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Theoretical physicist takes on panpsychism. Bam! Pow!

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Coffee mug clip art Free vector for free download (about 13 files).

Panpsychism? Oh, you know, everything is conscious. Theoretical physicist Sabine Hossenfelder author of Lost in Math: How Beauty Leads Physics Astray, who can be counted on to be honest, tells us, “I know that physicists have a reputation of being narrow-minded. But the reason we have this reputation is that we tried the crazy shit long ago and just found it doesn’t work.”

Um, no. But who told Hossenfelder that things should “work”? Not just sound deep? Okay, okay, let’s let her go on:

Now, if you want a particle to be conscious, your minimum expectation should be that the particle can change. It’s hard to have an inner life with only one thought. But if electrons could have thoughts, we’d long have seen this in particle collisions because it would change the number of particles produced in collisions.

The only element of physics that might work here, she thinks, would be a claim that the conscious state is so strongly bound within the particles that it has not been possible to discover them. But then,

With the third option [strongly bound particles] it is indeed possible to add internal states to elementary particles. But if your goal is to give consciousness to those particles so that we can inherit it from them, strongly bound composites do not help you. They do not help you exactly because you have hidden this consciousness so that it needs a lot of energy to access. This then means, of course, that you cannot use it at lower energies, like the ones typical for soft and wet thinking apparatuses like human brains. Sabine Hossenfelder, “Electrons don’t think” at BackRe(Action)

It’s the basic problem of the coffee mug. If naturalism (nature is all there is), often called “materialism,” is true, either you and the mug are both conscious or neither of you is. The comments at BackRe(Action) illustrate the difficulty many have grasping that that is a serious problem.

Overall, Hossenfelder is only just beginning to think about this problem so she underestimates the depth of the dilemma.

Lost in Math

See also: From Scientific American: “we may all be alters—dissociated personalities— of universal consciousness.”

Panpsychism: You are conscious but so is your coffee mug

Will the Large Hadron Collider doom particle physics? They’ll find the money to continue. Consider: The Standard Model begins with the hated Big Bang. Nothing that supports string theory, eternal cosmic inflation, or a multiverse has been found. Don’t many people just have to keep looking and keep quiet about what they find that wasn’t what they hoped for?

and

(A response to Hossenfelder:) Experimental physicist: Particle theory is “in a crisis” and a bigger collider IS the answer! So we should do it because we can, not because we really expect to learn very much? It may be that Dorigo is just not a good spokesperson for his position; he spends a good deal of time attacking Hossenfelder and her book. Anyway, somehow, naturalism (nature is all there is) isn’t providing the hoped-for return on investments.

