Psience Quest

(2024-01-08, 03:28 PM)nbtruthman Wrote: [ -> ]I don't quite see this as any sort of certainty. It seems to me that though some cause-effect events are definitely due to human volition, many others are due to mechanical causation, physical interactions between different objects whose motions and energies have been determined by previous (physical not mental) mechanical interactions, and so forth going back ad infinitum, with the exception of the interference caused by previous human volitional interactions in this causal chain. A common example of such a mixture of both volitional and mechanical cause-and-effect would be a game of pool. An extreme example of a purely predictable predetermined cause-effect sequence is the interaction of planetary bodies in space with each other and with the Sun, following with great exactitude the Newtonian laws of motion except under certain circumstances where Einsteinian relativity calculations are even more accurate. These laws predict with great accuracy what particular effect in celestial mechanics results from what particular cause, without mental causation or volition entering the picture.
   
This is the reason why in truth, in a vast range of circumstances, determinism obtains, where a particular effect indeed must happen out of all possible things that can happen.

This determinism of course ultimately applies completely only in the upper size range of dimensional scale in the absence of human volition. At the smallest scale of the elementary particles making up matter and energy it boils down to quantum mechanical interactions between elementary particles, which may according to certain interpretations of the theory inherently involve the observations of some sort of mind. But this is just with some interpretations of quantum mechanics.

Also of course, there is also a metaphysical/philosophical interpretation which would posit that all of reality is "mind stuff" and that therefore at the lowest, most basic level, all of our reality is some form of consciousness, and that therefore conscious volition somehow enters into all physical events.

Why would determinism apply?

The problem is always trying to explain the reason why some particular thing can happen when there are an infinite number of possibilities. Even if we limit these possibilities to the stochastic cloud of slight deviations there remains an issue of why one thing would consistently happen among the possibilities.

If the reason is some brute fact law, we run into the issues of why the laws cannot ever change and how a law - wherever and whatever it is - can restrict matter while being of an apparently wholly different type of "stuff" different from said matter. Even the term, "law", suggests the involvement of Minds in both coming up with but also needing to enforce said law.

Both PK cases and evidence of Cosmic Fine Tuning already suggest mental causation can alter physical causation, and QM suggests there is no determinism at the foundation level of the physical...to the point even Penrose wonders if there are conscious decisions down there.

This isn't to say the Volitional Theory of Causation *has* to be true, but without it I don't see how to make sense of causation. Determinism that happens for no good reason is no better than Randomness which happens for no reason after all, in fact I would label the former as merely a special case of the latter. Yet Randomness seems to be against our logical expectations, leaving Volition as the one kind of causal grounding I can know from the inside.

edit: As a point of clarification, I'm not saying particles are thus conscious or that Idealism is true. It could be the case that matter is continuously directed by (a?) God or some other metaphysics, but the proper metaphysical explanation of causation even with the physical needs Minds.

(2024-01-08, 06:59 PM)Sciborg_S_Patel Wrote: [ -> ]Why would determinism apply?

The problem is always trying to explain the reason why some particular thing can happen when there are an infinite number of possibilities. Even if we limit these possibilities to the stochastic cloud of slight deviations there remains an issue of why one thing would consistently happen among the possibilities.

If the reason is some brute fact law, we run into the issues of why the laws cannot ever change and how a law - wherever and whatever it is - can restrict matter while being of an apparently wholly different type of "stuff" different from said matter. Even the term, "law", suggests the involvement of Minds in both coming up with but also needing to enforce said law.

Both PK cases and evidence of Cosmic Fine Tuning already suggest mental causation can alter physical causation, and QM suggests there is no determinism at the foundation level of the physical...to the point even Penrose wonders if there are conscious decisions down there.

This isn't to say the Volitional Theory of Causation *has* to be true, but without it I don't see how to make sense of causation. Determinism that happens for no good reason is no better than Randomness which happens for no reason after all, in fact I would label the former as merely a special case of the latter. Yet Randomness seems to be against our logical expectations, leaving Volition as the one kind of causal grounding I can know from the inside.

edit: As a point of clarification, I'm not saying particles are thus conscious or that Idealism is true. It could be the case that matter is continuously directed by (a?) God or some other metaphysics, but the proper metaphysical explanation of causation even with the physical needs Minds.

