RE: A Conscious Universe
February 5, 2015 at 4:57 pm
(This post was last modified: February 5, 2015 at 5:06 pm by Surgenator.)
(February 5, 2015 at 4:13 pm)ManMachine Wrote:
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.
