As I mentioned on Pharyngula, I was invited by a philosopher friend to attend the Darwin Day talk by Daniel Dennett, at Framingham State College. The talk, “Darwin and the Evolution of Reasons”, was interesting, and meta-interesting; it not only was a good presentation of memetic evolution, it was a good demonstration of it as well, with successful elements of his earlier talks replicating themselves in this one. (Also, in a vivid display of horizontal meme transfer, I invite any who saw Dennett’s talk to also watch Sue Blackmore’s TED talk, to count the number of similar memes. For those who did not see Dennett, the Blackmore talk will give you the gist of it. No, they are not identical; variety exists among members of this species.)
After the talk (and the exodus of rude students who must have been there only for class credit), Dennett invited questions from the audience. Two (or maybe three; my notes are not clear) questions stood out for me, questions which explored Dennett’s claim that, despite our robots-made-of-robots-made-of-robots bodies, and the unthinking replicant memes infecting our brains, we humans have free will–a free will of the sort worth having. The last questioner asked whether we were actually free moral agents, or whether we were the hosts to parasitic moral memes; Dennett’s reply did not really satisfy me (nor my philosopher friend). Dennett made the analogy (a big part of his talk, too) of eukaryotic cells enjoying the benefits of the combined prokaryotic cells which compose them, and of humans enjoying the benefits of our symbiotic memes. All well and good, as far as that goes, but it seemed a strain to speak of memes as evolving separately, substrate-free, not caring about their human hosts other than as a means to reproduction, and then to turn around and claim that as a portion of our free will!
Perhaps I am misunderstanding him, but I have certainly read enough of his writing to doubt that, and I have read enough to know that Dennett misunderstands some aspects of some areas of my own expertise (which I would go into detail about, but it would rather get in the way of trying to remain an anonymous cuttlefish), so I have no illusion that he is infallible.
In another example of memetic transfer, I offer a replicated song. The structure (and tune, if you are inclined to sing it) are replicated from the original by Joni Mitchell; the first replication by Judy Collins shows that structure, descended with modifications in the chords, can successfully sell. Both versions are beautiful. Mine, less so.
Memes, it seems, are parasites
Inside our minds, so Dennett writes;
Poetic turns, and verbal flights
Evolving in our brains
But then he claims that we are free
To choose among the things we see
It doesn’t fit, it seems to me,
His explanation strains
I’ve looked at memes and at free will
From every way I can, but still
In spite of Dennett’s siren call
I don’t believe we’re free… at all
Memes are things that replicate
At really an astounding rate
From blind selection, they create
A culture that evolves
But now the concept gives me pause
I’ve got to stop and look for flaws
This explanation—might it cause
More problems than it solves?
I’ve looked at memes and at free will
From every way I can, but still
In spite of Dennett’s siren call
I don’t believe we’re free… at all
Love and hate and peace and war
Are memes that were selected for
Dreams and themes you can’t ignore—
Memetic, every one.
It seems the memes are in control
They take the place, they play the role
We used to say required a soul
Now souls are all undone
I’ve looked at memes and at free will
From every way I can, but still
In spite of Dennett’s siren call
I don’t believe we’re free… at all
51 comments
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Phunicular
February 15, 2009 at 9:31 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Isn’t it queer?Are we but hosts?Robots of robot machinesRid of our ghosts?Send in the memes.What is it likeKnowing at all?Zombily Bayesing our nerves –Store, then recall.Are they just memes?Send in the memes.Easy to claim, “Freedom evolves!”Making the term we’re defining the thing that it solves,Nailing that feeling of agency down to its seatInside a blindTheatre of meat.Learning is fun.Shall I explore?Using the memeplex of scienceI can learn more.But would these be memesNot shared with my teams?Perhaps there’s a flaw.Memes can be rich:Memes everywhereDriving the dualist dreamsInto despair.But we’re more than memesThough sometimes it seemsNon-memebots are rare.(with apologies to Stephen Sondheim, Daniel Dennett and Sue Blackmore)
Cuttlefish
February 15, 2009 at 10:49 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
*standing ovation for Phunicular*Bravo!
Thoughts
February 25, 2009 at 5:19 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
I like your song!I find Dawkin’s introduction of memes a bit tiresome. Memes used to be called “culture” and was passed down from parents to children. The only advantage of the term “meme” is that it medicalises the process.Dennett believes that he is a computer. What a weird meme he is creating. See The symbol grounding problem and Chinese Room and The nature of the soul for some counter arguments.
Phunicular
February 25, 2009 at 7:41 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
The Chinese Room won’t save your “soul”Old Searle has dug himself a hole.You see, a man within his roomNeed not be produce of a wombSince OCR and lines of codeCould lift that secretarial load.The “understanding” must have beenPerformed by Searle’s adept machine.Once you see Searle’s dopey droneCan lack a brain and flesh and boneYou’ll see the Chinese Room’s a jokeThat shouldn’t baffle clever folk.Alas, the ruse has gained esteemAnd thrives – a most persistent meme -In those who can’t complete their weaningFrom outmoded views of meaning.My symbol grounding doesn’t messWith idle infinite regress -No turtles, turtles, all the way,No eyes that other eyes survey.But every part of how I think -Every symbol, every link -Finds routes to run to states all real:The correlates of how I feel.
Thoughts
February 26, 2009 at 9:51 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Your belief is that the world we sees the world we getBut I am quite prepared to betThat the world itself is nothing like the coloured lusciousness,The beauty thats portrayed within the web of time an spaceThat gives your soul its place.You propose that correlations are consciousnessWhen the noumenal correlates are unknown except to instruments.
Phunicular
February 26, 2009 at 11:24 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Oh, where to start? My dearest Thoughts.You’ve missed my views completely.But many thanks that you repliedIn rhyming verse so sweetly.Please read again where I say “real”;It’s brain states – networked nervesAnd not some naive notion thatA mind itself observes.For this next chunk I’ve made the choiceTo sluice my views in Seussian voice:When the photons from my futonFind the focus of my eyesThey will kick my cones and rods,Thus causing signals to arise.I cannot span the spectrumBut my special cells respondTo their windows on the wavelengthsFrom the wondrous world beyond.My cortex then combines the cuesAnd cottons on to patterns;With fancy feature filteringThe futon form unflattens.My nervous networks noticeBoth the novel and mundane,Matching models, melding motifs,For my memories to retain.In my Hebbian web of me-nessNot one neuron stands alone:Every concept gains its contextFrom connections that it’s grown.Yet my net of wet connectionsAre not abstract facts that lackAny impact, since they’re cinchedTo visceral states from bliss to wrack.(Thoughts,Lest my verse grow catatonicI’ll abandon third paeonic.)These mental states I share with mice,But does a mouse need “soul”To smell the cat and run in fearTo safety in its hole?The cow that you perceive through eyesAnd nose and sense of touch -She knows and values her young calf.Does she have “soul” as such?Or are non-humans all roboticJust like John Searle’s room?Then what of babes anencephalic?”Soul”-less you’d presume?I won’t assign the unexplainedTo concepts unexplainable.A cogent theory of our mindsseems now to be attainable.
