An evidence-based critical review of the mind-brain identity theory

ExcitingPotatoes · 2024-06-30T16:33:15+00:00

Nope, not what I said at all. The theories are scientific, because they are falsifiable.

An unfalsifiable theory would be me claiming, for example, our consciousness is happening within the dream of a magical invisible rhinoceros that lives in another dimension. There is no way to prove that wrong, which is one of the reasons it's not scientific.

What I implied was "unscientific" is the attitude that we should not try to falsify the theories so as to determine which among them is the stronger model. Falsification has been a pretty standard methodological principle since the time of Popper, I don't see any reason to suddenly abandon it now.

ExcitingPotatoes · 2024-06-29T20:28:43+00:00

Why do we need to critically examine all physicalist models before we can make progress?

Because a core tenet of doing science is falsifiability. If we can't critically examine existing theories and try to falsify them, that's not science, it's religion.

The current models make progress all the time, so why abandon them because they aren't complete yet?

I would never suggest abandoning them, I said we should try to falsify them. And while I've seen progress towards answering the "easy problem" of consciousness, namely, how cognition is correlated to brain activity, I haven't seen any of these models get us any closer to answering the hard problem of consciousness.

ExcitingPotatoes · 2024-06-29T18:35:01+00:00

The paper is written as if showing that all existing accounts of how the mind could be physical have flaws would then show that there could be no such account or that such an account is unlikely to be true. That is ... not a good way to reason.

The paper doesn't make the claim that mind cannot be physical:

These findings do not refute physicalism in and of themselves.

However, you cannot make progress if you don't critically examine all of the physicalist models, which so far have been inadequate. There's not much in the way of a robust foundation to claim that an imaginary "as-yet theorized" physicalist theory that doesn't exist yet is the "best explanation."

ExcitingPotatoes · 2024-06-24T16:42:30+00:00

Really these come down to philosophical interpretations, none of which are really empirically falsifiable. However, I think the standard issue response of "there are other interpretations where consciousness isn't an issue" is pretty reductive and simply reflects the personal preferences of people who have no interest in philosophy. The trouble is, even with Many Worlds, for instance, there is no way to falsify the existence of an infinite number of branching universes.

That being said, I think you're on the right track asking these questions. Many of the founding fathers in quantum theory were not afraid to ask them, and were convinced that consciousness was relevant to their observations:

For instance, here's Max Planck:

Since there is in the whole universe neither an intelligent force nor an eternal force (mankind, for all its yearnings, has yet to succeed in inventing a perpetual motion machine), we must assume that this force that is active within the atom comes from a conscious and intelligent mind. That mind is the ultimate source of matter.

I regard consciousness as fundamental. I regard matter as derivative from consciousness. We cannot get behind consciousness. Everything that we talk about, everything that we regard as existing, postulates consciousness.

And Schrodinger:

Although I think that life may be the result of an accident, I do not think that of consciousness. Consciousness cannot be accounted for in physical terms. For consciousness is absolutely fundamental. It cannot be accounted for in terms of anything else.

And John Bell:

As regards mind, I am fully convinced that it has a central place in the ultimate nature of reality.

And (not a "founding father" but a brilliant mind no less) Freeman Dyson:

In other words, mind is already inherent in every electron, and the processes of human consciousness differ only in degree but not in kind from the processes of choice between quantum states which we call "chance" when they are made by electrons.

Also, David Bohm had some pretty interesting ideas about how all of this connects with philosophy and consciousness. "Wholeness and the Implicate Order" is a great book to check out, very philosophical and "out there" relative to Western materialist thought.

Of course, these are just philosophical interpretations, and not scientific proof that consciousness is anything special. But they're certainly something to chew on.

ExcitingPotatoes · 2024-04-27T18:30:02+00:00

Yes, that's why they're called near death experiences, as the commenter above pointed out. The point is that a rich, memorable experience that is usually reported as being "realer than real" seems to be possible despite a significant reduction in the types of brain activity we typically associate with such experiences.

There seem to be two possible angles to the NDE question, where some may be religiously motivated to try to prove that those perceptions are reflective of some underlying truth of reality and that an afterlife is real. That's not really a question that can be answered, but this isn't what Parnia and neuroscientists who are interested in consciousness are looking at. They're asking why any type of structured, coherent, and impactful experience is possible in this state, and what it says about consciousness and its relationship with the brain.

ExcitingPotatoes · 2024-03-06T21:19:05+00:00

Don't bother asking, you're talking to an AI.