If we refine the problem down to why in causation some particular thing can happen rather than any of an infinite number of other possibilities, then we can further refine it down to just the mystery of why there is something rather than absolutely nothing. It seems to me that this is the ultimate mystery and it is obviously unsolvable and impenetrable to human minds, other than speculations relating to a supernatural Creator or creators outside of our reality. Of course the unknowability or impenetrability of this mystery is then proven by the obvious infinite regression that then results. 

It becomes apparent that trying to come up with a plausible answer to this ultimate question is futile and an act of extreme hubris. In my opinion that applies also to attempts to intellectually understand other lesser foundations of our reality, like causality. Given this assessment, I still think that we can make one general plausible speculation - that whatever the answer is, it has to do with the anthropic certainty that these fundamental "ways that things work" in our reality are necessary for our existence.

(2024-01-08, 08:40 PM)nbtruthman Wrote: [ -> ]If we refine the problem down to why in causation some particular thing can happen rather than any of an infinite number of other possibilities, then we can further refine it down to just the mystery of why there is something rather than absolutely nothing.

I don't see why this would follow?

We know within the Something that includes our existence that change happens in myriad ways, and there at least seems to be a relation between certain states (causes) and certain later states (effects).

We're never trying to get Something from Nothing, just trying to ground the fact that isolated sections of Something can be altered in their apparent properties by other sections of Something.

(2024-01-08, 10:46 PM)Sciborg_S_Patel Wrote: [ -> ]I don't see why this would follow?

We know within the Something that includes our existence that change happens in myriad ways, and there at least seems to be a relation between certain states (causes) and certain later states (effects).

We're never trying to get Something from Nothing, just trying to ground the fact that isolated sections of Something can be altered in their apparent properties by other sections of Something.

The ultimate basal anthropic "thing that has to exist in order for us to exist" is that there must actually be something, not absolutely nothing. The next step up from this anthropic existential truth is that in addition to something existing rather than absolutely nothing, many subsidiary derivative such things must also exist as characteristics of our reality in order for us to exist, such as causality and the rules of logic and mathematics.

(2024-01-09, 11:50 PM)nbtruthman Wrote: [ -> ]The ultimate basal anthropic "thing that has to exist in order for us to exist" is that there must actually be something, not absolutely nothing. The next step up from this anthropic existential truth is that in addition to something existing rather than absolutely nothing, many subsidiary derivative such things must also exist as characteristics of our reality in order for us to exist, such as causality and the rules of logic and mathematics.

Well there has to be Something since we're here. And since Something can't come from Nothing, Something - or Someone - was always here.

Admittedly this gets us into the question of temporal regression into the past, and whether that's logically acceptable - I go back and forth on this. But again we're already here, so there has to be some way for that to happen.

From there we get into one of the most obvious aspects of Something, its ability to change which then leads us to ask about causation. We know mental causation is different from physical causation since Materialism is a false faith due to the Something From Nothing issue. Additionally you can't apply force vectors to emotions and reasoning when trying to chart the outcome, and of course so much of our understanding and confidence in applied science rests on Maths which rests on Proofs which rests on Logic which is wholly mental.

The question then becomes whether there is some way to properly conceive of "physical" causation. After spending some time trying to see how it could be done I eventually came to accept there isn't any real solution, because for any Law you run into Talbott's problem of matter needing to have something in it that "listens" to said Law ->

Quote:The conviction that laws somehow give us a full accounting of events seems often to be based on the idea that they govern the world's substance or matter from outside, "making" things happen. If this is the case, however, then we must provide some way for matter to recognize and then obey these external laws. But, plainly, whatever supports this capacity for recognition and obedience cannot itself be the mere obedience. Anything capable of obeying wholly external laws is not only its obedience but also its capability, and this capability remains unexplained by the laws.

Then we can say the "law" is merely descriptive of something internal to the nature of the "physical"...but I don't think this really helps, especially when we look at those particles in their "random" quantum behavior where even Penrose wonders if there's decision making going on.

