Why physicists should pay attention to the mind


In this post I'll explain why physicists should pay attention to
the mind, but I should clarify that the word "should" is to
be understood in the following way. In order to say what
a person should do, one must first know what the goal is.
Once one knows what the goal is, the question of what one
should do is a strategic question, and not a moral one.
Hence only rational thought, and not emotional or social
pressure, should be used to decide whether something
should be done.

Volition, in so far as it must be employed in the course of deciding
what to do, should, once the goal has been settled, restrict its
activity to the direction of attention, and should not be in the
business of affirming statements. That is, any time somebody affirms
a particular statement as true, and resolves to consider it to be
true in the future through force of will, rather than by simply
paying attention to the question of whether it is in fact true,
he thereby distorts his own understanding. To clarify this
point further, perception of the truth of a statement which
can be readily deduced is an involuntary act, and the only deliberate
thing which must be done if one wants to understand that it
is true is pay attention to it. If we render statements
true in our mind by mere voluntary affirmation, when the involuntary
perception of their truth is lacking, then we delude ourselves.

It has to be left to the individual to determine in any given
circumstance whether he is being honest with himself. Opinions
and beliefs, which are never accompanied by a perception of
their truth, for otherwise they would count as knowledge,
and would not need to be opined or believed, are instances
of self-delusion as described above, and must be eschewed.

In any case, it is assumed here that the goal is a clear
understanding of why things in physics are the way they are, and
what way they are. If the goal of an individual is to get
tenure, or be hailed as the next Einstein, then they
should only pay attention to the mind in so far as doing so
helps them achieve that goal, which is a social goal.
Similarly, if the goal is to merely be a good working
physicist, and have a successful career without understanding
a thing, then there is no need to pay any attention to the mind.


Ralph Hartley writes:

>rof@xxxxxxxxxxxx wrote:

>> 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?

First, I'll address the question of something positive that resulted,
and then give valid arguments that they should. However, I want
to emphasise that each person has procedures by which they come
to regard statements as facts, or as truths. A physicist who
accepts "the lessons of history", or merely the word of a famous
physicist who he respects, as sufficient evidence to support
a statement, is a poor physicist. In that regard, I assert
that the valid arguments which follow the historical and
authoritative arguments are the ones which deserve more
attention.

Second, I want to set the stage by caricaturing a "debate" in
philosophy, namely the debate between ontologists and epistemologists.
In physics, there is a corresponding debate between people
who call themselves realists and those who don't.

Ontologist: I'm examining the things that exist. Really really exist.
Like the world. That really really exists. It's really real.

Epistemologist: We need to pay attention to the way in which we
acquire knowledge, and to the status of that knowledge.

O: No we don't. We can know the *truth*. The truth about what's
*real*.

E: If we do pay attention to the way in which we acquire knowledge,
we find that reality is a flag that we set on certain mental
constructs of ours. We begin from our sensations, construct
representations that we call objects, and then regard them as real.

O: You're saying the world isn't real.

E: No I'm not. I'm not asserting that we are making a mistake
of any kind when we regard the objects around us as real; I'm
asserting that we do, in fact, regard them as real.

Ontologist 2: What's that epistemologist talking about?

O: He says the world isn't real.

E: No I don't. The objects that we perceive around us are
indeed real. We regard them as real and we are right to
do so.

O2: He's talking about perception. Is he crazy?

O: Yeah, he's crazy. He said the world isn't real. Let's get back
to ontology.

O2: We're studying what's really really really real.

O: Yes, really really real. ...


Now, the reasons why I'm drawing attention to this debate are twofold:

1. The study of epistemology requires paying attention to the mind.
By this I mean paying attention to the way the mind handles and
processes data. I do not mean repetitively saying things like
"The mind exists. It's real. Really really real. Like the physical
world. That's really really real too. The physical world causes
the mind. It must, because the physical world is really really
really really real." To study epistemology, one must wean oneself
off ontology, which can be regarded as an unhealthy obsession
with the notion of reality.

2. The vast majority of physicists are ontologists. Anyone
who calls himself a realist is an ontologist, and most
physicists are realists. Physicists who are realists
consider themselves opposed to those stupid people who
think the world isn't real. They invite such people
to jump out of the window if they really believe that
the world isn't real, and thereby discover just how
real the world is. The first thing epistemology has to teach
ontologists is that the statement "The world is real"
is not even wrong; it's vacuous.

