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possibly a new step in human understanding of reality

as for quantizing consciousness/spacetime. space is quantized, but in quantum mechanics time is not, it is classical. space and time are treated separately in all but the most advanced incarnations of quantum mechanics. relativistic quantum field theory is well, well beyond my expertise but i know that in some incarnations of that, i.e. where at least space and time are unified, they are unable to quantise spacetime. without at least acknowledging the massive challenges faced by physicists in dealing with time its hard to believe they've solved the problem of time. as they think distance and time are vectors, i don't judge them to be competent to quantize spacetime.

if this formula were true, we could convert spacetime into energy via C=hf=E, or maybe we could just knock out the hf and have that spacetime equals energy? or fuck that, since E also equals GAMMAmc^2, this would also = C and the minimum unit of consciousness would become dependent on the speed the conscious being is travelling at. lol will i become more and more conscious as i gain velocity? maybe if i travel close enough to the speed of light i could become telepathic?

yes, all quantised particles behave in a certain way (ignoring the fact that there are 2 types of quanised particles that obey different statistics, which results in dramatically different behaviour.....), in the regime where quantum mechanics is applicable. i'm getting tired of repeating myself so look the decoherence rates at physiological temperatures up yourself and compare them to the rates of reactions in the brain and you'll get why quantum mechanics is probably irrelevant to consciousness.

they contradict themselves in that paragraph- firstly they are not implying the existence of a consciouness particle, and then there is a type of particle which makes up consciousness. what is the particle that makes up consciousness, other than a consciousness particle? and how naive is that? the number of levels of abstraction between particles and consciousness is definitely greater than 1, as we have to take neurons into account.

to conclude. this is the most horrendous, dishonest, lazy abuse of quantum theory i have ever seen. the point is: you cannot make as many mistakes as these guys have and still have a coherent, remotely true theory at the end. our mathematics is guaruntees that false implies false.
 
oh glad someone else noticed the contradiction- spent so long writing i hadn't seen your post azzazz, have to go now but will be interested to take a look later.
 
azzazz !? said:
should he have read any philosophy of mind, starting with Descartes, he'd know that the fundamental impasse between mind and brain is what Descartes described as res extensa (objects) and res cogitans. (of course i'm pretty sure Descartes is just an ancient idiot in this guys eyes bearing absolutely no relevance to anything going on today and that he is way smarter). which means: objects are extended in space and time (literally 'extended things/business'); mind is not extended into spacetime, it is not spatiotemporally located. brian is, mind is not. saying a minimum unit of consciousness is a certain amount of spacetime is a show of your total lack of understanding regarding your subject matter.
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whoa whoa whoaaaa it is a very presumptuous to just assert mind/body dualism here as if it's fact when 90% of the philosophical world doesn't agree with you

unless i misread you, but it sounded like you were putting forth dualism as some sort of axiom and that is very, very questionable... i don't have to bring up basic issues like interaction

at any rate, i do agree with you that if someone is going to bring mind into the physical realm, it has to be explicated - but i think assuming that mind is connected to the physical world is a much safer route than assuming a dualist separation.
 
Yes. I found it also quite weird, how azzazza was assuming some philosophers words as some objective truths.
Anyways the main reason I'm posting here again, is that there was a new live stream recorded, in which the author of these proposed theories tried to answer the audiences questions and explain the intentions of his work - http://www.ustream.tv/recorded/12264783

Might solve some of your misunderstandings.
 
you were referring to them as "misunderstanding" the documentary in reference to the post i made against azzazz's dualism... i took that to mean that you interpreted my disagreement as a sign of endorsement of the documentary. i simply wanted to clear up that i support the general positions of both azzazz and chin up. this is clearly not a significant piece of scientific endeavor and i would be pretty surprised if it ended up contributed to the current zeitgeist in any meaningful way
 
I don't want to speak for the other guy, but it isn't "dualism" to point out that "mind" isn't spacially extended. "Mind is meat" and "mind is spooky immaterial stuff" are not the only available positions. Do you suppose the internet is spacially extended? Does it make me a dualist about the internet if I don't?
 