Thoughts
February 27, 2009 at 7:56 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Me Labrador and MeAs we sit, my best friend and IHe, panting, knowing cats are chasedMe, wondering without a thoughtI know we have a common viewA view that’s true for youMy mind like your mind Rests on a turmoil But rested it is spaceLight, simultaneousIs this the self same space that hosts my brain?Without it I would be less than a dot, pointlessCosmologyThe successions of neural statesLike frames in a film showHave nothing within their fatesTo suggest where their pulses goAs Hermann Weyl, the Nobel Prize winning physicist put it, reality is a: “four-dimensional continuum which is neither “time” nor “space”. Only the consciousness that passes on in one portion of this world experiences the detached piece which comes to meet it and passes behind it, as history, that is, as a process that is going forward in time and takes place in space” (Weyl 1918)Observation is the placing of events in a changing time and space.Perhaps the plenum of my brain navigates at a quantum pace?Perhaps it is a becoming place?Who knows? But what is sureIs that we need to know much more.SeeConsciousness without a cerebral cortex: A challenge for neuroscienceand medicine. Bjorn Merker. 2006http://www.bbsonline.org/Preprints/Merker-03062006/Referees/Merker-03062006_preprint.pdf
Cuttlefish
February 27, 2009 at 8:49 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
I am very impressed by both the content and the form of these responses, not to mention their level of passion.My response will take a slightly different fashion—Somewhat Ogden Nashian.Why is it that when people search for mind, or spirit, or soulThey look to the parts, and never to the whole?They argue, wheedle, cajole, and strainTo reduce consciousness to some function of the brain.Why should I be convinced that there is something in the neural net that creates meWhen I use the terms of consciousness to say my computer hates me?We do not learn to label our hunger, our love, or our perception of the color redBy comparing our neural state to the state of neurons in somebody else’s head.It is our vocabulary, not our neurology, that serves as evidence for reified thoughts, memories, images, and qualia,et alia.But memories do not exist apart from remembering, nor images apart from seeing, nor thoughts apart from thinkingIn the same way that drinks do exist separate from drinking.And we learn that this is hunger, this is love, and this is red, through shared vocabularyIn the language of our parents, teachers, friends, or perhaps the local constabulary.This language refers to acts performed in public by people, animals, or even cars or computerswhich serve as our tutors,Showing us that “red” is not defined subjectively at allBut rather as a common feature of this strawberry, that sweater, this stop sign, that fire truck, this apple, and that ball.So if you wish to find consciousness, don’t look inside your brain, or worse, inside your mind—the answer is not there to find.Rather, look to our language, our behavior, and how we learn to put names to what we feel—We are conscious because we are social—and unlike the mind, your social environment is real.
Phunicular
February 27, 2009 at 10:26 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
@Thoughts: That paper by Bjorn Merker was fine fodder for mind munchers. The section on selection (4.2′s my recollection) framed a physical explanation for your cow-perception questions.@Cuttlefish: I agree that social linking is the source of all our thinking and that pressure to cooperate has helped to make our brains inflate. But consciousness still manifests in creatures cut off from the nest. It’s worth the effort sloggin’ to find functions in the noggin.
Cuttlefish
February 27, 2009 at 10:48 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Phunicular, I hadn’t knownof children reared up all alone!I do agree it’s worth a look, to see what way our neurons cook–but mechanism tells us how we think, and while this earns a “wow”, it does not, can not, show the whole–it’s not what we’d confuse with soul–the “how” an engine burns its gas does not tell how the miles pass–the engine gets us to the store, or to the mountains or the shore, but if we focus on the piston, think of all the stuff we’ve missed on. Consciousness is not in our brains, but in behavior, which explains why “correlates of consciousness” is such a scientific mess.
Phunicular
February 27, 2009 at 8:22 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Cuttlefish: Phunicular, I hadn’t known/of children reared up all alone!http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Victor_of_Aveyronhttp://www.feralchildren.com/en/index.phpetc.There are numerous cases recordedBut it’s hard to sort facts from the messOf sensational press and the researchers’ guesses.(Deliberate contact-free child-raising’s sordidBut people have tried it, nevertheless.)But before we get tangled with feralsAnd the children brought up locked away,We must look at the differences in what we sayWith regard definitions, or else risk the perilsOf arguing nothing all day.Cuttlefish: Consciousness is not in our brains, but in behavior, which explains why “correlates of consciousness” is such a scientific mess.By your implicit definition a cobber in the sad condition of tetrodotoxin paralysis (by our little blue-ringed mate) who’s been CPR’d by another (since behavior-less, he’s smothered) must not have that thing that you would call a “conscious” state.However,there’s reports from such survivors (kept alive by stoic strivers) that describe their fully “conscious” state – yes, they relate that through the wait while fearing fate they still kept thinking straight. Deprived of all behavior, breath reliant on a savior, a “consciousness” still manifest when isolated from the nest is what mind science works to wrest from studies in its current quest. Even if this “consciousness” relies on what culture supplies in order for it to arise, it is plain it remains when the brain must abstain from all contact.I’m not hunting some ghost-in-machine,Nor some destiny locked in a gene,Nor behaviour when humans convene,But the science of knowing I’ve been.So I have to concludethat the “consciousness” you’dbe describing is not what I mean.
Cuttlefish
February 27, 2009 at 9:02 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Tetrodotoxin and botulism Affect the voluntary systemBut! There is a chemical schismThe “thinking” channels? This stuff missed ‘em!You (as most) define “behavior”Mostly in what muscles do-I’d say signals your brain gave yerMuscles, still are part of you.Thinking is behavior, surely, Not suppressed by drugs like these;Thus, your volunteers not purelySans behavior, if you please!Just as one may run in place,But use one’s running muscles stillWhile paralyzed, one’s brain may raceAs one who functions fully will.(And yet, a quadriplegic knowsHe feels emotions differently–The truth is, such a difference showsHow global things like love may be.)By my explicit definitionThinking is behavior, too;To follow B. F. Skinner’s tradition, Behavior, simply, is what you do.If you should try to quash behaviorWith botox, curare, or crystal methYou may indeed require a savior–”No behavior” equals “death”!
