Dear Vinodji,
Why do you say that inert matter cannot exchange information? They do routinely. These are called forces in classical physics and interaction Lagrangian or Hamiltonian in quantum physics. The remaining piece of puzzle will be solved if it is possible to relate consciousness to quantum theory. One suspects that inert matter also has some primitive hidden consciousness. Admittedly it has not been possible to prove that now. That is why there are these endless debates!!
Best Regards.
Kashyap
From: VINOD KUMAR SEHGAL [mailto:vinodse...@gmail.com]
Sent: Friday, December 22, 2017 9:42 AM
To: Ram Lakhan Pandey Vimal <rlpv...@yahoo.co.in>; Robert Boyer <rw.b...@yahoo.com>; BT APJ <alfredo...@gmail.com>; Vasavada, Kashyap V <vasa...@iupui.edu>; Vivekanand Pandey Vimal <vvima...@gmail.com>; Paul Werbos <paul....@gmail.com>;
Stanley A. KLEIN <skl...@berkeley.edu>; BVKSastry(Gmail) <sastr...@gmail.com>; sisir roy <sisir.s...@gmail.com>; From the Chief Editor, J. Integr. Neurosci., IOS Press <pozn...@biomedical.utm.my>; Joseph McCard <joseph....@gmail.com>; George Weissmann
<georg...@aol.com>; Asingh2384 <asing...@aol.com>
Subject: Re: Do we need manifested consciousness for a meaning in information?
Dear Vinodji,
Most physicists would not want to bring consciousness when talking about interaction between matter. In our example, exchanging photons, an electron and a proton would ‘realize’ that they have opposite charges and hence will be attracted to each other. This follows the laws of quantum electrodynamics which are present all the time. That is the whole meaning. There is no other meaning! The whole process is over by this mechanism. Nothing further remains to be accomplished!
Some physicists are trying to make a model for consciousness based on quantum mechanics. But the purpose is not to explain interaction of matter any better, but to understand consciousness. It is possible that if they succeed in this model, that may prove that each fundamental particle has some hidden consciousness. But that is a long way off.
Best Regards.
Kashyap
From: VINOD KUMAR SEHGAL [mailto:vinodse...@gmail.com]
Sent: Friday, December 22, 2017 9:46 PM
To: Vasavada, Kashyap V <vasa...@iupui.edu>; Ram Lakhan Pandey Vimal <rlpv...@yahoo.co.in>; Robert Boyer <rw.b...@yahoo.com>; Paul Werbos <paul....@gmail.com>; BT APJ <alfredo...@gmail.com>; Joseph McCard <joseph....@gmail.com>; Stanley
A. KLEIN <skl...@berkeley.edu>; BVKSastry(Gmail) <sastr...@gmail.com>; sisir roy <sisir.s...@gmail.com>; Vivekanand Pandey Vimal <vvima...@gmail.com>; George Weissmann <georg...@aol.com>; Asingh2384 <asing...@aol.com>; From the Chief Editor, J.
Integr. Neurosci., IOS Press <pozn...@biomedical.utm.my>; Murty Hari <murty...@yahoo.com>; G Srinivasan <gsva...@gmail.com>; Prateek Budhwar <p.bu...@gmail.com>
Subject: Re: Do we need manifested consciousness for a meaning in information?
Dear kashyapji,
Thanks,
Yes, we may have different meanings of information in our minds. But if the quantum particles
or macro objects, as we observe in our daily life, can't 'sense: any meaning, how will information
leading to some meaningful results can be exchanged? And this is our normal observation in
our mundane life that macro level inert objects are unable to 'sense; any meaning on their own
unless interfaced with some manifested consciousness. Extending this logic to the quantum realm, why and how inert quantum particles should be able to 'sense; any meaning unless
interfaced with some consciousness. My main line of argument is that whether physics is aware
with consciousness or not,
Any exchange of information is feasible only when some meaning is 'sensed" between the entities
exchanging information
The inert physical particles at quantum and macro level are unable to 'sense' any meaning on
their own.
'Sensing" of any meaning falls within the exclusive domain of the consciousness/conscious entity
Since inert physical particles exchange information and there can't be any information without
infusing some meaning, therefore, inert physical entities must have some interface with the consciousness.
Regards.
Vinod Sehgal
On Sat, Dec 23, 2017 at 7:57 AM, Vasavada, Kashyap V <vasa...@iupui.edu> wrote:
Dear Vinodji,
The problem may be that we have different meanings of the word information in our minds. When an electron and a proton come closer, they exchange photon or photons (to me that carries information about charge and magnetic moment of either one). What will happen next is exactly predictable by quantum theory, more so than predictability of what will happen when a boy meets a girl!! So information may or may not have anything to do with consciousness. I am not sure. As I said before, our knowledge about what is consciousness is very little compared with our knowledge of interaction between matter. Also quantum processes were going on in the universe long before conscious human beings came up on earth. You may say that universal primordial consciousness was there from the beginning. But at this point there is no agreement on that, even amongst people on this list. So matter was here long long before humans ( even sages in Samadhi) realized about universal consciousness. Then, it is an open question if both matter and consciousness are two parts of the same Brahman or not.
The information you sent by e-mail tells me about your thought processes. Before e-mail,, we could have exchanged views by telephone or letter or tad-patra or even hand gestures and smoke signals! But I maintain that whatever is exchanged between electron and proton is also information and the universe runs on all these collective information.
Best Regards.
Kashyap
Dear Vinodji,
The problem may be that we have different meanings of the word information in our minds. When an electron and a proton come closer, they exchange photon or photons (to me that carries information about charge and magnetic moment of either one). What will happen next is exactly predictable by quantum theory, more so than predictability of what will happen when a boy meets a girl!! So information may or may not have anything to do with consciousness. I am not sure. As I said before, our knowledge about what is consciousness is very little compared with our knowledge of interaction between matter. Also quantum processes were going on in the universe long before conscious human beings came up on earth. You may say that universal primordial consciousness was there from the beginning. But at this point there is no agreement on that, even amongst people on this list. So matter was here long long before humans ( even sages in Samadhi) realized about universal consciousness. Then, it is an open question if both matter and consciousness are two parts of the same Brahman or not.
The information you sent by e-mail tells me about your thought processes. Before e-mail,, we could have exchanged views by telephone or letter or tad-patra or even hand gestures and smoke signals! But I maintain that whatever is exchanged between electron and proton is also information and the universe runs on all these collective information.
Best Regards.
Kashyap
From: VINOD KUMAR SEHGAL [mailto:vinodse...@gmail.com]
Sent: Friday, December 22, 2017 7:37 PM
To: Vasavada, Kashyap V <vasa...@iupui.edu>; Ram Lakhan Pandey Vimal <rlpv...@yahoo.co.in>; BT APJ <alfredo...@gmail.com>; Paul Werbos <paul....@gmail.com>; Robert Boyer <rw.b...@yahoo.com>; Joseph McCard <joseph....@gmail.com>; Stanley
A. KLEIN <skl...@berkeley.edu>; BVKSastry(Gmail) <sastr...@gmail.com>; sisir roy <sisir.s...@gmail.com>; Vivekanand Pandey Vimal <vvima...@gmail.com>; George Weissmann <georg...@aol.com>; Asingh2384 <asing...@aol.com>; From the Chief Editor, J.
Integr. Neurosci., IOS Press <pozn...@biomedical.utm.my>; Murty Hari <murty...@yahoo.com>; G Srinivasan <gsva...@gmail.com>; Prateek Budhwar <p.bu...@gmail.com>
Subject: Re: Do we need manifested consciousness for a meaning in information?
Dear kashyapji,
Inert matter/energy in itself is unable to 'sense" -- derive and impart any meaning from/to another inert entity. Here lies the inertness of the inert matter. It is only the consciousness/conscious entity which can 'sense'-- derive and impart meaning from/to another entity. Here lies the consciousness of the conscious entity.
If the above concept is clear to you and you also agree to the above, no information can be taken as information in the strict sense unless there is some interface with some consciousness to 'create" some meaning. Therefore, mere some patterns of matter and energy cannot serve as information. When some patterns and energy get interface with consciousness that meaning is 'infused: in these patterns of energy/matter and it is then only that matter/energy patterns assume the role of 'information'.
What is the problem in understanding and accepting the above logical and rational conceptual outlook instead of dogmatically asserting to the stand that No, information/Laws exist on their own in nature? as Ram and Alfredo are sticking.
A simple analogy will further illustrate my point of view.
