this post was submitted on 19 Mar 2024
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Use a computer? I guess you could say it all collapses when an actual consciousness checks what state things are at, but that'd be a rediculous claim to make. This is where Occam's Razor is useful. Why introduce a concept of a consciousness being required when it would function identically but be significantly stranger and more complex?
What is consciousness to the universe anyway? It's nothing but a system of electrical impulses, and there no reason to think there's anything physically special about it. It's just an interesting phenomenon that happened, but fundamentally it isn't anything special.
I'm totally in agreement that the observer effect is not caused by consciousness, but...
This is a claim unsupported by evidence. I submit to you that just as we can explain the observer effect without invoking consciousness, we can also explain cognition without it. We can't even prove consciousness exists at all! I know I'm conscious because I directly experience it, but I can't prove to another person that I experience anything, nor can I prove to myself that anyone else experiences anything.
I know my consciousness, memory, and brain are intimately connected. I know that what people describe as a loss of consciousness on my part is strongly correlated with gaps in my memory. I know those gaps correspond to time periods when people tell me I'm unresponsive to stimuli. I even know other people become unresponsive in connection to same kinds of things that cause gaps in my memory, and they likewise describe similar experiences to mine when, say, they ingest substances that I've found to alter my behavior, and which feel like they alter the quality of my consciousness.
All of that is to say that we have very good reasons to suppose that consciousness (if it exists) interacts with the world of measurable phenomena all the time, and that other people experience consciousness. But what we can't do is measure the difference between a conscious being and a p-zombie. There's plenty of correlation, but correlation is famously not causation, and we don't have a testable theory that would explain the causal link, or allow us to test whether, say, a cat, a tree, or an LLM is conscious.
Would it? We now know with the recent experiments with Bell's inequality that quantum mechanics can't be reduced to a local hidden-variable theory, doesn't that at least in theory leave space for consciousness? Sure you could go with superdeterminism but currently that seems equally unfalsifiable as a consciousness-based theory.
Sure, it leaves space for anything. It leaves space for (any) God. It doesn't make it useful to consider it though. There are literally an infinite number of things we could make up to explain it, but that doesn't make them equally likely. The most likely is the one that doesn't require strange assumptions, like the universe caring about consciousness, or that particles are conscious like another person said, or the hand of God literally reaching in to set the states exactly himself. Some hypotheses shouldn't be entertained because they require so many strange assumptions they're essentially useless and just a waste of time.
Why not? My own consciousness is literally the one and only thing I have direct, ineffable evidence of existing. Unlike God, you actually have proof of your own consciousness existing, the same consciousness that doesn't really fit anywhere in our purely quantitative descriptions of the universe. I think that's reason enough to give the idea some credence.
The only "strange assumption" I'm making is that my consciousness actually exists.
How does it not fit in our quantitative descriptions? We can measure its activity. It behaves differently when in a coma, or when thinking about different things, or when dead. We can grow neurons and form connections with them outside the brain to do computations. We can't make anything as complex as the brain yet obviously, but we understand how it functions. What part of it doesn't fit in a perfectly quantitative description.
I'd love for some mystical thing to exist, but literally every mystical thing people have believed for tens of thousands of years has been wrong. Why should we expect any different here? Lightning isn't caused by spirits in the mountains dancing, a god throwing lightning bolts, or anything else mystical. We can't fully describe the mechanisms at work perfectly, but that doesn't mean we don't understand it. We could assume it's something mystical into the gaps because it sounds cool, but theres no reason to think it isn't something material that can be learned.
I mean it just kinda fucking doesn't. Our physical model of reality is a bunch of mathematical models and there's no mathematical formula for consciousness yet.
But you're literally experiencing the "mystical thing" right now. The mystical part is the part where you don't really have a mathematical equation for it and yet it exists. Think of it like "dark matter" where you know it probably exists but you can't really model it properly.
So, by your definition, mystical stuff is just things we can't explain right now. People in the past have thought the same thing and been proven wrong. That's a bad method for understanding things.
My entire fucking point is that nobody can explain it properly and you grasping so tightly onto only one of the possible explanations is you having a strong belief system, same as religious people, not you doing a heckin good science think.
Sure I agree it could be that as well but there is no actual way to prove that. Since we don't actually understand what it is or how it works we can't remove it, therefore with materialism at this point it's not provable either way. it's also another theory and why I started my original comment with maybe. It's better to explore that data in my opinion then outright deny it without any actual evidence proving it's not. Occams razor is a cop out here
There's no way to prove that any god(s) exist or not either. It doesn't mean we should waste our time with their explanations. The hand of God could be reaching down to set things up just in time for us to see them and that's exactly as reasonable of an explanation as the universe is aware we're conscious so sets things up just in time for us to see them. The explanation that requires adding the least number of new things is that interactions cause a collapse of the waveform and it happens then, not waiting for a "conscious" observer.
