How Can We Have Moral Direction If God Controls Everything?

[HappySkeptic]

The idea that "consciousness causes collapse" hasn't been mainstream thought for probably 70 years.

I suppose that, since (AFAIK) the Copenhagen interpretation has never been successfully refuted, we'll have to deal with arguments propped up against what follows from it. Nice to hear you are a physicist. (I hope you don't mind: that means I'll occasionally ask you questions now.)

I'm happy to talk physics

Quantum Mechanical interpretations is an interest of mine, and I have used a few of them in my work. To me, they each can be useful, as long as you don't take them too seriously. Copenhagen is the first one that students are usually taught, as it is easiest. It is also the least useful, because it promotes the fallacy of instantaneous collapse, when the reality is a complex network of superposition with the environment, leading to decoherence.

Quantum Mechanics has a collapse problem. There is no way around it. There is no model for collapse in the theory. It is simply assumed, and something like collapse must occur at some point, or we would not have a single macroscopic history of reality. We just don't know how or why.

I am strongly against dualism.  To me, it supposes an alternate universe of souls that operate on some mysterious parallel basis (or no basis at all).  There is no reason for this idea beyond religious belief.  We should look for answers within the universe, not imagine things that are outside it.

I also reject dualism, but I would argue that there are reasons to accept it outside of religious thinking. (Of course, theists LOVE dualism because it supports their idea of a soul, but that's apart from the issue.) Essentially, dualism explains the mind/body problem. In fact, it was the first explanation that philosophers got (Descartes' Meditations). I think that dualism and the mind/body problem are particularly significant (at least historically) because they spurred people to start thinking the right way. One great example is Spinoza, an early proponent of materialism, who was highly inspired by Descartes' thinking on the issue. You don't get outright statements that only physical matter exists unless someone first postulates that some sort of "non-physical" substance exists. Thus materialism was born. In it's own way, dualism helped us get to materialism.

I think dualism is the way humans see themselves. They see a body and mind.

To me, consciousness is a process. That process requires a "machine" to support its operation. Imagining a soul is to imagine something that doesn't require a machine to support its operation, or else is supported by a machine in some alternate reality. Neither seems even remotely likely to me.