome in quantum formalism, that's essentially the whole point of the Schroedinger cat paradox. Ergo, the need for interpretations .. we need to add something to the quantum formalism to give us a sense of understanding, (though not a new testable prediction), of why the physicist gets a single outcome, when the formalism does not.
.. Enter the interpretations for answering this issue, (ie: Copenhagan, deBroglie-Bohm , Many Worlds, ...)
 
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Ana the Ist

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So, I see a need to elaborate on this:

So, one might ask: what happens, if and when, we examine evidence that has direct bearing on mental representations?

I believe that's referred to as "being convinced".
 
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SelfSim

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I believe that's referred to as "being convinced".
Keep reading what I wrote there until the end:
I'd prefer the former than the latter, (emboldened) as the basis for a worldview as it doesn't rest on an undemonstrable, 'held as being true' outright belief ... and there's plenty of tested/testable evidence for it in many scientific theories, (etc).

The objective/subjective distinction was always demonstrably, a subjective one. Like it or not.
 
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Ana the Ist

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I'll try to help you out here....

Grab an apple from the kitchen, or any simple food product from the kitchen, a bag of ramen perhaps....whatever.

Place it upon the counter and look at it.

Now imagine that exact same food product in your mind. Picture it exactly how you see it, doesn't matter if you close your eyes or not.

1. Is there any difference between this food item before you on the counter and the one in your mind?

2. If so....what is that difference? Not a trick question, very easy. Feel free to slam dunk it.
 
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SelfSim

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Of course there is .. one is my mental model of what we mean by 'a food item', doing what we mean by 'sitting' on what we mean by 'a counter' and the other is my mental model of what we mean by 'imagining' what we mean by 'a food item'! Two different types of models but both demonstrably constructed by what we mean by 'a mind' .. with the evidence for that being the meanings you are conveying from your mind to mine there, using language.

The respective attributes of those two models are what distinguishes one from the other in my mind. Eg: I expect that one will be 'tasty' .. the other won't be. There's nothing mind indepedent in any of that.

Another example: When I say 'There's rock in front of you (that exists)!', all I might mean there is that it will hurt you if you stub your toe on it, whether we saw it, or believed in it, or not. So that type of existence is an empirical fact about rocks, which we use to assert that they exist, it's all we mean by the term, and it uses our minds in several fundamental ways.

For my own part, I find myself entering into that same belief as I encounter rocks, but when I dig into that belief, I find that it is vague and unimportant. I thought it was the critical thing about my relationship to rocks, that I believe they have some independent existence that has nothing to do with my relationship to them, or how I conceptualize them, but the more critically I examine that belief, the more it vanishes, and I find that actually everything that is important to me about rocks are the attributes my mind attaches to my experiences surrounding rocks.
The belief that they exist independently of that mind-dependent relationship plays no role at all in my behaviors around rocks, it actually doesn't affect me, or matter to me in the least.
So I think the evidence says, we tend to overstress the need to hold onto that belief, it's just a convenience of thought like how we prefer to imagine we are standing 'on top' of the planet instead of 'on the bottom' of it, even though our 'true orientation', with respect to some universal reference frame, has no meaning that doesn't vanish when we dig deeper into it.

These beliefs are mental conveniences, which doesn't make them have no value, we need all kinds of conveniences of thought to unburden our minds .. sort of like the concept of 'solid objects', we know what we mean by that concept, but the concept is just a way to unburden our minds about the ghastly number of incredibly tiny particles we regard as being in there on closer examination, and the essentially magical interactions between those particles based on their indistinguishability and the Pauli exclusion principle. The sublime complexity that underpins our concept of 'a solid object', shows just how clearly these notions exist primarily to unburden our minds, and not because solid objects are 'really out there'.
 
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Ana the Ist

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One is interpreting the sensory perceptions of the objectively real food item....the other only exists subjectively in your mind.

Any insistence that these are in any way the same, equivalent, or entirely dependent upon your mind will result in the obvious question of why you keep buying the objectively real food when you could just eat your own mental models for free?

The respective attributes of those two models are what distinguishes one from the other in my mind. Eg: I expect that one will be 'tasty' .. the other won't be. There's nothing mind indepedent in any of that.

Nice try. It's not tasty because it's not objectively real, independent of your mental model.



I now suspect you're fully aware that you are not serious.
 
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SelfSim

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One is interpreting the sensory perceptions of the objectively real food item....the other only exists subjectively in your mind.
Where's your evidence?
Oh .. that's right .. YOU DON'T HAVE ANY!
Any insistence that these are in any way the same, equivalent,
I said they weren't .. they're different conceptual models.
or entirely dependent upon your mind will result in the obvious question of why you keep buying the objectively real food when you could just eat your own mental models for free?
Same answer as above .. they're different conceptual models.
Nice try. It's not tasty because it's not objectively real, independent of your mental model.
Where's your evidence?
Oh .. that's right .. YOU DON'T HAVE ANY.
I now suspect you're fully aware that you are not serious.
You're just not getting it.
I don't believe any of it .. there ..

You know why? ... BECAUSE I DON'T HAVE TO!

... Its an objectively testable, scientifically conceived hypothesis!
No-one has to believe it, or believe in the 'virgin miracle' of a Mind Independent Reality .. (with perhaps the exception of you).
Adios!
 
