If the conscious observer thing were true, what would it decide is consciousness? Would it require sapience? Sentience? Does it happen for dolphins? Apes? Monkeys? Mice? Tardigrades? What level of synapse connections is it waiting for to decide that's enough? What about humans born without a brain? Can they not see anything? This hypothesis requires so many weird assumptions that it's less than useless.
What's so weird about any of those questions/assumptions? A consciousness-based interpretation of quantum mechanics would need any conscious observer, that would include dolphins since we're pretty sure they're having conscious experiences.
Why it's weird is because it's assuming the universe is choosing what level is conscious. As you say, we're pretty sure they're conscious. How do we know that? Brain scans and watching their behavior. What happens to something without a brain but still with sensors? Is that somehow conscious? What about a brain but much less complex? Why is the universe deciding how to behave based on this? It'd be really outlandish to expect this behavior from the universe, which isn't a creature and just following a set of rules.
It's a much simpler explanation that interactions that require information force that information to collapse. We don't need any strange justifications or anything deciding what level becomes conscious, which is just a word we made up several hundred years ago and is meaningless to the universe. Consciousness is just a series of impulses in a system, a system which can go wrong in many ways and is not a fundamental thing.
Consciousness is just a series of impulses in a system, a system which can go wrong in many ways and is not a fundamental thing.
You can claim that all you want but you can't really back that up. Nobody has anywhere near a coherent account of how a purely physical system produces (or equates to) subjective conscious experience. If your answer now is "well science will figure it out one day for sure" then you have a belief system and you aren't actually thinking scientifically.
Why should science be forever married to a reductive physicalist account of the universe?
You aren't conscious when you're in a coma, correct? That's a measurable way the system can mess up and we can detect. You also aren't conscious when you're dead, right? Yet another measurable thing. We can detect brain activity and see certain regions are used for certain things. We can also detect anomalous behavior in the brain. We can tell when the system isn't working as expected.
Nobody has anywhere near a coherent account of how a purely physical system produces (or equates to) subjective conscious experience.
We can easily explain how a physical system produces consciousness. We may not be able to point to exactly what it is, but we can describe it and describe how that can happen. It's not mystical. It's just complex. We can't reproduce it yet, but that doesn't mean we don't understand how the brain functions.
Why should science be forever married to a reductive physicalist account of the universe?
Because that's literally a basic requirment of science. It relies on falsafiability. You can believe whatever you want, but science relies on stuff being measurable. It doesn't mean it's right, but that's how it functions.
Also, you call it reductive. I don't think it's reductive. I think it's more reductive to just say "consciousness exists" than to say "consciousness is a complex system that can develop in nature". Just because it's physical doesn't mean it's reductive. Saying "it just is because it is" seems much more reductive.
Edit: Also, despite people believing mystical things for most of history, they were never right. Why should this be any different?
We can easily explain how a physical system produces consciousness.
We literally can't do that at all though, not even close.
Because that's literally a basic requirment of science.
How? Science is based on making models from empirical observations about the world and yourself, one of these empirical observations is the observation that your phenomenal consciousness actually exists, seemingly in opposition to the physical world, maybe we should perhaps include that fact in our models?
Also, you call it reductive. I don't think it's reductive.
It's literally how that category of metaphysical thought is called, it's an actual philosophical term.
How? Science is based on making models from empirical observations about the world and yourself
Science requires falsafiability. It's fine to belive other things, but science it a method, not a belief system.
one of these empirical observations is the observation that your phenomenal consciousness actually exists, seemingly in opposition to the physical world, maybe we should perhaps include that fact in our models?
Nothing I've seen seems to imply it's outside of our models. You haven't explained why that's the case. We know how the humans brain and nervous system functions. It isn't magic anymore.
This is literally the closest form of consciousness to our own - the easiest and most obvious case. They weren't actually asking if dolphins would count, they're asking at what point it counts as consciousness. The ones you need to answer are things like tardigrades, bacteria and viruses, or nonphysical forms of consciousness. After all, you're seriously claiming that the scientific definition of observation is observation by a conscious mind, not interaction with another aspect of the universe, so why don't we consider all the nonfalsifiables? Do ghosts collapse the quantum superposition?
