Re: Penrose's nonsense

rof@xxxxxxxxxxxx wrote:
Ralph Hartley <hartley@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> writes:
Abandoning irony *completely* let me make my position clear.

(1) Penrose's argument that quantum theory has important things to tell us about the mind is nonsense.

(2) Making nonsense believable and respectable is *not* a good thing.

(3) It would be a bad thing even *if* the conclusion were correct [...]. An invalid argument for a true proposition is still an invalid argument. 

What Brian
was saying was that Penrose's discussion of the subject made it
acceptable for scientists to acknowledge that there is such
a thing as consciousness, even if his actual claims were
speculative, unjustified and incorrect. This was a "good thing"


So you disagree with (3) then? (Or is that what you think Brian was
saying? The rest of your message implies that you agree with him.)

because previously scientists, and especially physicists,
stood side by side with new age enthusiasts and with those
who oppose all rational enquiry


To consider invalid arguments a good thing under any circumstances, is
to reject rational inquiry.

To fool people into considering a question that they would not otherwise
think about, even if they *should* think about it, is not a good thing.

If nothing else, invalid arguments hide any valid arguments that may
exist, and make their conclusions less respectable among people who
recognize the arguments as invalid.

The rules which make science successful are to be
abandoned when they conflict with the "higher good" of giving
philosophers a public trouncing at the hands of physicists. 

But the reverse is OK?

There was a global prohibition on physicists talking or even thinking
about the mind


Can you show me something positive that resulted from them doing so, or
even any valid argument that they should?

[Snipped: I have been indoctrinated]
... 
To demonstrate that this is to the detriment of physicists generally,
I need only draw attention to the epistemology/ontology debate,
which is the same as the Copenhagen/Many-worlds-Bohm-Transactional-
Relational "debate" in physics, which isn't even a debate since
physicists are forbidden from talking about it. The same discussion
has played out again and again among physicists, "Let's talk
about interpretations of quantum mechanics ... Whoops, we're
talking about philosophy. We'd better stop. We're not allowed
to do that." No progress is ever made because thinking and
talking about it is banned.


Here you have cause and effect reversed. Taking about it is "banned"
because no progress is ever made.

This is a question that *every* physicist now alive thinks about at some time. That little progress has resulted is not a good sign. There is reason to believe that the kind of progress that physicists can
*use* is very unlikely.

If philosophers have something *new* to add, they should do so. There
*will* be resistance, because we have all had to listen to so much
nonsense already.

if no flaw can be found in their arguments, their
conclusions can be rejected anyway, because they're crazy
fools. 

I think your argument could be better made by giving examples of valid
arguments that physicists should be interested in, but reject.

Your [sniped] argument establishes that it is unlikely that quantum
effects play any role in neural information processing. Of
course, it's not conclusively ruled out, but it's fairly unlikely.

I should clarify that there are two different ways
in which quantum effects are unlikely to play a role.

One is that the brain somehow make use of quantum computation,
... 
The other is that the "randomness" of quantum mechanics
stops being quite so random inside the brain
... 
Now, as you argued and I agreed, these are very unlikely
indeed

It is good that you made that clear, since what you agree is unlikely is Penrose's position.

but that doesn't justify your original statement:

"Quantum theory has *nothing* to tell us about 'the mind.'" 

Rather it says that quantum theory is unlikely to tell us
much about how information is processed by individual
neurons or groups of neurons in the brain.

The brain and the mind are closely related, as seen by the fact that interfering with brain function alters or abolishes consciousness.

One could argue that the mind is simply the function of the brain, in which case they would be the same thing. I don't need to argue that, only that the brain and mind are so closely linked that anything closely related to one must be closely related to the other, in *either* direction.

You might, of course, challenge me to explain how quantum
theory could have something to do with the mind. I would
then be entitled to say that I never claimed that it
did; I merely haven't seen any proof that it doesn't

I didn't claim that there is no relationship at all, one can find a relationship between *any* two things, only that it has nothing to *tell* us. To claim that QM may tell us something about the mind, but nobody has any idea what, is nonsense. I stretches the meaning of the word "tell" even farther than we have done already.

Either QM has something to tell us about the mind, and we need only listen, or it doesn't.

But I won't do that; instead I'll tell you how quantum
mechanics might have something to do with the mind, and
I stress that it is only a possibility.

Do you think you make a valid argument that something could be true, by showing examples of how it might be, but isn't? Or do you just want to make an argument without having to defend it?

Quantum mechanics appears to very nicely characterize
induction - the basic notion that similar experiments
give similar results.  The old problem with induction
was that it remained vague because of the difficulty
involved in measuring the "similarity" of experiments.
Quantum mechanics solves that problem by giving
an explicit mathematical representation of the
experiments. Rotate your apparatus, and there's a
corresponding SO(3) action on your observable
operator.

Carefully representing experiments and observables is not part of quantum mechanics. It applies just as well to classical mechanics. It is a tool used to do QM, but it is in no way *part* of Quantum mechanics.

A screwdriver can be used as a stabbing weapon, but that does not mean that screws have something to tell us about ancient warfare.

That's just as well, since induction has been used since the stone age. Your (non) position would imply that induction was invalid when the ancients did it, but became valid in the mid 20th century, or perhaps that induction just wouldn't work in a classical world. That would be odd since it worked fine in the 10th century when quantum effects were undetectable.

Also, quantum mechanics is where induction breaks
down. You can't predict the position of the
particle with any more accuracy than |psi^2|,
even in principle. Do the same experiment twice
and you don't get the results.

I get the same thing with classical dice (well maybe not the "even in principle" part, but I don't see how that matters).

It's possible that quantum mechanics is a quantitative
formalization of the principle of induction, just
as boolean algebra gives a formalization of deductive
inference (propositional calculus).

It would be possible if Quantum Mechanics were anything *like* the principle of induction. A better candidate for a formalization of the principle of induction would be Statistical Inference, which is related to Probability Theory, which *is* related to Quantum Mechanics. :-)

Even if the mathematical descriptions of Quantum Mechanics and induction were identical, that would not be a direct connection between induction and Quantum mechanics the physical theory.

Ralph Hartley

.

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