13 ms·

The Hippies Were Right: It's All about Vibrations, Man

32 points by ston3r 8y ago

fabatka 8y ago
> we have developed a “resonance theory of consciousness” that suggests that resonance—another word for synchronized vibrations—is at the heart of not only human consciousness but of physical reality more generally. Riiiight. How delusional must one be to actually take the time to publish something with this as a core idea?
- saalweachter 8y ago
  > Tam Hunt is a practicing lawyer (renewable energy law and policy) by day and by night a scholar (affiliated with the University of California Santa Barbara's Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences) in the philosophy of mind, the philosophy of biology and the philosophy of physics.
  - dmingod666 8y ago
    You mean, theories to be taken with a pinch of whatever you have at night..
  - _Schizotypy 8y ago
    Too bad philosophy isn't actual science
whatshisface 8y ago
I'm not sure if it should be called a theory, given that it's completely unfalsifiable. It is totally impossible to determine through observation whether or not anything beyond yourself is conscious, unless by conscious you mean physically awake.
- amelius 8y ago
  I suppose it can be called a theory, just not a scientific theory. Otherwise, it would not be possible to find any theory for consciousness, but in fact people are still trying to find one.
  - whatshisface 8y ago
    Why can't it be impossible to find any theory of consciousness? Unless you define the word theory to mean something it doesn't mean to scientists, it is impossible to have a theory of consciousness. At best there could be speculation about consciousness.
    - Nasrudith 8y ago
      Technically you could but it depends on definitions of consciousness and ability to affect, disassemble, and replicate - never mind the ethics. To be a smartass with multiple definitions of consciousness we have concrete theories already. Given that xenon gas is capable of anesthetizing even plants it appears that the process is electrochemical in known life and disruption leads to unconsciousness - pain can't go anywhere. That tells us basics but building from there is difficult.
      - whatshisface 8y ago
        You're talking about sleep, I'm talking about "the experience of qualia," or whatever you want to call it. Sure, you can have a scientific theory of anesthesia. "The experience of qualia," categorically cannot be studied because it inherently makes no predictions about the behavior of anything in the physical world. It isn't like the idea of free will, where something is being decided, it is just about how things are being passively observed.
  - saalweachter 8y ago
    You have to be very careful when deciding what can and can't be a scientific theory. Not being able to directly observe something isn't actually a problem. We can't directly observe black holes. We can't directly observe the center of the sun, in the foreseeable future. We can't directly observe the evolution of life on Earth. But we can use our theories to explain these things to also make predictions that can be observed, tested, and used to discard incorrect hypotheses. Where science ends is when there are no observations you could make which would disprove your hypothesis. For instance, intelligent design basically says, an intelligent designer could have done things in whatever weird way they are, so any observations are just how it happened.
flossball 8y ago
What did I just read??? I can't help but feel stupider for reading it. This is complete garbage. Some relationship to the internal frequencies of the brain, ie. its various analog clock tree mechanisms means that because all matter is based on subatomic vibrations rocks and atoms have a degree of consciousness too? Wow, my laptop running at 2.2GHz(and various other frequencies) must be a supreme being. Yes, obviously a clock tree is important to sync various neurons together efficiently and where ever there are conflicts, ticks will be lost or (whatever the thought real equivalent is). The more sync'ed the more complex the brain obviously, but whether that is 'consciousness' or just efficiency... or anything else? This writer obviously has no clue. At least they didn't say the brain is a quantum computer because of vibrations.
- whatshisface 8y ago
  >The more sync'ed the more complex the brain obviously That may not even be true. Octupus brains are constrained to a toroidal geometry because they eat through the doughnut hole. Apparently despite their very large brain sizes and advanced problem solving skills the elements are fairly independent.
- agumonkey 8y ago
  It's only a supreme being when surrounded by 2.2GHz laptops in sync
- csomar 8y ago
  The hypothesis is worthy of pursuit, in my opinion. The article is not well written, however. If you say matter can't have consciousness then how does your brain have one? Your brain in made of matter. There are definitively varying degrees of consciousness and self-awareness. I don't think that someone who is an 1. atheist 2. knows that consciousness is made by the brain neurons or some processes; has the same self-awareness as someone who is 1. religious and 2. thinks he has a soul. Look at living creature. Look at a cell. It is a living thing but it is made by much fewer atoms and molecules than the human body. It is interesting to watch what we consider "dead matter" being alive. They are both matter and atoms at the end of day. Is a cell trying to survive its environment inside the human body conscious? Is a human trying to survive its environment inside the country/system conscious? Is a country trying to survive its environment inside planet earth conscious?
dmingod666 8y ago
Not only is the theory seeming a bit too large fitting but the article tries to stuff some cool 'vibe' nonsense.. if the original problem is Hard and you have some insight into a solution you have a ton of value already. But then maybe you dont have that insight and want to sell some snake oil level article. for something so important it just ends up looking like bad satire or onion type material. what are you trying to convey? sand is concious.. okay, thankyou. that was very helpful. the original paper probably has more sense in it.
- saalweachter 8y ago
  I wouldn't be so sure. There are a ton of people who get taken seriously who really, really don't like the "consciousness is what the brain does" consensus of modern neuroscience, and they say a lot of stupid things trying to come up with an alternative.
  - whatshisface 8y ago
    That's not a concensus of modern neroscience, that's a philosophical consensus that perhaps neuroscientists have. Consciousness is not eligible for science because it can't be observed. For example you might think someone under deep anethesia is not conscious, but how do you know that they aren't completely conscious while not experiencing anything, doing anything or forming memories?
    - goldenkey 8y ago
      You can't observe consciousness in even living beings. Consciousness can't actually be verified for anyone but yourself. And that is actually a point of contention. Some people believe that their consciousness is an illusion too...
  - ghthor 8y ago
    It's less of consensus, more of an IOU. Materialist science just says, we can't explain it now, but we will explain it in the future. Materialist biology is saying the same about the forms of plants being caused by the DNA, we can't explain it now but we will in the future. There are some scientists that aren't materialists, Rupert Sheldrake, that dont expect materialistic science to be able to explain consciousness or why life has complex forms.
starbeast 8y ago
Stephen Collins satirised this kind of 'science reporting' pretty well - https://www.wired.com/images_blogs/beyond_the_beyond/2009/07/020709.jpg https://www.wired.com/images_blogs/beyond_the_beyond/2009/07... On a long enough timeline, all popular science magazines eventually decay into motheaten old copies of BBC Focus.
mathattack 8y ago
The Mindscape podcast touches on a lot of these issues. More recently [0] they had David Chalmers who was quoted in the OP. [0] https://overcast.fm/+Nvq_vr69w https://overcast.fm/+Nvq_vr69w
limbicsystem 8y ago
I wonder... Professor Schooler is a pretty high-profile scientist (https://scholar.google.co.uk/citations?user=3UEI9NIAAAAJ&hl=en&oi=ao https://scholar.google.co.uk/citations?user=3UEI9NIAAAAJ&hl=...). But I don't see any publications with Tam Hunt (who seems a little... eccentric? (https://www.collective-evolution.com/2018/03/21/carl-jungs-synchronicities-is-there-meaning-to-this-experience-that-makes-us-question-the-universe/ https://www.collective-evolution.com/2018/03/21/carl-jungs-s...). I wonder if this is just some guy who has managed to get 'visitor status' at UCSB and is taking an unwitting scientist's work out of context? In what sense is he a 'colleague'?