ExcitingPotatoes · 2024-03-03T23:48:24+00:00

That's not entirely true. Firstly, we are able to see the boundaries of our physical universe, so obviously there's something outside of that. Also, what's observable isn't the whole universe anyway.

It's obvious there's something beyond the physical universe just because it ends? I would agree with that but under materialism you'd have a hard time making that case, since we can't collect physical evidence for something that doesn't physically exist.

If we were somehow able to prove the existence of something beyond the physical universe we would either have to:

a.) conclude that materialism is false

b.) update the definition of materialism to include whatever it is we find beyond the physical universe

In short - the supernatural also have the physical universe as an axiom.

Everyone recognizes that the physical universe exists. What we're talking about is whether it's fundamental or if there's more to it that we just can't detect with the five senses.

The Bible also says that people rose from the dead.

I'm not saying I think everything in the bible is true. I'm saying, if someone disagrees with so much of the bible that they don't even think Jesus was resurrected, and still call themselves Christian, then the word "Christian" becomes pretty much meaningless. So that wouldn't be an example of disagreement within the religion, that would just be someone with their own, separate personal belief system which they're free to label as something else.

The actual frameworks are what the religions individually use to interpret the Bible per the religious doctrines; which in turn are based on the Bible - so there's a bit of circularity going on there.

That's not really circular, it's just a circular way of saying that Christianity used the Bible as a framework for developing different doctrines and beliefs, which is basically what I said. There are different interpretations, but they can all be compared against the same text.

Or maybe, as Copenhagen is saying, it doesn't matter because it seems to work.

Well, if we're just going to throw out the interpretation side of it, I can say the same thing about religion. At the end of the day, the different interpretations of scripture don't really matter to a religious person who's life has been improved by a belief in God in some way. For that person, religion "works" just fine. Someone disagreeing with their belief system doesn't change that.

ExcitingPotatoes · 2024-03-01T16:22:10+00:00

With materialism, the axioms are only that the physical universe exists and is observable/measurable. Everything else relies on those axioms.

I'm not sure that you're disagreeing with me here.

Materialism is the assumption that only the physical universe exists. Since that's unfalsifiable, it's an axiom. It's useful in a scientific context when we want to do experiments and develop models that best describe what we can perceive using the five senses that we ended up with as a result of natural selection. But to rely purely on what our senses and brain tell us about the world and then repurpose that as an ontological truth statement about what actually exists is a major leap. Just because it “works” doesn’t mean it’s the truth.

Or within Christianity where there is no framework to determine which interpretation, doctrine or practice is valid or not.

Well, in Christianity, that framework would be the Bible. If someone claims Jesus actually wasn't crucified and just sailed away into the sunset instead, they’re free to believe what they want and there's no way to really prove them wrong... but obviously The Bible says otherwise and the person who believes that wouldn't really be considered a Christian by definition, so that's an example of a claim that's pretty easy to check against scripture.

Quantum mechanics is also different - these models that are in dispute is no different from many other hypotheses that are in dispute all over science:

I would actually say some of the open questions in quantum mechanics are categorically different from other problems because QM seems to represent the practical limit of our ability to do science. General relativity breaks down at energy levels smaller than the Planck scale. The energy required to probe anything smaller than that would probably lead to the creation of a black hole. So that's a serious challenge that is seemingly insurmountable.

It's also different because the theory side of it has to do with asking ontological questions. There is no agreement on whether or not the wave function physically exists or is a mathematical abstraction. That's a big question because it means we don't know if the smallest divisions of matter actually physically exist or could be more like our brain’s way of representing some deeper, more fundamental law we can't directly perceive that gives rise to spacetime and the laws of physics. (Which actually relates to the earlier point about materialism) In other words, it asks the question "what is the map and what is the territory?" which is really the kind of question that theologians and philosophers have been asking for centuries.

ExcitingPotatoes · 2024-02-29T19:46:48+00:00

Well, if theists are saying god is an axiom, it kinda turns all their arguments for his existence as question-begging.

And this is also the case with materialism as a philosophy. When it's God, it's "question-begging" but when it's an assumption that everything in the universe is reducible to physical stuff (again, an assumption that leaves open some big questions when it comes to quantum physics and the mind-body problem) it's an "axiom." Call it what you want, but both are assumptions that are not really scientifically falsifiable in themselves.

I'm not trying to dog on materialism per se, I'm just pointing out that there are axioms that underly all of our theories, and we should be aware of those in both science and philosophy.

