Does the Mandelbrot Set prove the Mind of God behind what we see.

[Hans Blaster]

If the multiverse can bring about alternative universes with different physical parametres then they are different realities to what we experience.

OK if that's what you want to call them. I probably wouldn't use that term.

If evolution produced a zombie without consciousness then that would be a different reality ro what we experience.

It would have different creatures with different behavior. I don't know if "zombies" experience anything. Don't know any zombies.

Did the Big Bang hold the parametres for conscious intelligent life in its intitial coming into being.

No. The Big Bang held the parameters for the properties of physics, not life.

Were there deterministic processes then ensured what we have today or could it have turned out completely different or even not at all.

What could have developed or not is speculation. I have no idea how "deterministic" the universe really is.

Well many disagree including many mainstream atheist scientists. The point was we have two ideas. One that says the universe is fined tuned for what we have today.

The Universe we have has the properties it does, but "fine tuning" implies a deliberate selection (and that is an assertion) and the parameter space for a universe like ours is not so narrow.

But materialists cannot accept this idea because naturalism is based on determinism. Though there are some flexibility at the micro level it has to be determinist at the macro because it needs to trace the prior causes which have to be explained in a mechanistic way.

And yet we still want to answer that question regardless of who we are. Its probably one of the major questions many scientists are tripping themselves over with with experiments like the LHC.

The LHC and related experiments aren't trying to explain why there is something rather than nothing, unless you mean more matter than anti-matter, and yes, they'd like to understand the CP-violation phase angle.

The dicovery of the Higgs Boson was touted as the God particle for God sake lol. We can't help it which points to it being not a 'dumb' question.

"God Particle" was just a nickname the Higgs picked up from the title of a book. Lederman wanted to title his book, "the God [accursed] Particle" for all of the frustration it had brought, but the publisher wouldn't go for it. The Higgs does not tell us why there is something rather than nothing. (It's really a philosophical question that I addressed in previous posts.)

Its only dumb from a detached rationalist mind from the actuial reality of our experience.

I'm glad you find my thoughts rational, but I'm not so fond of this "detached" characterization. I am well aware of reality. My life is in reality as is the physics I study.

Which seems to be the basic problem that conscious experience is nothing but a add on of the physical, thus a delusion and can be dismissed as being dumb.

I didn't dismiss conscious experience as delusional, dismissable, or dumb. As I've said before, it is just the behavior of our little grey cells. That doesn't make it "not real", just not fundamental.

But they are spectualted based on the same theorectical physics we use to understand out universe. +

Yes and know. The physics of other possible universes are usually different sub-sets of physics (or constants) from the superset of physics including the physics of our Universe created in a hope of unifying everything. The extra physics is speculative and too often fully untestable. I find most of this exercise to be rather pointless yet it gets so much public hype (string theory, etc.).

 

[partinobodycular]

And yet we still want to answer that question regardless of who we are.

At this point in our discussion we at least seem to have narrowed the question down to one particular issue... are there many versions of reality or only one. If there are many, than the explanation for why reality is 'fine-tuned' for intelligent life simply boils down to the Anthropic principle. We experience a reality that's fine-tuned for life simply because we're not around to ask this question in realities where it isn't.

To me that's a much simpler explanation than having to explain why there's only one version of reality that just happens to be fine-tuned for intelligent life. It's akin to how Sean Carroll defends MWI, by explaining that you simply take a system's quantum state, apply Schrodinger's equation to it, and voila, out comes a multiverse. There's no need to add any extra parameters in a vain attempt to explain why the system collapses to only one version, because in the bigger picture, it doesn't.

Now if you want to invoke consciousness as the reason why we experience only one version of reality and not all of them, then I'm fine with that. But that consciousness would be mine, limiting what I can see, not God's limiting what exists. Why would an omnipotent God do that... put such severe constraints on what He creates? A God that creates everything that can possibly be created... now there's an omnipotent God.

It's also a God that even if He was conscious, and had free will, His acts would still appear to be deterministic, because there would be nothing that He could possibly do, that He wouldn't actually do. So He would look like, and act like a quantum field, only a quantum field that's conscious.

