Any Physicists Here?

[NeoSound]

There are only 3 things:
1- particles (possibly all are the same substance), in which size determines their behavior and characteristics in an energy field.
2- the energy source (singular or possibly multiple sources) with complex (or not) flow rates, fluctuations and possibly self interaction.
3- the flow of energy through the particles, which sets up vibration and complex interaction of vibrational fields between particles and the energy source(s).

There is nothing else. Separation, unification, decay etc... are only the flow of energy through particles that we can observe and label as many different things but all it is, is the flow of energy through particles.

The big question is, what powers all of this? Since we see structure and stability, at least for the brief time our consciousness exists in this flow of particle-energy soup. Could it be intelligently directed?

Or is it an incomprehensible set of random interactions that somehow set this amazing orchestra of energy/particle interaction in motion?

If particles have a measurable field of waves (which seems so) by number/density and distance, math could be used to explain and predict interactions (which seems to work)

All particles in the universe are connected by the common energy source(s) that drives them, which could possibly explain some of the stranger things witnessed such as an observer altering an outcome, quantum entanglement etc...

 

[yyz67]

I would say the "principle of dissolution" could be grouped in with differentiation/separation, as they are both types of 3D matter breakdown / the breakdown of current unified forms into separate elements or a form of energy.

Yes, true. Differentiation and dissolution overlap and yet are somewhat different in the sense I'm employing. I take differentiation as a kind of splitting and/or replicating but not as far as decomposition. For example, "splitting off at a similar level" happens as in radioactive decay, bifurcations in chaos, divergence of species into different ones, branches of specialized knowledge, denominations of Christianity, the evolution of a planetary system around a Sun, a child becoming an adult. And splitting off also happens as replication as in the case of cell mitosis or mammalian birth.

I tend to see dissolution as a separate process which is is less "directed" towards formation but nonetheless part of reality. Digestion is a kind of decomposition needed for homeostatic integration, as is programmed cell death.

There is no turnaround. It’s just that sometimes one of them outstrips the other. And decay from one perspective can be growth from another perspective.

Agree. And cycles of this on various size/time scales. Our sun is likely a 3rd generation child and likely has components from 1000's to millions of previous stars (due to interstellar winds and mixing). Similarly our bodies have components of trillions of previously existing organisms as well as energy from light continually pumped from the sun. Round and round...

On the other hand, I think it's time to enjoy a frosty beverage, extend my sphere of control over my PRS Custom 22, and let muscle memory drive for a bit, while I zone out. Happy new year!

Yes. My sphere of control is of similar dimensions. Happy NY dudes!

 

[yyz67]

There are only 3 things:
1- particles (possibly all are the same substance), in which size determines their behavior and characteristics in an energy field.
2- the energy source (singular or possibly multiple sources) with complex (or not) flow rates, fluctuations and possibly self interaction.
3- the flow of energy through the particles, which sets up vibration and complex interaction of vibrational fields between particles and the energy source(s).

There is nothing else. Separation, unification, decay etc... are only the flow of energy through particles that we can observe and label as many different things but all it is, is the flow of energy through particles.

Yes the labels I'm using are crude and looking at stability <-> novelty <-> instabilty.

Of course there are no "particles" from a quantum field theory perspective, but excitations that are both local and non-local. "Energy" as well is a label.

But I like your three-component flow picture... but also a crude reduction/generalization any time we partition reality into simple things.

 

[jesussaddle]

Here's my 'lay person #456' explanation -

Always remember that the 'probability wave' is nothing more than a distribution of probabilities for the location that a particle may be found upon an observation - specifically, upon an experiment used to determine where the particle ended up - for example, upon seeing a disturbance on a screen in a 'spot' - a cluster of atoms where the particle found a new home (or temporary lodging before being ejected and heading out again). The probability wave is not in itself a 'thing', that plays a role in the trajectory... just a calculation of odds for various outcome upon measurement - likelihood of receiving a hit here, or there, or over there.

What is amazing, is the accuracy of the odds that are calculated - how accurate the distribution of outcomes matches the predicted distribution of outcomes after many, many 'rolls of the dice'. Any one 'roll of the dice' can end up anywhere in the universe, because the odds are close to, but not quite zero that, the electron from out of an electron gun at MIT may decide to take up residence around a proton on Alpha Centauri , while at the same time the very same 'probability wave' suggests it will likely end up mingling with an atom in the wall with slits, or the screen directly behind it 93.34587% of the time.

