It may well be.seeds wrote:I personally think it is far more easy to consider that “all” is mind stuff existing in varying levels of order and resolution.
Yeah, the language is confusing, however it is put. I had it as 'matter' rather than straight matter, because I have no idea what 'matter' actually is (well apart from being waves and eddies in big bang stuff, or the quantum field of the moment). And then "cause" is so loaded with meaning as to be meaningless. The phenomena which tell us most about the world, are waves; we see electromagnetic 'waves' (you know what I mean) and hear sound waves.seeds wrote:Furthermore, how is it that matter could be the “cause” of phenomena...
Working out what a mathematical model 'means' has always been a problem. 2000 years ago, Hipparchus could use his model to work out where planetary retrograde motion would appear, or how long for, but, like Heisenberg, not both. To solve that Ptolemy introduced the equant, which basically meant that while the planet Earth was over here, we were watching the skies from over there. The thing with maths is that you don't have to explain anything: you don't have to explain why time appears to flow in one direction; you don't have to explain how matter warps space to create gravity; you don't have to explain what keeps strings vibrating for nearly 14 billion years. All that is required of a mathematical model is that the sums can be interpreted in such a way that the answers could be mistaken for reality. The trick is not to be fooled into thinking that is what you are actually looking at.seeds wrote:...when, according to certain interpretations of quantum mechanics, there is nothing implicit in the underlying wavefunctions of matter that could cause them to “collapse” into something displaying “position” (i.e. 3D “phenomena” suspended in a spatial context)?
Having said that, there are good models for how electromagnetic and sound waves are generated and propagate, which can be demonstrated simply with physical (i.e. tangible, pick it up and look at it) models. The collapse of wavefunction always sounds as if something is being destroyed, but what it means in practice is that some field or other is manipulated, 'focussed' perhaps, in such a way that a surplus of energy, (another loaded term) is turned into something that will register on whatever detector is being used. People are freaked out by the double slit experiment, it's a bit like asking Ptolemy 'So where the f@£k are we?', but there is simply no way of detecting anything without 'materially' affecting it's environment.
Wouldn't dream of it.seeds wrote:And if you invoke “decoherence,” then see my response to that in a subsequent post.
In a way, the physics is the easy bit. It's taken thousands of years, but eventually we came up with QM. Now all we have to do is work out how consciousness arises from all that stuff. That really is a mystery and while it is perfectly plausible that the underlying stuff that 'causes' (I know, I know) matter, energy, mind, consciousness, time, space and whatnot is actually mental; I think it's a bit early to be jumping to conclusions.seeds wrote:Quantum mechanics, on the other hand, deals with the restructuring of reality by reconfiguring that which resides at the “non-local” level.
It’s like reaching in and changing Bohm’s holographic-like “implicate” level of reality (or Kant’s “noumenal” level, to mix metaphors) in such a way that something uniquely new (like lasers, for example) can appear up at the “explicate” (phenomenal) level of reality.
Sorry if any of that seems glib, there's a lot on my plate right now, but I wouldn't want you to think I am ignoring you.