Now that the stage is set, we appeal to history and to
authority. Appeals to authority in physics should always
begin with Einstein:

' "The physical world is real." That is supposed to be the fundamental
hypothesis. What does "hypothesis" mean here? For me, a hypothesis
is a statement, whose truth must be assumed for the moment, but
whose meaning must be raised above all ambiguity. The above statement
appears to me, however, to be, in itself, meaningless, as if one
said: "The physical world is ***-a-doodle-doo."' Einstein, [1]

'Science without epistemology is -- insofar as it is thinkable at all --
primitive and muddled.' Einstein, [2]

'"How does it happen that a properly endowed natural scientist comes to
concern himself with epistemology? Is there no more valuable work in his
specialty?" I hear many of my colleagues saying, and I sense it from many
more, that they feel this way. I cannot share this sentiment. When I
think about the ablest students whom I have encountered in my teaching,
that is, those who distinguish themselves by their independence of
judgment and not merely their quick-wittedness, I can affirm that they
had a vigorous interest in epistemology. They happily began discussions
about the goals and methods of science, and they showed unequivocally,
through their tenacity in defending their views, that the subject seemed
important to them. Indeed, one should not be surprised at this.'
Einstein, [3]

The latter quote was in a memorial note for Ernst Mach. Einstein
considered Mach's ideas the prelude to the theory of relativity.
Mach wrote things like this:

'Colours, sounds, temperatures, pressures, spaces, times, and so forth, are
connected with one another in manifold ways; and with them are associated
dispositions of mind, feelings, and volitions. Out of this fabric,
that which is relatively more fixed and permanent stands prominently
forth, engraves itself on the memory, and expresses itself in language.
Relatively greater permanency is exhibited, first, by certain complexes
of colours, sounds, pressures, and so forth, functionally connected in
time and space, which therefore receive special names, and are called
bodies.' Mach [4]

According to a random web page: In Beitrage zur Analyse der
Empfindungen (1886; Contributions to the Analysis of the Sensations,
1897), Mach advanced the concept that all knowledge is derived from
sensations thus, phenomena under scientific investigation can be
understood only in terms of experiences, or "sensations," present
in the observation of the phenomena. This view leads to the position
that no statement in natural science is admissible unless it is
empirically verifiable. Mach's exceptionally rigorous criteria of
verifiability led him to reject such metaphysical concepts as
absolute time and space, and prepared the way for the Einstein
relativity theory. [5]

So, I claim that Einstein's development of relativity was a
positive development that depended upon his willingness to investigate
epistemology. Einstein paid attention to the mind:

'I believe that the first step in the setting of a "real external
world" is the formation of the concept of bodily objects and of bodily
objects of various kinds. Out of the multitude of our sense experiences
we take, mentally and arbitrarily, certain repeatedly occurring
complexes of sense impression (partly in conjunction with sense
impressions which are interpreted as signs for sense experiences of
others), and we attribute to them a meaning-the meaning of the bodily
object. Considered logically this concept is not identical with the
totality of sense impressions referred to, but it is an arbitrary
creation of the human (or animal) mind. On the other hand, the concept
owes its meaning and its justification exclusively to the totality of
the sense impressions which we associate with it.' (Einstein)

This was quoted recently by Brian, but it bears repeating.

Other positive developments include the contributions to the
development of quantum theory and to the standard interpretation
of quantum theory by Niels Bohr, who said:

'From our present standpoint, physics is to be regarded not
so much as the study of something a priori given, but rather as the
development of methods for ordering and surveying human experience.'
Bohr, [6].

"The fact that in atomic physics, where we are concerned with
regularities of unsurpassed exactness, objective description can be
achieved only by including in the account of the phenomena explicit
reference to the experimental conditions, emphasizes in a novel manner
the inseparability of knowledge and our possibilities of inquiry. We
are here concerned with a general epistemological lesson illuminating
our position in many other fields of human interest." Bohr, [7]

Recall that the Copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics
supposes that the wavefunction represents knowledge, rather
than representing the "really really really real." Almost all
subsequent interpretations of quantum mechanics treat the
wavefunction as something that's really really real. That
is, they are ontological interpretations, as opposed to
the Copenhagen interpretation, which was epistemological.
This is not to say that the Copenhagen interpretation is
the correct one, but it was certainly a positive development
in the history of physics, and it was the interpretation
of the founders of quantum mechanics. I assert that the
widespread rejection of the "wavefunction represents
knowledge" position by modern physicists, and the
subsequent arising of the "measurement problem",
stems from the fact that modern physicists refuse to
think about epistemology, because it has something
to do with the mind. They are playing the role of
the ontologist in the debate I caricatured above.