^exactly.

i was most certainly not positing dualism (with which i personally don't agree. at least not on an ontological level). what i am talking about is the (scientifically inducable) fact that mind, as mind; that is the structure of and the phenomenological entities contained therein, is not spatiotemporally extended, as is evident from the examples that followed that statement. saying that an abstract concept, such as a circle, exists spatiotemporally is most certainly not evident, nor, i imagine, a widespread position.

i did not assert that the mind does not have a physiological counterpart on which it may (or may not) depend. what i was referring to is, amongst other things, that when i think of an orange zebra with a giraffe's neck, that it does not exist spatiotemporally. and this is what needs to be explained when you reduce mind entirely to its physical aspects. unless you want to be a modal realist. which is not exactly a popular position, but a defendable position none the less. but then you have to explain how the mind percieves said reality.

its not that because Descartes is a dualist, and i mention something that Descartes said, that dualism is automatically implied on the part of what was said. what it does say, is that the arguments for anything other then reductionist physical monism actually do have some substance to them, and that they cannot be simply refuted by reductionist physical monists (the standard reply being: just you wait! we'll get there! in the future!). that is the objective reality i am referring to. what i mentioned is the core of the most general counterargument against reductive physicalist monism, harboring a wide spectrum of philosophically viable positions, ranging as far as emergentism and other non-reductive physically monist theories to strong dualism and even idealism.

the point against c=hf being: unless you can say how c is reducible to, or emerging from, something such as hf in a way that solves the hard problem of consciousness, thus adressing the specific properties of mind as opposed to non-(self)conscious objects, c most certainly does not equal hf. Descartes being the first point of interest when one is to learn about said properties and thus, the problems one is facing with regard to any solution for the mind-brain problem.
 
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a funny thought just entered my mind. does the author know that his formula implies panpsychism? idealism even? just turn the argumentation around: if, without any further definition of consciousness as '=hf' (and there isn't, seeing as this is the basis of anything further), and any particle behaves just as 'consciousness particles', then any particle is a 'consciousness particle'

or

a) given that c=hf
b) and hf=e
c) c=hf=e
d) by means of De Broglie, hf=e is applicable to any particle!
conclusion: any particle is conscious(ness). scientifically proven. yeah.
next time someone sees me talking to my toothbrush, i'll show 'em! =D

you know, i actually like that thought. i like whacky theories. but they shouldn't say that they are scientific. that just plain dishonest and deceptive. a theory doesn't have to be scientific or philosophically correct to be worthwile or to express something of beauty or even truth. what is wrong with the expression and celebration of your subjectivity? perhaps that is the truth of being, not the 'zusammenmarchieren' of 'objectivity'. i have trouble imagining why people want to be objects. control, probably. especially other people should be objects. not you yourself of course. predictable. safe. how boring. a pointless existence.

i did like the elegant statement (paraphrased in my own words): (human) will is the (attempted) resolvement of the conflict between the internal and the external state.
 
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whats with the freaky voice, turned me off after 3 minutes, i'm going back to try and watch it all the way though but something about it is just jarring and annoying, surely they could have got a real person to do the voiceover.
 
Ok I lasted 17 minutes, I dont see anything new here, and i dont see anything that is going to enhance my existence, the guys theory seems to be, why use one word when you can use 100 words to make the same simple point seem more profound and intelligent.

basically what the guy is saying is that if you are self aware, in the now moment and aware of your thoughts feelings and emotions as a detached observer, then life is not so hard, that suffering is seen more clearly for what it really is and that a certain level of detachment can be maintained by practicing this self awareness.

The sages have been saying this for 1000s of years.