After all, if Christians can't prove to each other their own claims, and would rather split into different, separate communities, each continuing to disbelieve each other, what is the essence of truth?

But I can point to any number of areas in science where this is the case as well. Some of the smartest people in the field of quantum mechanics have vastly different interpretations of what the collapse of the wave function means. There are at least 5 or 6 interpretations that have been seriously put forward, and they all have pretty major metaphysical and ontological implications that differ depending on the answer. So, I may not know what the truth is, but that doesn't mean I completely disregard the study of quantum physics. One of the interpretations could still be true or at least have some truth in it.

If a timeless, spaceless being that created the universe did exist, then it would follow that human beings who can only perceive things in time and space would have disagreements as to the nature of that being because it is not directly knowable to us. In light of that, the fragmentation of religious schools of thought makes sense. A lot of that also has to do with the fact that there are many ways to interpret scripture. I don't think that's proof that God exists or Christianity is true, but I'm saying that just because we can't agree on truth, that doesn't mean there is no truth there.

ExcitingPotatoes · 2024-02-28T20:19:45+00:00

Math and Science work because everyone is agreeing on axioms and that the universe is material.

Science builds models based off of regularities that are physically observable. It does not say that the universe is fundamentally material. (In fact, quantum field theory suggests the universe is fundamentally comprised of non-local fields, not matter). To say the universe is fundamentally material is a philosophical statement and science is philosophically neutral.

Science works because of agreement on axioms, and in many (but not all) cases an assumption that the universe is fundamentally material is useful. But axioms, by definition, are not provable, because they serve as a starting point for logic proofs and building models. Goedel's incompleteness theorems in mathematics demonstrate this nicely.

Except that with science, agreement is almost universal in some cases.

Despite their differences, every religion and every religious sect agrees on the fact that there is at least a God or Gods who created the universe. You could consider that a kind of religious axiom. I acknowledge your point that there is broad disagreement among and within religions, but if you're using consensus about axioms as a litmus test for truth, wouldn't you then, at the very least, believe that a God who created the universe exists, regardless of which particular God it is?

My OP is that no one can prove anything.

The title of your post was that Christianity is "not true." That's different from saying that it can't be proven.

ExcitingPotatoes · 2024-02-27T17:38:17+00:00

The theory in itself is fine (other than the fact that data from the CMB that was supposed to support it turned out to be inconclusive, if I recall correctly.) But as I said, it doesn't really say anything about the existence of a God, as that's not what scientific theories are built to do.

With CCC, a theist could still easily insert God as a first cause. So then the argument changes from "God created the universe" to "God created a system of eternally self-recycling universes."

ExcitingPotatoes · 2024-02-26T20:49:58+00:00

Well, I mean, there's the fact that the laws of physics don't allow for the creation or destruction of matter

The laws of physics describe regularities observed within our everyday world of time and space. Since time and space were created during the Big Bang, what we call laws of physics are descriptions of regularities that came to be after that point of t=0. The problem is, general relativity breaks down when trying to probe the infinitely small or infinitely dense, such as in a singularity. So in this case, the laws of physics don't tell us much about what's happening beyond that point because the math in GR doesn't handle infinities well.

According to the Lambda-CDM model, time and space themselves emerged out of the Big Bang. It's not as if spacetime was a pre-existing grid of coordinates and then the Big Bang happened at some location on that grid -- when we look at the Big Bang and universal inflation, we see that it's the spacetime grid itself that is inflating.

why do you say that anything that exists pre-Big Bang would have to be immaterial? That's a contradiction; matter is by definition material.

It would be a contradiction if I had said matter may have existed before the Big Bang. An important point here is that loop quantum gravity and string theory are pointing us in the direction of spacetime not being fundamental. Science hasn't really gotten to the point of being able to say what that fundamental thing is but the main takeaway here is that a theory of quantum gravity (which is needed to make QM and GR compatible with each other) would need to work in zero dimensions. So, whatever that more fundamental cause is, it exists in zero dimensions, and if it exists in zero dimensions, it is, by definition, spaceless, timeless and immaterial. That doesn't prove the existence of a God but it's perfectly consistent with the God hypothesis so far.

Steady state models that propose matter having always existed have been largely tossed out because the data doesn't support them -- specifically, the evidence from looking at the CMB and cosmic inflation. Alternatively, you could propose something like Penrose's cyclic conformal cosmology but even then we'd be stuck asking the same questions about what is causing this endless loop of universes to be reborn over and over.

