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Quantum can't model a mind using quantum

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  • #16
    Originally posted by Cerebrum123 View Post
    I don't know why shuny's words show up as mine in your post. Just to clarify, I was saying shuny's source doesn't back up his claim like he thinks it does.

    I'm no expert, but based on what I've read from a variety of sources I agree with your stance on this grmorton.
    My citation was specific. At present you have not provided anything of substance in response.
    Glendower: I can call spirits from the vasty deep.
    Hotspur: Why, so can I, or so can any man;
    But will they come when you do call for them? Shakespeare’s Henry IV, Part 1, Act III:

    go with the flow the river knows . . .

    Frank

    I do not know, therefore everything is in pencil.

    Comment


    • #17
      Originally posted by shunyadragon View Post
      Of course, Quantum Mechanics can't explain the mind and consciousness, and as referenced in the article, biochemistry explains the brain, mind and consciousness.



      Penrose's (?) attempt does not represent science I am reviewing Penrose's writing on this subject, and at present he concluded simply that Quantum Mechanics cannot explain the mind and consciousness, and he looked forward to a new(?) science to explain the mind and consciousness. I am not sure this reflects that Penrose tried to explain the mind and consciousness through Quantum Mechanics.

      More to follow, but again Penrose and his efforts(?) do not represent science. Science explains the brain, mind and consciousness through macro world sciences like biochemistry, and neurology.

      Do you even have a clue who Penrose is? No, you certainly don't

      What a ridiculous assertion that science explains the mind. Please point me to that article. there is no such article Frank. How ridiculous

      Comment


      • #18
        Originally posted by shunyadragon View Post
        My citation was specific. At present you have not provided anything of substance in response.
        Pot calling Kettle black. Sheesh, Frank do you not have any understanding of yourself? No self-reflection?

        Comment


        • #19
          Originally posted by grmorton View Post
          A few weeks ago I introduced to this forum the idea that every formulation of quantum mechanics requires an observer and that requires that mentality or soul is more important than matter. For a refresher, here is what three physicists said about mind/soul being more important than matter:





          Which means, if you hold to Many Worlds View of Quantum, you actually believe there is a supreme being. LMAO. Most people who hold Many World's view don't realize it requires a super being ala God! and finally:



          The need for an observer who is apart from nature for the quantum collapse, is something that ensures that this world is not materialistic. It is scientific fact that the world is not merely matter, and that mind does not arise from matter. Can we go further than this? Yes, a couple of weeks ago, as I was getting ready for my move, Nature published an article with astounding implications. The article in Nature is entitled." Quantum theory cannot consistently describe the use of itself" by Daniela Frauchiger & Renato Renner. The abstract says:



          This is probably the easiest way to get a grasp on what these authors have done:



          But the two conflicting answers are not mere belief, they are certitudes handed down by quantum mechanical mathematics. It is not a mere matter of the belief of the two outside physicists, but what a rigorous application of quantum tells them--and the answers conflict.

          When I was in grad school in philosophy of science, one of the most important things I learned was that when you derive a contradiction from your line of reasoning, the assumptions you are using, either knowingly or unknowingly, are incompatible and you better go look for the flawed assumption. Frauchiger and Renner give the assumptions that go into their analysis:



          Assumption Q, Universal applicability of Quantum. Most physicists and other scientists have used the materialistic assumption that quantum mechanics applies to all things inside this universe, including our consciousness/ mind/ soul. If our minds/souls are expressions of the workings of matter and some sort of epiphenomenon of complex matter, then mental states would be subject to the laws of quantum dynamics. Many suggestions have been made that consciousness is a quantum phenomenon; see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_mind for discussions of quantum theories of the mind. Others think it is ridiculous to think consciousness is a quantum phenomenon. If this latter group is correct, then the laws of physics as we know them, doesn't apply to mind/soul, and that would include quantum mechanics. They would be consistent with the above view that the observer is above and logically prior to matter as expressed by the three physicists above, but generally this second group of physicists don't believe in souls or God or other spiritual entities. Their position is inconsistent with the observation that somehow mind/soul is " outside of the description provided by physics" as Stephen Barr said above.
          To me, assumption Q is the weak link in the set of assumptions. Mind is not subject to quantum mechanics, and that means it is something entirely different--something like a soul.

