Uncommon Descent Serving The Intelligent Design Community

Materialist “Magic”

Share
Facebook
Twitter
LinkedIn
Flipboard
Print
Email

I am finally getting around to an in-depth read of Thomas Nagel’s Mind and Cosmos, and I am gratified to learn that an honest materialist agrees with my assessment of “emergentism.”  It is a confession of ignorance disguised as an explanation.  In Materialist Poofery I wrote:

the materialist . . . must come up with a theory that reduces the mind to an epiphenomenon of the electro-chemical processes of the brain.  What do they do?  They say the mind is an ‘emergent property’ of the brain.  Huh?  Wazzat?  That means that the brain system has properties that cannot be reduced to its individual components.  The system is said to ‘supervene’ (I’m not making this up) on its components causing the whole to be greater than the sum of the parts.

And what evidence do we have that ‘emergence’ is a real phenomenon?  Absolutely none. Emergence is materialist poofery. . . . The materialist knows that his claim that the mind does not exist is patently absurd.  Yet, given his premises it simply cannot exist.  So what is a materialist to do?  Easy. Poof – the mind is an emergent property of the brain system that otherwise cannot be accounted for on materialist grounds.

In Mind and Cosmos Nagel is just as dismissive of emergentism, but instead of “poofery” he uses the more conventional “magic”:

Merely to identify a cause is not to provide a significant explanation without some understanding of why the cause produces the effect.

To qualify as a genuine explanation of the mental, an emergent account must be in some way systematic.  It cannot just say that each mental event or state supervenes on the complex physical state of the organism in which it occurs.  That would the kind of brute fact that does not constitute an explanation but rather calls for an explanation.

If emergence is the whole truth, it implies that mental states are present in the organism as a whole, or its central nervous system, without any grounding in the elements that constitute the organism, expect for the physical character of those elements that permits them to be arranged in the complex form that, according to the higher-level theory, connects the physical with the mental.  That such a purely physical elements, when combined in a certain way, should necessarily produce a state of the whole that is not constituted of of the properties and relations of the physical parts still seems like magic even if the higher-order psychophysical dependencies are quite systematic.

Emphasis added.

Comments
anthropic @34, I know what you are saying. Of course, we also argue for the sake of lurkers, many of whom may be sincerely seeking the truth.StephenB
August 26, 2014
August
08
Aug
26
26
2014
11:22 PM
11
11
22
PM
PDT
StephenB 26, you're wasting your time with Mapou. In another thread he claimed that no scriptures or logic backed the notion that God was a spiritual being, rather than a material one. When I pointed out a number of scriptures and logical arguments that backed this notion, he shifted his claim to the notion that the scriptures were unimportant and even evil. My arguments from logic, such as how God could be omnipresent and material, he ignored. Whether his other posts may be taken seriously I'll leave to others. But on this subject he's not worth bothering with.anthropic
August 25, 2014
August
08
Aug
25
25
2014
10:05 AM
10
10
05
AM
PDT
BA: Thanks for the post. Whilst I agree with you that emergentism is nothing more that a special word that describes our ignorance of how the mind arises, we must be careful of dismissing it out of hand as a concept. Emergent properties can be found in many instances. For example, take a look at the work carried out by Stephen Wolfram on cellular automata. He demonstrates that simple rules operating in a given context (in this case colouring a matrix of cells either black or white) can give rise to unexpected phenomena. For example, some of his rules give rise to complex non-repeating patterns. These patterns were obviously not anticipated or coded for, so we can say that they are emergent properties. The real issue for mind being described as an emergent property of our neurochemical interactions is that it needs to be causal with respect to those interactions, and have the ability to actually influence the overall system. As far as I can tell, emergent properties tend to be passive manifestations, without any causal power or influence. This is the real dilemma for those that want to describe mind as an epiphenomenon of our physical brain.aqeels
August 24, 2014
August
08
Aug
24
24
2014
01:46 PM
1
01
46
PM
PDT
I was responding to.... BA: And what evidence do we have that ‘emergence’ is a real phenomenon? Absolutely none. Universality is a concrete example of emergent phenomenon that we use on a daily basis. Are you suggesting it's not an example of emergence? Or perhaps you only object to emergence in the case of the mind? Or perhaps you think explanations should be reductionist in nature, as apparently Nagel does?Popperian
August 23, 2014
August
08
Aug
23
23
2014
11:29 PM
11
11
29
PM
PDT
Axel
Mapou and SephenB, you are talking about possibly the profoundest mystery known to man, so you may be over-estimating our capacity to understand or define the precise nature of God in Christ, through the prism of his Incarnation.
