"The odds of life are too low for it to just have happened" refuted

[MockTurtle]

To me QM has been falsified already, with it's accurate predictions being based on mutually exclusive ontologies of particle and wave.

Things are not "false" because they don't fit your preconceived notion of the way the
universe works.

QM is like a meticulous study of traffic patterns without noticing that cars have drivers. Add drivers, and it makes a lot more sense, even though the predictions remain the same.

What if the next fool says the idea that the planets orbit because invisible angels push them around "makes a lot
more sense" then gravity?  If we can just pull theories out of our asses anytime we want and call it science,
where do we draw the line.

What new thing does your view predict?

Subjectivity, communication, expression, order, negentropy, teleology, perception, creativity, the possibility of life, the possibility of consciousness, qualia...etc.

Please describe an experiment I can perform to validate your new predictions.  With QM it's easy: I have a laser
on my bench, and it works.

[relativetruth]

So I still say, science gets no pass from skepticism. If it cannot be understood intuitively, it may point to a reality not comprehensible to us, or it may simply be exactly what you might expect if you try to explain a universe which is half subjective in completely objective terms.

Science is supported by
The Scientific Method
which  relies heavily on intuition.

Human has a brainwave!!
What if ..... (maybe your thoughts, Immediacracy, could fall into that category).

Then human scientists apply their knowledge of mathematics and science to create an hypothesis.

Then after many years of experimentation, with positive results agreeing with the hypothesis, they come up with a theory.

The scientists who are remembered are not those who had just the 'Eureka' moment but those that also followed it up with evidence (like Darwin).

Science requires the insight first and then  followed up by detailed rational logical thinking to join up all the pieces.

Scientists understand intuitively but when describing the phenomena to other scientists they need cold hard precise language.

[Immediacracy]

Things are not "false" because they don't fit your preconceived notion of the way the
universe works.

I agree, that's true, but if someone tells me that the way the universe works is based on square circles which know when you're looking at them, then other possibilities seem appealing.

What if the next fool says the idea that the planets orbit because invisible angels push them around "makes a lot
more sense" then gravity?

I would say that gravity is pretty straightforward and explains everything the pushy angels explains and much, much more.

If we can just pull theories out of our asses anytime we want and call it science, where do we draw the line.

I agree, although I don't think that the question of where we draw the line in the future should be determined a priori, depending on the nature of what's being considered. A proposed medical treatment or pesticide for example, should be scrutinized with a very conservative approach. A cosmology, in the absence of a completely satisfying model, should receive more latitude if it addresses some compelling issues in possibly a new way. Not as a conclusion, but as a direction worth beginning to explore or research.

Please describe an experiment I can perform to validate your new predictions.  With QM it's easy: I have a laser
on my bench, and it works.

If you want to set up a two slit experiment shooting the laser into the lens of a camera, that might be provide some information. I don't suggest that anyone shine a laser into someone's eyes but maybe through a protective lens, it would be worthwhile to see how someone's perception differs from one slit vs two. Does two slits compel you shift your visual focus back and forth from one source to the other horizontally?

Really I would have to be familiar with the control experiments. What happens when you change the frequency of the laser? What happens if you use an image from a slide projector instead? My only prediction would be some similarity in the way the experience of the light is experienced subjectively which may help us understand more about what is going on on the screen. If you shoot toward a camera lens instead, does the lens flare change in an unexpected way between one slit and two? What would you expect it to do? I don't know enough about optics to say - like I can draw an object with three dimensional perspective, but I don't know that I could tell you verbally how I think it should look.

[Immediacracy]

Then after many years of experimentation, with positive results agreeing with the hypothesis, they come up with a theory.

The scientists who are remembered are not those who had just the 'Eureka' moment but those that also followed it up with evidence (like Darwin).

Science requires the insight first and then  followed up by detailed rational logical thinking to join up all the pieces.

Scientists understand intuitively but when describing the phenomena to other scientists they need cold hard precise language.

I agree with you except for the part about experiment, hypothesis, and theory always following in that sequence. It's not always that way. The scientific method is an idealized sorting of steps that doesn't occur in real life. Hypotheses are revised, experiments are repeated, theories begin new rounds of experimentation, etc.

I've never said that I expect this idea to be accepted by science as is, I'm just saying that it could be a beginning of a worthwhile investigation - or it could be a philosophical curiosity.

