There cannot be any emergence

How does science work? And what's all this about quantum mechanics?

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Logik
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Re: There cannot be any emergence

Post by Logik »

bahman wrote: Tue Jan 01, 2019 5:36 pm Mind is the phenomena which is not emergent. Each human has a mind.
Each human has a brain too.

My mind emerges from the functioning of my brain.
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bahman
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Re: There cannot be any emergence

Post by bahman »

Logik wrote: Tue Jan 01, 2019 5:37 pm
bahman wrote: Tue Jan 01, 2019 5:36 pm Mind is the phenomena which is not emergent. Each human has a mind.
Each human has a brain too.

My mind emerges from the functioning of my brain.
That is not true. Mind is very essence of you and this cannot be byproduct of neural activity. Let's assume otherwise. Then mind is byproduct of neural activity, in another word it is a mental state. The taste of apple is also a mental state which this should be experience by mind. This is however not possible since mind itself is a mental state. In simple word, a mental state cannot experience another mental state, therefore mind is not byproduct of neural activity.
Logik
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Re: There cannot be any emergence

Post by Logik »

bahman wrote: Tue Jan 01, 2019 5:48 pm That is not true. Mind is very essence of you and this cannot be byproduct of neural activity.
Cool.
bahman wrote: Tue Jan 01, 2019 5:48 pm Let's assume otherwise. Then mind is byproduct of neural activity, in another word it is a mental state.
Agree with this approach.

bahman wrote: Tue Jan 01, 2019 5:48 pm The taste of apple is also a mental state which this should be experience by mind. This is however not possible since mind itself is a mental state.
I disagree with this conclusion.
bahman wrote: Tue Jan 01, 2019 5:48 pm a mental state cannot experience another mental state.
Why not? If two mental states occur in different parts of the brain they can interact with each other.

Mind + input from senses (taste buds) => experience of taste emerges.
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bahman
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Re: There cannot be any emergence

Post by bahman »

Logik wrote: Tue Jan 01, 2019 5:53 pm
bahman wrote: Tue Jan 01, 2019 5:48 pm That is not true. Mind is very essence of you and this cannot be byproduct of neural activity.
Cool.
bahman wrote: Tue Jan 01, 2019 5:48 pm Let's assume otherwise. Then mind is byproduct of neural activity, in another word it is a mental state.
Agree with this approach.

bahman wrote: Tue Jan 01, 2019 5:48 pm The taste of apple is also a mental state which this should be experience by mind. This is however not possible since mind itself is a mental state.
I disagree with this conclusion.
bahman wrote: Tue Jan 01, 2019 5:48 pm a mental state cannot experience another mental state.
Why not? If two mental states occur in different parts of the brain they can interact with each other.

Mind + input from senses (taste buds) => experience of taste emerges.
A mental state is just a specific neural activity. It is not a thing with ability to experience another mental state.
Logik
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Re: There cannot be any emergence

Post by Logik »

bahman wrote: Tue Jan 01, 2019 6:11 pm A mental state is just a specific neural activity. It is not a thing with ability to experience another mental state.
Hypotheses non fingo.

What you are effectively claiming is that the brain cannot multitask. e.g it's impossible for multiple neural activities to occur concurrently/simultaneously in one brain; alternatively - it's impossible for concurrent brain activities to interact.

I think you'll find plenty of counter examples to both of the above.

For all "I" know, the thing I call "I" could well be 20 different parts of my brain working in sync. A modular "I" - like any other machine.
I find this a much more believable conception than a monolithic "mind".
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bahman
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Re: There cannot be any emergence

Post by bahman »

Logik wrote: Tue Jan 01, 2019 6:14 pm
bahman wrote: Tue Jan 01, 2019 6:11 pm A mental state is just a specific neural activity. It is not a thing with ability to experience another mental state.
Hypotheses non fingo.

What you are effectively claiming is that the brain cannot multitask. e.g it's impossible for multiple neural activities to occur concurrently/simultaneously in one brain; alternatively - it's impossible for concurrent brain activities to interact.

I think you'll find plenty of counter examples to both of the above.