I'm not sure where you're going with this really. Why do I need to analyze if every single thing in the universe is conscious or not? Physicalism also doesn't really have a general answer to the question "is this physical system conscious". Shouldn't you do the same work before declaring you know consciousness is fully physical?
A consciousness-based interpretation of quantum mechanics would need any conscious observer
If you're going to claim that consciousness is the influencing factor in quantum mechanics you need to define consciousness. You need to define the point at which consciousness starts. You saying "yes a dolphin is conscious" only tells me you think humans and dolphins are conscious, and nothing about what you think consciousness is, what things you think are conscious, or why consciousness would influence particles. So either you give a real answer to their question of what you think consciousness is or you start listing the things you think are conscious until smarter minds can work out what connects the dots.
So either you give a real answer to their question of what you think consciousness is or you start listing the things you think are conscious until smarter minds can work out what connects the dots.
You haven't given a real answer either though and neither has anybody else in the history of science, which is what I'm trying to say, nobody has a coherent answer but you're pretending as if you do. You're literally just asserting your claims without backing anything up.
No, you dumb fuck, I don't need to define consciousness for my explanation of observability in physics to make sense - my interpretation of quantum mechanics doesn't mention consciousness at all. You have to define it because your interpretation of quantum superpositioning claims that it only collapses when a conscious mind observes it, so you have to define what conscioussness is.
No, everybody has to define it actually since it clearly exists and nobody really knows what it is. If you believe with certainty it doesn't have anything to do with quantum collapse then you also must have a good idea what it actually is, and you just plain don't.
Personally I'm agnostic about the whole thing and I don't think any particular idea needs to be dismissed a priori because of entrenched beliefs.
No, I don't have to define it, because I'm talking about observability in quantum mechanics, not some philosophical metaphysical bollocks about what consciousness is. My definition of observation does not in any way include consciousness, so defining consciousness adds nothing to my definition. Your definition of observation is being seen by something with consciousness, so you have to define what consciousness is. I have to define things like interactions and particles, I do not have to provide you with definitions so that your stupid ideas make sense.
I do not have to provide you with definitions so that your stupid ideas make sense.
Damn you're a feisty one.
In fact you do have to provide definitions, an "observation" in the context of quantum mechanics does not have a consensus definition and the definition heavily relies on your particular interpretation of quantum mechanics. One of these interpretations also includes consciousness, and if you want to be completely certain this particular interpretation is false you need your own coherent definition of consciousness that doesn't call upon quantum mechanics. You don't have such a thing, nobody does.
You're locked in a belief system and you don't even realize it.
Look spacey, I need you to understand that it's offensive that you consider yourself intelligent enough to have this conversation. To butt in and spew your completely baseless hypotheticals around as if they hold any scientific weight.
If you knew enough to have this conversation, you'd already know from the language we've used around superpositioning and observation that we're discussing the copenhagen interpretation - even if you weren't certain, you'd at least know it's overwhelmingly the most popular theory (like you better have some fucking great evidence if you want to dispute it), and that consciouness based theories are the fringest of the fringe. You're not going to find anyone actually employed in quantum theory or research espousing it.
If you knew enough to have this conversation, you would have at least attempted to define consciousness. You'd have some sort of working definition that you could share and we could analyse, but you haven't because you don't. You have no idea what consciousness is, you don't even know that there's a debate about whether consciousness even exists - you think, therefore you have accepted that there exists a nebulous, undefineable set of aspects that makes something conscious. Despite not being able to articulate a single aspect of it, you deeply, truly believe both that it exists and that everyone else believes it exists.