The other tact to take is that the "physical" has no real causal properties, and it is mere Luck that governs what seems to be any sense of Order. A roll of the dice*, so to speak, that has been lucky enough to allow for all our sciences...but this also feels unsatisfying given the logical nature of maths and, as Wigner pointed out, the uncanny efficacy of maths in this world.

Then, to make a long story short, I found that the best possible theory for causation starts with my own volition. From there I can conjecture that Minds - whether ours, or spirits, or God, or conscious particles, or whoever - is involved with every causal relation.

This doesn't mean Idealism is true, though I can see it being an argument in favor of Idealism as I do think it's easier to fit this idea of Volitional-as-Causation in with some kind of Monism. OTOH there remains the obvious functional Dualism that is needed to explain why there's a brain and why we have two domains - this universe and the experienced spiritual realms - that seem incredibly distinct.

* figure of speech since this complete lack of any genuine causal constraints would mean something truly random so no stochastic modeling could be applied.

(2024-01-10, 07:58 PM)Sciborg_S_Patel Wrote: [ -> ]Well there has to be Something since we're here. And since Something can't come from Nothing, Something - or Someone - was always here.

Admittedly this gets us into the question of temporal regression into the past, and whether that's logically acceptable - I go back and forth on this. But again we're already here, so there has to be some way for that to happen.

From there we get into one of the most obvious aspects of Something, its ability to change which then leads us to ask about causation. We know mental causation is different from physical causation since Materialism is a false faith due to the Something From Nothing issue. Additionally you can't apply force vectors to emotions and reasoning when trying to chart the outcome, and of course so much of our understanding and confidence in applied science rests on Maths which rests on Proofs which rests on Logic which is wholly mental.

The question then becomes whether there is some way to properly conceive of "physical" causation. After spending some time trying to see how it could be done I eventually came to accept there isn't any real solution, because for any Law you run into Talbott's problem of matter needing to have something in it that "listens" to said Law ->


Then we can say the "law" is merely descriptive of something internal to the nature of the "physical"...but I don't think this really helps, especially when we look at those particles in their "random" quantum behavior where even Penrose wonders if there's decision making going on.

The other tact to take is that the "physical" has no real causal properties, and it is mere Luck that governs what seems to be any sense of Order. A roll of the dice*, so to speak, that has been lucky enough to allow for all our sciences...but this also feels unsatisfying given the logical nature of maths and, as Wigner pointed out, the uncanny efficacy of maths in this world.

Then, to make a long story short, I found that the best possible theory for causation starts with my own volition. From there I can conjecture that Minds - whether ours, or spirits, or God, or conscious particles, or whoever - is involved with every causal relation.

This doesn't mean Idealism is true, though I can see it being an argument in favor of Idealism as I do think it's easier to fit this idea of Volitional-as-Causation in with some kind of Monism. OTOH there remains the obvious functional Dualism that is needed to explain why there's a brain and why we have two domains - this universe and the experienced spiritual realms - that seem incredibly distinct.

* figure of speech since this complete lack of any genuine causal constraints would mean something truly random so no stochastic modeling could be applied.

It seems to me that this is just "kicking the can down the road" so to speak, because then we now have to explain two additional required causal processes. The first one is where some form of Mind by psychokinesis or some other apparently paranormal schema and resultant force is doing the actual volitional shoving of matter and energy around to mimic our rational causal model. This process is just as mysterious: what is the inner nature of this shoving around process? 

Now we have to explain three things in toto: Mind itself,  psychokinesis, which is also a mystery, and finally as mystery #3, we also have to explain why these volitional actions of Mind mimic the present logical causal model to near perfection, rather than some other set of rules that could be immeasurably simpler and take much less total effort. This actual process of volitional causality seems to involve a much greater continual and greater mental effort than merely creating a mindless deterministic causal mechanism of great complexity (the latter being a logical deduction from observation ).

So, with this explanatory option there is no net gain in wisdom, in fact a net gain in ignorance.

I think your previous suggestion that "....we (could) say the "law" is merely descriptive of something internal to the nature of the "physical"", a Design option, is more viable since in being simpler it is more likely (being just one mystery) since it meets the Ockham's Razor principle of parsimony. This option is of the same very high existential order as the anthropic necessity for the laws of logic and mathematics to rule our reality - causality as just the "way things work" is as existentially fundamental and unknowable as the law of the excluded middle or the geometrical law of there being 3 spacial dimensions plus time's arrow.