If the conscious observer thing were true, what would it decide is consciousness? Would it require sapience? Sentience? Does it happen for dolphins? Apes? Monkeys? Mice? Tardigrades? What level of synapse connections is it waiting for to decide that's enough? What about humans born without a brain? Can they not see anything? This hypothesis requires so many weird assumptions that it's less than useless. A god existing makes more sense.
Edit: Also, you can't explore this "data" because it's literally impossible to collect information on if you assume it exists. There's nothing to explore. I guess you can entertain the idea and ask what you'd do differently if you assume it's true, but I'm betting that's literally nothing. It's the same issue as the "universe is a simulation" hypothesis. It's unprovable and untestable, and the only thing to do with it is assume it isn't true and keep living life as if it's real.
Science requires testable and verifiable hypothesis. If they can't be falsified they aren't a part of science. They're a belief system. That's fine to have, but don't mix it with science. All you'll do is end up not accepting more data as we learn it because you're filtering it through faith.
What's so weird about any of those questions/assumptions? A consciousness-based interpretation of quantum mechanics would need any conscious observer, that would include dolphins since we're pretty sure they're having conscious experiences.
Why it's weird is because it's assuming the universe is choosing what level is conscious. As you say, we're pretty sure they're conscious. How do we know that? Brain scans and watching their behavior. What happens to something without a brain but still with sensors? Is that somehow conscious? What about a brain but much less complex? Why is the universe deciding how to behave based on this? It'd be really outlandish to expect this behavior from the universe, which isn't a creature and just following a set of rules.
It's a much simpler explanation that interactions that require information force that information to collapse. We don't need any strange justifications or anything deciding what level becomes conscious, which is just a word we made up several hundred years ago and is meaningless to the universe. Consciousness is just a series of impulses in a system, a system which can go wrong in many ways and is not a fundamental thing.
You can claim that all you want but you can't really back that up. Nobody has anywhere near a coherent account of how a purely physical system produces (or equates to) subjective conscious experience. If your answer now is "well science will figure it out one day for sure" then you have a belief system and you aren't actually thinking scientifically.
Why should science be forever married to a reductive physicalist account of the universe?
You aren't conscious when you're in a coma, correct? That's a measurable way the system can mess up and we can detect. You also aren't conscious when you're dead, right? Yet another measurable thing. We can detect brain activity and see certain regions are used for certain things. We can also detect anomalous behavior in the brain. We can tell when the system isn't working as expected.
We can easily explain how a physical system produces consciousness. We may not be able to point to exactly what it is, but we can describe it and describe how that can happen. It's not mystical. It's just complex. We can't reproduce it yet, but that doesn't mean we don't understand how the brain functions.
Because that's literally a basic requirment of science. It relies on falsafiability. You can believe whatever you want, but science relies on stuff being measurable. It doesn't mean it's right, but that's how it functions.
Also, you call it reductive. I don't think it's reductive. I think it's more reductive to just say "consciousness exists" than to say "consciousness is a complex system that can develop in nature". Just because it's physical doesn't mean it's reductive. Saying "it just is because it is" seems much more reductive.
Edit: Also, despite people believing mystical things for most of history, they were never right. Why should this be any different?
We literally can't do that at all though, not even close.
How? Science is based on making models from empirical observations about the world and yourself, one of these empirical observations is the observation that your phenomenal consciousness actually exists, seemingly in opposition to the physical world, maybe we should perhaps include that fact in our models?
It's literally how that category of metaphysical thought is called, it's an actual philosophical term.
Science requires falsafiability. It's fine to belive other things, but science it a method, not a belief system.
Nothing I've seen seems to imply it's outside of our models. You haven't explained why that's the case. We know how the humans brain and nervous system functions. It isn't magic anymore.
It literally is tho. There is no mention of consciousness anywhere in either quantum mechanics or general relativity.
This is literally the closest form of consciousness to our own - the easiest and most obvious case. They weren't actually asking if dolphins would count, they're asking at what point it counts as consciousness. The ones you need to answer are things like tardigrades, bacteria and viruses, or nonphysical forms of consciousness. After all, you're seriously claiming that the scientific definition of observation is observation by a conscious mind, not interaction with another aspect of the universe, so why don't we consider all the nonfalsifiables? Do ghosts collapse the quantum superposition?