When my present message, as being sent to you via some e.m energy pattern is received at your end, you being a conscious receiver, you can derive some meaning from the same. However, had this message been received by some rock/stone, could it derive some meaning? Obviously NO. No, replace a rock/stone by an inert atom/electron at the quantum level. Why an inert atom/electron 'sense" any meaning on its own like a rock/stone from mere patterns of matter/energy ( which is normally called information in Physics). The mere fact that inert matter/energy particles, whether in the inorganic realm or in the biological organic matter, can 'sense; some meaning proves that some interface exists between the consciousness and inert quantum particles to enable inert matter/energy particles to 'sense; some meaning.
Where is the flaw in above line of arguments?
Dear Kashyap
What is the proton and the electron that 'approach each other' in your model? And what is the nature of this photon that somehow carries information from one to the other? Are they waves of some kind? Or are they death-star-like particles that somehow fire at each other without missing and without ever running out of ammo. Physicists have no idea what they are talking about. They may imagine little tiny points of hardness swirling vortices and irresistible pressures. But all these things are arrangements of qualia in their consciousnesses. They may rightly claim that these are just the brain's way of representing the unknowable reality they are thinking about. But what they ought to realise is that the only sort of reality they actually know to exist are patterns of qualia and the consciousnesses that experience them. So to my mind they ought to be imagining and interpreting those so-called 'protons', 'electrons' and 'photons' in terms consciousnesses and qualia by default - not as some kind of strange experience-free matter that we have no defensible reason to postulate.
By the way, I always thought the laws of quantum field theory say nothing about the variable properties of individual particles. I thought they only make predictions about ensembles of particles. What then do you mean by the aftermath of an exchange of one photon being 'exactly predictable by quantum theory'. Do you just mean that the new PROBABILITIES for each particular configuration of the two particles are exactly predictable? Or do you mean the configurations themselves are exactly predictable?
Merry Christmas,
Colin
Send from Huawei Y360
Dear Vinodji,
The problem may be that we have different meanings of the word information in our minds. When an electron and a proton come closer, they exchange photon or photons (to me that carries information about charge and magnetic moment of either one). What will happen next is exactly predictable by quantum theory, more so than predictability of what will happen when a boy meets a girl!! So information may or may not have anything to do with consciousness. I am not sure. As I said before, our knowledge about what is consciousness is very little compared with our knowledge of interaction between matter. Also quantum processes were going on in the universe long before conscious human beings came up on earth. You may say that universal primordial consciousness was there from the beginning. But at this point there is no agreement on that, even amongst people on this list. So matter was here long long before humans ( even sages in Samadhi) realized about universal consciousness. Then, it is an open question if both matter and consciousness are two parts of the same Brahman or not.
The information you sent by e-mail tells me about your thought processes. Before e-mail,, we could have exchanged views by telephone or letter or tad-patra or even hand gestures and smoke signals! But I maintain that whatever is exchanged between electron and proton is also information and the universe runs on all these collective information.
Best Regards.
Kashyap
From: VINOD KUMAR SEHGAL [mailto:vinodse...@gmail.com]
Sent: Friday, December 22, 2017 7:37 PM
To: Vasavada, Kashyap V <vasa...@iupui.edu>; Ram Lakhan Pandey Vimal <rlpv...@yahoo.co.in>; BT APJ <alfredo...@gmail.com>; Paul Werbos <paul....@gmail.com>; Robert Boyer <rw.b...@yahoo.com>; Joseph McCard <joseph....@gmail.com>; Stanley
A. KLEIN <skl...@berkeley.edu>; BVKSastry(Gmail) <sastr...@gmail.com>; sisir roy <sisir.s...@gmail.com>; Vivekanand Pandey Vimal <vvima...@gmail.com>; George Weissmann <georg...@aol.com>; Asingh2384 <asing...@aol.com>; From the Chief Editor, J.
Integr. Neurosci., IOS Press <pozn...@biomedical.utm.my>; Murty Hari <murty...@yahoo.com>; G Srinivasan <gsva...@gmail.com>; Prateek Budhwar <p.bu...@gmail.com>
Subject: Re: Do we need manifested consciousness for a meaning in information?
Dear kashyapji,
Inert matter/energy in itself is unable to 'sense" -- derive and impart any meaning from/to another inert entity. Here lies the inertness of the inert matter. It is only the consciousness/conscious entity which can 'sense'-- derive and impart meaning from/to another entity. Here lies the consciousness of the conscious entity.
If the above concept is clear to you and you also agree to the above, no information can be taken as information in the strict sense unless there is some interface with some consciousness to 'create" some meaning. Therefore, mere some patterns of matter and energy cannot serve as information. When some patterns and energy get interface with consciousness that meaning is 'infused: in these patterns of energy/matter and it is then only that matter/energy patterns assume the role of 'information'.
What is the problem in understanding and accepting the above logical and rational conceptual outlook instead of dogmatically asserting to the stand that No, information/Laws exist on their own in nature? as Ram and Alfredo are sticking.
A simple analogy will further illustrate my point of view.
When my present message, as being sent to you via some e.m energy pattern is received at your end, you being a conscious receiver, you can derive some meaning from the same. However, had this message been received by some rock/stone, could it derive some meaning? Obviously NO. No, replace a rock/stone by an inert atom/electron at the quantum level. Why an inert atom/electron 'sense" any meaning on its own like a rock/stone from mere patterns of matter/energy ( which is normally called information in Physics). The mere fact that inert matter/energy particles, whether in the inorganic realm or in the biological organic matter, can 'sense; some meaning proves that some interface exists between the consciousness and inert quantum particles to enable inert matter/energy particles to 'sense; some meaning.
Where is the flaw in above line of arguments?
On Fri, Dec 22, 2017 at 10:40 PM, Vasavada, Kashyap V <vasa...@iupui.edu> wrote:
Dear Vinodji,
Why do you say that inert matter cannot exchange information? They do routinely. These are called forces in classical physics and interaction Lagrangian or Hamiltonian in quantum physics. The remaining piece of puzzle will be solved if it is possible to relate consciousness to quantum theory. One suspects that inert matter also has some primitive hidden consciousness. Admittedly it has not been possible to prove that now. That is why there are these endless debates!!
Best Regards.
Kashyap
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Dear Alex,
I completely agree with you. I have written a detailed reply to Colin Morrison.
Best Regards.
Kashyap
From: online_sa...@googlegroups.com [mailto:online_sa...@googlegroups.com]
On Behalf Of Alex Hankey
Sent: Monday, December 25, 2017 8:49 PM
To: Online_Sa...@googlegroups.com
Subject: Re: [Sadhu Sanga] RE: Do we need manifested consciousness for a meaning in information?
RE: Physicists have no idea what they are talking about.
ME: That is only because you have not had deep discussions with competent physicists.
You are projecting a kind of 'objective reality' on quantum concepts.
You will find Bernard D'Espagnat's accounts of how quantum theory
denies such realities quite illumining. May I recommend them.
Alex Hankey
or more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
Dear Colin,
Merry X-mas and happy new year!
Some of your complaints are fine with me. I was just arguing with Vinod that inert matter also exchanges information and that is not all that different from humans exchanging information. Some wording was probably careless. But you cannot be precise like a lawyer in e-mails. Otherwise every e-mail will be 10-20 page long!!
When I said “exact” I left many things unsaid. Every physicist knows that Feynman diagrams are pictures representing mathematical terms. You have to add up all of them and integrate etc. When you compare with experiments you do with billions of identically prepared systems. The probabilistic, subjective status disappears at that point. That makes quantum theory a predictable science, perhaps most exact science known to mankind! Everyone in U.S. U.K. India or Zambia will get the same result. Thus physicists know what they are talking about! The pictures are just for convenience. After all most physicists believe that it follows from Bell’s theorem and experiments that particles are not real in the sense of our everyday life. They do not have any properties before they are measured unlike perhaps like chair as most people believe. Well, philosophers may have doubts about existence of chair also!!
Now, is this pseudo creation of our consciousness (qualia), is a more subtle question. As far as I know there is no clear answer to that. Only thing science can do is to do experiments by our sensory organs and make models (by thinking with brain which brings in qualia) to understand and predict results. If the predictions come out right, then your confidence in the model increases. Whether it corresponds to any reality is a philosophical issue and has been debated for decades if not hundreds of years!
BTW results of attraction between boy and girl are also probabilistic!! Indian parents who try to find match for their children know about it very well!!!