So is there a 'guide' wave - is it even implied by the theory, or is it strictly a map of probable outcomes? And do free electrons even exist (as particles), or are their 'footprints' - those little spots on the screen - are these the only thing of substance and locality?

Popular authors who write about the incompatibility of quantum science and classic physics often overlook the fact that Quantum Mechanics is all about probabilities and probability distributions, not about predictions of specific outcomes from initial conditions the way classical physics works - i think that's when they imagine a 'guiding wave' for predictive motion. This may in fact be true, but i don't think it is specifically indicated from the science. In fact, since we just never 'see' a free election or other particle, only the aftermath of it's localizing at the screen or other detecting device, we can ask - 'Do free electrons even exist as particles?'. We know they end up disturbing single atoms at a tiny scale, and this energy cascades to surrounding atoms and molecules and then we see a 'spot' on a screen - but we know little to nothing about that electron or photon, only the 'spot' on the screen that it once disturbed during its journey.

Like photons - do they exist - or is light a continuous field that we can only detect through the absorption of a portion of the field by a 'particle' or 'particles'?, and so we say that light 'comes' in packets because it has only ever been detected by 'containers' (matter particles), or packets of material. and since light can only be measured by packets of matter (like the matter packets in a display screen), they can only ever register in 'packets' - and since that can probably never change, and we will never have another way to measure light, is it safe to simply say 'therefor light can be justifiably declared AS 'particles' in a material world of atoms?

"Do free electrons even exist as particles". I had a friend who wrote a 50-page or so book about this idea - I have a copy somewhere. It wasn't published but it probably should have been so that educated people could react and express what the problems are with the idea. It made a lot of sense to me - but I know next to nothing. He wasn't a physicist but he was a musician and engineer. He believed that the "electron" was a field-like phenomena, with the orbital ring and its "electron" aspects being mathematically resonant so that material properties could be mathematically adjusted. The "electrons" were just standing waves in the orbital position. Interestingly, the film of an electron doesn't look like a thing, but a field. As the comment says, "because its so fast..."

 

[jesussaddle]

Here's my 'lay person #456' explanation -

Always remember that the 'probability wave' is nothing more than a distribution of probabilities for the location that a particle may be found upon an observation - specifically, upon an experiment used to determine where the particle ended up - for example, upon seeing a disturbance on a screen in a 'spot' - a cluster of atoms where the particle found a new home (or temporary lodging before being ejected and heading out again). The probability wave is not in itself a 'thing', that plays a role in the trajectory... just a calculation of odds for various outcome upon measurement - likelihood of receiving a hit here, or there, or over there.

What is amazing, is the accuracy of the odds that are calculated - how accurate the distribution of outcomes matches the predicted distribution of outcomes after many, many 'rolls of the dice'. Any one 'roll of the dice' can end up anywhere in the universe, because the odds are close to, but not quite zero that, the electron from out of an electron gun at MIT may decide to take up residence around a proton on Alpha Centauri , while at the same time the very same 'probability wave' suggests it will likely end up mingling with an atom in the wall with slits, or the screen directly behind it 93.34587% of the time.

So is there a 'guide' wave - is it even implied by the theory, or is it strictly a map of probable outcomes? And do free electrons even exist (as particles), or are their 'footprints' - those little spots on the screen - are these the only thing of substance and locality?

Popular authors who write about the incompatibility of quantum science and classic physics often overlook the fact that Quantum Mechanics is all about probabilities and probability distributions, not about predictions of specific outcomes from initial conditions the way classical physics works - i think that's when they imagine a 'guiding wave' for predictive motion. This may in fact be true, but i don't think it is specifically indicated from the science. In fact, since we just never 'see' a free election or other particle, only the aftermath of it's localizing at the screen or other detecting device, we can ask - 'Do free electrons even exist as particles?'. We know they end up disturbing single atoms at a tiny scale, and this energy cascades to surrounding atoms and molecules and then we see a 'spot' on a screen - but we know little to nothing about that electron or photon, only the 'spot' on the screen that it once disturbed during its journey.