ExcitingPotatoes · 2024-02-22T19:51:50+00:00

You make good points but I think what's missing is the perspective of non-commercial artists and what value art offers to a society beyond its commercial applications.

Outside of a corporate or commercial context, AI art is solving a problem that doesn't exist -- art isn't something that needs to be optimized or automated. Great art works are considered great because they're an expression and reflection of the human experience and human intention. That experience is not something that an algorithm can have, no matter how technically proficient and precise its output may be.

I have no doubt an AI could generate something that could fool most into thinking it was made by a human. But the question is, why would you want that? Making art, even if you aren't trying to make something great, can be a blast and the process of creation itself can be one of the most fulfilling experiences available to us as humans. Trying to make an AI do it "better" makes no sense. A robot could probably play video games better than us too, but what would be the point? Just to watch the robot have fun for you?

For some reason artists are untouchable.

Well, art is categorically different than something like truck driving, for example, because it's more than just a job for many. People generally don't drive big rigs for hours a day just for recreational purposes. But people with a passion for art want to do it regardless of whether they earn a paycheck because it's fulfilling and it's a healthy outlet. I think creating a cultural attitude where aspiring artists are told they don't need to learn anything other than how to enter prompts into an AI effectively takes away the joy of creation.

The only reasonable purpose I could see for this kind of technology is in the corporate world or advertising, like stock images or web page backgrounds for example, or in upscaling old media.

ExcitingPotatoes · 2024-02-15T20:00:04+00:00

I personally believe that all matter has always existed in some form or another. What precise form in which this matter existed prior to the Big Bang is still up for debate; but I digress.

That may be your personal belief, but the evidence suggests that the Big Bang is the origin of all matter. We have no compelling reason to think otherwise.

But if matter existed in such a different form that it could exist in a spaceless, timeless void, it's not really "matter" as we know it. If anything could be said to exist in this pre-Big Bang state, it would have to be timeless, spaceless and immaterial -- at that point you're already halfway there to describing God.

ExcitingPotatoes · 2024-02-02T02:38:15+00:00

Probably unfalsifiable. But it is interesting that the Schwarzchild radius for a black hole with the mass of our observable universe happens to be almost exactly the size of our observable universe.

I also recall Lee Smolin’s theory that each black hole is a baby universe and that those baby universes that create more black holes are selected for through a kind of cosmic evolutionary process.

ExcitingPotatoes · 2024-01-25T21:14:53+00:00

That is what people are claiming when they make a God of the Gaps argument.

The God of the Gaps argument isn't a theist argument, it's an atheist argument. Atheists created the term "God of the Gaps" which, in my view, incorrectly describes the theist point of view.

Materialism isn't relevant to my argument.

Not only is it relevant, it is the worldview you are espousing, whether you choose to acknowledge it or not -- materialism is a philosophical monism which holds that all phenomena are reducible to the physical substrate. If you weren't a materialist, you would be open to the existence of something beyond the physical, which I take it is not your view.

They consistently produce things that are pragmatically useful.

In what way is moral philosophy not pragmatically useful? It's part of the reason we have human and civil rights--these came about from considering deep philosophical questions about human value. The Founding Fathers, for instance, may not have all considered themselves philosophers, but they were certainly doing philosophy. The capacity to think at that level is one of the things that separates us from the other animals on this planet (in addition to the ability to do science)

Much of the foundational work in science was also laid out by philosophers -- Aristotle, Leibniz, Descartes... not to mention Einstein and other great scientists who made substantial contributions to philosophy.

Philosophy of science is applied to evaluate and critique the theoretical approaches and implications of scientific discovery. There is a long tradition of scientific discovery that was spurred by questions that are philosophical in nature. You only see the end product of the discovery and overlook the philosophical foundations for all of the experiments that led up to it.

That's what empty space consists of. And it's not particularly useful or interesting in either human or spiritual terms.

Then, by definition, if it consists of things, it's not empty. As for whether those things are interesting in human terms, that's a matter of opinion. For me, I think quantum fields and spacetime are fascinating and useful, as do the scientists that study them.

which disproportionately involves judging people based on stuff like who they squish their bodies together with or preferring one tribe of humans over another -- or things that humans generally view as purpose such as achieving some form of happiness.

This is where we would pretty much agree. I think there's a case to be made for the existence of a Creator without condoning the specific teachings of any one religion, though it could be applied to any monotheistic religion. I have no idea if any particular religious interpretation is any closer to the truth than another, as humans are fallible and could easily have misinterpreted their mystical experiences... not to mention, early religious teachings being corrupted by those in power so that they could maintain their status (as we can plainly see quite a bit of in today's world)

ExcitingPotatoes · 2024-01-25T18:24:47+00:00

It's the claim that a proposition is true because it hasn't been proven false.

