Consciousness, the mind-body problem and physics?

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Banned_Magnus
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29 Nov 2010, 1:37 pm

edit for having head in clouds...

Banned_Magnus
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29 Nov 2010, 1:40 pm

Not one particle, but many many particles like light, that is what thought may be.

ruveyn
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29 Nov 2010, 2:17 pm

[quote="Banned_Magnus"]Not one particle, but many many particles like light, that is what thought may be.[/quote

Democritus and Leukippus were right. All there are are atoms and the void through which they move.

ruveyn

Philologos
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29 Nov 2010, 2:49 pm

Don't forget the phlogiston.

ruveyn
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29 Nov 2010, 6:25 pm

Philologos wrote:

Don't forget the phlogiston.

There is no phlogiston. There are atoms and the void.

ruveyn

Banned_Magnus
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30 Nov 2010, 3:25 am

What about subatomic particles?

Quote:

Elementary particles are particles with no measurable internal structure; that is, they are not composed of other particles. They are the fundamental objects of quantum field theory. Many families and sub-families of elementary particles exist. Elementary particles are classified according to their spin. Fermions have half-integer spin while bosons have integer spin. All the particles of the Standard Model have been observed, with the exception of the Higgs boson.

Fermions have half-integer spin; for all known elementary fermions this is All known fermions are dirac fermions; that is, each known fermion has its own distinct antiparticle. Fermions are the basic building blocks of all matter. They are classified according to whether they interact via the color force or not. In the Standard Model, there are 12 types of elementary fermions: six quarks and six leptons.

[Quarks are the fundamental constituents of hadrons and interact via the strong interaction. Quarks are the only known carriers of fractional charge, but because they combine in groups of three (baryons) or in groups of two with antiquarks (mesons), only integer charge is observed in nature. Their respective antiparticles are the antiquarks which are identical except for the fact that they carry the opposite electric charge (for example the up quark carries charge +2⁄3, while the up antiquark carries charge −2⁄3), color charge, and baryon number. There are six flavours of quarks; the three positively charged quarks are called up-type quarks and the three negatively charged quarks are called down-type quarks.

Banned_Magnus
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01 Dec 2010, 9:43 pm

ruveyn wrote:

Banned_Magnus wrote:

Not one particle, but many many particles like light, that is what thought may be.[/quote

Democritus and Leukippus were right. All there are are atoms and the void through which they move.

ruveyn

Leucippus, whose student, Democritus, systematized his views. In approximately 450 BCE, Democritus coined the term átomos (Greek: ἄτομος), which means "uncuttable" or "the smallest indivisible particle of matter". wiki

They were wrong. Atoms have been cut since then. What happens when they split an atom?

Sand
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01 Dec 2010, 9:51 pm

Banned_Magnus wrote:

ruveyn wrote:

Banned_Magnus wrote:

Not one particle, but many many particles like light, that is what thought may be.[/quote

Democritus and Leukippus were right. All there are are atoms and the void through which they move.

ruveyn

Way back then the concept of an uncuttable particle was what they called an atom. The term has been transferred today to the minimum form of an element. The problem is semantics, not conception. Perhaps the ancient name for an atom more corresponds today to a quark or a photon. But if we discover these primary units ca be broken down we shall have to look elsewhere for the ancient "atom".

Banned_Magnus
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01 Dec 2010, 9:59 pm

Assuming that ruveyn is right and only atoms and the void exist, what is the void? Nothing? No, because physics tells us that there is more energy in the void than in matter.

What happens when one tiny little atom gets split?

Sand
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01 Dec 2010, 10:03 pm

Banned_Magnus wrote:

Different atoms have different splitting results. You can probably research it.

Banned_Magnus
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01 Dec 2010, 10:31 pm

Do you see my point?

Sand
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02 Dec 2010, 12:24 am

Banned_Magnus wrote:

Do you see my point?

No.

01001011
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02 Dec 2010, 11:13 am

Kon wrote:

I think consciousness is one of the most bizarre things in the known universe. We know it exists. In fact, it's the only thing that I know exists and yet one can envision a similar universe without consciousness. A universe of "consciousless zombies":

Is is even possible to verify / falsify the statement 'I am conscious'?

ruveyn
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02 Dec 2010, 1:26 pm

01001011 wrote:

Kon wrote:

Is is even possible to verify / falsify the statement 'I am conscious'?

The fact that you asks the question verifies that you are conscious.

ruveyn

psychohist
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02 Dec 2010, 5:49 pm

01001011 wrote:

Is is even possible to verify / falsify the statement 'I am conscious'?

Yes. What's not possible is to verify or falsify the statement "you are conscious".

psychohist
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02 Dec 2010, 5:57 pm

Kon wrote:

"The following things seem prima facie conceivable which are pretty certainly impossible in a very strong sense, namely:
(1) a living, behaving, physiologically and functionally perfect human organism that is nevertheless completely lacking in consciousness, i.e. a [p-]zombie;
(2) a conscious subject with an inner life just like ours that behaves and looks just like a human being but has electronic circuitry instead of brains."

I don't see why people think these things are impossible.

For example, Awesomelyglorious seems to claim not to be conscious. There are two possibilities here: either he's delusional, or he's actually not conscious. I don't see any reason to favor the possibility that he's delusional; it seems to me quite reasonable to entertain the possibility that he's actually a p-zombie, nonconscious but perfectly human.

As for (2), it seems to me extremely unlikely that there's anything special about the physical substrate for computational processes that would affect whether they could support consciousness or not.

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