Proof that consciousness lives outside the laws of physics

[Jon]

Except that according to Heisenberg, that is not true. According to all studies of the nuclear physics of radioactive decay, that is not true. You are casting this in a strict causality model that doesn't apply to atomic-level positioning and other properties. Spontaneous pair production in vacuuo is probabilistic in nature - but it still happens. You just can't predict when or where. You can only talk about odds in a given volume of space over a given time period.

I agree with it being impossible to be certain where each particle will be. But the uncertainty principle still means that all particles are preordained. Their locations are based on the laws of physics, are they not? The fact that we cannot predict their location does not mean they are not preordained. But in any case, this is besides the point. If you make a choice, what force are you using to make that choice? What physics are you altering?

 

[Jon]

Too narrow a definition, since if you WERE making a choice based on determinism, how would you know that you were doing so?

I don't follow. Why does not knowing something mean the definition is too narrow? Not knowing how I am making a choice is irrelevant to whether or not our choices are preordained or not. Either our choices are preordained or they aren't. Knowing either way does not alter that.

 

[The_Doc_Man]

In physics and chemistry, we have the problem of second-order phase transitions where matter remains in the same state but some secondary property changes. Simple case in point - the Curie temperature, at which temperature a magnetized metal demagnetizes. Simple case in point - the temperature at which thermal noise in a metal reduces to a level that allows quantum resonance to occur, leading to superconductivity. (Note: Strict nuclear physics folks would say "delocalization" for when things go superconductive.)

There is a hypothesis (that is SUPREMELY hard to test) that when a brain reaches a certain size, it develops a level of consciousness based on having a sufficient level of interconnections. So there was Koko, the gorilla that could talk in sign language, could grieve (and express that grief) over the loss of a friend, and that could communicate regarding wants and needs - and playfulness. Dolphins have passed the "mirror test" - recognizing one's self in a mirror - which implies some level of consciousness.

If you take a strictly deterministic approach of saying that our biology is the sole source of our choices, it bypasses the possibility that we are not looking at the mechanism of the brain - which IS the neurons, axons, dendrites, etc. We SHOULD be looking at a second-level organizational structure - like the organization of hive mind insects that demonstrate what appears to be a gestalt intelligence. Perhaps consciousness and free will reside, not in the building blocks but rather in how they interact in the gestalt. Which says that the reason physics and chemistry cannot explain "choice" is because we are in a "forest and trees" situation, looking for answers in the trees when we have to look at the whole forest.

 

[The_Doc_Man]

I don't follow. Why does not knowing something mean the definition is too narrow? Not knowing how I am making a choice is irrelevant to whether or not our choices are preordained or not. Either our choices are preordained or they aren't. Knowing either way does not alter that.

If you believe you are making a free-will choice but your belief is wrong, it will override your explanation. You will be blissful in your ignorance of the truth that you were seeking.

 

[Jon]

If you take a strictly deterministic approach of saying that our biology is the sole source of our choices, it bypasses the possibility that we are not looking at the mechanism of the brain - which IS the neurons, axons, dendrites, etc.

The brain is a system, no doubt. That system runs on atoms, correct? If that system makes a choice, how is it altering the movement of the atoms? Are the atoms not already set in motion? If it does make a choice, what force is altering the physical laws?

 

[Jon]

If you believe you are making a free-will choice but your belief is wrong, it will override your explanation. You will be blissful in your ignorance of the truth that you were seeking.

Override my explanation of what and how? Ignorance of the truth I am seeking does not alter if our choices are preordained or not, does it?

 

[oleronesoftwares]

So, if we can make decisions yet everything is preordained and relies on the laws of physics, consciousness - the part of us that "decides" - must lay outside of these laws. There follows that indeed a spiritual world must be out there, despite scientists denial.

Do scientists deny the existence of the spiritual world? Some things in science point to it.

 

[Jon]

I think there is a distinction between Science and Scientists. There are also some who say science does indeed point to God. For example, the Creationists.

 

[The_Doc_Man]

Override my explanation of what and how? Ignorance of the truth I am seeking does not alter if our choices are preordained or not, does it?

If you believe you are making a free-will choice but you are wrong, will you bother to look for an explanation of WHY that wasn't free will? Will you incur the dreaded "confirmation bias" that your decision must have been free will?