Phunicular
February 28, 2009 at 12:57 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Cuttlefish: By my explicit definition / Thinking is behavior, too; / To follow B. F. Skinner’s tradition, / Behavior, simply, is what you do.I wondered if you’d go that way -Behavior not put on display.Our language strongly parts the two:The “what we think” and “what we do”.Communications could be clearerFinding our positions nearerIf we flag alternate useOf words we choose to state our views.But will you stick to Skinner’s scope?Intentional acts? Or slippery slopeTo how a thorough scientistDefines behavior of a syst-em. Heartbeats are a thing we doBut are these called behavior too?Heading back to previous claims,With somewhat modified definitional frames.Cuttlefish: Consciousness is not in our brains, but in behavior, which explains why “correlates of consciousness” is such a scientific mess.And so I’m guessing you have no beefWith Dennett’s heterophenomenological briefFor using all the evidence -The measurements,And subjective word,Not only third person reports -Lest we distortOr miss the mental behavior of the brainWe wish to explain.Looking further back in our conversation,I see we can further relieve Thoughts’ symbol grounding consternation.Cuttlefish: They argue, wheedle, cajole, and strain / To reduce consciousness to some function of the brain. / Why should I be convinced that there is something in the neural net that creates me / When I use the terms of consciousness to say my computer hates me?It seems to me we both agreeOn computational models of the mind.I’m open too, to try the viewThat culture wrote the software of mankind.I must confess Aristotle’s regressI broke by tying symbols back to feelings,But Cuttlefish, you’ve made me wishI’d seen a ground of culture as appealing.I note it seems free-floating memesCan terminate the meaning of a meaningIn thoughts of old that gained a holdAnd stuck around through evolution’s screening.So some thoughts root in culture’s fruitAnd some thoughts ground their meanings in sensations.A Cartesian soul need not fill this roleFor a person with Mysterian temptations.(Philosophical aside:If a man speaks in a forest clearingAnd there’s no wife within hearingIs he still wrong?)
Thoughts
March 1, 2009 at 7:56 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
We gaze at stars in a dark skyLikes lights on a firmamentNothing moving in the warm airNothing moving..Is DarknessSurrounding us Nothingness?What behaviour did this blackness indulgeThat it might itself divulge?Did it walk out of the sky And strike you in your naked eye?—————(All experience is physicalBut need not be dynamicalIt could be geometricalOr even quantum physical).—————Gilbert Ryle knew that every conscious thinker oughtTo preface each and every thoughtWith the thought that sought that thoughtHe realised this was such a messHe called it Ryle’s RegressBut Descartes knew that thoughts arise Unbidden, as the brain’s surpriseSo Ryle and his pupil Dennett say regress denies the mindBut Berkeley points out that mind is of a passive kindCertainly our inner speechIs no conscious creationIts origins are out of reachOf conscious contemplationEach word appears made by machineBy neural automationSo inner speech is not your being———–Perhaps behaviour ends in feelingsBut what feels a feeling?How much would you feel in no time at all?Why is time revealingIf someone is kind or cruel?How do you hear a whole word?Do you extend in time like space,Are feelings in a space-time place,Or is experience absurd?
Phunicular
March 1, 2009 at 9:37 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Thoughts: But Descartes knew that thoughts arise / Unbidden, as the brain’s surprisePlease, just walk away, René.Your quotes are obsolete today.For what you knew about our brains(Like maggots sourced from food-remainsIn Aristotle’s “History”)Was just your guess at mystery.And Berkeley too, a clever guy,Lived in a time when armchair-phiWas all the rage. Put that to bed.He had no tools to scan a head.Thoughts: So Ryle and his pupil Dennett say regress denies the mindDear Thoughts, read closer. Then you’ll findThat Ryle did not deny the mind.He merely noted that the splitOf mind and body didn’t fit.(To say, by using modern tools,That blood is made of moleculesWould not in any way denyThat humans have a blood supply!)But one denial he can boast:He kicked out an unhelpful ghost.Empiricism’s great to claim(And “New” just forms a different name)But for your title to make senseYou must address the evidenceAccrued in bulk these last ten yearsFrom science opening new frontiers.
Thoughts
March 1, 2009 at 10:11 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
I see you resortTo the pejorative retort,Attacking Descartes for being oldAnd even Ryle is left in the coldYes, fMRI shows that imagining is like visionAnd inner speech like speech and auditionSo the brain maketh mind But what has it made?What matter, what spaceAnd where is it laid? How do you hear a whole word or see the space of darkness?Consider this:We have experienceThat experience is simultaneous thingsSimultaneous things are a spacePhysicalism means all things are physicalTherefore experience is a real physical space-timeWhere is it?Or are you a mystical materialist?
Phunicular
March 1, 2009 at 6:31 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Thoughts: Attacking Descartes for being old.If I asked you to write of a photon in flightAnd Newtonian ways you extolled,Were I then to invite you to get your sums right,Am I wrong to regard Newton “old”?I’ve respect for Descartes. Yes I know he was smartBut there’s things that he couldn’t have known.Will you tie your self back to René’s knowledge lackBy denying our knowledge has grown?Thoughts: That experience is simultaneous thingsI’m the first to concede that at very high speedOur concept of simultaneityWithin different frames leads to different claims.It’s a mind-screwing jolt for the laity.My vision proceeds at mere chemical speedsAnd my neurons all share the one frame.If they were to part (in a big bang-like fart)My “experience” would not be the same.Thoughts: Physicalism means all things are physical / Therefore experience is a real physical space-time / Where is it? / Or are you a mystical materialist?You seem discontented at sense representedBy interconnections of cells.I don’t find it tragic when facts replace magicIt’s all about breaking the spells.I think you’d do well to try Eric Kandel,Ramachandran, Dan Dennett, and Pinker,E.T.Jaynes, then some rubies in Cosmides and ToobyBefore you unravel the thinker.
Thoughts
March 2, 2009 at 4:55 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Tendon reflexRighting reflexReaction timesDriving cars without thinkingWalking home after drinkingHating limesAll these can be doneBy my digital brain But true observationSmooth sight without grainWithout superpositionIn dreams and sensationIs another thing againBrain maketh mindBut according to ZehThe QM point of mind might make brainAs a collapse of wave again and againWho’s to say?Dennett and the restRouse the rabbleBut surely they jestWhen they dabbleIn problems that afflict all philosophyDennett (1999) says:”A curious anachronism found in many but not all of these reactionaries is that to the extent that they hold out any hope at all of solution to the problem (or problems) of consciousness, they speculate that it will come not from biology or cognitive science, but from–of all things!–physics”And so displays A total failure to realise that the problem of conscious observation is a global problem that affects the entire corpus of philosophy and natural science and will not be answered by his Newtonian prejudices. The philosophy of change, space, time, matter and causality are all affected by the final resolution of the problem of the nature of the conscious observer. Dennett, D. (1999). “The Zombic Hunch: Extinction of an Intuition?”, Royal Institute of Philosophy Millennial Lecture http://ase.tufts.edu/cogstud/papers/zombic.htmZeh, H. D. (1979). Quantum Theory and Time Assymetry. Foundations of Physics, Vol 9, pp 803-818 (1979).http://xxx.lanl.gov/PS_cache/quant-ph/pdf/0307/0307013.pdf
Thoughts
March 2, 2009 at 5:07 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Zeh has moved to http://xxx.lanl.gov/abs/quant-ph/0307013
Thoughts
March 2, 2009 at 7:22 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
I missed that you had saidHow we see the colour red:Phuncicular: “My vision proceeds at mere chemical speedsAnd my neurons all share the one frame.If they were to part (in a big bang-like fart)My “experience” would not be the same.”I ask for no magicJust a simple theoryTo be blind to the problem is tragicPerhaps you can see it more clearlyAnd tell me exactly:What is the physical transformation from nerve impulses in a mass of neurons to phenomenal experience? (ie: how does a set of membrane depolarisations become the space in experience that is a slab of blackness in a dark night?).
