Open Thread: September 2011

Pavitra

If it's worth saying, but not worth its own post (even in Discussion), then it goes here.

If continuing the discussion becomes impractical, that means you win at open threads; a celebratory top-level post on the topic is traditional.

If it's worth saying, but not worth its own post (even in Discussion), then it goes here.

If continuing the discussion becomes impractical, that means you win at open threads; a celebratory top-level post on the topic is traditional.

I've been debating the validity of reductionism with a friend for a while, and today he presented me with an article (won't link it, it's a waste of your time) arguing that the consciousness-causes-collapse interpretation of QM proves that consciousness is ontologically fundamental/epiphenomenal/ect..

To which I responded: "Yeah, but consciousness-causes-collapse is wrong."

And then realized that the reasons I have rejected it are all reductionist in nature. So he pointed out, fairly, that I was begging the question. And unfortunately, I'm not sufficiently familiar with the literature on QM to point him to an explanation. Does anyone know an explanation of reasons to reject consciousness-causes-collapse that isn't explicitly predicated on reductionism?

You don't need to reject CCC without reductionism to defeat his argument. His argument is "If CCC is true, reductionism is false"

That's not a reason to reject reductionism, unless you have better reason to hold to CCC than to reductionism.

2Manfred15y

I wouldn't call occam's razor an explicit part of reductionism. It's basically equivalent to saying you can't just make up information.

2Vladimir_Nesov15y

This quite possibly can't be done. If you handicap yourself by refusing to use an idea while examining its merits, you may well draw inferior conclusions about it, and modify it in a way that makes it worse. You should use your whole mind to reflect on itself (unless you conclude some of its parts are not to be trusted). See these posts in particular: * The Lens That Sees Its Flaws * Occam's Razor * A Priori * Where Recursive Justification Hits Bottom * Which Parts Are "Me"?