Well, Axel, I appreciate your comments because it shows that even we can disagree about something [insert smiley face]. While our capacity to know anything at all is certainly limited, and while our knowledge of God consists primarily of mere analogies, there are certain things that we can know from revelation. The point of God's revealing them, after all, is so that we can know and believe them, insofar as our mode of being allows it. Yes, St. Thomas did, indeed, teach that God is impassible, primarily because God is also unchangeable, which is an attribute of being a pure spirit. Matter changes. Yes, the incarnated Son of God is just as human as we are, given his human nature, but He is not a human person. He is a Divine person and is not, in any way, a human person. That is why the Arian heresy was a heresy. It declared otherwise. Further, God the Son "took on" human flesh. It is not part of God's eternal nature to have a body, Jesus is special in that sense. The First and Third person's of the Trinity remain as pure spirits. Accordingly there is no problem with Mary being the "mother of God" because she is not the mother of Jesus' human nature, (nature's don't have mothers) she is the mother of Jesus the person, who is the Second person of the Blessed Trinity. It is in that context, I think, that we can understand the Godhead to mean the Blessed Trinity. I don't think it connotes unknowability about the fact that God, as God, does not have a body, and God, as God, does not change. Jesus did not undergo change as God. As God He knows everything there is to know, and is unchangeable, but as man, He "grew in wisdom and stature." These are things that we can know because they have been revealed to us. Reason helps us to understand them better.
On that basis, Stephen, your objection that Mary can’t be the Mother of God, seems to me something of a cavil. The title is a very old one, going back to, I believe, the 3rd century; certainly, the early Church.
Clearly, you misunderstood me if you interpreted my remarks to mean that Mary cannot be the mother of God.
I’m grateful for the definitions of the various mysteries the church has seen fit to define – some of which were taken on trust and placed on the back-burner, so to speak. Yet, eventually, I have become convinced of their truth. It’s usually a matter of appropriateness.
Yes. Same here.
God always uses the most appropriate means for a given task. And the Holy Family being particularly precious, I now find definitions of the mysteries which would reflect such appropriateness, duly sublime.
Good point!StephenB
August 23, 2014
August
08
Aug
23
23
2014
02:53 PM
2
02
53
PM
PDT
Axel, Thanks for your observations in 23. I agree that scientists and mathematicians only reluctantly label surprising phenomena as paradoxes. By labeling them as paradoxes, however, they can also marginalize them as in "Oh, that's the well-known xyz paradox." I'm also committed to the recognition that I cannot comprehend God beyond what God has revealed in his Word, and revealed in my life through experience. I'm limited to a relationship with God on God's terms. Comprehension hasn't been granted to me. Nevertheless, there are hints and possibilities, but I don't hold on to them firmly since they are speculative, and the certainly aren't given any central role in the scriptures. Preincarnate manifestations of Jesus in the garden of Eden and as Melchizedek come to mind, as do some interesting but speculative interpretations of Biblical prophesy. As I'm mentioned elsewhere, Jesus as the only begotten son of God, had been difficult for me to understand beyond plain anthropomorphic terms (which I was OK with). Then, some Indian brothers described Jesus as the only avatar of God, and I felt that in a heartbeat, I understood much more. Whether this is true in all senses is not clear to me, so I hold on to the concept loosely and pragmatically. I hold more strongly to the Word of God than novel speculations, academic analysis, or church tradition. -QQuerius
August 23, 2014
August
08
Aug
23
23
2014
02:25 PM
2
02
25
PM
PDT
Popperian, I think you can answer your own question if you read the OP again and then come to understand how neither of your examples is germane. Go ahead. Give it a try.Barry Arrington
August 23, 2014
August
08
Aug
23
23
2014
02:21 PM
2
02
21
PM
PDT
Mapou #22, Self-awareness can only be understood by invoking the metaphysical concept of oneness. The concept of a distinct inert "knower" who reaches a state of self-awareness with the assistance of brain chemicals doesn't do the same job.Box
August 23, 2014
August
08
Aug
23
23
2014
02:16 PM
2
02
16
PM
PDT