Phunicular
March 2, 2009 at 9:41 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Thoughts: But true observation / Smooth sight without grain / Without superposition / In dreams and sensation / Is another thing againExperiments agree our peripheral visionLacks color – it’s testing that tells.Yet we think that we see with an even precision -Delusion computed by cells.What leads you to think that smooth image deceptionFalls out of the reach of a brain?How the Mind Works, S. Pinker, makes photon receptionTo 2.5-D less arcane. *Having done my fair share of clean image constructionFrom grainy and noisy realityI can see no great scare stopping model productionIn the links of vast neuron plurality.* Pinker, S. (1997) How the Mind Works, Chapter 4: The Mind’s Eye.Thoughts: Dennett and the rest / Rouse the rabble / But surely they jest / When they dabble / In problems that afflict all philosophyYour philosophy can never growUntil you work out what to throw.The symbol grounding problem’s grounded;How can it be that you’re still hounded?And “quantum” magic you opine(Like Penrose back in ’89)But studies show our brain parts workWithout a hint of QM Turk.Thoughts: And so displays / A total failure to realise that the problem of conscious observation is a global problem that affects the entire corpus of philosophy and natural science…Dennett shows a total failure to fall for misconceived impasses.Lots of problems still persist from skipping neuroscience classes.Thoughts (in yet another post that finally strains my ability to versify): And tell me exactly: / What is the physical transformation from nerve impulses in a mass of neurons to phenomenal experience? (ie: how does a set of membrane depolarisations become the space in experience that is a slab of blackness in a dark night?).Of course you’re aware that the qualia problem’s unsolved (and might remain so), so why do you think that the current lack of an answer could somehow support your anti-Dennett stance? QM provides absolutely no help there. Any proposed hitherto-unobserved physical science will have problems connecting measurable quantities with experience in exactly the same way current science does.Dennett dissolves part of the qualia issue by showing that nobody can consistently define what they mean by qualia, and points out how most of the perceived problem is illusory*. He does at least propose an experimental methodology for further investigation.*Dennett, D. (2005) Sweet Dreams: Philosophical Obstacles to a Science of ConsciousnessIf you’d like to see a demolition of zombies and property dualism, try Zombies! Zombies?. I can’t look a p-zombie in the face after digesting Yudkowsky’s analysis.
Cuttlefish
March 2, 2009 at 11:22 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
(in yet another post that finally strains my ability to versify)Lemme give it a shot.The nature of your question presupposes your position;The “phenomenal” you’re after is an artifact of word;Descartes approached the problem in a dualist tradition—With the progress of neurology, that view is now absurd.A photon is reflected from a stimulus that’s distal;Through the pupil, lens, and humors to the retina it goes,Where a rod or cone transduces it, to fire like a pistolTo bipolar cells and ganglia, as everybody knows.At the level of the retina, already there are featuresWhich are processed by the structures that we call the visual fields;Light is processed very differently by different sorts of creaturesSo that information useful to their situation yields.Now a signal (or “potential”) shoots along the optic neuronThen through processing in parallel in many different waysSuch as color, edges, faces, on and on and more obscure on—Read some Sacks or Ramachandran if you can, one of these days.From occipital to temporal, and on up to the frontalBack and forth, with constant feedback, now the signal makes its wayWith perhaps a verbal output, though the answer that you want’llStill elude you, cos you’re looking for a view that’s had its day.The majority of processing is out of our awareness(And “the feeling of awareness” has its processing as well!)We cannot feel the process, just results, and so in fairnessIntrospection as a method simply doesn’t work that well.At no point in the process is “an image” there for viewing,Nor a “self” to view the image, which is really no surprise;To demand an explanation for what you think we are doingIs equivalent to asking how the sun can truly rise!A perceptual illusion doesn’t mean that something’s missing—What it means is merely something isn’t what it seemed at firstThere’s no need to be Cartesian now, unless we’re reminiscing,And there’s nothing there but trouble in the bubble we have burst.
Phunicular
March 2, 2009 at 7:22 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Cuttlefish: Lemme give it a shot.Thanks Cuttlefish. I shouldn’t writeAt 1am – the dead of night.It’s great to see how Cuttle-senseCan fill the gaps with eloquence.Zeh: 5. THE PHYSICAL EVENT OF OBSERVATIONA phenomenon is “observed” when an observer becomes aware of it. Thisrequires the observed system to affect the ultimate observer system, which is known to be localized in the brain and probably in the cerebral cortex.This was no time for sleep;This was no time to eat;There were comments to writeUsing metrical feet.All that old, old, old phi -All that phi had to die.We shoveled the verses;Thoughts shoveled them back,Until out of the blue came a Quantum Attack.It was Little Cat Zeh, a dualist dealerAnd out of his hat he extracted A Wheeler!Zeh implied "Let's make space for a god of the gaps:All things that my Wheeler observes must collapse!"You see, if we grant this wild Wheeler admissionAnd let his conceit go, then superpositionDescends on all universe parts unobservedAnd keeps all their possible presents preserved."Oh no!" I said, "Cuttle, please fetch me a mop.This anthropocentric conceit has to stop!"I called up a friend who'd seen all this beforeAnd told him the problem…Copernicus swore.