The really, really interesting question though, is... would a quantum field that's conscious behave differently than a quantum field that isn't? In other words, would that consciousness become a factor in how that quantum system evolves, in the same way that your consciousness may be a factor in how your life evolves? True, it wouldn't be Libertarian free will, but a quantum system that's conscious might well look different than a quantum system that isn't.

But now I'm just wandering off into hoohah. And it's here where my solipsistic background has to pull me back to reality. Unfortunately some people wander off and never come back.

 

[QvQ]

1) Something from Nothing: Hawking's stated that if nothing goes on long enough, something will happen. (probability) However, there is also the rule "what is" can not "not be" So according to Physics, can something arise from nothing and therefore can nothing arise from something? Can the inverse be true? Nothing from something?
However, God is something so the question is, what is the original "something" from which all somethings came into being.

2) multiverses as an explanation for a continuous state universe, a complicated theory where matter collapses and condenses into balls at intervals then explodes (big bang) with the addition of Mandelbrot fractals which includes the theory about multiple universes has been discredited. I could not find the research papers I read about that.
Also, multiverses can't be tested And Einstein's theory of general relativity breaks down in the multiverse model.
Edit: I found the article:

The Universe Isn't a Fractal, Study Finds

Scientists have long debated whether the universe is a fractal, or whether matter is distributed evenly within it. A new galaxy survey may settle the question.

www.space.com

3) I did find this article that is more philosophy than science but interesting nevertheless

Our Improbable Existence Is No Evidence for a Multiverse

Experts in probability have spotted a logical flaw in theorists’ reasoning

www.scientificamerican.com

 

[stevevw]

OK if that's what you want to call them. I probably wouldn't use that term.

If our reality is based on our physics then it stands to reason that a universe with different physical parametres is going to prooduce a different physical reality.

It would have different creatures with different behavior. I don't know if "zombies" experience anything. Don't know any zombies.

This is based on Chalmers famous Zombie thought experiment.
The philosopher’s zombie
The infamous thought experiment, flawed as it is, does demonstrate one thing: physics alone can’t explain consciousness

What can the zombie argument say about human consciousness? | Aeon Essays

The infamous thought experiment, flawed as it is, does demonstrate one thing: physics alone can’t explain consciousness

aeon.co

No. The Big Bang held the parameters for the properties of physics, not life.
What could have developed or not is speculation. I have no idea how "deterministic" the universe really is.

The Universe we have has the properties it does, but "fine tuning" implies a deliberate selection (and that is an assertion) and the parameter space for a universe like ours is not so narrow.

So life was just an random accident that happened because of the properties of the Big Bang. It may not have led to conscious intelligent life. The Big Bang just happen to accidently lead to the many physical parametres rquired for life let alone conscious intelligent life.

The LHC and related experiments aren't trying to explain why there is something rather than nothing, unless you mean more matter than anti-matter, and yes, they'd like to understand the CP-violation phase angle.

So why did they call the Higgs the God particle. I don't think you can seperate science from philosophy.

"God Particle" was just a nickname the Higgs picked up from the title of a book. Lederman wanted to title his book, "the God [accursed] Particle" for all of the frustration it had brought, but the publisher wouldn't go for it. The Higgs does not tell us why there is something rather than nothing. (It's really a philosophical question that I addressed in previous posts.)

But the nature of the science method (methodological naturalism) does imply that its working towards some truth about the ontological nature of fundemental reality. The Higgs is just one dicovery along a line of dicoveries they claim bring us closer to how something can come from nothing. Scientists do claim each time that they are revealing a deeper aspect of reality.

I'm glad you find my thoughts rational, but I'm not so fond of this "detached" characterization. I am well aware of reality. My life is in reality as is the physics I study.

I mean detached as in what constitutes true knowledge as far as reality is concerned. On the one hand we have the science method and the scientists who look at reality as rational, logic, within the phycial parametres. On the other we have many throughout our history who measure this by their direct experience hense belief in transcedent realities.