As a final example, I'll cite Hamilton:

"Endeavoring to attend to thoughts rather than to things, we form
the nearest approach to the idea of time when we think of one order
as the mental basis of another, and consider the latter arrangement,
which in this view resembles the course of events, as reducible to a
mental dependence on the former arrangement which corresponds to
the course of time." Hamilton, [8]

These were part of the musings which lead Hamilton to write his
article, "Algebra as the Science of Pure Time", which, for the
first time, gave a comprehensible meaning to the notions of
negative and imaginary quantities, and which lead to the
development of quaternions.

Summarizing the something positive which resulted from
physicists thinking about the mind: Relativity, quantum
theory, quaternions, and a firm footing for negative
and imaginary numbers. There are, doubtless, many other
examples that I've left out, like Oersted's prediction
that chemistry would one day be reducible to physics
and so on.

Anyway, the dedicated ontologist can always respond
by saying that Hamilton was a fool and a drunk, Bohr
was an obscurantist, and Einstein succeeded despite
his engaging in such nonsense, rather than because of it.

I cannot defeat these arguments, and am not inclined to
try. As I mentioned above, a physicist who accepts
arguments from history or authority as sufficient
to establish a truth is a poor physicist, and rational
arguments (meaning those which appeal to the person's
reason, rather than to their emotions or willingness to
acquiesce or respect) are much more important. I am
certainly not a historian, and even if everything I
have claimed about history is false, it doesn't matter.

Just before I leave the subject of arguments from
history and address the question of valid arguments regarding
why physicists should pay attention to the mind, I
will draw attention to an argument from history with which
every physicist who has received a good indoctrination
should be familiar. It's the story of Copernicus, who,
as we all know, knocked man from his pedestal at the centre
of the universe. The Earth goes around the sun, and not
the other way around, as people had previously thought.

Well, the "lesson of history" is this: That nothing human, such as
the mind, is ever of any significance in the investigation of physics.
I contend that anybody who believes that the historical events of
several hundred years ago are sending him messages, establishing
the truths of certain statements like the above, is hallucinating.

This does not mean that I claim that we all have to
pay attention to "our human side", with love and poetry
and other such fluff. I claim merely that no fact has been
established by Copernicus' insights other than that
the Earth goes around the sun. Yes, people were perhaps
foolish to suppose that the universe was constituted such as to
afford them some position which a human would interpret as an
honourable one, but perhaps this should be interpreted as
a warning not to let a sense of self-importance lead us to
assert the truth of a statement ("I'm a theoretical physicist
and I'm great, therefore I have nothing to learn from
epistemology"), rather than as a proof of anything
in particular.

So much for the lessons of history.


Now I proceed, at last, to the arguments about why physicists should
pay attention to the mind. There are arguments a priori and
a posteriori, which in this case means without taking into account
the accumulated body of knowledge about physics, and taking it
into account, respectively.

First, let me note that, since I am contending against the
powerful forces of a meme, I am at a disadvantage compared
to one who simply wishes to explain that a certain course
of action is advisable. Most of the theoretical physicists of the
world have been subtly manipulated by a communicable mental
disease to such an extent that they refuse to acknowledge
that the mind even exists (hence, "The physical world is all
there is").

When they are confronted with wise arguments which establish beyond
doubt that the mind does exist, they will respond by defending their
meme - change the subject, act dismissively, try a one-line defense
which relieves them of the burden of investigating the consequences
of this new fact. Hence, we expect them to say "I don't have to
think about it because the mind is the same thing as the brain/corresponds
to it/is an aspect of it/isn't worth thinking about for some random
reason." Recall from the elementary theory of viral memes that
sustained logical analysis of the subject matter with which the
meme deals is dangerous to the meme, since it threatens its
survival. Hence memetic religion will tell you that you need faith,
which is an ability to ignore and, through force of will rather
than understanding, defeat logical investigations which reveal its
absurdness. Also, those who attack our viral memes are irritating to
us, and seem worthy of ridicule, since without an ability to
inspire these reactions in us, the memes wouldn't spread.