If you knew enough to have this conversation you'd know that I've haven't actually discussed quantum physics at all - the only thing in each of my comments is an attempt to get you to confront your own lack of knowledge - to admit that you can't define consciousness. I have been playing softball with you this entire time trying to lead you to your own logical conclusions, instead of pointing out that the most basic possible demonstration of quantum interaction - the double slit experiment - inherently proves that consciousness is not required, because otherwise the observation media - gold foil or a modern detector - wouldn't be able to record the results.
Lastly, you'd know that there isn't a "consensus definition" because it was defined by Heisenburg and Bohr when they created the copenhagen interpretation. Here are some quotes from them:
Of course the introduction of the observer must not be misunderstood to imply that some kind of subjective features are to be brought into the description of nature. The observer has, rather, only the function of registering decisions, i.e., processes in space and time, and it does not matter whether the observer is an apparatus or a human being; but the registration, i.e., the transition from the "possible" to the "actual," is absolutely necessary here and cannot be omitted from the interpretation of quantum theory.
all unambiguous information concerning atomic objects is derived from the permanent marks such as a spot on a photographic plate, caused by the impact of an electron left on the bodies which define the experimental conditions. Far from involving any special intricacy, the irreversible amplification effects on which the recording of the presence of atomic objects rests rather remind us of the essential irreversibility inherent in the very concept of observation. The description of atomic phenomena has in these respects a perfectly objective character, in the sense that no explicit reference is made to any individual observer and that therefore, with proper regard to relativistic exigencies, no ambiguity is involved in the communication of information.
Of course, I'm sure you can find some sort of peer reviewed data or study that provides literally any evidence at all for your totally sensible and informed idea that isn't otherwise pushed by con artists and new age mystics, instead of demanding I work to both define and disprove your idea.
Don't you fucking dare try to lecture me about belief when you have literally nothing but. You believe so strongly you refuse to even engage with questions about your beliefs, because deep down you know they're baseless.
Stop trying to copy the first thing you find on google you dumb fuck, Wigner dropped his and Neumann's interpretation because of its flaws, Penrose postulated that consciousness arose from quantum interactions not that they collapse them, and Stapp and Schrodinger were exactly the type of panpsychic new-age mystics I was talking about.
On top of that, literally not a single one is still working in quantum theory or research. Neumann died 70 years ago. In fact, none of their research is even from this century, where the majority of progress has been made. I used the present tense. Contemporary opinions, not the wild theories of the earliest days.
Now stop being a redditbrained contradictory little shit and read my comment. It contains actual information about quantum theory.
Hey, notice how that's the only part you responded to? Not the part where I laid out exactly how you don't know shit about the subject. It's because you don't have a response; like the big comment explains, you're in completely over your head.
You literally called one of the trailblazers of the entire field a "new age mystic". I don't really plan on taking you seriously anymore, thanks for all the kind words tho, take care.
You mean the same man who rejected superpositioning and made the famous cat analogy to explain how it makes no sense? Like I said, you literally know nothing about quantum mechanics or it's history, and are just googling for famous names to point at.
What's so weird about any of those questions/assumptions? A consciousness-based interpretation of quantum mechanics would need any conscious observer, that would include dolphins since we're pretty sure they're having conscious experiences.
Why it's weird is because it's assuming the universe is choosing what level is conscious. As you say, we're pretty sure they're conscious. How do we know that? Brain scans and watching their behavior. What happens to something without a brain but still with sensors? Is that somehow conscious? What about a brain but much less complex? Why is the universe deciding how to behave based on this? It'd be really outlandish to expect this behavior from the universe, which isn't a creature and just following a set of rules.
It's a much simpler explanation that interactions that require information force that information to collapse. We don't need any strange justifications or anything deciding what level becomes conscious, which is just a word we made up several hundred years ago and is meaningless to the universe. Consciousness is just a series of impulses in a system, a system which can go wrong in many ways and is not a fundamental thing.
You can claim that all you want but you can't really back that up. Nobody has anywhere near a coherent account of how a purely physical system produces (or equates to) subjective conscious experience. If your answer now is "well science will figure it out one day for sure" then you have a belief system and you aren't actually thinking scientifically.
Why should science be forever married to a reductive physicalist account of the universe?