If you only measure reality in terms of logic, rationalism ect then you only get the mechanics, how physical stuff behaves. That is detached from conscious experience which may reveal deeper truths that are not measured by mechanical material stuff. Each is fine in their own way but when we only use one aspect to understand reality (a detached view) we get a distorted view.

I didn't dismiss conscious experience as delusional, dismissable, or dumb. As I've said before, it is just the behavior of our little grey cells. That doesn't make it "not real", just not fundamental.

Thats dismissing consciousness as something real beyond the little grey cells. Thats the fundemental issue about reality. But of course the science method is going to see things that way as it was not designed to see things that way. But that doesn't means there are realities beyond the science method and a naturalistic ontology.

Yes and know. The physics of other possible universes are usually different sub-sets of physics (or constants) from the superset of physics including the physics of our Universe created in a hope of unifying everything. The extra physics is speculative and too often fully untestable. I find most of this exercise to be rather pointless yet it gets so much public hype (string theory, etc.).

Do you think that it gets so much attention that its because there is something to it. That the standard physics is limited and even contradicts what is actually going on.

 

[stevevw]

The multiverse (at least the one we normally speak of) comes from "eternal inflation". Essentially everything is inflating and "small" bubbles stop and become ordinary universes:


"In 1983, it was shown that inflation could be eternal, leading to a multiverse in which space is broken up into bubbles or patches whose properties differ from patch to patch spanning all physical possibilities."

Inflation itself originated from trying to solve the problem of the apparent non-existence of magnetic monopoles, though it proved very useful in sorting out a few aspects of cosmology.

Hasn't one of its inventors disputed Inflation theory. The point is these are the kind of ideas stemming from the theorectical physics to explain how out universe came to be that leads to even stranger ideas than the simple and straight forward idea that Mind is fundemental. Which I would have thought is good science.

 

[Hans Blaster]

Hasn't one of its inventors disputed Inflation theory. The point is these are the kind of ideas stemming from the theorectical physics to explain how out universe came to be that leads to even stranger ideas than the simple and straight forward idea that Mind is fundemental. Which I would have thought is good science.

I don't know. The personalities are irrelevant to me. (And no matter how many times you say it. "fundamental mind" is not a straight forward idea.

 

[Hans Blaster]

If our reality is based on our physics then it stands to reason that a universe with different physical parametres is going to prooduce a different physical reality.

Changing one of the constants doesn't really change physics, it's just a little different

This is based on Chalmers famous Zombie thought experiment.
The philosopher’s zombie
The infamous thought experiment, flawed as it is, does demonstrate one thing: physics alone can’t explain consciousness

What can the zombie argument say about human consciousness? | Aeon Essays

The infamous thought experiment, flawed as it is, does demonstrate one thing: physics alone can’t explain consciousness

aeon.co

Have you actually read that article? Despite the "physics alone..." tag line, the actual article is all about the flaws and doesn't actually support the notion that something else is needed. I find that notion of the zombie to be rather ridiculous. While some things are done without conscious awareness (breathing, blood pumping, blinking, digestion) most other processes are done with conscious awareness. The 'zombie' would have any motivation to walk around, etc., without some sort of mind.

So life was just an random accident that happened because of the properties of the Big Bang.

No, life was an accident due to the properties of surface chemistry on a planet.

It may not have led to conscious intelligent life. The Big Bang just happen to accidently lead to the many physical parametres rquired for life let alone conscious intelligent life.

Does that possibility that life was just an accident bother you? I don't know why it would.

So why did they call the Higgs the God particle.

I told you why. It was a book title.

I don't think you can seperate science from philosophy.

Sure you can. Just like Lennon wrote: "Imagine no philosophy, its easy if you try."

But the nature of the science method (methodological naturalism) does imply that its working towards some truth about the ontological nature of fundemental reality.

What did I say about philosophy. I don't do metaphysics. (Like there is something beyond physics, sheesh, <eyeroll>.)

The Higgs is just one dicovery along a line of dicoveries they claim bring us closer to how something can come from nothing.