Thoughts
March 3, 2009 at 7:09 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Dennett defeatedIn nineteen ninety eightDennett makes his big mistakeHe shifts qualia from what is thereTo the ‘judgement of events’This shift is hardly fairAnd out of hand preventsDiscussion of qualia wherePhilosophers have their careA problem is not solved by redefinitionAnd Dennett descends to base eruditionIn nineteen ninety twoIn his opus magnus trueHe says the brain of manHas no cutaneous rabbitOr phi illusions other thanOutside the body and habitBut in twenty oh sixBlankenburg and Larsen provedThe rabbit’s in the brainAnd the lights are on againDennett is disprovedThe mind has played no tricksThe brain models illusionAnd mind sees its profusionAnd perceptual filling inIs the new neuroscience sceneSo you see Dennett’s thesis lies in tatters on the groundBut still infects young minds from the books that lie aroundReferencesDaniel C Dennett. (1988). Quining Qualia. in A. Marcel and E. Bisiach, eds, Consciousness in Modern Science, Oxford University Press 1988. Reprinted in W. Lycan, ed., Mind and Cognition: A Reader, MIT Press, 1990, A. Goldman, ed. Readings in Philosophy and Cognitive Science, MIT Press, 1993. http://ase.tufts.edu/cogstud/papers/quinqual.htmIn this paper Dennett: "The infallibilist line on qualia treats them as properties of one's experience one cannot in principle misdiscover, and this is a mysterious doctrine (at least as mysterious as papal infal libility) unless we shift the emphasis a little and treat qualia as logical constructs out of subjects' qualia-judgments: a subject's experience has the quale F if and only if the subject judges his experience to have quale F.". This is the basis for his subsequent work.Dennett, D. and Kinsbourne, M. (1992) Time and the Observer: the Where and When of Consciousness in the Brain. (1992) Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 15, 183-247, 1992. Reprinted in The Philosopher's Annual, Grim, Mar and Williams, eds., vol. XV-1992, 1994, pp. 23-68; Noel Sheehy and Tony Chapman, eds., Cognitive Science, Vol. I, Elgar, 1995, pp.210-274.http://ase.tufts.edu/cogstud/papers/time&obs.htmBlankenburg, F., Ruff, C.C., Deichmann, R., Rees, G. and Driver, J. (2006) The cutaneous rabbit illusion affects human primary sensory cortex somatotopically, PLoS Biol 2006;4(3):e69.Larsen, A., Madsen, K.H., Lund, T.E., and Bundesen, C. (2006). Images of Illusory Motion in Primary Visual Cortex. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience. 2006;18:1174-1180.———————————–Cuttlefish says:“A perceptual illusion doesn’t mean that something’s missing—What it means is merely something isn’t what it seemed at firstThere’s no need to be Cartesian now, unless we’re reminiscing,And there’s nothing there but trouble in the bubble we have burst.”But as you will see above here againIt is Dennett’s bubble that has burstIllusions are brain activity at firstAnd your mind is the product of brainThe brain fills in the gapsWith topological mapsA point two to point five second delayAllows the brain to have its sayBut leaves the mind behind the timesAs Libet’s passive observer Which brings us to Tegmark and ZehDecoherence sinks The conscious mind that thinksAs Ryle had already assayed.But passive observationIs not contemplationAnd Tegmark’s sums dont applyPerhaps mind’s the preferred basisAs Barrett seems to espyEpilogueIf observation is a spaceAnd it is made by brainsThen hypotheses must be in placeFor how pulses give rise to pains Scientists observe the worldThey measure, describe and lookThey wait for data to be unfurledAnd do not just read a bookThey describe what they seeThen make hypotheses explicitThey do not use school cosmologyTo simply dismiss itThey operate empiricallyThis mind, this simultaneous space, this time is thineDo not treat it unphysicallyreferencesBarrett (2005) The Preferred-Basis Problem and the Quantum Mechanics of Everything. The British Journal for the Philosophy of Science Advance Access published online on May 16, 2005The British Journal for the Philosophy of Science, doi:10.1093/bjps/axi114
Thoughts
March 3, 2009 at 7:31 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
PS: “Dennett Defeated” should have started “In nineteen eighty eight”!
Thoughts
March 3, 2009 at 7:36 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
PPS: On the zombie issue, see Progressive replacement of the brain which deals with the origin of Chalmer’s zombie argument.
Phunicular
March 3, 2009 at 9:14 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Thoughts,In your haste to leave Dan dead,To find some fault in what he’s said,You’ve claimed “The mind has played no tricks”In sensing where the rabbit kicks.I don’t think Dennett would agree.Look carefully. I think you’ll findYou’ve just declared your PSC*Is not part of your mind!You’ve sung that Chinese Room refrainBy carving off one slice of brainTo push a subtle “conscious part”To just beyond our art.* Primary Somatosensory Cortex(Life is busy. By and byI’ll find the time for more reply.)
Thoughts
March 3, 2009 at 10:15 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Yes indeed,”A subtle conscious partIs just beyond our art”!
Cuttlefish
March 3, 2009 at 5:00 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
It frustrates me a bit, to findThis parsing out of “what is mind”Seems always, always to have missedThat I am no reductionist!I am no fool; I won’t denyThe brain’s importance. Ah, but IWould argue that is just one part,But so’s the gut, and so’s the heart.There is no brain that acts alone—At least, not any I have known.The consciousness phenomenaAre everyday and common—aDescription of one’s life, it seems,Both wide awake and in our dreams.The consciousness we must explainIs product of much more than brain!A wider scope, and not more narrow,Serves as target for our arrow.(Explanations claiming “quantum”?We don’t need, and much less want ‘em;The level that we need—behavior—Is not quantum; it can’t save yerTheory, just because it’s hardTo fathom. We can disregardThe quantum stuff as misconstruedBy several leaps of magnitude.)The consciousness vocabularyIsn’t technical or scary;Rather, it’s the common tongueWe learned while we were very young;We’re taught our anger, love, and prideBy people with no view inside.To their thoughts we were likewise blind,And yet we learned to label “mind”.But how to learn what makes up “red”Without a view from head to head?Or hunger, sadness, even painWithout a window to the brain?We learn the things that make us usThrough public, common stimulus;There is no disembodied “blue”,But things we learned to call that hue;When looking at your “mind” today,Reflect on how it got that way;The learning that took many years,Not mere arrangement of the gears.So much of mental mysteryReveals itself in history,Which, if we choose to disregard,Makes consciousness appear the “HardProblem”, as Chalmers so labeled,A lofty problem, nearly fabled.It’s “hard” because it asks to findPhysical cause for mental mind.(The answer I would give—surprise!—Is one the question plain denies,As if rotation of the earthCould not explain the eastern birthAnd western death of each day’s sunAs well as Phoebus’s chariot run.)Our language speaks of mental stuff;For many, that would seem enough,And “images” and “memories”And reified ideas like theseAre what we’re challenged to explainA task which we’d pursue in vainLike capturing a unicornOr finding where a gryphon’s born.Reductionist neurologistsBy now have plenty on their listsExplaining this or that or theseIn all the detail that you pleaseReducing Y to lots of XCan simplify or make complex,But if you’re simply changing levels,Such “explanation” just bedevils.The problem, if it’s there to findIs solved in how we learn our mind.It won’t be found in EEG’sOr PET scans, CAT scans, none of these—Oh, yes, we’ll learn some awesome stuff, But, at that level? Not enough.“Physical mind” is not just contradiction—It’s sending us all on a chase for a fiction!
Thoughts
March 4, 2009 at 4:37 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
What we are we areAnd already we knowWhat it is to beDennett mocks it as “folk psychology”I cannot reduce what is with my descriptive scienceAll I make is modelsBut I can tell you thisYou’ll not model meWith any FET or tranny!
Phunicular
March 4, 2009 at 5:54 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Thoughts: I cannot reduce what is with my descriptive science / All I make is models / But I can tell you this / You’ll not model me / With any FET or tranny!Argumentum ad consequentiam seems unwieldy and hollowTo shield one’s self-image from a pill one can’t swallow.
