[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?

Most? Got some numbers on that?

Wikipedia reports a few polls and estimates, but it's sort of obvious, if you have any acquaintance with physicists and the physics literature, that neither consciousness nor Everett worlds feature in the vast majority of what goes on in the subject. The crucial idea is that "measurement", not consciousness, collapses the wavefunction... I think a majority of physicists equivocate somewhat on whether wavefunctions are physical or epistemic, another large group explicitly consider that a meaningless question, and then finally there are those who h... (read more)