Higgs explains why certain fundamental particles have mass. Nothing more, nothing less. It says *nothing* about coming from nothing.

Scientists do claim each time that they are revealing a deeper aspect of reality.

What can I say, people fall for hype. Can you really blame the publicists if they use a bit of hype and hyperbole?

I mean detached as in what constitutes true knowledge as far as reality is concerned.

Now we have levels of knowledge? What next? higher forms of reality?

On the one hand we have the science method and the scientists who look at reality as rational, logic, within the phycial parametres.

Yes, that what physics does. Do you have a problem with physics?

On the other we have many throughout our history who measure this by their direct experience hense belief in transcedent realities.

Fysics doesn't care about your pheelings.

If you only measure reality in terms of logic, rationalism ect then you only get the mechanics, how physical stuff behaves.

Again, this is physics for you. Are you going to beat this dead horse much longer?

That is detached from conscious experience which may reveal deeper truths that are not measured by mechanical material stuff. Each is fine in their own way but when we only use one aspect to understand reality (a detached view) we get a distorted view.

Oh, look "deeper truth". SIgh.

Thats dismissing consciousness as something real beyond the little grey cells.

Yep. Consciousness is something brains do. Does that diminish it for you? If so, that's kind of sad that reality isn't good enough for you.

Thats the fundemental issue about reality.

I'm conscious, you're conscious (probably), but this chair isn't. It's not fundamental. I don't know why this is so much of an issue and hard to accept.

But of course the science method is going to see things that way as it was not designed to see things that way. But that doesn't means there are realities beyond the science method and a naturalistic ontology.

Yes, science doesn't do poetry. So what?

Do you think that it gets so much attention that its because there is something to it. That the standard physics is limited and even contradicts what is actually going on.

Speculation is fun and so is fantasy. That doesn't make it real.

 

[stevevw]

At this point in our discussion we at least seem to have narrowed the question down to one particular issue... are there many versions of reality or only one. If there are many, than the explanation for why reality is 'fine-tuned' for intelligent life simply boils down to the Anthropic principle. We experience a reality that's fine-tuned for life simply because we're not around to ask this question in realities where it isn't.

I don't think this explains anything. For a start it doesn't explain how there are many possible universes that we ended up in the one that created life. Its like we have to just accept there are many unexplained reasons why we are here.

To me that's a much simpler explanation than having to explain why there's only one version of reality that just happens to be fine-tuned for intelligent life.

Actually explaining one version that the universe is fine tuned for life is themost simple and elegant if we assume it is fundfementally about Mind. Then that explains a whole lot of other stuff as well. Thats the beauty it can cover everything because fundementally everything is about Mind and consciousness from the Universe itself, to free will and agency across all fields of science from psychology to biology.

It's akin to how Sean Carroll defends MWI, by explaining that you simply take a system's quantum state, apply Schrodinger's equation to it, and voila, out comes a multiverse. There's no need to add any extra parameters in a vain attempt to explain why the system collapses to only one version, because in the bigger picture, it doesn't.

Theres plenty this brings up that complicates things. Not just complicates but renders our sense of self as being non existence in any real sense and thuse renders ev everything as non existent. Not only does it render asking the question of whether theres something or nothing it renders the the idea of something or nothing as incoherent because there would not no such thing as something or nothing.
Why the Many-Worlds Interpretation Has Many Problems | Quanta Magazine

Now if you want to invoke consciousness as the reason why we experience only one version of reality and not all of them, then I'm fine with that. But that consciousness would be mine, limiting what I can see, not God's limiting what exists. Why would an omnipotent God do that... put such severe constraints on what He creates? A God that creates everything that can possibly be created... now there's an omnipotent God.

Not sure what you mean. Can you elaborate. The problem with the MWI is that it renders consciousness itself as nothing but a fleeting moment that will change every nanosecond and never staying around long enough to even experience anything which takes time to happen and be integrated.

Which self should I trust as the real self. That has the real experiences. Theres no sense in saying that each self has real conscious experiences because the only one we know of is our self right here and now.