 

[Jon]

I believe I have free will. But that feeling jars with the logical argument that everything is preordained. I cannot see any fault with the logic, but I still believe I have free will. So, I have gone into religious territory! It seems highly unlikely that we can seemingly make decisions yet it all be forced into motion from a long time ago. It confuses me.

 

[The_Doc_Man]

The brain is a system, no doubt. That system runs on atoms, correct? If that system makes a choice, how is it altering the movement of the atoms? Are the atoms not already set in motion? If it does make a choice, what force is altering the physical laws?

Just to add fuel to the fire: IF our consciousness is a second-order situation caused, not by the chemicals of the brain but by their interactions in the past having AFFECTED the brain, then from the outside you would see nothing different. We don't know HOW memory works, but it does - and that implies that you are somehow storing memory in the brain long-term, which can only happen if thought somehow chemically affects the brain in order to have a long-term storage effect.

I use a pragmatic sense of the term "free will" - which means in practice that if my actions cannot be predicted by anyone (perhaps including me) then in effect I exercised free will at the moment of any action. To the extent that one might have predicted an action, some level of chemical determinism may indeed have occurred. So it is not black-and-white. We often run from gunfire. Predictable, right? Except for police officers who will attempt to neutralize the situation.

If you consider the effects of memories from the past on current decisions, we come back to my old friend Chaos Theory and that bug-a-boo called Sensitive Dependence on Initial Conditions. If the brain's choices at any given time appear to involve SDIC, you are operating in the realm of Chaos Theory, where the sum of your knowledge, training, and instincts (the three parts of the mind for Transactional Analysis) come together to chose an action ... or inaction.

 

[jpl458]

I have an interesting thought for you today. First, answer a simple question: do you have Free Will? Do you believe you make up your own mind and make decisions?

If your answer to the above question is, "Yes, I make up my own mind", what you are essentially saying is that you do not believe in cause and effect. Let me explain.

Ever since the big bang, the atoms of the Universe are set in motion according to Newtons laws, rather like where the balls end up on a pool table after the initial strike. Currently, in the Universe the balls are still moving! And moving according to the laws of physics! In addition, we have the Quantum world, but the same thing applies. The quantum world also applies the laws of physics. It is a little more random and unpredictable than Newtons laws, but still, nevertheless, they exist.

Given the above, you have no Free Will since everything operates on a cause and effect + quantum basis (Edit: including your brain). There is no outside agent that allows you to manipulate these forces and randomisations. [If you believe there is an outside agent, please name it.] However, the real world seems to suggest that indeed we can make decisions, however poorly!

So, if we can make decisions yet everything is preordained and relies on the laws of physics, consciousness - the part of us that "decides" - must lay outside of these laws. There follows that indeed a spiritual world must be out there, despite scientists denial.

Your thougts

 

[Jon]

So, if we can make decisions yet everything is preordained and relies on the laws of physics, consciousness - the part of us that "decides" - must lay outside of these laws. There follows that indeed a spiritual world must be out there, despite scientists denial.

Your thougts

Why must it lay outside of these laws? Can you set in motion something that was preordained yet it gives us the illusion of making a decision? We think in a certain way, but how we think is determined by our internal brain wiring. It explains why, for example, people with previous trauma react different to certain events than those without that trauma, since the trauma itself caused strong internal wiring chages.

Let's say you have been brought up in an environment where 98% of people are Muslim, say Pakistan. Then let us say you are given a choice of a religion to follow. The chances are, you will choose to be a Muslim. But perhaps you didn't really have a decision since it was so heavily influenced by your environment and upbringing.

 

[The_Doc_Man]

since the trauma itself caused strong internal wiring chages.

Wiring changes? Or data-level decision tree changes? If consciousness (which would be the "keeper" of free will) is a second-order phenomenon then the brain's wiring doesn't change. The only time wiring would change would be if you grew some new brain cells that had to be wired into the mix of cells already wired up. The axon/dendrite paths for neurons don't change otherwise.

 

[Jon]

All experience is constantly rewiring our brains. They are in a perpetual state of flux. Unfortunately, mine has fossilised a little lately but I'm working on it!

Think of habits. When we stop doing something, the wiring that leads us down that pathway starts to atrophy. The things we repeat strengthen. This is all assuming there is no third-party called consciousness hovering in the ether above us. My personal view is that consciousness is just a manifestation of the workings of our mind. It is a natural by product, rather than something that is stored "elsewhere".