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SelfSim

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To summarize what I said above about how the interpretations answer this issue:

Copenhagen: the single outcome perceived by the physicist is the actual reality, our picture of the quantum system that is inspired by the formalism need not fit into that single outcome because our picture of the quantum system is not real, it is just a language we use to try and make sense, and the formalism does not connect across the "Heisenberg cut" to make contact with the unreal quantum picture.

de Broglie-Bohm: not only is the single outcome that is perceived the full reality, but the quantum system also fits into that reality, there is no "cut" because particles really do follow single trajectories just as we imagine they do. This approach requires additional mathematical scaffolding to get the single trajectories to behave as though they followed the rules of the wave functions, and may or may not be able to be made relativistic, because the scaffolding of the "pilot wave" does not respect relativistic limitations like the speed of light and the arrow of cause and effect.

Many-Worlds: the single outcome perceived by the physicist is not the complete reality, the complete reality is reflected in the mathematical formalism and includes all the outcomes, each its "own world" populated by its "own physicists" (each of which is consciously aware of only their own world, as per our testable experiences). Some of those "worlds" might not include physicists at all, but as I pointed out, if those were all we had, we still would not need this or any other interpretation, because interpretations are things that go with intelligent brains. This next part is very important: many worlds does not say that all there exists is the density matrix! It also says there is a universal wave function, which accounts for the physicists who are consciously aware of single outcomes, that's what the single worlds are in the many worlds. Without that element, (which seems to be the key and yet often missing point), the many worlds interpretation would be completely moot because all we'd need is the fully decohered density matrix, the point of intersection of all interpretations and the only thing that has ever been scientifically tested, to say the theory was complete.

Everything I'm saying there is completely scientific and none of this requires any beliefs of types: religious or philiosphical.

The interpretations are needed in order for the human mind to make sense of: that all quantum mechanical predictions that can be tested, refer only to the density matrix. In physics, a density matrix is a description of a grouping of systems as quantum states, (even if it contains only one system). All of those are conceptualised models. The interpretations are then needed by us, to make sense of the apparent discrepency of our (minds') visual sense observational model of perceiving only one outcome. Believing in a mind independent physical reality, doesn't enter into any of that. The interpretations represent a mind rationalising its own observations against its own predictions/expectations of its own model of the universe, in which it apparently functions.

Models of apples, modelled as sitting, on models of counters, triggering models of perceived tastes or models of states of hunger, or no taste or hunger all subsequently, simply doesn't present any testable evidence whatsoever, for believed-in models of mind independent realities.
 
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SelfSim

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So, I don't think its come up in this thread thus far .. but it frequently does, so here goes .. the issue of how does one distinguish an illusion from a non-illusion, from the MDR, (Mind Dependent Reality) viewpoint?

So someone might hold that it is their belief in MIR, (Mind Independent Reality), that filters out illusions. Is this really true?
Of course not, it is a claim that is easily refuted, all we need do is look at any actual example .. the claim is falsified by the simple process of tracing the mental chain of thought of a person figuring out that they are looking at an illusion.

Consider a mirage in the desert, as I'm sure we'll all agree that is what we mean by an illusion. How does one tell it is an illusion? Does one invoke one's belief in MIR? Well, if it requires belief in MIR, then an MDR thinker, who does not believe the term 'MIR' means anything at all, should not be able to tell a mirage from a real lake. That's basic logic. But when I'm thinking in a MDR way, I can tell a mirage from a lake, because I never invoke any belief in MIR to reach that conclusion. What I, and anyone, actually does from the MDR viewpoint, is compare our observations of the mirage with our MDR of the attributes of a real lake. In our MDR, (painstakingly built via perceptions that we have made sense of), we have found that what we mean by real lakes don't usually exist in deserts. We have found that they don't shimmer and wave. We have found that they foster other features, like rocks and trees, that mirages do not. We may even have an MDR viewpoint that includes how light refracts in hot air and produces a kind of image below the horizon, that looks like water. These are the things we actually use to deduce we are looking at an illusion.

Notice, that I never invoked any metaphysical postulates there, nor any beliefs in MIR, I was easily able to deduce that I am looking at a mirage simply by making sense of my perceptions, in a way that depends quite demonstrably on the powers of my mind. And that's also exactly what one does to identify a mirage, (an illusion).

So one is are just kidding onself, if one thinks one ever invokes any beliefs in MIR in order to do that.
 
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Ana the Ist

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Where's your evidence?

Easily gathered upon autopsy.

I said they weren't .. they're different conceptual models.

Different in what way was the question.

Would you like a second attempt at answering? What's different about these models?

Where's your evidence?
Oh .. that's right .. YOU DON'T HAVE ANY.

You're just not getting it.
I don't believe any of it .. there ..

You know why? ... BECAUSE I DON'T HAVE TO!

Awww....u mad bro???
 
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Ana the Ist

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Is this typical behavior for you? Replying to yourself? Redefining the English language? Are you certain you're ok?
 
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SelfSim

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Is this typical behavior for you? Replying to yourself? Redefining the English language? Are you certain you're ok?
Clarifying the perspective of a new concept is not redefining the English language .. its educational and informative but you have to actually look at what is being said .. (and you don't do that, do you).

You have no non-belief based test, therefore you have no objective evidence at all.

All you ever do in this thread, is rely on meaningless, glib truisms and/or aphorisms, and use of adverbs such as 'easily'.

What a laugh .. You are in the wrong forum because of the supposed 'truth' basis of where you're coming from, whereas the MDR perspective is based on testable propositions, (which you continually ignore).
 
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Ana the Ist

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Clarifying the perspective of a new concept is not redefining the English language .

You would need to be moving towards clarity.

I tried to help.

You can run from the question if you want....but everyone will be able to see through it.
 
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