The bottom line appears to be that the search for a deep understanding of causality is hubris and doomed to failure by the very way our reality is designed, where there are fundamentally humanly unknowable features of our reality designed in to our reality in order to enable sentient intelligent creatures like ourselves to exist in a (sometimes rewarding) environment. At least one apparently viable explanation for the motive for this Design would be the possible desire of this Designer to create beings that it can share existence with. 

One final observation: all of these possible explanations invoke the deadly mystery of a necessary eventual infinite regression, since that infinite regression in turn by implication just invokes the ultimate seemingly irrational mystery that reality evidently always existed and never had a beginning, never had a creator, only reinforcing the observation of the hubris of this enterprise.

(2024-01-11, 03:31 PM)nbtruthman Wrote: [ -> ]It seems to me that this is just "kicking the can down the road" so to speak, because then we now have to explain two additional required causal processes. The first one is where some form of Mind by psychokinesis or some other apparently paranormal schema and resultant force is doing the actual volitional shoving of matter and energy around to mimic our rational causal model. This process is just as mysterious: what is the inner nature of this shoving around process? 

Now we have to explain three things in toto: Mind itself,  psychokinesis, which is also a mystery, and finally as mystery #3, we also have to explain why these volitional actions of Mind mimic the present logical causal model to near perfection, rather than some other set of rules that could be immeasurably simpler and take much less total effort. This actual process of volitional causality seems to involve a much greater continual and greater mental effort than merely creating a mindless deterministic causal mechanism of great complexity (the latter being a logical deduction from observation ).

So, with this explanatory option there is no net gain in wisdom, in fact a net gain in ignorance.

I think your previous suggestion that "....we (could) say the "law" is merely descriptive of something internal to the nature of the "physical"", a Design option, is more viable since in being simpler it is more likely (being just one mystery) since it meets the Ockham's Razor principle of parsimony. This option is of the same very high existential order as the anthropic necessity for the laws of logic and mathematics to rule our reality - causality as just the "way things work" is as existentially fundamental and unknowable as the law of the excluded middle or the geometrical law of there being 3 spacial dimensions plus time's arrow.

The bottom line appears to be that the search for a deep understanding of causality is hubris and doomed to failure by the very way our reality is designed, where there are fundamentally humanly unknowable features of our reality designed in to our reality in order to enable sentient intelligent creatures like ourselves to exist in a (sometimes rewarding) environment. At least one apparently viable explanation for the motive for this Design would be the possible desire of this Designer to create beings that it can share existence with. 

One final observation: all of these possible explanations invoke the deadly mystery of a necessary eventual infinite regression, since that infinite regression in turn by implication just invokes the ultimate seemingly irrational mystery that reality evidently always existed and never had a beginning, never had a creator, only reinforcing the observation of the hubris of this enterprise.

We seem to largely be in agreement that physical causality needs mental causation to get started, while differing that the maintenance of physical causality needs some kind of Mind involved?

It would certainly be a better shave with Occam's Razor if there could be a designed-but-self-running physical causality conceived in a Deist/Watchmaker way, but I am just unconvinced the limitation of possibilities down to the one actual occurrence can be plausibly explained without the presence of a Mind.

(2024-01-10, 07:58 PM)Sciborg_S_Patel Wrote: [ -> ] you can't apply force vectors to emotions and reasoning when trying to chart the outcome, and of course so much of our understanding and confidence in applied science rests on Maths which rests on Proofs which rests on Logic which is wholly mental.

The question then becomes whether there is some way to properly conceive of "physical" causation. After spending some time trying to see how it could be done I eventually came to accept there isn't any real solution, because for any Law you run into Talbott's problem of matter needing to have something in it that "listens" to said Law ->


Then we can say the "law" is merely descriptive of something internal to the nature of the "physical"...but I don't think this really helps, especially when we look at those particles in their "random" quantum behavior where even Penrose wonders if there's decision making going on.

There is a lot well-said there.

You provoke my exact methodological argument.  Yes, force vectors apply only to physical reality.  However, science is evolving to understand outcomes of emotions and reasoning perfectly well.  There are abstract predictors in computed information science about mental/emotional outcomes, just as are the abstract predictors about physical objects. 

