• Members of the previous forum can retrieve their temporary password here, (login and check your PM).

Article: the evolutionary argument against reality

Migrated topic.
inaniel

inaniel

mas alla del mar
Found this entertaining, perhaps you will too.



The idea that what we’re doing is measuring publicly accessible objects, the idea that objectivity results from the fact that you and I can measure the same object in the exact same situation and get the same results — it’s very clear from quantum mechanics that that idea has to go. Physics tells us that there are no public physical objects. So what’s going on? Here’s how I think about it. I can talk to you about my headache and believe that I am communicating effectively with you, because you’ve had your own headaches. The same thing is true as apples and the moon and the sun and the universe. Just like you have your own headache, you have your own moon. But I assume it’s relevantly similar to mine. That’s an assumption that could be false, but that’s the source of my communication, and that’s the best we can do in terms of public physical objects and objective science.

I think it has been. Not only are they ignoring the progress in fundamental physics, they are often explicit about it. They’ll say openly that quantum physics is not relevant to the aspects of brain function that are causally involved in consciousness. They are certain that it’s got to be classical properties of neural activity, which exist independent of any observers — spiking rates, connection strengths at synapses, perhaps dynamical properties as well. These are all very classical notions under Newtonian physics, where time is absolute and objects exist absolutely. And then [neuroscientists] are mystified as to why they don’t make progress. They don’t avail themselves of the incredible insights and breakthroughs that physics has made. Those insights are out there for us to use, and yet my field says, “We’ll stick with Newton, thank you. We’ll stay 300 years behind in our physics.”
Click to expand...



Quanta Magazine

www.quantamagazine.org www.quantamagazine.org
 
It's a great and interesting topic that I think has been given a severe lack of attention. If you haven't seen the TED talk he gave, I would suggest doing so:

 
It's an excellent article and personally i am very glad to see that parts of the scientific community challenge some of our most basic conceptions about what and how is reality.
Our all-too-human minds, in their non-altered state, tend to perceive the universe in a naive-realist and dualistic fashion. And this is something which is very hard ( if one desires it at all... ) to let go of. The masters of old ( and new ) call it the veil of ignorance :twisted:
 
They are certain that it’s got to be classical properties of neural activity, which exist independent of any observers
Click to expand...
This is why I can't take the article seriously. The subjectivity of conscious experience is independent of underlying physics and has nothing to do with the quantum vs classical debate.
 
Why do some interpretations of quantum mechanics always give me the odd impression that even quantum mechanics itself doesn't really exist, only interpretations?
 
hixidom said:
This is why I can't take the article seriously. The subjectivity of conscious experience is independent of underlying physics and has nothing to do with the quantum vs classical debate.
Click to expand...

Care to validate your claims ??
 
monomind said:
Care to validate your claims ??
Click to expand...
That reality can only be experienced subjectively is Philosophy 101. Just look up Mary's Room.

Philosophy is not required, however. Say you and I are sitting in a room: We are sitting in different places, therefore we see different perspectives, therefore perception is subjective in any such physical situation. Nowhere in that argument did I invoke classical or quantum physics. Two people can't be in the same place at the same time, therefore all perceptions are subjective.
 
hixidom said:
That reality can only be experienced subjectively is Philosophy 101. Just look up Mary's Room.

Philosophy is not required, however. Say you and I are sitting in a room: We are sitting in different places, therefore we see different perspectives, therefore perception is subjective in any such physical situation. Nowhere in that argument did I invoke classical or quantum physics. Two people can't be in the same place at the same time, therefore all perceptions are subjective.
Click to expand...

hixidom, i agree with your point, however... the remaining issue, and in my view also the fundamental one, is regarding the subjectively perceived nature of external reality which seems to us commonly as absolute and separated/ independent of the observer. If we agree that this perception/belief is actually illusory... then reality as we know it looses its grounding center ( metaphorically speaking )... there is nothing anymore which is absolutely true ( out the window go Judeo-Christian religions , racism, most of politics, as well as dogma and morality ). All differences, hierarchies and scales become products of our own mind and imagination ( narratives, if you will ) rather then "things out there in external reality". Last but not least, the concept of the "I" will have to be revisited and radically change.
So subjectivity is fine... the contents of it however is what put to question.
 
there is nothing anymore which is absolutely true ( out the window go Judeo-Christian religions , racism, most of politics, as well as dogma and morality ). All differences, hierarchies and scales become products of our own mind and imagination ( narratives, if you will ) rather then "things out there in external reality".
Click to expand...
If you agree that we can't experience objective reality directly, then don't you have to accept these points that you've listed? I agree that, ideally, objective reality exists, but I don't think we can prove that to be the case since none of us can step outside of our own minds. It seems to me that we are stuck with the shaky aspects of subjective reality.
 