It's also a God that even if He was conscious, and had free will, His acts would still appear to be deterministic, because there would be nothing that He could possibly do, that He wouldn't actually do. So He would look like, and act like a quantum field, only a quantum field that's conscious.

Possibly but we don't even fully understand a quantum field especially in light of consciousness let along what God thinks. In some ways I think it would be something along the lines of what we see with QM in that all probabilities are possible and yet one actually happens. To some extent its relative in that observers can choose but in another its objective in that one outcome happens. So perhaps God is all these possibilities and more.

The really, really interesting question though, is... would a quantum field that's conscious behave differently than a quantum field that isn't? In other words, would that consciousness become a factor in how that quantum system evolves, in the same way that your consciousness may be a factor in how your life evolves? True, it wouldn't be Libertarian free will, but a quantum system that's conscious might well look different than a quantum system that isn't.

And that is what many consciousness studies are looking at. Consciousness has to be included in the mix. There may be some influence yet detected or perhaps already detected but not fully understood within the overall scheme of things. Something that may unite the classical world with the quantum world.

Whatever it is it has to meet the quantum behaviour of not being limited by time and space yet also made real in time and space. It seems consciousness is the most likely candidate. But ideas like the MWI within material science makes our conscious experience, our sense of self, our ability to control things and make a difference null and void which seems to go against our deepest intuitions.

But now I'm just wandering off into hoohah. And it's here where my solipsistic background has to pull me back to reality. Unfortunately some people wander off and never come back.

I don't think its a ditchomy between hoohad and science. Theres a space in between where solipsism may be a real insight into what is really going on.

 

[partinobodycular]

I don't think this (Anthropic principle) explains anything. For a start it doesn't explain how there are many possible universes that we ended up in the one that created life. Its like we have to just accept there are many unexplained reasons why we are here.

I would've thought that the Anthropic principle was self-explanatory, but I'll see if I can reframe it in a manner that addresses your concerns. In so doing I'll try to address your following assertion as well.

Actually explaining one version that the universe is fine tuned for life is themost simple and elegant if we assume it is fundfementally about Mind.

I'm going to assume that reality is, at its most fundamental level... quantum. Meaning that it exists in a superposition of every possible state. Now within this superposition of possible states 99.9999...% of those states will result in completely incoherent chaos, with no discernible structure at all. So much so that almost everything will be indistinguishable from the underlying chaos. But a small percentage of those possible states will be coherent, meaning they'll be self-perpetuating... giving rise to particles, and matter, and planets, and all the attending physical laws that accompany a self-perpetuating and coherent reality. And therefore they'll be distinguishable from the chaos. Now a state that's coherent enough to produce stars, and planets, and life, may by virtue of that coherency produce conscious beings, such as ourselves.

So within this backdrop of almost infinite and indistinguishable chaos there'll be the occasional flash of coherency, accompanied perhaps universally by conscious beings such as ourselves. Now this might lead to the conclusion that the conscious beings/minds are responsible for those flashes of coherency, for where you see one you'll always see the other, but in fact minds are merely a byproduct of the coherency, not a cause.

Hence in this case the Antropic principle refers to the fact that you'll only find conscious beings in those flashes of coherency, and never anywhere else. But it's not because minds are the cause of that coherency, rather they're an effect of that coherency. It's just another example of correlation not equating to causation.

Minds are just a consequence of quantum uncertainty, and Hawking's something from nothing. In this case 'nothing' is a backdrop of quantum chaos, from which minds may be the most distinguishing feature, but they're not the cause.

Now you may choose to invoke some all encompassing mind as the source of this quantum backdrop, with it's flashes of coherency, but none is necessary. Your entire argument is based upon the premise that there's only one version of reality. As a solipsist I understand the premise, and the 'egocentric predicament' from which it arises. But logic would suggest that there's nothing unique about this particular version of reality, beyond the fact that it happens to be the one that you're stuck in. Hence if there's a mind that's responsible for anything... it's mine.

Again, don't read too much into this hoohah, just use it as a counter-argument to your own hoohah.