You aren't conscious when you're in a coma, correct? That's a measurable way the system can mess up and we can detect. You also aren't conscious when you're dead, right? Yet another measurable thing. We can detect brain activity and see certain regions are used for certain things. We can also detect anomalous behavior in the brain. We can tell when the system isn't working as expected.
We can easily explain how a physical system produces consciousness. We may not be able to point to exactly what it is, but we can describe it and describe how that can happen. It's not mystical. It's just complex. We can't reproduce it yet, but that doesn't mean we don't understand how the brain functions.
Because that's literally a basic requirment of science. It relies on falsafiability. You can believe whatever you want, but science relies on stuff being measurable. It doesn't mean it's right, but that's how it functions.
Also, you call it reductive. I don't think it's reductive. I think it's more reductive to just say "consciousness exists" than to say "consciousness is a complex system that can develop in nature". Just because it's physical doesn't mean it's reductive. Saying "it just is because it is" seems much more reductive.
Edit: Also, despite people believing mystical things for most of history, they were never right. Why should this be any different?
We literally can't do that at all though, not even close.
How? Science is based on making models from empirical observations about the world and yourself, one of these empirical observations is the observation that your phenomenal consciousness actually exists, seemingly in opposition to the physical world, maybe we should perhaps include that fact in our models?
It's literally how that category of metaphysical thought is called, it's an actual philosophical term.
Science requires falsafiability. It's fine to belive other things, but science it a method, not a belief system.
Nothing I've seen seems to imply it's outside of our models. You haven't explained why that's the case. We know how the humans brain and nervous system functions. It isn't magic anymore.
It literally is tho. There is no mention of consciousness anywhere in either quantum mechanics or general relativity.
This is literally the closest form of consciousness to our own - the easiest and most obvious case. They weren't actually asking if dolphins would count, they're asking at what point it counts as consciousness. The ones you need to answer are things like tardigrades, bacteria and viruses, or nonphysical forms of consciousness. After all, you're seriously claiming that the scientific definition of observation is observation by a conscious mind, not interaction with another aspect of the universe, so why don't we consider all the nonfalsifiables? Do ghosts collapse the quantum superposition?
I'm not sure where you're going with this really. Why do I need to analyze if every single thing in the universe is conscious or not? Physicalism also doesn't really have a general answer to the question "is this physical system conscious". Shouldn't you do the same work before declaring you know consciousness is fully physical?
If you're going to claim that consciousness is the influencing factor in quantum mechanics you need to define consciousness. You need to define the point at which consciousness starts. You saying "yes a dolphin is conscious" only tells me you think humans and dolphins are conscious, and nothing about what you think consciousness is, what things you think are conscious, or why consciousness would influence particles. So either you give a real answer to their question of what you think consciousness is or you start listing the things you think are conscious until smarter minds can work out what connects the dots.
You haven't given a real answer either though and neither has anybody else in the history of science, which is what I'm trying to say, nobody has a coherent answer but you're pretending as if you do. You're literally just asserting your claims without backing anything up.
No, you dumb fuck, I don't need to define consciousness for my explanation of observability in physics to make sense - my interpretation of quantum mechanics doesn't mention consciousness at all. You have to define it because your interpretation of quantum superpositioning claims that it only collapses when a conscious mind observes it, so you have to define what conscioussness is.
Thanks comrade, very nice of you.
No, everybody has to define it actually since it clearly exists and nobody really knows what it is. If you believe with certainty it doesn't have anything to do with quantum collapse then you also must have a good idea what it actually is, and you just plain don't.
Personally I'm agnostic about the whole thing and I don't think any particular idea needs to be dismissed a priori because of entrenched beliefs.
No, I don't have to define it, because I'm talking about observability in quantum mechanics, not some philosophical metaphysical bollocks about what consciousness is. My definition of observation does not in any way include consciousness, so defining consciousness adds nothing to my definition. Your definition of observation is being seen by something with consciousness, so you have to define what consciousness is. I have to define things like interactions and particles, I do not have to provide you with definitions so that your stupid ideas make sense.