The thing is, what if it's right? Whether it's science or not, it still makes a lot of sense to me. Why does it need to be something other than that at this point? If I had already thoroughly researched and experimented this, I'd be on the news right now and not defending the possibility of the theory online.

[nogodsforme]

Immediacracy, because I'm sure you will come up with a long confusing nonsensical reply that explains that you really are totally right and we just don't understand, again.... please look into the crackpot index. Every positive number resulting from a test indicates a cranky theory. I think you score points for item numbers 6, 7, 9, 14, 16, 17, 19, 26, 34 and 36.

I dig that "crackpot index". I will borrow it next time we get a genius who "doesn't believe" in evolutionary theory, or tries to convince us that some impossible biblical event actually happened, despite no actual evidence of it. Just substitute Darwin or some other scientist for Einstein, Newton or Feynman.

[MockTurtle]

I agree, that's true, but if someone tells me that the way the universe works is based on square circles which know when you're looking at them, then other possibilities seem appealing.

Who cares what seems appealing?  What matters is results, and QM works.

I would say that gravity is pretty straightforward and explains everything the pushy angels explains and much, much more.

Your opinion isn't helpful.  We need objective and repeatable standards to differentiate useful and predictive models from uninformed fantasy.  QM gained popularity using the scientific method as a standard.  Is
there a reason we should reject that in favor of you opinion regarding what is appealing?

I agree, although I don't think that the question of where we draw the line in the future should be determined a priori, depending on the nature of what's being considered.

We already use different confidence intervals where appropriate.


Oh and "try something like this and see what happens" isn't the sort of experiment I was asking about.
You have a theory, tell me something specific it predicts that isn't already predicted by QM.  

[Str82Hell]

I'll respond to your first reply to me, without reading all the posts posted in the last couple of hours. I will read them after I replied.

I'm comparing the complexity of the proposed subjectivity of individual atoms with the subjectivity we are familiar with, to show that it's orders of magnitude greater while still being based on the same fundamental principles.

To me it is a simple, but random, formula and I wonder why you used it. It only indicates arbitrary complexity. It's like a theist saying "I can't understand how evolution works, so God did it".

but you state that you think that matter on the atomic level has awareness, can you prove this? Or can you demonstrate why it is suggested to be so?

Neuroscience shows us, through an MRI for example, that consciousness is associated with the electrical activity of a living brain. Electrical activity governs the function of the heart. Electrical activity underlies all chemical changes in every cell, tissue, and organ of the body.

Where do we get our consciousness from? What are we if not electrical activity in a fantastically elaborate pattern?

First of all, electrical activity does not not underlie all chemical changes, hormonal activity and diffusion is at least as important. It's also meaningless, because it's saying something like "our existence underlies our awareness." So what?

"Our self awareness is based on our bio-electronic nervous system", true, but "it is not organized in such a way as to recapitulate the inner condition of the cellular nano selves it represents", but in such a way that we have some of the best tools to understand and interact with other human beings and our environment.

They are the same thing. In order to be able to understand not only other human beings, but our own body - it's needs, the physical status of it's tissues and organs, the emotional status of it's complex inner states - it seems entirely unavoidable that there be a common language, and that such a language would be electromagnetic. At what point does a reality of automatic billiard balls suddenly become able to experience a feeling and why?

What do you mean with inner states and how can your inner states be in an emotional status? Molecules or cells don't have an inner status. And know, they are not the same thing. The way I phrased it is according to what it does and why it is there (which the theory of evolution explains), while you incorrectly describe how it is built up by repeating a common internal structure.

A nervousness in our stomach is a 'recapitulation of the inner condition of the cellular-tissue level nano-micro level experience' of that area of our body which are understood by areas of the brain and nervous system associated with the stomach. The nervous system reports the news and carries feedback from limbic and cortex, which can issue electromagnetic commands to parts of the body which are under voluntary control.

What do you mean with a nervousness in your stomach?

[One Above All]

Immediacracy, you don't seem to understand that electricity and electromagnetism in themselves are not conscious. They are just a means to send information from point A to B. Like CDs etc

[Str82Hell]

I don't think that Immediacracy is a crank, but that he doesn't understand quantum mechanics very well (neither do I). You also don't clearly illustrates what your theory is more than "matter is aware of its inner self" and what that means because of what.