Like photons - do they exist - or is light a continuous field that we can only detect through the absorption of a portion of the field by a 'particle' or 'particles'?, and so we say that light 'comes' in packets because it has only ever been detected by 'containers' (matter particles), or packets of material. and since light can only be measured by packets of matter (like the matter packets in a display screen), they can only ever register in 'packets' - and since that can probably never change, and we will never have another way to measure light, is it safe to simply say 'therefor light can be justifiably declared AS 'particles' in a material world of atoms?

In the comment section it is clear that we lay people don't know how to look at this...

 

[celongcor]

One thing that may be important in this conversation to remember, if I may humbly suggest, is that the double-slit experiment never showed the wave-like interference that implied wave/particle duality for a given particle. It was only after the experiment was run through many iterations of many single particles being fired at the collector that the interference patterns began to appear, implying wave-like behavior. They only exist in aggregate and are evident only from a statistical perspective. The way @FractalAudio lays out his thesis seems, at first glance, to overlook this fact. I only say this because the case was laid out in such a way as to repeatedly mention “THE particle” and imagining “THE particle” as disturbing a medium, such as an ether, as pointed out by @2112, or as interacting with or causing a pilot wave of some type, as pointed out by others. This pilot wave or disturbance of some ether-like medium would then travel on to pass through both slits and would be the cause of the interference patterns which imply wave-like behavior?
IMHO, this is unlikely to the point of impossible for 1 or possibly 2 reasons. The first is that, if this were true, then we would see the interference and wave-like properties after a single particle was fired toward the collector, but we don’t. We only see the interference that implies‘wave’ after many iterations of the experiment, using many particles. As I mentioned above, these effects are only seen statistically, in aggregate, so let’s not misunderstand or misrepresent the basic fundamentals of the double-slit experiment, how it is conducted and how it has been interpretated(Not implying that anyone here has done so).
Secondly, the collectors that were used, the ones that capture the data about where the particle hit, also the ones that showed the signs of interference, as if the particles were passing through BOTH slits simultaneously, were designed to collect the particles or to capture data about the point of impact of each particle, from the standpoint of particles as ”classical” physical phenomena.(I.e., This object flies from over there and goes ‘BOOM’ exactly HERE). It could not have been otherwise because there was not yet any quantum mechanical perspective by which to view the phenomena of particles. They were not designed for the purpose of capturing wave-like disturbances or quantum effects of any kind and to think that they might have captured it by accident is to misunderstand the first point above. Not trying to rain on any parades and would sincerely appreciate any feedback from anyone on the opinions I’ve stated above.

Full disclosure: I am not a physicist, nor do I play one on TV. Just a guy with a lot of books and a lifetime of curiosity. I certainly enjoy thinking and talking about these things and thank anyone who took the time to read and consider my opinion for indulging me.And thank you @FractalAudio for sharing your thoughts and ideas with us on top of everything else you already do for all of us here!

 

[Rex]

Yeah, I agree with this. Was just thinking about what the pendulum point between growth and decay cycles is for humans, and how it has stabilized like that.... musing on the process of entropy.

I think we should not confuse our limited view within the narrow timeline of human existence with stability.

 

[jesussaddle]

One thing that may be important in this conversation to remember, if I may humbly suggest, is that the double-slit experiment never showed the wave-like interference that implied wave/particle duality for a given particle. It was only after the experiment was run through many iterations of many single particles being fired at the collector that the interference patterns began to appear, implying wave-like behavior. They only exist in aggregate and are evident only from a statistical perspective. The way @FractalAudio lays out his thesis seems, at first glance, to overlook this fact. I only say this because the case was laid out in such a way as to repeatedly mention “THE particle” and imagining “THE particle” as disturbing a medium, such as an ether, as pointed out by @2112, or as interacting with or causing a pilot wave of some type, as pointed out by others. This pilot wave or disturbance of some ether-like medium would then travel on to pass through both slits and would be the cause of the interference patterns which imply wave-like behavior?
IMHO, this is unlikely to the point of impossible for 1 or possibly 2 reasons. The first is that, if this were true, then we would see the interference and wave-like properties after a single particle was fired toward the collector, but we don’t. We only see the interference that implies‘wave’ after many iterations of the experiment, using many particles. As I mentioned above, these effects are only seen statistically, in aggregate, so let’s not misunderstand or misrepresent the basic fundamentals of the double-slit experiment, how it is conducted and how it has been interpretated(Not implying that anyone here has done so).
Secondly, the collectors that were used, the ones that capture the data about where the particle hit, also the ones that showed the signs of interference, as if the particles were passing through BOTH slits simultaneously, were designed to collect the particles or to capture data about the point of impact of each particle, from the standpoint of particles as ”classical” physical phenomena.(I.e., This object flies from over there and goes ‘BOOM’ exactly HERE). It could not have been otherwise because there was not yet any quantum mechanical perspective by which to view the phenomena of particles. They were not designed for the purpose of capturing wave-like disturbances or quantum effects of any kind and to think that they might have captured it by accident is to misunderstand the first point above. Not trying to rain on any parades and would sincerely appreciate any feedback from anyone on the opinions I’ve stated above.

