• Enrique
    842
    The initial post looking for input on my book in progress got swiftly removed, so maybe I should be more specific for the sake of better linking with this site or maybe getting some talk going independent of my excerpts if that's all I can manage. If you want to give the blog I'm referencing a view and comment on a more detailed argument, that would be great, but if you just want to screw around based on what I say in this post, it'll probably still be a good conversation.

    I've been discussing the relevance of quantum mechanics for our understanding of perception and consciousness generally in many of these threads, and would like to get more input about how valid the ideas seem to those of you interested in the philosophy of science. My main thesis is that the nervous system can be understood as the product of evolution from a basic substrate of non-local substance, diverging into two domains: extremely efficient quantum biochemical mechanisms for overcoming the partial limitations imposed on non-locality by decoherence from thermodynamic entropy in large aggregates of particles, in substantial contact with essential non-locality, and larger-scale organic structures streamlined by earth's gravitation to function in line with the laws of classical physics, a more macroscopic realm we can model as relatively "local" or spatio-temporal. I outline the chemical conditions of the possibility of organic life on earth, and give a step by step account of how cellular biochemistry evolved into a nervous system, a mind, and ultimately a human form of self-identity. Getting some analysis of that argument could be extremely helpful for refining my ideas, and it'll undoubtedly make you think. This can be found at wordpress.com, The Origins and Evolution of Perception in Organic Matter.

    A further blog post proposes that the substance of perception is emergent from extremely complex additive properties of entangled atomic wavicles, particularly electron interactions, and touches on the implications for our understanding of the universe and human nature if qualia are in fact an aspect of matter's basic structure, The Nature and Human Impact of Qualia, an essay I've previously posted at this forum, but this is easy access also.

    Beyond that, if you would like to give additional blog posts a read and comment, I cover a broad range of subjects that are all worth pondering, analysis of institutional health, human development, the impact of nutrition on human evolution, the nature of causality and uncertainty, the co-emergence of language and theory, the nature of rationality, and a host of additional topics, so bring on the arguments!
  • Sir Philo Sophia
    303
    A further blog post proposes that the substance of perception is emergent from extremely complex additive properties of entangled atomic wavicles, particularly electron interactions, and touches on the implications for our understanding of the universe and human nature if qualia are in fact an aspect of matter's basic structure,Enrique

    is that not, essentially, glorified panpsychism?

    I’ve got at least 2 problems with your proposal.
    1. All the evidence I’m looking at strongly indicates that consciousness and qualia are ‘post hoc’ phenomenon, and certainly not intrinsic to the system’s component hardware/properties.

    2. Besides that, if your proposal or panpsychism were true then would not you expect that the lowest forms of animals with brains could share very similar abilities of material consciousness and experiential consciousness as do humans b/c they all have practically the same hardware (neurons, nerves, connectivity, etc.)? However, we already know that few animals are even self-aware (e.g., few are able recognize themselves and ID their own agency) let alone having Experiential Consciousness.

    If you agree that your proposal is very similar to panpsychism then I would think that you should start by experimentally making the above case before going to untestable near supernatural theories of quantum/atomic sources, etc..

    Why are you so convinced that qualia consciousness must arise from things like quantum effects instead of simply being a macro-scale phenomenon w/o requiring the quantum effects to do its cool stuff?

    BTW, do you also believe in the panpsychism ‘continuity’ requirement and that it precludes machine implemented emergent AI conscious agents? To me, there is nothing about panpsychism continuity or some kind of universal qualia that precludes machine implemented emergent AI conscious agents. If anything, they could be more in touch with the quantum continuum via things like q-bits, quantum wells, single particle systems, etc.

    Anyhow, the panpsychism continuity concept seems unworthy of serious consideration b/c for it to matter the continuum chain would have to transmit a continuum of meaning, which I posit is impossible to preserve between dimensions and even between orders of magnitude in scale. For example, Peirce’s synechism concept fails in the simplest of examples like the party game where you get many people (say 10) side by side and have one at one end tell a message to their adjacent, and each repeats the same message to the next. The meaning of the message always is altered, even if subtlely, by the time it is repeated at the other end. Thus, it fails even in that ideal case, of nearly identical cognitive agents speaking the same language living in the same culture. So, we should have almost zero confidence in any kind of meaning existing in subparticles, in far remote locations, being able to communicate their meaning through quantum mechanical random fluctuations to neurons that communicate that as the same meaning to the conscious agent.
  • Enrique
    842


    If you can't find any support for my thesis anywhere, it must be either a really good or a really bad idea lol

    I wouldn't advocate panpsychism, my present view is more of a panqualiaism. The claim is that qualia are an essential feature of matter's dynamic non-locality, with the models of current quantum physics barely scratching the surface of its real nature. So I'm thinking that microscopic entanglement effects produce at least fleeting qualia in many if not all the universe's environments, including earth, and massive entanglement or coherence systems with possible psychical properties exist or can be diversely induced in non-local substance, with organic consciousness the instantiation we have thus far studied, conceived as having a salient aspect of relative locality, its more or less three-dimensional, bulked molecular structure produced by a nervous system amongst bodies and relatively human-scaled mass.