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Comments
Very interesting OP and very informative comments by BA77. Thanks. It would be interesting to see WJM and gpuccio commenting here in this thread too. I’m starting to like these esoteric topics, though they fly high above my head. Still prefer reading more concrete down-to-earth scientific stuff like gpuccio’s protein-related OPs, thought they are also above my pay grade. But at least gpuccio’s eloquent explanations on the complex functional information jumps are more palatable than these esoteric philosophical debates. My “poorly evolved” mind can’t process so much abstraction at once. Blame it on Natural Selection. :)jawa
January 6, 2019
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Richard Feynman (and others) were only able to unify special relativity and quantum mechanics into Quantum Electrodynamics by quote unquote “brushing infinity under the rug” with a technique called Renormalization.
THE INFINITY PUZZLE: Quantum Field Theory and the Hunt for an Orderly Universe Excerpt: In quantum electrodynamics, which applies quantum mechanics to the electromagnetic field and its interactions with matter, the equations led to infinite results for the self-energy or mass of the electron. After nearly two decades of effort, this problem was solved after World War II by a procedure called renormalization, in which the infinities are rolled up into the electron’s observed mass and charge, and are thereafter conveniently ignored. Richard Feynman, who shared the 1965 Nobel Prize with Julian Schwinger and Sin-Itiro Tomonaga for this breakthrough, referred to this sleight of hand as “brushing infinity under the rug.” http://www.americanscientist.org/bookshelf/pub/tackling-infinity
This “brushing infinity under the rug” with QED never set right with Feynman. In the following video, Richard Feynman expresses his unease with “brushing infinity under the rug” in Quantum-Electrodynamics:
“It always bothers me that in spite of all this local business, what goes on in a tiny, no matter how tiny, region of space, and no matter how tiny a region of time, according to laws as we understand them today, it takes a computing machine an infinite number of logical operations to figure out. Now how can all that be going on in that tiny space? Why should it take an infinite amount of logic to figure out what one stinky tiny bit of space-time is going to do?” – Richard Feynman – one of the founding fathers of QED (Quantum Electrodynamics) Quote taken from the 6:45 minute mark of the following video: Feynman: Mathematicians versus Physicists – video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=obCjODeoLVw
One of the interesting facets of “brushing infinity under the rug” in Quantum-Electrodynamics, (besides the fact that taking 'an infinite amount of logic to figure out what one stinky tiny bit of space-time is going to do' happens to be fully compatible with Christian presuppositions),,,
“Why should it take an infinite amount of logic to figure out what one stinky tiny bit of space-time is going to do?” – Richard Feynman John1:1 “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” of note: ‘the Word’ in John 1:1 is translated from ‘Logos’ in Greek. Logos is also the root word from which we derive our modern word logic http://etymonline.com/?term=logic
,, Besides that uncanny compatibility with Christian presuppositions, one of the interesting facets of “brushing infinity under the rug” in Quantum-Electrodynamics is that, interestingly, “Although quantum field theory is fully compatible with the special theory of relativity, a relativistic treatment of quantum measurement has yet to be formulated.”
Not So Real – Sheldon Lee Glashow – Oct. 2018 Review of: “What Is Real? The Unfinished Quest for the Meaning of Quantum Physics” by Adam Becker Excerpt: Heisenberg, Schrödinger, and their contemporaries knew well that the theory they devised could not be made compatible with Einstein’s special theory of relativity. First order in time, but second order in space, Schrödinger’s equation is nonrelativistic. Although quantum field theory is fully compatible with the special theory of relativity, a relativistic treatment of quantum measurement has yet to be formulated. https://inference-review.com/article/not-so-real
That is to say, although they unified special relativity and quantum mechanics together in QED by “brushing infinity under the rug”, this unification between special relativity and quantum mechanics into Quantum Electrodynamics has left the entire enigma of Quantum Measurement on the cutting room floor. Yet quantum measurement is precisely where conscious observation makes its presense fully known in quantum mechanics. As the follwing researcher stated, “It proves that measurement is everything. At the quantum level, reality does not exist if you are not looking at it.”
New Mind-blowing Experiment Confirms That Reality Doesn’t Exist If You Are Not Looking at It - June 3, 2015 Excerpt: Some particles, such as photons or electrons, can behave both as particles and as waves. Here comes a question of what exactly makes a photon or an electron act either as a particle or a wave. This is what Wheeler’s experiment asks: at what point does an object ‘decide’? The results of the Australian scientists’ experiment, which were published in the journal Nature Physics, show that this choice is determined by the way the object is measured, which is in accordance with what quantum theory predicts. “It proves that measurement is everything. At the quantum level, reality does not exist if you are not looking at it,” said lead researcher Dr. Andrew Truscott in a press release.,,, “The atoms did not travel from A to B. It was only when they were measured at the end of the journey that their wave-like or particle-like behavior was brought into existence,” he said. Thus, this experiment adds to the validity of the quantum theory and provides new evidence to the idea that reality doesn’t exist without an observer. http://themindunleashed.org/2015/06/new-mind-blowing-experiment-confirms-that-reality-doesnt-exist-if-you-are-not-looking-at-it.html The Death of Materialism - InspiringPhilosophy – (Material reality does not exist without an observer) video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wM0IKLv7KrE The Measurement Problem in quantum mechanics - (Inspiring Philosophy) - 2014 video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qB7d5V71vUE
Thus since QED, and by extension the standard model itself, has left quantum measurement, i.e. conscious observation, on the cutting room floor by “brushing infinity under the rug”, then it necessarily follows that our best theory of the interactions of the fundamental particles of the universe will never include an adequate account of consciousness. That is to say, as far as the standard model is concerned, panpsychism is dead even before it gets of the ground since consciousness has already been excluded from our best theory of elementary particles by "brushing infinity under the rug". Supplemental notes:
Albert Einstein vs. Quantum Mechanics and His Own Mind – video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vxFFtZ301j4 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
Verse:
Colossians 1:15-20 The Son is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. For in him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things have been created through him and for him. He is before all things, and in him all things hold together. And he is the head of the body, the church; he is the beginning and the firstborn from among the dead, so that in everything he might have the supremacy. For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross.