There are firm stochastic predictions from outcome data about behavior and motivation.  The math for vectors in sociological, ecological and individual-base data chart in the same abstract spaces, as does the data from materials science and physics!  Vectors of disease transmission are just as real as are vectors of wind force.  One is information (data) from human choices and decisions and the other information (data) is from physical measurement.

Talbott's article is excellent analysis from two decades ago.  It is responding to the academic environment then.  Now, with an informational model for intentional mind emerging, things are different.  My humble take is that the "law" question is just reification of the math that cast materialism as possible.  Is the underlying "governance" just a semantic question?  Law is certainly only descriptive of real phenomenal structure, as you say.  The structure being in the work space of informational relations.  Relations like what is important in the environment.  Importance implies real-world meanings being primary variables.

As for Penrose and any other effort to embed mind in matter, I reject.  The informational realism model has mental action embedded in the universal wave function.  A separate environment to physical here and now measurements.  An environment where mind can gain information from the past, while in the present and directly effect outcomes in the future, before they happen.

(2024-01-11, 05:39 PM)Sciborg_S_Patel Wrote: [ -> ]We seem to largely be in agreement that physical causality needs mental causation to get started, while differing that the maintenance of physical causality needs some kind of Mind involved?

It would certainly be a better shave with Occam's Razor if there could be a designed-but-self-running physical causality conceived in a Deist/Watchmaker way, but I am just unconvinced the limitation of possibilities down to the one actual occurrence can be plausibly explained without the presence of a Mind.

It seems to me that the rules of causation could be automated, at least for the macroscopic physical domain (as opposed to the quantum mechanical subatomic particle domain). The primary rule for the physical causation algorithm would be to require the occurrence of proximal physical contact in space and time of one piece of matter by another, or some field energy impacting a piece of matter or another energy. The prior trajectories and prior history of such causal interactions having causally determined the latest physical contact event. This algorithm of course would have to be an exceedingly computation intensive process to cover all of physical reality, but it still wouldn't seem to require a mind. It would of of course require mind to get set up and started in the first place. 

This physical contact involved set of rules for physical causation would seem to be able to effectively create the observed macroscopic world, where such a rule set would seem to very exactly explain the macroscopic behavior of matter, and physical contact is really a field interaction. 

But of course there is the matter of the supposed centrality of consciousness and sentient observation in the quantum mechanics affecting the subatomic world and therefore also deeply affecting and resulting in the macroscopic world. Since the early days of quantum mechanics, some physicists and philosophers have argued that resolving the measurement problem requires an appeal to the minds of conscious observers. However, this contention has always been controversial, and apparently is no longer the consensus. 

One wild theory suggests that consciousness may entirely explain quantum mechanics, by in every submicroscopic event forcing the subatomic particles to choose one concrete outcome. One of the most perplexing aspects of quantum mechanics is that tiny subatomic particles don't seem to "choose" a state until an outside observer measures it. The problem with this contention is that this "observation" process must necessarily be anything that "measures states" by interacting with the process, whether or not it is a sentient observer or a mechanical interaction. The notion of "observer" should not be misunderstood. In quantum physics parlance an "observer" can be a detector, a screen, or even a stone. Anything that is affected by a process.

It seems to me that this position is massively validated by the countless observations of quantum mechanical interactions and their macroscopic outcomes occurring in remote locations in the world and the Universe far from any human conscious observation. That leaves of course the possible contention that some universal Intelligence is doing the necessary observations, but this looks like an excuse since it requires postulating another additional entity.

If this latter mechanical interaction interpretation of quantum mechanics is actually the case, then all that is needed is that the rules of causation need to be greatly complexified to include the rules that determine these QM level interactions.

Have any experiments been performed to resolve this question?

(2024-01-12, 04:57 PM)nbtruthman Wrote: [ -> ]It seems to me that the rules of causation could be automated, at least for the macroscopic physical domain (as opposed to the quantum mechanical subatomic particle domain). The primary rule for the physical causation algorithm would be to require the occurrence of proximal physical contact in space and time of one piece of matter by another, or some field energy impacting a piece of matter or another energy.