          Assumption C--consistency. This is the real sine qua non of science and knowledge. If our theories are inconsistent, then all knowledge is impossible to obtain. If today when I measure the bounce of a ball and the height decreases with every bounce, then I know the laws of physics (friction and energy conservation) as we know them apply. But if tomorrow, the ball bounces higher and higher after each bounce, eventually shooting off into space, inconsistent with what we know of physics, then all we could do is shrug our shoulders and say we don't understand nature. Consistency is the very touchstone of logic. As a professor once proved in my class, from any inconsistency he can prove that the Pope is protestant, and he did as we students pealed off one inconsistency after another. If C is not valid, shut your science books and start reading Tarot Cards.

          Assumption S--singular results. Frauchiger and Renner say " from the viewpoint of an agent who carries out a particular measurement, this measurement has one single outcome" This is totally consistent with our experience. We never experience multiple outcomes of a quantum experiment--it is one or the other--binary. I don't see how this can be the weak sister of the assumptions.

          This all says one thing, there is something in the situation to which quantum doesn't apply. Maybe it doesn't apply to macroscopic objects, but already objects large enough to be seen have been placed in superposition



          Before I die, I expect a macroscopic tardigrade will have been put into superposition, showing that quantum applies to even bigger macroscopic objects. The only other thing in the lab which is being modeled, is consciousness, and so this leaves the conclusion that it is the observer using quantum can't be modeled by quantum. So to me, this points to the fact that consciousness is not subject to the laws of physics. There are instances of where it becomes clear that mind is bigger than matter.

          A detour: When I was struggling with whether or not to give up Christianity, a struggle which lasted 10 years, in which my wife and middle son thought I would become an atheist, there was one thing I could not get around-- my Turkish translator experience. I was at a Christian conference in Dallas, TX in 1969, and we had just heard a sermon on praying specifically. Don't pray for the missionaries in Africa cause you don't know if the prayer was answered or not. Pray for something that you will KNOW has been answered.

          Thus, at 1 am in the lobby of the Adolphus Hotel, a college woman came up to me and my best friend, Wayne Sparkman, and asked us if we knew where she could find a Turkish translator. They wanted to share the Gospel with a Turkish guy staying in the hotel. Middle Easterners were very rare in the country in 1969 and later a linguist told me that about 95% of all the 5000 Turkish speakers in the US at that time lived in New York City. Well, I don't know what made me say this, but I said, Let's pray for a Turkish translator to come to a specific desk (there were 2 check in desks) in 10 min. When we finished praying, my roommate and best friend, Wayne, asked if we shouldn't start looking. Again, I don't know what made me say this, but I said, "We still have 8 min." We stood there for 8 more minutes. At exactly 10 m, a guy entered the hotel and went to that very desk. Wayne asked me to go see if the guy spoke Turkish. I was freaked out and couldn't, so Wayne did it. The guy had been a Air Force interpreter in Turkey; he worked as a short order cook in downtown Dallas and had never before been in the Adolphus Hotel. In fact this was not on his way home, but he needed to buy some cigarettes and so came to the Hotel to get some. I worked up the odds of that happening by chance and it was an astounding number against such an occurrence happening by chance--yeah some have tried to suggest it was a grand fluke, like meeting a friend in Tallinn Estonia in a bar when he doesn't drink, but I couldn't say that because of the time requirement--precisely 10 minutes in a 10 ft square area. Flukes like meeting your friend don't involve asking God for your friend to be there at a specific time.

          So years later when discussing atheism vs theism with Wil Provine, a well known evangelical atheist if there ever was one, and I had finally kinda given up on Christianity and told him to email me his best proof of atheism, he told me there was no proof of atheism. I was shocked. What he had was faith; what I had was faith AND an experience--like Ellie Arroway in the movie Contact--I had an experience with God. I couldn't become an atheist because they had nothing really to offer in the way of reality or proof. They had no experience nor scientific proof of their position. Why? I think they could be atheists because they had had no contact with the supreme consciousness.

