(February 5, 2015 at 4:13 pm)ManMachine Wrote:

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(February 4, 2015 at 11:42 pm)Surgenator Wrote: If your defining "quantum flux" as constantly interacting, then what is it continously interacting with? Consider an electron out in space far from away from everything. It is too far away to interact with anything. Does the electron stop existing? QM tells us no. For us to know it is there, we would need to interact with it. The interaction is not what makes the electron exist, it exist there independently of anything interacting with it. I don't know where you got the idea a QM particle is in a state of quantum flux.

Even if I grant you that processes and things are equavalent, a thought is orders of magnitude more complex of a process than the interactions a two QM particles have. So you reducing thought to a QM particle would still be fallacy of division.

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It might be helpful to clear a couple of points up.

To begin I have never said that the output from a process cannot be different (or have different properties) from the inputs, this is not a fallacy of division. What I have said is that the output can never be anything other that what it can be, even if we don't understand what that is.

What I am saying is that you cannot invoke difference (in this case between 'thought' and 'thing') by suggesting a thought can be anything other than a electrochemical/biochemical action on an electrochemical input that produces and electro/biochemical output, which is all it can be. And because it is just that then it is no different from any other 'thing' on a QM scale. If you are not suggesting that then you are agreeing with me, which Chas pointed out so long ago.

Nowhere have I suggested a process cannot produce an output that has different properties from its inputs, which clears me of the fallacy you keep wrongly accusing me of.

Your point about lone electrons is completely irrelevant, all quanta exist in pairs, which they interact with, for example an electron is always paired with a positron. This interaction has been famously described by Einstein as 'spooky action at a distance'.

Philosophy cannot keep flogging a redundant premise just because it props up so much historical thought. Deleuze has gone a long way in the philosophical study of identity, and his ideas resonate far more with the modern world that some hackneyed old philosophical cliché about thoughts being 'unique', they are no more unique than everything else in the entire universe, novelty is the norm and identity arises out of a perceived lack of difference not from forced similarities.

The concept of 'thoughts' being original 'out of nowhere' constructs is now long dead, let's keep up with the times. We are not going to get anywhere hiding behind historical romantic notions built on anthropocentrism, IMO.

MM

If we are clearing things up, let me do the same.
1) I never claimed you said/implied "the output from a process cannot be different [...] from the inputs".
2) I never said "a thought can be anything other than a electrochemical/biochemical action on an electrochemical input that produces and electro/biochemical output". I said a thought is a series of electrochemical reactions. We've only seen thoughts occuring in brains. A single thought involves thosands to millions of neurons interacting. So taking a the series of electochemical reactions and reducing it to a single QM particle IS a fallacy of division. You cannot just say, they're all made of QM particles, so a QM is a thought. Thats like saying a car can drive, and cars are made out of metal and plastic. Then metal and plastic can drive.
3) You have not justified that a process and things are equivalent on the QM scale. There is a fundamental difference between what something IS and what it DOES. A process describes what something DOES. A thing describes what something IS.

edit:

"Your point about lone electrons is completely irrelevant, all quanta exist in pairs, which they interact with, for example an electron is always paired with a positron."
All quanta does not exist in pairs. This statement is flatly wrong.

"Spooky action at a distance" is not directly related to particles and antiparticles. Particles and antiparticles are just the most obvious examples this. Your mixing different QM phenomena incorrectly.

(February 5, 2015 at 4:57 pm)Surgenator Wrote: I said a thought is a series of electrochemical reactions. We've only seen thoughts occuring in brains. A single thought involves thosands to millions of neurons interacting.

I have a question about this. Why is it that multiple (VERY multiple) processes manifest as single experiences (like for example the taste of chocolate)?

(February 5, 2015 at 7:06 pm)bennyboy Wrote: I have a question about this. Why is it that multiple (VERY multiple) processes manifest as single experiences (like for example the taste of chocolate)?

Could you elaborate further? What would be an example of multiple experiences?

(February 5, 2015 at 7:06 pm)bennyboy Wrote:

(February 5, 2015 at 4:57 pm)Surgenator Wrote: I said a thought is a series of electrochemical reactions. We've only seen thoughts occuring in brains. A single thought involves thosands to millions of neurons interacting.

I have a question about this. Why is it that multiple (VERY multiple) processes manifest as single experiences (like for example the taste of chocolate)?

Short answer: I don't know.

Longer answer: I'm making the assumption that brain states are mental states which isn't a big assumption. We can view brain activity via fMRI and deduce (on order of magnitude) how many neurons are involved when having a single expericence or thought. The high number of neurons involved is likely due to the difficulty of the task when working with limited processing speed. There also can be some redundancy built in that might be correlated to the intensity of the experience.