32 points by ston3r 8y ago

> we have developed a “resonance theory of consciousness” that suggests that resonance—another word for synchronized vibrations—is at the heart of not only human consciousness but of physical reality more generally. Riiiight. How delusional must one be to actually take the time to publish something with this as a core idea?

saalweachter 8y ago
> Tam Hunt is a practicing lawyer (renewable energy law and policy) by day and by night a scholar (affiliated with the University of California Santa Barbara's Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences) in the philosophy of mind, the philosophy of biology and the philosophy of physics.
- dmingod666 8y ago
  You mean, theories to be taken with a pinch of whatever you have at night..
- _Schizotypy 8y ago
  Too bad philosophy isn't actual science

whatshisface 8y ago

I'm not sure if it should be called a theory, given that it's completely unfalsifiable. It is totally impossible to determine through observation whether or not anything beyond yourself is conscious, unless by conscious you mean physically awake.

amelius 8y ago
I suppose it can be called a theory, just not a scientific theory. Otherwise, it would not be possible to find any theory for consciousness, but in fact people are still trying to find one.
- whatshisface 8y ago
  Why can't it be impossible to find any theory of consciousness? Unless you define the word theory to mean something it doesn't mean to scientists, it is impossible to have a theory of consciousness. At best there could be speculation about consciousness.
  - Nasrudith 8y ago
    Technically you could but it depends on definitions of consciousness and ability to affect, disassemble, and replicate - never mind the ethics. To be a smartass with multiple definitions of consciousness we have concrete theories already. Given that xenon gas is capable of anesthetizing even plants it appears that the process is electrochemical in known life and disruption leads to unconsciousness - pain can't go anywhere. That tells us basics but building from there is difficult.
    - whatshisface 8y ago
      You're talking about sleep, I'm talking about "the experience of qualia," or whatever you want to call it. Sure, you can have a scientific theory of anesthesia. "The experience of qualia," categorically cannot be studied because it inherently makes no predictions about the behavior of anything in the physical world. It isn't like the idea of free will, where something is being decided, it is just about how things are being passively observed.
- saalweachter 8y ago
  You have to be very careful when deciding what can and can't be a scientific theory. Not being able to directly observe something isn't actually a problem. We can't directly observe black holes. We can't directly observe the center of the sun, in the foreseeable future. We can't directly observe the evolution of life on Earth. But we can use our theories to explain these things to also make predictions that can be observed, tested, and used to discard incorrect hypotheses. Where science ends is when there are no observations you could make which would disprove your hypothesis. For instance, intelligent design basically says, an intelligent designer could have done things in whatever weird way they are, so any observations are just how it happened.