A concrete example of emergence is the universality of computation, which emerges from a particular repertoire of computations. I relied on this daily when running an Intel 386 version of Windows XP on a Power PC Macintosh. Babbage stumbled upon this universality in 1837 when designing his analytical engine. However, it was only until 1936 that Alan Turning got around to formalizing it as any device that is Turing complete. Had Babbage actually managed to built his analytical engine, it would have been the first universal computer, despite being made out of cogs, rather than transistors. Another example is universality that emerges from the Arabic number system, which can represent any number. We stumbled upon this as well, as many previous number systems could have been easily adopted to become universal in reach. However, most were limited to the range of numbers people actually worked with on a daily basis. It's unclear how this emergent universality represents "magic."Popperian
August 23, 2014
August
08
Aug
23
23
2014
02:15 PM
2
02
15
PM
PDT
Mapou,
I dispute the traditional interpretation of these verses. For one, John never specified what he meant by spirit in the Greek language. In those days, even the wind was considered to be a spirit. In fact, many languages, including Hebrew and probably Greek too, use the same word for ‘wind’ when referring to ‘spirit’. Spirit probably meant anything that is not ordinary matter. Ordinary matter is not the only possible form of matter, IMO.
I submit that the following passage contradicts that view: (Lk 24:39: "A spirit does not have flesh and bone."). When the Bible says that we are made in God's image, it doesn't mean we're like him physically. It means that, like God, we possess spiritual faculties that empower us to know, will, and love. If God had a body, He could not be everywhere, being located in only one place, and He could not transcend His own creation, being bound up its material aspects.StephenB
August 23, 2014
August
08
Aug
23
23
2014
01:27 PM
1
01
27
PM
PDT
On that basis, Stephen, your objection that Mary can't be the Mother of God, seems to me something of a cavil. The title is a very old one, going back to, I believe, the 3rd century; certainly, the early Church. I suppose, on the other hand, it might be fair to say, Mary could not have been the mother of the Godhead. But then again, is not Mary's giving birth to Jesus, itself, an imponderable mystery? See what I mean? I'm grateful for the definitions of the various mysteries the church has seen fit to define - some of which were taken on trust and placed on the back-burner, so to speak. Yet, eventually, I have become convinced of their truth. It's usually a matter of appropriateness. God always uses the most appropriate means for a given task. And the Holy Family being particularly precious, I now find definitions of the mysteries which would reflect such appropriateness, duly sublime.Axel
August 23, 2014
August
08
Aug
23
23
2014
01:18 PM
1
01
18
PM
PDT
Mapou and SephenB, you are talking about possibly the profoundest mystery known to man, so you may be over-estimating our capacity to understand or define the precise nature of God in Christ, through the prism of his Incarnation. 'When you see me, you see the Father.' 'Call no man good.' St Thomas Aquinas taught that God is impassible, and that makes sense to us, doesn't it? Yet Jesus could scarcely have stressed more emphatically that we should understand God to be not less human and all together more grand than us, but as being more human, more full of compassion, more full of love and solicitude for us than we can imagine. A fact more than attested for us by Jesus' incarnation and crucifixion, of course. I think the term, godhead, though, is meant to convey the infinite unknowableness of God, the infinite amount of knowledge of his nature we can never know.Axel
August 23, 2014
August
08
Aug
23
23
2014
01:03 PM
1
01
03
PM
PDT
Querius, Nils Bohr was always inviting the public to laugh with him at the absurd, counter-rational features of matter (or, indeed, its solely possible perception) at the quantum level. Today, having had time to ponder it, materialists still can't bring themselves to admit such blasphemies against scientism. Indeed, I don't believe I have ever come across any reference to such mysteries, such paradoxes, as other than, 'counter-'intuitive'; in other words, side-stepping any consideration of the 'absurdity', counter-rationality, illogic concerned. I'm not sure they're even keen on invoking paradoxes. In such a context, invocation of intuition is beyond farcical. To me, for someone to describe the Holy Trinity or Christ's incarnate, dual nature as true God and true man, as counter-intuitive would, itself, be the height of absurdity. They are mysteries which defy our logic, plain and simple. No getting round it. Surely, that tells its own story.Axel
August 23, 2014
August
08
Aug
23
23
2014
12:46 PM
12
12
46
PM
PDT
Box @18, At this point, all I can say is that I believe in Yin and Yang. Your wanting to make the knower self-aware, makes no sense in my worldview. It takes 2 to tango. Sorry we don't seem to agree.Mapou
August 23, 2014
August
08
Aug
23
23
2014
12:07 PM
12
12
07
PM
PDT
StephenB:
According to the Bible, God does not have a material brain. God is pure spirit. John 4:24: “God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.” This means God has no body. As Jesus says, “a spirit has not flesh and bones.”
