When how I choose to observe a photon at a particular time and place can (1) instantaneously affect a photon a billion light years away and (2) retroactively changes the history of that photon (delayed choice quantum eraser), and when we have searched far, wide and deep and have not found any “matter,” we have comprehensive, conclusive evidence that we do not live in an objective, external, material world.
At some point, if your views are guided by reason and evidence, you will have to accept that whatever “experience” is, it is not caused by an objective, external, material world.
93 Replies to “Simple, Unambigous Evidence We Do Not Live In An Objective, External Material World”
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SUPER DETERMINISM I SWEAR
I’ll grant that matter is a convenient shorthand for waves. I won’t go along with the rest of this stuff.
I don’t observe photons here or a billion light years away. I observe waves gathered into compact resonances conveniently called objects, and these objects don’t change when I “choose how to observe them.” Everything in my house remains in the same place until I move it with my hands. After I move it, it remains in the same place until I move it again. It doesn’t move when I “choose how to observe it”, whatever that phrase might mean.
One explanation for this weirdness is that our reality is some form of virtual reality hyper-computer simulation. I think the evidence for this is fairly compelling.
The concept seems to well explain such mysteries as the ultimate nature of quantum mechanics and its well-verified but mysterious undergirding of our physical reality.
All of the physics of our world, including Einstein’s relativity equations, E = MC^^2, etc. etc. would merely be what was programmed into the virtual reality hyper-simulation.
Absolutely all of our world, the physical reality we experience and observe and in which we observe all the weirdness and bizarre nature of quantum mechanical behavior, would be illusory and basically information computed in some other (higher) reality. This higher level of reality of the hyper-simulation would itself be deterministic.
We as participators in the cosmic simulation would not be artifacts of the simulation – we would be the users, true conscious sentient thinking entities inhabiting that higher reality. Freeman Dyson and other materialists imagine that human beings are also generated as part of this cosmic simulation software, but this is of course untenable – the so-called “hard problem” of consciousness and a large body of evidence shows that although human consciousness is usually in life tied to material brains it is not of these material neural structures and can separate from the physical body.
A spiritual/metaphysical interpretation of this could be that this hyper-simulation reality is merely the underlying mechanism by which Spirit creates the playground of experience and limitation and learning for eternal souls.
The case for the simulation hypothesis seems compelling because of the way the analogy of an iterative computer calculation/simulation makes sense of quantum mechanical phenomena. All the philosophical, metaphysical and spiritual implications of such a theory are irrelevant to the likely truth of the theory.
I think that Ross Rhodes makes some key points on this, summarized in his paper A Cybernetic Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics at www.http://www.mysearch.org.uk/website1/pdf/615.1.pdf.
Just one part of this analysis is examination of the way electromagnetic waves are not really waves in any sort of medium, but behave exactly as if they are waves of calculation.
The problem with understanding matter-wave duality is that the “waves” part are mathematical probability waves in a field of information, not electromagnetic waves. Probability waves are not tangible or directly measurable. They only manifest themselves as mass-energy when they are observed or measured and the wave function collapses into reality.
Yes, that’s what quantum mechanics seems to demonstrate experimentally and physicists have been squirming under the implications for decades, although materialistic philosophers and academics remain largely clueless of these scientific discoveries. They are happy to live in the world of James Watt, Charles Darwin, and Karl Marx.
-Q
Querius
The most sophisticated version of the simulation hypothesis is currently the Peer-to-Peer (P2P) Simulation Hypothesis developed by philosopher Marcus Arvan, at
https://www.p2p-simulation-hypothesis.com/ . It is based on serious scientific and philosophical sub-hypotheses, and I think it encompasses the probabilistic quantum mechanical behavior you mention..
It explains features of the physical world (including quantum world) that no other theory explains. And it makes predictions about our world, and so may be confirmed or falsified.
I reject your reality and substitute my own. 😝
SABINE HOSSENFELDER
Heh!
I like that, Latemarch! 🙂
Simple, Unambiguous Evidence We DO Live In An Objective, External Material World: Next time you are driving down the interstate in your car, ramp it up to full speed and drive it head on into a concrete and rebar overpass pylon…….
Sorry Chuckdarwin @9, but your description has been falsified experimentally.
The “you” in your sentence means that someone by their observation has collapsed the wave function into atoms and molecules, hence the collision. Both the driver and his cat, “Schrödinger,” are now dead.
Quantum teleportation of macro objects such as a human is at least theoretically possible.
Quantum superposition was demonstrated at the scale of 25 times the size of the Covid-19 virus and captured photographically. It was the first time quantum superposition was (barely) visible to the naked eye. Fusion of hydrogen nuclei in the sun is made possible by quantum superposition and this of course is visible to the naked eye as well.
The creation and collapse of the wave function can also be observed in the famous double-slit experiment:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q1YqgPAtzho
Quantum levitation is demonstrated here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PXHczjOg06w&feature=youtu.be&t=7m9s
But it seems like you’re more comfortable in the world of James Watt, Charles Darwin, and Karl Marx. That’s certainly ok, but scientifically out-of-date by about a century.
-Q
Doubter,
Yes, you’ve illustrated my point about physicists squirming under the implications of a non-material, non-deterministic reality.