Best Regards.
kashyap
From: C. S. Morrison [mailto:cs...@hotmail.co.uk]
Sent: Monday, December 25, 2017 7:26 PM
To: Vasavada, Kashyap V <vasa...@iupui.edu>; Online_Sa...@googlegroups.com; VINOD KUMAR SEHGAL <vinodse...@gmail.com>
Subject: Re: [Sadhu Sanga] RE: Do we need manifested consciousness for a meaning in information?
Dear Kashyap
What is the proton and the electron that 'approach each other' in your model? And what is the nature of this photon that somehow carries information from one to the other? Are they waves of some kind? Or are they death-star-like particles that somehow fire at each other without missing and without ever running out of ammo. Physicists have no idea what they are talking about. They may imagine little tiny points of hardness swirling vortices and irresistible pressures. But all these things are arrangements of qualia in their consciousnesses. They may rightly claim that these are just the brain's way of representing the unknowable reality they are thinking about. But what they ought to realise is that the only sort of reality they actually know to exist are patterns of qualia and the consciousnesses that experience them. So to my mind they ought to be imagining and interpreting those so-called 'protons', 'electrons' and 'photons' in terms consciousnesses and qualia by default - not as some kind of strange experience-free matter that we have no defensible reason to postulate.
By the way, I always thought the laws of quantum field theory say nothing about the variable properties of individual particles. I thought they only make predictions about ensembles of particles. What then do you mean by the aftermath of an exchange of one photon being 'exactly predictable by quantum theory'. Do you just mean that the new PROBABILITIES for each particular configuration of the two particles are exactly predictable? Or do you mean the configurations themselves are exactly predictable?
Merry Christmas,
Colin
Send from Huawei Y360
On 23 Dec 2017 12:08, "Vasavada, Kashyap V" <vasa...@iupui.edu> wrote:
Dear Vinodji,
The problem may be that we have different meanings of the word information in our minds. When an electron and a proton come closer, they exchange photon or photons (to me that carries information about charge and magnetic moment of either one). What will happen next is exactly predictable by quantum theory, more so than predictability of what will happen when a boy meets a girl!! So information may or may not have anything to do with consciousness. I am not sure. As I said before, our knowledge about what is consciousness is very little compared with our knowledge of interaction between matter. Also quantum processes were going on in the universe long before conscious human beings came up on earth. You may say that universal primordial consciousness was there from the beginning. But at this point there is no agreement on that, even amongst people on this list. So matter was here long long before humans ( even sages in Samadhi) realized about universal consciousness. Then, it is an open question if both matter and consciousness are two parts of the same Brahman or not.
The information you sent by e-mail tells me about your thought processes. Before e-mail,, we could have exchanged views by telephone or letter or tad-patra or even hand gestures and smoke signals! But I maintain that whatever is exchanged between electron and proton is also information and the universe runs on all these collective information.
Best Regards.
Kashyap
r more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
Dear Alex,
It is all very well denying such realities. But that is my point. They do not know what they are talking about. That is not a criticism. It is an observation. We have very accurate models of what fundamental reality does. We know nothing of what it is. Eddington pointed this out long ago. And by the way I am NOT projecting any objective reality on quantum concepts. The reality I am projecting on quantum concepts is entirely SUBJECTIVE - which I think is entirely justified. Unfortunately it seems that competent quantum physicists are unwilling to attempt to interpret quantum concepts in this fully justifiable way for fear of being misunderstood (or else due to pure ignorance about the nature of consciousness and subjective experience).
Having a degree in theoretical physics, I am well aware of the reasons for denying any objective reality. But subjective reality is quite different from objective reality. In subjective reality changes in experience caused by events at one location
can instantaneously affect the behaviour of a consciousness whose action is felt at an entirely different location. And an experience can evolve both continuously and discontinuously just like the wavefunction. I would be interested in whether D'Espagnat
claims to have ruled out such a subjective interpretation of quantum concepts (in my experience physicists just don't go there), so I shall keep an eye out for his book. Thanks, for the recommendation.
Best wishes,
Colin
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To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/Online_Sadhu_Sanga/MMXP123MB14057B64A10F43D00BCCA85CBA060%40MMXP123MB1405.GBRP123.PROD.OUTLOOK.COM.
RE: Physicists have no idea what they are talking about.ME: That is only because you have not had deep discussions with competent physicists.
You are projecting a kind of 'objective reality' on quantum concepts.You will find Bernard D'Espagnat's accounts of how quantum theorydenies such realities quite illumining. MayI recommend them.
Alex HankeyOn 26 December 2017 at 05:55, C. S. Morrison <cs...@hotmail.co.uk> wrote:Dear Kashyap
What is the proton and the electron that 'approach each other' in your model? And what is the nature of this photon that somehow carries information from one to the other? Are they waves of some kind? Or are they death-star-like particles that somehow fire at each other without missing and without ever running out of ammo. Physicists have no idea what they are talking about. They may imagine little tiny points of hardness swirling vortices and irresistible pressures.
But all these things are arrangements of qualia in their consciousnesses. They may rightly claim that these are just the brain's way of representing the unknowable reality they are thinking about. But what they ought to realise is that the only sort of reality they actually know to exist are patterns of qualia and the consciousnesses that experience them.
Dear Kashyap,
You said
VK: When you compare with experiments you do with billions of identically prepared systems. The probabilistic, subjective status disappears at that point.
CM: Yes it would do wouldn't it. Similarly, a classical law like PV=kT works beautifully when you have billions of identical molecules in a gaseous state. And I'm sure their are equally predictive laws governing the behaviour of crowds of people in particular situations. However, I am sure you would object if I were to say that when a molecule bounces off another molecule in an ideal gas the result is perfectly described by PV=kT. In the ideal gas model it IS perfectly described by Newton's laws of motion but NOT by the ideal gas law that applies to the billions of identical systems. Likewise QFT does not accurately describe what happens when an electron approaches another electron (though our ability to successfully account for such things as the behaviour of an ideal gas in terms of micro-level interactions does suggest to me that this level of description is indeed waiting to be found).
You also said
VK: That makes quantum theory a predictable science, perhaps most exact science known to mankind! Everyone in U.S. U.K. India or Zambia will get the same result.
CM: Not if they each had an identically prepared box containing a single atom of a rare element and each used a blast of suitable light and detectors to determine that atom's position within the box. They'd then all get different answers.
VK: Thus physicists know what they are talking about!
CM: Not at all! They have no idea why they get different results in my experiment and the same results in the ones you propose. That is like saying that those who first recognised that PV=kT applied to certain gases knew what gases were. They may have guessed in that case. But until they showed how the application of justifiable statistical assumptions to elastically colliding point particles whose average velocity was proportional to the temperature of the gas, they did not in my opinion know what they were talking about.
VK: The pictures are just for convenience. After all most physicists believe that it follows from Bell’s theorem and experiments that particles are not real in the sense of our everyday life. They do not have any properties before they are measured unlike perhaps like chair as most people believe. Well, philosophers may have doubts about existence of chair also!!
CM: I think the idea that particles don't have properties before they are measured is as baseless a conjecture as the philosophical doubts about the existence of chairs. It is a cop-out by by lazy quantum physicists unwilling to face up to the daunting task of imagining the sort of pre-measurement properties they would require.
You also said
VK: Now, is this pseudo creation of our consciousness (qualia), is a more subtle question. As far as I know there is no clear answer to that. Only thing science can do is to do experiments by our sensory organs and make models (by thinking with brain which brings in qualia)
CM: I am not sure what you mean here. If you are conscious like me (and the success of Darwinian theory gives me good grounds to assume you are) then what we call consciousness and qualia are the only type of substance we actually know to exist. For all we know the external world (which we also have very strong logical grounds to believe in ) could easily be made of interacting consciousnesses. Darwinian theory, after all, gives me very strong grounds to believe that my consciousness has a very real and consistent qualia-dependent effect on its surroundings. Hence I have no idea why you attach 'pseudo' to the creation of qualia. They are very real entities. You appear to think they are only relevant when talking about our brain's conscious representation of the scientific information. For me that is only where we DISCOVER the existence of this part of reality. To doubt their existence elsewhere is like claiming that the Higgs boson only exists in the LHC.
VK: ...to understand and predict results. If the predictions come out right, then your confidence in the model increases. Whether it corresponds to any reality is a philosophical issue and has been debated for decades if not hundreds of years!