    A qualia-based psyche may be embodied in what we theorize as inorganic chemistry. Awareness analogous to human qualitative states might exist in organic lifeforms with simpler nervous systems without being meta-organized such that self-awareness is possible. AI can probably be self-aware and purposeful in the absence of meta-organized qualia, as simulations of organic function in a computational medium.

    I doubt the information analogy applies to psychoactive substance, the non-locality of which defies laws of classical physics.
  • Sir Philo Sophia
    303
    I wouldn't advocate panpsychism, my present view is more of a panqualiaism.Enrique

    why not? you make the same kinds of presumptions and metaphysical models. What is wrong with panpsychism in your opinion, which your approach does not suffer?

    https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Panpsychism
    In contemporary philosophy, panpsychism is offered as a naturalistic solution to various problems inherent in classical physicalism:[3]

    1. Eliminativism denies internal existence (including qualia; such as the redness of red, or the specific taste of an apple, as distinct from the neural processes/information representing these experiences). While popular amongst some philosophers, eliminativism goes against human intuition; existing beliefs regarding the sentience of intelligent biological systems (given that the agent/"software" encoded in the brain has evolved to believe that it is conscious; see self-directed theory of mind[citation needed]).
  • Sir Philo Sophia
    303
    So I'm thinking that microscopic entanglement effects produce at least fleeting qualia in many if not all the universe's environments,Enrique

    I don't see how entaglements help one's qualia of macro physical things like color, taste, passage of time.

    You have not addressed any of my many stated problem and counter evidence for panpsychism or panqualiaism models. Care to demonstrate where I'm thinking wrong on that?
  • Enrique
    842


    I've already talked about this at length in the "qualia and quantum mechanics" threads. If my theory is experimentally verified, it resolves the mind/body duality issue by describing qualia as emergent from basics of matter as such, not in a way peculiar to the most sophisticated organic mechanisms. This accounts for many more phenomena of the natural world. You might want to read the essays I site in the OP also.
  • Sir Philo Sophia
    303
    If my theory is experimentally verifiedEnrique

    since you are opting to not address my counterpoints then maybe you'd at least explain what the experiment would generally look like and generally how would verification work (e.g., what would be tested to produce what result). Without anything substantial/tangible I personally wouldn't be motivated to dig into essays expounding hypotheticals of panpsychism style panqualiaism .
  • Enrique
    842


    The idea is that qualia are a basic property of matter, like mass, energy, shape, and size, emergent from dynamics of entanglement that have been modelled in a preliminary way by quantum physics. Entanglement is key to the functioning of photosynthetic reaction centers, also magnetoreception, and will probably be discovered in all kinds of cellular structures. If entanglement is found throughout the body, especially in the nervous system, additive properties of its particle wavelengths may be what produce qualia as conventionally conceived, perhaps organized into larger-scale systems of hybridized entanglements I call coherence fields. Electricity is an extremely strong form of coherence field, and EMFs such as brain waves may also be a type of coherence field. What we know as sustained qualitative experience might be generated by mechanisms that integrate, synchronize and amplify these coherence field effects to create a more or less synthetic consciousness. Corroborating this theory by investigating organic tissues such as those of the brain then suggests that consciousness as cumulative material qualia can exist beyond the modularity characterizing organic bodies.
  • Sir Philo Sophia
    303

    I did not hear anything there that could be experimentally verified as you suggest. Moreover, how does that address my above issues raised re 'post hoc' and inability for quantum effects to communicate any qualia meaning for a macro qualia consciousness? You cannot so easily just ignore/brush off such obvious problems to your panpsychism style panqualiaism thinking.
  • Enrique
    842


    You are quite the contrarian lol The issues you raise are not a flaw in the theory, but a topic to be studied, and I'm as curious as you! I provide some speculations in my essays, though detailed knowledge will depend on scientific research projects.
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