While quantum mechanics has been validated more than any other branch of physics, you’re pointing out that the interpretation of the experimental validation of quantum effects is wildly controversial, in some cases reportedly leading to shouting matches at conferences.
I can understand why. There’s a lot at stake ideologically.
-Q
Latemarch,
I really respect and appreciate Dr. Hossenfelder’s no-nonsense, show-me approach. Her short and simple presentations on her channel are well worth watching. Here one that’s about seven minutes long:
The Problem with Quantum Measurement
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Be3HlA_9968
She presents her own ideas to a panel of the top quantum physicists in the world here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YglT09Korr0
(Warning: Her presentation and the questions and critiques that follow is long and deeply technical.)
-Q
Up in post 4, Querius made some correct observations, in my opinion, when he wrote,
But then Querius wrote,
It is indeed true that physicists in general have struggled, and continue to struggle, to understand the meaning and implications of QM in respect to reality. But I think virtually all philosophers and other academics that address the nature of reality, be they “materialists” or of some other philosophical view, accept the quantum nature of reality, and have long ago left the classical Newtonian world of solid things. I really doubt that any of them are clueless about the scientific discoveries that have shown us something of the quantum world underlying the macroscopic world we experience.
Viola @13,
You may be right, but I’m always running into attempts to preserve determinism and materialism online in forums and YouTube videos by science celebrities. Even realism is now very shaky, pressing us toward idealism, in which the mind creates or participates in the creation of reality.
A good case in point is the astonishing quantum zeno effect, where changes such as radioactive decay can be arrested by continuously observing the particle.
-Q
> We Do Not Live In An Objective, External Material World
We live in a mind-blowingly-powerful quantum computer / simulator. Now, whether that QM computer exists objectively and materially is nearly the same question as whether the virtual world inside your favorite computer game exists objectively and materially. Actually, it does indeed exist – it exists as electron flows in the XBox silicon CPU in our world. Similarly, our QM simulator may exist as some kind of a techno-gadget in the higher-level reality. (That gadget may even be on sale there for just $299).
It should be pretty obvious by now that in our reality at the most basic level there is nothing but pure math and random numbers. There are definitely no “things” there. However, there are certainly rules and constraints on math.
I think the simulation theories are better than current physicalist theories, but they generally all suffer from backdoor materialism. IOW, it’s materialists trying to characterize a non-material existence from the materialist perspective. What’s the virtual reality system made of? How do users log in? When they aren’t logged in, what is the non-virtual environment? How does the system get us to forget what was going on before we logged in?
The simulation theory is a decent analogy and a good start but it tries to solve “this world” issues by either (1) conceptually copying and pasting another “this world” on top of this world and calling this world a simulation run by the world above us (simulations all the way up?), or (2) saying nothing about the “real world” at all and we’re just supposed to take it on faith it can produce these kind of computerized systems.
IOW, simulation theories are attempts to preserve materialism essentially by saying the things that disprove materialism here “aren’t real.”
P2P network and other simulation theories might be useful analogies, but they basically just shift the burden of explaining reality/existence in terms of the evidence we have available. Would life in the “real world” beyond the simulation be any different than what we experience here?
Also, these theories largely ignore the evidence we have from people who have left their “simulation avatars” here. Is that part of the simulation? Is producing a computing system powerful enough to render on-demand, local, interconnected, fully immersive sensory “CGI” even possible in a world that doesn’t have quantum behaviors like this one? Good luck with that.
The simplest explanation is that we exist entirely within a mental reality. Even if we were in a simulation we would still be experiencing everything entirely within our mind and completely dependent upon how it generates anything we experience with no way to access any so-called “external world” even if we log out of the simulation technology.
IOW, once we log out, there would be no way to validate the actual existence of an external world that built the virtual reality system we just logged out of. We would still be in Plato’s Cave.
Until we accept this basic, inescapable fact and start treating it seriously instead of finding ways to ignore it, IMO we will never be able to understand the nature of our existence. We won’t be able to approach investigation and research of this situation as effectively as possible, and we will keep coming up with increasingly convoluted and problematic theories to avoid it.
Querius at 12
The only ‘interpretation’ of quantum mechanics that does not collapse into absurdity is an interpretation where consciousness and free will play a fundamental role in the measurement process.
Multiple lines of experimental evidence all confirm that the immaterial mental attributes of free will and ‘the experience of the now’ are irreducible parts of the measurement process.
Of course atheists are upset that quantum mechanics overwhelmingly supports a Theistic, even Christian, worldview. I believe Steven Weinberg, an atheist, has said something to the effect of ‘to hell with it’, when faced with the, in his view, ‘unappealing’ option of having to accept that we live in a Theistic universe where consciousness is fundamental.
Why atheists would, much like they do with in their fight against Intelligent Design, fight tooth and nail against what is staring them right in the face, and find the option of God to be ‘unappealing’, I have no idea.
It is not like atheists have a better option than God. Far from it. In their rejection of God, atheists have chosen a life that is devoid of any true meaning, value, or purpose.
As Dr Craig pointed out in the video, many leading atheist philosophers themselves agree that life has no objective meaning, value, or purpose if God does not exist.
And even though leading Atheists themselves agree with Dr. Craig’s premise that God is necessary for life to be truly meaningful, Atheists choose not to live their life as if it had no meaning and purpose and, in an exercise of self-delusion, choose to create illusory meanings and purposes for their lives.