          My oldest son's wife is Singaporean Chinese. She was raised in a Daoist home, although her father by then was really kind of nothing--no beliefs. She was the first of her family to become a Christian and through her, her brother became a Christian, and through them, their cousins all became Christian. When she and Dan married, we went to Singapore for the tea ceremony, minus the religious aspects of it and her father took us up to Melakka, Malaysia where his sister lived and acted as a guide through the traditional Daoist Temple in Melakka. Oo Hong Hee, her father, explained Daoism to me but it was clear that he no longer believed it. When his mother died about 4 years ago, both he and his wife became Christians along with his wife's grandparents. My daughter-in-law was instrumental in winning almost her whole family to Christ.

          But then 6 months after he became a Christian, he was given a death sentence, a cancer on his neck or head. I wondered what the effect of this would be on his new found faith? Well, I now call him miracle man, to his face. A few months later, the cancer totally disappeared, and he became a far more devout Christian than I.

          As I have thought about this, I think God gives to each Christian what they need to deal with whatever pressures that they will encounter so that they can have an Ebenezer stone to look at, to keep them Christian. I needed a Turkish translator; Hong Hee needed a cancer miracle, but we both had encounters with God--and that is consistent with the observational data from Quantum that spirit is more important than matter; that spirit is not explainable by the mathematics of Quantum. Disbelieve if you like, but if so, please don't ignore the scientific data that goes against your position, mind seems to be something different and outside the realm of science.
          So, if as you believe, consciousness is separate from the material quantum world, what exactly is the material quantum world before it is observed? I know we call it the wave function, but what does that mean practically speaking? What is it?

          Comment


          • #20
            Originally posted by grmorton View Post
            My most profuse apologies. I am very feisty. Sorry. Shunya doesn't every bring much to the table worthy or response to--just what he BELIEVES, but never data. And to Frank, I have answered why I didn't post what I had already said was the only place materialists can go to to explain consciousness, Frank.
            I figured there was a misunderstanding. I also understand getting frustrated dealing with shunyadragon. He once said I was as bad as an Islamic terrorist because I was denouncing the violent commands of Mohammed.

            He's often posted stuff in the past that said the opposite of what he claims at worst, or doesn't support it at best. That is one reason among many I don't take him seriously. If he started providing some real content I would probably have given more as a response.

            Comment


            • #21
              Originally posted by JimL View Post
              So, if as you believe, consciousness is separate from the material quantum world, what exactly is the material quantum world before it is observed? I know we call it the wave function, but what does that mean practically speaking? What is it?
              Have you ever read George Berkeley's Principles of Human Knowledge? It is a 18th century philosophy book of major import. His views basically presaged what quantum says about the individual making reality. It is worth a read if you haven't read it. It deals with how humans know what they know, and even without any knowledge of quantum, he came to the conclusion that humans make their world upon observation. The Wheeler backward causation, where you can choose to see what you want about light being lensed by a gravitational lens and decide tonight to view waves going around a galaxy 2 billion years ago (you will see the waves on all sides of the intervening galaxy) or chose to see photons and you will see photons on one side or the other side of the Gravitational lensing galaxy. You can decide today what happened 2 billion years ago. That is observer created reality.


              I don't know the answer to your question. I do know that the mathematics of quantum have NO mechanism for collapse, but we observe only ONE outcome of a quantum event, not multiple outcomes. The observation is believed to form the reality.


              Are you aware of Feynman's summation over all possible histories? probably not given your previous posts on physics. I would suggest you have a lot to learn about physics.


              One of Berkeley's critics wrote a limerick criticizing his view that the world exists only when observed:

              Originally posted by L. Solymar and D. Walsh, Lectures on the Electrical Properties of Matter, (New York: Oxford University Press, 1993), p. 59.
              "There was a young man who said, 'God
              Must think it exceedingly odd
              If he finds that this tree
              continues to be
              When there's no one about in the Quad.'

              Berkeley replied in kind:

              "Dear Sir: Your astonishment's odd;
              I am always about in the Quad.
              And that's why the tree
              Will continue to be,
              Since observed by Yours faithfully, God."
              Last edited by grmorton; 10-02-2018, 08:46 PM.

              Comment


              • #22
                Originally posted by shunyadragon View Post
                Of course, Quantum Mechanics can't explain the mind and consciousness, and as referenced in the article, sciences like biochemistry and neurology are how science explains the brain, mind and consciousness as referenced.