I dispute the traditional interpretation of these verses. For one, John never specified what he meant by spirit in the Greek language. In those days, even the wind was considered to be a spirit. In fact, many languages, including Hebrew and probably Greek too, use the same word for 'wind' when referring to 'spirit'. Spirit probably meant anything that is not ordinary matter. Ordinary matter is not the only possible form of matter, IMO.Mapou
August 23, 2014
August
08
Aug
23
23
2014
11:53 AM
11
11
53
AM
PDT
bornagain77, What's amazes me is the religious tenacity with which matericalists continue to ignore the implications of the numerous experimental results of quantum mechanics! Also, ignored are the demonstrated results of chaos theory, which falsified scientific determinism, as well as Kurt Gödel's incompleteness theorems. As one of your videos points out, this can be attributed only to metaphysical prejudice---that while accepting the active role of an an observer in a system, they deny the consciousness-induced collapse of the wave function. Mung,
Nagle’s book is an invitation to face this contradiction and resolve it, else materialism is pure wishful thinking.
And it is wishful thinking. People hide behind science, claiming that only scientifically observable phenomena are real, but when science itself is used to experimentally proves the fundamental and active interaction of consciousnessness on reality, they refuse to be pried out of their irrational position. This demonstrates that their commitment to a belief of their choice is stronger than their commitment to the scientific method.
Science itself cannot bear the burden demanded of it by materialists.
Nicely stated! -QQuerius
August 23, 2014
August
08
Aug
23
23
2014
11:28 AM
11
11
28
AM
PDT
According to the Bible, God does not have a material brain. God is pure spirit. John 4:24: "God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth." This means God has no body. As Jesus says, "a spirit has not flesh and bones." Of course "having" a spirit, as humans do, is different from "being" a spirit, as is the case with God and the angels. That is why a humans, who have spirits, can also be animals, i.e., rational animals.StephenB
August 23, 2014
August
08
Aug
23
23
2014
11:08 AM
11
11
08
AM
PDT
Mapou, I wrote: "However, when the brain mirrors the knower, the knower must ‘think’: Hey, that‘s me! However this insight already presupposes direct self-awareness." You answered: "The knower cannot think by itself, IMO. It must use a brain to think." The point I was trying to get across is that the knower thinking "Hey, that's me" presupposes direct self-awareness by the knower - irrespective of your notion that the knower needs a brain in order to think. Direct self-awareness is presupposed in order for such an act to be performed. So, I'm saying that self-awareness is impossible when the knower doesn't sense itself directly. If the knower is not self-aware there is nothing a brain can do in order to change that. Even if the brain is prompting the knower "Hey, that's me", the words would me without meaning to the knower. Especially the "me"-part would not ring a bell. If there is 'nobody home' the brain cannot induce self-awareness in the knower.Box
August 23, 2014
August
08
Aug
23
23
2014
10:54 AM
10
10
54
AM
PDT
Box:
You rule out direct self-awareness.
