Is Consciousness Causally Insulated from the Universe?

[kote]

I like your point about rejecting realism and accepting "relative realism".

Now this is just getting weird .

Conclusion of my thesis (chapter title "Accepting Reality"):

Quantum mechanics has forever destroyed classical objective realism. So, let us reject objective realism and accept reality. When asked the question, “are particles real?” I may now answer: “Only as real as the chair I am sitting on, the green of the grass, and the meaning of the words written on this paper.”

 

[kote]

The structure of the matrix, deeper reality, or the manifold, is hidden from us .

Let me elaborate a bit on why this is important. This is the source of the agnosticism mentioned by jambaugh regarding what lies beneath. The fact that we can't ever have any evidence whatsoever about any aspect of the source of our perceptions does not mean that some manifold, deeper reality, maxent field, or matrix does not exist. What it does do is cause us to question the assumption that only this deepest level may be considered real.

Is reality that abstract field of which we can never say anything due to epistemological constraints? If so, we can never call anything real, since our conceptions are based on perceptions that may be entirely different than the underlying reality. Similarly we can never form any conceptions based on this ultimate reality, since it is beyond our perceptual and experimental grasp.

Is nothing real besides the unknowable properties of the maxent field? Or are tables and chairs real, and electrons, and colors and sounds? Either nothing speakable is real or reality does not require objective persistence and determinism. Admittedly it's an aesthetic and semantic choice. I'm persuaded by Berkeley's argument that what is real are those things that we immediately perceive and which constitute the world we experience.

 

[kote]

There may be an alternative explanation that isn't hidden variables, but another fundamental layer to reality we have yet to uncover, which isn't necessarily another dimension or another reality, but perhaps just a deeper truth.

You've mentioned the lack of necessity of hidden variables a few times now. I've been primarily responding to the deeper truth or fundamental layer question. Typically a deeper hidden layer would be equated with hidden variables. Is it fair if I call the properties of the deeper reality hidden variables (as I have been assuming)?

Bohm was big on all of this actually. He suggested that matter emerged from a more fundamental layer of mind which emerged from a more fundamental layer of matter ad infinitum. This is the context of my previous quote about mind and matter being terms for analysis.

 

[kote]

If you want, you can call it "relative realism" but that's probably not helpful.

Faye on Folse on Bohr (http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/qm-copenhagen/):

It makes much sense to characterize Bohr in modern terms as an entity realist who opposes theory realism (Folse 1987). It is because of the imaginary quantities in quantum mechanics (where the commutation rule for canonically conjugate variable, p and q, introduces Planck's constant into the formalism by pq − qp = ih/2π) that quantum mechanics does not give us a ‘pictorial’ representation of the world. Neither does the theory of relativity, Bohr argued, provide us with a literal representation, since the velocity of light is introduced with a factor of i in the definition of the fourth coordinate in a four-dimensional manifold (CC, p. 86 and p. 105). Instead these theories can only be used symbolically to predict observations under well-defined conditions. Thus Bohr was an antirealist or an instrumentalist when it comes to theories.

 

[1Truthseeker]

Typically a deeper hidden layer would be equated with hidden variables. Is it fair if I call the properties of the deeper reality hidden variables (as I have been assuming)?

A variable is a declaration, and the definition is what is obscure. We can even discuss/declare the unknown and make educated guesses, but be without the definition (e.g.: what is an electron, really?). Thus, this deeper truth isn't a set of hidden variables, but a realm we can either not access or understand, at this time. And that realm may have a lot more fundamental substance than some variables, even in the mathematical sense.

 

[1Truthseeker]

But where I would differ is in trying to be even more general here. I think you are imagining a static realm - time being just one of the n-dimensions.

It isn't static, but infinite. It can, through the time dimension, be projected dynamically. The model needs to be flexible enough to describe space-time or an information stream, such as a FM radio signal, but a tool to view causality within the maxent field; without a time dimension we would not be able to understand deltas in the field. I have not reconciled the design with SR and GR, so I can not say for sure if I agree that time need exist or if it should be part of each n-dimension itself. This would make any point in the range a 4-vector. It is something I would need to work out. There are pros and cons to projecting a the 4th scalar (time) into its own n-dimensional manifold.

I would assume a dynamic view in which things expand in some equilibrium fashion. To prevent expansion, there would have to be some further constraints applied.