The video you just posted appeals to a thought experiment that does not have any scientific relevance and which probably most of us already know, namely that it is impossible to determine what we observe is what we think we observe. Of course that may be correct, but the scientific method has demonstrated that when we interpret an observation the way it logically should be interpreted, that it works. At first quantum mechanics sounds counter-intuitive, but as soon as you really understand it, it is really intuitive. That's why it is a scientific theory. Your (unscientific) theory may make it sound more intuitively for laymen, but for experts it probably doesn't.

This reminds me of someone existing that I explain to him what colour electrons have when we would be able to see them with our naked eyes, because we are able to detect them with various instruments. Fact is that they don't have any colour and that they're invisible because of that.

[Immediacracy]

Who cares what seems appealing?  What matters is results, and QM works.

The idea that results are what matters is what appeals to you. I see that as only one half of the story. Results are very important. So is meaning. That's what appeals to me.

I would say that gravity is pretty straightforward and explains everything the pushy angels explains and much, much more.

Your opinion isn't helpful.  We need objective and repeatable standards to differentiate useful and predictive models from uninformed fantasy.[/quote]
What if having only objective and repeatable standards destroys important information about the nature of subjectivity and creativity. Not everything in the cosmos is repeatable on command.

QM gained popularity using the scientific method as a standard.  Is there a reason we should reject that in favor of you opinion regarding what is appealing?

Who is saying we should reject QM? I'm just saying that if we question this one single assumption about it, we tie up all of it's apparent paradoxes and potentially get a handle on consciousness, life, and a cosmology which explains them all. Changing that assumption shouldn't change any of it's predictions as far as I can think.

Oh and "try something like this and see what happens" isn't the sort of experiment I was asking about.
You have a theory, tell me something specific it predicts that isn't already predicted by QM.  

It predicts life, subjectivity, order, purpose, and consciousness. Since we can't escape any of these things to test them, it makes it different from other categories of phenomena. It seems to me that in a QM universe filled with every imaginable virtual particle and interfering wave-ray propagation, consciousness would be more likely to evolve in the vacuum of space rather than in a physical organism. My idea places consciousness in matter - as a function of matter. Seems better.

[Grimm]

I completely agree. Has anyone done two slit experiments with a human eye instead of a screen? Seems simple enough. That alone could tell us something unexpected. Light takes place on your retina. We know this. It is a screen and it is an observer. What does it look like when you close one eye and shoot a laser at it through two slits? Does it need to be in a vacuum? Maybe a camera works just as well?.

Just because it's wholly astounding to me - I have to say:  yes.  The very first time this experiment was done, it was done completely manually, with poor, horrifically overworked interns playing the role of observer.

*Grins*  Hey, if you can't get an unpaid intern to do something mindnumbingly boring for weeks on end -

But, yup.  All of these permutations, and dozens more besides, have been tried.  The nature of the observer is immaterial - and the concept of observing the observer is also immaterial.  To try to make that make sense:  just the virtue of having a camera trained at the right place even if the feed of that camera is utterly unwatched and unrecorded causes the probability waveform to collapse rather dramatically.

It sure as heck ain't humans that are important.  We just noticed.

I could imagine maybe some experiments using transcranial magnetic stimulation - basically do quantum mechanical experiments inside a living, conscious human brain. Any volunteers?

There are a couple going on like this now - mostly by behavioral psychologists who have discovered that application of magnetic stimulation across certain areas of the brain can short-circuit morality... among other things.  The ramifications there, of course, are that 'moral consciousness' is a function of brain structure, which is intriguing in its own right, and exceedingly damaging to the idea that morality flows from God exclusively.

One more Gap.

So far, they haven't done anything crazy like shut down optic nerves, but it would be intriguing.  Not sure how you could use that in an observational sense.

You have hit on one of the more intriguing problems in physics - which roughly translates into "why does one proton, one neutron, and one electron make such a huge difference?"  There's a quantum explanation I don't have my head around yet - but the difference between, say, Carbon (6) and Nitrogen(7) is rather extreme.  In a way, this is what you're addressing - what makes Carbon have its 'carbonness'?  is it really just the energy state of the atom?  

(the answer, oddly enough, really is 'yes'.  Visually, it's difficult to tell one carbon atom from one nitrogen atom, but that missing electron on the carbon atom allows structures that are not possible to the Nitrogen atom.  And, since, basically, both of those materials are starstuff...  well, it's just neat.)