Full disclosure: I am not a physicist, nor do I play one on TV. Just a guy with a lot of books and a lifetime of curiosity. I certainly enjoy thinking and talking about these things and thank anyone who took the time to read and consider my opinion for indulging me.And thank you @FractalAudio for sharing your thoughts and ideas with us on top of everything else you already do for all of us here!

This is so far out of my league but its fun to think about. There are some phenomena produced by lasers (very organized emission) that do show the interference.



Also I guess my scant understanding may still differ in terms of individual photons, in that it seems to me that the idea of "probabilities" building up an interference pattern is still in keeping with the concept that we are only able to observe some standing-wave-like behavior (the photon or electron). IOW we observe the standing wave-like behavior (at least as my friend referred to it) and not the "string". I've never read anything on these topics, but it just seems not only plausible but more or less inevitable that it is impossible thus far to measure the medium itself. What I have no explanation for is that darned Quantum Eraser..

 

[Also_Leon]

Physics degree, yeah, but it's been ~12 years since I've studied any cosmology to answer in any sort of intelligent way. Turns out cosmology doesn't pay the bills, but engineering does!

 

[BillyZeppa]

Quantum mechanics tells us that the observer affects the existence of matter at a fundamental level.

Our most widely accepted paradigm for consciousness is that it's something that magically appears in life forms at some certain point in biological life. This is referred to as the "hard problem of consciousness" by psychologists, scientists and philosophers - the hard problem basically tells us that our current model for consciousness has major issues.

But, there is another paradigm - Consciocentrism proposes that consciousness is a fundamental and ubiquitous feature of matter itself. (rather than consciousness being something that arbitrarily arises out of matter at some hard threshold) It's a major distinction for our understanding of reality and the sciences -- and all signs (since Einstein, Bohr, and Bohm) seem to be pointing us to that idea.

Consciousness is more fundamental than matter, and is a "guiding force" for the unfolding and enfolding of matter. To me, this is the keystone idea that will be at the center of any grand unified theory. Until we integrate consciousness into our scientific models, they will be incomplete.

A thought on QM -the contradictory messages coming from quantum mechanics are because we are in fact touching the 'end' of composition - there are no smaller constituents to ask what they are made of. Some things like quarks are 'almost' divisible but never quite - try to see inside you create a tiny black hole that instantly pops and emits a gamma. It gets worse when you find out that these indivisible particles are not composed of anything at all, but instead are oscillations in electric, magnetic, and other fields - dimples in the otherwise flat fabric of the fields, that wiggle and swap warpage between the different fields and turn into different things by transferring wave energy from one field to another and various fields, and spitting off little dimples or splitting into two spinning in opposite directions, always with this 'H bar ' 'leggo' like madness at the edge of substance, with things popping in and out. What we call particles are like the 'white caps' in the Universal 'sea'. The idea of needing an observer is true, but only when a particle is unaccounted for, and most particles are constantly observing other particles, or locked into happy orbitals - in the double-slit experiment for example, the electron can reach the wall more than one way, but only if it doesn't interact with something along the way. These days, thanks to string theory, the particles are looking more like little strings poking out of a holographic membrane, like eels poking out of their lairs, like ooze squeezed out of the event horizon of a gigantic black hole - the universe in a different frame of reference? All the rest, dark matter, dark energy, nothing but a giant compacted hair-ball? Check the math again, Lenny

Consciousness as fundamental to matter is an interesting idea. It is fundamental to brains and it doesn't look like there's any other way to organize brains but using matter. mind = matter. We know this because if we alter the matter we alter the mind.