Damn you're a feisty one.
In fact you do have to provide definitions, an "observation" in the context of quantum mechanics does not have a consensus definition and the definition heavily relies on your particular interpretation of quantum mechanics. One of these interpretations also includes consciousness, and if you want to be completely certain this particular interpretation is false you need your own coherent definition of consciousness that doesn't call upon quantum mechanics. You don't have such a thing, nobody does.
You're locked in a belief system and you don't even realize it.
Look spacey, I need you to understand that it's offensive that you consider yourself intelligent enough to have this conversation. To butt in and spew your completely baseless hypotheticals around as if they hold any scientific weight.
If you knew enough to have this conversation, you'd already know from the language we've used around superpositioning and observation that we're discussing the copenhagen interpretation - even if you weren't certain, you'd at least know it's overwhelmingly the most popular theory (like you better have some fucking great evidence if you want to dispute it), and that consciouness based theories are the fringest of the fringe. You're not going to find anyone actually employed in quantum theory or research espousing it.
If you knew enough to have this conversation, you would have at least attempted to define consciousness. You'd have some sort of working definition that you could share and we could analyse, but you haven't because you don't. You have no idea what consciousness is, you don't even know that there's a debate about whether consciousness even exists - you think, therefore you have accepted that there exists a nebulous, undefineable set of aspects that makes something conscious. Despite not being able to articulate a single aspect of it, you deeply, truly believe both that it exists and that everyone else believes it exists.
If you knew enough to have this conversation you'd know that I've haven't actually discussed quantum physics at all - the only thing in each of my comments is an attempt to get you to confront your own lack of knowledge - to admit that you can't define consciousness. I have been playing softball with you this entire time trying to lead you to your own logical conclusions, instead of pointing out that the most basic possible demonstration of quantum interaction - the double slit experiment - inherently proves that consciousness is not required, because otherwise the observation media - gold foil or a modern detector - wouldn't be able to record the results.
Lastly, you'd know that there isn't a "consensus definition" because it was defined by Heisenburg and Bohr when they created the copenhagen interpretation. Here are some quotes from them:
Of course, I'm sure you can find some sort of peer reviewed data or study that provides literally any evidence at all for your totally sensible and informed idea that isn't otherwise pushed by con artists and new age mystics, instead of demanding I work to both define and disprove your idea.
Don't you fucking dare try to lecture me about belief when you have literally nothing but. You believe so strongly you refuse to even engage with questions about your beliefs, because deep down you know they're baseless.
Damn you're a complete grating asshole, I'm not reading all of that shit but I do know at least this is wrong:
Eugene Wigner, John von Neumann, Roger Penrose, Brian Josephson, Henry Stapp, Erwin Schrödinger (debatable, but he was questioning physicalism).
Stop trying to copy the first thing you find on google you dumb fuck, Wigner dropped his and Neumann's interpretation because of its flaws, Penrose postulated that consciousness arose from quantum interactions not that they collapse them, and Stapp and Schrodinger were exactly the type of panpsychic new-age mystics I was talking about.
On top of that, literally not a single one is still working in quantum theory or research. Neumann died 70 years ago. In fact, none of their research is even from this century, where the majority of progress has been made. I used the present tense. Contemporary opinions, not the wild theories of the earliest days.
Now stop being a redditbrained contradictory little shit and read my comment. It contains actual information about quantum theory.
No, you wrote it all for nothing.
Hey, notice how that's the only part you responded to? Not the part where I laid out exactly how you don't know shit about the subject. It's because you don't have a response; like the big comment explains, you're in completely over your head.
You literally called one of the trailblazers of the entire field a "new age mystic". I don't really plan on taking you seriously anymore, thanks for all the kind words tho, take care.
You mean the same man who rejected superpositioning and made the famous cat analogy to explain how it makes no sense? Like I said, you literally know nothing about quantum mechanics or it's history, and are just googling for famous names to point at.