There also may be an anthropomorphic fallacy in the mix here.  Carbon doesn't have a 'perception' - in fact, it has far less perception than even the simplest virus, though both respond at a chemical level to the reality around them.  Until one can define 'consciousness' and show how it applies to atoms, you're going to have difficulty.  After all, all evidence points (right now) to the notion that Consciousness is not at all separate from the brain, and is in fact a function of the brain itself.  Your uniqueness has to do with your cranial wiring, and your curiosity about yourself is a function of evolution.

Until 'brain' and 'consciousness' can be divorced, there will be trouble with saying an electron has some kind of 'awareness', even one as dim as presented.  

Thanks for the comments though. I don't know ultimately if there is a way around observer ambiguity. I think there is a 'Law of Conservation of Mystery' which may keep the interior phenomenon partitioned existentially from the exterior, such that the subject must always choose which side of the fence they are on for themselves.

Define 'interior' and 'exterior' phenomenon?  If interior phenomenon relate to consciousness - like, for instance, a sense of 'oneness', then that's quite biochemical in nature, and oddly well understood (even if the root reasons and causes are not quite yet in the bag).  You are, after all, a chemical slave to your brain - a misfiring neuron will have you seeing people that aren't there.  Is that an internal or external phenomenon?

The voluntary aspect, the gamble of perception may be an immutable characteristic of the fabric of subjectivity itself while the subjective surrender to exterior evidence is an act of nontrivial consequence in any possible experiments. The placebo effect is a requirement for this level of cosmic integration.

I see the words.  I see how you fit them together - but I'm not entirely sure I grok here.  "gamble of perception?"  The "fabric of subjectivity itself?"  "Subjective surrender to exterior evidence?"  If I read this correctly, it translates to the fact that you wish people to be able to surrender their internal disbelief in the face of incontrovertable evidence to the contrary.  

I like that.  People should do that.  Creationism would get the heck out of schools then.

But I have a feeling we're not on the same page there.

[Immediacracy]

But, yup.  All of these permutations, and dozens more besides, have been tried.  The nature of the observer is immaterial

I wasn't expecting there to be a difference, but I'm curious what the subjective vantage point looks like from the two slit test. You're staring into a slit with a laser behind it - what happens to your view when you add another slit? Do you see a horizontal band in your field of vision instead of a laser flare? What if you look through a double concave lens to zero out the optical effect of your cornea?

I'm sure that there's been every conceivable experiment done with the assumption of light traveling through space, but have any been done to test the possibility of it Not traveling through space at all?

- and the concept of observing the observer is also immaterial.  To try to make that make sense:  just the virtue of having a camera trained at the right place even if the feed of that camera is utterly unwatched and unrecorded causes the probability waveform to collapse rather dramatically.

I'm saying that's because the atoms of the camera's ccd or film is an observer - as is the lens. Everything that isn't blocked by some form of nontranslucent matter is an observer.

If this is the conventional view of light,

(red arrows indicate the prospective launching of individual photons through space)

my view is something like this:

(N0ton meaning no photon. The double arrows represent mutual 'awareness' and communication between the source, the target, and the targets among each other.)

It sure as heck ain't humans that are important.  We just noticed.

Yeah, especially on this layer of reality. Matter made of atoms are the main action.

You have hit on one of the more intriguing problems in physics - which roughly translates into "why does one proton, one neutron, and one electron make such a huge difference?"  There's a quantum explanation I don't have my head around yet - but the difference between, say, Carbon (6) and Nitrogen(7) is rather extreme.  In a way, this is what you're addressing - what makes Carbon have its 'carbonness'?  is it really just the energy state of the atom?

 
Thanks. Yes, I mean, I can see that the functionality of 6 vs 7 from a chemical process standpoint can account for some of that in the simple ranges, but it doesn't account for why the cosmos chooses to represent those purely quantitative characteristics with such distinct and aesthetic qualities. Why is 79 precious gold and 82 pedestrian lead? What's so special about 79?

I think the answer is because we share a history with every atom in the cosmos, and all atoms speak the same electromagnetic language to express internal electromagnetic conditions.

There also may be an anthropomorphic fallacy in the mix here.  Carbon doesn't have a 'perception' - in fact, it has far less perception than even the simplest virus, though both respond at a chemical level to the reality around them.