Cuttlefish
March 4, 2009 at 9:47 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Thoughts:What we are we areAnd already we knowWhat it is to beDennett mocks it as “folk psychology”I have no eyes to look behindAnd view my brain, much less my mind;I cannot know your thoughts, and youAre blind to what I’m thinking, too.These are the facts; we can’t denyWe have no working “inner eye”Nor any form of ESP;Your thoughts cannot be seen by me.Your claim—that we can know ourselves—Is countered by the miles of shelvesOf self-help books. Our knowledge hidesFrom where you tell us it resides!If we could simply take a lookInside our minds, why need a book?We’d never ask “How do I feel?Could this be love? Could it be real?”If God or Science offered meSome cranial transparencySo you could see my every thought—The change of mind; the urge I fought,The censored comment never spoken,Secret kept and promise broken—What fabled treasures! Wondrous finds,If we could read each other’s minds!But we cannot. Make no mistake,Our skulls and minds are both opaqueWe do, instead, what we can do;We read the things in public viewWe see the song, the poem, the kiss;Infer from these that love is this.In turn, each element we findWe sum, and call the total “mind”.If I could see inside my head,(A place where angels fear to tread)And see how thinking really works,The jumble of selected quirksAnd if (what wonders “if” can do!)I saw inside your thinking tooI think that I should never seeWhat now makes up philosophy.
Thoughts
March 5, 2009 at 9:24 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
An eloquent testimonyOn the impossibilityOf virtual realityIt would be true if it were not the caseThat virtual realities are a commonplaceEven the simplest servo has reference statesAnd detailed maps are used inside The depths of any system that navigatesThe GPS becomes a pale asideAs the mapper computatesOur experience is unlike the world itselfThe object is not as it appearsThe geometry is not as it seemsThe content is encodedHallucinations and dreams occurWe imagine, we have inner speechYet against all observationThe materialist aversThat the object that he only knows,Through senses narrow sensitivity,Is the object in itselfAnd yet the red object is not red,Red is reflectedThe retina has respondedIt is not heavy, It is the muscles that are stretchedIt is not odorous, It is the nose is stimulatedIt is not coarse, It is the skin that is scratchedIt is not consolingThat is remembranceIt does not hurtThat is painThere is not even reason to reject The observation of our brainIf from school cosmology we refrainOver time we will perfectA theory to explainThe self observation that we detectThose who believe that only the object of sense existsHave some strange agenda that persistsPast any reasonBut note this clearlyScience is about relationsIt never has the essence of a thingSo your fears that explanationsWill reduction bringAre unfounded remonstrationsThe number twoCan be two of anythingIt is only when two’s in youThat you understand the thing
Cuttlefish
March 5, 2009 at 11:28 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
It seems to me philosophers have somewhat been seducedBy the metaphor of storage, and conclusions it implies.The self, itself, it promises, is something that’s producedVia information transfer in that blob behind our eyes.All too often this assumption underlies their exploration;The conclusions that it leads to seem a normal path to followBut inherent in the metaphor is one sort of explanation;By removing those assumptions, it’s a tougher bite to swallow.If the structure of the person helps to form what’s introspected(And the social and environmental atmosphere as well)Then feelings, thoughts, or memories just cannot be dissectedFrom the person as a whole, as information one could tell.“Ah, but that’s just further information”, I have seen in practice,When I try this explanation—and I want to pull my hair—You could stuff it in, of course, but it’s like sitting on a cactus:Just because it can be sat on, doesn’t mean the thing’s a chair.
Thoughts
March 6, 2009 at 5:20 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
A model of time like cards in a deckIs a recursion lurkingYou end up by saying “oh what the heck”And explanation’s wantingBut time is not parallel planesOf three dimensional stasisTime is also time for a changeThat new theory chasesIf time does existThen the world perduresI do not just persistEven though my memory enduresBut I am no simple Sider stage Time is not a positive dimensionAnd to see this 2D pageNeeds geometric manipulation You are not an answer endlessly chasing a questionBoth question and answer in time extendTo solve the recursing confusionAnd to see the past does not portendAny more than that space and time dependOn each other in a continuumAnd that time is a negative dimension*It is amazing to the likes of meThat people ignore time extended.In the twenty first centuryIts time we no longer pretendedThat only the “now” is “it”When time like space can divideThe quantum double slit”Just further information”Is a transfer from sight to siteBut somewhere this motionMay undergo respitePerhaps a brain can be self awareAnd bathed in its own trans-temporal lightPerhaps notBut to brazenly declareThat experience is impossibleOr is simply “what is”Is an attachment to the cosmologicalTo nineteenth century material bliss* Following Weyl’s usage, time is a negative dimension because Pythagoras’ theorem for time ish^2 = r^2 MINUS T^2(where T=ct)See:Attosecond double slit experiment(Double slit in time)http://prola.aps.org/abstract/PRL/v95/i4/e040401Is there an alternative to the block universe view? http://philsci-archive.pitt.edu/archive/00002408/Wikibook on Special Relativity:http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Special_Relativity
Phunicular
March 6, 2009 at 10:48 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Quantum computing abhors decoherence;It’s there with no conscious observer to see.Still there are mystics with stubborn adherenceTo quantum descriptions that need me or thee.Puzzles abound at the limits of science:Mysterious cans full of worms to mislead.Why mix up disparate cans in defianceOf reason, experiment, logic or need?Mind in behavior and cells and potentialsIs yielding a torrent of useful results.Clutching at yet unexplored non-essentialsWorks better for book-deals and starting new cults.
Thoughts
March 7, 2009 at 7:41 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
You might be amusedIf the basics of physicsCould be perusedSome people are trying to bring modern science education up to date, its now over a century behind the times for 18 year olds.See:Ogborn, K. and Taylor, E.F. (2005). Quantum Physics explains Newton’s lawsof motion. Physics education. 40(1) 26-34.Taylor in particular is making a considerable effort in this direction http://www.eftaylor.com/leastaction.htmlPeople don’t realise that even magnetism and kinetic energy (ie: the whole of dynamics) are relativistic effects at ordinary velocities Special Relativity and magnetism.
Phunicular
March 7, 2009 at 8:03 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Thoughts, I’ve no problems with quantum mechanics;Equations don’t give me cold sweats or mild panics.It’s mystics like Zeh to whom I objectWith their quantumly conscious observer effect.