We therefore adopt a pugnacious attitude to those who challenge
our memes. Here I am challenging a meme which says "Do not
think about the mind. Ridicule those who do." The theoretical
physicists who were once interested in the mind have lost their
interest, or at least any public display of it, for fear of
ridicule. Accordingly, one who approaches the infected to
tell them that they are diseased will be issued with an
unfair challenge - Prove beyond doubt that investigating the
mind will bring immediate benefits, or cease your tiresome
troublemaking.

So, my first a priori argument is this:

Deliberate ignorance of any subject is always a bad thing (from the
point of view of achieving any goal which requires knowledge). The
ban on thinking about the mind was unjustified in the first place;
I should not need to justify removing it. Asking me to justify
removing the ban is unreasonable because any ban on thinking about
a subject can only lead to a poorer understanding of things in
general. If somebody proposes that I should forever remain
ignorant of a certain subject matter, I would refuse and should
not have to immediately demonstrate that that subject matter
is valuable to me. The peculiar characteristic of knowledge
is that you don't know how valuable it is until you have it.

My second a priori argument is this:

The mind has structure. There are sensations, perceptions, conceptions,
volitions and emotions. These stand in readily describable
relationships. Perceptions result from processing of the information
provided by sensation; from the representations provided by perception
I can form concepts (as in the concept of a body). Volition and
emotion are of less direct interest to a physicist, but nonetheless
stand in specific relations to the rest of the mind.

Only introspection is necessary to see that there is a lot of
structure there. Perception has perhaps the most structure, rivalled
only by memory. Intuition, which mathematicians and physicists make
considerable use of, is a mental faculty. To assert that we shouldn't
think about it is to imply that it is good to remain ignorant of
how intuition works and helps us understand physics and mathematics.
The structure of intuition and the structure of the mind generally
determine what takes place when we regard a proof as valid.
More generally, the mind is what we use to think about physics.
Mathematics, in so far as one can prove theorems in one's head
without moving any muscles, is a form of introspection. Things
which have structure can be described, understood, theorized
about.


The third argument is:

The material objects with which physics deals are not
simply detected by the mind. The things which the
mind simply receives are sensations. Objects,
which Mach called bodies, must be constructed. Our
perceptual apparatus adds features to the world, such
as depth, which were not merely detected by us.

The feeling that we get, when looking at an
object, that it is far away, is not merely
a recognition by us that the spots on our
two retinas have a specific relationship. It
is the awareness of depth, which differs
from the awareness of a relation of two spots.
In this sense, the depth of which we are aware
was not detected by us, but it was actually
generated by the perceptual apparatus in response
to something which was nothing at all like depth.

In that sense, the world around us, which is
a perceived world, is actually generated by
our perceptual faculty, rather than passively
observed.


The fourth argument is:

Experience is fundamental. No matter what way a particle
or group of particles move, it will never satisfactorily
explain why there is an associated experience. It may
explain behaviour, but all that can be done is to explain
why the material stuff moves the way that it does. Merely
understanding the motion of the matter does not explain
why phenomenal experience occurs. The hope that,
somehow, sometime, somebody will find a particle moving
along a certain type of curve, or an electric field
oscillating in a special way, and that that discovery
will explain phenomenal experience, is a severe self-delusion.

Once the "the mind does not exist" meme has been eliminated,
the next step is to realise that the mind is not a physical
object. Mere correspondence with a physical object is
not sufficient to make it not worth thinking about. The
claim of physics, that it explains absolutely everything,
must be reexamined if there is something which it cannot
explain, and physicists who attempt to dismiss this unexplained
phenomenon by saying that it "corresponds to", or is an
"aspect of" a physical thing, can only arouse suspicion
by trying to distract attention away from such a glaring
exception to the original claim that absolutely everything
was explained.