Absolutely. I don't want to give the impression that I think carbon has Nitrogen dreams and Boron nightmares or something, I'm just saying that these suckers cooperate to make molecules (which are involved in phenomena one order of magnitude more complex, with the attendant complexity of 'memorized' responses and reactions), which cooperate to make organic molecules, cells, tissues, organs, organisms, brains, etc.

Until one can define 'consciousness' and show how it applies to atoms, you're going to have difficulty.

At the atomic level, I guess I could go with just 'the capacity to detect and express its own resonant qualities' - which would be qualities appropriate to an object of that scale and morphological simplicity.

After all, all evidence points (right now) to the notion that Consciousness is not at all separate from the brain, and is in fact a function of the brain itself.  

That's what I'm saying. Consciousness is the activity of a living brain. The intercommunication of billions of specialized cells which specifically facilitate electrochemical resonance management for the organism.

Your uniqueness has to do with your cranial wiring, and your curiosity about yourself is a function of evolution.

I agree.

Until 'brain' and 'consciousness' can be divorced, there will be trouble with saying an electron has some kind of 'awareness', even one as dim as presented.  

I think it's precisely because human consciousness can't be divorced from the electronic activity of the human brain that we have to look to the brain's electronic basis as the underpinnings for sentience. We are the evidence.

Define 'interior' and 'exterior' phenomenon?  If interior phenomenon relate to consciousness - like, for instance, a sense of 'oneness', then that's quite biochemical in nature, and oddly well understood (even if the root reasons and causes are not quite yet in the bag).  You are, after all, a chemical slave to your brain - a misfiring neuron will have you seeing people that aren't there.  Is that an internal or external phenomenon?

The external phenomenon is the misfiring neuron, it's internal, subjective correlate is the hallucination.

you wish people to be able to surrender their internal disbelief in the face of incontrovertable evidence to the contrary.  

Not surrender, but doubt the incontrovertibly of evidence from time to time, as a thought experiment. Run scenarios you know to be impossible, just to try to see it from the other perspective. Not in the middle of surgery or something, but certainly when pondering the imponderable.

I like that.  People should do that.  Creationism would get the heck out of schools then.
But I have a feeling we're not on the same page there.

I agree. Religious dogma is far more dangerous than pseudoskeptical cynicism. Corporate economism is, I think, another form of the same thing, and it is arguably just as oppressive to the world's population as religions are.

[MockTurtle]

The idea that results are what matters is what appeals to you. I see that as only one half of the story. Results are very important. So is meaning. That's what appeals to me.

On what basis do you assume there is a meaning?  (Evidence please, not more wild speculation.)

What if having only objective and repeatable standards destroys important information about the nature of subjectivity and creativity. Not everything in the cosmos is repeatable on command.

Any crank can make up "what ifs" all day.  Show me evidence that suggests this is the case.  (In QM unusual features
like the uncertainty principle are clearly predicted by the math and apparent in observations, why should your fantasy
get a moments consideration without similar evidence?)

It predicts life, subjectivity, order, purpose, and consciousness.

That isn't prediction.  That is seeing things in the world and making up a fantasy that explains them.  To
be a prediction, you need to tell us something new we don't already know.  To be a useful prediction,
you need to assert something new that we can put to the test.

[Dragnet]

Yeah, especially on this layer of reality. Matter made of atoms are the main action.

I thought matter is what made atoms. (particle physics would suggest you might have your equation reversed)

[penkie]

Those are two separate issues. Consciousness can't be substantiated or refuted either, and that's what I'm talking about. Subjectivity as part of the Cosmos at a fundamental level.

It is a meaningless theory, with no real world consequences. It's like saying that gravity works as it works, except for it is unverifiably assisted by an unmeasurable amount of Santa Claus at the basis of reality. Your theory is just as meaningless.

If the only flaw in my argument and reasoning is that they can't be confirmed or denied, then it may not be a flaw at all - just an accurate description of those phenomena, like consciousness, which cannot be objectively modeled.

It is a fundamental flaw as it makes your statements completely void of any meaning. Your 'theory' is not a theory at all in any scientific terms, but rather a description of your fantasy of how reality works.
As for consciousness, there might not be complete perfect models consciousness, yet, but consciousness and aspects of consciousness can be measured and tested, which is the field of cognitive psychology and cognitive neuroscience. That's were it differs from your theory.

Find me a real flaw - a real world observation inconsistent with my idea, and I'm more than happy to drop the whole thing.

