Biocentrism - A Theory

[_cwald]

I don't think it should have been moved.

[_MeDotOrg]

[snip]Modern science cannot explain why the laws of physics are exactly balanced for animal life to exist. For example, if the big bang had been one-part-in-a billion more powerful, it would have rushed out too fast for the galaxies to form and for life to begin. If the strong nuclear force were decreased by two percent, atomic nuclei wouldn’t hold together. Hydrogen would be the only atom in the universe. If the gravitational force were decreased, stars (including the sun) would not ignite. These are just three of more than 200 physical parameters within the solar system and universe so exact that they cannot be random. Indeed, the lack of a scientific explanation has allowed these facts to be hijacked as a defense of intelligent design.

I love how people always say 'Modern Science', as distinct from 'Old Science'.

Does this not presuppose that the size of the big bang was a totally arbitrary event?. One can say that the speed of the big bang is a part of the fabric of the Universe, just like the speed of massless particles, space and time. In any event, the fabric of this particular universe, at least.

How do we know that this has been the only big bang, or the only universe?

Without perception, there is in effect no reality.

Without consciousness, there is no perception. In a Universe constrained by space and time, someone has to play the 'other' in order to see anything as something outside of themself. Without consciousness, does the Universe exist?

[_Gadianton]

I don't think it should have been moved.

I agree especially considering SPG is a Mormon and Biocentricism is what's driving his interpretation of Mormonism. By this standard we shouldn't be allowed to talk about the limited geography theory in the main forum either since that has nothing to do with Mormonism.

[_honorentheos]

[snip]Modern science cannot explain why the laws of physics are exactly balanced for animal life to exist. For example, if the big bang had been one-part-in-a billion more powerful, it would have rushed out too fast for the galaxies to form and for life to begin. If the strong nuclear force were decreased by two percent, atomic nuclei wouldn’t hold together. Hydrogen would be the only atom in the universe. If the gravitational force were decreased, stars (including the sun) would not ignite. These are just three of more than 200 physical parameters within the solar system and universe so exact that they cannot be random. Indeed, the lack of a scientific explanation has allowed these facts to be hijacked as a defense of intelligent design.

I love how people always say 'Modern Science', as distinct from 'Old Science'.

Does this not presuppose that the size of the big bang was a totally arbitrary event?. One can say that the speed of the big bang is a part of the fabric of the Universe, just like the speed of massless particles, space and time. In any event, the fabric of this particular universe, at least.

How do we know that this has been the only big bang, or the only universe?

Without perception, there is in effect no reality.

Without consciousness, there is no perception. In a Universe constrained by space and time, someone has to play the 'other' in order to see anything as something outside of themself. Without consciousness, does the Universe exist?

The article that debunks the biocentrists spells out the weak anthropologic principle that we are here observing the universe BECAUSE it has the traits it has. To argue that any other arrangement of events would have resulted in a universe without life is a bit like saying that a couple of tweaks in world events far enough back would result in most of us not being alive today...because the many interactions required to put the right people together in the right combinations to make the same offspring that produce the same people right here, right now wouldn't happen in that sequence of events.

It's a dumb point that sounds dramatic because people are infatuated with wanting a universe that cares.

[_Res Ipsa]

On the topic of Schrödinger, cat: it was intended to demonstrate the absurdity of the Copenhagen interpretation of QM. He wasn’t arguing that the cat was really both dead and alive — he was arguing that the Copenhagen interpretation led to absurd results. And it had nothing to do with the cat being an observer: it is about the detector performing a measurement.

Anyone who really believes that it is observation by a conscious entity that counts should be willing to perform the following experiment: change the apparatus to trigger a bomb when the particle is emitted. Put the apparatus into a sealed container. Sit on the container until the probability of the bomb going off is 99.9%. After all, the bomb can’t explode until someone oberves it.

[Guest]

I also believe that it is a detector that collapses the wave function, not conscious observation. But at the same time I know that this belief of mine does not really make sense. Detectors are big lumps of particles and forces, just like the things that they are supposed to detect. Quantum mechanics should govern detectors and detectees alike.

Suppose a particle can appear in one of two places A and B, and we set a detector to wave a red flag if it is at position A but a blue flag if the particle is at position B. According to quantum mechanics the particle could be in a "superposition" of being at both A and B, at once. So what happens after the detector detects where the particle is?

The Copenhagen answer is that either there is a red flag, and the particle is definitely at A, or else there is a blue flag, and the particle is definitely at B. If we repeat the experiment many times, with the particle in exactly the same superposition state each time, then some of the times we'll see red flags, and some of the times we'll see blue flags. So determinism is broken and we see different outcomes randomly from identical initial conditions.