 

[Dr. Dipwad]

Consciousness as fundamental to matter is an interesting idea. It is fundamental to brains and it doesn't look like there's any other way to organize brains but using matter. mind = matter. We know this because if we alter the matter we alter the mind.

Hmm. Careful how you state that. It depends how you are using the term "mind."

If you mean memory, sensation: Sure, no problem! But if you mean will, meaning, conscious qualitative experience, and abstract reasoning from universals, then it seems a certain physical state of the brain is required but not sufficient as an explanation. (You alter the matter, you impede the mind.) Claiming that the physical state of the brain alone accounts for those things requires hard-eliminative materialism, which eliminates both qualia and meaning. But eliminating qualia means claiming there's no such thing as consciousness in the universe (which makes one wonder who's reading this post, anyway?) ...and eliminating meaning (including Booleans) means eliminating the validity of reasoning, and with that, the validity of any arguments for eliminative materialism. That's an awful lot of sawing off the branch one is sitting on!

Or at least that's my amateur take on it. I grant there are opponents; I'm just not convinced by them. I line up with James Ross, Saul Kripke (the Quaddition argument), and John Searle of "Chinese Room" fame (and a bit of Thomas Nagel on qualia) as opposed to W. V. Quine and Alex Rosenberg. The latter in particular admits freely that nothing in the universe means anything because claiming that mind is nothing but matter (in the way he defines "matter"; i.e. no more than sub-atomic "billiard balls" with certain allowances for quantum weirdness) requires that meaning is an illusion and that his very arguments have no evaluative truth or falsehood to support them...or indeed anything else to support them, apart from "s***-eating grins." I can't read his mind, but he seems to feel that that makes his view a bold and courageous view to hold. May be, but I think it's also the final step in a reductio ad absurdum.

On the other hand, sure, you could say that consciousness was fundamental to matter if you expanded the definition of "matter" beyond that of the eliminative-materialist's "billiard ball" model. That might allow you to have your cake and eat it, too: You can have real minds with real consciousness and reasoning, and avoid eliminative materialism.

But that leads us to the question: What other properties must we assign to "matter" to allow consciousness, meaning, etc., to meaningfully be present? Figuring that out probably requires doing some serious metaphysics. Such a "matter" would require a robust ontology very unlike what post-Cartesians normally mean when they say the word "matter." It would certainly go beyond what's quantifiable and observable (and thus susceptible to direct experiment). That'll certainly irritate all the materialist monists and positivists. It'd probably involve something like forms, telos, and a "powers" conception of physical laws. Very Aristotelian!

 

[BillyZeppa]

Word, Dr, Dipwad.

I guess some of these questions boil down to, whether your're dealing with an electronic circuit or a 'wet ware' animal physiology (brain) or a person, the question is the same - is conscious experience the Result of physiological processes changes - changing brain cell states and chemical reactions, or is conscious experience the Cause of physical brain changes. We have no way of knowing. Does a window pane 'decide' how it is going to frost up and send out its snowy crystals across the pane, and/or experience it happening? We accept that other 'bags of mostly water' think and feel and emote just as we each do, but we could never prove, it, just as most people may come to accept one day that electronic brains feel and emote in their own way but they will never be able to prove it. Subjective experience seems to be private, local and teleportation/communication is not evident, so the connection between matter and experience is as tight as we can measure, and there's no reason to believe the relationship won't get tighter. If all energy is accounted for not a lot remains to account for, or look for a cause. On the other hand, QM says we are all each just local folds in one single thing - the multi-dimensional membrane with wiggling ripples on the fields, so we really are all connected, just as George Harrison said, just at an undetectable level, or below the quantum threshold to even interact but one in a bazillion. So i'm curious to see any evidence of 'more to it' than what we see - matter being subjective in certain extraordinary configurations and functions and dynamic transforms of molecules - changing thoughts cause changing currents of electric and magnetic flux in the areas of the brain where cells are firing and molecules are rearranging like choreographed dancers. Maybe the question is, why wouldn't all that feel like something all on its own? Magnets can 'feel' each other and react.