Thoughts
March 8, 2009 at 7:11 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
It is probably time to leave this pageWhen the founder of modern decoherence theory,A notable sage,Is mocked for being culty and drearyIt is no surprise that certaintyIs the currencyOf the computer ageIt could still be eighteen ninety nine philosophically
Phunicular
March 8, 2009 at 9:03 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Thoughts,If you want to criticizeAttempts to philosophizeYou’ll then have to agreeYour appeals to authorityWould be more at home BCE.Philosophers, both old and new,Find evidence convincing too.I pointed you to recent findsThat decoherence needs no minds.I’m sorry that old QM pioneersIncluded myths that stood too many years.It’s time to cease unquestioning relianceOn theories that have now been dropped by science.Suggested reading: Quantum Physics Revealed As Non-Mysterious
Thoughts
March 11, 2009 at 8:28 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Your reference:http://www.overcomingbias.com/2008/05/projection.html“The appearance of “probability” in deterministic amplitude evolutions, as we now know, is due to decoherence. Each time a photon was blocked, some other you saw it go through. Each time a photon went through, some other you saw it blocked.”Saunders points out that:”Zeh is engaged in a polemic against those who see in the decoherent historiesapproach a one-history solution of the problem of measurement, with no appealto Everett’ ideas. In fact he endorses a radical version of relativism, based onthe dynamical decoherence theory, save in the crucial respect that he appealsto the common-sense notion of change. But now he is not about to say any-thing about probability: given that we have a “dynamically independent wavepacket” let us suppose the packet divides in two, with unequal amplitudes. Thiscorresponds to a bifurcating history with unequal relations in norm. In whatsense is ”…..” more likely to go one way or the other, and what is ”…..”? “”Time, Quantum Mechanics, and Decoherence”, Synthese, 102, 235-66 (1995)Remember that history is multipleAs well as the futureThe interesting problem here is what makes “you”. Suppose you were trying to recall a name And on the basis of retrieving it againSome person would be pleased or blueHow many synapses does such a recall require? If the name is on the tip of your tongue, how many quanta must expireBefore the offending deed is done?A few or even one to release a tongue’s tip? A universe might change on such a slipAnd where do you go when such an event occurs?Time exists so a life thread is dividedWhen one event your life prefersTo the other thats providedBut what is this temporal thread?But the basis that hosts decoherenceAs through history we treadBut without classical Minkowski time There is no appearanceOf events that lead to another or that willMake a difference between the fleeting and the stillAnd as our minds contain nothing but the pastIs it this thread of mind that makes our local world at last?Remember that history is multipleAs well as the future and at each instant might be made anewIf the thread of time did not exist in you
Cuttlefish
March 11, 2009 at 4:17 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Although it’s true, the quirks of quarksAre what we find when we reduceThe laws of rocks, of tuning forks,Of cats, of cars, of orange juice,The truth is, if I know the quirksOf quarks, and qualms of quantum statesThey don’t tell how my pencil worksOr what to do with roller skates.If (knock on wood) my car should stallAnd leave me stranded in a panicThere’s many folks whom I could call,But none of them a quantum mechanic.Explosive oxidation ofThe hydrocarbon moleculesIs many many leaps aboveThe quantum tale of fossil fuels;If, at my car, some stranger spokeOf many-worlds hypothesesInstead of just: “your fuel pump’s broke”He might as well speak Japanese.Indeed, if one is told a taleOf how an engine burns its gas,Of how exhaust comes out the tail,Of how they make the windshield glass,Of shock absorbers, front disc brakes,All sorts of automotive prattleIt would not tell which road one takesFrom Albuquerque to Seattle—Which, if that was what one needs,Is how the answer should be phrased;Reductionism here impedes,And only leaves ones eyeballs glazed.The actions of a single nerveOr even of a given pieceOf one, we clearly may observe—Say, neurotransmitter release—Where ACH or dopamineReleased in the synaptic cleftBy vesicles, which we have seen,A process at which cells are deft;The process may be understoodAt many different levels, suchAs cell, or body, or a goodExample of a chemist’s touch; An organ’s function, or perhapsA function in some social act—Each level different, each one mapsA different view of one same truth.The quantum level cannot sayThe others now do not exist;Reducing won’t explain awayA higher explanation’s gist.Your quantum invocation meansYou simply wish our current viewsLeft something there behind the scenes—Some agent, with the power to choose.Alas, there’s nothing there to find;This entity does not existNo moral agent, causal mindThat all of science must have missed.The science shows no secret curse,No need to travel back in timeTo save Cartesian minds—and worse, We’ve done it, once again, in rhyme.
Thoughts
March 13, 2009 at 12:11 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
“Of quarks, and qualms of quantum statesThey don’t tell how my pencil worksOr what to do with roller skates.”Well they do tell exactly thisThe graphite’s gentle slipIs an act of quantum blissAnd without Minkowski no skate may tripElegant Windmills were madeBefore young Newton raised his spade!But if you wish to comprehendWhen babies become beingsOr a man should meet his endYou must go beyond what seemsChange without observers cannot be explainedBut again the materialist complains That such problems are immaterialAs if change were simply etherealThe quantum basis state is mighty strangeBut the die hard materialist avowsThat explanations of how this is arrangedAre philosopher’s holy cows The Chinese Room and regressAre widely accepted queriesBut materialists digress”There are no other cosmologiesbut those that we were taught in schoolSo belief in mind is the belief of a fool”I can make a Turing machine From ball bearings on a beltThis machine can be seenTo copy computations dealtBy any PC or organic brainSo the poor functionalist must make the claim that a steel ball is quite the sameAs the materialist’s brainAll I say is this:There is an empirical experience that we call mindAnd a cosmology that makes you dismiss anything of the kindThis placing theory above observation is hubrisAnd the claim that this belief is “scientific”Is nothing short of plain horrific!
Cuttlefish
March 13, 2009 at 3:18 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
“Well they do tell exactly thisThe graphite’s gentle slipIs an act of quantum blissAnd without Minkowski no skate may trip”The graphite’s slip is just the same,With this view thrust upon it,If I should merely sign my nameOr write a quantum sonnet!Your answer serves to illustrateMy problem with your view:I think that answers should relateTo questions—how ‘bout you?To speak in terms of “gentle slip”Describes the graphite’s flaking,But not the path my pencil’s tipAcross the page is making.Description of the finest kindIs still not explanation;Not pencil tips, and not the mind—That’s misinterpretation!You act as if reducing mindTo quantum-level lawsAllowed a person thus to findA true internal cause!But this, of course, is not the case—One only finds description!(A simple fact, which you must faceAnd not have a conniption.)Our explanations, grounded inThe world that we can see,Are where we fruitfully beginTo find what mind must be.(I also see, parenthetically,A view that you ascribe to meThat does not sound like mine at allA strawman, rather, built to fall–In searching my views for contradiction,Please have a care not to tilt at a fiction!)