                Penrose's (?) attempt does not represent science I am reviewing Penrose's writing on this subject, and at present he concluded simply that Quantum Mechanics cannot explain the mind and consciousness, and he looked forward to a new(?) science to explain the mind and consciousness. I am not sure this reflects that Penrose tried to explain the mind and consciousness through Quantum Mechanics.

                More to follow, but again Penrose and his efforts(?) do not represent science. Science explains the brain, mind and consciousness through macro world sciences like biochemistry, and neurology.
                Shunya, you are so funny

                Comment


                • #23
                  Originally posted by shunyadragon View Post
                  My citation was specific. At present you have not provided anything of substance in response.
                  see my reply to Cerebrum 2 nights ago. I thought he said what you said.

                  Comment


                  • #24
                    Originally posted by Cerebrum123 View Post
                    I figured there was a misunderstanding. I also understand getting frustrated dealing with shunyadragon. He once said I was as bad as an Islamic terrorist because I was denouncing the violent commands of Mohammed.

                    He's often posted stuff in the past that said the opposite of what he claims at worst, or doesn't support it at best. That is one reason among many I don't take him seriously. If he started providing some real content I would probably have given more as a response.
                    I had a wonderful dinner with Frank in Beijing. I ate dog--yes, if someone doesn't like it cease being a cultural snob. lol. Anyway, I like Frank. I think he can't really do original research so he just posts what he believes. My belief, his belief, cerebellum your belief, none of that matters. Facts matter; nothing else. Our beliefs are not facts.

                    Comment


                    • #25
                      Originally posted by grmorton View Post
                      Have you ever read George Berkeley's Principles of Human Knowledge? It is a 18th century philosophy book of major import. His views basically presaged what quantum says about the individual making reality. It is worth a read if you haven't read it. It deals with how humans know what they know, and even without any knowledge of quantum, he came to the conclusion that humans make their world upon observation. The Wheeler backward causation, where you can choose to see what you want about light being lensed by a gravitational lens and decide tonight to view waves going around a galaxy 2 billion years ago (you will see the waves on all sides of the intervening galaxy) or chose to see photons and you will see photons on one side or the other side of the Gravitational lensing galaxy. You can decide today what happened 2 billion years ago. That is observer created reality.


                      I don't know the answer to your question. I do know that the mathematics of quantum have NO mechanism for collapse, but we observe only ONE outcome of a quantum event, not multiple outcomes. The observation is believed to form the reality.


                      Are you aware of Feynman's summation over all possible histories? probably not given your previous posts on physics. I would suggest you have a lot to learn about physics.


                      One of Berkeley's critics wrote a limerick criticizing his view that the world exists only when observed:
                      But if you have no idea what you mean by the material world, i.e. the quantum prior to observational collapse, then I can't understand in what sense you see yourself, or consciousness itself, as a thing distinct from that world. I may be wrong, but I seem to be getting from you that the world, the quantum, exists in itself in a certain sense, but that we by conscious observation determine it's future. Is that how you see it?

                      Comment


                      • #26
                        Originally posted by JimL View Post
                        But if you have no idea what you mean by the material world, i.e. the quantum prior to observational collapse, then I can't understand in what sense you see yourself, or consciousness itself, as a thing distinct from that world. I may be wrong, but I seem to be getting from you that the world, the quantum, exists in itself in a certain sense, but that we by conscious observation determine it's future. Is that how you see it?
                        That is not what anyone is saying. It isn't the quantum that exists, it is mind that exists apart from matter and can't be derived from matter. Without you doing a whole lot of study in physics or empirical philosophy, you probably won't understand it all. Let me try it from a philosophical perspective. Surely you have heard of Rene Descartes. He was a philosopher who decided to see what the foundation of knowledge was, so he started looking at reasons to doubt what he knew. His eyes could be fooled by illusions, and often were, so could he trust his eyes. and he went through every thing looking for something that could not be doubted. In other words, he became the ultimate solipsist--one who think everything is an illusion. to put this in more modern terms, you don't' see a table, you experience electrical fluctuations in your brain that you call a table. Everything we know comes through our senses and are processed by a brain that by means of nerve signals based upon electricity. How do you know you are not a brain in a box? This is the sort of doubt that Descartes went through. But he came to a conclusion, that he doubted. What was this thing that doubted. Thus he came to the one certitude he had and it is always misquoted. The actual statement is "I doubt, therefore I think, therefore I am". He could not doubt the existence of his consciousness because there was something doing the doubting. Nothing can't doubt. From this fact, Descartes reconstructs the world. This is in a book called Discourse on Method--I recommend you read it. It is one of the seminal books on the philosophy of science.