flossball 8y ago

What did I just read??? I can't help but feel stupider for reading it. This is complete garbage. Some relationship to the internal frequencies of the brain, ie. its various analog clock tree mechanisms means that because all matter is based on subatomic vibrations rocks and atoms have a degree of consciousness too? Wow, my laptop running at 2.2GHz(and various other frequencies) must be a supreme being. Yes, obviously a clock tree is important to sync various neurons together efficiently and where ever there are conflicts, ticks will be lost or (whatever the thought real equivalent is). The more sync'ed the more complex the brain obviously, but whether that is 'consciousness' or just efficiency... or anything else? This writer obviously has no clue. At least they didn't say the brain is a quantum computer because of vibrations.

whatshisface 8y ago
>The more sync'ed the more complex the brain obviously That may not even be true. Octupus brains are constrained to a toroidal geometry because they eat through the doughnut hole. Apparently despite their very large brain sizes and advanced problem solving skills the elements are fairly independent.
agumonkey 8y ago
It's only a supreme being when surrounded by 2.2GHz laptops in sync
csomar 8y ago
The hypothesis is worthy of pursuit, in my opinion. The article is not well written, however. If you say matter can't have consciousness then how does your brain have one? Your brain in made of matter. There are definitively varying degrees of consciousness and self-awareness. I don't think that someone who is an 1. atheist 2. knows that consciousness is made by the brain neurons or some processes; has the same self-awareness as someone who is 1. religious and 2. thinks he has a soul. Look at living creature. Look at a cell. It is a living thing but it is made by much fewer atoms and molecules than the human body. It is interesting to watch what we consider "dead matter" being alive. They are both matter and atoms at the end of day. Is a cell trying to survive its environment inside the human body conscious? Is a human trying to survive its environment inside the country/system conscious? Is a country trying to survive its environment inside planet earth conscious?

dmingod666 8y ago

Not only is the theory seeming a bit too large fitting but the article tries to stuff some cool 'vibe' nonsense.. if the original problem is Hard and you have some insight into a solution you have a ton of value already. But then maybe you dont have that insight and want to sell some snake oil level article. for something so important it just ends up looking like bad satire or onion type material. what are you trying to convey? sand is concious.. okay, thankyou. that was very helpful. the original paper probably has more sense in it.

saalweachter 8y ago
I wouldn't be so sure. There are a ton of people who get taken seriously who really, really don't like the "consciousness is what the brain does" consensus of modern neuroscience, and they say a lot of stupid things trying to come up with an alternative.
- whatshisface 8y ago
  That's not a concensus of modern neroscience, that's a philosophical consensus that perhaps neuroscientists have. Consciousness is not eligible for science because it can't be observed. For example you might think someone under deep anethesia is not conscious, but how do you know that they aren't completely conscious while not experiencing anything, doing anything or forming memories?
  - goldenkey 8y ago
    You can't observe consciousness in even living beings. Consciousness can't actually be verified for anyone but yourself. And that is actually a point of contention. Some people believe that their consciousness is an illusion too...
- ghthor 8y ago
  It's less of consensus, more of an IOU. Materialist science just says, we can't explain it now, but we will explain it in the future. Materialist biology is saying the same about the forms of plants being caused by the DNA, we can't explain it now but we will in the future. There are some scientists that aren't materialists, Rupert Sheldrake, that dont expect materialistic science to be able to explain consciousness or why life has complex forms.

starbeast 8y ago

Stephen Collins satirised this kind of 'science reporting' pretty well - https://www.wired.com/images_blogs/beyond_the_beyond/2009/07/020709.jpg https://www.wired.com/images_blogs/beyond_the_beyond/2009/07... On a long enough timeline, all popular science magazines eventually decay into motheaten old copies of BBC Focus.

mathattack 8y ago

The Mindscape podcast touches on a lot of these issues. More recently [0] they had David Chalmers who was quoted in the OP. [0] https://overcast.fm/+Nvq_vr69w https://overcast.fm/+Nvq_vr69w

limbicsystem 8y ago

I wonder... Professor Schooler is a pretty high-profile scientist (https://scholar.google.co.uk/citations?user=3UEI9NIAAAAJ&hl=en&oi=ao https://scholar.google.co.uk/citations?user=3UEI9NIAAAAJ&hl=...). But I don't see any publications with Tam Hunt (who seems a little... eccentric? (https://www.collective-evolution.com/2018/03/21/carl-jungs-synchronicities-is-there-meaning-to-this-experience-that-makes-us-question-the-universe/ https://www.collective-evolution.com/2018/03/21/carl-jungs-s...). I wonder if this is just some guy who has managed to get 'visitor status' at UCSB and is taking an unwitting scientist's work out of context? In what sense is he a 'colleague'?