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Author
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Topic: James Barham: Thoughts on Thinking Matter
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Rex Kerr
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Member # 632
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posted 21. February 2003 13:37
Mark, I am afraid I do not understand Henry's conflation of the Copenhagen interpretation and the Transactional interpretation. He writes:
quote:
But once the situation is thus reduced to its essence one sees the difficulty starkly: what singles out definite locations and orientations of the devices? That comes back to what WE are doing, and hence what our brains are doing.
This quote holds for any experiment, since to do experiments we locate and orient devices, and interpret the results. I do not take the fact that we do experiments as indicitive that the universe is mindful! I take it as evidence that I am.
What builds "mindfulness" into the Copenhagen interpretation, in my mind, seems specifically to be reference to the "observer". Devices do not count. This is exemplified in the Copenhagen description of Shrodinger's Cat paradox: a cat in a sealed box with a vial of deadly poison hooked up to a geiger counter is in a superposition of living and dead states until we open the box and look to see whether the geiger counter has been activated or not. The Transactional interpretation, as I understand it, seems to say: no, the handshake occurs at the device, and the cat lives until the handshake is done, after which it is dead. We can model our uncertainty about the event as a superposition of alive and dead states, but that doesn't mean that the cat is in a superposition of alive and dead states.
Now, if this isn't "essentially different" from the Copenhagen interpretation, then the CI also relegates the role of the conscious observer to one of relative unimportance (the device is key), and thus doesn't seem to argue for mindfulness in QM.
Dan wrote:
quote:
The 'unreasonable effectiveness' of mathematics is as unnatural as it is immaterial. The awesome mathematical depth of theoretical physics is the best evidence to-date of the thought-like nature of reality. What lies behind this depth is not anything obviously connected with the self. Instead we see the Monster Group.
But mathematics isn't natural. The axiom sets we use are by no means the simplest possible, nor are they the simplest possible that allow complex structures to arise. In large part, the "unreasonable" effectiveness of mathematics is due to our choosing axioms that are effective!
Other hints of the naturality of effectiveness comes from the idea of Universal Turing machines. The key insight relevant to this discussion is that fairly simple programs and/or mathematics can represent a huge class of problems--including any correlation we could hope to observe in the universe.
Now, even given that, mathematics is still surprisingly effective at explaining physics. But it points more strongly to a computation-like nature of reality than a thought-like nature, in my opinion. The crucial difference is that computations can be very simple. Thoughts require a mind; computations do not.
In any case, the path of trying to analyze a system from within itself is fraught with peril, and I'm wary of trying to make too much of it.
Incidentally, can you provide a reference that shows why the Monster Group is actually relevant? It is interesting--quirky, you might say--to find a class of finite groups with such a large maximal member. But mathematics is full of examples of shockingly large maximal or minimal members of classes of objects.
Added in edit: the post was written before it was pointed out that the thread's off topic. So never mind about my questions about stuff that is also off topic, like monster groups.
In fact, I don't think I have anything of specific relevance to say w.r.t. Barham's paper any longer; there wasn't much discussion past the first set of "this is what I think" posts (incl. mine).
[ 21. February 2003, 13:44: Message edited by: Rex Kerr ]
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Dan Smith
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Member # 656
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posted 21. February 2003 14:01
Jacob,
“For facts, you go to the lab, deal with data and make inferences. Read books. Peer reviews etc. For good news, you go to church. I find a mix of the two to be particularly unpalatable and nauseating. So I will excuse myself from such an exercise.”
Well, Jacob, it is entirely possible that you were just born too late. It may be that reductionism is false. It may be that life is just an exercise is holism. I trust that you do not wish to excuse yourself from the exercise of life. Although, I can well imagine that the unremitting absurdity of a life lived in a perpetually meaningless universe could well become burdensome. In fact, I have been there and done that. But let us not dwell on personal subjects, thereby potentially abusing the moderating patience.
We are not here to discuss opinions. Yes, we are here to discuss the ‘facts’ of life, if you will.
I believe that I already have asked you, at least once, to provide an example of something that is irreducibly real. That could be a starting point for a more detailed and even analytical discussion of reducibility of reality. Is it or isn’t it?
For starters, I could ask you if there are any facts of ecology. When I last checked, ecological systems were very often being investigated outside of the lab.
I am a strong advocate of scientific realism. It just happens, however, that 99.44% of the theoretical entities currently being entertained by scientists are, even in principle, not reducible to the dynamics of elementary particles. If one wishes to be a realist concerning scientific truth, then one might wonder how we are to account for the existence of so many irreducibles. And is it possible that life and mind should be included among these entities?
Do you not wish to discuss this? What do you wish to discuss? What did you expect to find being discusses under the topic of ‘thinking matter’? **
** This last sentence was written just before the suggestion of closure. I am at a loss to think of how the facts of reductionism do not pertain directly to the topic of ‘thinking matter’?
Dan
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Dan Smith
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posted 21. February 2003 14:11
Rex,
quote:
Added in edit: the post was written before it was pointed out that the thread's off topic. So never mind about my questions about stuff that is also off topic, like monster groups.
It is correct that Barham did not bring up the example of the Monster Group, in his attempted exposition of ‘thinking matter’. If the moderator will permit, I will be glad to demonstrate that direct relevance.
Dan
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Dan Smith
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posted 21. February 2003 17:28
Rex,
Yes, for those interested there was once an active field of ‘information mechanics’ dealing with the possible informational, computational foundations of physics. F.W. Kantor published the definitive text in 1977. Now it is Stephen Wolfram who has resurrected this field with his ‘A New Kind of Science’.
I need not agree that a computational basis of reality is not compatible with the general tenets of idealism. There would be no reason to have to employ thought-like processes for purely repetitive tasks. This is why we invented computers. No reason that the big thinker in the sky could not take advantage of something similar.
(continued)
[ 21. February 2003, 18:46: Message edited by: Dan Smith ]
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