The answer to what happens in the experiment is different if we assume that quantum mechanics also applies to the detector. In this case the state after the detection will still be a superposition, just bigger: the particle and the detector are now both in a superposition, of the two joint states (at A, red flag) and (at B, blue flag). Determinism still rules. If we repeat the experiment many times with the same initial superposition state of the particle, we'll end up in the same superposition state of the particle-and-detector, every time. A very logical conclusion.

Only what the heck does a superposition of red and blue flags look like? I'd like to see that. But see, I am also just a bunch of atoms and forces. If I look at the flag, we just end up in a bigger superposition state (A, red flag, huh the flag is just red I'm disappointed) and (B, blue flag, huh the flag is just blue I'm disappointed). I'll never get to see a superposition of red and blue flags. But now apparently I'm in a superposition myself. What does that feel like? Well: disappointing.

Perhaps that now that makes it seem as though we don't need Copenhagen at all. Measurement is nothing special, no wave functions collapse, nothing to see here move along. God doesn't roll dice. All the alternatives happen—insofar as anything ever actually happens. When I was a young post-doc there was a sort of fad for this point of view among theoreticians.

It's not really enough. If all you want is theoretical consistency then you can go on putting bigger and bigger chunks of the universe into superpositions, refusing ever to choose between alternative outcomes, and just saying "(A,...) and (B, ....) and (C, ...) ...." for everything. But at some point an experimentalist will come up to you and say, "Hey, I'm going to measure this particle's position with a flag-waving detector. What will I see?"

If you say, "You'll see the same superposition each time," then you will be empirically wrong. The experimentalist will see red flags sometimes, and blue flags other times. So unless you want to have your theory falsified, you will have to bring yourself to say that, and turn some of your "ands" into "ors". You can then ramble on for as long as you like about why the "ors" are not really ors, but ands, because no collapse happens and everything stays in a big superposition. While you're reasserting your theoretical orthodoxy the experimentalist will have left, to go and look at red and blue flags in the lab—and confirm the empirical validity of the ors that you let slip, under pressure, as the real meaning of all your big superpositions.

So in reality we are still left with Copenhagen. Whether the appearance of definite but random outcomes is an illusion of some kind, or not, it is what seems to happen. Whether or not everything stays in a big superposition, the fact that measurements always seem to produce definite but random outcomes is a major phenomenon that we need to explain—or at least recognize even if we can't yet explain it. If you don't like the wording of the Copenhagen measurement postulate, then feel free to rephrase it. Its logical content will have to remain, or you'll be empirically wrong.

So what do physicists really make of this weirdness? Most of the time we take the advice of J.S. Bell and simply "shut up and calculate". Copenhagen works in practice. We don't often try to think about why. It's hard to say what is so fundamentally different, as a matter of principle, between the things we detect and the things that we use to detect them. But in practice, with current technology, the differences between detectors and detected things are simply obvious.

We only need fancy detectors to detect super-tiny things. The detectors themselves are in comparison huge. The super-tiny things are well isolated from almost everything else; the detectors in contrast use processes that are thermodynamically irreversible. There's never any confusion in practice about which parts of the total system need to be described quantum mechanically. So if you just shut up and calculate, or shut up and measure, you never hit a wall where you have to rethink everything. You can just go on fine.

To me the obvious bet is that quantum mechanics is somehow incomplete, and really only applies in its current form to tiny and well-isolated things. With big things and irreversible processes, the rules really are different somehow. Exactly how this can work, I don't know. But this is not a locked-room mystery where you have to start taking supernatural explanations seriously. Quantum detectors are enormously complicated devices. We understand how they work, but only on a crude, large-scale level. We don't understand them at the microscopic level at which we try to understand the things they detect for us.

There's lots of room, in all that complicated stuff we don't know, for some new unified theory to emerge. It's conceivable that this future unified theory of quantum measurement will have something to say about consciousness, because consciousness is also something weird that happens in complicated systems. I'll be very surprised if there's any other connection than that, though.

[_Chap]

So what do physicists really make of this weirdness? Most of the time we take the advice of J.S. Bell and simply "shut up and calculate". Copenhagen works in practice.

Yup.

And in my view this is the Tl;DR bit, with the emphasis on the last sentence:

There's lots of room, in all that complicated stuff we don't know, for some new unified theory to emerge. It's conceivable that this future unified theory of quantum measurement will have something to say about consciousness, because consciousness is also something weird that happens in complicated systems. I'll be very surprised if there's any other connection than that, though.

