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What's the deal with these things being lumped in with physics? This isn't physics this is just regular philosophy with some scientific sounding language. I fee

What's the deal with these things being lumped in with physics? This isn't physics this is just regular philosophy with some scientific sounding language. I feel like this is people reaching for religion but not wanting to admit it to themselves.

cscurmudgeon 3y ago
I hate that most education systems don’t teach that physics has its roots in philosophy and some of the most rigorous recent math stems from philosophy (Gödel) leading to vacuous gatekeeping comments like this.
- opportune 3y ago
  Gödel was a logician, which is practically mathematics. “Philosophy” includes everything from that to stoned Berkeley undergrads convincing each other that getting stoned must have been what led humans to develop consciousness from other apes
- rvba 3y ago
  I thought physics has its roots in mathmatics, but those religious articles never show any equations.
  - BasedAnon 3y ago
    We can construct an analytical language to interrogate these claims, but that wouldn't change the underlying fact that it is not physics or math.
- orwin 3y ago
  When a philosophy has enough proofs and credibility, it becomes a science. Also, I do not think you can call logician philosophers. Lewis Carroll wouldn't. Agree that the gatekeeping is a bit much, but doesn't warranted a swipe imho.
  - BasedAnon 3y ago
    >When a philosophy has enough proofs and credibility, it becomes a science I completely disagree with this notion of science. To me science is the practice of analysing findings from controlled experimentation and then deriving predictive, reproducible and falsifiable hypotheses.
    - saled 3y ago
      Why do you think that collecting evidence from experiments leads to truth though? What about the process gives you certainty? What evidence is important to making progress and what evidence is irrelevant? What does progress in understanding an area look like? Why should we undertake it? These are questions of philosophy, no experiments can answer them.
      - BasedAnon 3y ago
        >Why do you think that collecting evidence from experiments leads to truth though? I don't, but I find that it produces results that are instrumental, and I assume that the past behaves analogously to the future, and similar situations behave similarly because this has generally been true in my experience. >Why should we undertake it? I'm religious, so certain science is useful to me in accomplishing my goal of attaining heaven. >These are questions of philosophy, no experiments can answer them. I agree.
- BasedAnon 3y ago
  I'm well aware the physics is just 'natural philosophy', that doesn't make it anymore reasonable to start using it as the tool for metaphysics. It's a clear category error, like trying to use food chemistry to elucidate cognitive psychology in a literal sense.
- krapp 3y ago
  Chemistry has its roots in alchemy, but that doesn't mean alchemy deserves to be treated with the same respect and seriousness as chemistry. Medicine has its roots in witchcraft but that doesn't mean witchcraft deserves to be treated with the same respect and seriousness as medicine. Astronomy has its roots in astrology, but that doesn't mean astrology deserves to be treated with the same respect and seriousness as astronomy. Philosophy isn't physics, and philosophy doesn't deserve to be treated like physics. The premise that panpsychism - which is essentially the basis for all animist and shamanic religions (the belief that all things have an innate mind or will) should be treated as a peer to relativity or quantum mechanics is absurd. I mean, quoting directly from TFA: Part of the appeal of panpsychism is that it appears to provide a workaround to the question posed by Chalmers: we no longer have to worry about how inanimate matter forms minds because mindedness was there all along, residing in the fabric of the universe. Chalmers himself has embraced a form of panpsychism and even suggested that individual particles might be somehow aware. He said in a TED Talk that a photon “might have some element of raw, subjective feeling, some primitive precursor to consciousness.” We're to take seriously, as a scientific claim, that individual particles are aware and have feelings. That when a ball rolls downhill, it's because the ball wants to roll downhill. That when it rains, it's because Mother Earth weeps. It isn't gatekeeping to reject such nonsense, it's simply garbage collection.
  - heavenlyblue 3y ago
    Citations needed
    - krapp 3y ago
      Citations needed for what? The last 5000 years of human history? The individual developmental history of every branch of philosophy and science, their relationships and the iterative models of reality each developed over the centuries? You need citations to prove that witchcraft, astrology and alchemy do not provide valid models of reality? No, do that yourself, if you're so inclined.
      - heavenlyblue 3y ago
- calibas 3y ago
  It's not just physics, all of modern science is built upon empiricist philosophy.
baz00 3y ago
It's down at the bottom of the stack.
jemmyw 3y ago
It's a shame to see so many comments engaged in this kind of pseudoscience. There's no evidence that consciousness is anything other than a state arising from the physical processes in our bodies. I'm open minded to hypothesis that are potentially testable, but people keep just repeating the implausible. I also hate that I keep reading that consciousness, or anything else, is a universe "hack" which is several levels of stupid. From the language level, you cannot apply that word to a non engineered system with no purpose because it implies subverting the purpose.