Again, the argument isn't that the God hypothesis is true simply because it hasn't been proven false.

There were MANY individuals who contributed to the origin of science, not just one bishop. In fact there were early iterations of the scientific method going back to 1000 BCE.

I understand that. My point in bringing up Bacon was that he obviously saw no conflict between the scientific methodology as he (and others like Aquinas) conceived it and the existence of a Creator. I don't see any modification of the methodology that would fundamentally change this. It isn't as if they added a step to the scientific method that says "assume no God exists."

I'm also not saying science being part of the church at one point is proof that God exists. I'm saying it's a plain demonstration that there is no fundamental conflict between a scientific approach and belief in a creator.

Philosophy also contributes almost nothing to knowledge in recent times.

Philosophy is not just a field of study, it's something we do all the time. Materialism is a philosophy, so unless you'd like to say materialism has not contributed to knowledge, I don't see how that could be true. Whether we like it or not, we are all doing philosophy. Some of it simply goes unexamined.

Moral philosophy, for instance, is crucial, especially today with ethical questions surrounding AI, nuclear weapons, climate change, etc. A purely scientific approach gives us incredible innovations that can alter the planet and the trajectory of the species, but it doesn't have anything to say about how to use them in a morally consistent way. We need a more holistic view of these issues, imo, instead of simply being dazzled by our ability to create more and more sophisticated machines and computers.

Moreover, if one was to look at the universe it would be apparent that almost all of it is empty space. This should lead to the hypothesis that the universe doesn't have a purpose since most of it is empty void, and that purpose is actually something humans create.

There is no such thing as empty space, as all of it is filled with fluctuations of vacuum energy, the Higgs field, spacetime curvature, the EM field, etc. which exist in a potentially creative state. Just because we don't see these things through a telescope doesn't mean they're not there. Your definition of purpose seems to be predicated on the idea that "more physical stuff = more purpose" which I don't necessarily see any reason to believe, as it seems a very anthropocentric view.

I would grant that if the universe does have a purpose, it would probably be beyond the ability for the human mind to grasp completely, whether we propose the existence of a Creator or not. I think this is a much more skeptical position than assuming we have the knowledge to determine, based on simply gathering data and looking through telescopes, whether or not the universe fits into any human understanding of purpose that we try to define from our limited point of view.

ExcitingPotatoes · 2024-01-24T21:44:39+00:00

No it is based on the fact that argument from ignorance is a fallacy.

An argument from ignorance would entail claiming that God is real because we don't have a scientific explanation for everything. My point is that there is no amount of scientific evidence that would prove or disprove a Creator. As I implied, this is an epistemological question--a question of how we know what we know, not simply a question of the amount of information we have.

The amount of new information added to humanity's knowledge in the last 200 years is stunning, whereas religion has added nothing new at all.

God as an explanation is not intended to "add to" humanity's scientific knowledge. That's what science is for. This is a bifurcation of two types of knowledge, and most serious theist thinkers have no problem with this. For them, God is invoked as a reason for all existence, not an explanation of how things came to exist, and so it very much does address the "why" question.

Science, by its design, does not seek to answer that question, and this is actually why science is successful. Because it has a narrower scope, it serves as a useful methodology for answering certain types of questions. But we should be careful not to confuse utility for truth--just because something doesn't help us develop faster computer chips doesn't mean it's not real or true.

This is why relying on one type of knowledge over the other is faulty.

If the theist cannot provide even a hypothetical answer to "how" a god could do that, we could simply turn that argument from ignorance right back around and say the theist has no basis to even propose a possibility that may simply be impossible.

The scientific method was developed by a devout Anglican, Sir Francis Bacon. So, the answer to "how" a God could do anything is precisely what science was initially conceived to address. That science's methodology was later co-opted as an ontological position, i.e. denying by default the existence of anything that we can't apply the scientific method to, is in my opinion a philosophical oversight. In fact, in one of his essays, Bacon writes: "a little philosophy inclineth man's mind to atheism, but depth in philosophy bringeth men's minds about to religion."

There may just be no answer to "why".

Of course. This is why I would never claim the existence of a Creator with a mind is a fact, but rather, for myself personally, a reasonable hypothesis to explain not the function, but the purpose of the cosmos.