                        So you ask what do we mean by the material world. A whole century of 19th century idealist philosophers struggled unsuccessfully with that question. These guys thought the world was in essence, mental. They wrestled with the difference between how do we PROVE that the real world is out there rather than merely an illusion? You may dismiss this as a meaningless question, and judging by your note above, I guess you will, but in fact there is no true logical or scientific proof that solipsism is wrong. G. E. Moore finally put Idealism to rest in the philosophical world by his article Refutation of Idealism, but anyone who reads it will know he doesn't disprove idealism or prove reality, he basically says, as my prof said, "we have to act like the real world is there, so it is there." But that isn't proof; it is pragmatism. To be fair to Moore, he felt he had a logical contradiction which arose from the idealistic belief. I just re-read that passage now and I don't find his argument inescapable.


                        Now, at this point you are probably thinking I am totally barking mad, but remember, I did grad work in philosophy of science after my physics degree and I have a lot of respect of the question of what is the basis of our empirical observations since in fact, what I experience is not the table but light from the table, focused by my eyes, converted into electrical nerve signals and processed in the visual cortex of my brain. Immanuel Kant, the great German philosopher divided the world in to noumena--the thing in itself and Phenomena, that which we experience and we never experience the noumena.


                        Lets again put this in terms of modern physics, which still struggles with what is the nature of material reality. Einstein turned our 3 dimensional world in to a 4 dimensional world with a really weird negative axis called time. Then an unknown mathematician united gravity with electricity and magnetism by using a 5th dimension--all in one beautiful matrix which must be seen to really be appreciated.


                        Originally posted by Michio Kaku, Hyperspace, (New York: Anchor Books, 1994), p.99-100
                        "In April 1919, Einstein received a letter that left him
                        speechless.
                        "It was from an unknown mathematician, Theodr Kaluza, at the University of Konigsberg in Germany, in what is Kaliningrad in the former Soviet Union. In a short article, only a few pages long, this obscure mathematician was proposing a solution to one of the greatest problems of the century. In just a few lines Kaluza was uniting Einstein's theory of gravity with Maxwell's theory of light by introducing the fifth dimensions (that is, four dimensions of space and one dimension of time).

                        "In essence, he was resurrecting the old 'fourth dimensions' of Hinton and Zollner and incorporating it into Einstein's theory in a fresh fashion as the fifth dimension. Like Riemann before him, Kaluza assumed that light is a disturbance caused by the rippling of this higher dimension. The key difference separating this new work from Riemann's, Hinton's, and Zollner's was that Kaluza was proposing a genuine field theory."

                        "In this short note, Kaluza began, innocently enough, by writing down Einstein's field equations for gravity in five dimensions, not the usual four. (Riemann's metric tensor, we recall, can be formulated in any number of dimensions.) Then he proceeded to show that these five-dimensional equations contained within them Einstein's earlier four-dimensional theory (which was to be expected) with an additional piece. But what shocked Einstein was that this additional piece was precisely Maxwell's theory of light. In other words, this unknown scientist was proposing to combine, in one stroke, the two greatest field theories known to science, Maxwell's and Einstein's, by mixing them in the fifth dimension. This was a theory made of pure marble—that is, pure geometry."
                        Now we don't experience the fifth dimension. But it is necessary to unite general relativity with electromagnetism.

                        Are you familiar with the term, The holographic universe? Physicists have proven mathematically that you can represent our world via mathematics occurring on a boundary, not in the bulk.

