ET:
I think what Hazel means is that design, or meaning, or function, if originating in consciousness (as I do believe), have to be outputted to material objects at some point. That's where the problem of the interface arises.
If I design a form on a sheet of paper, the form certainly originates in my cosnciousness and mind. But if it has to be represented as a design on a material object (the sheet of paper), I need to be able to do a few specific things: take a pencil, govern it with my hands and use it to design the form that I perceive in my consciousness on the sheet of paper.
That's the interface.
Of course, it must start in the brain. My conscious representation, whatever it is and however it works, must at some point be able to control the ouptut of my motor neurons in my primary motor cortex, so that all those actions may happen in a coordinated way, controlled by my desire to output the perceived form to the sheet of paper.
So, a lot of higher functions linked to conscious representations (cognition, meaning, desire, free will) are involved in the design process, but there is no doubt that an interface with the physical machinery that implements the material design is also necessary.
I really believe that a quantum interface between consciousness and biological matter is, at present, the best hypothesis. But of course we still understand too little about those things.gpuccio
December 30, 2018
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As I said ET, the logic (or structure or meaning or whatever you want to call it) is an idea (or information or design or whatever you want to call it), but it has to get instantiated in the physical world to actually do anything.
Same with the mind: I can think, "I will raise my hand", and voila, my hand raises. Someplace in there my thought has to interface in a way that the appropriate physiological things happen that are involved in my physical hand raising. It is that interface that is unknown.hazel
December 30, 2018
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Hazel:
Software is not immaterial.
Yes, it is.
It is just bits embedded in something physical.
That is how it is represented.
"Information is information; it is neither matter nor energy."- Norbert WeinerET
December 30, 2018
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Hazel at #4:
But I think it’s important to acknowledge that dualists face the equally difficult problem of how the immaterial mind interfaces in a causal way with the physical body.
It certainly happens in the brain all the time.
How it happens is a very good question, of course.
The problem is that it should happen without violating known laws of physics. IOWs, if we accept that events in a physical system are mainly deterministic, we have to find a way for consciousness to interact with that determinism without violating it.
I think that the best theories about that problem rely on some form of quantum interface. That is my personal position too.
Quantum events are fully deterministic (at the level of the wave function), but they include a probabilistic (and indeed very mysterious) component in the idea of wave function collapse.
That probabilistic component seems to be intrinsically random (but of course, that's exactly where the many interpretations of quantum theory differ a lot). However, an intrinsically random system could be a very good interface for a design intervention.
Design is really the art of superimposing meaning and function on contingent systems. In that sense, the whole consciousness-matter interface, however it works, could be seen as a pervading design intervention, where consciousness superimposes designed meaning and function on the contingent level of wave function collapse.
This is why I am more interested in the experience of consciousness, and how it relates to the overall mind than I am to the ontological question.
That's my position too.gpuccio
December 30, 2018
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Software is not immaterial. It is just bits embedded in something physical. Of course, the logic of the arrangement of those bits was designed by a person, but the software itself is material. I don't think this is a reasonable analogy at all.hazel
December 30, 2018
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Hazel:
But I think it’s important to acknowledge that dualists face the equally difficult problem of how the immaterial mind interfaces in a causal way with the physical body.