I don't see this guy winning the Nobel prize. (well maybe for fiction)
 
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L2R said:
30 mins in .... pretty

now why are comments disabled in youtube?
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Because of the previous fan-base of Athene, which consists of kids, who were spamming comments like "nothing new" etc after 10 minutes of the upload of the movie, when it's actually 50mins long. :D

They wanted people to see for themselves, without any prejudices instead of being biased by trolls. =P
 
i dunno. seems like they might not want people refuting some of the science. i enjoyed the runtime, but it alluded to many things quickly taking legitimacy for granted. the flashy imagery and the computer voice, along with the zero possibility of feedback smells fishy.

the only new thing that i noted was the asserted correlation between dark matter and matter with left and right brain hemispheres. dunno about that.

i question:
1) that each hemisphere of the brain conflicts with the other as presented; and
2) there is as much dark matter as there is matter in the universe

nb. i haven't read anything in this thread before this
 
the only new thing that i noted was the asserted correlation between dark matter and matter with left and right brain hemispheres.
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Huuh? Where did you get that from? =) I'm pretty sure there was no such correlation proposed.
the zero possibility of feedback
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http://athenism.net/ Is the page for feedback. I'm pretty sure it's mentioned in the docu & in youtube.
 
the first half was about a left/right brain hemisphere dualism which is analogued by a matter/dark matter dualism in the second half. the parts where he suggests that evolution occurred alike a thought, and individuals are akin to neurons seem to present this conclusion.

what were you watching?
 
importantly he mentions evidence in the stream, then glosses over the fact he has none. the saying goes something like extraordinary claims require extraordinary justification. there is no evidence for C=hf, partly because even after a lot of thought its difficult to tell what physical claim he is making here, its only made murkier by listening hto him go on about it. as i went in to detail explaining before, there is a lot of evidence supporting the idea that quantization of spacetime is not that easy, i.e. against one of his quoted claims.

big big big problem in the stream- he discusses ENSEMBLES of state vectors. this is just incorrect, you discuss ensembles as density matrices, and none of the stuff he is saying applies to statisctial ensembles, so it doesn't apply to what he's talking about. but then he does have a habit of forgetting that quantum theory only really applies to isolated particles....

what precisely am i misunderstanding here? i have tried really hard to explain in simple enough terms various things that are wrong with this, because i think knowingly letting pepole be deceived is wrong. i have bothered explaining things in my own words, a link of over an hour of rambling which is barely coherent is a bit insulting as a response to thought out objections so i would please like objections to these to be similarly thought out. nothing in the hour i've just wasted even really seems to mean anything concrete.

here is my main objection- regardless of his exact formula this holds.

we believe that mathematics and logic can be used to derive physical theories because we are guarunteed, if we start from true premises, to derive only truth, and if we start from false premises we derive only falsehood. this is an important property called soundness, and it has been proven.

NOW, I have pointed out several clearly false claims from the documentary. if the author is consistent in his derivations, whether they be in maths or natural language, his derivations contain falsehoods. therefore, his derivations are either false or the rest of science, which disagrees with his theories, is false. again- extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence so he'll need to provide, for example the part of his theory which predicts QED to 15 decimal places. he hasn't even acknowledged that he contradicts lots of science which is why i think he just doesn't have the scientific background to understand this and put forward such theories.

if he is not consistent, then his theory does not have a truth value, its just not the sort of thing you can talk about as being true or false, it is 'not even wrong.'
 
conclusion: any particle is conscious(ness). scientifically proven. yeah.!
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[i'm not linking my comment to the documentary]

i've said here before that i'm convinced that we are one unique ubiquitous universal consciousness
and that picks of consciousness appear where complex organisms, such as individuals, emerge, giving an illusion of individuality

that fits the idea that any particle may possess a minimal potential of consciousness
 
^like i said, i like that thought. not because i may or may not adhere to it, but because i find it an interesting perspective. i don't really 'adhere' to much anymore. but its a very interesting way to look out into and at the world. it holds a certain beauty of the imagination to it. i'm not attacking that thought or perspective, i wouldn't dare to. my point is aimed at the stress the documentary and the author place on being 'scientific'. more specifically the presumptuousness thereof and the air that came with that. and especially: all of that without paying much, if any, respect to the diligent effort that is actual scientific work.
 
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