We just agreed that your idea doesn't predict nor describe anything in the real world that is measurable. That is the real flaw.

Believe me, it does me no particular service to have some big idea that everyone who isn't bored by hates me for and with which I can't do anything with. I just happen to think that there's a chance it could be somewhat true.

 I don't think anyone will hate you because of your ideas. I think most of them will just ignore your, because it is useless to them to discuss useless ideas.

How is it ill-defined? I'm saying that light doesn't travel through space, it's a phenomena of matter communicating with itself. Matter has internal energy states which it can detect in matter regardless of separation by a vacuum. Light is a quality of matter and location not a projectile of any form.

This is the first time I hear you say this (part of your?) theory. The problem with it is that it doesn't hold up with observation. We can actually measure the distance light travels. Using a flashlight you can detect from a distance the light it emits. This means that light travels by our definition of travel, i.e. it moves from point A to point B.
As for you theory of matter communicating. If you look at relativity theory, it says that both light and matter are manifestations of energy and they are all equivalent. Quantum Mechanics gave rise to a standard model, which even gave a predictive model how all types of matter, including photons and 'regular' particles are naturally ordered by its characteristics. This model has been verified by all kinds of particle accelerator experiments as well as cosmic experiments. Thousands of top scientist worked on it, including many noble price winners.

So what predictions does your idea make that we could verify? And could you please indicate what gave you the idea that these thousands of scientists were flat wrong, even though every experiment agrees with them, and why your thought-experiment without any scientific nor measurement backup would be, or even could be, right?

[penkie]

I would start from ourselves and move out. We are bodies and we have knowledge of ourselves. Our bodies are made of cells which seem to act, like us, in a cooperative and synchronized manner. Cells are made of molecules which seem to act to facilitate the operation, healing, and regulation of living cells. Molecules seem to be nothing more than configurations of atoms.

This reminds of a well known Dutch crank called Harrie Weggelaar. He follows the same reasoning. Atoms have complex behavior, just like us. Therefore.... they must be made of spaceships. Oh, and he is the new Jesus too. Read all about it. And he proved it too.

Even though this guy takes his ideas to much more extreme heights than you do, his reasoning mistakes are similar. He also believes his own theory as it is totally intuitive to him. I hope it makes you see that your own intuition is not important when defining a theory. It's fine to use it as a creative source, but eventually you need to come up with predictions, supporting evidence and explanation of measurements. Without it, you only are stuck in your own intellectual black hole.

[Str82Hell]

If this is the conventional view of light,

(red arrows indicate the prospective launching of individual photons through space)

my view is something like this:

(N0ton meaning no photon. The double arrows represent mutual 'awareness' and communication between the source, the target, and the targets among each other.

This is how light actually works. First of all, light doesn't have any mass and it is neither a particle nor a wave until observed. In the double slit experiment, it will behave as a wave, but when a single photon is targeted on a screen on the other side of one of both slits, it will always go through that slit and reach the screen where targeted. This doesn't mean that photons have inner awareness.

[Str82Hell]

Harrie is my hero:)

[Str82Hell]

It predicts life, subjectivity, order, purpose, and consciousness. Since we can't escape any of these things to test them, it makes it different from other categories of phenomena. It seems to me that in a QM universe filled with every imaginable virtual particle and interfering wave-ray propagation, consciousness would be more likely to evolve in the vacuum of space rather than in a physical organism. My idea places consciousness in matter - as a function of matter. Seems better.

It does not predict life, subjective subjectivity, order, subjective purpose and consciousness better than what our current set of theories does, it is already perfectly explained. Absolute subjectivity or purpose does not exist.

Your theory raises one very big question; if matter would be selfconscious and nano cooperation would be possible, what would be the point? Why would it cooperate? Why does it care that complex life arises? Etc.

[Immediacracy]

I thought matter is what made atoms. (particle physics would suggest you might have your equation reversed)

I could sort of agree with that. I was using 'matter' in the sense of it being a category of phenomena. There's no form of matter which isn't associated with particles - no freefloating matterness that gives rise to atoms as far as I know but if you want to say that in the early universe, there was mass but no atoms, then okay, that makes sense to me.

[Immediacracy]

On what basis do you assume there is a meaning?  (Evidence please, not more wild speculation.)

On the basis of the existence of meaning. We are having a conversation, are we not? It's different than noise...there is coherence. How does this coherence get from your brain to mine if not through electromagnetism?