                        Originally posted by Brian Greene, The Fabric of the Cosmos, (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2004), p. 483-485
                        “But in 1997, building on earlier insights of a number of string theorists, the Argentinian physicist Juan Maldacena had a breakthrough that dramatically advanced thinking on these matters. His discovery is not directly relevant to the question of holography's role in our real universe, but in the time-honored fashion of physics, he found a hypothetical context-a hypothetical universe-in which abstract musings on holography could be made both concrete and precise using mathematics. For technical reasons, Maldacena studied a hypothetical universe with four large space dimensions and one time dimension that have uniform negative curvature-a higher dimensional version of the Pringle's potato chip, Figure 8.7c. Standard mathematical analysis reveals that this five dimensional spacetime has a boundary that, like all boundaries, has one dimension less than the shape it bounds: three space dimensions and one time dimension. (As always, higher-dimensional spaces are hard to envision, so if you want a mental picture, think of a can of tomato soup-the three-dimensional liquid soup is analogous to the five-dimensional spacetime, while the two-dimensional surface of the can is analogous to the four-dimensional spacetime boundary.) After including additional curled-up dimensions as required by string theory, Maldacena convincingly argued that the physics witnessed by an observer living within this universe (an observer in the "soup") could be completely described in terms of physics' taking place on the universe's boundary (physics on the surface of the can).”

                        Now, if materialism is correct and I believe I have shown that science disproves it, the above means that reality is us on a 4 dimensional boundary of a 5 dimensional universe, or us in a 5 dimensional universe. But we only observe a 3 dimensional pieces of matter, but because matter gravitates and is composed of electrically charged particles that create magnetic fields, what we see is not what is. So, what is matter? I don't know and frankly few physicists could give you an ultimate answer. Kant remains correct, we don't experience the 'noumena' as it is. We experience sense data, nothing more. Matter is what we observe; but what we observe is not all there is. I do take G. E. Moore's approach. I have to act like it is real so what is the difference? But that is pragmatism not proof.


                        If the physics which occurs in are described by mathematics on a four dimensional boundary rather than a five 6 or 11 dimensional universe as String theory suggests, then one must ask not only what is matter, but what we are--the conscious beings. The problem with all these extra dimensions is that there is so far not a shred of experimental evidence for their existence. Some people say some shapes found on the microwave background could be from extra dimensions, but they could be from other things as well. They aren't proof.
                        Last edited by grmorton; 10-03-2018, 11:18 AM.

                        Comment


                        • #27
                          Originally posted by grmorton View Post
                          Pot calling Kettle black. Sheesh, Frank do you not have any understanding of yourself? No self-reflection?
                          The same potential of understanding the self and self reflection.
                          Glendower: I can call spirits from the vasty deep.
                          Hotspur: Why, so can I, or so can any man;
                          But will they come when you do call for them? Shakespeare’s Henry IV, Part 1, Act III:

                          go with the flow the river knows . . .

                          Frank

                          I do not know, therefore everything is in pencil.

                          Comment


                          • #28
                            Originally posted by shunyadragon View Post
                            The same potential of understanding the self and self reflection.
                            When I get old and start doing what Shunya does, someone please tell me to stop debating. Posting my beliefs is meaningless. Data is the only thing that matters. When I stop posting data, take me aside and tell me to unplug the computer. Thank you.

                            Comment


                            • #29
                              Originally posted by grmorton View Post
                              When I get old and start doing what Shunya does, someone please tell me to stop debating. Posting my beliefs is meaningless. Data is the only thing that matters. When I stop posting data, take me aside and tell me to unplug the computer. Thank you.
                              It is probably time to unplug your computer when you spend many hours to come up with foolish self serving circular arguments like these with the only purpose is to justify your agenda.

                              Again, Scientists in the related fields in Biology do not look to Quantum Mechanics to describe nor understand the Brain, mind and consciousness. Right or wrong they look to the sciences of Biochemistry, Neurology and related Biology sciences to describe the brain, mind, and consciousness as cited in the reference.

                              The odd way you worded the opening title reflects this problems: Quantum can't model a mind using quantum Read this again and understand the circular nonsense here.

                              Ridicule and citing 19th century philosophy books does not reflect a coherent argument nor the science of the 21st century.
                              Last edited by shunyadragon; 10-04-2018, 04:03 PM.
                              Glendower: I can call spirits from the vasty deep.
                              Hotspur: Why, so can I, or so can any man;
                              But will they come when you do call for them? Shakespeare’s Henry IV, Part 1, Act III:

                              go with the flow the river knows . . .

                              Frank

                              I do not know, therefore everything is in pencil.

