XPost: alt.folklore.computers   
   From: tnp@invalid.invalid   
      
   On 01/01/2026 02:50, c186282 wrote:   
   > On 12/31/25 17:28, The Natural Philosopher wrote:   
   >> On 31/12/2025 16:46, c186282 wrote:   
   >>> On 12/31/25 10:08, 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   
   >>>   
   >>>    Well, you can argue that the QM nature of brain/mind   
   >>>    always existed - but it's only just now we (Penrose)   
   >>>    figured it out. :-)   
   >>>   
   >> You could, but I wouldn't.]   
   >>   
   >> QM is just another invention of the mind. What it refers to may well   
   >> not be of the mind though.   
   >>   
   >> And it makes the analysis simpler to consider that it is not.   
   >   
   >    Let's say things SEEM to be 'quantum'. But then   
   >    we're little 3-D beings barely out of the trees   
   >    and still sometimes throw shit at each other.   
   >   
   That is your metaphysical assumption. It doesn't make it true.   
      
      
   >>>    Strictly, everything is 'quantum' anyhow, protons,   
   >>>    electrons, quarks, everything.   
   >>   
   >> No. that is a *metaphysical* assumption. we can assume it pro tem to   
   >> see where it gets us. Into a right buggers muddle. Along with Penrose.   
   >>   
   >> Assume instead  that consciousness is absolutely independent of   
   >> quantum reality and redraw the relationships.   
   >   
   >    That we both seem to agree on ... at least insofar   
   >    as 'mind' goes. The 'material' stuff of brains,   
   >    there, so far as we can tell, quantum defines its   
   >    existence/actions at the ultra-fine level, but   
   >    we can have 'consciousness' without having to   
   >    worry about that tiny stuff.   
      
   If you examine the matter at the most fundamental level, you discover   
   that all classical science and the classical worldview implicitly   
   depends on the concept of the 'detached observer' . I.e. a consciousness   
   that stands outside of that which it observes and whose observations do   
   not affect the thing under observation.   
      
   It is *defined* to be immaterial. A late-model version of the 'immortal   
   soul'.   That is the concept of this immaterial and immortal entity that   
   stands outside of time and space peering in, is *implicit* in the   
   classical worldview.   
      
   And yet scientists want to make it an emergent property of the worldview   
   it studies..   
      
   That cant be done without contradiction.   
      
      
   >   
   >    Computers can be made to compute using quite a number   
   >    of physical media - hell, you could make a 'hydraulic   
   >    computer' if you had the space, one out of wooden parts,   
   >    and it would be as accurate as any 2nm transistor model.   
   >    The logic is the logic, independent of the means.   
   >   
   >    Neuron networks are just another 'means'.   
   >   
   >> It all becomes simpler.   
   >   
   >    I suspect we're drifting towards Buddhism here ... and   
   >    I learned long ago to bail out once a certain level of   
   >    'metaphysics' creeps in  :-)   
   >   
   Well that is one rather less sophisticated version of the same thing, yes.   
   What comprises the material world is real, but not as we know it, Jim.   
      
   It is a *transform* of it. And the agency doing that transform is the   
   mind/consciousness/spirit/soul or whatever BS name you want to refer to   
   it by.   
      
   hat is the minimum number of elements *necessary* for an entity to   
   become aware of an externality.   
      
   Something that  has been blindingly obvious for thousands of years.,   
      
      
   >    Gimme what demonstrably WORKS, what is USEFUL. Fuck   
   >    args about the 'fine context(s)/interpretation(s)",   
   >    the "Game Of Nuances and Twisted Semantics". People   
   >    have been at this for many thousands of years,   
   >    endlessly re-arranging an arcade of fun-house mirrors,   
   >    "If you look at it all like THIS you shall find   
   >    the Great Truth" ........   
   >   
   Well all science is ultimately about what (seems to) work. The problem   
   of consciousness  is that it doesn't work 'like wot it orta'.   
      
   Hence the need for a different metaphysical rule set to accommodate it.   
   Just as Einstein had to rewrite the concept of absolute space and time.   
   Because the experimental results didn't make sense otherwise.   
      
   The transcendental idealism of Kant et al makes it all work, but at the   
   expense of completely abandoning the classical world of everyday sense   
   as *primary*.   
      
   And sticking human consciousness as more primary, in its place.   
      
   Which is unacceptable to the vast number of scientists reared on the   
   creed of material realism.   
      
   Hence the dichotomy. And hand waving of consciousness as 'just quantum   
   shit, or something'   
      
      
   --   
   "Anyone who believes that the laws of physics are mere social   
   conventions is invited to try transgressing those conventions from the   
   windows of my apartment. (I live on the twenty-first floor.) "   
      
   Alan Sokal   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)