Re: Why physicists should pay attention to the mind

Rudiak-Gould
> For what it's worth, here's a counterargument. Mental phenomena
> >(consciousness, qualia) can influence the physical world, because otherwise
> >we wouldn't be able to talk about them (or type, as the case may be). We can
> >in principle use the methods of physics to track down the nature of that
> >influence. Whatever we discover will surely tell us something about the
> >nature of phenomenal experience.

Flanagan
The symmetries of qualia lead us by a direct route from observation
into the heart of contemporary theory. Ramond, in his classic text on
'Field Theory,' sets the stage:

"It is a most beautiful and awe-inspiring fact that all the fundamental
laws of Classical Physics can be understood in terms of one
mathematical construct called the Action. It yields the classical
equations of motion, and analysis of its invariances leads to
quantities conserved in the course of the classical motion. In
addition, as Dirac and Feynman have shown, the Action acquires its full
importance in Quantum Physics."

Weinberg provides the essential point regarding symmetry:

"Furthermore, and now this is the point, this is the punch line, the
symmetries determine the action. This action, this form of the
dynamics, is the only one consistent with these symmetries... This, I
think, is the first time that this has happened in a dynamical theory:
that the symmetries of the theory have completely determined the
structure of the dynamics, i.e., have completely determined the
quantity that produces the rate of change of the state vector with
time."

And:

"It is increasingly clear that the symmetry group of nature is the
deepest thing that we understand about nature today."

Weinberg, 'Elementary particles and the laws of physics'

R
> This isn't right. A copy of my body, which has the same physical
> structure as me, but has no experiences, would say the same
> things as I do, and would claim to have experiences just as I do.

Flanagan
Please adduce the experimental findings which support this notion.

R
> Qualia don't influence the physical world at all - the physical
> world operates according to the laws of physics.

Flanagan
It is instructive to recall Wm James in this connection:

"This passage from an exceedingly clever writer expresses admirably the
difficulty to which I allude. Combined with a strong sense of the
'chasm' between the two worlds, and with a lively faith in reflex
machinery, the sense of this difficulty can hardly fail to make one
turn consciousness out of the door as a superfluity so far as one's
explanations go. One may bow her out politely, allow her to remain as a
'concomitant,' but one insists that matter shall hold all the power.

'Having thoroughly recognized the fathomless abyss that separates mind
from matter, and having so blended the very notion into his very
[p.136] nature that there is no chance of his ever forgetting it or
failing to saturate with it all his meditations, the student of
psychology has next to appreciate the association between these two
orders of phenomena. . . . They are associated in a manner so intimate
that some of the greatest thinkers consider them different aspects of
the same process. . . . When the rearrangement of molecules takes place
in the higher regions of the brain, a change of consciousness
simultaneously occurs. ... The change of consciousness never takes
place without the change in the brain; the change in the brain never
... without the change in consciousness. But why the two occur
together, or what the link is which connects them, we do not know, and
most authorities believe that we never shall and never can know. Having
firmly and tenaciously grasped these two notions, of the absolute
separateness of mind and matter, and of the invariable concomitance of
a mental change with a bodily change, the student will enter on the
study of psychology with half his difficulties surmounted.'[4]

Half his difficulties ignored, I should prefer to say. For this
'concomitance' in the midst of 'absolute separateness' is an utterly
irrational notion. It is to my mind quite inconceivable that
consciousness should have nothing to do with a business which it so
faithfully attends. And the question, 'What has it to do?' is one which
psychology has no right to 'surmount,' for it is her plain duty to
consider it."

- Wm James, 'Principles of Psychology'

http://psychclassics.yorku.ca/James/Principles/prin5.htm

R
>That's why we already know what will happen when we track down the causes of
> voluntary behaviour.

Flanagan
The notion that we know before the fact what will happen in a realm so
long ignored by science is utterly antithetical to science, which is
all to do with investigating matters, as opposed to (say) making
sweeping proclamations based on dogma.

R
> It's true that, from the point of view of classical mechanics,
> you can incorporate everything outside of your brain into the
> system, but there's no particular reason to do it, and no
> question about classical mechanics which leads you to think
> about it. In quantum mechanics, though, the respresentation
> used to encode information about the system, namely the
> wavefunction, evolves smoothly except at certain events,
> called measurements.

Flanagan
With (nonlocal) hidden variables you don't need "collapse" as typically
"understood."

Hartle: arXiv:quant-ph/0209104 v5

Holland: users.ox.ac.uk/~gree0579/index_files/spinor.pdf

't Hooft: arXiv:quant-ph/0212095 v1

Smolin: arXiv:hep-th/0201031 v1

Peres: arXiv:quant-ph/9707026 v1


Rudiak-Gould
> >Progress has not been made. I'm willing to
> >continue supporting a few of these people with my tax dollars, and I eagerly
> >await reports of interesting results.

Flanagan
http://wordassociation1.net/FieldWork.html

.

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