Moreover this act of self-delusion on the part of atheists, of making up illusory meaning and purposes for their lives, is proof, in of of itself, that atheism must be false.
Specifically, the impossibility for Atheists to live their lives consistently as if atheism were actually true directly undermines their claim that Atheism is true
As the following article points out, if it is impossible for you to live your life consistently as if atheistic materialism were actually true, then atheistic materialism cannot possibly reflect reality as it really is but atheistic materialism must instead be based on a delusion.
Moreover, it is not like this act of self delusion is not without consequences. The negative effect of atheists rejecting God is fairly dramatic:
For instance,
Thus, to repeat, it is not as if atheists have a better option than God. Far from it, atheists, in their rejection of God, atheists have chosen a life that is devoid of any true meaning, value, or purpose and this choice they have made to reject God has fairly dramatic detrimental effects on their mental and physical health.
Moreover, in my Christian worldview, after death, their choice to reject God is going to have even far greater detrimental effects than it does now. i.e. complete separation from God, i.e. ‘hell”.
I can only hope and pray that atheists would come around to reason and finally accept God and specifically accept what God has done for us through Jesus Christ:
18 Bornagain77
With their inexistent free-will. 🙂
10 Reasons why Atheists are Delusional
https://uncommondescent.com/intelligent-design/11-reasons-why-atheists-are-delusional/
Hi Querius. Up at 14 you write,
I like to read rather than watch videos, so I’m probably not familiar withe the videos you watch. ButI have two questions for further discussion, if you’re willing.
1. I don’t understand how one can “attempt to preserve determinism” in light of the fact that probabilities underlie quantum events. Can you summarize what argument such people might make to claim that quantum events are strictly deterministic? I suspect the argument involves “hidden variables” that are supposedly truly deterministic even though those events will always appear probabilistic to us. Is that the gist of the argument?
2. I don’t understand the concerns about “materialism”. As I stated earlier, no one believes in the outdated view of the world being made of some smallest bits of indivisible “matter”. The physical world is at its roots quantum in nature, so whatever definition of “materialistic” one has now, it has to include quantum phenomena. So, in what way are these science celebrities of which you speak trying to “preserve materialism”? Is this primarily involved with the measurement problem, and the issue of what causes the wave-form to collapse? Can you explain more about the arguments you run into.
Also, could you mention some of the forums and science celebrity videos you watch. Even though I’m unlikely to watch long videos, I’d be interested in knowing about such places so I can take a look.
Thanks
VL, in practice, naturalism boils down to evolutionary materialistic scientism, often imposed a priori and deemed a precondition of being scientific. Yes, some talk physicalism, others talk emergentism etc but the pattern is clear and overwhelmingly common. Most people look at Q theory as mathematical weirdness useful for entertainment and technical sci-tech, it cannot compete with the macro evidence of solidity of matter. KF
I’m sorry, Kairosfocus, but I don’t understand what your first two sentences are trying to say. As to the sentence that starts, “Most people …”, I think we are talking about people knowledgeable about quantum mechanics, not the uninformed layperson. And of course, our everyday life involves experiencing the macro world, which of course involves solid matter, but science tells us that that solidity does not extend all the way to the foundation of the physical world.
Viola- materialism just means that matter, energy and what emerges from their interactions is all that is required to explain what we observe. It is untestable nonsense.
VL,
I was giving a summary of the state of play in terms those who have engaged across time would recognise. Perhaps Nobel Prize holder Monod can be reckoned with. First, Chance and necessity:
Then there is reporting of a key interview he gave c 1971:
the root of reality is blind matter, energy, chance and necessity. Such undergoes change based on blind chance and/or mechanical necessity giving rise to the cosmos we observe, and then OOL then all the way to us. And this is REQUIRED before you can start science. Where, science dominates and delimits serious knowledge.
Philosophy is swept away a priori, this metaphysics is left unchallenged and unchallengeable on the field. The implications for man as a morally governed, rationally responsible, significantly free creature are patent and appalling. Such is reduced to delusion, coming round to bite the said philosopher in a lab coat in his back for he too cannot escape the evolutionary materialistic circle.
Most people does not typically include the relevant guild of scholars.
It is generally hard enough to communicate that the sense of solidity is a matter of interacting fields giving rise to the famous intermolecular force curve.
I accept that say the electron double slit exercise can open up some appreciation of the quantum world but that falls into just what I spoke to.
Shrug . . .
KF
Hi ET. I think I know what materialism is as a metaphysical philosophy. What I don’t understand is why quantum mechanics (QM) is or isn’t definitely about that philosophy. QM is about what we understand about the very foundations of the physical world, and we certainly know the physical world is not what we used to think it was like 100 years ago. However, no matter how much we know about the physical (i.e material) world, studying QM is not going to touch on all aspects of the world, or whether everything can be explained by QM. That’s why I’m curious about Querius’ comment that some are trying to “preserve materialism” via QM: what arguments would such people use?
Viola Lee said:
Actually, science tells us there is no such thing as matter, period – at least that we can experience.. Logic alone tells us we can never actually experience any world external of mind regardless of whether it is made of matter or energy.