Music. Sound, even.

Nothing reveals greater subjectivity, even between people who believe they are intimately alike.

Exactly where the sound-waves are apprehended, and how they are interpreted, nobody can ever seem to say...but what tickles my hairs can seemingly burn yours...
 
Nice find.:thumb_up:

Here's a few quotes that might relate...

"Perception Is All In Your Head" and "Your World Is a Virtual Reality"

"Our five senses are designed to transmit information from the outside world to the processing centers of the brain so that we can then construct a 3-D reproduction of our world. This is because our eyes can't see objects, they can only see light reflecting off of objects (...we are light perceiving light). It's up to us to create a replica of the outside world within our minds so that we can function in this reality without walking into walls...we have seen, heard, smelled, tasted, and touched things our whole lives, yet we've never actually seen, heard, smelled, tasted, and touched anything as it actually is. We've only experienced an interpretation that our minds have created for us, a virtual reality of the outside world."

"Your eyes function like mirrors since they contain a tiny replica of the outside reality projected onto the back of your eyes. Therefore, no interpretation is done in the eye at all. Once the brain receives the information, it sends it to various areas to be processed. This same procedure occurs with your other four senses too, although sight and hearing tend to dominate. The brain creates a 3-D image in the virtual reality of your mind of the person or object you are observing and interprets and analyzes the information according to what you have been taught and what you have experienced."

-Sheri Rosenthal, Toltec Wisdom and Banish Mind Spam

:shock:
 
hixidom said:
there is nothing anymore which is absolutely true ( out the window go Judeo-Christian religions , racism, most of politics, as well as dogma and morality ). All differences, hierarchies and scales become products of our own mind and imagination ( narratives, if you will ) rather then "things out there in external reality".
Click to expand...
If you agree that we can't experience objective reality directly, then don't you have to accept these points that you've listed? I agree that, ideally, objective reality exists, but I don't think we can prove that to be the case since none of us can step outside of our own minds. It seems to me that we are stuck with the shaky aspects of subjective reality.
Click to expand...

Greetings hixidom :thumb_up:
... but of course i am in full agreement and realization with the points i listed. Let me ask you this though: why the need to believe that such a thing as "objective reality" actually exists ? Why to make this unfounded "leap" from conscious aware subjectivity to a stand alone and independent ( objective ) reality ? can you validate it ?
Granted, our Newtonian/Aristotelian biased minds carry this notion ( which can be easily explained due to its evolutive advantage, or adaptability if you will ) but such notions are practically useful at most... rather than representing a truism about how the universe is in a deeper sense.

warmest regards :)
 
In short: a simulation of an interpretation of a perception of a tell-tale stimulation of a reflection of impulses of contrasting diagnosis of a dream state interpretation of cognitive conscious activity of singularity transposed emotions of thought energy conceived spins of quantum related continuation induced appearances of a ripple effected God's fart.

I'm not only making fun here but thinking in such possibilities enables me to take emotional gravity out of the obsessive or fixative practicing, making everything very relative and less concern-able, helps me to relax in this dream. A way to make philosophy work in my advantage on a practical note, being more able to smile at hard realities. I thank quantum physics for the discovery that I really do not exist as I feared (?) and enables me more to let-go and strangely the dream responds to certain levels in a positive way. It leans more and more to a one big joke even when I have a pain here or there.

And so on ...
;)
 
Jees said:
In short: a simulation of an interpretation of a perception of a tell-tale stimulation of a reflection of impulses of contrasting diagnosis of a dream state interpretation of cognitive conscious activity of singularity transposed emotions of thought energy conceived spins of quantum related continuation induced appearances of a ripple effected God's fart.

I'm not only making fun here but thinking in such possibilities enables me to take emotional gravity out of the obsessive or fixative practicing, making everything very relative and less concern-able, helps me to relax in this dream. A way to make philosophy work in my advantage on a practical note, being more able to smile at hard realities. I thank quantum physics for the discovery that I really do not exist as I feared (?) and enables me more to let-go and strangely the dream responds to certain levels in a positive way. It leans more and more to a one big joke even when I have a pain here or there.