For all "I" know, the thing I call "I" could well be 20 different parts of my brain working in sync. A modular "I" - like any other machine.
I find this a much more believable conception than a monolithic "mind".
No. I am not claiming that brain cannot multitask. What I am claiming is that a specific neural activity is merely a physical state and cannot give rise to a thing, mind with ability to experience.
Logik
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Re: There cannot be any emergence

Post by Logik »

bahman wrote: Tue Jan 01, 2019 8:04 pm
Logik wrote: Tue Jan 01, 2019 6:14 pm
bahman wrote: Tue Jan 01, 2019 6:11 pm A mental state is just a specific neural activity. It is not a thing with ability to experience another mental state.
Hypotheses non fingo.

What you are effectively claiming is that the brain cannot multitask. e.g it's impossible for multiple neural activities to occur concurrently/simultaneously in one brain; alternatively - it's impossible for concurrent brain activities to interact.

I think you'll find plenty of counter examples to both of the above.

For all "I" know, the thing I call "I" could well be 20 different parts of my brain working in sync. A modular "I" - like any other machine.
I find this a much more believable conception than a monolithic "mind".
No. I am not claiming that brain cannot multitask. What I am claiming is that a specific neural activity is merely a physical state and cannot give rise to a thing, mind with ability to experience.
Why not? Which law of physics does it violate?

You seem to be appealing to mysticism?
There is nothing supernatural about the mind.

We just don’t know how it works so it appears emergent.
Veritas Aequitas
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Re: There cannot be any emergence

Post by Veritas Aequitas »

bahman wrote: Tue Jan 01, 2019 5:35 pm
Veritas Aequitas wrote: Tue Jan 01, 2019 4:27 am As long as there are human beings, there is emergence in reality.
That is the power of mind in my opinion. We have ability to create certain things, thoughts for example.
You missed my point.

What I am pointing out is humans are the co-creator of reality as it is.
Thus no humans = no reality-as-it-is.
There is no reality-in-itself independent of humans.
Human = whole human being not just mind.

Human beings are emergent with reality-as-it-is and reality-as-it-is is an emergent with human beings in a spiral [not circle].
There is no question of which comes first as per Wittgenstein, "Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent."

Therefore reality-as-it-is <--Emergent--> human-beings.

...........
The other alternative is reality-as-it-is is created by a God [or whatever Absolute] thus everything are created therefore not emergent. I disagree with this. Note my argument;

God is an Impossibility to be Real
viewtopic.php?f=11&t=24704
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bahman
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Re: There cannot be any emergence

Post by bahman »

Logik wrote: Tue Jan 01, 2019 8:10 pm
bahman wrote: Tue Jan 01, 2019 8:04 pm
Logik wrote: Tue Jan 01, 2019 6:14 pm
Hypotheses non fingo.

What you are effectively claiming is that the brain cannot multitask. e.g it's impossible for multiple neural activities to occur concurrently/simultaneously in one brain; alternatively - it's impossible for concurrent brain activities to interact.

I think you'll find plenty of counter examples to both of the above.

For all "I" know, the thing I call "I" could well be 20 different parts of my brain working in sync. A modular "I" - like any other machine.
I find this a much more believable conception than a monolithic "mind".
No. I am not claiming that brain cannot multitask. What I am claiming is that a specific neural activity is merely a physical state and cannot give rise to a thing, mind with ability to experience.
Why not? Which law of physics does it violate?

You seem to be appealing to mysticism?
There is nothing supernatural about the mind.

We just don’t know how it works so it appears emergent.
We just don't have such a thing in physics.
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bahman
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Re: There cannot be any emergence

Post by bahman »

Veritas Aequitas wrote: Wed Jan 02, 2019 4:43 am
bahman wrote: Tue Jan 01, 2019 5:35 pm
Veritas Aequitas wrote: Tue Jan 01, 2019 4:27 am As long as there are human beings, there is emergence in reality.
That is the power of mind in my opinion. We have ability to create certain things, thoughts for example.
You missed my point.

