XPost: alt.folklore.computers   
   From: tnp@invalid.invalid   
      
   On 31/12/2025 15:38, Lars Poulsen wrote:   
   > On 2025-12-31, The Natural Philosopher  wrote:   
   >> On 31/12/2025 14:21, c186282 wrote:   
   >>> I'm not qualified to fine-critique Penrose. However   
   >>>     when he insisted brains MUST be quantum ... some   
   >>>     little red light went off in my head.   
   >>   
   >> Yes. To anyone who has studied Kant, it is clear that it is the mind   
   >> that invented 'quantum theory'...so to make it an emergent property of   
   >> its own creation, is the wrong sort of feedback   
   >   
   > [it is probably too late to move this to alt.geeks.unix]   
   >   
   > The mind may have "invented" quantum theory", but if it is real and   
   > correctly describes processes in the physical universe, it does   
   > not feel to me that we (humans, and more specifically the human   
   > minds) "created" the universe that is described by those concepts.   
   >   
   There are books that you might read.   
   The title of one of Quine's tomes expressed the problem,   
   He called it "theories, and things".   
   Its only a small step to understand that 'classical reality'  is in fact   
   a *theory* itself.   
   We split our experience into things and moments, and reconnect them via   
   causality.   
      
   And then claim that 'this is the real world, and consciousness is part   
   of it'   
      
   It simply doesn't work  - which is why there is a 'problem with   
   consciousness'   
      
   Only if you adopt a Kantian perspective, and relegate the classical   
   world to a product (but not a figment) of the imagination, crossed with   
   data from a reality that exists, but is forever beyond direct   
   perception, does the problem resolve itself.   
      
   Unfortunately the introduction  of  a third variable, whilst solving the   
   equation, is deeply distasteful to materialists like Penrose. It   
   elevates consciousness to an equal basis with say 'quantum reality' in   
   the production of the world view.   
      
   And destroys the assumption that consciousness is an emergent property   
   of the rest of the material world. Since it shows the reverse - that the   
   material world as we know it, is in fact a transform of quantum reality   
   performed by the agency of the mysterious thing called consciousness.   
   Which of necessity is part of neither.   
      
   This stumbles far to close to religion for most scientists.   
      
   > But my head hurts thinking about these things.   
      
   I would be impressed if it did not.   
      
   Somewhere is some Eastern book (Tao te Ching? cant recall) I once read   
   it says 'to probe behind consciousness, with consciousness, that cannot   
   be done'   
      
   And yet it can. To a point.   
      
   Tampering with consciousness to see how it works is central to Eastern   
   'spiritual' practices as well as Western shamans...   
      
   *They* know its not some static artefact.   
      
   --   
   A lie can travel halfway around the world while the truth is putting on   
   its shoes.   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)