That is, if somebody tells me all about physics and then
claims to have explained absolutely everything, and I ask
"What about the mind?", if they respond with "Oh, that
corresponds to the brain, a physical object," then I would
want to know what else they've decided to leave out. What
else "corresponds to" physical objects? Why can't the
existence of this mind be deduced from physics?

But one of the central points of epistemology is precisely this:
that the objects that we call bodies, or physical objects, are
mental constructions which were generated to represent certain
recurring or persistent patterns of sensations, as Mach and Einstein
explained more clearly above. We may very well characterise the
behaviour of such objects, but that can never be a satisfactory
explanation of why there were sensations in the first place.

The point here is not to denigrate physics by showing that there
is something that it can't explain, but rather to say that, if one
wishes to understand what physics is and its relation to what is
going on in general, one should not refuse to think about the mind,
and justify this by saying that physics explains it all. The reason
one shouldn't do this is because physics doesn't explain the mind;
rather, the mind is the organ with which we do physics, and an
investigation of what the mind is doing will reveal what physics
is. This is what Niels Bohr was trying to do when he said that
physics was the development of methods for ordering and surveying
human experience.


Now for some a posteriori arguments:

My first argument was originally given by Einstein:

"It has often been said, and certainly not without justification,
that the man of science is a poor philosopher. Why then should it
not be the right thing for the physicist to let the philosopher do
the philosophizing? Such might indeed be the right thing at a time
when the physicist believes he has at his disposal a rigid system of
fundamental concepts and fundamental laws which are so well established
that waves of doubt can not reach them; but it can not be right at a
time when the very foundations of physics itself have become problematic
as they are now. At a time like the present, when experience forces
us to seek a newer and more solid foundation, the physicist cannot
simply surrender to the philosopher the critical contemplation of
the theoretical foundations; for, he himself knows best, and feels
more surely where the shoe pinches. In looking for a new foundation,
he must try to make clear in his own mind just how far the concepts
which he uses are justified, and are necessities." Einstein, [9]

No matter how few physicists are willing to admit it, there
is a problem with quantum theory, and the problem is that
we don't know why the formalism of quantum mechanics works.
All of the interpretations of quantum mechanics were made up
after the formalism was established, and nobody can start
from an interpretation and deduce that the formalism that
is used is the right one to use.

Not only that, but, for any system with a measuring apparatus, we
can consider the measuring apparatus to be part of the system by
enlarging the Hilbert space, and then supposing that we use another
measuring apparatus to measure the first one. Repeat this process -
where does it lead? The thing which is called "the system" and
which is represented by a Hilbert space can continue to grow and
take in more and more of the mediate instruments which we use to
make detections until it goes into our eyes and then into the brain,
as Wigner pointed out. Merely thinking about quantum mechanics leads
us to thinking about the mind. I say if that's what we need to think
about then let's think about it.

On the subject of wavefunction collapse, Aaron Bergman recently
said:
>Decoherence really does solve this issue up until you start to ask
>questions about the human brain. At that point, I advocating throwing up
>one's arms and being happy that we seem to get the right answer.

With due respect to Aaron, I advocate not surrendering, not
being humble, and walking unafraid into the field of philosophy
if that is what is necessary to make progress.

As Einstein says, we shouldn't leave philosophy to the philosophers,
especially if there's work to be done in theoretical physics. The
present method in theoretical physics is to not ask questions -
use quantum mechanics and don't ask why it works; don't ask
why particles move along geodesics; don't think about the mind.

Although I realise that by this stage I've used too many Einstein
quotes, let me give one more:
"The intuitive mind is a sacred gift and the rational mind is a
faithful servant. We have created a society that honors the servant
and has forgotten the gift."

By the intuitive mind, I understand one which can think about
philosophy, and by the rational mind, I understand one which
can think about mathematics. Even if this wasn't what
Einstein originally meant, it is abundantly clear to even the
lay-person that theoretical physics is currently over-populated
by people who think that pure mathematics is the only way
to investigate fundamental physics. These people are successful
because they easily intimidate the ignorant, by telling them
that nobody can deny that they are geniuses unless the denier
knows more than they do about elliptic quantization of hemiharmonic
McMartin-Souviov forms. Now, we do need to have a good understanding
of mathematics, but what appears to have happened in theoretical
physics is that some people with mathematical skills but
little broader understanding have bullied everybody else
into worshipping mathematical knowledge.

