Recent content by Erwins_mat

That's what scientific realists believe, but scientific realism is not so easy to defend. Constructive empiricists will tell you that science is about "saving the phenomena", in other words it is about doing justice to what humans can observed with unaided senses.

http://www.hedweb.com/witherall/zero.htm In other words, Everything and Nothing turn out to be the same thing...

How do you define it? I haven't "avoided using a definition." I have explicitly stated that no non-subjective definition is possible in principle. Are you suggesting I haven't done any research into scientific attempts to explain consciousness? At this point I am considering...

That is just a form of "malfunction" as far as evolution is concerned. I do not believe the same can be said of consciousness. What could consciousness be a malfunction of? What could be more important than actually being conscious? Can you imagine doing all the things you consciously do...

I don't understand. Why would the process for creating consciousness be selected for if consciousness does not improve reproductive fitness? I don't agree. My cat doesn't have our level of intelligence, but he is every bit as conscious as we are. Consciousness and intelligence are...

I assumed nothing. Eh? I don't care what Koch says. It cannot be defined at all, not now, not ever, by anything calling itself "science." Here was my argument. What is wrong with it? Materialists have three choices: (1) Claim consciousness doesn't exist. (eliminative materialism). (2)...

Thanks for the input, Zapperz. This makes more sense to me. From my perspective, as a neo-Kantian of sorts, it looks completely obvious that the metaphysical interpretations of QM are not science and never can be. We are stuck making observations of, and predictions about, the phenomenal...

The biggest problem is defining consciousness at all, be it to a layman or an expert. The bottom line is that the only way you can define it is subjectively, and that leads to it being incompatible with the concept of "material". I do not have any preconceptions about "what consciousness...

I don't believe there is a micro/macro split in physics any more than there is a valid distinction between micro-evolution and macro-evolution. The following experiment, posted by Arjen in the thread on QM would appear to support this: http://www.physorg.com/news78650511.html The...

Thankyou, I will investigate...

Sounds like logic-busting magic to me. In Bohm's case, the "glue" is the pilot wave.

Yes and no. Yes, mathematically Newtonian physics is a special case of quantum theory, but there is another difference. Newtonian physics leads us to think that the material world as it is independently of us is pretty much the same as the material world we directly experience. I don't...

That doesn't fly. What you are essentially saying is this: there is no important difference between classical physics and quantum mechanics. This cannot possibly be the case, since classical physics had only two or three obvious metaphysical interpretations and quantum mechanics has something...

Is there a natural explanation for any sort of universe? What difference does it make what its made of? Something supernatural about holograms? Then how can you ask questions like "is there a natural explanation for X?"...? You have no meaning for the word "natural", therefore the question...

I think the problem is worse than that. None of the interpretations of quantum mechanics actually works. By that I mean that although all of them are empirically equal, none of them take into account all of the things we want them to take into account without leading to paradoxes, absurdities...