CM: But there is no model! QFT is a system of equations that yields accurate results for a certain subset of phenomena (ensembles of identically prepared quantum systems). It is like the discovery of the ideal gas law without any knowledge of the particle-based model of the relevant gases from which it was later found to derive (if my historical assumption here is correct).
VK: BTW results of attraction between boy and girl are also probabilistic!!
CM: If the theory I propose in The Blind Mindmaker is correct the two may not be as totally unrelated as you seem to think!!!!
Best wishes and Happy New Year to you too.
Colin
C. S. Morrison - Author of THE BLIND MINDMAKER: Explaining Consciousness without Magic or Misrepresentation.
https://www.amazon.com/Blind-Mindmaker-Explaining-Consciousness-Misrepresentation/dp/1541283953
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Blind-Mindmaker-Explaining-Consciousness-Misrepresentation/dp/1541283953
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A glowing CV. But that doesn't answer Jo's question. What is he saying about fundamental reality (and how it gives rise to consciousness) that is different from what other equally-well qualified quantum physicists have already pointed out?
Colin
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Merry Christmas Jo
Good to hear another Russellian monistic voice!
Cheers, Colin
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Dear Colin,
It seems that you are not happy with the foundations of quantum theory. If you want to try to rewrite them, fine with me. I would just venture a friendly suggestion. Stalwarts like Weinberg have tried without success. t’Hooft may be still trying. Even he admits that there is something right about QM. He advises people to study QM before studying his theory and admits that, first he has to reproduce all successes of QM. As for me I have concluded from huge no. of successes that basically QM is right. Successes in experimental verification of predictions and in the form of gadgets, computers, cell phones, TVs etc. are abundant. Interpretation is a different aspect. There are probably 30 different interpretations. It looks like hardly anyone is happy at the interpretations! My take on it is that we are looking at a scale some billions of times smaller than us. Our classical intuition coming from our everyday experiences is just not going to work! Similar statements can be made about relativity. People who want to rewrite QM and relativity forget that their theories will have to explain hundreds of successful predictions of the old theories, Just explaining one is not enough!!
About consciousness studies, I agree. Science still does not have any clue. So I will read just about any wild theory which people present. But my mind is made up about quantum mechanics and relativity in spite of unsolved problems! Life is short! I am 80 already!!
Best Regards.
Kashyap
Dear Serge,
I'm afraid I side with Newton and Einstein on inertia and volume and the expansion of space.
Inertia is resistance to acceleration (and deceleration), not resistance of space to being occupied. If it were the latter you should be able to stop a truck with your finger since you would be telling it to stay in the space it was already occupying. In fact bodies would not continue in uniform motion if the space ahead of them resisted being occupied.
Volumes vary according to many factors. Accelerating something close to the speed of light will reduce its volume from your perspective. Also, there isn't really any absolute measure of volume. If every length in the universe suddenly doubled every volume would be eight times bigger yet we'd be none the wiser.
I don't share your view on the expanding universe. The expansion of space is the simplest way to account for the pattern in the velocities of the distant galaxies. It is far easier to accept though when you realise that physical space is not the empty mathematical ideal of Euclidean geometry that is often used to describe it. When combined with the time dimension it is capable of bending in certain ways. There also appears to be no necessarily stationary points in it. And it is a medium packed full of quantum fields (whatever they really are). I have my own suspicions about what it actually is but I doubt there is any volume in the universe that contains absolutely nothing.
Colin
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Hi Serge,
I will copy some lines I wrote to Collin Morrison. I am personally happy with the model of atoms in quantum mechanics and quantum field theory. My mind is made up about quantum mechanics and relativity in spite of some unsolved problems! Life is short! I am 80 already!!
It seems that you are not happy with the quantum theory. If you want to try to rewrite them, fine with me. I would just venture a friendly suggestion though. Stalwarts like Weinberg have tried without success. t’Hooft may be still trying. Even he admits that there is something right about QM. He advises people to study QM before studying his theory and admits that, first he has to reproduce all successes of QM. As for me I have concluded from huge no. of successes that basically QM is right. Successes in experimental verification of predictions and in the form of gadgets, computers, cell phones, TVs etc. are abundant. Do not forget successful applications to chemistry also. Interpretation is a different aspect. There are probably 30 different interpretations. It looks like hardly anyone is happy with the interpretations! My take on it is that we are looking at a scale some billions of times smaller than us. Our classical intuition coming from our everyday experiences is just not going to work! Similar statements can be made about relativity. People who want to rewrite QM and relativity forget that their theories will have to explain hundreds of successful predictions of the old theories. Just explaining one is not enough!! If someone comes up with theories which reproduce all successes of these old theories then only I will pay attention to the new theories. Otherwise I will say good luck!
About consciousness studies, I agree. Science still does not have any clue. So I will read just about any wild theory which people present.
Best Regards.
Kashyap
Dear Kashyap,
I think it is more the interpretations I am unhappy with. I want to find one that allows the positions of the atoms in the boxes I mentioned to be freely chosen by the atoms themselves which I believe each constitute a consciousness whose experience consists of all the potential positions the atom could be found to 'occupy', each of which has a probability density determined by the intensity of the set of qualia in which it is represented. The strengths of the various components of that set of qualia would be determined by the contributions to the probability of finding that atom there arising from different forces (which are the similarly positioned effects of other conscious particles in the vicinity). Obviously, as the atom is a composite entity, there will be more than one consciousness associated with it. However, I suspect the consciousness of each electron freely chooses only the position of the electron relative to the nucleus to which it is bound. It plays no part in the choice of the atom's position -though it will contribute to the effect of the whole atom as felt by other consciousnesses (i.e. its contribution to the position probability-density distribution experienced by the consciousnesses of other particles). I have some ideas on how wave-particle duality can arise in this schema but shall not go into them here.
I am led to this view because as far as I can see it is the only possibility that will allow us to explain the organisation of our qualia scientifically. The variations in brightness, acuteness, loudness etc of our different varieties of qualia MUST BE VARIATIONS OF SOMETHING PHYSICAL for any nonmagical account. And to explain how they gained the capability of forming fairly accurate sensory-image-like patterns via the blind process of natural selection I reckon that every distinguishable location on these subjective images must represent a distinct effect upon the brain. My book explains why this strongly suggests that our experience constitutes the position probability density distribution function for a single quantum particle trapped in a highly evolved structure (a sort of biological quantum computer) capable of precisely controlling the form of its wave function deep within the attention-focusing machinery of the brain.
Best wishes,
Colin
C. S. Morrison - Author of THE BLIND MINDMAKER: Explaining Consciousness without Magic or Misrepresentation.
https://www.amazon.com/Blind-Mindmaker-Explaining-Consciousness-Misrepresentation/dp/1541283953
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Blind-Mindmaker-Explaining-Consciousness-Misrepresentation/dp/1541283953
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Hi Kashyap,
How many professional physicists are claiming there are problems with quantum mechanics or special and general theories of relativity? Not too many, I suspect, at least far fewer than those who have not learned these subjects thoroughly. That is not to discount challenges from other fields of expertise, but rather to suggest a more fruitful effort to understand consciousness is for those who believe physics is relevant to trust the careful work done now to develop, confirm and apply its basic principles over centuries (for classical physics and over a century for QM and GR) and progress from there. Continually discounting all or most of modern physics because there remain some unanswered questions in the belief that within the questioning of basic assumptions lies insights into the nature of consciousness may indeed yield interesting results, but it may also result in a colossal waste of time--especially if the existing physics is simply not understood. I personally believe David Bohm and Basil Hiley proposed the most interesting reconsideration of basic assumptions of physics (just not the pilot wave idea, rather their reinterpretation of what appears as classical objects has an 'implicate nature'). And, even though they understood physics quite well, they never were able to complete their program.
My suggestion is for a healthy dialog among experts in their respective fields, with the recognition that expertise in any one field does take almost a lifetime of study and development. So a healthy dialog in my mind requires a modicum of respect for the expertise in the fields one is not an expert in. I may ask a neuroscientist or philosopher questions about consciousness, but my assumption is that if something doesn't make sense to me, it is more likely I have not understood them than that they are making mistakes or their field of study is founded on incorrect assumptions.
On a related note, what do you think of recent work by Andre Maeder on dark matter: https://arxiv.org/abs/1710.11425. That perhaps there is no dark matter after all? Here is interesting work with a careful development of the physics with a new assumption (of scale invariance in space that is 'empty').
