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“It is remarkable that mind enters into our awareness of nature on two separate levels. At the highest level, the level of human consciousness, our minds are so
by rtrunck 7y ago
“It is remarkable that mind enters into our awareness of nature on two separate levels. At the highest level, the level of human consciousness, our minds are somehow directly aware of the complicated flow of electrical and chemical patterns in our brains. At the lowest level, the level of single atoms and electrons, the mind of an observer is again involved in the description of events. Between lies the level of molecular biology, where mechanical models are adequate and mind appears to be irrelevant. But I, as a physicist, cannot help suspecting that there is a logical connection between the two ways in which mind appears in my universe. I cannot help thinking that our awareness of our own brains has something to do with the process which we call "observation" in atomic physics. That is to say, I think our consciousness is not just a passive epiphenomenon carried along by the chemical events in our brains, but is an active agent forcing the molecular complexes to make choices between one quantum state and another. In other words, mind is already inherent in every electron, and the processes of human consciousness differ only in degree but not in kind from the processes of choice between quantum states which we call "chance" when they are made by electrons.”
― Freeman Dyson
- altonzheng 7y agoWhat a beautiful quote, thank you for sharing.
- jschwartzi 7y agoThis makes me think of how the story in The Expanse is proceeding.
- mongol 7y agoSounds like Dyson believed in, or hoped for, free will, in that mind would affect the randomness that quantum physics involves. I think it would be great if it was so because the alternative would be that we are just machines. But I fear that the mind does not have that type of influence on it's fundamental parts...
- alexpetralia 7y agoThough I could be wrong, I believe his point was that consciousness - the mind - is the randomness underlying quantum physics.
- jackcosgrove 7y agoIf the brain cannot consciously reprogram itself, why does studying work?
- josephpmay 7y agoThat quote is mindblowing. I don't think I've ever heard an argument for free will on a sub-atomic level. It never crossed my mind that that was a position someone could conceivably hold. But it's weirdly comforting- it almost feels religious- and I'm now thinking about how that would affect emergence.
- samatman 7y agoConway (yep, that Conway) and Kochen elaborate on this in the Strong Free Will Theorem: https://www.ams.org/notices/200902/rtx090200226p.pdf https://www.ams.org/notices/200902/rtx090200226p.pdf
- Causality1 7y agoIsn't that a fundamental misunderstanding of the definition of "observer" in quantum physics? To "observe" is to cause a quantum system to interact in such a way that collapses probabilities. Whether there is a living observer is totally irrelevant.
- jes5199 7y agoif I remember correctly, this paper specifically tries to prove that those are the same
- v77 7y agoI would say this is considered an open question.
- hprotagonist 7y agoit is “the measurement problem”. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Measurement_problem https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Measurement_problem
- scotty79 7y agoOnly for non-physicists and physicists wondering about things outside of physics.
- Florin_Andrei 7y agoRelated: http://nautil.us/issue/82/panpsychism/is-matter-conscious-rp http://nautil.us/issue/82/panpsychism/is-matter-conscious-rp
- jkeat 7y agoHere's another article that introduces the idea of panpsychism: https://aeon.co/ideas/panpsychism-is-crazy-but-its-also-most-probably-true https://aeon.co/ideas/panpsychism-is-crazy-but-its-also-most...
- henriquemaia 7y agoLucretius, some 2000 years ago, based on a completely different kind of atomism, believed something very similar. Free will was due to random events on the atomic level, what he called clinamen (the swerve).
- analognoise 7y ago"The Swerve" is a great name for my punk band.
- bagacrap 7y agoI thought the observer effect of particle physics fell out of favor. This author gives a pretty persuasive argument that, at least from a theoretical physics point of view, consciousness does not create the universe. https://www.paulanlee.com/2017/04/14/consciousness-and-the-misunderstood-observer-effect/ https://www.paulanlee.com/2017/04/14/consciousness-and-the-m...
- meowface 7y agoIt has, at least if you mean the hypothesis that the wave function is collapsed by consciousness. This doesn't rule out theories of panpsychism and panprotopsychism (or even rule those theories in?), but I don't find the arguments in favor of them convincing. I think it's plausible, but I'm skeptical. I'm also skeptical that quantum mechanics plays an important role in consciousness (beyond the role it plays in the rest of biology, and everything else in the universe), though I think that's more plausible. Dyson was a brilliant person, but I disagree with his quote there. I think we may develop a deep theory of consciousness (including solving "the hard problem") within the next century which will put some of these debates to rest.