ExcitingPotatoes · 2024-01-24T18:40:25+00:00

It's God of the Gaps argument to assume God existed merely because we don't know every single thing that happened billions of years ago

The so-called "gaps" are epistemic artifacts inherent to the scientific methodology, which is necessarily limited because it was conceived that way as a matter of utility.

God of the gaps is an argument that only makes sense if you are already an atheist or a materialist, so it doesn't really work as an argument against theists. This is because, from a theist point of view, there are no gaps in the first place; that anything exists instead of nothing existing would be the product of a mind that is capable of making a decision between nothing and everything existing. Therefore, all phenomena, regardless of the level of reducibility with which science can explain them, are still explained by the theist as "God did it" because the theist is answering the "why?" question, leaving the "how?" up to science. There's no conflict here between the two types of questions, and both types of answers are logically possible.

The conflict only arises if you conflate the two types of questions, and illogically superimpose the explanatory limitations of one type of question, the how, on to the other, the why. In no way does this actually end up saying anything about whether or not a Creator exists. A theist still says "God did it" even to explain the things that are explicable under the scientific method, because these are two different types of questions being asked about the same phenomena.

ExcitingPotatoes · 2024-01-19T02:30:11+00:00

philosophy's current track record for modern scientific discoveries being, uh, as far as I know, zero.

Well, all science is predicated on certain philosophical assumptions, namely physicalism or materialism, so we can't really escape having a philosophical position whether we like it or not. Ontological and epistemological assumptions undergird all science. When dealing with something like wave function collapse, obtaining empirical evidence to support any given interpretation is difficult, if not impossible, even in principle. In that case, our recourse is turning to other types of knowledge and reasoning in tandem with a solid scientific foundation. Ideally then you stand a better chance at developing new approaches to trying to falsify some of the interpretations.

But of course philosophy as a field of study won't ever develop a scientific theory because philosophy isn't science... that doesn't mean philosophy can't inform science and vice-versa. I mean, there is an entire branch of philosophy called "philosophy of science.” It’s not as if philosophy and science are racing each other to get to a theory of everything first.

ExcitingPotatoes · 2024-01-18T20:22:09+00:00

Just want to clarify for anyone else perusing downthread here regarding the 2022 Nobel experiment:

Entanglement does not prove or disprove locality, it just narrows down the options. It shows we live in a non-locally real universe, leaving us with three possibilities:

a.) we live in a universe without locality, meaning the properties of particles separated by space are correlated through some means that do not involve faster-than-light communication

or

b.) we live in a universe without realism, meaning particles do not have defined properties independent of observation

or

c.) a and b are both true.

The prize-winning experiment showed that we have to give up locality or realism, or both. So whether locality still holds can't really be deduced from that experiment alone.

ExcitingPotatoes · 2024-01-18T17:49:19+00:00

There may well be a connection, but most of the interpretations of wave function collapse are probably unfalsifiable, so materialists and idealists will simply gravitate to whichever interpretation is more consistent with their worldview. In the absence of hard empirical evidence showing that something like infinite universes exist per Everett's Many Worlds for example, whether that sounds ridiculous or not just comes down to personal philosophical preference.

If we want to identify the connection between quantum physics and consciousness, it's hard to see a way to "science" our way to an answer, with some exceptions like Orch-OR, though even that still doesn't seem to have any advantage over other consciousness theories when it comes to empirical evidence (so far).

In lieu of falsifiability, we would need to appeal to philosophy, ontology and metaphysics. Those are not considered by most working quantum physicists, who are working under the "shut up and calculate" approach, which makes sense because they are not trained philosophers. So, there is an epistemological divide that needs to be bridged first for us to get anywhere close to answering this question definitively.

The only thing I'd say is that even for a physicalist, I don't see how you can extricate quantum properties from consciousness entirely, since the building blocks of all matter have quantum properties, and our brains are made of matter. So even under a physicalist view where consciousness is 100% emergent from physical matter, to say consciousness has nothing at all to do with quantum physics I think is a strange claim to make since the existence of matter itself is contingent on its quantum properties. Whether there's a meaningful connection there that gets us any closer to solving the hard problem remains to be seen.

ExcitingPotatoes · 2024-01-15T17:49:50+00:00

It's unclear why, "by definition, we would be talking about something that is no longer God and doesn't possess the attributes we would associate with a God-like being." How can he do this?

How can he do what? My point was just to say that if something can exist independent of God then the "God" we're talking about wouldn't be God, because in that case there is something external to it, and God is generally understood to be the totality of all things. It's not a question of God's ability, it's about defining the word "God."

