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I suggest Google or use the Title of a work by Dr. Milo Wolf: Solving Nature's Mystery
On the Spherical Wave Structure of Matter and the Origin of the Natural Laws. Explaining the Particle Wave Duality of Light and Matter with the Wave Structure of Matter (WSM).
I have favored the WSM approach (at least insofar as it underlying ontology is concerned) for...um...decades, I guess? So I'm already on board with you here, which I why I have no real problem with you characterizing the "fundamental stuff" as "energy" if you want. Where I get a bit tangled up is trying to figure out how this conception gets us closer to understanding the qualia. Waves are still essentially objective/abstract/quantitative descriptions, so it still doesn't count as the sort of paradigm shift I'm looking for. In other words, I suspect that WSM is necessary for getting to the next stage, but not sufficient. At the moment I think we are going to have to settle for brute-fact correlations between quantitative and qualitative facts. This project is already under way in cognitive science's search for the "neural correlates of consciousness." Once we make some progress on this, then - to get a truly fundamental theory of consciousness - we will need to (or, at least, we will want to try to) track the qualitative roots back to the quantum level. If we are unable to do that, then what we will have is a "Poof! Then a miracle occurs!" somewhere in the explanatory chain between fundamental physics and cognitive science.
Just to be clear: I expect consciousness to be truly emergent, which is to say, I don't expect the fundamental elements/laws of physics to be conscious. But they do, in some sense, need to be "qualitative" or "proto-qualitative" in a way that, currently, does not exist in physics. The "in some sense" is the money-maker. Nailing that idea down to something less vague is the Hard Problem. I'm not completely opposed to the idea that some sort of fundamental consciousness (aka "God") could be the ultimate key, but at the moment I still strongly favor the proto-conscious (aka "fundamentally qualitative" aka "unconscious") approach because, empirically and phenomenologically it seems to me that consciousness always emerges from unconsciousness and I think we get into infinite regress if we try to explain that, somehow, this moment of conscious experience, Z, can be explained by conscious experience Y, which can be explained by conscious experience X, which can be explained by....
Why did I suddenly think of a martini composed of gin and molten lead? I have no idea. Phenomenologically it feels like it came from unconsciousness. Did I consciously decide to think of such a thing, and then immediately forgot that I consciously decided to think of this? Does "unconscious" just mean "conscious-but-forgotten"? Does unconsciousness mean "God consciously decided that I would think X and then I though of X?" If I could read God's mind, could I then remember the conscious deliberation that when on in his mind as he purposefully decided that I would think of a molten lead martini? Maybe, but I don't think so. Even if God did consciously decide that I would think of X, I think that God's conscious thoughts, themselves, emerged from unconscious mental processes. Thus I think that, with or without the existence of God, the really super-ultimate ground of conscious experience is unconscious qualitative processing that presumably works in accordance with some sort of brute-fact natural laws (which would probably boil down to dynamical systems models, which can roughly be described as self-organizing chaos).
Thus I say that, even if there is a God, I suspect there could be a "natural law" type of explanation for how God's conscious experiences emerge from his unconscious essence. And I think this unconscious essence is what it most likely to explain things like the "Problem of Evil" and the nature of free will. And, of course, this unconscious essence is intrinsically dynamic and probably "wave-like", so you can think of it as "pure energy" in some sense, if you want. I have to objection to that.
But, of course, if things really do boil down to dynamical systems of qualitative or proto-qualitative essences, then we don't really need to posit "God" in the picture. We are free to do so because logic does not prevent it, but we are not rationally required to do so.
Last edited by Gaylenwoof; 05-25-2018 at 09:30 AM..
hey, I been busy. too many pages to go back through. Did you answer how we would be describe the "chemistry" in a CPU and the misunderstandings we would have if we didn't know the voltage changes were 1's and 0's and represented a langue? in the CPU?
I don't know what you are asking, so if it is important, you will need to try again.
BTW: From an engineering or "mechanical" point of view, the sort of thing I have in mind as a "theory of consciousness" is probably best represented by "Integrated Information Theory" (IIT). I don't think that anyone in this tread will want to wade super-deeply into the details of the theory, but I think it aims at almost exactly the right sort of questions, makes the right kinds of assumptions, and gets closer to where the "rubber meets the road" than any other current theory that I know of. What it does not really try to do is get at the metaphysics, and thus it does not approach the sort of paradigm shift that I think will be required in physics. But, even without that extra explanatory layer, I think it provides a basis for reasonably deciding, from an engineering point of view, which types of systems are conscious, and to what extent they are conscious. Thus, if IIT pans out, we should be able to say, with reasonable confidence, whether a particular AI system is sentient, or not. It should also eventually answer questions like "Is the Earth conscious" or "Is the internet conscious?" etc. For whatever it may be worth, here is a link to a fairly recent version of the theory: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4014402/
I don't know what you are asking, so if it is important, you will need to try again.