9 Chuckdarwin
Lol! As if Chuckie , a materialist/ naturalist had any chance of accessing that ‘external world’ he is so fond of:
Naturalism’s Epistemological Nightmare
Logic is a very demanding mistress, that you shouldn’t try to overcome, or she’ll
bite you in the rear end. What were you saying about “objectivity”, Chuckdarwin? 🙂
Addendum: an “epistemological nightmare” is something bad. Very, very bad. 🙂
Materialism’s Epistemological Blunder
Just FYI to William: The remark by me that you quoted at 26 was in response to Kairosocus at 21. Earlier I made it clear, I think, that I understand that at the quantum level there is no such thing as “solid matter”, or matter in the classical pre-QM sense.
Viola Lee @20,
You raise some very good questions! Let me give you a couple of examples and let you decide for yourself:
First watch . . .
Matt O’Dowd, PhD – PBS
Does Consciousness Influence Quantum Mechanics? (17 min))
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CT7SiRiqK-Q
Notice his confident, even condescending dismissal of various interpretations, rejecting some out-of-hand due to their implications and rejecting others with strawman objections. Sorry, but I find his explanations to be annoying scientific browbeating.
Next, watch . . .
Sabine Hossenfelder, PhD
The Problem with Quantum Measurement (7 minutes)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Be3HlA_9968
Notice the absence of condescension and her insightful, honest, and clear descriptions. It almost seems that O’Dowd and Hossenfelder are talking about two different subjects! While I’m not convinced of some of her conclusions, I respect her experimentalist perspective and clear identification of speculation.
If you enjoyed those or would like to compare their different explanations for the Big Bang theory, you might consider watching these two videos:
Matt O’Dowd, PhD – PBS
Did Time Start at the Big Bang?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K8gV05nS7mc
Sabine Hossenfelder, PhD
How did the universe begin?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VHhUCav_Jrk
Since you prefer reading to acquire information, here are a few of the books in my library on the subject you might want to consider:
Lee Smolin – Einstein’s Unfinished Revolution
Lee Smolin – Time Reborn
Sabine Hossenfelder – Lost in Math: How Beauty Leads Physics Astray
Leonard Susskind – The Black Hole War: My Battle with Stephen Hawking
Brian Greene – The Fabric of the Cosmos: Space, Time, and the Texture of Reality
Carlo Rovelli – Reality is Not What It Seems
I particularly enjoyed Lee Smolin’s humble and honest approach. I did notice that he’s a little tricky about getting rid of pesky assumptions right at the beginning.
Hope this is helpful,
-Q
Thanks, Q. I like the way you contrast Dowd and Hossenfelder. I may watch those. I am interested in different QM interpretations, so I might have the same feelings about Dowd that you do.
Also, I read the Rovelli book about a year ago: in fact it was a post here a month or so ago about Rovelli, natural numbers, and “is math invented or discovered” that first got me to this site. Thanks for the resources.
TF, any conclusion that we are locked in the bubble of our consciousness is self-referentially incoherent. The Kantians’ ugly gulch is problematic. In effect to infer that one cannot know external reality is to imply a knowledge claim about such, its un-knowability. The claim is self-refuting. A sounder start point is Josiah Royce’s Error exists, undeniably true and so objective, bridging the inner and outer worlds in a very humbling way. We would be better advised to accept the self-evident and linked start points such as principle of identity them proceed provisionally but confidently, especially on what is reliable. KF
PS: I suggest that the quantum world allows reinterpretation of matter and particularly states, bridging micro and macro worlds. What that solid wall means is a molecular-fields-quantum phenomenon. What energy is emerges as a key abstract currency of interaction governed by statistically supported thermodynamics, free energy playing a particularly useful role. Time emerges in a temporal-causal succession. And more, especially quantum weirdness.
VL, the PS above may help. We have gone through paradigm shifts and permanently have new understandings of matter, states, interactions etc. KF
KF, I am aware that we have gone through paradigm shifts and have new understandings of matter and it’s interactions. I’ve mentioned above the general understanding that the old paradigm of solid matter being foundational is outdated.
VL
At least by the middle of last century the idea of little-hard-bits materialism was dead and buried, so I cannot understand your repetitions on this issue here. What do you believe materialism now means, what do you think is its general understanding?
KF saId:
That’s not a conclusion, that’s a self-evidently true statement about the nature of individual existence. – unless you’ve somehow managed to leave your consciousness behind while you took a walk around the block?
That’s because the knowledge claim is not about any supposed external world; it’s a knowledge claim about the nature of our own subjective experience and the implications of what it means for all experience to occur in mind.
WJM, nope, the issue is objective reference. The claim, knowledge is locked in on this side of the ugly gulch has external reference and undermines itself. One’s consciousness can include valid reference to an external shared world allowing inter alia conversation. And, we must be responsibly, rationally free if we are to have a serious discussion or freedom to be logical and warranted in claiming to know. KF
PS: F H Bradley, Appearance and Reality:
32 Kairosfocus
Absolutely. The problem here is for the “materialist” (the res extensa lovers).
They proclaim their beloved “materialist science” (cough cough, Seversky) maps “external reality”. But in the end, analyzing the optics and physiology of vision, coupled with their “materialism”, it all leads to subjective/ epistemological idealism.