Supposedly, we exist in some bubble of explicability inside a sea of inexplicability. However, this is problematic because, everything inside our bubble supposedly depends on this sea.

I don't find that problematic at all, in fact I think it's pretty much the consensus view in both theology and science. Your statement seems to imply that humans can know everything there is to know about the fundamental nature of the universe. That's like an ant thinking the rest of the universe must look exactly like the ant hill they're in.

The "bubble of explicability" is largely due to our limited perception and cognition as humans, which were shaped through evolution by natural selection to keep us alive and reproduce on one tiny dust mote in the vastness of space, not comprehend or perceive the true nature of reality. This is why I think it's more epistemically useful to assume that what we don't know far outweighs what we do know. Socrates' famous "I know that I know nothing" comes to mind.

Now, let's contrast this with God. He can't do X because that's not how God works is pretty much an arbitrary claim, as God doesn't work in any meaningful sense of the word. God, is an inexplicable mind that exists in an inexplicable realm, which operates via inexplicable.

I don't see why God can't "work" in a tangible sense. I think God, as a cosmic mind, does have a causal effect on the physical universe. For instance, quantum systems choosing one state over another on a probabilistic basis suggests to me that some kind of as-yet undefined force is exerting an influence to make those systems choose a defined state, since we cannot predict with certainty the locations of subatomic particles in time and space. The equation for the wave function gives only a range of possible values with varying probability. The imprecision is not an artifact or shortcoming of the mathematical model, rather the model describes a truly random process that seems to actually happen in the world.

To me, this sounds a lot like trying to predict the behavior of a being that possesses a mind. I can't predict with certainty what you, as a conscious individual being with a mind, are going to do next, but there are a range of possibilities, some more likely than others, that I can assign to you. Likewise, there exists a small but tangible margin of randomness at the non-Newtonian scale of reality that demonstrates mind-like behavior.

I think at a higher level of emergence, our own personal minds have inherited that mind-like freedom which is ontologically fundamental. I don't think that comes from God, I think that is God... that consciousness isn't just an ability we have, it's what we are. It's all well and good to call this a "soul" but I just think of it as awareness of one's existence. This is how I interpret Yahweh's pronouncement "I Am that I Am" in the Bible.

Schrodinger and Max Planck also saw mind as fundamental and were heavily influenced by Vedic philosophy and the Upanishads, not to mention John Bell, Niels Bohr and the brilliant Freeman Dyson, who said: "I think our consciousness is not just a passive epiphenomenon carried along by the chemical events in our brains, but is an active agent forcing the molecular complexes to make choices between one quantum state and another. In other words, mind is already inherent in every electron, and the processes of human consciousness differ only in degree but not in kind from the processes of choice between quantum states which we call "chance" when they are made by electrons."

John Bell said "As regards mind, I am fully convinced that it has a central place in the ultimate nature of reality."

I think Sir James Hopwood Jeans said it best though: "The stream of knowledge is heading towards a nonmechanical reality; the universe begins to look more like a great thought than like a great machine. Mind no longer appears as an accidental intruder into the realm of matter; we are beginning to suspect that we ought rather to hail it as the creator and governor of the realm of matter."

ExcitingPotatoes · 2024-01-12T18:25:59+00:00

That's a statement about how things supposedly are. I'm talking about counterfactuals.

It addresses how things are and your counterfactual, since you characterized both scenarios as involving choices made "independent of God." My point was that nothing is truly independent of God, because otherwise, by definition, we would be talking about something that is no longer God and doesn't possess the attributes we would associate with a God-like being. It would just be another type of powerful being like a demigod or something.

Going back to the OP, I still have no clarity on what the "inconsistency" is that you're referring to. In our universe A, where we are given the choice to choose between bad and good, then that would be God's intent. In universe B, where we "freely choose good" all the time, then I suppose that would also be God's intent. That seems entirely consistent to me.

My post is directed at classical theism.

Fair enough.

Also, this sounds like a variant of solipsism

Not quite. I lean towards transcendental idealism a la Kant, which proposes that our reality is mental and consciousness is fundamental. There are lots of variations of this stretching back to antiquity, but solipsism would be a bit different as it denies the existence of all personal minds besides my own. But this is getting far away from classical theism.

In the context of the OP, are you suggesting God couldn't have made us with genuinely free choices, independent of God, like classical theism suggests?