So many words and names for 'the one', and how 'we are one', but we know it on a practical level, and some know it spiritually, and now science is finding out that the smallest things cannot be measured or defined precisely without involving the fields in entire universe to do it, and everything is just bumps in a single mutli-dimensional membrane, which we contemplate may or may not, on its own be able to feel and emote. So maybe when a poor person suffers and emotes, our multi-dimensional membrane emotes with her, and that's us, and that makes her everyone's responsibility. Or something like that - ha!

 

[GlennO]

The double-slit experiment says that elementary particles can behave as both particles and waves. I've never been able to fully accept that. It means that a particle turns into a wave and then recombines to become a particle.

However... what if dark matter was a fluid that permeated the universe. All particles vibrate due to their energy. If you drop a rock into a pond it creates waves. In the same way if you shoot a particle into a fluid it will create waves.

As Celongcor pointed out, it's easy to poke a hole in your theory. And this puts you in good company. Einstein had his ideas about quantum behavior shot down several times. But Celongcor is right, there is no interference pattern when the emitter in the dual slit experiment is slowed down to only emit a single particle. Your theory fails to explain that. You're in the same club as Einstein .

It may help you to accept this phenomenon if you think of the particle as still being a wave. In other words, the wave-to-particle transition isn't a shift in the kind of matter that constitutes it. Instead, the shape of the wave function simply shifts to a pulse wave.

Ultimately though, acceptance of quantum mechanics comes from acknowledging that it is simply a mathematical formalism that helps us predict behavior in the universe around us. It has been spectacularly successful and precise as a tool for this purpose. However, it was never intended to be a description of the underlying reality of matter. I suspect Neils Bohr would be shocked to come back today and learn that we haven't yet discovered the basic nature of matter and are still perplexed by quantum mechanics.

 

[Toopy14]

It may help you to accept this phenomenon if you think of the particle as still being a wave. In other words, the wave-to-particle transition isn't a shift in the kind of matter that constitutes it. Instead, the shape of the wave function simply shifts to a pulse wave.

 

[yyz67]

most particles are constantly observing other particles, or locked into happy orbitals - in the double-slit experiment for example, the electron can reach the wall more than one way, but only if it doesn't interact with something along the way.

Yes. And I don't buy the notion that (human, animal, or even plant) "consciousness" is required to observe particles ("collapse the wave function") nor that consciousness is quantum based. It's a hypothesis, but only that at this point.

First we can't even define "consciousness". Is it normal waking awareness? What about a dream state that is remembered or not remembered? What about autonomic processes that we are not aware of, are they conscious of things that our mind isn't? What about the unconscious/subconscious that affects almost everything conscious? Is an organ conscious? Is a plant conscious? Is a cell conscious? DNA, protein, or molecules? They are interacting for sure, sometimes simply, sometimes complexly. Most cells can "detect" a variety of substances and admit/deny them entry, as well as detect conditions and adjust or move accordingly. Is this "consciousness"? Is this ability metaphysical or a physical emergent?

Then, the vast majority of quantum particle-waves are interacting all the time in their tiny realms ("locked into happy orbitals"), thus 'collapsed' and in a decoherent, non-entangled state (or highly locally entangled). If we abstract a giant wave function, we could say "everything is interacting with everything", and although that sounds really cool, it doesn't entail consciousness. Of course there are particles (photons and cosmic rays) that travel across large gaps in which they don't interact for a while from celestial objects and relics from cosmic microwave background (CMB), neutrinos (CNB), and gravity (GWB). These would behave like waves until interacted with. Are these--along with the magical quantum zero-point energy--the purported source of consciousness?