Naturalism’s Epistemological Nightmare
Notice how none of the usual suspects here at UD (Seversky, Chuckdarwin, MatSpirit, Bob O’H, Pater Kimbridge, JVL…) can defend their materialist superstition. They simply pretend not to notice the challenge and act as if their worldview is not unavoidably damaged.
Which is very telling. 🙂
We can defend our worldview. They don’t.
Why is that?
The philosophical arguments against mental reality are not valid because they are arguments that premise the existence of, and define reality as, an objective external world. IOW, they all assume “reality” is defined by the existence of an objective world which carves the world into the “objective” and the “subjective.” The arguments then are about the failings of subjectivity from that perspective.
Until one can make an argument against mental reality theory from that perspective, you might as well be complaining that basketball isn’t a coherent game because it doesn’t follow the same rules as basketball.
Oh. Not to mention that their ridiculous “naturalism/ materialism/ atheism” is (per Plantinga) a global skepticism trap.
What’s their defense? To insult and deride Plantinga, but arguments?
They have Z.E.R.O.
“Evolutionary materialism is an incoherent view.”
Plantinga’s EAAN.
To Belfast at 35: my comments about out-dated ideas about the nature of matter have been in response to comments by others, such as Querius at 4 and Kairosfocus at 21.
The point I’m interested in making is that one has to take the modern quantum understanding of the material world into account, not some out-dated view. There are large mysteries about what in fact the quantum world really is, and how it behaves on its own, so to speak, as opposed to when it is manifesting as the world we experience. Therefore there is lots we don’t know, and perhaps can’t know, about how such things as causality, mind and consciousness, cosmology, etc. are related to the underlying quantum world that is beyond our experience. I think people of all metaphysical positions need to take this uncertainty about the ultimate nature of quantum events into account.
Belfast asked why my interest in the distinction between the outdated classical “solid matter” view and the modern (at least 100 years old) quantum view. Here’s another thought on that.
The opening post mentions some key findings from QM, such as entanglement or the effects of delayed choice, and then says,
But the facts of QM don’t mean we don’t live in a material world: they just mean that the material, physical world is radically different than we thought it was 100 years ago. I suppose one could say we shouldn’t call it a material world anymore because “matter” doesn’t exist, but I’m not sure what would be a better term as we are still talking about our understanding of the physical world.
To be clear, I’m not saying that everything is a product of the physical world: that is, saying that we live in a material world, which is a statement about the physical world, is not the same as saying that everything is a product of the material world.
Kairosfocus @32 and Violet Lee @42,
Very nicely stated. My view is that when the materialistic and deterministic foundations of physics have been experimentally falsified, the consequences to everything built on those foundations must be re-examined, not simply defended.
My view is to embrace the experimental results (and mathematical probabilities) rather than to fight them. When our choices and observation can collapse wave functions and affect conjugate variables, it’s not logically debatable that information plays a major role in reality as eminent physicists have noted.
It also opens up questions about what other information (or mind) is in play. For example, the loss of determinism by way of chaos theory (butterfly effect) also potentially affects time reversibility.
And finally, I agree with Sabine Hossenfelder that mathematics has seductively mislead scientists with simplicity, beauty, and symmetry. For example, Kepler’s laws of planetary motion are simple, beautiful, symmetrical . . . and incorrect.
-Q
Thanks, Q. I am also interested in chaos theory. Can you explain how chaos theory might potentially affect time reversibility. That is something I have never heard of.
Also, very small point: my login pseudonym here is Viola Lee, not Violet. Possibly some reader might recognize the allusion.
Viola Lee @44,
Oops and no, I missed the allusion to the Grateful Dead.
I assume you’re familiar with chaos theory, then. Imagine the chaotic perturbations that affect the outcome of some action. To exaggerate, imagine the butterfly in Brazil resulting in a tornado in Texas (I believe this is how it was originally expressed). Now, running the chain of events backwards in time, you’ll notice that it’s not symmetrical. The tornado in Texas might result in numerous additional perturbations, but the tornado won’t cause just a single butterfly in Brazil to flap its wings.
There are some undoubtedly more informed perspectives on this subject, including this one from CERN: https://cds.cern.ch/record/429730
Hope this helps,
-Q
I see: you’re saying that chaos theory would not be favorable to time reversal, not that it would.
A number of years ago some of my students gave me Chaos and Fractals by Peitgen et al, I’ve read Chaos by Gleick, and I’ve taught a bit about iterative systems, notably the Mandelbrot set. And yes, chaos theory adds an element to the universe not being completely determined, along with quantum probability.
And good job on the Grateful Dead reference. When I went looking for a pseudonym I just consulted the CD I was listening to, which turned out to be The Dead from July 2, 2003, which has a great version of Viola Lee Blues with Joan Osborne singing.
VL, chaos injects a micro perturbation amplifier that brings unavoidable micro variability up to macro level. Accordingly, the sort of system and situation where time reversibility is useful is now extremely restrictive. Chaos, being far more prone to stick a foot in the door than we are likely to realise. The Laplacian project of reconstructing the past from the present a la Celestial Mechanics — the book presented to Napoleon (as in I have no need of THAT hypothesis) — is dead. KF
PS: Walker and Davies:
I agree and understand all that you wrote, KF, although I only skimmed the P.S.
