Wave collapse and consciousness According to the discussion below, a field only has potential existence, it does not exist by itself. It requires a body to interact with it. This difference is easily confused in usage. For example, we may speak of an electromagnetic field as if it is a real physical entity. But the only "real" part of the field is the electrons moving in/through it.
Similarly the quantum field of a photon is only a map showing the probabilities that the photon may exist at certain locations. When the photon collides with something, the probability is de facto 1, and we have an actual photon at that location. So there is no mysterious connection between Cs and the collapse of qm fields, all that is needed is something such as a measurement probe to be in the path of the qm field to cause a collision. [Roger Clough], [[email protected]] 1/8/2013 "Forever is a long time, especially near the end." - Woody Allen ----- Receiving the following content ----- From: Roger Clough Receiver: everything-list Time: 2013-01-08, 09:37:17 Subject: Re: Re: Is Sheldrake credible ? I personally think so. Hi Bruno Marchal IMHO It doesn't matter what type of field. According to the definition below, a field is like a map, it is not the territory itself. ".....that would act on a body at any given point in that region" The word "would" tells us that a field only has potential existence, not existence itself. A gravitational field does not physically exist, IMHO, but exhibits the properties of existence, such as our being able to see a ball tossed in the air rise and fall. But we cannot see the gravitational field itself. It has no physical existence, only potential existence. Or to put it another way, we can not detect a field, we can only detect what it does. (In that case, pragmatism rules. ) http://science.yourdictionary.com/field field "A distribution in a region of space of the strength and direction of a force, such as the electrostatic force near an electrically charged object, that would act on a body at any given point in that region. " [Roger Clough], [[email protected]] 1/8/2013 "Forever is a long time, especially near the end." - Woody Allen ----- Receiving the following content ----- From: Bruno Marchal Receiver: everything-list Time: 2013-01-08, 08:36:24 Subject: Re: Is Sheldrake credible ? I personally think so. On 07 Jan 2013, at 17:26, Roger Clough wrote: Hi Bruno Marchal Yes, the theories are nonphysical, and in addition, quantum theories quantum theory applies to quantum fields, which are nonphysical. This is hard for me to grasp. What do you mean by "quantum fields" are not physical? It seems to me that they are as much physical than a magnetic field, or a gravitational field. I don't see any difference. Quantum field theory is just a formulation of quantum mechanics in which "particles" become field singularities, but they have the usual observable properties making them physical, even "material". With computationalism, nothing is *primitively* physical, and physics is no more the fundamental science, but many things remains physical, like fields. They do emerge from the way machine can bet on what is directly accessible by measurement. May be we have a problem of vocabulary. We might use "physical" in different sense. Bruno [Roger Clough], [[email protected]] 1/7/2013 "Forever is a long time, especially near the end." - Woody Allen ----- Receiving the following content ----- From: Bruno Marchal Receiver: everything-list Time: 2013-01-07, 11:17:56 Subject: Re: Is Sheldrake credible ? I personally think so. On 06 Jan 2013, at 21:59, Roger Clough wrote: > Hi meekerdb > > Not all physicists are materialists, or if they are, they are > inconsistent > if they deal with quantum physics, which is nonphysical. All theories are non physical, but this does not make a materialist theory inconsistent. With non comp you can make identify mind and non physical things with some class of physical phenomena. Careful, in philosophy of mind, "materialism" means "only matter fundamentally exists". But comp is already contradicting "weak materialism", the thesis that some matter exists fundamentally (among possible other things). Some physicists are non materialist and even non-weak-materialist ( (which is stronger and is necessary with comp). But even them are still often physicalist. They still believe that everything is explainable from the behavior of matter (even if that matter is entirely "ontologically" justified in pure math). Comp refutes this. Physics becomes the art of the numbers to guess what are the most common universal numbers supporting them in their neighborhood, well even the invariant part of this. Bruno > > > [Roger Clough], [[email protected]] > 1/6/2013 > "Forever is a long time, especially near the end." - Woody Allen > ----- Receiving the following content ----- > From: meekerdb > Receiver: everything-list > Time: 2013-01-06, 14:17:42 > Subject: Re: Is Sheldrake credible ? I personally think so. > > > On 1/6/2013 5:30 AM, Roger Clough wrote: > Hi meekerdb > > Materialists can't consistently accept inextended structures and > functions such as quantum fields--or if they do, they aren't > materialists. > > So no physicists since Schrodinger are materialists. So materialism > can't very well be "scientific dogma" as you keep asserting. > > Brent > > > > [Roger Clough], [[email protected]] > 1/6/2013 > "Forever is a long time, especially near the end." - Woody Allen > ----- Receiving the following content ----- > From: meekerdb > Receiver: everything-list > Time: 2013-01-05, 15:37:09 > Subject: Re: Is Sheldrake credible ? I personally think so. > > > On 1/5/2013 6:26 AM, Roger Clough wrote: > Hi Richard Ruquist > > Empirical data, to my way of thinking, trumps scientific dogma > (such as materialism) any day. > > It's rather funny that you keep assailing scienctists as being > dogmatic materialists and yet you think their world picture: curved > metric space, quantum fields, schrodinger wave functions,... is all > immaterial. > > Brent > > No virus found in this message. > Checked by AVG - www.avg.com > Version: 2013.0.2805 / Virus Database: 2637/6007 - Release Date: > 01/03/13 > -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google > Groups "Everything List" group. > To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. > To unsubscribe from this group, send email to > [email protected] > . > For more options, visit this group at > http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en > . > > -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google > Groups "Everything List" group. > To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. > To unsubscribe from this group, send email to > [email protected] > . > For more options, visit this group at > http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en > . > http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/ -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected]. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected]. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en. http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/ -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected]. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.
