[SEQ RERUN] Where Philosophy Meets Science

MinibearRex

Today's post, Where Philosophy Meets Science was originally published on 12 April 2008. A summary (taken from the LW wiki):

In retrospect, supposing that quantum physics had anything to do with consciousness was a big mistake. Could philosophers have told the physicists so? But we don't usually see philosophers sponsoring major advances in physics; why not?

Discuss the post here (rather than in the comments to the original post).

This post is part of the Rerunning the Sequences series, where we'll be going through Eliezer Yudkowsky's old posts in order so that people who are interested can (re-)read and discuss them. The previous post was Distinct Configurations, and you can use the sequence_reruns tag or rss feed to follow the rest of the series.

Sequence reruns are a community-driven effort. You can participate by re-reading the sequence post, discussing it here, posting the next day's sequence reruns post, or summarizing forthcoming articles on the wiki. Go here for more details, or to have meta discussions about the Rerunning the Sequences series.

Today's post, Where Philosophy Meets Science was originally published on 12 April 2008. A summary (taken from the LW wiki):

In retrospect, supposing that quantum physics had anything to do with consciousness was a big mistake. Could philosophers have told the physicists so? But we don't usually see philosophers sponsoring major advances in physics; why not?

If it is that easy, how come Penrose kept insisting on consciousness being involved in the collapse?

That's not what Penrose thinks. He suggests spontaneous collapses happening according to some law of quantum gravity.

The basic error about the history of the interpretation debate, that people get from the sequences, is that it's a choice between "the wavefunction is real and consciousness collapses it" and "the wavefunction is real and nothing collapses it". The actual practice of QM involves using wavefunctions to predict the behavior of "observables" like position and momentum, and the standard view is that the observables... (read more)

0David_Gerard14y

The usual argument from wishful thinking? Humans consistently have an opinion on dualism then seek to justify it with what they think they know, not the other way round.