From the entry on Physicalism” in the online Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
[…]
I agree that classical materialism is an outdated concept, where matter is conceived as being, in Bishop Berkeley’s words, “an inert, senseless substance, in which extension, figure, and motion do actually subsist”. Such a belief is unsustainable in light of what we have discovered thus far about the quantum nature of reality.
However, I would argue that what has really changed is our concept of the nature of matter, not that “matter” as now understood is not still the foundation of objective reality. Regardless of how we describe matter if, like Dr Samuel Johnson, you kick a stone, while it may not refute Berkeleyan idealism, it still hurts.
The problem with any subjective mental reality that it is unverifiable and, hence, scientifically sterile. If we want to try and understand aspects of objective reality we can compare those hypotheses or explanations of that reality with observations of it. With mental reality. there is no objective reality to explain. We can ask why kicking an imaginary stone with an imaginary foot would hurt in this imaginary world but, since the whole thing is a figment of imagination with no basis elsewhere, what would be the point?
Seversky, this is a good line.
This is a point that I also was trying to make. However I’ll add that really the word “matter” is misleading, because QM events also contain what we identify as energy, forces and fields: all the things that create a dynamic rather than a static world. All those things are bundled into whatever the reality of QM events is, either as they present themselves to us, or as they perhaps are in ways forever hidden from us.
Viola Lee @50,
Yes, I agree that the term “matter” is misleading. The old-fashioned notion of matter was overturned by Einstein’s famous equation.
Modern terms for the human scale of experience includes mass-energy, space-time, gravity, and information.
For example, Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle emerges in our common experience in music, where short duration, low-frequency notes have a less certain frequency than longer duration, higher-frequency notes.
There have also been heroic but unsuccessful attempts at limiting the role of quantum effects to the atomic level. Apparently, there’s no dividing line. As I mentioned before, quantum superposition is believed to account for hydrogen fusion in the sun, which is certainly observable.
-Q
Correction: it’s quantum tunneling. The same effect also limits the miniaturization of microelectronics and the density of data on hard drives.
-Q
When anyone here can give me an example of something they experience outside of their mind, then you’ll have evidence phenomena external of mind exists. Absent that, the “external world” cannot ever be anything other than a hypothesis held by faith, regardless of if it is thought of as matter, energy, or informational probabilities.
It’s not just the terms “matter” and “energy” that are misleading. The term “external” is entirely misleading. The term “objective” is entirely misleading. The terms “space” and “time” are misleading. Virtually every word we’ve used to reference our existential state and how experience occurs is entirely misleading because it’s all based on the assumption of an external, material world and the unsupported, unsupportable, logically baseless idea that we are experiencing something outside of mind.
WJM,
a bit loaded, that. Experience is an aspect of personal, conscious life. The issue is whether our experience of an outer world independent of our particular personality is real. To that the obvious first test is, Josiah Royce’s error exists, multiplied by F H Bradley’s opening observation on appearance and reality. If error exists, then there is what to be in error about.
Where also, experience is across time, so duration exists as a reality that escapes our subjectivity.
The ugly gulch idea is connected, as if there is such a point of claimed knowledge, that we cannot access reality beyond appearance, then that is an access to an aspect of it, its alleged un-know-ability. But then, as that fails, it leaves on the table that, however we may err, however our senses filter, we can and do access warranted, credibly true belief about a world in common, an objective, mind-external world, relative to our status.
At the next level, such a world would exist sustained by a Creator, God.
The cubed mango I am eating . . . with a long-stemmed cocktail spoon originally bought to perhaps become a spoon bait . . . as I type this is experienced as delicious and refrigerated (having been plucked from the tree on testing to be ripe enough a day or so ago) but is credibly real with no good reason to imagine that it, its tree, the garden it comes in, the island I am here on, etc are part of some grand mental construct without independence of my mind. It isn’t independent of God’s mind, but that does not make it a simple figment, this is an actualised not merely a possible world.
Where, if I am just a figment, my ability to reason is decisively undermined, bringing the very concept of a mind world into question.
There is in short no good reason to reject the reality of the common world we experience, though of course solidity, we now know, is an effect of fields and wave functions with energy-time uncertainty etc at work.
KF
To William:
I understand your point that the only thing we ever experience is our conscious experience, and our belief that we are experiencing something outside of ourself is just another experience, but not evidence that there is really something “out there””.
This is an unfalsifiable belief. It is also useless. It is undoubtedly true that all human beings (except you) believe that there is an external world. I seriously doubt that you live your life any different than the rest of us, taking the externality of the world, including your own body, as a given. If you want to call that a matter of faith, fine. Last Thursdayism is also unprovable, but I take it as a matter of “faith” that in fact the past exists.
So even though you have a philosophically unassailable position, it is of no consequence.
That’s the way it looks to me.
Viola Lee:
All self-evidently true statements are unfalsifiable.
Care to tell me why?
I didn’t realize you knew all human beings. Perhaps that’s true in your experience, but in mine there’s lots of people that believe we exist in some form of mental reality. Please see Bernardo Kastrup’s book, for example, “The Idea of the World.”
Or, you could ask me if I live my life differently, and if so, how. Just a suggestion.