 

[QvQ]

Now within this superposition of possible states 99.9999...% of those states will result in completely incoherent chaos, with no discernible structure at all. So much so that almost everything will be indistinguishable from the underlying chaos. But a small percentage of those possible states will be coherent, meaning they'll be self-perpetuating... giving rise to particles, and matter, and planets, and all the attending physical laws that accompany a self-perpetuating and coherent reality. And therefore they'll be distinguishable from the chaos. Now a state that's coherent enough to produce stars, and planets, and life, may by virtue of that coherency produce conscious beings, such as ourselves.

What is called "coherent" is the linear analysis of humans
Reality is non-linear. It is not chaotic or random. Reality is operating in one state, one reality that is coherent according to it's own rules which man can only intuitively grasp.
The fire wall for linear humans and a non linear reality is predicting the future. The future, every single state, particle and participle will be in exactly the right place, exactly the right time and exactly necessary to reality.
Man cannot predict it. Why? Because man does not have the capacity to comprehend non-linear systems. Man is Linear. Man can distinguish patterns, make some predictions such as aiming a cannon but man is not capable of understanding the non-linear system which is the big picture.
Recently there have been attempts to develop mathematical non-linear models, statistics, fractals however statistics are merely "best guess" and fractals are an interesting proof of non-linear systems.
BTW "Random" and "Chaos" are code words for "we can't do the math."

 

[stevevw]

I would've thought that the Anthropic principle was self-explanatory, but I'll see if I can reframe it in a manner that addresses your concerns. In so doing I'll try to address your following assertion as well.

Its not self explanatory in light of the basic human questions we all ask, who am I and how did I get here. Logic doesn't explain anything when it comes to actual human experience.

I'm going to assume that reality is, at its most fundamental level... quantum. Meaning that it exists in a superposition of every possible state. Now within this superposition of possible states 99.9999...% of those states will result in completely incoherent chaos, with no discernible structure at all. So much so that almost everything will be indistinguishable from the underlying chaos. But a small percentage of those possible states will be coherent, meaning they'll be self-perpetuating... giving rise to particles, and matter, and planets, and all the attending physical laws that accompany a self-perpetuating and coherent reality.

What do you mean by "self-perpetuating and coherent reality".

And therefore they'll be distinguishable from the chaos. Now a state that's coherent enough to produce stars, and planets, and life, may by virtue of that coherency produce conscious beings, such as ourselves.

Or it may not and thats where this breaks down. There could have been just micro life which many scientists believe is the only form of life of some planets. If Dino's never went extinct there may not have been intelligent conscious beings. Humans could have ended up being zombies where we could be similar to humans and function to survive but not be conscious.

So within this backdrop of almost infinite and indistinguishable chaos there'll be the occasional flash of coherency, accompanied perhaps universally by conscious beings such as ourselves. Now this might lead to the conclusion that the conscious beings/minds are responsible for those flashes of coherency, for where you see one you'll always see the other, but in fact minds are merely a byproduct of the coherency, not a cause.

Thats a massive unsupported assumption. If consciousness is fundemental then its also beyond the causes of the physical brain.

Hence in this case the Antropic principle refers to the fact that you'll only find conscious beings in those flashes of coherency, and never anywhere else. But it's not because minds are the cause of that coherency, rather they're an effect of that coherency. It's just another example of correlation not equating to causation.

And you have just used correlations to make your arguement. Actually not even correlations based on anything real or factual just speculation.

Minds are just a consequence of quantum uncertainty, and Hawking's something from nothing. In this case 'nothing' is a backdrop of quantum chaos, from which minds may be the most distinguishing feature, but they're not the cause.

And quantum chaos is 'something' that needs a cause. To say it always existed is no better than saying God or consciousness always existed. But in some ways its better to say that consciousness or Mind always existed because all you are talking about, the logic and abstract ideas are from Mind, are created by Mind. They mean nothing without Mind.

Now you may choose to invoke some all encompassing mind as the source of this quantum backdrop, with it's flashes of coherency, but none is necessary. Your entire argument is based upon the premise that there's only one version of reality.