Phunicular
March 13, 2009 at 10:31 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Thoughts: “There is an empirical experience that we call mind / And a cosmology that makes you dismiss anything of the kind”Mind exists. It deserves explanation,Not a stream of obtuse obfuscation.All the dualist triesTo hide minds in the skiesHave resulted in fact-free frustration.Thoughts: “Change without observers cannot be explained”Thoughts: “This placing theory above observation is hubris”Thoughts, I have already notedThat QM works not how you’ve quoted.You’re looking for gapsSuch as conscious collapse,But reality’s already voted.The guys doing quantum encryptionsUse ego-free QM descriptions.A snoop with no brainStill upsets the code train.Mind-myths leave these guys in conniptions.Think back thirteen billions of yearsBefore consciousness ever appears -Do you think the first pairTo become self-awareCould collapse all events in arrears?If so, then encryption is busted,Using QM that’s not mind-adjusted.Must we all be retrainedSince theories that reignedFifty years ago have to be trusted?Sorry, QM is not that mysterious.Your need to update is now seriousTo further your aims.Just restating old claimsMakes comments sound glib and imperious.Thoughts, do you really still believe that consciousness is a required part of quantum mechanics, despite the recent evidence? Or do you have some other recent evidence to resuscitate the idea? Or are you clinging to a convoluted non-disprovable interpretation that adds as much to QM as the Omphalos hypothesis added to discussions of origins?
Thoughts
March 17, 2009 at 8:51 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Please explain, I both of you entreatHow we see the world simultaneouslyAlthough this is an impossible feat,forbidden by relativityIf seeing is where particles meetExplain if you willHow if there is but the present instantWe can know anything at allWhen for no time at all nothing is extantAs for the preferred basis of the quantumThere is a problem thereThinking of this problem is not wantonAnd the anthropic existence of observers nowCan be invoked to explain howThe world occurred that we love and share*But most of all explainhow change occursWithout assuming change againWhat is quite certainIs that Dennett’s strong AIInterpretationOf the nature of you and IIs reductionist beyond imaginationIt reduces explanationTo the science of a century past Has no predictive power at lastAnd simply rejects observationHow can “Brights” say that:Mind is not a problem because it does not existSingle channel Turing tapes are not a problem, ask any emergentistPreferred basis is not a problem, ask any pet physicistChange is not a problem we’ll just not think of thisTime is not a problem – for any closet presentistRegress is not a problem denying mind dismisses thisDeny, deny, deny dismissIs that the route to intellectual bliss?There is an empirical experience that we call mindAnd a cosmology that makes you dismiss anything of the kindMy plea is simplyTo avoid cosmological conformityAnd study mind scientifically* I would propose that it is the geometrical form of our universe, a form that allows point observers, that has selected our particular universe.
Phunicular
March 18, 2009 at 8:12 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Thoughts: “Please explain, I both of you entreat / How we see the world simultaneously / Although this is an impossible feat, / forbidden by relativity / If seeing is where particles meet”You might as well ask me why elephants fly,And if their ears pop on assent.The answer is simple: however they try,An elephant’s earthbound – 100 percent.The things that you say are forbidden are not.You’re making stuff up as you go.On others’ opinions you’re cloying a clotIn the hope that confusion continues to grow.It’s clear when I’ve pointed in previous verseTo the reasons your mind-myths don’t washThat you’ve taken no heed – you restate the obverse.You have stuff in your head you’re unwilling to quash.Thoughts: if you’ll either acknowledge that consciousness isn’t required in a quantum description, or explain how you resolve it with current quantum encryption technology, this discussion could continue in a rational form. If you’re planning to merely deny any recent evidence, there’s no point proceeding.
Thoughts
March 19, 2009 at 2:05 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
I have never claimed, Unlike yourself or DennettThat all can be explainedThats not my tenetI hoped my faltering verseWould open your eyesAnd lead to the obverseThat it is no surpriseThat Newtonian concepts you will findAre insufficient to explain mindOn your QM point both many minds and universesHave the same PredictionsFor quantum encryptionsMany universes has a brainThat splits at instantsAnd can explainQM decoherenceIn fact I am puzzled why you askAbout qm encryption at allIt is an Everettian taskAnd does not cast a pallOver any part of our discussionMy point was solelyHow Zeh and Zurek's theoryIs not wholly explanatoryIndeed, it opens up a whole new zoneOf preferred basis discussionsThat philosophers will honeAnd weigh for repercussionsI do not understand how you believeThat decoherence theory has solvedOr even how it might relieveThe view that has evolvedThat Everrett's ideaNeeds some sort of selectionTo reach theoretical perfectionThe observer does not create the worldBut as Zeh and others after sayIt may select the world thats unfurledOr be part of the mixThat makes the basis matrixWe do not knowWe must not deny or just dismissTo maintain our Newtonian blissMy point throughout is that mindInvolves many problems in philosophyIt is not simply a problem of the computing kindSolved by Dennett's simplicityI do not know the answers I sayYou say you doBut the problems dont go awaySee "The preferred basis problem is arguably a more serious problem for a splitting-worlds reading of Everett. In order to explain our determinate measurement records, the theory requires one to choose a preferred basis so that observers have determinate records (or determinate experiences) in each term of the quantum-mechanical state as expressed in this basis. "http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/qm-everett/ (2007)"..Zurek's argument does not show how Schrodinger dynamics, by itself, picks out a preferred set of projection operators that sum to unity"Stapp, Henry P. (2002) The basis problem in many-worlds theories. The Canadian Journal of Physics .http://209.85.229.132/search?q=cache:0bfFzjLoc94J:www-physics.lbl.gov/~stapp/p%257Fbp.%257F%257F%251B%255BD%251B%255BD%251B%255BD%251B%255BD%251B%255BD%251B%255BD%251B%255BD%251B%255BD%251B%255BD%251B%255BD%257F%257F%257F%257F%257F%257F+The+basis+problem+in+many-worlds+theories&cd=7&hl=enOn a physical metatheory of consciousnesshttp://www.arxiv.org/pdf/quant-ph/0010042
Thoughts
March 19, 2009 at 2:56 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
“You’re making stuff up as you go.On others’ opinions you’re cloying a clot”Well thanks,But you never answered any question nor referenced any statement.I must stop this now before I become fully insulted!
Phunicular
March 19, 2009 at 7:40 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Me: “You’re making stuff up as you go. / On others’ opinions you’re cloying a clot”Thoughts: “Well thanks, / But you never answered any question nor referenced any statement. / I must stop this now before I become fully insulted!”Sorry, I should have been more specific. I was referring to your claim:”How can “Brights” say that: / Mind is not a problem because it does not exist”Which is a strawman you’ve erected to help you launch into a chorus of “Deny, deny, deny dismiss / Is that the route to intellectual bliss?”It’s the same erroneous claim you made earlier when you said:”So Ryle and his pupil Dennett say regress denies the mind”.To which I replied “Dear Thoughts, read closer. Then you’ll find / That Ryle did not deny the mind. / He merely noted that the split / Of mind and body didn’t fit.”If you continue to misrepresent opposing arguments, you’ll never understand them. I was also explicitly referring to “How we see the world simultaneously / Although this is an impossible feat, / forbidden by relativity / If seeing is where particles meet”That claim of an “impossible feat” is, as I say, “just making stuff up”. There is no contradiction implicit in what we perceive (via our known-to-be-approximate senses) as simultaneous and the concepts of relativity. If you’re not just imagining problems, please provide some support for your incredible claims.
EY
November 10, 2009 at 3:02 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Too… awesome…