And yet immaterial software interfaces just fine with the material computer. The immaterial mind permeates the material brain and body.ET
December 30, 2018
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It should also be noted that this closing of the 'free will loop-hole' in quantum mechanics validates what is termed 'the instrumentalist approach' in quantum mechanics and, as Steven Weinberg himself points out in the following articles, undermines the Darwinian worldview from within:
The Trouble with Quantum Mechanics – Steven Weinberg
– JANUARY 19, 2017
Today there are two widely followed approaches to quantum mechanics, the “realist” and “instrumentalist” approaches, which view the origin of probability in measurement in two very different ways.9
,,, In the instrumentalist approach,,, humans are brought into the laws of nature at the most fundamental level.,,, the instrumentalist approach turns its back on a vision that became possible after Darwin, of a world governed by impersonal physical laws that control human behavior along with everything else. It is not that we object to thinking about humans. Rather, we want to understand the relation of humans to nature, not just assuming the character of this relation by incorporating it in what we suppose are nature’s fundamental laws, but rather by deduction from laws that make no explicit reference to humans.,,, In quantum mechanics these probabilities do not exist until people choose what to measure, such as the spin in one or another direction. Unlike the case of classical physics, a choice must be made,,,,
https://www.nybooks.com/articles/2017/01/19/trouble-with-quantum-mechanics/
To repeat,,,
“In quantum mechanics these probabilities do not exist until people choose what to measure,”
Thus free will, which is the defining attribute of agent causality, is validated and the deterministic view of Darwinists, (materialists, naturalists, physicalists, or whatever you want to call atheists), is in no uncertain terms, as far as empirical science is concerned, completely refuted.
If only Darwinian atheists were truly as 'scientific as they pretend to be on the internet then they would honestly admit that their deterministic worldview, as far as science itself is concerned, is proven to be false.
Moreover, by allowing agent causality back into the picture of modern physics, as quantum physics itself now demands, and as the Christian founders of modern physics originally envisioned, (Sir Isaac Newton, James Clerk Maxwell, Michael Faraday, and Max Planck, to name a few), then an empirically backed reconciliation, (via the Shroud of Turin), between Quantum Mechanics and General Relativity, i.e. the ‘Theory of Everything’, readily pops out for us in Christ’s resurrection from the dead.
Short take: Copernican Principle, Agent Causality, and Jesus Christ as the “Theory of Everything” December 2018:
https://uncommondescent.com/intelligent-design/quantum-physicist-the-particle-itself-does-not-know-where-it-is/#comment-669088
And one final note, although free will is often thought of as allowing someone to choose between a veritable infinity of options, in a theistic view of reality that veritable infinity of options all boils down to just two options. Eternal life, (infinity if you will), with God, or Eternal life, (infinity again if you will), without God. C.S. Lewis states the situation as such:
“There are only two kinds of people in the end: those who say to God, “Thy will be done,” and those to whom God says, in the end, “Thy will be done.” All that are in Hell, choose it. Without that self-choice there could be no Hell.”
– C.S. Lewis, The Great Divorce
And just as Christian's have presupposed all along, two of our best scientific theories, special and general relativity respectfully, now reveal two very different, even two diametrically opposed, eternities. A very orderly eternity associated with special relativity and a very destructive eternity associated with general relativity,
Quantum Mechanics, Special Relativity, General Relativity and Christianity – video
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h4QDy1Soolo
Verses:
Luke 16:25-26
But Abraham answered, ‘Child, remember that during your lifetime you received your good things, while Lazarus received bad things. But now he is comforted here, while you are left to suffer. And besides all this, a great chasm has been fixed between us and you, so that even those who wish cannot cross from here to you, nor can anyone cross from there to us.’
Deuteronomy 30:19-20
This day I call the heavens and the earth as witnesses against you that I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses. Now choose life, so that you and your children may live and that you may love the Lord your God, listen to his voice, and hold fast to him. For the Lord is your life, and he will give you many years in the land he swore to give to your fathers, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.
bornagain77
December 30, 2018
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In the video Dr. Egnor referenced Benjamin Libet's work on free will, or as he put it in the video "free won't".
Science and the Soul – Michael Egnor – June 2018
Excerpt: Consistently he found that the conscious decision to push the button was preceded by about half a second by a brain wave, which he called the readiness potential. Then a half-second later the subject became aware of his decision. It appeared at first that the subjects were not free; their brains made the decision to move and they followed it.
But Libet looked deeper. He asked his subjects to veto their decision immediately after they made it – to not push the button. Again, the readiness potential appeared a half-second before conscious awareness of the decision to push the button, but Libet found that the veto – he called it “free won’t” – had no brain wave corresponding to it.