Sent from Outlook
From what I can see on the internet D’Espagnat is one amongst many amateur metaphysicians of the 20th century who has made a start in roughly the right direction but has not got very far because of not reading the historical literature. My thought in relation to https://www.theguardian.com/science/blog/2009/mar/17/templeton-quantum-entanglement would be ‘er yes, most of us had got that far, what is new here?'
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Dear Kashyap and Siegfried,
Your position sounds exactly like that of scientists at the end of the nineteenth century who had their minds made up about the truth of Newtonian mechanics and classical electromagnetic theory. Then there were just a few minor problems like those gossamer-like lines in the atomic spectra. Things that were sure to go away when those currently successful theories were correctly applied to the atom!
Today we can look back and see how wrong they were. But we now have a similar situation albeit with different understanding of nature and different annoying problems. There is that annoying problem of the existence of consciousnesses and the strange subjective qualities that must somehow affect the brain if Darwinian theory is going to account for their organization. But of course that cannot possibly mean anything is wrong with the model of reality physics has given us.
Like you I have a deep respect for the successes of quantum mechanics and have no wish to re-write that theory in any way. However I think it is vital to come up with an interpretation of quantum mechanics that does give causal efficacy to subjective qualities. With so many different interpretations thus far proposed there is definitely scope for this proposal. And until expert physicists are willing to get on board and start working on this very important project, it is up to those non-experts who appreciate the logical necessity of this project to come up with the wild hypotheses that might eventually jolt these experts into doing something about it. I don't see this as a waste of time.
Might I also point out that I hold Darwin in as high a position as a scientist as you hold Einstein, Feynman and Dirac. As far as consciousness is concerned Darwin's theory says that its designlike organisation evolved over millions of generations of natural selection due to causal efficacy of qualia. I think that in this case it is Darwin's theory that won't budge. You appear to think otherwise because you are unwilling to accept the need to identify any physical influences as the effects of qualia and consciousnesses. Which experts are we to believe? Evolutionary biologists who say natural selection is the only explanation for the level of designlike structure we see in our subjective representation of the world or physicists who say there is no deeper causal structure behind the statistical patterns that quantum theory accurately describes? I think you are both somewhat biased towards the expert physicists. Otherwise you would be seeking the same sort of interpretation of quantum mechanics that I would like to find.
Best wishes,
Colin
C. S. Morrison - Author of THE BLIND MINDMAKER: Explaining Consciousness without Magic or Misrepresentation.
https://www.amazon.com/Blind-Mindmaker-Explaining-Consciousness-Misrepresentation/dp/1541283953
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Blind-Mindmaker-Explaining-Consciousness-Misrepresentation/dp/1541283953
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Jo
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Dear Colin,
No. My position is not like that of physicists at the end of 19th century!! I accept that some modifications to QM, QFT and/or relativity may be necessary to understand quantum gravity, dark matter, dark energy, black holes etc. On the other hand the present theories have been so successful in their respective domains of validity (you know they are different) that any future theories will have to retain some features of these theories. My guess (just a guess!) is that even after future theories become successful, QM, QFT and relativity will be still retained as approximately valid in some areas. This may be like the case that after Einstein Newton’s theory of gravitation was not trashed. NASA uses it daily in successful space flights! Frankly, I do not have too much patience to read about amateurish crackpot ideas from people who have not understood the present theories and have no background. But let them do what they want. It is none of my concern!
As for using consciousness as guide to new theories, I do not know. Science knows so little about consciousness that it is not clear what to do. As a matter of fact many people (including you?) want to rely on QM to understand consciousness.
Debates about interpretation of QM have been going on for some 90 years with no solution acceptable to every physicist. So in my view Copenhagen is ok in absence of any other more believable alternative. But I surely do not mind hearing about any interpretation. In fact I suspect that these difficulties are telling us that we cannot understand sub microscopic domain intuitively by our brain which Darwinian evolution made. The amazing thing for me is that mathematics provided by the same brain works! But my understanding of Vedanta tells me that Brahman is like that!!
Best Regards.
kashyap
From: online_sa...@googlegroups.com [mailto:online_sa...@googlegroups.com]
On Behalf Of C. S. Morrison
Sent: Saturday, December 30, 2017 10:53 AM
To: online_sa...@googlegroups.com; Online_Sa...@googlegroups.com; Siegfried Bleher <SBl...@msn.com>
Subject: Re: [Sadhu Sanga] RE: Do we need manifested consciousness for a meaning in information?
Dear Kashyap and Siegfried,
Hi Siegfried,
Yes. I agree. There are quite a few people with very little knowledge of physics and mathematics who want to revolutionize quantum mechanics and relativity. It is amusing!
As for the paper by Andre Maeder, that by modifying relativity you can get read of requirement of dark matter, I see that there are no takers. In fact a blogger Sabine Hossenfelder (Backreaction) who works on quantum gravity, does not think much of it. No other physics blogs which I follow have mentioned it. So we may safely forget it!!
Best Regards and Happy New Year!
Kashyap
From: online_sa...@googlegroups.com [mailto:online_sa...@googlegroups.com]
On Behalf Of Siegfried Bleher
Sent: Friday, December 29, 2017 10:44 AM
To: online_sa...@googlegroups.com
Subject: Re: [Sadhu Sanga] RE: Do we need manifested consciousness for a meaning in information?
Hi Kashyap,
Siegfried
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From: online_sadhu_sanga@googlegroups.com <online_sadhu_sanga@googlegroups.com> on behalf of Vasavada, Kashyap V <vasa...@iupui.edu>
Sent: Wednesday, December 27, 2017 9:15 PM
To: Serge Patlavskiy
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Dear Kashyap,
You said 'many people (including you?) want to rely on QM to understand consciousness.'
I would describe my position rather as 'wanting to use consciousness to understand QM'.
I am currently convinced that we are each the intrinsic nature of a single particle being used by an incredibly complex biological quantum computer which manipulates the position probability density distribution for that particle in various ways in response to incoming sensory data and every-so-often measures its position directing our attention according to the result of that measurement. (It does not need to work with many identically prepared systems as the result is "intended" to unpredictable). My confidence in this is based on the fact that this is the only way I can account for our subjective images as products of natural selection (which I think would still apply even if that designlike structure were created by God/ Brahman - unless of course the Vedanta allows Brahman to magically create our consciousness over a single generation). Please forgive me if that sounds ignorant as I know nothing about the Vedanta but do take the potential existence of a God very seriously. Judging from the evidence of the fossil record, any God that exists takes many generations to create things and therefore each new step in the process must impart an advantage in order for it to survive.
Anyway, being so certain of the sort of entity a single (almost certainly composite) quantum particle constitutes, I hope to infer the reasons for why the strange mathematics of quantum theory works so well, and thence generalise the interpretation to QFT.
Happy New Year,
Colin
C. S. Morrison - Author of THE BLIND MINDMAKER: Explaining Consciousness without Magic or Misrepresentation.
https://www.amazon.com/Blind-Mindmaker-Explaining-Consciousness-Misrepresentation/dp/1541283953
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Blind-Mindmaker-Explaining-Consciousness-Misrepresentation/dp/1541283953
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On 31 Dec 2017 23:21, Siegfried Bleher <SBl...@msn.com> wrote:
>
> By the way, I have begun reading your book…but, I am a slow reader 😊. Initial thought—how do you envision the single quantum that encapsulates consciousness survives continual matter exchange in the living organism?
>
Dear Siegfried,
Thanks for your detailed clarification. Your paper sounds very interesting. I think the points you made in your email are insightful, though I will need a bit more time to digest them.
As far as your above query is concerned, I try not to let it worry me too much! I rather hope that my consciousness constitutes an extremely rare particle and that the system that uses it has consequently evolved to protect that particle so that it is shielded against such exchanges throughout my life. But I do not know. Since I can never tell whether this me is the same me that experienced the experiences I remember experiencing a few seconds ago, continual matter exchange is not inconsistent with my theory (though it is an important consideration for other reasons). Even if a new particle were used after each measurement, there is a way around the view that this is where the previous me stopped being a human consciousness, and that is to remember that we are not the consciousness of the whole particle. Although we determine the outcomes of measurements of the whole particle's position, some other consciousnesses determine the positions of its internal constituents, etc. Consequently one might hope that when a measurement is made (during which time our consciousness temporarily ceases to exist as the particle's position is determined by the interaction of its elementary constituents with their environment), and a new particle exchanged for the measured one, we might perhaps 'jump ship' as it were. Of course there would have to be some plausible reason to consider this (which I do not have at the moment, but which may emerge from the eventual extension of the theory to properly explain wave-particle duality).