BTW: From an engineering or "mechanical" point of view, the sort of thing I have in mind as a "theory of consciousness" is probably best represented by "Integrated Information Theory" (IIT). I don't think that anyone in this tread will want to wade super-deeply into the details of the theory, but I think it aims at almost exactly the right sort of questions, makes the right kinds of assumptions, and gets closer to where the "rubber meets the road" than any other current theory that I know of. What it does not really try to do is get at the metaphysics, and thus it does not approach the sort of paradigm shift that I think will be required in physics. But, even without that extra explanatory layer, I think it provides a basis for reasonably deciding, from an engineering point of view, which types of systems are conscious, and to what extent they are conscious. Thus, if IIT pans out, we should be able to say, with reasonable confidence, whether a particular AI system is sentient, or not. It should also eventually answer questions like "Is the Earth conscious" or "Is the internet conscious?"
are you seriously actually saying that you don't know that now? That you are waiting for someone else to "figure it out" and tell you what to believe in that regard?
Last edited by Tzaphkiel; 05-25-2018 at 07:25 PM..
are you seriously actually saying that you don't know that now?
I'm fairly confident that no current AI is conscious. I'm not so sure about 10 years from now. As for the Earth, I'm confident that it is not conscious, but I mentioned that option for the sake of Arach, who takes that idea more seriously. Without a genuine theory of consciousness, I can't explain to him exactly why it is not conscious, aside from the relatively general things I've already said on the subject.
none of this addresses your soul
or your spirit
or religion
or your relationship with the Divine
or your theology
you've listed hobbies such as music, intellectual interests such as philosophy, the mind, and emotion of hardcore atheists, and have alluded to (=trivialized) meaningful religious experiences as "trite and sterile."
this thread is dead.
I realize that the very thread title challenges your deepest held beliefs and you are embedded in a tradition with very very magical elements. My entire intellectual effort since my encounter has been to explain using science the Truth of God that is currently supported by myth, magic, and miracles, etc. This thread addresses all your issues in the above post but not in terms you have been indoctrinated with and have embraced fully. So while it may be discussing God in terms you are unfamiliar with or do not like, the thread is far from dead.
I realize that the very thread title challenges your deepest held beliefs and you are embedded in a tradition with very very magical elements. My entire intellectual effort since my encounter has been to explain using science the Truth of God that is currently supported by myth, magic, and miracles, etc. This thread addresses all your issues in the above post but not in terms you have been indoctrinated with and have embraced fully. So while it may be discussing God in terms you are unfamiliar with or do not like, the thread is far from dead.
you know diddly squat about what i believe. you have consistently demonstrated that across dozens of threads and hundreds of posts and many many years. you have flat out told me when i explained my beliefs "no that's not what you believe." you appear to be utterly incapable of even listening to what other people say at any level whatsoever.
you know diddly squat about what i believe. you have consistently demonstrated that across dozens of threads and hundreds of posts and many many years. you have flat out told me when i explained my beliefs "no that's not what you believe." you appear to be utterly incapable of even listening to what other people say at any level whatsoever.
Okay. I do not know and was relying on Rbbi who said you were a Chasidic Jew. Sorry.
Tza: I'm curious. If within the next few years a machine is able to carry on a conversation, and proclaims itself to be conscious, will you believe that it is conscious? Or would you be more likely to believe that it can't possibly be conscious because it is just a machine? And if a machine does in fact become conscious, does that guarantee that it has a soul? Could it be reincarnated?
Is there any chance that God could create new Souls via humans applying technology?
Last edited by Gaylenwoof; 05-26-2018 at 11:02 AM..
Okay. I do not know and was relying on Rbbi who said you were a Chasidic Jew. Sorry.
Funny, nothing even remotely like that had occurred to me. I had a vague idea of some general New Age type of spirituality - possibly theosophy? I'm somewhat confused because, on the one hand she seems to want to avoid labels but, on the other hand, she didn't seem to like that I was picking and choosing elements of spirituality from various sources.
Other than theism of some sort and her belief in reincarnation, I don't recall her ever saying, straight up, what she believes. If she ever said, I either missed it or have forgotten.
Last edited by Gaylenwoof; 05-26-2018 at 10:56 AM..
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