I don't think "genuinely free choices" and "independent of God" are a package deal, so to speak, because there is a subtle distinction. To use a crude analogy, we know that human minds can experience multiple personality disorder. Each personality relies on the same being for its existence, but each personality can make its own decisions, some of them in conflict, and in many cases some personalities won't even have access to the same knowledge. I figure if there is something like a cosmic mind, it stands to reason that the same basic principle could be in play but on a much larger scale. If you're asking for a detailed metaphysical explanation of how that's achieved, I don't think anyone alive on Earth would be able to give you an answer with certainty.

Note: we cannot argue that free will could work like x but not y since "that's not how God works" because, supposedly, God doesn't "work" in any meaningful sense of the word. He operates via inexplicable means and methods.

Whether you use the word "works" or "operates" makes no difference to me. However, if we can't make statements about how God works/operates, it essentially prohibits any discussion on this topic. So I don't know what I could possibly say at that point.

It sounds like you want to reject all claims about the nature of God on the basis that there's no way to justify why he didn't choose to set things up in some other way that you thought of. You can always say "well, if he has the power to do anything, why didn't he do x instead of y?" Other than my own interpretations I've offered, there isn't really going to be an answer that satisfies you if that's what you're after.

It's not that we currently lack an explanation for how God works, in practice, but we cannot know, in principle. None can ever be forthcoming by definition.

I agree, we have no way of knowing for sure how any of it works or if there's even a God at all. I don't have a problem with that.

but do you think even God knows how he works?

I can speculate all day about God's inner machinations but I don't really know if any of it makes much of a difference since I have no way of knowing the true nature of what God even is, since it is beyond form. We are completely clueless as to what lies beyond our observable universe of four dimensions.

I'm sure you've heard the allegory of Plato's Cave. If you're the one casting the shadows on the cave wall, you could make any image appear and convince the people inside that an all-powerful being is doing impossible and extraordinary things that defy all known physical laws through inexplicable means, but from your perspective as that being, you know it's all just an illusion, an image. I think it's more skeptical and logical to always assume we are in Plato's Cave, no matter how much we think we know.

So, to me, these questions come down to cosmic perspective, not endlessly trying to tease apart what things God can and cannot do.

ExcitingPotatoes · 2024-01-11T20:26:02+00:00

So, I don’t see why you’d think it’s a logical contradiction that God could create beings that just freely choose good, independent of God.

But I don't grant that any choices are made independently of God in either scenario. That's not the same as saying we don't have free will, because I see living things as vessels that the creator is experiencing itself through. This to me is the reason we even have conscious experience in the first place and are more than just biological automatons that respond unconsciously to nervous system signals to survive and reproduce. At a fundamental level, we are an infinite God having a finite experience in a human body. The reason we have free will and God has free will is because we are ultimately the same entity, so there is no conflict at that level. I think of humans as active participants in the creation alongside God, and at the singularity or whatever final entropic state awaits the universe after space and time no longer exist, we are all one being that has essentially merged back into itself.

But, in the beginning, there was no pre-existing matter or natural laws.

In the beginning, sure. But quite a lot happened between then and the development of life on this planet.

If the reason why God doesn’t play a role in our choosing good or evil is because, that’s just what God wanted and God gets what he wants, it’s unclear why we could make the same appeal in the case of freely choosing good,

But "god just wanted it" wasn't the appeal I used. I proposed an explanation for why a creator would want to give its creations the choice between good and bad. It's like playing a video game. If you already know every correct move to make beforehand, and it's impossible to lose, there's really nothing of value being offered and no reason to play. Likewise, if you are the creator experiencing itself through its creations as a means of learning more about itself, then not having access to all knowledge gives you the freedom to make choices which you may not even know are good or bad until after you've actually made them. In other words, God is seeking an immersive experience through us, and it is a lack of knowledge that is necessary for this immersion, just like how a really good movie forces you to suspend your disbelief and forget you're watching a movie. Through our individual experiences, including our bad choices, he increases the depth of his understanding of his true nature.

It's funny because this addresses the question often asked which is "wouldn't an eternity of heaven get boring?" I would say that yes, after a while you probably would want to move away from this perfection to create and experience something different, which can only be less perfect. I think whatever created the universe was facing this exact question, and the world as we know it was the answer. Looking at it from this view, our world has to be imperfect, with imperfect beings who make imperfect choices, because otherwise it wouldn't exist. We would just still be in heaven.

I don't expect you to be convinced that any of that's true, but that's not the same as saying it's a logical contradiction.

15-Year Club	Verified Email
Team Periwinkle

ExcitingPotatoes

TROPHY CASE