(1) Could you explain “last thursdayism?” Is it self-evidently true, like the fact that all we ever experience is in our minds?
(2) Where exactly does “last Thursday” exist?
I guess that depends on what the theory predicts and what the implications are in terms of usefulness. One question along these lines might be, does mental reality theory provide the basis for any useful methodologies, predictions and practical applications that probably would not be available under external, material-world theory? Or, at least make it easier to develop alternative routes of progress?
But, I guess you’ve already made a decision about that based on all your experience in investigating and experimenting with mental reality theory. Right?
William, you write,
Does it? Can you describe some of these useful methodologies, etc. and alternate routes of progress? That would add a useful component to this discussion.
Viola @58:
Sure. The first thing would be to define what a useful methodology and capacity for progress would mean according to the theory – not according to external-reality theory. In addition, we might look to the past to see where mental reality theory would have predicted scientific evidence that external reality theory both did, and would in principle fail to predict and explain.
External, physical reality theory failed to predict, and would in principle fail to predict, the consciousness-centric nature of what is revealed in quantum experimentation. It would (and did) fail to predict non-locality, the complete failure to establish what is called “local realism by physicists, the non-existence of matter, zero-point energy/information, “entanglement,” the propagation of “probablity waves.”etc. All of these are predictable results from the mental reality perspective. They were not only shocking to external-world theorist; they have done all they can to resist the implications for about 100 years now.
A great avenue of progress would be into what we currently call “psi” research. Afterlife (continuation of consciousness after what we call “death,”) NDE, altered consciousness and OOBE research. Understanding how information is processed into experience. The view that the body is an experiential manifestation of identity might indicate a deeper mind/body process to health and well-being instead of, or in addition to, use of pharmaceuticals.
A lot of these things are being scientifically researched now, only it’s largely ignored and even vilified by the “mainstream” scientific community.
Mental reality theory provides an entirely self-empowering perspective in how one lives their life and can dramatically change how we see ourselves and our environment.
Hmmm. That’s not very compelling to me. I think I’ll drop out of this discussion.
60 Viola Lee
With all due respect, William J Murray is offering an argument.
You can’t simply attack it saying you don’t find it “compelling”.
You need to offer a valid counter-argument.
No I don’t. This really isn’t a topic I’m interested in, and I only have so much time in my life to play around on an internet forum. It was a mistake on my part to even respond to his comment at 53, so I apologize for getting involved.
62 Viola Lee
Hmm. You remind me of another member here (JVL). 🙂
Then we agree that William J Murray is defending his argument, and to poke holes in it, a counter-argument is needed?
I retract and resign from poking holes in his argument. I made that clear in 62. I apologize for getting involved, and will be more careful in the future as to what I do and don’t comment on.
Goodbye, Viola Lee.
But if you see this message, consider researching why many secular quantum physicists believe it’s likely that we’re living in a simulation.
-Q
I didn’t say I was leaving, Querius: just that I was withdrawing from discussing William’s ideas. I’ve enjoyed the discussions here about the quantum nature of the physical world.
Ok, so why do you think that many secular quantum physicists believe it’s likely that we’re living in a simulation?
I don’t know whether you respect Neil Degrasse Tyson, but here’s a short 2-1/2 minute clip.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SYAG9dAfy8U
A conference with some of the world foremost physicists hosted by Tyson is where his mind was first blown by this concept when a physicist introduced it to Tyson. It was amazing to see his mind being blown live!
-Q
Tyson just assumes you can get to the point where programming in a computer can have self-awareness and experiences. That is, even in principle, impossible. Anyone with self-awareness and experiences is necessarily an original user and not a simulation.
I agree with William on this point.
Or, you can take the red pill.
-Q
Or maybe it’s just computers all the way down! 🙂
A bit like the different levels of dreams in the movie Inception
Viola Lee @71,
So do you disagree with the rationale that Tyson is describing?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SYAG9dAfy8U
-Q
I don’t disagree that it would be impossible to prove that we’re not part of a simulation. I disagree about it being worth taking seriously to any extent whatsoever.
Viola Lee,
Tyson eloquently expressed the rationale for the Simulation Hypothesis. How did you come to your conclusion that Tyson’s rationale is not worth taking seriously?
-Q
Because it seems so utterly improbable, and certainly, by Occam’s Razor fails miserably. I have no idea why someone would take it seriously. Yes, our world could be the evening project of some 4-d hyper-space teenager, but the number of such hypotheses is huge. This is just sci-fi stuff. Not worth my time to think about.
If true, one would just be a robot. There would be no free will. You,d have to give up your belief in God. (Except you might be programmed to think you had free will or that God existed.) in fact, you would be programmed to believe that you were programmed. Totally pointless to consider as a possibility, although maybe I just think that because I was programmed that way! 🙂
I suggest that generally speaking, any hypothesis that implies actual or probable grand, across the board delusion or want of freedom required to credibly think, decide, reason and judge is self-defeating. Next, yes our consciousness is the carrier through which we access experience of ourselves and our common world, but in itself that does not undermine veridicality of key aspects of such. Yes, we may err, but even that implies knowledge of our common world and of ourselves in it. KF
I agree with Kairosfocus on both points.
KF said:
I’m not sure what else, from the external world perspective, one could call complete faith in the existence of an entire domain of reality one cannot access even in principle, much less verify to be in accordance with their mental experiences.