No expansion, as the field is infinite. The only dimension that would expand would be the time one. You might be trying to constraint the maxent field idea into a description of "our reality" which is too limiting and only a fraction of what it can do. Consider something like the signature of your voice. It has a definite pattern, but can only be understand by a vibration delta of frequency and amplitude for a specific period/time. A two dimensional sinusoidal graph can infer frequency, but for purity I wouldn't want the model to have any inferences. Anything derived should be projected into its own n-dimensional space, with the original dimension that allowed inference collapsed or flattened. I am moving into hypothesis now, as I have not fully worked it out yet and could see a considerable challenge ahead in such collapsing and extraction of analysis into other dimensions of its geometry.

I agree I think. Max-ent is a limit (whether we take the static or dynamic case). And it is a naturally self-organising concept. So it is naturally persistent - equilibrium is by definition what is most likely to exist, if anything exists. Then local deviations from equilbriun will be distinctive as events (if brief departures) and objects (if enduring departures),

Precisely. I couldn't agree more. If anything is likely to exist at all, it is entropy. My entire philosophical works are based on this fundamental proposition.

We can then yoke this to Prigogine style dissipative structure thinking. Negentropy as you say. This accounts for locally persisting structure such as solitons and quasiparticles - the order that arises on the back of disorder (for a time).

Unlike QM, a maxent field theory can describe information in its purest state. I consider "reality" to be a resampled dubbing of that maxent absolute, which loses quality with each octave in higher organization in the laws of physics. In other words, its a lossy compression scheme in which entropy itself begins to interact in our descriptions and definitions of reality where we can not account for the behavior of chaotic systems.

This is then a critical problem you get to with the condensed matter approach. Why do electrons and protons persist probably "forever"?

The infinite is difficult to pin down. Why are there an infinite set of numbers between 0 and 1? The electron may not exist, but is a manifestation that is emergent as the result of interaction of some kind. The knots idea is favorable, I can visualize immediately what you are saying. Like taking a piece of fabric and poking underneath it and perturbing its flatness, this is the existential point-particle. The question is, what is the fabric then?

One answer, from the open systems approach, is that they would have to be supplied with a continuous throughput of sustaining energy in some way, like ordinary solitons.

I am compelled to agree. I refuse to believe that anything, even a fermion, exists as a given. Consumption of negentropy is just as valid to me as "energy."

But another possibility is - I think - that they are locked into the fabric of things because spacetime expands. So they are the product of a different kind of open system. Instead of being a static system kept alive by energy throughput, they are knots in the fabric that cannot fall apart because the fabric keeps expanding (and cooling).

I would have to flesh out the model to really argue against that hypothesis. It is an interesting, one, though. I am not sure that reality itself expands, as it has been shown that gravity can maintain the cohesive structure of local super structures in the cosmos. So what I am saying is, that space-time may be an explanation for that deeper truth that we have yet to uncover. Dark energy and matter may be clues into the deeper truth. I've read research that dark energy is responsible for the expansion, and is the opposing force to gravitation. Just to clarify: I do not refute expansion, but the "stuff" remains cohesive. It isn't tearing galaxies that are already clumped together, apart, it is increasing the space between them at an increasing rate. What I mean is that, even with the expansion, we will remain whole, but grow farther apart if we are not under the influence of mutual gravitation less than the repulsion of dark energy (apparently). Maybe dark energy and matter have clues as to the stability of a proton, but who knows. At GUT energy levels all the forces are reasoned to combine, so what would happen then to the everlasting proton? Quark soup, I would imagine.

Here we get back to the OP. And now I think we need to accept the reality of QM non-locality. The arguments over twin slits and Bell's inequality have persuaded me in the past and I've not yet heard anything that allows us to dismiss them as proof non-locality is a fact. Of course, all is modelling. But I would personally still put non-locality as something existing "out there".

I am not attached to any notions of locality. This is because I think that we are only seeing shadows of the n-dimensional nature of the absolute. Like we can not comprehend a tesseract, we may not be able to comprehend the absolute truth until we find a way to. If it turns out that reality is deeper than we imagine, then locality isn't violated; because, we are not seeing the whole picture. Fold a piece of paper and punch a hole through it, unfold it, they are far apart, but when folded they are on top of each other. It is a matter of perspective of the absolute truth, which may be that we (humanity) are infantile in our understanding of all that is.