No its not about one version of reality. That is what the material science claims that naturalistic causes and mechanical matter and forces and the secondary epiphenomenas are the only reality.

But Mind or consciousness as fundemental like QM posits multi realities. The reality of the objective world being a reflection of a deeper reality such as consciousness. The reality of experience giving knowledge about reality. Which happens to align with some interpretations of QM supported by the likes of Wigner, Wheeler, Henry Stapp and Heisenberg among others.

As a solipsist I understand the premise, and the 'egocentric predicament' from which it arises.

I don't think its just egocentric. Thats another rationalisation coming from a particular assumption about humans based on a phychosocial theory. It may be that humans are just more aware of self because, well everything that happens comes through our experience, not someone elses, not some alien force or the effects of the objective world on us.

But logic would suggest that there's nothing unique about this particular version of reality, beyond the fact that it happens to be the one that you're stuck in. Hence if there's a mind that's responsible for anything... it's mine.

Luckily we don't just go by logic as this is really a detached rationalisation about quantity, cold hard facts and not actual experience which is the only thing we have to know the world. Anything else is contrived, created as an abstract concept outside our minds which in reality we cannot really know because all we have is our minds and experience.

I think everything seems to come back to Mind. We can make measures of the objective world and come up with ideas about what that is. But its like measuring a house. We can know the engineering and the framework from a distance and that is one aspect of reality. As nature beings we have parameters to navigate the world otherwise we would be lost.

But theres another reality perhaps a deeper one that underlies this. Its the quality stuff, the reality inside the house, the culture, belief experience of the objective world. Science leaves this part out, keeps the scientists seperate from the equation. QM brings the scientists (observer) back in and this cannot be measured by the quantitative way of logic and methodlogical naturalism. We have to unite to the to truely understand fundemental reality.

Again, don't read too much into this hoohah, just use it as a counter-argument to your own hoohah.

Its all hoohah lol

 

[expos4ever]

I didn't dismiss conscious experience as delusional, dismissable, or dumb. As I've said before, it is just the behavior of our little grey cells. That doesn't make it "not real", just not fundamental.

I have not read all of your posts so perhaps I am taking this out of context. I find it very hard to believe to believe that consciousness "is just the behaviour of our little grey cells". Don't get me wrong - I am not embracing the kind of "dualism" that entails belief in a an immaterial soul. However, I think there is a rather clear distinction between the "information processing" that goes on in our brains and the content of subjective experience. For example, if I know all there is to know about what patterns of neuronal activity give rise to the experience of "seeing red", there is still something missing - there is an explanatory gap between the model of the brain as an information processing entity and the content of subjective experience. Again, I am not suggesting that there is an immaterial soul - I believe that when information is processed in a human brain, subjective experiences occur. But, to me at least, this is not really a full explanation - something is missing: by analogy, if I say that whenever I get exposed to someone with Covid, I get sick, that is not a full explanation - we need a story about how viruses are transmitted from person to person.

David Chalmers has been mentioned in this thread. I find his arguments compelling - we likely need to take consciousness as "fundamental" in our models of the world. But, and for the third time, this is does not require a commitment to any belief in things like souls or spirits.

 

[expos4ever]

1) Something from Nothing: Hawking's stated that if nothing goes on long enough, something will happen. (probability)

I do not know the context in which Hawking said this, but I will chime in anyway. It is important to be clear what we mean by "nothing". I believe that we can indeed have a concept of true nothingness. This entails not merely no matter and no energy, but also no space and no time. And also no abstract things like numbers or probability.

Again, I do not know the context of Mr. Hawking's statement; however, it seems to me that talk of "probabilities" entails an a priori commitment to something - while a "probability" is abstract, it is still a "something".

I am in the camp of those who think the question of "why is there something rather than nothing" is a true mystery. Right up there with consciousness, to draw a connection to another theme in this thread.

 

[expos4ever]

QM brings the scientists (observer) back in and this cannot be measured by the quantitative way of logic and methodlogical naturalism.