The brain, then, has activity that corresponds to a pre-conscious urge to do something. But we are free to veto or accept this urge. The motives are material. The veto, and implicitly the acceptance, is an immaterial act of the will.
Libet noted the correspondence between his experiments and the traditional religious understanding of human beings. We are, he said, beset by a sea of inclinations, corresponding to material activity in our brains, which we have the free choice to reject or accept. It is hard not to read this in more familiar terms: we are tempted by sin, yet we are free to choose.
https://www.plough.com/en/topics/justice/reconciliation/science-and-the-soul
Michael Egnor: Is free will a dangerous myth? - October 6, 2018
Excerpt: 4. ,,, an objective review of the neuroscientific evidence unequivocally supports the existence of free will. The first neuroscientist to map the brains of conscious subjects, Wilder Penfield, noted that there is an immaterial power of volition in the human mind that he could not stimulate with electrodes. The pioneer in the neuroscience of free will was Benjamin Libet, who demonstrated clearly that, while there is an unconscious material predisposition to acts as shown by electrical brain activity, we retain an immaterial “free won’t,” which is the ability to veto an unconscious urge to act. Many experiments have followed on Libet’s work, most of which use fMRI imaging of brain activity. They all confirm Libet’s observations by showing what is at most a loose correlation between brain activity and volition (for example, nearly half the time the brain activity that precedes the act is on the wrong side of the brain for the activity to determine the will)—the looseness of correlation being best explained as evidence for libertarian free will. Modern neuroscience clearly demonstrates an immaterial component to volition.
Harari is wrong about free will. It is not a myth. Free will is a real and fundamental aspect of being human, and the denial of free will is junk science and self-refuting logical nonsense.
https://uncommondescent.com/intelligent-design/michael-egnor-is-free-will-a-dangerous-myth/
Besides evidence from neuroscience validating the reality of free will, advances in quantum mechanics now also validate the reality of free will.
In fact, the last major 'loop-hole' that was left to be closed in quantum mechanics was the 'free-will' loop-hole:
Closing the ‘free will’ loophole: Using distant quasars to test Bell’s theorem – February 20, 2014
Excerpt: Though two major loopholes have since been closed, a third remains; physicists refer to it as “setting independence,” or more provocatively, “free will.” This loophole proposes that a particle detector’s settings may “conspire” with events in the shared causal past of the detectors themselves to determine which properties of the particle to measure — a scenario that, however far-fetched, implies that a physicist running the experiment does not have complete free will in choosing each detector’s setting. Such a scenario would result in biased measurements, suggesting that two particles are correlated more than they actually are, and giving more weight to quantum mechanics than classical physics.
“It sounds creepy, but people realized that’s a logical possibility that hasn’t been closed yet,” says MIT’s David Kaiser, the Germeshausen Professor of the History of Science and senior lecturer in the Department of Physics. “Before we make the leap to say the equations of quantum theory tell us the world is inescapably crazy and bizarre, have we closed every conceivable logical loophole, even if they may not seem plausible in the world we know today?”
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/02/140220112515.htm
That “creepy” and “far-fetched” possibility, i.e. "that a physicist running the experiment does not have complete free will in choosing each detector’s setting", (which is exactly the “creepy” and “far-fetched” possibility that atheists hold to be true), has now been, for all practical purposes, closed.
Anton Zeilinger and company have now pushed the “free-will loophole” back to 7.8 billion years ago by using quasars to determine measurement settings.