Happy New Year,
Colin
C. S. Morrison - Author of THE BLIND MINDMAKER: Explaining Consciousness without Magic or Misrepresentation.
https://www.amazon.com/Blind-Mindmaker-Explaining-Consciousness-Misrepresentation/dp/1541283953
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Blind-Mindmaker-Explaining-Consciousness-Misrepresentation/dp/1541283953
>
>
>
> From: C. S. Morrison [mailto:cs...@hotmail.co.uk]
> Sent: Saturday, December 30, 2017 10:53 AM
> To: online_sa...@googlegroups.com; Online_Sa...@googlegroups.com; Siegfried Bleher <SBl...@msn.com>
> Subject: Re: [Sadhu Sanga] RE: Do we need manifested consciousness for a meaning in information?
>
>
>
> Dear Kashyap and Siegfried,
>
> Your position sounds exactly like that of scientists at the end of the nineteenth century who had their minds made up about the truth of Newtonian mechanics and classical electromagnetic theory. Then there were just a few minor problems like those gossamer-like
lines in the atomic spectra. Things that were sure to go away when those currently successful theories were correctly applied to the atom!
>
> Today we can look back and see how wrong they were. But we now have a similar situation albeit with different understanding of nature and different annoying problems. There is that annoying problem of the existence of consciousnesses and the strange subjective
qualities that must somehow affect the brain if Darwinian theory is going to account for their organization. But of course that cannot possibly mean anything is wrong with the model of reality physics has given us.
>
> Like you I have a deep respect for the successes of quantum mechanics and have no wish to re-write that theory in any way. However I think it is vital to come up with an interpretation of quantum mechanics that does give causal efficacy to subjective qualities.
With so many different interpretations thus far proposed there is definitely scope for this proposal. And until expert physicists are willing to get on board and start working on this very important project, it is up to those non-experts who appreciate the
logical necessity of this project to come up with the wild hypotheses that might eventually jolt these experts into doing something about it. I don't see this as a waste of time.
>
> Might I also point out that I hold Darwin in as high a position as a scientist as you hold Einstein, Feynman and Dirac. As far as consciousness is concerned Darwin's theory says that its designlike organisation evolved over millions of generations of natural
selection due to causal efficacy of qualia. I think that in this case it is Darwin's theory that won't budge. You appear to think otherwise because you are unwilling to accept the need to identify any physical influences as the effects of qualia and consciousnesses.
Which experts are we to believe? Evolutionary biologists who say natural selection is the only explanation for the level of designlike structure we see in our subjective representation of the world or physicists who say there is no deeper causal structure
behind the statistical patterns that quantum theory accurately describes? I think you are both somewhat biased towards the expert physicists. Otherwise you would be seeking the same sort of interpretation of quantum mechanics that I would like to find.
>
> Best wishes,
> Colin
>
> C. S. Morrison - Author of THE BLIND MINDMAKER: Explaining Consciousness without Magic or Misrepresentation.
>
> https://www.amazon.com/Blind-Mindmaker-Explaining-Consciousness-Misrepresentation/dp/1541283953
>
> https://www.amazon.co.uk/Blind-Mindmaker-Explaining-Consciousness-Misrepresentation/dp/1541283953
>
>
>
> Send from Huawei Y360
>
> On 29 Dec 2017 16:12, Siegfried Bleher <SBl...@msn.com> wrote:
>
> Hi Kashyap,
>
>
>
> How many professional physicists are claiming there are problems with quantum mechanics or special and general theories of relativity? Not too many, I suspect, at least far fewer than those who have not learned these subjects thoroughly. That is not to
discount challenges from other fields of expertise, but rather to suggest a more fruitful effort to understand consciousness is for those who believe physics is relevant to trust the careful work done now to develop, confirm and apply its basic principles
over centuries (for classical physics and over a century for QM and GR) and progress from there. Continually discounting all or most of modern physics because there remain some unanswered questions in the belief that within the questioning of basic assumptions
lies insights into the nature of consciousness may indeed yield interesting results, but it may also result in a colossal waste of time--especially if the existing physics is simply not understood. I personally believe David Bohm and Basil Hiley proposed
the most interesting reconsideration of basic assumptions of physics (just not the pilot wave idea, rather their reinterpretation of what appears as classical objects has an 'implicate nature'). And, even though they understood physics quite well, they never
were able to complete their program.
>
>
>
> My suggestion is for a healthy dialog among experts in their respective fields, with the recognition that expertise in any one field does take almost a lifetime of study and development. So a healthy dialog in my mind requires a modicum of respect for the
expertise in the fields one is not an expert in. I may ask a neuroscientist or philosopher questions about consciousness, but my assumption is that if something doesn't make sense to me, it is more likely I have not understood them than that they are making
mistakes or their field of study is founded on incorrect assumptions.
>
>
>
> On a related note, what do you think of recent work by Andre Maeder on dark matter: https://arxiv.org/abs/1710.11425. That perhaps there is no dark matter after all? Here is interesting work with a careful development of the physics with a new assumption
(of scale invariance in space that is 'empty').
>
>
>
> [1710.11425] Dynamical effects of the scale invariance of ...
>
> arxiv.org
>
> Abstract: The hypothesis of the scale invariance of the macroscopic empty space, which intervenes through the cosmological constant, has led to new cosmological models.
>
> Just to be clear--I am agreeing with you, just adding a few related thoughts...
>
>
>
> Best wishes,
>
>
>
> Siegfried
>
>
>
> Sent from Outlook
>
>
>
> ________________________________
>
> From: online_sa...@googlegroups.com <online_sa...@googlegroups.com> on behalf of Vasavada, Kashyap V <vasa...@iupui.edu>
> Sent: Wednesday, December 27, 2017 9:15 PM
> To: Serge Patlavskiy
> Cc: Online_Sa...@googlegroups.com
> Subject: RE: [Sadhu Sanga] RE: Do we need manifested consciousness for a meaning in information?
>
>
>
> Hi Serge,
>
> I will copy some lines I wrote to Collin Morrison. I am personally happy with the model of atoms in quantum mechanics and quantum field theory. My mind is made up about quantum mechanics and relativity in spite of some unsolved problems! Life is short! I
am 80 already!!
>
> It seems that you are not happy with the quantum theory. If you want to try to rewrite them, fine with me. I would just venture a friendly suggestion though. Stalwarts like Weinberg have tried without success. t’Hooft may be still trying. Even he admits
that there is something right about QM. He advises people to study QM before studying his theory and admits that, first he has to reproduce all successes of QM. As for me I have concluded from huge no. of successes that basically QM is right. Successes in
experimental verification of predictions and in the form of gadgets, computers, cell phones, TVs etc. are abundant. Do not forget successful applications to chemistry also. Interpretation is a different aspect. There are probably 30 different interpretations.
It looks like hardly anyone is happy with the interpretations! My take on it is that we are looking at a scale some billions of times smaller than us. Our classical intuition coming from our everyday experiences is just not going to work! Similar statements
can be made about relativity. People who want to rewrite QM and relativity forget that their theories will have to explain hundreds of successful predictions of the old theories. Just explaining one is not enough!! If someone comes up with theories which reproduce
all successes of these old theories then only I will pay attention to the new theories. Otherwise I will say good luck!
>
> About consciousness studies, I agree. Science still does not have any clue. So I will read just about any wild theory which people present.
>
> Best Regards.
>
> Kashyap
>
>
>
> From: Serge Patlavskiy [mailto:serge.pa...@rocketmail.com]
> Sent: Wednesday, December 27, 2017 7:11 PM
> To: Online_Sa...@googlegroups.com
> Cc: C. S. Morrison <cs...@hotmail.co.uk>; Vasavada, Kashyap V <vasa...@iupui.edu>
> Subject: Re: [Sadhu Sanga] RE: Do we need manifested consciousness for a meaning in information?