- FrustratedMonky 3y ago
  I think that there is such a groundswell of articles about 'consciousness', right now, is because of the surge in AI and GPT. If this is true. >"state arising from the physical processes" Then nothing prevents silicon from eventually also being 'conscious'. Carbon or Silicon, they are both a physical processes. Electrical potentials. So the section of population that just can't abide that AI could be 'conscious' are finding all these more esoteric arguments about the universe being 'consciousness', quantum something or other, etc... To find 'some spark' in the human, some metaphysical argument, to keep us special.
  - orwin 3y ago
    Agree. I'll also say it's a lot further away than your comment implies. Once ChatGPT4 can add metonymy by itself in a random discussion, talking about consciousness in silicon can be interesting.
    - FrustratedMonky 3y ago
      GPT4 is just the latest thing. It was only a few years ago that AlphaGo beat the best human at GO. Supposedly a game so deep that only some unknown quality of being a human could ever grasp it. And AlphaStar also wins against humans in SC2, where there is hidden information and 'deception'. I'd say that is more worry than GPT. GPT is a language model. AlphaGo is winning in a competitive game. and Life is just a game. Just start adding more variables, and more goals. Start combining GPT/AlphaGo/Visions Systems/etc.... It might not be that far.
crazygringo 3y ago
Conscious awareness appears to be a fundamental aspect of the universe -- as fundamental as the four known fundamental forces -- and physics is concerned with describing the laws of the universe. How could consciousness not be lumped in with physics, from this perspective? It doesn't matter whether consciousness pervades the universe in a form of panpsychism, or is emergent out of interactions we already understand. Fluid mechanics is emergent too, in a sense -- that doesn't put it outside of physics.
- some_furry 3y ago
  > Conscious awareness appears to be a fundamental aspect of the universe -- as fundamental as the four known fundamental forces -- and physics is concerned with describing the laws of the universe. Why do you believe this to be true? If it's a self-evident observation, try explaining it to me like I'm 5.
  - crazygringo 3y ago
    Sure, ELI5: the only things we actually know are from our conscious experience. Everything else we have to logically infer from those conscious experiences. Literally everything is built upon our conscious awareness. We have direct experience of our conscious awareness before we can even do physics to determine the four fundamental forces at all. To clarify, consciousness isn't just a fundamental aspect of the universe -- for our human minds, it's the most fundamental aspect. If you want to take this to an extreme: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Idealism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Idealism
    - some_furry 3y ago
      That's an interesting philosophy, but I don't see how consciousness is implied by the standard model or the current investigations into physics beyond the standard model.
      - crazygringo 3y ago
        It isn't. It still has to be integrated with it, that's the whole point. We don't know how gravity is implied by the standard model either, but we still know it's there. The point is that, at the end of the day, it's still necessarily going to be physics.
bradleyishungry 3y ago
I think the neuroscientists who question why a first-person-perspective happens in the brain generally assume it comes about from the physical formation of electromagnetic fields. Most don’t believe there’s some unexplored part of the universe that forms it, just that its something to do with the structure. So its still physics, just not pseudoscience. I am certainly not well versed on the field though and have only read a paper on the topic, and it could have been bad science, but I did find it informative when I read it. https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fnhum.2022.767612/full https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fnhum.2022.7676...
nico 3y ago
> What's the deal with these things being lumped in with physics? Definition of natural philosophy: > natural science, especially physical science Physics at its core is philosophy, and its models, as sophisticated or complete as may be, can never be separated from an interpreter Religion is also in great part philosophy, and both physics and religion similarly arise from a drive to understand the nature of the universe All of these things intersect, and the article is about one of those points of intersection Which angle you want to take is your own personal choice. But please don’t be so quick to dismiss others’ interest in probing at the fundamentals of the universe just because you don’t agree with the way they go about it
adr1an 3y ago
Well, to be fair even Isaac Newton was searching for 'meaningfulness'.
thomassmith65 3y ago
It doesn't at all seem like reaching for religion to me; seems materialist as can be. If consciousness isn't a phenomenon that requires a soul to explain, surely it's appropriate for physicists to study its nature. To call consciousness 'part of the fabric of the universe' seems like a fancy way of arguing that consciousness is a property of matter - and does it make sense, to a materialist, to call it anything else?

