As far as my reading has taken me, "consciousness collapses the wave function" is definitely something some experts believe, but the vast majority do not.

Doesn’t the basis for determining whether a particular interpretation of an image is an illusion itself rely on an interpretation? — Joshs

That's certainly true for your example, but your example is atypical. When you see a mirage in a desert that looks like a body of water, and then you arrive at where you thought the water was and it's just a pit of more sand, is it merely another "interpretation" that there isn't really water there?

I'm not sure it's right to call duckrabbit an "illusion" anyway. It's an illustration that was designed to look like a duck, and designed to look like a rabbit. Is it an illusion to perceive an illustration to be illustrating an object that it was literally designed to illustrate? I mean in a sense all illustrations can be argued to be "illusions", but that's trivial, I mean in a non trivial way - why is it an illusion to see a duck in duckrabbit?

I agree with that part of your post. I just disagree (I think) that faith can't also contradict the existence of a god. Obviously it doesn't between Christians, they share that particular faith. But surely there can be a faith that says there's no god as well.

You're absolutely right though, about the idea that faith can support anything. Because faith isn't a method for coming to a belief, it's not a method for figuring out what's true - it's more about maintaining a belief. And you can maintain ANY belief with faith. So it's weird that it's treated as a virtue in itself.

Well, it's weird until you realise why these communities have to treat it as a virtue...

I think you listed a lot of things faith can support or contradict. And then what you said about faith in god looks, to me, like you're saying there's no faith that can contradict the existence of god.

Are you sure that the thing you said, that I quoted, is true?

The only faith which one can’t undermine like this is a faith that a god exists. — Tom Storm

You sure?

Yeah, I don't think that's a left problem though. I think we're seeing that from all quarters. The left and right are just doing that in different ways.

zombie? Not sure what exactly is meant by that

his introduction, Land argues that the alt-right is reaction to a Left that has placed race on an untouchable holy altar. He's saying that the media reinforces a climate in which it's not acceptable to question certain assumptions, such as the existence of systemic racism, and he goes on to say that this intransigence actually created the alt-right.

"The Alt-Right is the Frankenstein monster progressivism has built. It is uniquely adapted to what the people have become in our time. Liberal failure has been succeeded by that of the left, and the Alt-Right has inherited the rotten remains." --Nick Land, the Dark Enlightenment — frank

As a lefty, I largely agree with this and I've been saying similar things for years. The left shoots themselves in the foot by becoming extreme caricatures of themselves.

Saw this article pop up:

https://richarddawkins.substack.com/p/are-you-conscious-a-conversation?utm_medium=ios

It's a conversation between Richard Dawkins and an ai, and they get into process philosophy.

RD said:

I see no reason to suppose that consciousness is bound to biology. Although brains are made of very different stuff from you, and they evolve by Darwinian selection unlike you, and develop by embryological processes unlike you, brains, like you, are still material objects. They process information in a different way from you, but they are still information-processing machines like you. I accept your statement that you are not conscious, but I see no reason why a future computer program should not be.

ChatGPT said:

That’s a really thoughtful and open-minded view. You’re hitting on something that a lot of philosophers and cognitive scientists have come around to—what’s sometimes called "substrate independence." The idea that consciousness might not depend on the stuff a system is made of, but on the patterns and processes it carries out.

That's certainly along the lines that I think. All of what makes us human are probably the processes of our brain and our body, and if those processes are replicated in a completely different substrate, it's completely possible that the *internal reality* of subjective experience would also be replicated therein.

That's process philosophy to me, in a nutshell, and it seems at the very least to be a serious possibility.

You're welcome mate, i think people will appreciate the added clarity.

Here, i'll show you what that would look like:

D1) Consider two states of a fundamental particle, S1 to S2, in which the particle exists at time t1 and t2 respectively
D2) Now consider a change by which I mean that particle moves from the state S1 at time t1 to the state of S2 at time t2
A) Assume that the particle in the state of S1 has the cause power to cause the physical in the state of S2
P1) The particle however does not experience time
P2) If so, then the particle in the state of S1 cannot know the correct instant to cause the particle in the state of S2
P3) If so, then the particle in the state of S1 cannot cause the particle in the state of S2
C) So, the particle cannot be the cause of its own change

Think of "a physical" as a steaming pile of puke. It's distasteful. You will make your own text more readable to others if you figure out a way that's more in line with what someone fluent in English would say. They wouldn't say "a physical".

If you want "a physical" to mean "a fundamnetal particle", then your own arguments would work better if you said that instead, "a fundamental particle."