What I am pointing out is humans are the co-creator of reality as it is.
Thus no humans = no reality-as-it-is.
There is no reality-in-itself independent of humans.
Human = whole human being not just mind.

Human beings are emergent with reality-as-it-is and reality-as-it-is is an emergent with human beings in a spiral [not circle].
There is no question of which comes first as per Wittgenstein, "Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent."

Therefore reality-as-it-is <--Emergent--> human-beings.

...........
The other alternative is reality-as-it-is is created by a God [or whatever Absolute] thus everything are created therefore not emergent. I disagree with this. Note my argument;

God is an Impossibility to be Real
viewtopic.php?f=11&t=24704
I think that human can contribute in reality but human is not only being with mind.
Logik
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Re: There cannot be any emergence

Post by Logik »

bahman wrote: Fri Jan 04, 2019 5:17 pm
Logik wrote: Tue Jan 01, 2019 8:10 pm
bahman wrote: Tue Jan 01, 2019 8:04 pm
No. I am not claiming that brain cannot multitask. What I am claiming is that a specific neural activity is merely a physical state and cannot give rise to a thing, mind with ability to experience.
Why not? Which law of physics does it violate?

You seem to be appealing to mysticism?
There is nothing supernatural about the mind.

We just don’t know how it works so it appears emergent.
We just don't have such a thing in physics.
You don’t have emergence and complex interactions in physics?

Just because we are on the other end of the complexity spectrum nothing changes.
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bahman
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Re: There cannot be any emergence

Post by bahman »

Logik wrote: Fri Jan 04, 2019 5:40 pm
bahman wrote: Fri Jan 04, 2019 5:17 pm
Logik wrote: Tue Jan 01, 2019 8:10 pm
Why not? Which law of physics does it violate?

You seem to be appealing to mysticism?
There is nothing supernatural about the mind.

We just don’t know how it works so it appears emergent.
We just don't have such a thing in physics.
You don’t have emergence and complex interactions in physics?

Just because we are on the other end of the complexity spectrum nothing changes.
Physics is a field of study for formulating things in reality. Things to the best of our knowledge is made of irreducible parts. Therefore the main attempt in physics is to understand the behavior of parts, theory of everything. Quantum electrodynamics in this regards is a huge success, very precise. Please read the following article: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Precision_tests_of_QED

Moreover, there is a reason why things behave in a specific way. Things are made of parts. Parts behave in specific way. Therefore this is so natural to think that behavior of a thing can be explained in term of behavior of parts. We simply don't have anything but parts which can contribute in behavior of a thing.
Veritas Aequitas
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Re: There cannot be any emergence

Post by Veritas Aequitas »

bahman wrote: Fri Jan 04, 2019 5:25 pm
Veritas Aequitas wrote: Wed Jan 02, 2019 4:43 am
bahman wrote: Tue Jan 01, 2019 5:35 pm
That is the power of mind in my opinion. We have ability to create certain things, thoughts for example.
You missed my point.

What I am pointing out is humans are the co-creator of reality as it is.
Thus no humans = no reality-as-it-is.
There is no reality-in-itself independent of humans.
Human = whole human being not just mind.

Human beings are emergent with reality-as-it-is and reality-as-it-is is an emergent with human beings in a spiral [not circle].
There is no question of which comes first as per Wittgenstein, "Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent."

Therefore reality-as-it-is <--Emergent--> human-beings.

...........
The other alternative is reality-as-it-is is created by a God [or whatever Absolute] thus everything are created therefore not emergent. I disagree with this. Note my argument;

God is an Impossibility to be Real
viewtopic.php?f=11&t=24704
I think that human can contribute in reality but human is not only being with mind.
If you agree human can contribute in reality, then emergence do manifests thus contra your OP.
Reality is reality-as-it-is which is an emergence conditioned upon the human conditions [body, mind, consciousness, etc].

I do agree certain entities like those in higher animals do have some sort of brain/mind but the point is the reality-as-it-is to a bat is not the same as reality-as-it-is to humans. In both cases, there is emergence.

Note there is no reality-as-it-is that is the same [universal, absolute and independent] to all living entities. There is no reality_as_it_is-in-itself. There is no reality_as_it_is created by a God [illusory and impossible].