To my mind there are more open questions than answers: qualia, subjectivity, conscious awareness, dream states, "collective unconscious", etc. As Einstein said:

We are in the position of a little child entering a huge library, whose walls are covered to the ceiling with books in many different languages. The child knows that someone must have written those books. It does not know who or how. It does not understand the the languages in which they are written. The child notes a definite plan in the arrangement of the books, a mysterious order, which it does not comprehend but only dimly suspects.​

 

[NeoSound]

Whether consciousness is ordering particles/energy and reality into being, or it's a predictable effect of particles, energy and matter? The latter would mean there is truly no meaning or choice and consciousness is only an illusion? Either way, the consciousness we perceive is tethered to a clump of matter that we seemingly have some control over, and that will become untethered someday. Or will it remain chained to particles that can no longer manipulate other particles or will it cease to exist? Would sitting a dead body as an observer of the double slit experiment alter the outcome? same as the conscious version before death? Same collection of particles, different effect possibly, which means?
All of these things were thought about long before the dawn of modern science, which is ironically composed of thought also!

 

[Gregmang]

I like M&M’s.

 

[yyz67]

Do they like you?

 

[jesussaddle]

Word, Dr, Dipwad.

I guess some of these questions boil down to, whether your're dealing with an electronic circuit or a 'wet ware' animal physiology (brain) or a person, the question is the same - is conscious experience the Result of physiological processes changes - changing brain cell states and chemical reactions, or is conscious experience the Cause of physical brain changes. We have no way of knowing. Does a window pane 'decide' how it is going to frost up and send out its snowy crystals across the pane, and/or experience it happening? We accept that other 'bags of mostly water' think and feel and emote just as we each do, but we could never prove, it, just as most people may come to accept one day that electronic brains feel and emote in their own way but they will never be able to prove it. Subjective experience seems to be private, local and teleportation/communication is not evident, so the connection between matter and experience is as tight as we can measure, and there's no reason to believe the relationship won't get tighter. If all energy is accounted for not a lot remains to account for, or look for a cause. On the other hand, QM says we are all each just local folds in one single thing - the multi-dimensional membrane with wiggling ripples on the fields, so we really are all connected, just as George Harrison said, just at an undetectable level, or below the quantum threshold to even interact but one in a bazillion. So i'm curious to see any evidence of 'more to it' than what we see - matter being subjective in certain extraordinary configurations and functions and dynamic transforms of molecules - changing thoughts cause changing currents of electric and magnetic flux in the areas of the brain where cells are firing and molecules are rearranging like choreographed dancers. Maybe the question is, why wouldn't all that feel like something all on its own? Magnets can 'feel' each other and react.

So many words and names for 'the one', and how 'we are one', but we know it on a practical level, and some know it spiritually, and now science is finding out that the smallest things cannot be measured or defined precisely without involving the fields in entire universe to do it, and everything is just bumps in a single mutli-dimensional membrane, which we contemplate may or may not, on its own be able to feel and emote. So maybe when a poor person suffers and emotes, our multi-dimensional membrane emotes with her, and that's us, and that makes her everyone's responsibility. Or something like that - ha!

Because of personal experience on an almost daily basis I can personally conclude that our brains are not our minds, if by brains you mean the local molecular matter as isolated from nearby energies & fields - you could argue that the sensory organ of the brain has a field and that it interacts with other nearby fields, and then I can accept that as one possibility. It becomes more difficult to make a case that the mind is also capable of what would be considered from our current time-space measurement paradigm to be non-local interactions, which I tend to think is the more accurately-described situation. The University of VA has a lot of research challenging the brain-as-molecules is mind theory, and from my own experience this is born out again and again. The question of what the alternative is does not need to be answered to disprove that we are our brains. What I think brings in the possibility of non-local interactions it is some of what Ingo Swann and Pat Price did - there used to be an image plate in a book called the Random House pictopedia depicting research in which Ingo would make drawings of original pictures that were placed many feet above his view - supposedly not ever having seen the original pictures As it said, he completed many of these drawings with remarkable accuracy. If my recollection of the stories is correct Ingo was also said to have interacted with a nuclear detector or something, buried in steel beneath the floor. The brain, as a purely physical fields, should not be able to penetrate steel. To me this is only a story. But the number of persons involved with the Remote Viewing research seems too extensive to have been completely fringe without at least some possibility of merit.