Any crank can make up "what ifs" all day.  Show me evidence that suggests this is the case.  (In QM unusual features like the uncertainty principle are clearly predicted by the math and apparent in observations, why should your fantasy get a moments consideration without similar evidence?)

Every meaningful idea is a "what if" first. That's how imagination works. Hypothesis = what if. Didn't QM evolve in response to the observation of uncertainty rather than predating and predicting it? I don't care whether anyone gives my ideas a moments consideration. That's up to them. I'm talking to several people at length about this btw, and none of them have any problem with it. The focus on evidence exclusively is a function of a particular worldview, not an absolute truth.

That isn't prediction.  That is seeing things in the world and making up a fantasy that explains them.  To
be a prediction, you need to tell us something new we don't already know.  To be a useful prediction,
you need to assert something new that we can put to the test.

It's not a useful prediction, it's a meaningful prediction. QM handles the useful side of it - the exterior, QC explains the primary branching of the Cosmos into subjective and objective sides. As such, I can assert that subjective qualities about light carry through to our language about it: Enlightenment. Illumination. Brilliance. Bright. Clarity. Transparency. Note that clarity is a quality of both unobstructed communication lines and coherence of understanding.

Light isn't a neutral quality for us, it's intuitively and routinely identified as the source of intelligence in our language. Are these synonyms meaningless coincidence? Are we forever in the...dark?

[penkie]

Didn't QM evolve in response to the observation of uncertainty rather than predating and predicting it?

Yes, it started with observation. Then it provided an explanation and made predictions, everything fully checked with additional experiments.

Your ideas fail in both aspects. Your ideas are not based on new unexplained observations, nor do they make testable predictions.

[Graybeard]

Light isn't a neutral quality for us, it's intuitively and routinely identified as the source of intelligence in our language. Are these synonyms meaningless coincidence?

Yes.

[Azdgari]

^^ It's not entirely a coincidence.  The word "light" is used in that way because of the usefulness of light in helping us to see in the dark.  Light allows us to gain information through our eyes.  Hence "to shed light on the topic" -> "to reveal what was previously hidden about the topic".

I too fail to see the relevance to the current subject matter, though.

[Immediacracy]

It is a meaningless theory, with no real world consequences.

Just like personal opinions about theories.

It's like saying that gravity works as it works, except for it is unverifiably assisted by an unmeasurable amount of Santa Claus at the basis of reality. Your theory is just as meaningless.

Your opinion of my theory is just as meaningless to me as my theory is to you (or it would be if it didn't exactly fit my model of OMM psychological bias - I plan on using the repetitive, robotic objections I'm getting in whatever published form this may ultimately take. I won't name names, but I think it will be helpful to people to see the commonality of expressions of intolerance, cynicism, and absolutism).

It is a fundamental flaw as it makes your statements completely void of any meaning.

There is no such thing as a statement completely void of any meaning. Even a non-sequitur indicates linguistic communication and the lack thereof. My statements would have to be the most amazing artifacts every produced to accomplish the feat of evacuating themselves all all information. Your exaggeration betrays reckless sentimentality and intent to dominate and control as well as insecurity about your position. In every accusation you make, I see only your own insecurity...otherwise, why continue? You know that I will never give up my position - why argue with a crazy person?

As for consciousness, there might not be complete perfect models consciousness, yet, but consciousness and aspects of consciousness can be measured and tested, which is the field of cognitive psychology and cognitive neuroscience. That's were it differs from your theory.

I've explained my thoughts on this to you in the past. What can be measured and tested is not consciousness, it's the effects of consciousness. Awareness is, as Roger Penrose says, beyond all computation.

We just agreed that your idea doesn't predict nor describe anything in the real world that is measurable. That is the real flaw.

It does describe things in the real world, among them, the possibility for order, life, and consciousness. Getting tired of repeating this.

I don't think anyone will hate you because of your ideas. I think most of them will just ignore your, because it is useless to them to discuss useless ideas.

How does your theory apply to your behavior? Are you ignoring me because it is useless to you to discuss useless ideas? Sounds like, um, falsehoods and hyprocrisy to me.

This is the first time I hear you say this (part of your?) theory. The problem with it is that it doesn't hold up with observation. We can actually measure the distance light travels. Using a flashlight you can detect from a distance the light it emits. This means that light travels by our definition of travel, i.e. it moves from point A to point B.