>
>
>
> -
>
Dear Colin,
I may have given the wrong impression in my comment to Kashyap. I wasn’t addressing the discrepancy between deterministic physical theories like classical mechanics or quantum mechanics and agency or free will as fundamental characteristics of consciousness (i.e. considering the Schrödinger equation to be deterministic—of course, predicting values of observables is another matter). I was only pointing out physicists are more likely to identify ‘ecological’ changes to physical theories than are those with only a cursory understanding of the subject. It is fun for me to delve into proposals for understanding consciousness that requires knowledge of neurochemistry, but I am happy to admit I know very little about that subject, and would have to consult with an expert to know if my ideas are at least not violating basic principles in neuroscience or neurochemistry. What I was addressing is the repeated efforts to challenge physical theories in domains that disregard existing empirical evidence—most physicists will not even give such proposals a cursory look. Proposals to address discrepancies between existing theories and data in the early 1900s (e.g. the ultraviolet catastrophe in blackbody radiation and its resolution by Planck in 1900) were tested for agreement or correspondence with existing observations. That is, successful new theories are ‘backwards compatible’ with older theories that are themselves valid in their range of applicability—e.g. special relativity is backwards compatible with Lagrangian or Newtonian mechanics, and so is quantum mechanics (with the understanding that the semiclassical limit ħ→0 is not analytical). I don’t believe that is true for all proposals made on this discussion board.
To take a different but complementary perspective, I will mention a few reflections with the intention of arguing it is premature to discount modern physics as it is successfully practiced as relevant to science of consciousness, the first of which I posted to Kushal, but I repeat here with some clarification:
The relevance of these points is that a) the math of classical mechanics—not only quantum mechanics—already embodies ‘the observer’, and b) the lack of clarity in physics itself with the relationship between CM and QM when the CM is nonlinear mimics the dichotomy between ‘objective’ and ‘subjective’. A deep enough understanding of mathematical physics as it is currently practiced may yield greater understanding of its relevance to science of consciousness—where it provides insights and where it gets stuck.
Best wishes, and Happy New Year!
Siegfried
PS By the way, I have begun reading your book…but, I am a slow reader 😊. Initial thought—how do you envision the single quantum that encapsulates consciousness survives continual matter exchange in the living organism?
From: C. S. Morrison [mailto:cs...@hotmail.co.uk]
Sent: Saturday, December 30, 2017 10:53 AM
To: online_sa...@googlegroups.com; Online_Sa...@googlegroups.com; Siegfried Bleher <SBl...@msn.com>
On Dec 22, 2017, at 6:10 PM, Vasavada, Kashyap V <vasa...@iupui.edu> wrote:
Dear Vinodji,
Why do you say that inert matter cannot exchange information? They do routinely. These are called forces in classical physics and interaction Lagrangian or Hamiltonian in quantum physics. The remaining piece of puzzle will be solved if it is possible to relate consciousness to quantum theory.
One suspects that inert matter also has some primitive hidden consciousness.
Admittedly it has not been possible to prove that now. That is why there are these endless debates!!
Dear Serge,
With respect, I have the deepest admiration for the discoveries of the physicist you call 'Santa Einstein'. Special relativity has, as far as I am aware, been proven beyond reasonable doubt. And General Relativity seems to follow my criteria for developing a theory that is likely to be closer to the truth than a previous state of knowledge, so I am willing to trust those scientists who assure me that it is indeed more accurate than Newtonian gravity.
Unlike some on this group, however, I do see value in considering even the most scientifically unjustifiable hypothesis - not only because it reconfirms the strength of established views, but also because, very occasionally, it casts a hint of a way forward by sheer blind luck. This is in fact what I think the advantage of consciousness to the brain was. I think its effect is a completely random choice from a great number of possibilities. Even when the brain has calculated the likelihood of each possibility being the best, it allows the final choice to be made by this random (though appropriately weighted) process because ultimately there is some possibility for almost any claim to be wrong as Descartes observed so long ago. Nevertheless, Kashyap's point still applies. If you are going to try to re-write all of physics you need to ensure your theory yields all the successes that modern physics has yielded (or explain how the illusion of all those successes has come about).
> Colin Morrison <cs...@hotmail.co.uk> on Dec 28, 2017 wrote:
> > Inertia is resistance to acceleration (and deceleration), not resistance of
> >space to being occupied.
> .
> [S.P.] Well, then what is the nature of this "resistance"? The explanations like "there is inertia because there is mass, and there is mass because there is inertia" are not acceptable. My argument stands: the observable physical bodies, events and processes
(together with the established laws of Physics) are manifestations of the more basic properties of Space itself.
CM: I don't think anyone is denying that the laws of physics come from the properties of space. It is just that the properties of space need to be somewhat subtler than the ones I think you are proposing to explain the laws of physics. As far as I am aware the resistance is not yet fully explained but is thought to be due to the interactions of a body's particles with quantum fields such as the Higgs field that you dismiss as fictions.
> [Colin Morrison ] wrote:
> >In fact bodies would not continue in uniform motion if the space ahead
> >of them resisted being occupied.
> .
> [S.P.] The Space ahead of moving body does not behave like another body. So, your argument is not accepted.
CM: So what does it behave like? What do you mean by saying it resists being occupied?
> .
> [Colin Morrison ] wrote:
> >Accelerating something close to the speed of light will reduce its volume
> > from your perspective.
> .
> [S.P.] This looks like a religious belief. First, there is no "speed of light". There is a speed in which a front of e-m wave propagates away from the source. The idea that "volume reduces from somebody's perspective" is nonsensical.
Noumenal Reality, by definition, exists objectively and independently of the activity of consciousness or somebody's point of view.
CM: Who said Volume=Noumenal Reality?. As I said, the relativistic nature of spacetime is in my view firmly established.
> [Colin Morrison ] wrote:
> > Also, there isn't really any absolute measure of volume.
> .
> [S.P.] As follows from my first postulate on Space, the absolute measure of volume does exist. It is the amount of Space required for the entity called "atom" to be existent: Vs(atom)=Vn(atom)*constant (see my post "Nature abhors a vacuum" below).
CM: And how much is that?
> .
> [Colin Morrison ] wrote:
> >I don't share your view on the expanding universe. The expansion of space
> >is the simplest way to account for the pattern in the velocities of the distant
> > galaxies.
> .
> [S.P.] The words "to move", or "to expand" cannot be applied to the very Space. It is not Space that is expanding, but it is a distant galaxy which moves in Space away from us. While moving, the galaxy does not produce Space.
CM: There seems to be several misunderstandings here. Firstly, when one says the universe is expanding one does not mean that the galaxies aren't moving. They are moving. It is just that the movement is caused by expansion of the space in between them and us rather than by, say, some gigantic shockwave. Secondly, no one has said the galaxy produces space. To account for the observations the new space must be getting created evenly at every point in the universe. Thirdly, following Einstein's development of general relativity it is not in the least bit unacceptable to talk about space expanding. Cosmologists do it all the time.
> [Colin Morrison ] wrote:
> >When combined with the time dimension it is capable of bending in certain
> >ways. And it is a medium packed full of quantum fields (whatever they
> >really are).
> .
> [S.P.] Oh, boy! "Space bending"!!!??? "Time dimension"!!!??? "Quantum fields"!!!??? More tales for young kids! A grown-up person should not confuse mathematical models and reality. :-)
CM: In your ideas of what space is it seems to me that it is you who is confusing mathematical models with reality.
> .
> [Colin Morrison ] wrote:
> >I have my own suspicions about what it actually is ...
> .
> [S.P.] This sounds much better already. At any rate, I prefer to discuss realistic/rational solutions but not Santa Einstein's tales.
> .
> With respect,
> Serge Patlavskiy
CM: As Kashyap said, the solutions must reproduce the successes of physics to date, and must not predict anything we don't observe when we ought to observe it. So why don't you lay out your ideas on how to explain the black body spectrum in a way that is different from Planck's in your next email.
Best wishes,
Colin
Suppose there are three observers watching a sunset, person A, person B, and a camera fitted with appropriate filter. To person A the sunset is the end of day, some interesting colors, not much else, maybe time to go inside or dinner. To person B, the sunset is also the end of the day, but the colors and the moment happen to remind them of an important transitional time in their lives, which gives them hope for the current transitional time. This coincidence gives person B the distinct experience, in a ‘flash’ that the universe is giving them personal encouragement. The camera records an image of the sunset at a particular time in its progression. On the one hand, one might say it is obvious persons A and B are subjects, each with their unique subjective experience, whereas the camera, being simply a recording instrument, is an ‘observer ‘. But did the photographer not choose the particular type of camera, the particular moment to take the image, the camera’s placement, for particular effect, with a particular aim in mind? Is the subject, apparently removed from the scene, not embedded in the observer? Are physicists not embedded as subjects in the equations of motion or equations of state, whether classical or quantum? Even if the subject is removed in time from a particular experience, they are still present at the end of the observational chain, and to ignore their presence will likely discard an important aspect of consciousness –perhaps its continuity across different ‘separate’ subjects, and across different time intervals in the same subject.
