Free will re-redux

643 Replies, 33459 Views

(2021-01-27, 08:05 PM)Paul C. Anagnostopoulos Wrote: I agree that if you are going to assume consciousness as a fundamental, and also assume that full-blown human consciousness is a fundamental or else make no attempt to explain how human consciousness emerges, then nonphysicalist accounts might seem satisfying. (That is, assuming we do not eventually find a physical fundamental consciousness.)

I don't understand what you mean by assuming full blown human consciousness. Panpsychism and idealism I'd say assume there is a background underlying consciousness and as humans grow and evolve up that is how they get their subjectivity. I'm pretty sure emergent dualists say that it's all physical up until a point and everything past that can't be reduced back down. I don't know which people are assuming fully grown up human levels of consciousness and just slapping them onto things.
(2021-01-27, 10:03 PM)Sciborg_S_Patel Wrote: I'm a bit lost - is this about the video I posted on Kauffman's quantum mind presentation?

Is this an objection to something specific in the video?

No it's about your talking about the hard problem and David Chalmers.
(2021-01-27, 10:10 PM)Smaw Wrote: No it's about your talking about the hard problem and David Chalmers.

I only brought that up because of Paul's first reply to the Kauffman presentation video.

I assume this detour  comes back to that video in some way?

edit: So it doesn't get lost in the weeds, this video ->



Quote:Neurobiologists believe the mind brain system is and must be classical physics. For many, at some complexity, consciousness arises. This could be correct but faces what I will call the Stalemate: Such a mind can at most witness the world but, due to the causal closure of classical physics, cannot act upon that world. Such a consciousness must be merely epiphenomenal.

Quantum biology is exploding, showing that quantum effects can and do arise at body temperature. Quantum mechanics allows a partially quantum mind to have ACAUSAL consequences for the “meat” of the brain, thus solving the Stalemate and answering the problem posed by Descartes’ Res cogitans and Res extensa: i.e. the Stalemate.

Our human capacity to choose, in turn, demands that the present could have been different, thus the truth of counterfactual claims. If quantum measurement is indeterministic and real, quantum mechanics and measurement allow the present to be different. I shall discuss these issues and the newly discovered Poised Realm, hovering reversibly between quantum and “classical” behaviors, as a new basis both for the mind body system and a new class of constructable and evolvable “computers” which are not algorithmic, Trans Turing.

Kauffman himself is something of a Physicalist so I figured maybe this would be of interest. For proponents it offers an interesting vehicle for which the soul intersects with the body, how non-local anomalous info transfer (aka Psi) might occur, probably some other things...
'Historically, we may regard materialism as a system of dogma set up to combat orthodox dogma...Accordingly we find that, as ancient orthodoxies disintegrate, materialism more and more gives way to scepticism.'

- Bertrand Russell


(This post was last modified: 2021-01-27, 10:47 PM by Sciborg_S_Patel.)
(2021-01-27, 10:03 PM)Sciborg_S_Patel Wrote: I'm a bit lost - is this about the video I posted on Kauffman's quantum mind presentation?

Is this an objection to something specific in the video?

I lifted the bold quote from your post #478, by Chalmers.

~~ Paul
If the existence of a thing is indistinguishable from its nonexistence, we say that thing does not exist. ---Yahzi
Kauffman says

"Neurobiologists believe the mind brain system is and must be classical physics. For many, at some complexity, consciousness arises. This could be correct but faces what I will call the Stalemate: Such a mind can at most witness the world but, due to the causal closure of classical physics, cannot act upon that world. Such a consciousness must be merely epiphenomenal."

I have absolutely no idea why he believes this to be true.

~~ Paul
If the existence of a thing is indistinguishable from its nonexistence, we say that thing does not exist. ---Yahzi
(2021-01-28, 12:16 AM)Paul C. Anagnostopoulos Wrote: I lifted the bold quote from your post #478, by Chalmers.

~~ Paul

But I quoted you quoting Chalmers in post #470?

If this is related to the video of Kauffman's presentation, can you post the timestamp of what exactly you're objecting to?
'Historically, we may regard materialism as a system of dogma set up to combat orthodox dogma...Accordingly we find that, as ancient orthodoxies disintegrate, materialism more and more gives way to scepticism.'

- Bertrand Russell


(2021-01-28, 12:23 AM)Sciborg_S_Patel Wrote: But I quoted you quoting Chalmers in post #470?

If this is related to the video of Kauffman's presentation, can you post the timestamp of what exactly you're objecting to?

Everything I was talking about was related to Chalmers. Then, finally, in post #485 I switched to talking about a Kauffman quote.

~~ Paul
If the existence of a thing is indistinguishable from its nonexistence, we say that thing does not exist. ---Yahzi
(2021-01-27, 10:08 PM)Smaw Wrote: I don't understand what you mean by assuming full blown human consciousness. Panpsychism and idealism I'd say assume there is a background underlying consciousness and as humans grow and evolve up that is how they get their subjectivity. I'm pretty sure emergent dualists say that it's all physical up until a point and everything past that can't be reduced back down. I don't know which people are assuming fully grown up human levels of consciousness and just slapping them onto things.

The question is whether the consciousness-related fundamental is some sort of "unit of awareness" or whether it is full-blown human consciousness. If the former, then there is the problem of explaining how human consciousness emerges. If the latter, then, well, wow.

~~ Paul
If the existence of a thing is indistinguishable from its nonexistence, we say that thing does not exist. ---Yahzi
(2021-01-28, 12:54 AM)Paul C. Anagnostopoulos Wrote: Everything I was talking about was related to Chalmers. Then, finally, in post #485 I switched to talking about a Kauffman quote. Sorry to divert away from Kauffman.

~~ Paul
If the existence of a thing is indistinguishable from its nonexistence, we say that thing does not exist. ---Yahzi
(2021-01-28, 12:56 AM)Paul C. Anagnostopoulos Wrote: The question is whether the consciousness-related fundamental is some sort of "unit of awareness" or whether it is full-blown human consciousness. If the former, then there is the problem of explaining how human consciousness emerges. If the latter, then, well, wow.

~~ Paul

Well it depends. Some things have the combination problem. Idealist would have the filter of how we've evolved to tune out of all this extra stuff because it's not relevant to survival. Emergent dualism would say that all this inherent stuff comes together and combines into something not reducible to the physical ect ect.

  • View a Printable Version
Forum Jump:


Users browsing this thread: 2 Guest(s)