It doesn't mean that at all. If you see a friend on the street and you recognize each other simultaneously and both spontaneously smile - is there a smile traveling through space between you? Is there a wave of recognition? I'm saying that light doesn't travel - it's a simultaneous, instantaneous, shared communication among material objects. Not that this communication doesn't take time to be accomplished over large distances but that's not necessarily due to the inertia of having to be physically transported - that could be proportionally related to increasingly low probability of a signal handshake, or else a proportional seek time to source a common memory closer to the Big Bang, or a combination, or something else. It's an information process of object locations communicating, not a physical process of transportation. That's the idea anyhow.

As for you theory of matter communicating. If you look at relativity theory, it says that both light and matter are manifestations of energy and they are all equivalent. Quantum Mechanics gave rise to a standard model, which even gave a predictive model how all types of matter, including photons and 'regular' particles are naturally ordered by its characteristics. This model has been verified by all kinds of particle accelerator experiments as well as cosmic experiments. Thousands of top scientist worked on it, including many noble price winners.

I think the Standard Model may prove to be analogous to the Ptolemaic Epicycle. It takes a lot of brilliant, dedicated minds to create a theory which works strictly on the evidence you have.

So what predictions does your idea make that we could verify? And could you please indicate what gave you the idea that these thousands of scientists were flat wrong, even though every experiment agrees with them, and why your thought-experiment without any scientific nor measurement backup would be, or even could be, right?

They're not flat wrong at all. They're just not 100% right. They got the math so that it predicts exterior behaviors, I'm just saying what they're measuring may be going on in the material of their instruments rather than an effect outside of them.

As for what some of my predictions are, as I mentioned, the common language we use to describe light characterizes our subjective experience of it in agreement with my idea of consciousness being rooted in electromagnetism. Enlightenment. Illumination. Brilliance. Bright. Clarity. Transparency.

[Immediacracy]

^^ It's not entirely a coincidence.  The word "light" is used in that way because of the usefulness of light in helping us to see in the dark.  Light allows us to gain information through our eyes.  Hence "to shed light on the topic" -> "to reveal what was previously hidden about the topic".

I too fail to see the relevance to the current subject matter, though.

Well, our sense of smell reveals what was previously hidden too. We don't say that great thinkers or ideas 'smell great'.

That anyone can say that the metaphorical connection of light to consciousness, intelligence, and knowledge is a coincidence with a straight face is staggering to me. I can only explain it by remembering that the when you are at the far OMM extreme of the continuum, the psychology gives no creedence to truth, only 'fact'.

[MockTurtle]

On the basis of the existence of meaning.

Don't be dense.  The original comment wasn't about information exchange.

Every meaningful idea is a "what if" first.

But usually it's in response to a real problem, not a fantasy in search of a problem it solves.

Didn't QM evolve in response to the observation of uncertainty rather than predating and predicting it?

No.

I'm talking to several people at length about this btw, and none of them have any problem with it.

Who cares? Lots of people believe stupid things.

It's not a useful prediction, it's a meaningful prediction.

So it's useless and not scientific--glad you cleared that up.

[penkie]

I've explained my thoughts on this to you in the past. What can be measured and tested is not consciousness, it's the effects of consciousness. Awareness is, as Roger Penrose says, beyond all computation.

Playing the mystery card.

I think the Standard Model may prove to be analogous to the Ptolemaic Epicycle. It takes a lot of brilliant, dedicated minds to create a theory which works strictly on the evidence you have.

You forgot its predictive part, which Ptolomaic Epicycle didn't have. Nor did it correctly describe the observations.

You know that I will never give up my position - why argue with a crazy person?

Good point. I will stop now.

[Immediacracy]

Don't be dense.  The original comment wasn't about information exchange.

What else is meaning about? What is your original comment referring to specifically as meaning?

But usually it's in response to a real problem, not a fantasy in search of a problem it solves.

It is in response to a real problem. The failures of QM to support a coherent cosmology with the possibility of order, life, and consciousness. The Uncertainty Principle and Observer Effect are real problems. Huge.

Didn't QM evolve in response to the observation of uncertainty rather than predating and predicting it?

No.

Then please explain how QM evolved before it.

Who cares? Lots of people believe stupid things.

Except you, apparently.

So it's useless and not scientific--glad you cleared that up.

Do you deem life and human consciousness useless and not scientific?