Debating

[Eclogite]

I am going to take a position that may appear midway between pgrmdave and sanctus. However, I think it is a position that both of them would agree with. (Please confirm or deny this.)

 

Experience is enormously useful in identifying potential areas of research. There are so many things we could investigate, how should we decide. It has been said that the most interesting comment in science is not Eureka! (suggesting we have found an answer), but that's curious (suggesting we have found a question). Experience can generate interesting questions that we can then use science to investigate.

 

Experience may suggest the outline of hypothesis. As we consider our experience and generate questions about it, potential answers may come to mind. These can form the basis of a hypothesis that might explain our experience or observations. However, until this is put on a formal basis  it is not science.

 

Experience is often a key ingredient of the scientific method, but it part of that method, not additional to it. Taking accurate measurement is also a key ingredient of science. We can take thousands of accurate measurements but none of them provide an additional means of finding out about reality. They are - when properly integrated - simple one of the steps in doing science. Experience is no different. It can function as a seed to start our investigations, but it is not something separate from science.

 

You appear, personal pronoun, to consider that experience is a supplement to science and that we are ignoring it. I hope that my points here show you that this is not the case.

[sanctus]

Completely agree. Your first point is my fisherman not catching many tunas, your second point is that the water is greener than usual (leading to the hypothesis that habitat is destroyed), your third point is the fisherman collecting experience from other fishermen.

[PersonalPronoun]

Thanks Sanctus for at least partially agreeing with me.

I am going to take a position that may appear midway between pgrmdave and sanctus. However, I think it is a position that both of them would agree with. (Please confirm or deny this.)

 

Experience is enormously useful in identifying potential areas of research. There are so many things we could investigate, how should we decide. It has been said that the most interesting comment in science is not Eureka! (suggesting we have found an answer), but that's curious (suggesting we have found a question). 

Agreed.

 

Experience can generate interesting questions that we can then use science to investigate.

Agreed, but my belief is that we get more than just interesting questions from experience. 

I lean more toward Sanctus' version in this, but I would add, as I have all along, that scientific study that agrees with "anecdata" does validate the anecdata. 

 

If I say: "The tree is real because look, there it is!" That's circular reasoning. However, in spite of the circular reasoning, the tree is there. 

 

Experience may suggest the outline of hypothesis. As we consider our experience and generate questions about it, potential answers may come to mind. These can form the basis of a hypothesis that might explain our experience or observations. However, until this is put on a formal basis  it is not science.

I'm pretty sure that I've agreed with this all along. I specifically remember giving examples where I claimed that the scientific data gave me the proof that the anecdata was valid. 

 

Experience is often a key ingredient of the scientific method, but it part of that method, not additional to it. Taking accurate measurement is also a key ingredient of science.

To this point, I'm agreed. 

 

 

We can take thousands of accurate measurements but none of them provide an additional means of finding out about reality. 

This however, hovers around my main point. 

I agree, which means, that if there is more about reality to be known, then a million measurements will not sufficiently show all of reality. 

The part the measurements show is the "what." 

The part that experience shows is the "why." 

I'm not attached to having science and experience be separate though. I'd be happy with an agreement that the "what" alone is not enough. 

 

They are - when properly integrated - simple one of the steps in doing science. Experience is no different. It can function as a seed to start our investigations, but it is not something separate from science.

So, if you agree with the above, then I agree with this. If you do not agree with the above, then there is still something to hash out about it. 

 

 

You appear, personal pronoun, to consider that experience is a supplement to science and that we are ignoring it. I hope that my points here show you that this is not the case.

At the least, this post shows me that you are indeed reading what I have written. 

We may still disagree on the various points. 

 

In the end, there is still a part of the debate that has only begun to emerge in the last couple of posts:

 

I believe that we have the ability to create reality to the same extent that we can predict it.

In a coming post, I'll show that pgrmdave agrees with this if he meant what he wrote to me in his last response.

If we can reach an agreement on this point then that agreement will help to illustrate the necessity for more understanding than "what" alone.

[Eclogite]

I think before we progress any further you had best define reality. Personally, I have little time for the concept. I think it is a philosophical notion. I work on the pragmatic basis that what we "see" can be assumed to be "real", but I have no idea what that means. Anyone who thinks they do has either thought about it much more deeply than I, or have not thought about it at all.

[pgrmdave]

I've countered by suggesting that "predicting" reality is perhaps not the most important thing in our understanding of reality. 

 

I explained that counter by positing that predicting reality does not explain to us the value of scientific findings in our lives.

"Value" is not a tangible or real thing. I value some things and don't value others. You value some things that I don't, and don't value some things that I do. There is no way of measuring what values are "right" or "wrong" or "better" or "worse". If we have a particular goal then we can determine which values are more or less useful for achieving that goal (like, if you want to end war, a good way to do that would be to value peace and those things that tend to lead to peace).