The question we need to ask now is: "What is it that we are applying
mathematics to?" Once we answer that, we will know what mathematics
to use. If we don't answer that question, we fumble around in the
dark, picking up one mathematical object after another, checking
to see if it matches what we are looking for, without knowing
what the next one we pick up will be, or even what fashion
will lead us to consider it.

What makes fundamental physics interesting is its philosophical
character. Black holes, the weirdness of quantum mechanics and
relativity - that is what makes us do theoretical physics. Now
we are being told that there is nothing more of philosophical
interest in physics, and that from here on it's all mathematics
that takes ten years to learn. We are told this by those
who want us to respect them for their mathematical prowess,
even though they have nothing deep to tell us, except that
the particular type of pure mathematics that they study is
very deep. These same people will tell us that you shouldn't
think about philosophy or the mind, that all progress comes
from calculating without thinking. Ignore the philosophy
and think about the mathematics is their advice. And whatever
you do, don't think about the mind.

Even apart from the fact that quantum mechanics is almost telling
us to think about the mind, there is the problem of reconciling
quantum theory with gravity. This problem seems to be very difficult
to solve using the present method of theoretical physics, which is
to take the formalisms given to us by earlier generations of
physicists (who did think about philosophy) and try to fit them
together without asking why each of them works. From what we know,
it seems possible that an understanding of how gravity and quantum
mechanics fit together might shed some light on the beginning of
the universe; at least it will tell us more than we currently know.
This is an issue of philosophical significance. It is naive to think
that the unresolved philosophical issues of, for example, the role
of the observer (meaning the mind) can be ignored while pure
mathematics tells us how the universe came into existence, especially
when quantum mechanics, in which the role of the observer is
central, is half of the problem.

My second a posteriori argument is:

Straight lines. Newton's first law says that things move
in straight lines, unless there's a reason for them not
to, and we call that reason a force. Something similar
but more complicated survives in general relativity.
But how do I know when a line is straight?

Most non-vision people would guess that a projection
of a straight line onto the retina would be straight,
and that would allow the inference that a line is
straight. Or, they might guess, if the image on the
retina isn't straight, it should at least be one of
a class of special curves on the retina, where those
special curves are the projections of straight 3D lines.

Well, this isn't quite right. When a person puts on
powerful glasses for the first time, the world appears
curved, if more clear. A falling object, undisturbed
by wind or anything else, appears to move along a curved
trajectory. Similarly, a car moving along a road which
was known to be straight will appear to move along a
curved trajectory, and, if one watches the same stretch
of road for a long time, several cars will trace out the
same curved trajectory. After several days, however,
the world doesn't seem curved to the person any more;
the cars seem to be moving along straight lines. Ask
somebody with strong glasses about this if you haven't
had the experience yourself. (George Stratton, in 1896,
noticed that if you wear glasses that make the world
appear upside-down, after a few days you see the
world the right way up.)

What happened? The glasses didn't change, and nor
did the projections of the cars' trajectories onto the
retina, but the perception corresponding to the same
series of sensations changed from a curved trajectory
to a straight one. Of course, you always knew that
the trajectory was straight "in reality", but your
perceptual apparatus took time to adapt to the
new situation, and it had nothing at all to check
its data against.

That is, how did your perceptive faculty know that you weren't
looking at a genuinely curved world, with cars moving along curved
trajectories? It couldn't have. One must conclude that if you were
really looking at a curved world with things moving along curved
trajectories, your perceptual apparatus would "adapt", and make the
trajectories, which you see traced out again and again by various
objects, look straight. If you find this shocking, then you understand.
If you find it confusing, you don't.

Of course, there are constraints. Two trajectories which intersect
each other at more than one point can't both be made to appear
straight, and there are lots of other constraints as well. Hyperbolic
geometry is not the same as Euclidean geometry. Still, though,
whether a line looks straight to you or not depends not only on the
characteristics of the projection onto your retina, but also upon
the statistics of what you have seen before. It is not entirely
inconceivable that Newton's first law is at least partially a
consequence of something that our perceptual faculty does - take
the most frequently occurring trajectories and present them as
straight lines.