                              Comment


                              • #30
                                Originally posted by grmorton View Post
                                That is not what anyone is saying. It isn't the quantum that exists, it is mind that exists apart from matter and can't be derived from matter. Without you doing a whole lot of study in physics or empirical philosophy, you probably won't understand it all. Let me try it from a philosophical perspective. Surely you have heard of Rene Descartes. He was a philosopher who decided to see what the foundation of knowledge was, so he started looking at reasons to doubt what he knew. His eyes could be fooled by illusions, and often were, so could he trust his eyes. and he went through every thing looking for something that could not be doubted. In other words, he became the ultimate solipsist--one who think everything is an illusion. to put this in more modern terms, you don't' see a table, you experience electrical fluctuations in your brain that you call a table. Everything we know comes through our senses and are processed by a brain that by means of nerve signals based upon electricity. How do you know you are not a brain in a box? This is the sort of doubt that Descartes went through. But he came to a conclusion, that he doubted. What was this thing that doubted. Thus he came to the one certitude he had and it is always misquoted. The actual statement is "I doubt, therefore I think, therefore I am". He could not doubt the existence of his consciousness because there was something doing the doubting. Nothing can't doubt. From this fact, Descartes reconstructs the world. This is in a book called Discourse on Method--I recommend you read it. It is one of the seminal books on the philosophy of science.


                                So you ask what do we mean by the material world. A whole century of 19th century idealist philosophers struggled unsuccessfully with that question. These guys thought the world was in essence, mental. They wrestled with the difference between how do we PROVE that the real world is out there rather than merely an illusion? You may dismiss this as a meaningless question, and judging by your note above, I guess you will, but in fact there is no true logical or scientific proof that solipsism is wrong. G. E. Moore finally put Idealism to rest in the philosophical world by his article Refutation of Idealism, but anyone who reads it will know he doesn't disprove idealism or prove reality, he basically says, as my prof said, "we have to act like the real world is there, so it is there." But that isn't proof; it is pragmatism. To be fair to Moore, he felt he had a logical contradiction which arose from the idealistic belief. I just re-read that passage now and I don't find his argument inescapable.


                                Now, at this point you are probably thinking I am totally barking mad, but remember, I did grad work in philosophy of science after my physics degree and I have a lot of respect of the question of what is the basis of our empirical observations since in fact, what I experience is not the table but light from the table, focused by my eyes, converted into electrical nerve signals and processed in the visual cortex of my brain. Immanuel Kant, the great German philosopher divided the world in to noumena--the thing in itself and Phenomena, that which we experience and we never experience the noumena.


                                Lets again put this in terms of modern physics, which still struggles with what is the nature of material reality. Einstein turned our 3 dimensional world in to a 4 dimensional world with a really weird negative axis called time. Then an unknown mathematician united gravity with electricity and magnetism by using a 5th dimension--all in one beautiful matrix which must be seen to really be appreciated.




                                Now we don't experience the fifth dimension. But it is necessary to unite general relativity with electromagnetism.

                                Are you familiar with the term, The holographic universe? Physicists have proven mathematically that you can represent our world via mathematics occurring on a boundary, not in the bulk.




                                Now, if materialism is correct and I believe I have shown that science disproves it, the above means that reality is us on a 4 dimensional boundary of a 5 dimensional universe, or us in a 5 dimensional universe. But we only observe a 3 dimensional pieces of matter, but because matter gravitates and is composed of electrically charged particles that create magnetic fields, what we see is not what is. So, what is matter? I don't know and frankly few physicists could give you an ultimate answer. Kant remains correct, we don't experience the 'noumena' as it is. We experience sense data, nothing more. Matter is what we observe; but what we observe is not all there is. I do take G. E. Moore's approach. I have to act like it is real so what is the difference? But that is pragmatism not proof.


                                If the physics which occurs in are described by mathematics on a four dimensional boundary rather than a five 6 or 11 dimensional universe as String theory suggests, then one must ask not only what is matter, but what we are--the conscious beings. The problem with all these extra dimensions is that there is so far not a shred of experimental evidence for their existence. Some people say some shapes found on the microwave background could be from extra dimensions, but they could be from other things as well. They aren't proof.
                                Okay, so you don't know what you mean by the superposition state of the quantum that is said to exists prior to our observation and collapse of it? Not trying to be difficult but being that you are a physicist I'd like to know what physicists mean by that. You seem to be saying that only consciousness exists, and that's certainly seems to be a possibility, but what does that tell you about the so called preexisting world in which the cat is in a super position of being both dead and alive.

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