On 17 Jul 2013, at 02:16, Pierz wrote:
I pretty much agree with you Jason. The materialist simply posits
that the conciousness of a person (or conscious being) represents a
static track through the 4d block universe, misperceived as changing
due to something about the way the brain processes. What this
account fails to explain however is the moment "now", or rather why
I am at this moment now rather than another or all at once. This is
the same as saying that it fails to account for subjectivity,
because from a purely objective point of view -ie one that does not
take into account any observer's experience - there is no problem.
From outside of the experience of any individual observer, there are
just bodies moving/behaving in space-time. Materialists/scientists
are so accustomed to seeing the world from this abstracted
perspective that they don't see any particular problem with this
elimination of the subject. But in making this move, it has already
removed consciousness from the reality it attempts to explain. A
true theory of everything would need to explain the mysteries of I-
ness (why am I me and not someone else) and now-ness (why am I now
rather than somewhen else). The whole conflict between materialists
and sundry others who can't accept a purely material world view
seems to come down to how comfortable a person is with eliminating
the conscious subject's experience from their account of the world.
It's not a matter of wishful thinking or stupidity, as some
materialists seem to imply - it comes down to a deep suspicion that
the manoeuvre to eliminate 'I' and 'now' is philosophically
illegitimate. Note that even Bruno's comp does this with time -
there is no representation in the model of the 'current moment'
Hmm....OK...
or why there is an illusion of a current moment or of change over
time.
Not OK. "current moment" is treated indexically, and thus in the math
part with the recursion fixed point theorem. And "why illusion?" is
explained in the term of beliefs, knowledge, etc. This is done in
AUDA, and is only apparent in UDA, although I might be biased by the
familiarity with AUDA (the number interview).
And though I frequently find Craig's Weinberg's ideas woolly and
unconvincing, I do agree with him that the qualia are still deeply
mysterious in comp, that they arise "for no reason at all" except
that we have observed that they exist, so we postulate that they are
"somehow" the inside view of a computation.
The qualia are defined by the sensible non communicable truth that
machine can access, and they do play a role notably on what
experiences get the highest measure, or in accelerating decision
procedure. Again, that's in AUDA, and so it needs some more
definitions than in UDA.
Comp explains 100% of matter (in principle), and 99, 9998 % or qualia,
as it can explains why some part of what is a qualia cannot be
explained nor defined (perhaps the raw consciousness, but this is not
yet justified and I am far from sure).
Bruno
On Saturday, July 13, 2013 12:49:20 PM UTC+10, Jason wrote:
On Fri, Jul 12, 2013 at 2:37 PM, <[email protected]> wrote:
Hi,
My name is Luiz Felipe, I am 38 years old, Brazilian, graduated in
engineering and i am crazy about science and philosophy.
Welcome to the list Luiz.
Recently, after reading and watching documentaries about general
relativity and the problem of consciousness, I made a structured
reflectionon on a 4 pages "paper" . I' ve already referred this
"paper" for a science-list(egroups) in Brazil , where there are some
members with good knowledge of general relativity. So far, none of
them know how to stand in relation to what I wrote.
Thus, I am sending this "paper" to this list (i already sent this
paper to Alberto Corona), in order to know if I made any mistake in
understanding general relativity; specifically on the concepts of
block universe and the flow of time, and it's consequences.
Thanks for the attention, and sorry about my english :-) !
Best Regards!
Luiz Felipe
Summary: This study aims to analyze the philosophical (materialists,
dualists and idealists) explanation of consciousness and its
consistency with a major current physical theory: General Relativity.
1. Introduction
The problem of consciousness today occupies one of the most
important points to be clarified by philosophy and science. By its
nature, there is no consensus among both philosophical, as in
science, with respect to its explanation.
The main philosophical position today are : materialistic, where
consciousness is explained as a result of neural processes (is the
basis for scientific research on consciousness) or as an illusion
generated by brain processes (deniers); dualistic, which considers
consciousness independently of matter and which postulates that
consciousness is a fundamental entity of the universe (as
fundamental as space-time and matter) and idealist, who believes
consciousness as the basis of all physical existence.
I think functionalism (or more specifically, computationalism) is
the currently leading theory of mind among cognitive scientists and
philosophers. It is neither a materialistic, eliminativist,
dualist, nor idealist conception of mind.
2. Theories of Relativity
The Special Theory of Relativity “break”s the objective flow of
time. According Belizário (2001) "The idea is that the" flow "of
time is different for different observers." With that, according to
Einstein himself, the distinction between past, present and future
is a persistent illusion, a illusion, that comes from our
perception, which curiously depends on our consciousness.
According Damour (2010) "General relativity has opened the door to
an even deeper twist of the ordinary concept of time. However, the
most popular treatments of science have a tendency, when speaking of
General Relativity (GR), and especially when describing relativistic
cosmological models (inflation, Big Bang), to use language that
suggests that the GR reintroduces the notion of temporal flow, which
had been abolished in Special Relativity.
Far from it. The GR space-time is as timeless as the Especial
Relativity. The Big Bang should not be referred as the birth of the
universe and its creation "ex nihilo" but as one of the possible
limits of a strongly deformed (and timeless ) block of space-time. "
I agree that relativity requires block time to be consistent. See http://philsci-archive.pitt.edu/2408/
for a good argument.
3. General Theory of Relativity and the Philosophical Currents of
Awareness
The materialists consider consciousness as a result of neural
processes. The possibility of consciousness as a result of one or
more processes in the brain has as an implicit assumption (necessary
condition), the physical existence of the flow of time. Because if
the flow of time does not physically exist, then we have no
existence of physical processes and, consequently, we have no
conscious being "produced"; emerging from this processes.