I'm not sure where you're going with this really. Why do I need to analyze if every single thing in the universe is conscious or not? Physicalism also doesn't really have a general answer to the question "is this physical system conscious". Shouldn't you do the same work before declaring you know consciousness is fully physical?
If you're going to claim that consciousness is the influencing factor in quantum mechanics you need to define consciousness. You need to define the point at which consciousness starts. You saying "yes a dolphin is conscious" only tells me you think humans and dolphins are conscious, and nothing about what you think consciousness is, what things you think are conscious, or why consciousness would influence particles. So either you give a real answer to their question of what you think consciousness is or you start listing the things you think are conscious until smarter minds can work out what connects the dots.
You haven't given a real answer either though and neither has anybody else in the history of science, which is what I'm trying to say, nobody has a coherent answer but you're pretending as if you do. You're literally just asserting your claims without backing anything up.
No, you dumb fuck, I don't need to define consciousness for my explanation of observability in physics to make sense - my interpretation of quantum mechanics doesn't mention consciousness at all. You have to define it because your interpretation of quantum superpositioning claims that it only collapses when a conscious mind observes it, so you have to define what conscioussness is.
Thanks comrade, very nice of you.
No, everybody has to define it actually since it clearly exists and nobody really knows what it is. If you believe with certainty it doesn't have anything to do with quantum collapse then you also must have a good idea what it actually is, and you just plain don't.
Personally I'm agnostic about the whole thing and I don't think any particular idea needs to be dismissed a priori because of entrenched beliefs.
No, I don't have to define it, because I'm talking about observability in quantum mechanics, not some philosophical metaphysical bollocks about what consciousness is. My definition of observation does not in any way include consciousness, so defining consciousness adds nothing to my definition. Your definition of observation is being seen by something with consciousness, so you have to define what consciousness is. I have to define things like interactions and particles, I do not have to provide you with definitions so that your stupid ideas make sense.
Damn you're a feisty one.
In fact you do have to provide definitions, an "observation" in the context of quantum mechanics does not have a consensus definition and the definition heavily relies on your particular interpretation of quantum mechanics. One of these interpretations also includes consciousness, and if you want to be completely certain this particular interpretation is false you need your own coherent definition of consciousness that doesn't call upon quantum mechanics. You don't have such a thing, nobody does.
You're locked in a belief system and you don't even realize it.
Look spacey, I need you to understand that it's offensive that you consider yourself intelligent enough to have this conversation. To butt in and spew your completely baseless hypotheticals around as if they hold any scientific weight.
If you knew enough to have this conversation, you'd already know from the language we've used around superpositioning and observation that we're discussing the copenhagen interpretation - even if you weren't certain, you'd at least know it's overwhelmingly the most popular theory (like you better have some fucking great evidence if you want to dispute it), and that consciouness based theories are the fringest of the fringe. You're not going to find anyone actually employed in quantum theory or research espousing it.
If you knew enough to have this conversation, you would have at least attempted to define consciousness. You'd have some sort of working definition that you could share and we could analyse, but you haven't because you don't. You have no idea what consciousness is, you don't even know that there's a debate about whether consciousness even exists - you think, therefore you have accepted that there exists a nebulous, undefineable set of aspects that makes something conscious. Despite not being able to articulate a single aspect of it, you deeply, truly believe both that it exists and that everyone else believes it exists.
If you knew enough to have this conversation you'd know that I've haven't actually discussed quantum physics at all - the only thing in each of my comments is an attempt to get you to confront your own lack of knowledge - to admit that you can't define consciousness. I have been playing softball with you this entire time trying to lead you to your own logical conclusions, instead of pointing out that the most basic possible demonstration of quantum interaction - the double slit experiment - inherently proves that consciousness is not required, because otherwise the observation media - gold foil or a modern detector - wouldn't be able to record the results.
Lastly, you'd know that there isn't a "consensus definition" because it was defined by Heisenburg and Bohr when they created the copenhagen interpretation. Here are some quotes from them:
Of course, I'm sure you can find some sort of peer reviewed data or study that provides literally any evidence at all for your totally sensible and informed idea that isn't otherwise pushed by con artists and new age mystics, instead of demanding I work to both define and disprove your idea.
Don't you fucking dare try to lecture me about belief when you have literally nothing but. You believe so strongly you refuse to even engage with questions about your beliefs, because deep down you know they're baseless.
Damn you're a complete grating asshole, I'm not reading all of that shit but I do know at least this is wrong:
Eugene Wigner, John von Neumann, Roger Penrose, Brian Josephson, Henry Stapp, Erwin Schrödinger (debatable, but he was questioning physicalism).