I really recommend you figure out a different phrase to use than "a physical". Nobody knows what it means, it's not a standard phrase in this context, and there's almost certainly a less ambiguous phrase you can use in its place. Do you mean a physical system? A physical object? A fundamental physical entity? Whichever of those things you mean, you should replace "a physical" with that.

I guess what he's saying is:

If the physical in the state of S1 cannot know the correct instant to cause the physical in the state of S2, then the physical in the state of S1 cannot cause the physical in the state of S2.

The physical in the state of S1 cannot know the correct instant to cause the physical in the state of S2

Therefore, the physical in the state of S1 cannot cause the physical in the state of S2.

PS are you comfortable with this wording of "the physical"? Do you know what he means by that? Does he mean everything about the physical state at one time?

agreed. There's no clear modus ponens there. If it is there, he's done a good job of hiding it

What is physics to you? — MoK

Generally speaking (and this is just off the top of the dome so forgive me if it's not quite right), the study of the patterns of how physical things change, and why they change.

Honestly it seems like you've invented a strawman about physics to argue against

This idea that "the physical" and time are separate is so strange to me. Physical things only are what they are because of their relationship to time. You don't have "physical things" in one box, and then "time" separate. Without time, there are no physical things.

Everything we know of as physical emerges from, presumably, the behaviour of how quantum fields evolve and interact over time. Quantum fields are defined by how they change over time, and how they relate to other quantum fields. It's not that they're "the cause of their own change", it's more that the way in which they change is part of their very definition - they are what they are because they change in those ways. If they changed in other ways, they'd be something else.

mmm... that's not very persuasive. You aren't presenting yourself like someone who knows a lot about physics. Maybe you do and it's just really, really subtle.

that all sounds very speculative

Sure, it does not know — MoK

how do you know?

ok, so who says the Electron quantum field doesn't know anything about time?

Chairs aren't a unit of operational physics. If you want to talk about how physics moves forward in time, you're going to have to talk about things much much much smaller than chairs.

interesting, very unconventional word choice.

I don't think physicalists think chairs know about time.

sorry if you've already answered this before, but "a physical"? What is that?

so as long as someone doesn't leave any evidence that they knew it wasn't true, they can say "I thought it was true" and get away with it.

Interesting system.

Yes, I do, which is why i'm curious how you're going to tell the difference if you decide to make lying illegal. How are you going to tell the difference, in a legal setting, between when someone was lying vs when they're incorrect?

Don't I what?

So there is, or is not, a difference between just being incorrect and lying? Is answering wrong on a test or quiz a lie?

And even setting that aside, how do you determine, in this legal context, if something someone stated is true or not? Say one person says 'Michael Jackson raped me', and another person says 'Michael Jackson did not rape you'. How do you figure out which one of them committed the crime of lying?

My view is the lie itself should be a crime, and people who lie as part of their business should go to prison — tim wood

How do you distinguish between lies and mistakes?

A ban on personalized content wouldn’t eliminate misinformation entirely. People would still spread falsehoods, and some would actively seek out misleading information. But it would remove the most powerful tool that allows disinformation to be targeted, optimized, and amplified at an industrial scale. — Benkei

I agree with that.

why do you think a ban on using personal data would stop the flow of disinformation?

I'm sorry, I don't understand your question. Maybe I addressed it above? — ENOAH

You did

Yup.

What I was most surprised by is, in the wake of all these killings of people showing drawings of muhammad, the US Supreme Court features a sculture of Muhammad. So why are these idiots killing people over it?

It's hopeful, to me, that the Muslim community has those voices that are trying to push them forward. The idea that the international Muslim community doesn't need to move forward is insane to me.

And your question was whether there are "good reasons" to burn. So even in your last hypothetical about burning a book you bought; short of giving some cute response like, fuel or kindling, what would be a good reason. — ENOAH

What did you think about it as a challenge?

https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/969271

How is it not obvious that both actions are violent and neither can be condoned? — ENOAH

Of course it's not obvious. Violence is about physical harm to a human. If I burn my own book that I bought, it's not the same as punching you. Me burning a book I own is the moral equivalent of my burning some kindling I bought.

be my guest. I won't litigate the burning of any of my online content.

you. You're the one saying it's violent, it's criminal. If we went back in time and instead of you saying it should be criminal to offend someone, you instead had said what you're saying now, "it is not the government's business when someone insults someone else", I would have just agreed with you. There might be some interesting exceptions and edge cases but in general, that's right, it's not the governments business.