If by self, you mean the knower, then yes I do. The knower (spirit) cannot be known and the known (brain) cannot know. The spirit can only know the brain. Personally, I define the self as being both the brain and the spirit.
However, when the brain mirrors the knower, the knower must ‘think’: Hey, that ‘s me! However this insight already presupposes direct self-awareness.
The knower cannot think by itself, IMO. It must use a brain to think.
So God must have a material brain in order to be self-aware and to able to think?
Absolutely. I am not one of those Christians who believes in Christian doctrines just because some church or some Christian thinker believes in it. The master said, "Search and you shall find". He did not say, "Let someone else do your searching for you."
How do you explain near death experiences?
I don’t. I have no way of knowing what is going on in such situations. Reports of such experiences are subjective.Mapou
August 23, 2014
August
08
Aug
23
23
2014
10:21 AM
10
10
21
AM
PDT
Mapou: Direct self-awareness? Absolutely. We can only sense the self via the mirror of the brain, IMO.
You rule out direct self-awareness. However, when the brain mirrors the knower, the knower must 'think': Hey, that 's me! However this insight already presupposes direct self-awareness.
Mapou: As a Christian, I can tell you that not even God can sense the spirit directly.
So God must have a material brain in order to be self-aware and to able to think? How do you explain near death experiences?Box
August 23, 2014
August
08
Aug
23
23
2014
04:40 AM
4
04
40
AM
PDT
Box:
Mapou, so 1. you rule out self-awareness.
Direct self-awareness? Absolutely. We can only sense the self via the mirror of the brain, IMO. As a Christian, I can tell you that not even God can sense the spirit directly. This is why every spirit must be tested and judged by the way it behaves through life.
2. the “I” doesn’t think, but something else (the nervous system of the brain) takes care of the thinking.
For conscious thinking, it takes both the knower and the known. For unconscious thinking, as in the cerebellum (during certain routine tasks), only the brain does it. The brain is required in both types of thinking, IMO.
3. the “I” doesn’t know about this thinking.
I'm not exactly sure what you mean by the "I" but the knower does. Incidentally the brain (the known) cannot know anything. IMO, the "I" consists of both knower and known.
I do hope I misunderstood?
I think you did but not in the way I think you'd expect.Mapou
August 22, 2014
August
08
Aug
22
22
2014
09:38 PM
9
09
38
PM
PDT
Mapou, so 1. you rule out self-awareness. 2. the "I" doesn't think, but something else (the nervous system of the brain) takes care of the thinking. 3. the "I" doesn't know about this thinking. I do hope I misunderstood?Box
August 22, 2014
August
08
Aug
22
22
2014
07:23 PM
7
07
23
PM
PDT
Mung:
Mapou, “I am thinking, therefore I exist” Am I not both subject and object? What else could Descartes have been thinking about?
This is where Descartes's castle in the air comes crashing down, IMO. He was a dualist and yet he believed that thinking was somehow immune to dualism, untouchable in its own private realm. What he failed to understand is that dualism is synonymous to Yin and Yang. In everything, it is always about two opposite entities. Unity comes from the balance of opposites. So the "I" in "I am thinking" could not possibly be its own opposite. If your "I" is thinking, it must be thinking about something, no? The "I" is the knower or spirit and the known is somewhere in the nervous system of the brain. Conscious disembodied spirits? I don't think so. At least, this is how I see it.Mapou
August 22, 2014
August
08
Aug
22
22
2014
07:11 PM
7
07
11
PM
PDT
Mapou, "I am thinking, therefore I exist" Am I not both subject and object? What else could Descartes have been thinking about?Mung
August 22, 2014
August
08
Aug
22
22
2014
06:10 PM
6
06
10
PM
PDT
Barry, yer News writer here (hi!), hope this is a help: I know mind isn't a material thing because I deal with people with cognitive problems all the time. It is just something I do every day. All my life, actually. The only way I have ever found to make sense of mind is: The brain is a mechanism that connects the mind to the physical world. Materialists don't like that approach because they want to make mind part of the physical world but it cannot by its very nature be so. It's not that we can't research the mind, of course we can. But can we just get the junk, thunk, and clunk out first?News
August 22, 2014
August
08
Aug
22
22
2014
06:05 PM
6
06
05
PM
PDT
It takes two complementary opposite entities for consciousness to exist: a knower and a known. So to deny dualism is to deny logic. But this is common fare in materialist circles.Mapou
August 22, 2014
August
08
Aug
22
22
2014
04:40 PM
4
04
40
PM
PDT
If materialism cannot accommodate consciousness and other mind-related aspects of reality, then we must abandon a purely materialist understanding of nature in general, extending to biology, evolutionary theory, and cosmology....