And so on ...
;)
Click to expand...
...our methods is fairly similar (..maybe moar extremist)
 
[I'm rediscovering this article again]

Here's where the author gets it all wrong:
if we assume that the particles that make up ordinary objects have an objective, observer-independent existence, we get the wrong answers.
Click to expand...
...meanwhile, straight from wikipedia:
The physicist's Realism is the claim that the world is in some sense mind-independent: that even if the results of a possible measurement do not pre-exist the act of measurement, that does not require that they are the creation of the observer
Click to expand...

The author of the neuroscience article says that physical objects are not "observer-independent". I agree with this (observation always affects a physical system), but that does not mean that they are observer-dependent! i.e. If two scientists take the same measurement, they should get the same [observation-biased] result. When I look at the moon and you look at the moon, we see the same thing. The moon is not a creation of the mind. It is in fact observer-independent.

I'm not a neuroscientist, so I'm just stepping out on a limb here, but I would guess that neuroscientists stick to classical physics principles because they explain the observations well. Just like most practical fields of study today (fluid dynamics, geology, meteorology, continuous mechanics, and ecology, to name a few), quantum mechanics is not necessary.
 
monomind said:
hixidom said:
there is nothing anymore which is absolutely true ( out the window go Judeo-Christian religions , racism, most of politics, as well as dogma and morality ). All differences, hierarchies and scales become products of our own mind and imagination ( narratives, if you will ) rather then "things out there in external reality".
Click to expand...
If you agree that we can't experience objective reality directly, then don't you have to accept these points that you've listed? I agree that, ideally, objective reality exists, but I don't think we can prove that to be the case since none of us can step outside of our own minds. It seems to me that we are stuck with the shaky aspects of subjective reality.
Click to expand...

Greetings hixidom :thumb_up:
... but of course i am in full agreement and realization with the points i listed. Let me ask you this though: why the need to believe that such a thing as "objective reality" actually exists ? Why to make this unfounded "leap" from conscious aware subjectivity to a stand alone and independent ( objective ) reality ? can you validate it ?
Granted, our Newtonian/Aristotelian biased minds carry this notion ( which can be easily explained due to its evolutive advantage, or adaptability if you will ) but such notions are practically useful at most... rather than representing a truism about how the universe is in a deeper sense.

warmest regards :)
Click to expand...

I very much agree with what I see as your position here. The trouble with the point the OPs author makes is that there is an unquestionable theory of brain activity which is being battled against, let alone quantum mechanics and that can of worms (understood by very few).

While I understand on a philosophical level that such possibilities may exist, and that this may be the extent of the author's point, there are still unanswered questions. I had a dream last night, it was very realistic, how can I say my dream was unreal and that this waking reality is not unreal? Are both not equally real? Do we understand the differences between my brain experiencing the reality now (quantum or not) and my reality in last night's dream? Does an understanding of those differences negate the reality of the experience? Personally I cannot always tell the difference beyond the continuity of my waking memories of my life. And how may I say my dream self does not have such continuity? (again a vague proposition, such as the author provides, not that I disagree with the author's assessments)

Again, I do agree that any such answer will provide no truism but rather a frame of reference for practical usability. Much in the sense Hixidom is referring to. While it is admitted that Maxwell's equations may not be realistic in all senses, the equations are very useful for most practical applications. I don't see a need to negate any such views due to this situation, but personally I always take things with a grain of salt so the author's point is not lost on me but rather known via uncertainty (Godel is always a nice read). Reality is quite an elusive system at the moment.Which is fine with me :) I have other thoughts but a movie to go to 8)

Thanks for the thoughtful posts
 
I've been wondering a lot lately if humans are (in some fields at least) reaching the limits of conceptual power and model-making. We evolved to do some pretty simple things (hunt gazelles, avoid tigers, make more humans), and are very, VERY good at operating in systems and scales similar to the ones that those tasks require in.

There's absolutely no reason for us to have neural architecture built to represent or conceptualize what's happening at the quantum level, in the same way that there was no evolutionary push to develop vision in the gamma ray spectrum.

It may be that the impossible weirdness of quantum mechanics is an emergent property of our brains trying to understand rules that we're not built to understand. There are almost certainly vistas of 'reality' that we are just incapable of perceiving or even conceptualizing.

One of my best mushroom trips involved coming to this realization that there is something MORE, and while I may never be able to interact with it or understand it in any way, it does exist.

Blessings
~ND
 
Back
Top Bottom