[PersonalPronoun]

I think before we progress any further you had best define reality. Personally, I have little time for the concept. I think it is a philosophical notion. I work on the pragmatic basis that what we "see" can be assumed to be "real", but I have no idea what that means. Anyone who thinks they do has either thought about it much more deeply than I, or have not thought about it at all.

You use the word "see," suggesting that you feel it's something that only exists to the five physical senses. 

 

Well, of course, I don't know any more than you do about the nature of reality.

 

Does the light react merely to the detector? Or does it somehow "know" that it is being observed? 

What we "see" is not what is real at all. 

According to science, the leaf is not green. In fact, the leaf is all the colors except green. 

We don't ever come close to seeing the sun the way it actually is, but only ever as it was almost 8 and a half minutes ago. 

We almost certainly see stars in the night sky that have long since died and faded. 

So, what is real? 

 

I believe consciousness is real. 

 

I believe that consciousness lives inside of a framework of something that is physical, but that physical "stuff" looks nothing like what we have imagined it to look like. 

 

I believe reality is that which consciousness has imagined to be real. 

Consciousness is not exactly physical, in the same way that time is not exactly physical. 

You can't put time in a bottle and save every day until eternity passes away, but space-time occupies the otherwise emptiness of the bottle. 

Likewise, consciousness can not be locked into the physical brain, but it can occupy the same space of the brain. 

And whatever part of consciousness does occupy that space would be identified by that brain as belonging to that brain. 

 

So brains are a bunch of islands in a sea of consciousness, each brain identifying the bit of consciousness that is in its space as its own self. 

 

Thus, reality is that which we imagine to be real, along with the physical stuff that is formless until consciousness identifies it as whatever we can perceive with our sensors. 

 

I say no to Einstein, the moon does not disappear when no one is looking at it, because consciousness remembers that it is there. 

 

Some of these thoughts were inspired by science. A few examples would include these:

 

1) Wave-Function

"A quantum object can be at more than one place at the same time. It can be measured as a wave smeared out in space, and can be located at several different points across this wave. This is called the wave property."

 

2) Discontinuity

"A quantum object ceases to exist here and simultaneously appears in existence over there without having ever traveled the intervening space. The quantum jump.  It essentially teleports."

 

3) Action-At-A-Distance

"A manifestation of one quantum object, caused by our observations, simultaneously influences its correlated twin object, no matter how far apart they are. Fire an electron and a proton off of an atom. Whatever happens to the electron, the exact same or exact opposite will happen to the proton. 

Quantum-action-at-a-distance, or “spooky” action at a distance."

 

4) The Observer Effect

"A quantum object cannot be said to manifest in ordinary space-time reality until we observe it as a particle.  The quantum object exists indefinitely as a non-local wave until it is being observed directly. Consciousness collapses the wave-function of a particle."

 

Maybe consciousness is the grand unification theory. 

Maybe not. :p

Like I said, these thoughts were partially inspired by science, and they were partially inspired by all of the other "data" that has come to me during my existence. 

[pgrmdave]

Does the light react merely to the detector? Or does it somehow "know" that it is being observed?

Light moves and behaves in ways that are measurable, repeatable, and predictable.

 

1) Wave-Function

"A quantum object can be at more than one place at the same time. It can be measured as a wave smeared out in space, and can be located at several different points across this wave. This is called the wave property."

 

2) Discontinuity

"A quantum object ceases to exist here and simultaneously appears in existence over there without having ever traveled the intervening space. The quantum jump.  It essentially teleports."

 

3) Action-At-A-Distance

"A manifestation of one quantum object, caused by our observations, simultaneously influences its correlated twin object, no matter how far apart they are. Fire an electron and a proton off of an atom. Whatever happens to the electron, the exact same or exact opposite will happen to the proton. 

Quantum-action-at-a-distance, or “spooky” action at a distance."

 

4) The Observer Effect

"A quantum object cannot be said to manifest in ordinary space-time reality until we observe it as a particle.  The quantum object exists indefinitely as a non-local wave until it is being observed directly. Consciousness collapses the wave-function of a particle."

 

Maybe consciousness is the grand unification theory. 

Maybe not. :P

Like I said, these thoughts were partially inspired by science, and they were partially inspired by all of the other "data" that has come to me during my existence.

This is exactly the problem with people learning sciency-sounding things without understanding the science behind them. Consciousness doesn't collapse the wave-function. Measurement does. That doesn't mean "a person takes a measurement of it" but that anything which affects that particle collapses it (think of it this way - if another atom needs to query the first atom's properties, then it collapses the wave function). It has nothing to do with consciousness. At all. Ever. Never has, never will. No published paper has claimed that, no mathematical formula has included "consciousness" as a variable or constant. Get that out of your head first and foremost - consciousness is not special.