 

[Dr. Dipwad]

Because of personal experience on an almost daily basis I can personally conclude that our brains are not our minds, if by brains you mean the local molecular matter as isolated from nearby energies & fields - you could argue that the sensory organ of the brain has a field and that it interacts with other nearby fields, and then I can accept that as one possibility. It becomes more difficult to make a case that the mind is also capable of what would be considered from our current time-space measurement paradigm to be non-local interactions, which I tend to think is the more accurately-described situation. The University of VA has a lot of research challenging the brain-as-molecules is mind theory, and from my own experience this is born out again and again. The question of what the alternative is does not need to be answered to disprove that we are our brains. What I think brings in the possibility of non-local interactions it is some of what Ingo Swann and Pat Price did - there used to be an image plate in a book called the Random House pictopedia depicting research in which Ingo would make drawings of original pictures that were placed many feet above his view - supposedly not ever having seen the original pictures As it said, he completed many of these drawings with remarkable accuracy. If my recollection of the stories is correct Ingo was also said to have interacted with a nuclear detector or something, buried in steel beneath the floor. The brain, as a purely physical fields, should not be able to penetrate steel. To me this is only a story. But the number of persons involved with the Remote Viewing research seems too extensive to have been completely fringe without at least some possibility of merit.

Yep: Our brains are not our minds...but, I would take a different approach to demonstrating why I say that.

Although I think Ingo Swann is very interesting and have particularly enjoyed learning about the Remote Viewing programs like Gondola Wish / Center Lane / Star Gate (see here and here), I don't think we need to resort to esoterica to demonstrate that our minds are not reducible, not even in principle, to just the neurons in our brains. (No disrespect is intended by classifying such things as "esoterica." It's just that Ingo Swann et alia are, whatever else one may say about them, a tad off the beaten path, and consequently may arouse suspicion rather than interest when pursuing the question of the non-materiality of mind.)

I think a better approach is to take a careful and thoughtful look at the implications of the Chinese Room argument of John Searle, and other better arguments he developed in his paper "Is the Brain a Digital Computer?" (here). Then look at Saul Kripke's "quus function" in "Wittgenstein on Rules and Private Language" (here). Then look at James Ross' argument for the immateriality of thought, summarized here. Finally, read some Thomas Nagel on qualia, which is all over the place, but the famous works are What Is It Like To Be A Bat?, summarized here, and Mind and Cosmos, discussed here. Ed Feser pulls it all together here.

The point is that neither (reductionistic) representationalism nor computationalism survives these critiques: They're just done. Alex Rosenberg's eliminative materialism is ruled out, for example. Now, folks can still talk up the "thought is an emergent phenomenon" thesis so popular these days, but that thesis is stuck in an awkward position: It has to hold that thought and conscious experience of qualia must "emerge" out of mere matter. But since matter in the brain is unable (as shown by Searle, Kripke, Ross, and Nagel) to comprehend universals, use conceptual reasoning, or experience qualia, for these things to "emerge" they must emerge out of the matter of the brain into something that can cope with those things. Well, into what? What can?

Conventional materialism of the kind popular since the 18th century has no answer. I don't mean it has no answer yet. I mean it rules out the possibility of there being any such answer, by defining matter in such a way that, as demonstrated by the thought-experiments above, matter can't cover the phaenomena to be explained, not even in principle.

That means either jumping out of materialism into dualism of some kind (in which case the attempt to equate mind and brain is already lost), or, altering the metaphysics of matter to allow something Aristotelian, like telos as a real property of material things, or powers as active potencies. A thus-revised idea of matter would allow a conventional materialist to retain the view that "the mind can be explained in purely-material terms" ...kinda-sorta. But it would give us an oddly-spiritualized new idea of what matter was. You wouldn't be able to rule out the idea that trees and rocks are about something, that meaning is as much a power of matter as gravity and magnetism are. Berkeleyan idealism and pantheism would immediately be popularized "on the basis of the latest science!" just as New-Agey misunderstandings of quantum theory were in the 1980's (and with greater justification!). Most conventional materialists will find that cold comfort.

Ed Feser (linked above) takes a dualist view. To avoid the interaction problem of Cartesian-style dualism (which he firmly rejects) he particularly holds Aristotelian-Thomistic-style "hylemorphic dualism." (Full disclosure: I lean that way, too.)

Anyhow, even if "spiritualized" matter became the new paradigm, the old understanding of neurons and the brain would be gone. What people mean today by asserting that "the mind is just the brain" would still be wrong.

So, we may not know what is correct, but it ain't that.