Recall that the space which we see around us is put together by our
faculty of perception (or, if you've never realised it before,
notice it now). That space has not only a topology, but also a
geometry, and, when your perceptual apparatus assigns the geometry
to it, it must correct for defects in your vision and haptic (touch)
senses, and so it must be adaptable, and it must adapt based only
on the statistics of sensations (for there is no other source of
information available), so perceiving a line which you see or touch
to be straight or curved is not merely an act of detection, but an
act of comparison to what you have seen before.

Now, many physicists might consider this implausible, because of
the desire to look down on fields outside of physics as though
they were less worthy of investigation. The fact that a
trajectory can appear curved or straight depending on whether one
has adapted to one's new glasses yet is not a matter for
dispute, but the connection to Newton's first law is. I assert
that hand-waving dismissals or mere expressions of distaste
are not valid arguments against the idea that at least some
of the things which we currently consider laws of nature
are in fact consequences of the way our perceptive faculties
adapt to the information presented to them. Dogmatics statements
(meaning statements made without proof) that it is not true
are not good enough either. Only valid arguments will do,
and if valid arguments are found to dismiss an idea, then
fine, let it be dismissed, but a ban on thinking or
talking about it is quite simply stupid.


I will leave the arguments in favour of thinking about the
mind there, but will add two other points.

The first is that, although epistemology is not physics,
we still do not want to be wrong, and we will be wrong
if we assert that the statements that we like are true,
without checking to see if we can satisfy ourselves
that they are true. Furthermore, in philosophy, we
do not have the luxury of experimental results to
guide us, unlike in physics, and so the standards
to which arguments should be held should be higher
than they are in physics. This is most certainly
not the case in academic philosophy at present, and
so the philosophy of physics (which, in case anybody
has missed the point, is epistemology, and not
ontology) cannot be left to the philosophers, precisely
because of the notion of rigour (and also because
the vast majority of philosophers are ontologists).
So, the realisation that the mind is important is
not a license to speculate about "what really exists",
and nor is it a license to relax the standards of
rigour that physicists are supposed to have.

The second addresses the question of how one begins in practice to
learn about the mind and its relation to physics. If you want a
gentle introduction, read "Visual Perception: How We Create What
We See", by Don Hoffman. If you want historical background, read
Aristotle's "Metaphysics". Those were only my recommendations; you
may find something that suits you better elsewhere. It is not
merely a recommendation of mine that you read Kant's "Critique of
Pure Reason"; Hamilton, Einstein, Goedel and everybody clever since
Kant recommend it. This is the last major book to have been written
on the subject of epistemology (and is generally recognised as one
of the most important books in the history of philosophy, if not
the most important), and almost no progress has been made on the
subject since then, mostly because almost nobody has read the
Critique more than once, while it needs to be read at least five
times before it begins to make sense.

As my final prod to get you think about the mind, let me
appeal to the most vulgar part of you - the part which
inclines you, in your search for self-respect, to prove
that you are one of the elite, with a quote from Kant
himself:
"Should any reader find this ... obscure, let him consider that not
every one is bound to study Metaphysics, that many minds will succeed
very well, in the exact and even in the deep sciences, more closely
allied to intuition, while they cannot succeed in investigations
dealing exclusively with abstract concepts. In such cases men should
apply their talents to other subjects." Kant, [10]

Finally, epistemology is part of philosophy and not physics, so
follow-ups should go to alt.philosophy.debate, and not
sci.physics.research.

R.

1 Letter from Einstein to Schlick, Sep. 25, 1918
2 Schilpp, Paul Arthur, ed. (1949). Albert Einstein: Philosopher-Scientist.
The Library of Living Philosophers, vol. 7. Evanston, IL: The Library of
Living Philosophers.
3 Einstein, 'Ernst Mach.' Physikalische Zeitschrift 17 (1916): 101, 102
4 Ernst Mach, The Analysis of Sensations and the Relation of the
Physical to the Psychical
5 http://www.phy.bg.ac.yu/web-projects/giants/mach.html
6 Bohr, 'The Unity of Human Knowledge',Bohr 1960, page 9
7 Bohr, 'The Unity of Human Knowledge',Bohr 1960, page 12
8 Misc papers, April 21, 1832
9 "Physics and Reality." Jean Piccard, trans. Journal of the Franklin
Institute 221: 348-382.
10 Immanuel Kant, "Prolegomena to any future metaphyics"

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