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Perhaps one such decision is that matter is fundamental. There are increasingly substantial cases being made that this is now holding us back in physics, and th

Perhaps one such decision is that matter is fundamental. There are increasingly substantial cases being made that this is now holding us back in physics, and that we need to consider that consciousness is fundamental, and matter is only a consequence of it. See, for example Hoffman's The Case Against Reality.

onionisafruit 4y ago
What does fundamental mean in this case?
- alex_sf 4y ago
  Nothing. It’s pseudoscientific nonsense.
- denton-scratch 4y ago
  I'm not a physicist; but the GP mentioned consciousness as an alternative to matter as the fundamental "substance". Well, I've come across that idea before; in certain kinds of Buddhism, consciousness is considered fundamental, the senses are created by consciousness, and the material world is projected by consciousness through the senses. Well, this was explained to me in the context of a particular type of tantric Buddhism; but actually the basic idea is common across most mainstream Buddhism. Most schools teach that the universe is cyclical, and is completely destroyed at the end of an era, before being recreated ex-nihilo. The creation process is started with the appearance of Brahma, who then hallucinates the rest of the universe into existence. So in that model, it is consciousness, not matter that is fundamental, because the material world cannot come into existence without consciousness.
  - karthikk 4y ago
    it is a reversal of "I think, therefore I am" -> "I am, therefore I think" (slight nitpick, the idea(consciousness is fundamental, creation is cyclical) goes back much earlier than buddhism and is part of advaita vedanta.)
    - denton-scratch 4y ago
      > slight nitpick I'm aware that the cyclical universe is from the vedas; a lot of what passes for Buddhist metaphysics is pre-Buddhist. The Buddha didn't care much for metaphysical pronouncements; he was more a meditation teacher than a cosmologist. So I didn't mean to claim that these ideas were Buddhist in origin; I just learned of them from Buddhists.
  - catchclose8919 4y ago
    ...so you're just using "Brahma" to refer to the computer that is running the simulation that is the universe. And when the simulation becomes aware of its own condition, it becomes conscious? This is just rephrasing of the symulation hypothesis in mystical terms and is just as useless as the symulation hypothesis itself (regardless if it's "true" or not). There's some valuable deeper stuff in hindu and buddhist philosophies, but this set of ideas isn't it (neither valuable nor actually deep, just "exotic" sounding to an extent).
    - denton-scratch 4y ago
      > ...so you're just using "Brahma" to refer to the computer that is running the simulation that is the universe. That "Brahma" isn't a computer; the model doesn't suggest that the universe is a simulation. You seem to have wedged in an interpretation that is fundamentally materialist, which sort of misses the point; according to this model, consciousness is fundamental. That is what was being discussed. I agree that it's "mystical" to postulate that consciousness is fundamental; but it's equally mystical to assume that matter is fundamental. In the Buddhist tradition where I learned this, the Brahma story was just that - a myth. But they treated the "consciousness is fundamental" thing as a core teaching, they elaborated it, and the practices grew out of that view. The tradition was a practice tradition; they shunned metaphysical speculation, and "philosophy" was generally treated as another technique for breaking-down conceptual thought. This wasn't something you were supposed to believe, or reason about; it was presented as a way of seeing the world (a "view") that was useful in Buddhist practice. In the same tradition, we were taught that all views are provisional. I was just answering the OP's question about what "fundamental" means in this context. I am not advocating for the view that consciousness is fundamental. I happen to take the view that consciousness exists, and is not an emergent phenomenon; but I don't have a philosophical system built around that idea. It's just that I can't see how the subjective experience of consciousness can emerge from what amounts to a system of levers and gears.
      - catchclose8919 4y ago
        > I agree that it's "mystical" to postulate that consciousness is fundamental; but it's equally mystical to assume that matter is fundamental. Sure using "matter" like this without defining it is equally mystical. That's why we'd take 'computation' to be "fundamental" or 'the wave function'. "Matter" is just a higher level emergent property of what we perceive. > I happen to take the view that consciousness exists, and is not an emergent phenomenon OK, now I see why my viewpoint would sound so "off" to you, we're probably on different extremes of the thinking spectrum :) I don't discard you're viewpoint, it's just so so so so far from mine: I take most of what we label "reality" to be emergent properties from some kind of fundamental computation (and by "computation" I don't imply a "computer" like we know, just "math that `can run`") whose math is probably too complicated and strange for us to intuitively understand (we can just hope to get to calculate better approximations of it). I don't just see consciousness as an emergent phenomenon. I see matter as an emergent phenomenon. And also space-time itself as an emergent phenomena inside our emergent consciusnesses. The "fundamental" could just very well be something like the simplest celular automaton with non-periodict behavior or maybe something too strange for our ape-minds to ever be able to comprehend (or too simple to understand how it could be the basis - there could be enough complexity/structure in just 'the distribution of all the prime numbers' or 'the digits of pi' to contain our entire universe with its infinite past and future "inside of it"). And to clarify, "simulation" is also quite generalizable - a simulation is just something that runs as an informational phenomenon on top of some physical substrate, but is fully independent of that susbstrate to the extent that it could be "ported" from that substrate to another completely different substrate that just happens to also preserve the subset of mathematical laws required for the computation. Eg. "software" that can be "ported" so it's independent of the actual nature of the hardware. Digital/discrete (as opposed to analogical) computation gives you this magical "divorce" of computation from substrate. It doesn't have to be something like our current day software running on something like our computers - any kind of "portable discrete/digital computation" is "a simulation".
robertlagrant 4y ago
How do you define "increasingly substantial"?
otabdeveloper4 4y ago
There is no such thing as "consciousness". There is, however, free will. Information complexity is a real and measurable physical quantity, and unlike all others it doesn't obey conservation laws. The sigularity that happens when information complexity is out of control is colloqually called "free will". (Someday maybe we'll be able to map information complexity the same way we now map cosmic background radiation. Now that would be a sight to behold!)