 

[The_Doc_Man]

The wiring has nothing to do with anything. It is like the physical layer of the ISO networking model. A person on life support who has no brain activity still has the wiring - but the program isn't running. The strength of a network comes from what RIDES the network.

I'm specifically objecting to the idea of treating consciousness as a hardware issue when it almost clearly is a software issue. In the "nature" vs. "nurture" argument, the ABILITY to learn is nature, but WHAT you have learned is nurture. When you stop doing something, the wiring does not change - but the priority of that memory does. When you practice something repeatedly, the wiring doesn't change, but the priority of the memory does. OK, I'm imposing my "viewpoint"/"model" of the brain's workings on this discussion - but I think I'm right.

Perhaps your "do it often/rarely do it" situation involves some type of organic brain cache. Things you do a lot migrate into your cache memory. Things you don't do often might still be in long-term memory but have to be retrieved - which often is done by practicing a bit to move it to your quick cache.

 

[Jon]

For me, the wiring is what the brain is, an interconnected mass of spaghetti. If there is no brain activity, they are legally dead. A dead person is not rewiring their brains, I think we can agree on that one. I am talking about living organisms, not dead ones.

Some of what you have learned is in fact coded in your DNA at birth. Consider the fight and flight response. Through evolution, those who did not adopt those behaviours were eliminated from the gene pool.

When you stop doing something, the connections between neurons weaken, thus making that behaviour less likely. It is a chemical process. These connections between neurons are what I refer to as the wiring. Consider them a road network. A prominent behaviour might be what we call an A road in the UK: wide and busy, with lots of traffic. A little used road is a B road. If no one goes down that A road, over time it will atrophy to a B road. This helps us forget things, form habits, break habits and so on.

The priority of the memory is based on the neural connections. The stronger the connection, the more likely you are to remember. It is why people revise for exams. Repetition strengthens the wiring. There is also an evolutionary basis for why traumatic events cause deep wiring instantly. They are to protect us. You don't want to forget something that could reduce our chances of survival, so it gets ingrained and this deep wiring takes much longer to atrophy. It is like doing 1000 revisions all at once, so strong is there impact.

Long term memory is where you have sufficient strength between the neurons to enable recall. But even long term memory fades over time without sufficient recall.

 

[Isaac]

=> Religion.

Scientists discover what we can measure. But how do you measure something that cannot be physically measured because it operates in a different dimension for which we have no tool? Does this mean the spirit world is "a thing" and that perhaps Religion is ironically proven by logic to be based in reality?

Bingo. I respect the idea that "prove it to me or I won't believe it" (setting aside for the moment that the primary basis for Christianity IS, in fact, witnessing and testimony) - but I respect that idea, until it goes so far as to say "If you can't prove it to me, then I believe it can't exist" - which is, actually, a highly irrational position.

There could be other dimensions of which we know not - and of which our science not only does not know, but could not and will not ever know.

To take a proposal of a thing, the very definition of which is that you could not use Science to know it, and respond to that by saying "per Science, that doesn't exist", is quite silly.

That's like me going to the movie theater, knowing for a fact that IF the movie is in 3-D, I shall not perceive that without the glasses, then refusing to use the glasses, and then saying "I know for certain the movie is not in 3D".

Ultimately of course, I believe that everyone knows in their heart there is a Spiritual dimension. The Knowing is attacked by a thousand ways for a lifetime of trying to tear it down by our lower powers, but alas, the harder we have to fight it, the greater the proof of its existence becomes.

 

[The_Doc_Man]

the harder we have to fight it, the greater the proof of its existence becomes.

Respectfully, not true for all of us.

 

[jpl458]

So your brain doesn't operate on the principles of cause and effect? Which part of physics have you overcome? Your brain is made up of a mass of atoms, yes? These atoms are operating in motion, using Newton's Laws and Quantum behaviour. They operate just like the pool table, where their position is preordained depending on where they were before, their current direction and the force applied. When your synapse triggers, what caused it to trigger?

If you make a decision that you control, are you saying you are somehow altering where these pool balls end up?

[Or, if you do believe you have a choice, how does the pool table analogy differ from the position of atoms in the Universe?]

Edit: I've added an edit to my original post to clarify the argument. I make that two edits now, including this one!

Heisenberg uncertainty principle?

Too narrow a definition, since if you WERE making a choice based on determinism, how would you know that you were doing so?

Determinism is like calculating the odds on an event after it's happened. You can't do that. Read Feynman, Six Easy Pieces.