bornagain77
January 4, 2019
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As to Sabine Hossenfelder's appeal to the standard model to refute panpsychism:
Electrons don’t think - Sabine Hossenfelder - January 02, 2019 Excerpt: "We know 25 elementary particles. These are collected in the standard model of particle physics. The predictions of the standard model agree with experiment to best precision.,,, With the third option [strongly bound particles] it is indeed possible to add internal states to elementary particles. But if your goal is to give consciousness to those particles so that we can inherit it from them, strongly bound composites do not help you. They do not help you exactly because you have hidden this consciousness so that it needs a lot of energy to access. This then means, of course, that you cannot use it at lower energies, like the ones typical for soft and wet thinking apparatuses like human brains." http://backreaction.blogspot.com/2019/01/electrons-dont-think.html
Actually, there is a more fundamental reason why the standard model says consciousness will never be found in electrons (nor in any other elementary particles). But first it is necessary to highlight a little background on how the standard model came about. The Standard Model is a paradigm of a quantum field theory.
Standard Model Excerpt: The development of the Standard Model was driven by theoretical and experimental particle physicists alike. For theorists, the Standard Model is a paradigm of a quantum field theory, which exhibits a wide range of physics including spontaneous symmetry breaking, anomalies and non-perturbative behavior. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standard_Model
And the standard model grew out of the success of Quantum electrodynamics (QED)
History of quantum field theory Excerpt: In particle physics, the history of quantum field theory starts with its creation by Paul Dirac, when he attempted to quantize the electromagnetic field in the late 1920s. Major advances in the theory were made in the 1950s, and led to the introduction of quantum electrodynamics (QED). QED was so successful and accurately predictive that efforts were made to apply the same basic concepts for the other forces of nature. By the late 1970s, these efforts successfully utilized gauge theory in the strong nuclear force and weak nuclear force, producing the modern standard model of particle physics. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_quantum_field_theory Quantum field theory - history Excerpt: As a successful theoretical framework today, quantum field theory emerged from the work of generations of theoretical physicists spanning much of the 20th century. Its development began in the 1920s with the description of interactions between light and electrons, culminating in the first quantum field theory — quantum electrodynamics. A major theoretical obstacle soon followed with the appearance and persistence of various infinities in perturbative calculations, a problem only resolved in the 1950s with the invention of the renormalization procedure. A second major barrier came with QFT's apparent inability to describe the weak and strong interactions, to the point where some theorists called for the abandonment of the field theoretic approach. The development of gauge theory and the completion of the Standard Model in the 1970s led to a renaissance of quantum field theory.,,, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_field_theory#History
QED unifies special relativity with quantum mechanics,,,
Precise measurements test quantum electrodynamics, constrain possible fifth fundamental force - June 04, 2013 Excerpt: Quantum electrodynamics (QED) – the relativistic quantum field theory of electrodynamics – describes how light and matter interact – achieves full agreement between quantum mechanics and special relativity.,, QED solves the problem of infinities associated with charged pointlike particles and, perhaps more importantly, includes the effects of spontaneous particle-antiparticle generation from the vacuum.,,, Recently, scientists,, tested QED to extreme precision..,,, can be interpreted in terms of constraints on possible fifth-force interactions beyond the Standard Model of physics,, http://phys.org/news/2013-06-precise-quantum-electrodynamics-constrain-fundamental.html The Gravity of the Situation The inability to reconcile general relativity with quantum mechanics didn't just occur to physicists. It was actually after many other successful theories had already been developed that gravity was recognized as the elusive force. The first attempt at unifying relativity and quantum mechanics took place when special relativity was merged with electromagnetism. This created the theory of quantum electrodynamics, or QED. It is an example of what has come to be known as relativistic quantum field theory, or just quantum field theory. QED is considered by most physicists to be the most precise theory of natural phenomena ever developed. In the 1960s and '70s, the success of QED prompted other physicists to try an analogous approach to unifying the weak, the strong, and the gravitational forces. Out of these discoveries came another set of theories that merged the strong and weak forces called quantum chromodynamics, or QCD, and quantum electroweak theory, or simply the electroweak theory, which you've already been introduced to. https://www.infoplease.com/science/universe/theories-universe-quantum-mechanics-vs-general-relativity Quantum field theory - History Excerpt: ,,, (Quantum field theory) QFT is an unavoidable consequence of the reconciliation of quantum mechanics with special relativity (Weinberg (1995)),,, The first achievement of quantum field theory, namely quantum electrodynamics (QED), is "still the paradigmatic example of a successful quantum field theory" (Weinberg (1995)). https://ipfs.io/ipfs/QmXoypizjW3WknFiJnKLwHCnL72vedxjQkDDP1mXWo6uco/wiki/Quantum_field_theory.html
Whereas the 'renaissance' of Quantum Field Theory (QFT), which led to the Standard Model, is the result of the combination of classical field theory, quantum mechanics, and special relativity
Quantum field theory - history Excerpt: Quantum field theory is the result of the combination of classical field theory, quantum mechanics, and special relativity.,,, ,,, Given the tremendous success of QED, many theorists believed, in the few years after 1949, that QFT could soon provide an understanding of all microscopic phenomena, not only the interactions between photons, electrons, and positrons. Contrary to this optimism, QFT entered yet another period of depression that lasted for almost two decades.,,, These theoretical breakthroughs brought about a renaissance in QFT. The full theory, which includes the electroweak theory and chromodynamics, is referred to today as the Standard Model of elementary particles.[12] The Standard Model successfully describes all fundamental interactions except gravity, and its many predictions have been met with remarkable experimental confirmation in subsequent decades.[8]:3 The Higgs boson, central to the mechanism of spontaneous symmetry breaking, was finally detected in 2012 at CERN, marking the complete verification of the existence of all constituents of the Standard Model.[13] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_field_theory#History
bornagain77
January 4, 2019
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