From: [email protected]
[mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of meekerdb
Sent: Sunday, 12 January 2014 5:54 PM
To: [email protected]
Subject: Re: Tegmark and consciousness
On 1/11/2014 8:12 PM, Colin Geoffrey Hales wrote:
RE: arXiv: 1401.1219v1 [quant-ph] 6 Jan 2014
Consciousness as a State of Matter
Max Tegmark, January 8, 2014
Hi Folk,
Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr!
I confess that after 12 years of deep immersion in science's grapplings with
consciousness, the blindspot I see operating is so obvious and so pervasive and
so incredibly unseen it beggars belief. I know it's a long way from physics to
neuroscience (discipline-wise). But surely in 2014 we can see it for what it
is. Can't they (Tegmark and ilk) see that the so-called "science of
consciousness" is
* the "the science of the scientific observer"
* trying to explain observing with observations
* trying to explain experience with experiences
* trying to explain how scientists do science.
* a science of scientific behaviour.
* Descriptive and never explanatory.
The sciences do not try to explain, they hardly even try to interpret, they
mainly make models. By a model is meant a mathematical construct which, with
the addition of certain verbal interpretations, describes observed phenomena.
The justification of such a mathematical construct is solely and precisely
that it is expected to work.
---John von Neumann
"This is what scientists do" (perfectly fine procedural/behaviour) but this
becomes "This is all scientists can do" .... when? Says who? Von-freaking
Neumann?
He has no clue that what he declares science to be is not a 'law of nature' and
must fail to predict or explain _him_ and his ability to be ignorant of what
the full nature of scientific behaviour entails or how he can observe anything
at all. To think the von-neumann paragraph is all there is to science, is to
fail to contact the real problem: the presupposition that von-Neumann's dictum
is all there is to science/scientific behaviour. Un-argued. Un-documented.
Untrained. Tacit presupposition learned by imitation.
Section 6.3 in my book nails von-neumann's blinkered view to the great wall of
trophies dedicated to that view. His view was king in a simpler world: it
works....in all places except one. Now we attack that very 'one'....and we fail
because of that very presupposition... and we cite bloody von-neumann at
everyone so we continue to fail, thereby embedding failure at a cultural level.
This garbage has to stop. Time for change. 2014.
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