[_Physics Guy]

And in my view this is the Tl;DR bit, with the emphasis on the last sentence:

There's lots of room, in all that complicated stuff we don't know, for some new unified theory to emerge. It's conceivable that this future unified theory of quantum measurement will have something to say about consciousness, because consciousness is also something weird that happens in complicated systems. I'll be very surprised if there's any other connection than that, though.

Yes, that was my intended take-home message.

[_mikwut]

Res Ipsa, you said to SPG,

The measurement results in the same kind of particle every time. Extrapolating this to a conclusion that conscious creates reality is pure, unadulterated ____.

I believe a defender of ontological idealism (of which biocentrism seems to be a subset of) would be that consciousness IS reality, fundamental basic reality of which all other reality comes from.

Honor, you said to SPG,

Not that it matters, but for SPG, that is the orthodox argument for biocentrists defending the question about observers. Not as sexy as mystic Watchers or a Council of Gods or whathaveyou. It's probably because they come at it from more of an Eastern perspective. Either way, it's non-scientific by definition. If it isn't, what hypothesis with experiment and standard for falsification would you propose to demonstrate it should be considered scientific?

We are talking about the most basic and fundamental nature of all reality, right? No one is scientific here, it is philosophical. There are experiments that have manifold interpretation and can seemingly support several ontologies. Has dual aspect physicalism somehow been empirically verified and not yet falsified? Can I be referred to the new Nature article on that? The problem here is that seemingly all of our ontologies that we can imagine, i.e. idealistic, physicalistic or dualistic are replete with difficulties even seemingly ride a thin line of falsification.

The problem with the article you presented against idealism generally is when attempting to falsify idealism there is some form of physicalism that usually lurks behind the curtains kind of unsaid. (Gadianton's insistence, and Physic's guy's leanings toward the device collapsing the wave function and not a conscious observer are examples of this, (I have no dog in that fight)). The falsification is just an illusion of a priori accepting the form of physicalism. This is a problem because we know physicalism is an abstraction, i.e. the world out there is not what we perceive the world out there to be. The question is how deep of an abstraction is the physical world. But, idealism takes the lead here, right out of the gates, because we know consciousness is the most real experience we have. It is the most brute of facts. Like Sam Harris likes to say, ”consciousness is the one thing in the universe that can’t be an illusion.” We infer matter from mind, but mind itself or the experience of it to us is just a basic given. So matter and mind are not epistemologically speaking, symmetric, mind has the greater initial epistemic thrust. It is observation, not an inference from observation. From the fundamental and primary nature of our experience of matter and our experience of mind the former is an inference, the latter an observable brute fact.

I recently (for the past 8 months or so) have experimented with a host of psychedelics. I was inspired by one of our greatest modern day philosophers, Joe Rogan, and Dr. Rick Strassman's The Spirit Molecule. I had two exceptional experiences with DMT where no mystical philosophy or gloss need even be begun before the basic philosophical notion of how powerful our minds are at creating a entire reality. In my experiences with DMT I had tactile and sensory experience in an environment completely outside of where my body was physically at. If mind can do that, why is the out there world of matter an exception? That question is at least justified and warranted epistemologically.

I am not a physicalist (I am starting to actually wonder what that even means anymore sometimes), idealist, or dualist, or any of the many subsets in a committed way. I currently am agnostic with idealist leanings regarding the fundamental nature of reality. I stick to my mantra:

physicalism is possible, but faces serious difficulties and is but unproved;
idealism is possible, but faces serious difficulties and is but unproved;
dualism is possible, but faces serious difficulties and is but unproved;

Therefore we should not cognitively commit belief resources to any of the three as they aren't necessary for methodological naturalism and science anyway. I.e. how would we know the differences in creating an A.I. of emergent mind properties or filtered fundamental mind properties - they would look exactly the same to us. The fundamental ontologies are currently incorrigibly unknown.

my two cents, mikwut

[_Res Ipsa]

Res Ipsa, you said to SPG,

The measurement results in the same kind of particle every time. Extrapolating this to a conclusion that conscious creates reality is pure, unadulterated ____.

I believe a defender of ontological idealism (of which biocentrism seems to be a subset of) would be that consciousness IS reality, fundamental basic reality of which all other reality comes from.

Hi Mikwut, nice to hear from you. I think you're right about ontological idealism. I'm not sure whether SPG fits in that bucket.

ETA:

If mind can do that, why is the out there world of matter an exception? That question is at least justified and warranted epistemologically.

I'm not sure that the fact that the mind can give you the experience you had with DMT implies that "the real world" is some kind of exception that has to be justified. The persistence of the real world as opposed to a DMT trip indicates to me that justifiable to see the two cases as different. Likewise, shared experience of billions of folks in the "real world" as opposed to DMT excursions seems to me to be a fair means of inferring a difference.