Like I wrote in another post just now, I do not know the full context of your position, but I will offer feedback anyway. I understand that the mainstream "flavour" of QM requires that special status be accorded to the observer. However, there is at least one "version" of QM that has no special role for the observer: the many-worlds model.

 

[QvQ]

I do not know the context in which Hawking said this, but I will chime in anyway.

Hawking Quote:
“Because there is a law such as gravity, the Universe can and will create itself from nothing. Spontaneous creation is the reason there is something rather than nothing, why the Universe exists, why we exist.” “It is not necessary to invoke God to light the blue touch paper and set the Universe going."


And it is merely Hawking's opinion whether those "laws" are self invoked or invoked by God.

 

[expos4ever]

“Because there is a law such as gravity, the Universe can and will create itself from nothing.

Far be it from me to challenge Stephen H, but a "law" is not a "nothing" - to posit the existence of a law of gravity, you have already committed to a something.

 

[QvQ]

Far be it from me to challenge Stephen H, but a "law" is not a "nothing" - to posit the existence of a law of gravity, you have already committed to a something.

Hawking's also posited that God did not exist before the Big Bang because time did not exist. However, anyone familiar with the basic tenets of Christianity knows that God created time. So, I guess, most Christians would agree that God existed before time and remains independent of time.

 

[Hans Blaster]

I have not read all of your posts so perhaps I am taking this out of context. I find it very hard to believe to believe that consciousness "is just the behaviour of our little grey cells". Don't get me wrong - I am not embracing the kind of "dualism" that entails belief in a an immaterial soul. However, I think there is a rather clear distinction between the "information processing" that goes on in our brains and the content of subjective experience. For example, if I know all there is to know about what patterns of neuronal activity give rise to the experience of "seeing red", there is still something missing - there is an explanatory gap between the model of the brain as an information processing entity and the content of subjective experience. Again, I am not suggesting that there is an immaterial soul - I believe that when information is processed in a human brain, subjective experiences occur. But, to me at least, this is not really a full explanation - something is missing: by analogy, if I say that whenever I get exposed to someone with Covid, I get sick, that is not a full explanation - we need a story about how viruses are transmitted from person to person.

I think it's important to remember that the brain isn't really an "information processor" in the same way that a computer is. All sorts of things are going on in the brain. Neurons communicating with others in a variety of directions and links.

David Chalmers has been mentioned in this thread. I find his arguments compelling - we likely need to take consciousness as "fundamental" in our models of the world. But, and for the third time, this is does not require a commitment to any belief in things like souls or spirits.

Know that I know more about his "zombies" I am less impressed.

 

[expos4ever]

Hawking's also posited that God did not exist before the Big Bang because time did not exist.

If, repeat if, one can make the case that time did not exist before the Big Bang then it would logically follow, or so it seems to me, that the statement "God existed before the Big Bang" cannot be correct since the term "before" necessarily requires the existence of time.

However, anyone familiar with the basic tenets of Christianity knows that God created time.

I am not sure what I think about this - I recall no clear statements in scripture about God creating time per se. But I see no particular conceptual problem with the notion that God created time. Of course, there remains the issue of giving an account for God somehow existing without being "created". But that problem has bedevilled us for millennia.

So, I guess, most Christians would agree that God existed before time and remains independent of time.

But if God created time, it is conceptually incoherent to claim He existed before time since the term "before" implies a relationship in time. And while perhaps it is sensible to say God is independent of time, Scripture certainly represents God as being active in time.

 

[expos4ever]

I think it's important to remember that the brain isn't really an "information processor" in the same way that a computer is. All sorts of things are going on in the brain. Neurons communicating with others in a variety of directions and links.

I agree - I never suggested the brain was a standard computer.

Know that I know more about his "zombies" I am less impressed.

What specific objection do you have? I believe that Chalmers argues for the conceptual possibility of zombies while also denying that they are naturally possible. He then leverages the conceptual possibility of zombies to buttress his case that our current models of the world do not suffice to explain consciousness.