onionisafruit 4y ago

What does fundamental mean in this case?

alex_sf 4y ago
Nothing. It’s pseudoscientific nonsense.
denton-scratch 4y ago
I'm not a physicist; but the GP mentioned consciousness as an alternative to matter as the fundamental "substance". Well, I've come across that idea before; in certain kinds of Buddhism, consciousness is considered fundamental, the senses are created by consciousness, and the material world is projected by consciousness through the senses. Well, this was explained to me in the context of a particular type of tantric Buddhism; but actually the basic idea is common across most mainstream Buddhism. Most schools teach that the universe is cyclical, and is completely destroyed at the end of an era, before being recreated ex-nihilo. The creation process is started with the appearance of Brahma, who then hallucinates the rest of the universe into existence. So in that model, it is consciousness, not matter that is fundamental, because the material world cannot come into existence without consciousness.
- karthikk 4y ago
  it is a reversal of "I think, therefore I am" -> "I am, therefore I think" (slight nitpick, the idea(consciousness is fundamental, creation is cyclical) goes back much earlier than buddhism and is part of advaita vedanta.)
  - denton-scratch 4y ago
    > slight nitpick I'm aware that the cyclical universe is from the vedas; a lot of what passes for Buddhist metaphysics is pre-Buddhist. The Buddha didn't care much for metaphysical pronouncements; he was more a meditation teacher than a cosmologist. So I didn't mean to claim that these ideas were Buddhist in origin; I just learned of them from Buddhists.
- catchclose8919 4y ago
  ...so you're just using "Brahma" to refer to the computer that is running the simulation that is the universe. And when the simulation becomes aware of its own condition, it becomes conscious? This is just rephrasing of the symulation hypothesis in mystical terms and is just as useless as the symulation hypothesis itself (regardless if it's "true" or not). There's some valuable deeper stuff in hindu and buddhist philosophies, but this set of ideas isn't it (neither valuable nor actually deep, just "exotic" sounding to an extent).
  - denton-scratch 4y ago
    > ...so you're just using "Brahma" to refer to the computer that is running the simulation that is the universe. That "Brahma" isn't a computer; the model doesn't suggest that the universe is a simulation. You seem to have wedged in an interpretation that is fundamentally materialist, which sort of misses the point; according to this model, consciousness is fundamental. That is what was being discussed. I agree that it's "mystical" to postulate that consciousness is fundamental; but it's equally mystical to assume that matter is fundamental. In the Buddhist tradition where I learned this, the Brahma story was just that - a myth. But they treated the "consciousness is fundamental" thing as a core teaching, they elaborated it, and the practices grew out of that view. The tradition was a practice tradition; they shunned metaphysical speculation, and "philosophy" was generally treated as another technique for breaking-down conceptual thought. This wasn't something you were supposed to believe, or reason about; it was presented as a way of seeing the world (a "view") that was useful in Buddhist practice. In the same tradition, we were taught that all views are provisional. I was just answering the OP's question about what "fundamental" means in this context. I am not advocating for the view that consciousness is fundamental. I happen to take the view that consciousness exists, and is not an emergent phenomenon; but I don't have a philosophical system built around that idea. It's just that I can't see how the subjective experience of consciousness can emerge from what amounts to a system of levers and gears.
    - catchclose8919 4y ago
      > I agree that it's "mystical" to postulate that consciousness is fundamental; but it's equally mystical to assume that matter is fundamental. Sure using "matter" like this without defining it is equally mystical. That's why we'd take 'computation' to be "fundamental" or 'the wave function'. "Matter" is just a higher level emergent property of what we perceive. > I happen to take the view that consciousness exists, and is not an emergent phenomenon OK, now I see why my viewpoint would sound so "off" to you, we're probably on different extremes of the thinking spectrum :) I don't discard you're viewpoint, it's just so so so so far from mine: I take most of what we label "reality" to be emergent properties from some kind of fundamental computation (and by "computation" I don't imply a "computer" like we know, just "math that `can run`") whose math is probably too complicated and strange for us to intuitively understand (we can just hope to get to calculate better approximations of it). I don't just see consciousness as an emergent phenomenon. I see matter as an emergent phenomenon. And also space-time itself as an emergent phenomena inside our emergent consciusnesses. The "fundamental" could just very well be something like the simplest celular automaton with non-periodict behavior or maybe something too strange for our ape-minds to ever be able to comprehend (or too simple to understand how it could be the basis - there could be enough complexity/structure in just 'the distribution of all the prime numbers' or 'the digits of pi' to contain our entire universe with its infinite past and future "inside of it"). And to clarify, "simulation" is also quite generalizable - a simulation is just something that runs as an informational phenomenon on top of some physical substrate, but is fully independent of that susbstrate to the extent that it could be "ported" from that substrate to another completely different substrate that just happens to also preserve the subset of mathematical laws required for the computation. Eg. "software" that can be "ported" so it's independent of the actual nature of the hardware. Digital/discrete (as opposed to analogical) computation gives you this magical "divorce" of computation from substrate. It doesn't have to be something like our current day software running on something like our computers - any kind of "portable discrete/digital computation" is "a simulation".

robertlagrant 4y ago

How do you define "increasingly substantial"?

otabdeveloper4 4y ago

There is no such thing as "consciousness". There is, however, free will. Information complexity is a real and measurable physical quantity, and unlike all others it doesn't obey conservation laws. The sigularity that happens when information complexity is out of control is colloqually called "free will". (Someday maybe we'll be able to map information complexity the same way we now map cosmic background radiation. Now that would be a sight to behold!)