(February 5, 2015 at 7:06 pm)bennyboy Wrote:

(February 5, 2015 at 4:57 pm)Surgenator Wrote: I said a thought is a series of electrochemical reactions. We've only seen thoughts occuring in brains. A single thought involves thosands to millions of neurons interacting.

I have a question about this. Why is it that multiple (VERY multiple) processes manifest as single experiences (like for example the taste of chocolate)?

Because the experience is also highly complex: high- and long- notes, texture, nostalgia, pleasure, etc.

(February 5, 2015 at 8:14 pm)ChadWooters Wrote:

(February 5, 2015 at 7:06 pm)bennyboy Wrote: I have a question about this. Why is it that multiple (VERY multiple) processes manifest as single experiences (like for example the taste of chocolate)?

Because the experience is also highly complex: high- and long- notes, texture, nostalgia, pleasure, etc.

No doubt, but that's not the question. What is the unifying mechanism? What causes all that complexity to be coordinated into a singular experience?

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(February 5, 2015 at 7:39 pm)Surgenator Wrote:

(February 5, 2015 at 7:06 pm)bennyboy Wrote: I have a question about this. Why is it that multiple (VERY multiple) processes manifest as single experiences (like for example the taste of chocolate)?

Short answer: I don't know.

Longer answer: I'm making the assumption that brain states are mental states which isn't a big assumption. We can view brain activity via fMRI and deduce (on order of magnitude) how many neurons are involved when having a single expericence or thought. The high number of neurons involved is likely due to the difficulty of the task when working with limited processing speed. There also can be some redundancy built in that might be correlated to the intensity of the experience.

Right, that's what I'm getting at. It seems to me each brain area has a separate task. So does each area have an "output" that is sent to a coordinating unit? And if not, why would redness in part A, apple-taste in part B, and "crunch sound" in part C be experienced as a single experience, rather than having 3 homunculi, each doing its own specialized task? What is the principle, or mechanism, of unity?

(February 5, 2015 at 8:51 pm)bennyboy Wrote: Right, that's what I'm getting at. It seems to me each brain area has a separate task. So does each area have an "output" that is sent to a coordinating unit? And if not, why would redness in part A, apple-taste in part B, and "crunch sound" in part C be experienced as a single experience, rather than having 3 homunculi, each doing its own specialized task? What is the principle, or mechanism, of unity?

I suspect short term memory has something to do with it, along with some self-delusion (what tells us that it's a singular experience and is it lying?). I don't really know though. It's a mystery.

(February 5, 2015 at 9:08 pm)rasetsu Wrote:

(February 5, 2015 at 8:51 pm)bennyboy Wrote: Right, that's what I'm getting at. It seems to me each brain area has a separate task. So does each area have an "output" that is sent to a coordinating unit? And if not, why would redness in part A, apple-taste in part B, and "crunch sound" in part C be experienced as a single experience, rather than having 3 homunculi, each doing its own specialized task? What is the principle, or mechanism, of unity?

I suspect short term memory has something to do with it, along with some self-delusion (what tells us that it's a singular experience and is it lying?). I don't really know though. It's a mystery.

I'm going to spend about about 30 minutes trying to catch my brain tricking to me. Is it really possible to experience more than one sense at one time, or are we switching back and forth at nano speeds without even realizing it? Hmmmm. . .

(February 5, 2015 at 1:03 pm)Surgenator Wrote:

(February 5, 2015 at 2:22 am)IATIA Wrote: When an electron is not interacting, it appears as a wave. When this wave interacts, it appears as a particle.

Ahhh ... no. That is incorrect. A guassian-wave-packet is a good representation of an electron out in free space. When the wave-packet interacts with a barrier, it still remains a gaussian-wave-packet (techniquely two superpositioned gaussain-wave-packets). At no point did it go from wave to particle or back.

The gaussian packet describes the probability distribution of the particle. And note that I did use "appears" rather than "is".

(February 5, 2015 at 9:18 pm)IATIA Wrote:

(February 5, 2015 at 1:03 pm)Surgenator Wrote: Ahhh ... no. That is incorrect. A guassian-wave-packet is a good representation of an electron out in free space. When the wave-packet interacts with a barrier, it still remains a gaussian-wave-packet (techniquely two superpositioned gaussain-wave-packets). At no point did it go from wave to particle or back.

The gaussian packet describes the probability distribution of the particle. And note that I did use "appears" rather than "is".

Electron scattering experiments show the electron "appears" as a point particle, not a wave. So saying the electron "appears" as wave when we aren't measuring it is only half right.