Interesting how this dovetails with the other thread, in which RDFish denigrated dualism as providing no basis for scientific theorizing. Modern science is Cartesian through and through. Nagle's book is an invitation to face this contradiction and resolve it, else materialism is pure wishful thinking. Science itself cannot bear the burden demanded of it by materialists.Mung
August 22, 2014
August
08
Aug
22
22
2014
04:30 PM
4
04
30
PM
PDT
Barry, why do you insist on denying mystery to materialists? Regardless of how, we know what must have happened. We may not know how x came to be [a mystery], but we know it must have been by y, because z is the only acceptable option, and z entails y, therefore x [mystery solved]. QEDMung
August 22, 2014
August
08
Aug
22
22
2014
04:21 PM
4
04
21
PM
PDT
The following video also clearly demonstrates that “decoherence” does not solve the measurement problem:
The Measurement Problem in quantum mechanics - (Inspiring Philosophy) - 2014 video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qB7d5V71vUE
Verse and Music:
Colossians 1:17 And he is before all things, and by him all things consist. Evanescence - The Other Side (Lyric Video) http://www.vevo.com/watch/evanescence/the-other-side-lyric-video/USWV41200024?source=instantsearch
Supplemental Notes:
The Galileo Affair and Life/Consciousness as the true “Center of the Universe” https://docs.google.com/document/d/1BHAcvrc913SgnPcDohwkPnN4kMJ9EDX-JJSkjc4AXmA/edit Two very different eternities revealed by physics: General Relativity, Special Relativity, Heaven and Hell https://docs.google.com/document/d/1_4cQ7MXq8bLkoFLYW0kq3Xq-Hkc3c7r-gTk0DYJQFSg/edit
bornagain77
August 22, 2014
August
08
Aug
22
22
2014
03:57 PM
3
03
57
PM
PDT
The following video and paper get the general, and dramatic, point across of what ‘giving up realism’ actually means:
Quantum Physics – (material reality does not exist until we look at it) – Dr. Quantum video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D1ezNvpFcJU Macrorealism Emerging from Quantum Physics – Brukner, Caslav; Kofler, Johannes American Physical Society, APS March Meeting, – March 5-9, 2007 Excerpt: for unrestricted measurement accuracy a violation of macrorealism (i.e., a violation of the Leggett-Garg inequalities) is possible for arbitrary large systems.,, http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2007APS..MARB33005B
But, as if all that was not enough to demonstrate consciousness’s centrality in quantum mechanics, I then learned about something called the ‘Quantum Zeno Effect’,,
Quantum Zeno Effect The quantum Zeno effect is,, an unstable particle, if observed continuously, will never decay. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_Zeno_effect Quantum Zeno effect “It has been experimentally confirmed,, that unstable particles will not decay, or will decay less rapidly, if they are observed. Somehow, observation changes the quantum system. We’re talking pure observation, not interacting with the system in any way.” Douglas Ell – Counting to God – pg. 189 – 2014 – Douglas Ell graduated early from MIT, where he double majored in math and physics. He then obtained a masters in theoretical mathematics from the University of Maryland. After graduating from law school, magna cum laude, he became a prominent attorney.