Stop trying to copy the first thing you find on google you dumb fuck, Wigner dropped his and Neumann's interpretation because of its flaws, Penrose postulated that consciousness arose from quantum interactions not that they collapse them, and Stapp and Schrodinger were exactly the type of panpsychic new-age mystics I was talking about.
On top of that, literally not a single one is still working in quantum theory or research. Neumann died 70 years ago. In fact, none of their research is even from this century, where the majority of progress has been made. I used the present tense. Contemporary opinions, not the wild theories of the earliest days.
Now stop being a redditbrained contradictory little shit and read my comment. It contains actual information about quantum theory.
No, you wrote it all for nothing.
Hey, notice how that's the only part you responded to? Not the part where I laid out exactly how you don't know shit about the subject. It's because you don't have a response; like the big comment explains, you're in completely over your head.
You literally called one of the trailblazers of the entire field a "new age mystic". I don't really plan on taking you seriously anymore, thanks for all the kind words tho, take care.
You mean the same man who rejected superpositioning and made the famous cat analogy to explain how it makes no sense? Like I said, you literally know nothing about quantum mechanics or it's history, and are just googling for famous names to point at.
Idk why that is so hard for you to even ponder
So string theory isn't science either show me where string theory has been proven in any sort of way
I can obviously ponder it. I've shown that. It's just that there's no reason to believe it's any more real than Harry Potter is. It may make you feel nice, but it doesn't do anything. If consciousness can't be defined by whoever is positing the idea then it's not useful to consider.
String theory is not really, no. It's theoretical physics. There are experiments that were designed to test it and they all have failed. String theory is a useful mathematical model to predict some results, but it's not more than that. It's also almost certainly wrong, but it can still be useful. It's also almost certainly wrong, because it fails to make new predictions that come true. It can just adapt to give the correct result after we know what it should be. It's useful, but it doesn't make it true.
You thought about it for a second and actually thought yeah living things having a conscience is fiction? What I don't really know how to respond to that If consciousness is just derived from the activity in our brain it's not hard to assume that animals atleast are aware of their conscious being on some small way. That is most definitely more believable then god or Harry Potter.
Just because something can't be defined yet doesn't mean we won't eventually be able to. But you know we gotta get there and again I am not saying these theories are right I commented on a meme.
I love what you said about string theory I would agree but you said it's wrong and maybe this is too and maybe something useful will come out of it but maybe not.
https://philosophynow.org/issues/121/The_Case_For_Panpsychism
There is a case for even the most fundamental particles having a basic form of consciousness. And there is studies and theories being created this is just new science and extremely hard for materialists to wrap their heads around I understand that. here are some other sources you can check out for data that I posted on another comment as well Donald Hoffman Ted talk Papers from bernardo
And I want to finish off I do not fully believe these theories. They are that just theories just like most things in science start off and still are today.
What does it even mean for particles to have consciousness? What would that even mean for that term anymore? How can they be conscious without any ability to think? If you stretch it to particles (so essentially everything) to just say they interact with things, then the term is meaningless.
It's similar to the god of the gaps argument. You can always push an idea into further unknowns when previous beliefs are disproven. Just because the thing that's left can't be disproven doesn't mean it's any more valid. I can make up any number of equally valid hypotheses that cant be tested, but I don't expect you to entertain them. We don't entertain the idea that the majority of gods exist (or, in many of our cases, any of them). If we took the time to entertain every possible idea we could have we'd sit around all day and do nothing else. There's literally infinite ways to explain this if you allow every supernatural explanation in.
Data means facts and statistics, not just people talking about things. The data we have is things like the double slit experiment. You can have different hypotheses to explain the data, but hypotheses themselves aren't data. Also, pedantic, but a theory is something that's been tested and withstood scrutiny, and a hypothesis is a potential explanation that hasn't withstood scrutiny yet).
Edit: I was going to check out the "Ted Talk" you linked, but it's the same two hour podcast, not a Ted Talk. That word also has a meaning, and it isn't that. I may put it on in the background, but you really seem to be (purposefully?) using words incorrectly. If it is on purpose, please stop. It only works to slow things down.
Edit 2: This guy's definition of an observer (which he also seems to think of as conscious and undefined in QM, but it is defined an has nothing to do with consciousness) in the video is a step in a Markov chain which is dependent on previous results, which is the definition of a Markov chain. He's also seemingly implying a Markov chain is something fundamental, but it's no more fundamental than any other statistical model of events.