One such avenue of verdical experience is logic. When logic dictates that there is zero possible support for a hypothesis, what would logic dictate one do?
Viola Lee @76,
Regarding probabilities, what do you think of this Scientific American article?
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/do-we-live-in-a-simulation-chances-are-about-50-50/
-Q
Viola Lee @77,
You’ve probably heard of online computer games and perhaps even played them. Would you say that the conscious minds behind every on-screen character must also be robotic?
Do you believe that a person’s consciousness derives from an arrangement organic molecules?
-Q
Q, what do you think of my comments at 77?
Viola Lee @83,
Yes, that’s why I posted my questions at 81 and 82. I think that will clarify your perspective in your posts.
-Q
I’m interested in your clarifying your perspective. Do you agree that if the world, including each of us, is a programmed simulation, that we are just robots, with no free will?
Viola Lee @85,
I’m just responding to your assertion:
What I’d like to learn is how you came to your above conclusions. I think it’s important for me to understand the foundations of your reasoning first. I’d be happy to share my views after I understand yours first.
-Q
It seems to me obvious. If I am a product of a simulation, then everything I feel, think, or do is a product of being programmed to be that way: I would have no actual free will to make choices or otherwise direct my own actions.
That’s my reasoning.
I hope Q comes back to respond to 87.
However, I read the SciAm article he mentioned in 81, and I agree with the conclusion:
Who knows whether Q will be back, but I’m still here, so I’ll respond to his questions at 82.
I don’t think a robot can have a conscious mind. So obviously my answer is “no”.
No.
I don’t know where consciousness comes from. I just accept it as part of being a human being.
But, as I said above, I don’t think robots will ever be conscious. People are conscious, with all that entails. That’s a main reason why I think the simulation hypothesis is not a realistic possibility.
Viola Lee,
Even assuming a succession of computer simulations, a mind with free will must have programmed the first simulation. Massive online computer games actually do have both robotic (aka NPCs with AI) and intelligent agencies (players with free will) behind the action.
Your conception of the simulation hypothesis isn’t correct as a result. Have you ever watched or heard of the movie, The Matrix? It’s more like that. Here’s an excellent and entertaining, 50-minute documentary on the subject: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BG-E6WJNeEE
-Q
Sure, I’ve heard of the Matrix. It’s been referenced a number of times in this discussion.
My main point is that I don’t think robots (i.e. programmed beings) can have consciousness or free will. Irrespective of whether a conscious being (such as Bornagain77 posits as God) can actually program a reality, if we are the beings in a programmed reality, we wouldn’t have free will. Do you agree with that?
Up at 86 you said you’d explain some about your own position if I explained mine first. I’ve posted a number of times on the subject, including answering your questions. Could you now answer my question, at least about free will.
Thanks
(P.S. My remark about “computers all the way down” was a joke, based on the old “turtles all the way down” story. Of course we can’t have an infinite regress of programs writing more programs. Again, as several have pointed out, one conclusion would be that the ultimate programmer is a god of some sort. )
Viola Lee,
To begin with, I think the documentary linked above provides a good introduction for any discussion on this subject.
We do program alternate realities in computer games, of which some are very realistic (VR or virtual reality). We also program NPCs (Non-Player Characters) in games that have remarkable AI (artificial intelligence) built in. Practically speaking, I recently read about jet fighters controlled by AI defeating human combat pilots. There are also chatbots, some of which pass the Turing test. But no, none of these have consciousness or “free will” as far as I’m concerned.
The matter of free will is being vigorously debated with B.F. Skinner being among the first to popularize the concept. I believe humans do have free will. Someone famous once said, “I have free will because I think I have free will.” This is similar to the assertion by René Descartes of Cogito, ergo sum–I think, therefore I am.
Regarding the Simulation Hypothesis, Yes, I believe we exist as part of a simulation in an information substrate that links us to our primate bodies but does not include our consciousness or essential being in this reality. Thus, I believe our brains are more like cell phones communicating with our conscious spirit.
I’m not basing this belief on ancestor simulations or computers all the way down (yes, I got the reference). I base this belief on several statements made in the Bible.
Let me start with the mind-blowing introduction in the Gospel of John:
But what is meant by “the Word”? In the original Greek it’s logos, a term that can mean a word, a communication, logic, or a concept. in other words, information. So this passage in the Bible asserts that our universe is fundamentally information.
Jesus once asked his disciples, if you can’t be trusted with the world’s money, who will trust you with true wealth?
There are a number of other astonishing passages throughout the Bible that reinforce the concept that this world is a simulation and not the ultimate reality.
So, as you can see, my belief is not based on a scientific conclusion, but on a profound and challenging ancient document that seems to line up with current scientific thinking.
-Q
It’s also profoundly astonishing that our free-will choice of whether to observe something can result in the instantaneous appearance of an electron out of nothing physical.
Our ability to collapse wave functions or to prevent radioactive fission from occurring (aka the quantum Zeno effect) is a God-like power. There’s also a quantum effect called a Von Neumann chain that’s a sort of domino effect involving a series of wave function collapses.
Whether animals or just humans can initiate a wave function collapse is not known and might be determined with an experiment using “Schrödinger’s second cat.”
-Q