I don't think materialism requires block time. The experience of
the flow of time for any person in the universe would be invariant
no matter how fast time flowed (assuming it does). Even if it
didn't flow at all, that would not change how people behaved
throughout the 4-d existence, and thus since their behavior is the
same, their reports and experiences would necessarily be the same as
well.
From the above, we can conclude that:
1) The "materialistic hypothesis" of consciousness is fully
consistent with the "Newtonian Universe." A universe in
construction, where the existence of processes is required, and the
physical existence of the flow of time allows these processes to
occur.
So, in a “Newtonian Universe”, where space and time are absolute,
and the flow of time is a physical reality, the explanation of
consciousness as a result of a process, adheres to this reality, but
if the flow of time doesn’t exist (physically), so we have no
processes and therefore we have no consciousness being "produced";
emerging from these processes.
If you are not familiar with it, Bruno's Origin of Physical Laws and
Sensations paper ( http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/publications/SANE2004MARCHAL.htm
) shows how consciousness emerges from number relations (which do
not change, and hence are equivalent to a block-time existence).
Bruno is a regular contributor to this list and will happily answer
any questions you have regarding his theory.
2) If we accept the premise that the GR is correct about the lack
of the flow of time, then all philosophical position that
hypothesize consciousness as a result of one or more neural
processes, should be compulsorily incorrect, because it is premised
on a reality incompatible with the reality described by GR.
I think the assumption that a process requires preceding states of
that process to cease to exist may be in error.
In this case, we have only two hypotheses to explain the phenomenon
of consciousness. The idealistic and dualistic (discussed below).
And functionalist.
The dualistic hypothesis of David Chalemrs consider consciousness as
a basic entity, wich does not interfere in the matter.
Occam's Razor warns us not to multiply entities of a model than is
necessary. However, since GR (assuming, as a premise, that the GR is
correct about the lack of the flow of time, and about the "Block
Universe") explains the material universe, but is not sufficient to
explain the conscious experience (which allows us to experience the
flow of time), it becomes legitimate to postulate another entity, so
that we can have a model that can deal not only with the description
in the third person of our physical universe, but also with own
first-person experience (awareness), which leads to the perception
of time flow.
I agree that our brain generates the experience of the flow of
time. There are even several cases of brain damaged people who are
unable to experience motion: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Akinetopsia
Thus, if we postulate that consciousness is another fundamental
entity in our universe, which may, through an unknown mechanism,
interacting with the "Einstein Universe " without interfering in it,
we have as a result, a hypothesis of awareness that is compatible
with the reality described by GR, which also explains why we
perceive the flow of time and changes along the "Block Universe".
Any three dimensional evolving unvierse can be considered as a four
dimensional static universe, without making any difference to the
people inside the universe. I think block time may be a red herring
in trying to derive any conclusions about consciousness.
In this case, we can think of consciousness and its relation to the
"Block Universe", similar to a video game, game, and set the HD plus
Reader. Just as the game exists as a whole, together with the HD,
and its sequencing is the result of the interaction of the reader
with HD, we can consider that the spacetime contains the whole of
our history (and in a sense, our immortality), and assume that the
illusion of the flow of time refers to the stream of consciousness
"through" space-time, this flow allows us to experience our story
sequentially and always forward in time.
The direction of our experience through time is explained by the
arrow of time. Useful work can only be accomplished in one
direction of the arrow of time, and storing bits requires energy
according to the Von Neumann-Landauer limit ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Landauer%27s_principle
)
This modified Chalmers Hypotheses maintains compatibility with the
GR: how we have to give up totally, our free will, compatibility
with GR is assured since all our past, present and future are
already determined.
Sean Carroll, in a article “The Flow of Time” says that “Modern
physics suggests that we can look at the entire history of the
universe as a single four-dimensional thing. That includes our own
personal path through it, which defines our world line. This
seemingly conflicts with our intuitive idea that we exist at a
moment, and move through time. Of course there is no real conflict —
just two different ways of looking at the same thing. There is a
four-dimensional universe that includes all of our world line, from
birth to death, once and for all; and each moment along that world
line defines an instantaneous person with the perception that they
are growing older, advancing through time.”
Notice that i don’t deny Seans claim (in what I am proposing), that
every time we are aware of the "present moment" plus "moments
earlier" The problem is: what makes us walk through these moments,
so we constantly forward in time.
His argument doesn’t addresses this question, and brings another
problem: as he considers the existence of instantaneous awareness,
consciousness - through a "materialist" explanation – is no longer
the result of a brain process, and become a state. Because even with
nothing happening (impulses coming and going), consciousness is
still there. Even with frozen time!
But if the illusion of time flow of time is the result of the flow
of consciousness through a “frozen” space-time, them we can
satisfactory explain the instantaneous awareness, and our movement
forward in time.
What if each conscious state is also stuck in each present moment?
Then there may be no flow of either time or consciousness.
Conclusion
Whereas, as a premise, that the GR is correct about the physics lack
of flow of time, then the whole “materialist” explanation of
consciousness is necessarily wrong, due to incompatibility between
the physical reality in which it’s need to be in order to be
correct, and the reality described by GR.
Although I disagree with materialism I do not see block time as an
insurmountable problem for materialism.
The price to pay to have an dualistic explanation for consciousness
is the total absence of free will.
I do not see how free will evaporates just because one chooses to
view an evolving 3 dimensional structure as a static 4 dimensional
structure. Especially if you already considered the evolution of
that 3d structure to be deterministic. See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compatibilism
I hope I did not overwhelm you with things to read. I find your
ideas interesting and look forward future discussions with you.
Jason
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