Best regards,
Siegfried
Sent from my Windows 10 phone
Dear Kashyap,
I notice in your earlier post you said 'perhaps theory of evolution'. Do I detect a hint of bias here? Whilst physics has given us iphones and (I trust) succeeded in predicting experimental results to great accuracy, evolutionary theory has equally well led the way to our amazing modern understanding of the genome, diseases and the mechanisms of inheritance. Its predictions about the relationships between the genomes of various creatures have by-and-large turned out to be true. And it is responsible far a vast and every growing set of technologies.
The problem I see is this. Evolutionary theory PREDICTS that qualia (and I think consciousness itself), whatever these things are, MUST affect our brain activity. It is the only explanation science offers for such designlike organisation (other than deliberate and extremely intelligent genetic engineering by conscious beings, which would beg the question of why the designlike traits persist if they are not advantageous). But an influence must ultimately be explicable in terms of physics (or at least in terms of the physical properties of the matter in which the influence is located). Our current understanding of physics, at least at the level of brains, must therefore be incomplete! Or else evolutionary theory is wrong. Which do you think it is?
Best wishes,
Colin
C. S. Morrison - Author of THE BLIND MINDMAKER: Explaining Consciousness without Magic or Misrepresentation.
https://www.amazon.com/Blind-Mindmaker-Explaining-Consciousness-Misrepresentation/dp/1541283953
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Blind-Mindmaker-Explaining-Consciousness-Misrepresentation/dp/1541283953
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Dear Colin/Kashyap
My take on the theory of evolution is slightly different. Theory of evolution is similar to the principle of maximizing entropy. Both may have some connection but the connection has not been discovered so far. The main difficulty with the theory of evolution is that we do not know how to quantify the advantage for survival. Various suggestions made are applicable in limited domain. We do not know the role of evolution theory in understanding genome, diseases and inheritance. The evolution theory influenced the understanding them through Chemistry and Physics.
I agree that our experimentation with brain is rudimentary and our knowledge of brain is tentative only. I do not think that the theory of evolution will turn out to be wrong.
Rajendra Bajpai
From: online_sa...@googlegroups.com [mailto:online_sa...@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of C. S. Morrison
Sent: Monday, January 8, 2018 3:11 AM
To: Vasavada, Kashyap V <vasa...@iupui.edu>; Online_Sa...@googlegroups.com
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Dear Colin,
Yes you caught me red handed! My word “perhaps” in connection with theory of evolution was too much overcautious! I know, fossil evidence, DNA link between animals (which Darwin did not know at the time he gave his theory! That is a great credit.), inheritance and lab experiments with microbes, prove theory of evolution beyond a reasonable doubt. It is central part of biology and used extensively in medical sciences. Thus theory of evolution can be given the same status as QM and relativity. OK! The only remaining thing, which admittedly is not part of theory of evolution is to understand how inorganic inert molecules gave rise to life.
The questions in the second paragraph are very complex. It remains to be seen if QM or physics in general can explain consciousness and its connection to brain. I do not have any ideas about that subject now.
However, this brings in another point. Recently I was talking to a biophysicist and during conversation it came up that biologists and medical scientists talk about body being an electrical network, but they do not know the details. For example, all models like charges going in and out of cells are electrostatic. But as physicists and electrical engineers know, movement of electricity through cables and waveguides are through fields moving lot faster than charges. Thus biophysicists should pay attention to electrodynamics in addition to electrostatics. Well there is lot of work cut out for physicists in biology! Also most biologists use only classical physics. In fact one recent article ( which at my great surprise was sent to me for refereeing , I refereed and accepted ) emphasizes that biologists should start using QM! It will be interesting to see if this solves the main issues.
Best Regards.
Kashyap
From: C. S. Morrison [mailto:cs...@hotmail.co.uk]
Sent: Sunday, January 7, 2018 4:41 PM
To: Vasavada, Kashyap V <vasa...@iupui.edu>; Online_Sa...@googlegroups.com
----------------------------.
Dear Kashyap, Rajendra and others,
Kashyap, you said in previous email
The only remaining thing, which admittedly is not part of theory of evolution is to understand how inorganic inert molecules gave rise to life.
I was wondering of any of you have heard of the 2013 paper in Icarus by Makukov and shCherbak on the genetic code. "The Wow! signal in the terrestrial genetic code". They argue very convincingly that the genetic code has been artificially designed the way it is in order to encode a message! They claim to have found a pattern of exactly balancing nucleon numbers (in the amino acids coded for) across each of the code's well-known symmetries that always constitutes a multiple of 37. And in one of them when you divide the three totals by 37 you get 9, 16 and 25 (the squares of the sides of the 3-4-5 right angled triangle - a shape that would be familiar to mathematicians all across the universe). They make a very strong case for this because they have examined all the other potential variations of the code that nature could have used and no such patterns were found. Their conclusion is that the genetic code has been artificially created (due to its highly durable nature) to encode a message from an advanced alien intelligence! I did look to see if the date of publication was the first of April. But in actual fact the work seems to be getting a lot of positive mainstream publicity. I read about it in a mathematics book published by New Scientist magazine which is a reasonably good secular science publication in the UK.
Although, the authors suggest the engineers were aliens, the 37 times table has wonderful symmetries of its own but only in the decimal number system. Are we really to believe those aliens guessed that intelligent life on this planet would evolve
to use such a system? Hence I am more inclined to believe that it was a theistic God like the universewide consciousness that my theory of consciousness appears to predict. Such a being could know the future because he could have subsequently directed evolution
to produce ten fingered brainy creatures.
If that is the case then your worry about how life got started goes away. The important thing to my mind though is that the existence of such a being does not in the least bit make natural selection wrong or even redundant. Life forms have to be adapted to
their various niches in order to survive, so such a creator would need to work gradually over many many generations, each time allowing the sieve of natural selection to determine what changes worked best. The only difference would be that not all the mutations
would necessarily be random. Such a being could try out mutations that worked before or elsewhere. Due to this memory effect you'd get a sort of exponential increase in complexity over time, which I think is what we do see. Yet it does not in the least bit
allow us to excuse ourselves from the need to identify the selection pressures that led to the designlike attributes of our consciousness. Each small step towards these features must have benefitted our ancestors or it would not have been retained.
I'd be interested to hear from anyone else who has come across that paper. I couldn't see anything wrong with the line of argument. But then I knew very little about the genetic code before reading that paper so am no expert. I have yet to find any article debunking their claims.
All the best,
Colin
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Dear Jo,
You may be right. I don't presume to be able to tell in this case. And I do wish the authors would be explicit about how many alternative symmetries they examined that didn't give exact balances (after all the probability of hitting a multiple of 37 is just 1out of 37 - but remember the claims to improbability concern the exact balances not the nature of the balanced numbers). I made a rough estimate based on the standard deviation of the varying side chain masses for just one of their exact balances (I worked out how many different pairs of totals similar divisions of the code would be likely to produce) and got a probability of roughly 0.1 percent. They also say the Rumer's bisection - the symmetry associated with their exact balances - is itself highly improbable (which makes it interesting that the perfect balances are found there). They also claim to have tried many other possibilities and found no such balances (though I wish they would demonstrate this in the paper).
As far as being interested in such things is concerned, for me (as no doubt for Leibniz) coincidences are what science is about. I would not criticise Leibniz for wondering if there is a scientific reason for the fortunate position of the moon at a time when life-forms capable of studying the solar corona and testing General Relativity have evolved on earth. At the other extreme one could argue (reminiscent of Hume) that the patterns we call laws of nature are themselves just sets of lucky coincidences (the infinite multiverse cosmologies come to mind). Consciousness is used in humans to encode mainly sensory information so its designlike perfection with regard to that task is interesting (likewise with avocet beaks).
I believe in explaining an observed phenomenon in the way that is as similar as possible to how the most similar successfully-explained thing is explained. If that happens to be as a random coincidence then so be it. The question for me is merely what that most similar explained phenomenon is.
If the authors can use their patterns to make reliable predictions about other aspects of the genetic code, then the whole thing will get a lot more serious. This may of course never happen. However, the possible benefits of such a discovery are so great that it is definitely worth the risk looking for them and following up such claims. That is of course why billions of dollars is spent each year hunting for earthlike exoplanets. Earthlikeness may have nothing to do with life but it is the best guess we have of where to find it. Likewise patterns in the genetic code may have nothing to do with nonhuman intelligence, but they are in my opinion a good place to look for it.
Best wishes,
Colin
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