I think the challenge here remains - why should this stop alternative possibilities from happening?

A "primary rule" is just "law of nature" by another name. Now I think this can be grounded by some entity or entities maintaining the world's rules but that would be a constant process. For example the Catholic Theologian Edward Freser would call this a Concurrent Cause ->

"Natural theology also establishes that there is a natural order of “secondary causes” that is both distinct from but depends upon God as primary cause.  Natural, secondary causes are real causes (so that occasionalism is ruled out), but they can act only insofar as God imparts causal power to them (so that deism is also ruled out).  This is the idea of divine concurrence with natural causes.  When worked out it entails, on the one hand, that there is a natural order of things that can be known and studied whether or not one affirms the existence of God.  Given just that natural order, certain things are possible and certain things are impossible, and the “laws of nature” revealed by natural science tell us which is which.  But on the other hand, the doctrine of divine concurrence tells us that since this entire natural order operates only insofar as the divine primary cause concurs with it, there is also the possibility of a supernatural order of things -- an order of things over and above the natural order, for the sake of which the latter might be suspended.  (Notice that “supernatural” here has a technical meaning that is unrelated to the sorts of things popular usage of the word suggests.  It has nothing to do with vampires, werewolves, zombies, and the like -- which, if they existed, would be part of the “natural” order in the relevant sense, rather than supernatural.)"

Regarding:

Quote:The prior trajectories and prior history of such causal interactions having causally determined the latest physical contact event. This algorithm of course would have to be an exceedingly computation intensive process to cover all of physical reality, but it still wouldn't seem to require a mind. It would of of course require mind to get set up and started in the first place. 

This physical contact involved set of rules for physical causation would seem to be able to effectively create the observed macroscopic world, where such a rule set would seem to very exactly explain the macroscopic behavior of matter, and physical contact is really a field interaction.

But the macroworld is built on the micro, or so physicists tell me. And the microworld is quite bizarre as noted by the fact that 4% of photons reflect back rather than pass through glass. Is there probabilistic law rather than a deterministic one for this or any other indeterminism?

Furthermore:

Quote:The problem with this contention is that this "observation" process must necessarily be anything that "measures states" by interacting with the process, whether or not it is a sentient observer or a mechanical interaction. The notion of "observer" should not be misunderstood. In quantum physics parlance an "observer" can be a detector, a screen, or even a stone. Anything that is affected by a process.

I know some physicists feel this way, that "observer" could possibly just be a computer with a detector...but AFAIK it isn't clear if this is an adequate answer. From a Sci-Am article by Stapp, Kafatos, and Kastrup:

"One of the keys to our argument for a mental world is the contention that only conscious observers can perform measurements.

Some criticize this contention by claiming that inanimate objects, such as detectors, can also perform measurements, in the sense described above. The problem is that the partitioning of the world into discrete inanimate objects is merely nominal. Is a rock integral to the mountain it helps constitute? If so, does it become a separate object merely by virtue of its getting detached from the mountain? And if so, does it then perform a measurement each time it comes back in contact with the mountain, as it bounces down the slope? Brief contemplation of these questions shows that the boundaries of a detector are arbitrary. The inanimate world is a single physical system governed by QM. Indeed, as first argued by John von Neumann and rearticulated in the work of one of us, when two inanimate objects interact they simply become quantum mechanically “entangled” with one another—that is, they become united in such a way that the behavior of one becomes inextricably linked to the behavior of the other—but no actual measurement is performed."

However, my concern with grounding causation doesn't rest on QM, rather QM just makes stark the issue. The challenge to me remains that for anything that happens, there seems to be infinite possibilities that didn't happen...even if we're talking about a micron-or-less shift in measurement.

The issue is we have only one account of causality from the inside, which is our volition, and any other explanation for possibility selection seems to fall flat. 

I do agree the mundane world seems to run, at a macro level, without constant mental direction...Maybe certain entities are akin to what suggested, bodies with their mentality suffused through them...and perhaps the more powerful of these can actually remove their mentality from part of themselves while leaving the "physical" with some causal relations, like in the myths where god(s) use their own bodies to make Creation. This could possibly work, but honestly would have to think a bit more on this...