Thus reality-as-it-is is an emergence conditioned upon whatever the entity that reality emerges simultaneously with.
Logik
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Re: There cannot be any emergence

Post by Logik »

bahman wrote: Fri Jan 04, 2019 6:04 pm
Logik wrote: Fri Jan 04, 2019 5:40 pm
bahman wrote: Fri Jan 04, 2019 5:17 pm
We just don't have such a thing in physics.
You don’t have emergence and complex interactions in physics?

Just because we are on the other end of the complexity spectrum nothing changes.
Physics is a field of study for formulating things in reality. Things to the best of our knowledge is made of irreducible parts. Therefore the main attempt in physics is to understand the behavior of parts, theory of everything. Quantum electrodynamics in this regards is a huge success, very precise. Please read the following article: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Precision_tests_of_QED

Moreover, there is a reason why things behave in a specific way. Things are made of parts. Parts behave in specific way. Therefore this is so natural to think that behavior of a thing can be explained in term of behavior of parts. We simply don't have anything but parts which can contribute in behavior of a thing.
OK and? How is this in conflict with anything I said?

From the quantum world emerges the classical world.
From the classical world emerges chemistry.
From chemistry emerges organic chemistry.
From organic chemistry emerges organisms (abiogenesis - the missing link for evolution)
From primitive organisms emerge more complex organisms with organs like brains.
From brains emerge minds.

Even if the whole was the sum of its parts, you are stuck with the problem of complexity, which is how a lot of physicists see it.
The divide between quantum and special relativity is the divide between the very small and very large.

For you to determine the behaviour of a mind you need to determine the behaviour of the entire body from quantum phenomena.

How many fundamental particles, their properties and their interactions do you need to track? What equation do you need to solve to predict the behaviour of a "mind" from first principles? How long would it take you to solve such an equation even if you had all the inputs?

Lastly. I question your use of "parts behave in specific way". There's the distinction between specific-and-deterministic vs specific-but-probabilistic.
For one can always argue that probabilistic phenomena are epistemic e.g the reason they appears probabilistic is because you lack understanding of the the parts and their interaction.

Personally, I am not a fan of the Copenhagen interpretation, and so one could define emergence as "absence of absolute determinism"
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bahman
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Re: There cannot be any emergence

Post by bahman »

Veritas Aequitas wrote: Sat Jan 05, 2019 5:09 am
bahman wrote: Fri Jan 04, 2019 5:25 pm
Veritas Aequitas wrote: Wed Jan 02, 2019 4:43 am
You missed my point.

What I am pointing out is humans are the co-creator of reality as it is.
Thus no humans = no reality-as-it-is.
There is no reality-in-itself independent of humans.
Human = whole human being not just mind.

Human beings are emergent with reality-as-it-is and reality-as-it-is is an emergent with human beings in a spiral [not circle].
There is no question of which comes first as per Wittgenstein, "Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent."

Therefore reality-as-it-is <--Emergent--> human-beings.

...........
The other alternative is reality-as-it-is is created by a God [or whatever Absolute] thus everything are created therefore not emergent. I disagree with this. Note my argument;

God is an Impossibility to be Real
viewtopic.php?f=11&t=24704
I think that human can contribute in reality but human is not only being with mind.
If you agree human can contribute in reality, then emergence do manifests thus contra your OP.
Reality is reality-as-it-is which is an emergence conditioned upon the human conditions [body, mind, consciousness, etc].

I do agree certain entities like those in higher animals do have some sort of brain/mind but the point is the reality-as-it-is to a bat is not the same as reality-as-it-is to humans. In both cases, there is emergence.

Note there is no reality-as-it-is that is the same [universal, absolute and independent] to all living entities. There is no reality_as_it_is-in-itself. There is no reality_as_it_is created by a God [illusory and impossible].

Thus reality-as-it-is is an emergence conditioned upon whatever the entity that reality emerges simultaneously with.
Then show me that how emergence is possible unless we are dealing with a magic. Where does magic exactly happen?
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