The reason why I am very impressed with the Quantum Zeno effect as to establishing consciousness’s primacy in quantum mechanics is, for one thing, that Entropy is, by a wide margin, the most finely tuned of initial conditions of the Big Bang:
The Physics of the Small and Large: What is the Bridge Between Them? Roger Penrose Excerpt: “The time-asymmetry is fundamentally connected to with the Second Law of Thermodynamics: indeed, the extraordinarily special nature (to a greater precision than about 1 in 10^10^123, in terms of phase-space volume) can be identified as the “source” of the Second Law (Entropy).” How special was the big bang? – Roger Penrose Excerpt: This now tells us how precise the Creator’s aim must have been: namely to an accuracy of one part in 10^10^123. (from the Emperor’s New Mind, Penrose, pp 339-345 – 1989)
For another thing, it is interesting to note just how foundational entropy is in its explanatory power for actions within the space-time of the universe:
Shining Light on Dark Energy – October 21, 2012 Excerpt: It (Entropy) explains time; it explains every possible action in the universe;,, Even gravity, Vedral argued, can be expressed as a consequence of the law of entropy. ,,, The principles of thermodynamics are at their roots all to do with information theory. Information theory is simply an embodiment of how we interact with the universe —,,, http://crev.info/2012/10/shining-light-on-dark-energy/
In fact, entropy is also the primary reason why our physical, temporal, bodies grow old and die,,,
Aging Process – 85 years in 40 seconds – video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A91Fwf_sMhk *3 new mutations every time a cell divides in your body * Average cell of 15 year old has up to 6000 mutations *Average cell of 60 year old has 40,000 mutations Reproductive cells are ‘designed’ so that, early on in development, they are ‘set aside’ and thus they do not accumulate mutations as the rest of the cells of our bodies do. Regardless of this protective barrier against the accumulation of slightly detrimental mutations still we find that,,, *60-175 mutations are passed on to each new generation. Per John Sanford Entropy Explains Aging, Genetic Determinism Explains Longevity, and Undefined Terminology Explains Misunderstanding Both - 2007 Excerpt: There is a huge body of knowledge supporting the belief that age changes are characterized by increasing entropy, which results in the random loss of molecular fidelity, and accumulates to slowly overwhelm maintenance systems [1–4].,,, http://www.plosgenetics.org/article/info%3Adoi/10.1371/journal.pgen.0030220
And yet, to repeat,,,
Quantum Zeno effect Excerpt: The quantum Zeno effect is,,, an unstable particle, if observed continuously, will never decay. per wiki
This is just fascinating! Why in blue blazes should conscious observation put a freeze on entropic decay, unless consciousness was/is more foundational to reality than the 1 in 10^10^120 entropy is? Related notes on ‘interaction free’ measurement:
The Mental Universe – Richard Conn Henry – Professor of Physics John Hopkins University Excerpt: The only reality is mind and observations, but observations are not of things. To see the Universe as it really is, we must abandon our tendency to conceptualize observations as things.,,, Physicists shy away from the truth because the truth is so alien to everyday physics. A common way to evade the mental universe is to invoke “decoherence” – the notion that “the physical environment” is sufficient to create reality, independent of the human mind. Yet the idea that any irreversible act of amplification is necessary to collapse the wave function is known to be wrong: in “Renninger-type” experiments, the wave function is collapsed simply by your human mind seeing nothing. The universe is entirely mental,,,, The Universe is immaterial — mental and spiritual. Live, and enjoy. http://henry.pha.jhu.edu/The.mental.universe.pdf The Renninger Negative Result Experiment – video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C3uzSlh_CV0 Elitzur–Vaidman bomb tester Excerpt: In 1994, Anton Zeilinger, Paul Kwiat, Harald Weinfurter, and Thomas Herzog actually performed an equivalent of the above experiment, proving interaction-free measurements are indeed possible.[2] In 1996, Kwiat et al. devised a method, using a sequence of polarising devices, that efficiently increases the yield rate to a level arbitrarily close to one. per wiki Experimental Realization of Interaction-Free Measurement – Paul G. Kwiat; H. Weinfurter, T. Herzog, A. Zeilinger, and M. Kasevich – 1994 Interaction-Free Measurement – 1995 Realization of an interaction-free measurement – 1996
bornagain77
August 22, 2014
August
08
Aug
22
22
2014
03:56 PM
3
03
56
PM
PDT
1 2

Leave a Reply