Cosmic Bell Test Using Random Measurement Settings from High-Redshift Quasars – Anton Zeilinger – 14 June 2018
Abstract: In this Letter, we present a cosmic Bell experiment with polarization-entangled photons, in which measurement settings were determined based on real-time measurements of the wavelength of photons from high-redshift quasars, whose light was emitted billions of years ago; the experiment simultaneously ensures locality. Assuming fair sampling for all detected photons and that the wavelength of the quasar photons had not been selectively altered or previewed between emission and detection, we observe statistically significant violation of Bell’s inequality by 9.3 standard deviations, corresponding to an estimated p value of ? 7.4 × 10^21. This experiment pushes back to at least ? 7.8 Gyr ago the most recent time by which any local-realist influences could have exploited the “freedom-of-choice” loophole to engineer the observed Bell violation, excluding any such mechanism from 96% of the space-time volume of the past light cone of our experiment, extending from the big bang to today.
https://journals.aps.org/prl/abstract/10.1103/PhysRevLett.121.080403
Moreover, here is another recent interesting experiment by Anton Zeilinger, (and about 70 other researchers), that insured the complete independence of measurement settings in a Bell test by using the free will choices of 100,000 human participants instead of having a physical randomizer determine measurement settings.
Challenging local realism with human choices – A. Zeilinger – 20 May 2018
Abstract: A Bell test, which challenges the philosophical worldview of local realism against experimental observations, is a randomized trial requiring spatially-distributed entanglement, fast and high-efficiency detection, and unpredictable measurement settings. While technology can perfect the first two of these, and while technological randomness sources enable device-independent protocols based on Bell inequality violation, challenging local realism using physical randomizers inevitably makes assumptions about the same physics one aims to test. Bell himself noted this weakness of physical setting choices and argued that human free will could rigorously be used to assure unpredictability in Bell tests. Here we report a suite of local realism tests using human choices, avoiding assumptions about predictability in physics. We recruited ~100,000 human participants to play an online video game that incentivizes fast, sustained input of unpredictable bits while also illustrating Bell test methodology. The participants generated 97,347,490 binary choices, which were directed via a scalable web platform to twelve laboratories on five continents, in which 13 experiments tested local realism using photons, single atoms, atomic ensembles, and superconducting devices. Over a 12-hour period on the 30 Nov. 2016, participants worldwide provided a sustained flow of over 1000 bits/s to the experiments, which used different human-generated bits to choose each measurement setting. The observed correlations strongly contradict local realism and other realist positions in bi-partite and tri-partite scenarios. Project outcomes include closing of the freedom-of-choice loophole, gamification of statistical and quantum non-locality concepts, new methods for quantum-secured communications, a very large dataset of human-generated randomness, and networking techniques for global participation in experimental science.
https://arxiv.org/abs/1805.04431
In a more direct way, free will is also now validated in quantum mechanics with Contexuality and/or the Kochen-Speckter Theorem,
With contextuality we find, “In the quantum world, the property that you discover through measurement is not the property that the system actually had prior to the measurement process. What you observe necessarily depends on how you carried out the observation” and “Measurement outcomes depend on all the other measurements that are performed – the full context of the experiment. Contextuality means that quantum measurements can not be thought of as simply revealing some pre-existing properties of the system under study. ”
Contextuality is ‘magic ingredient’ for quantum computing – June 11, 2012
Excerpt: Contextuality was first recognized as a feature of quantum theory almost 50 years ago. The theory showed that it was impossible to explain measurements on quantum systems in the same way as classical systems.
In the classical world, measurements simply reveal properties that the system had, such as colour, prior to the measurement. In the quantum world, the property that you discover through measurement is not the property that the system actually had prior to the measurement process. What you observe necessarily depends on how you carried out the observation.
Imagine turning over a playing card. It will be either a red suit or a black suit – a two-outcome measurement. Now imagine nine playing cards laid out in a grid with three rows and three columns. Quantum mechanics predicts something that seems contradictory – there must be an even number of red cards in every row and an odd number of red cards in every column. Try to draw a grid that obeys these rules and you will find it impossible. It’s because quantum measurements cannot be interpreted as merely revealing a pre-existing property in the same way that flipping a card reveals a red or black suit.
Measurement outcomes depend on all the other measurements that are performed – the full context of the experiment.