[PersonalPronoun]

lol. Yeah I knew this was going to come back to the ignorance thing. I even kind of suspected that it was the only reason Eclogite asked me to define reality in the first place. His last sentence seemed a hint of some sort. (sorry if I've got that wrong Ecoglite.)

Anyway:

I've been trying to get a concise scientific definition of consciousness for a lot of years now, and guess what:

 

Science doesn't have one yet. 

It sems to me that you are not qualified, in science, to tell me how special consciousness is or is not. 

Science, while it is indeed studying consciousness, doesn't understand it well enough yet to even know its function in us let alone in the rest of the universe.

 

 

Light moves and behaves in ways that are measurable, repeatable, and predictable.

 

This is exactly the problem with people learning sciency-sounding things without understanding the science behind them. Consciousness doesn't collapse the wave-function. Measurement does. 

That doesn't mean "a person takes a measurement of it" but that anything which affects that particle collapses it (think of it this way - if another atom needs to query the first atom's properties, then it collapses the wave function). It has nothing to do with consciousness. 

No published paper has claimed that, no mathematical formula has included "consciousness" as a variable or constant.

 Get that out of your head first and foremost - consciousness is not special.

 

Have you heard of Wigner? Or perhaps his thought experiment Wigner's friend?

 

How about Chalmers, Whitehead, panpsychism (which is pretty much my theory in a nut shell. A nut that I arrived at independently.) 

How about "the hard problem" 

 

Oh yeah, and how about Max Planck.....

"I regard consciousness as fundamental. I regard matter as derivative from consciousness. We cannot get behind consciousness. Everything that we talk about, everything that we regard as existing, postulates consciousness."

 

Didn't he play some role in quantum theory?

Oh never mind, I'm sure he must have meant something else when he said those things. 

 

I'll try to get it all out of my head.

 

While we're here:

In one of your last posts you said:  "We are no more or less special than any other parts of the universe.

And if you read what I said above it should be obvious - since we can be studied by science we must have an effect on reality."

 

If we are no more or less special than the rest of the universe, then doesn't that mean that we have no more or less effect on reality as the rest of the universe? 

 

Hmm......

[Eclogite]

The consensus view amongst persons much smarter than the rest of us is that consciousness is not required to collapse waveforms. However (please note carefully pgrmdave) the contrary view has been considered by some very powerful thinkers and I believe the jury is still out on the matter - or at the very least, an appeal is to be mounted.

 

 

Are emergent properties significant?

 

Is consciousness an important emergent property?

 

We do not currently have answers to these questions, nor do we even know if they are important. They do not, today, sit easily within the scope of science.

[PersonalPronoun]

The consensus view amongst persons much smarter than the rest of us is that consciousness is not required to collapse waveforms.

I've seen that this is true.

The question is:

Even if consciousness is not "required" to collapse the wave form, is it "capable" of collapsing the wave form?

If you guys take nothing else from me, I'd like to make clear that I'm a Yin-Yang kind of guy.

I think the truth is probably closer to the idea that consciousness is not required, but can sometimes, do the job.

But, as I said in my definition of reality, I think consciousness might have done it first.

[sanctus]

"Value" is not a tangible or real thing. I value some things and don't value others. You value some things that I don't, and don't value some things that I do. There is no way of measuring what values are "right" or "wrong" or "better" or "worse".

Don't agree on that, based on a moral system one can measure values to be right or wrong, repeatedely and in falsifiable fashion (at least to the level of the soft sciences). Eg.: given the morale "respect life and do not kill" one can measure values to right (=confroming with the morale, eg. give first help) or wrong (=not conforming, eg kill in self defense). I agree that this is no absolute measure, but it is just like mathematics: given these axioms then this is true; just replacing axioms with morale and "this" with a value. 

[PersonalPronoun]

"Value" is not a tangible or real thing. I value some things and don't value others. You value some things that I don't, and don't value some things that I do. There is no way of measuring what values are "right" or "wrong" or "better" or "worse". If we have a particular goal then we can determine which values are more or less useful for achieving that goal (like, if you want to end war, a good way to do that would be to value peace and those things that tend to lead to peace).

I disagree as well. 

However, for the sake of argument I accept the concept of  "Goal" in place of the concept of "value." 

 

What is the goal of science?

You guys have already answered that, it's to study and predict reality. 

 

What is the goal of humanity? Of course, that differs, but can we not look at history and highlight some of the goals that have had the greatest effects on us?

 

Would you agree......

That survival, at all costs, would be a major goal of humanity? 

That innovation and exploration would be a major goal of humanity? 

That understanding the human condition would be a major goal of humanity? 

 

Science might be able to tell us in some sterile, empty of emotion way, why those goals are important to us, but does it bother to waste it's time providing such answers? 

 

When Ecoglite asked me to define reality he admitted that the question isn't really all that important to him, and he doesn't waste much time on it. 

 

I believe that would be the basic position of science, and that finding an answer to it is a goal of humanity.