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This argument by Tim Palmer is in line with our intuitions, and his expertise while we are at it, but I'm pretty sure it's wrong. Quantum uncertainty is due to

This argument by Tim Palmer is in line with our intuitions, and his expertise while we are at it, but I'm pretty sure it's wrong. Quantum uncertainty is due to how quantum reality works, we just don't know exactly how quantum effects result in our classic reality, namely general relativity. I'm pretty sure the answer to that is something way less intuitive than chaos theory. I think Tim Palmer have spent his life chasing determinism in dynamical systems, and now everything is a nail to his hammer.

mistermann 4y ago
It also overlooks that humans exists in reality, and humans run on consciousness (so they say), and consciousness (and the motion and causality that emerges from it) remains somewhat of a black/invisible box to scientists.
- Comevius 4y ago
  That doesn't have anything to do with it, classical physics (for example gravity) exists independently from us.
  - mistermann 4y ago
    If scientists were to explicitly state that they are only describing a subset of reality (the physical/material realm), I would be more forgiving. But rather, they typically speak like this (from the article): "Quantum mechanics is usually described as a theory of atoms and sub-atomic particles, but in truth it is believed to be a theory that underpins everything in the world, including the weather and the galaxies – all of reality." Based on my observations, there seems to be a set of topics whereby most instances of human mind lose their ability to desire to know what is true. It if often easy to see this flaw in others (for example: non-theists observing theists), but seeing similar flaws in oneself is far trickier (say: materialists contemplating metaphysical ideas). (Note: this phenomenon applies to me as well, although I suspect not to the same degree as most.)
    - Comevius 4y ago
      The physical realm as you call it is the entire reality, it's the only thing you can interact with in an empirical manner. You don't need anything else to create consciousness, it's 100% physics, and would work quite differently if it wouldn't be. It's actually thermodynamics. As it turns out there is a selection for information-processing structures due to the connection between energy efficiency and prediction. Any system interacting with it's environment has a state that's changed by the interaction, and some of that state happens to be predictive of the future. Turns out how much of that state is predictive is exactly how energy efficient the system is. It's called the thermodynamics of prediction. https://arxiv.org/abs/1203.3271 https://arxiv.org/abs/1203.3271 But wait, there is more. Thermodynamics actually favors the creation of a hierarchy of dissipating structures. Lightning and fire and both such structures, and also stars that feed other dissipative structures, which feed other structures and so on, as entropy keeps increasing from minimum to maximum. Dissipating a star's energy all at once, going straight to heat death is not possible, instead dissipative structures help the system move from one meta-stable state to another. There is however a minimal cost to maintaining a dissipative structure, it's not free, so the feeding stops at structures that are barely left with enough potential energy to take care of themselves. In fact the cost increases the further away the structure is from the initial disequilibria, the star in this case. And yet these bottom feeders are still thermodynamically favored, there is free energy left to do something. Now however things are different, because the bottom feeders that are thermodynamically efficient, structures that only create a minimum amount of entropy tend to survive and dissipate another day, however slowly. These bottom feeders then tend to evolve toward information-processing, because they wouldn't be able to be efficient without predictive inference. Biology from molecular machines to the human brain are all such bottom feeders, their central tenet is efficiency, in energy and information processing. Information itself is physical, it's like heat, in fact it has the same properties, it requires a medium to propagate and so on, and you can use the same statistical mechanics to describe it. In fact we are capable of experimentally demonstrating an information engine, an engine that converts information instead of energy to work. Physics now can be used to understand information-processing too. Metaphysics is only interesting if you are a philosopher and you are trying to speculate about things we don't understand yet. But it's not an excuse for dismissing reality, which is much more interesting than any metaphysical nonsense. Yes, physics can create minds, but that doesn't mean that minds are mundane, material things, it means that physics is more awesome and powerful than we thought. It creates black holes, stars, planets, human brains and all thoughts and dreams we have in them. What's not to like?

mistermann 4y ago

It also overlooks that humans exists in reality, and humans run on consciousness (so they say), and consciousness (and the motion and causality that emerges from it) remains somewhat of a black/invisible box to scientists.

Comevius 4y ago
That doesn't have anything to do with it, classical physics (for example gravity) exists independently from us.
- mistermann 4y ago
  If scientists were to explicitly state that they are only describing a subset of reality (the physical/material realm), I would be more forgiving. But rather, they typically speak like this (from the article): "Quantum mechanics is usually described as a theory of atoms and sub-atomic particles, but in truth it is believed to be a theory that underpins everything in the world, including the weather and the galaxies – all of reality." Based on my observations, there seems to be a set of topics whereby most instances of human mind lose their ability to desire to know what is true. It if often easy to see this flaw in others (for example: non-theists observing theists), but seeing similar flaws in oneself is far trickier (say: materialists contemplating metaphysical ideas). (Note: this phenomenon applies to me as well, although I suspect not to the same degree as most.)
  - Comevius 4y ago
    The physical realm as you call it is the entire reality, it's the only thing you can interact with in an empirical manner. You don't need anything else to create consciousness, it's 100% physics, and would work quite differently if it wouldn't be. It's actually thermodynamics. As it turns out there is a selection for information-processing structures due to the connection between energy efficiency and prediction. Any system interacting with it's environment has a state that's changed by the interaction, and some of that state happens to be predictive of the future. Turns out how much of that state is predictive is exactly how energy efficient the system is. It's called the thermodynamics of prediction. https://arxiv.org/abs/1203.3271 https://arxiv.org/abs/1203.3271 But wait, there is more. Thermodynamics actually favors the creation of a hierarchy of dissipating structures. Lightning and fire and both such structures, and also stars that feed other dissipative structures, which feed other structures and so on, as entropy keeps increasing from minimum to maximum. Dissipating a star's energy all at once, going straight to heat death is not possible, instead dissipative structures help the system move from one meta-stable state to another. There is however a minimal cost to maintaining a dissipative structure, it's not free, so the feeding stops at structures that are barely left with enough potential energy to take care of themselves. In fact the cost increases the further away the structure is from the initial disequilibria, the star in this case. And yet these bottom feeders are still thermodynamically favored, there is free energy left to do something. Now however things are different, because the bottom feeders that are thermodynamically efficient, structures that only create a minimum amount of entropy tend to survive and dissipate another day, however slowly. These bottom feeders then tend to evolve toward information-processing, because they wouldn't be able to be efficient without predictive inference. Biology from molecular machines to the human brain are all such bottom feeders, their central tenet is efficiency, in energy and information processing. Information itself is physical, it's like heat, in fact it has the same properties, it requires a medium to propagate and so on, and you can use the same statistical mechanics to describe it. In fact we are capable of experimentally demonstrating an information engine, an engine that converts information instead of energy to work. Physics now can be used to understand information-processing too. Metaphysics is only interesting if you are a philosopher and you are trying to speculate about things we don't understand yet. But it's not an excuse for dismissing reality, which is much more interesting than any metaphysical nonsense. Yes, physics can create minds, but that doesn't mean that minds are mundane, material things, it means that physics is more awesome and powerful than we thought. It creates black holes, stars, planets, human brains and all thoughts and dreams we have in them. What's not to like?