Contextuality means that quantum measurements can not be thought of as simply revealing some pre-existing properties of the system under study. That’s part of the weirdness of quantum mechanics.
http://phys.org/news/2014-06-weird-magic-ingredient-quantum.html
And in the Kochen-Speckter Theorem we find, as leading experimental physicist Anton Zeilinger states in the following video, that "what we perceive as reality now depends on our earlier decision what to measure. Which is a very, very, deep message about the nature of reality and our part in the whole universe. We are not just passive observers.”
“The Kochen-Speckter Theorem talks about properties of one system only. So we know that we cannot assume – to put it precisely, we know that it is wrong to assume that the features of a system, which we observe in a measurement exist prior to measurement. Not always. I mean in a certain cases. So in a sense, what we perceive as reality now depends on our earlier decision what to measure. Which is a very, very, deep message about the nature of reality and our part in the whole universe. We are not just passive observers.”
Anton Zeilinger –
Quantum Physics Debunks Materialism – video (7:17 minute mark)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=4C5pq7W5yRM#t=437
This finding is simply devastating to the physicalist's deterministic view of nature, And even to the Theistic Evolutionist's 'front loading' view of nature.
As the following article states, it is "not even be possible to place the information into the universe's past in an ad hoc way."
The free will theorem of John H. Conway and Simon B. Kochen,,,
Since the free will theorem applies to any arbitrary physical theory consistent with the axioms, it would not even be possible to place the information into the universe's past in an ad hoc way. The argument proceeds from the Kochen-Specker theorem, which shows that the result of any individual measurement of spin was not fixed (pre-determined) independently of the choice of measurements.
http://www.informationphilosopher.com/freedom/free_will_theorem.html
bornagain77
December 30, 2018
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JAD writes,
The problem for physicalists is that they have to first explain how it’s even possible that mindless matter can give rise to mind and consciousness. But if that’s true why not consider the other possibility that ontologically consciousness and mind are immaterial.
I am one who certainly does consider that "ontologically consciousness and mind are immaterial." But I think it's important to acknowledge that dualists face the equally difficult problem of how the immaterial mind interfaces in a causal way with the physical body.
This is why I am more interested in the experience of consciousness, and how it relates to the overall mind than I am to the ontological question.hazel
December 30, 2018
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Barry Arrington referenced the video of neurosurgeon Michael Egnor on the immateriality of the mind.
Here are some of Dr,. Egnor’s further thoughts and responses on the mind and free will (I will also put them up as a separate post):
Hamlet: Did His Perplexing Neurotransmitters Cause the Tragedy? The neuroscientist working from a mechanical perspective would study the material and efficient causes of Hamlet’s act of revenge.
Yes, your brain is a machine—if you choose to see it that way
Does your brain construct your conscious reality? Part I
A reply to computational neuroscientist Anil Seth's recent TED talk
Does your brain construct your conscious reality? Part II In a word, no. Your brain doesn't "think"; YOU think, using your brain
Does brain stimulation research challenge free will?
Is Free Will a Dangerous Myth?
The brain is not a “meat computer”
and
AI is indeed a threat to democracy But not in quite the way historian Yuval Noah Harari thinks
Follow UD News at Twitter!News
December 30, 2018
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The problem for physicalists is that they have to first explain how it’s even possible that mindless matter can give rise to mind and consciousness. So far, as far as I know, no one has been able to do that. Of course, they can always argue that we do not know. But if that’s true why not consider the other possibility that ontologically consciousness and mind are immaterial.
What is inane and stupid is to argue that even if we don’t know the answer MUST be physical. Egnor has actually carried on debates with people like that, including Dr. Steven Novella assistant professor of neurology at Yale and president and co-founder of the New England Skeptical Society. He has argued there is no debate because materialism has already won.
https://evolutionnews.org/2008/02/dr_steven_novellas_challenge_p/john_a_designer
December 29, 2018
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Let me preface this by saying that I believe in the immaterial mind. But, is a mind resulting from completely material processes incompatible with ID?Ed George