cscurmudgeon 3y ago

I hate that most education systems don’t teach that physics has its roots in philosophy and some of the most rigorous recent math stems from philosophy (Gödel) leading to vacuous gatekeeping comments like this.

opportune 3y ago
Gödel was a logician, which is practically mathematics. “Philosophy” includes everything from that to stoned Berkeley undergrads convincing each other that getting stoned must have been what led humans to develop consciousness from other apes
rvba 3y ago
I thought physics has its roots in mathmatics, but those religious articles never show any equations.
- BasedAnon 3y ago
  We can construct an analytical language to interrogate these claims, but that wouldn't change the underlying fact that it is not physics or math.
orwin 3y ago
When a philosophy has enough proofs and credibility, it becomes a science. Also, I do not think you can call logician philosophers. Lewis Carroll wouldn't. Agree that the gatekeeping is a bit much, but doesn't warranted a swipe imho.
- BasedAnon 3y ago
  >When a philosophy has enough proofs and credibility, it becomes a science I completely disagree with this notion of science. To me science is the practice of analysing findings from controlled experimentation and then deriving predictive, reproducible and falsifiable hypotheses.
  - saled 3y ago
    Why do you think that collecting evidence from experiments leads to truth though? What about the process gives you certainty? What evidence is important to making progress and what evidence is irrelevant? What does progress in understanding an area look like? Why should we undertake it? These are questions of philosophy, no experiments can answer them.
    - BasedAnon 3y ago
      >Why do you think that collecting evidence from experiments leads to truth though? I don't, but I find that it produces results that are instrumental, and I assume that the past behaves analogously to the future, and similar situations behave similarly because this has generally been true in my experience. >Why should we undertake it? I'm religious, so certain science is useful to me in accomplishing my goal of attaining heaven. >These are questions of philosophy, no experiments can answer them. I agree.
BasedAnon 3y ago
I'm well aware the physics is just 'natural philosophy', that doesn't make it anymore reasonable to start using it as the tool for metaphysics. It's a clear category error, like trying to use food chemistry to elucidate cognitive psychology in a literal sense.
krapp 3y ago
Chemistry has its roots in alchemy, but that doesn't mean alchemy deserves to be treated with the same respect and seriousness as chemistry. Medicine has its roots in witchcraft but that doesn't mean witchcraft deserves to be treated with the same respect and seriousness as medicine. Astronomy has its roots in astrology, but that doesn't mean astrology deserves to be treated with the same respect and seriousness as astronomy. Philosophy isn't physics, and philosophy doesn't deserve to be treated like physics. The premise that panpsychism - which is essentially the basis for all animist and shamanic religions (the belief that all things have an innate mind or will) should be treated as a peer to relativity or quantum mechanics is absurd. I mean, quoting directly from TFA: Part of the appeal of panpsychism is that it appears to provide a workaround to the question posed by Chalmers: we no longer have to worry about how inanimate matter forms minds because mindedness was there all along, residing in the fabric of the universe. Chalmers himself has embraced a form of panpsychism and even suggested that individual particles might be somehow aware. He said in a TED Talk that a photon “might have some element of raw, subjective feeling, some primitive precursor to consciousness.” We're to take seriously, as a scientific claim, that individual particles are aware and have feelings. That when a ball rolls downhill, it's because the ball wants to roll downhill. That when it rains, it's because Mother Earth weeps. It isn't gatekeeping to reject such nonsense, it's simply garbage collection.
- heavenlyblue 3y ago
  Citations needed
  - krapp 3y ago
    Citations needed for what? The last 5000 years of human history? The individual developmental history of every branch of philosophy and science, their relationships and the iterative models of reality each developed over the centuries? You need citations to prove that witchcraft, astrology and alchemy do not provide valid models of reality? No, do that yourself, if you're so inclined.
    - heavenlyblue 3y ago
calibas 3y ago
It's not just physics, all of modern science is built upon empiricist philosophy.

baz00 3y ago

It's down at the bottom of the stack.

jemmyw 3y ago

It's a shame to see so many comments engaged in this kind of pseudoscience. There's no evidence that consciousness is anything other than a state arising from the physical processes in our bodies. I'm open minded to hypothesis that are potentially testable, but people keep just repeating the implausible. I also hate that I keep reading that consciousness, or anything else, is a universe "hack" which is several levels of stupid. From the language level, you cannot apply that word to a non engineered system with no purpose because it implies subverting the purpose.

FrustratedMonky 3y ago
I think that there is such a groundswell of articles about 'consciousness', right now, is because of the surge in AI and GPT. If this is true. >"state arising from the physical processes" Then nothing prevents silicon from eventually also being 'conscious'. Carbon or Silicon, they are both a physical processes. Electrical potentials. So the section of population that just can't abide that AI could be 'conscious' are finding all these more esoteric arguments about the universe being 'consciousness', quantum something or other, etc... To find 'some spark' in the human, some metaphysical argument, to keep us special.
- orwin 3y ago
  Agree. I'll also say it's a lot further away than your comment implies. Once ChatGPT4 can add metonymy by itself in a random discussion, talking about consciousness in silicon can be interesting.
  - FrustratedMonky 3y ago
    GPT4 is just the latest thing. It was only a few years ago that AlphaGo beat the best human at GO. Supposedly a game so deep that only some unknown quality of being a human could ever grasp it. And AlphaStar also wins against humans in SC2, where there is hidden information and 'deception'. I'd say that is more worry than GPT. GPT is a language model. AlphaGo is winning in a competitive game. and Life is just a game. Just start adding more variables, and more goals. Start combining GPT/AlphaGo/Visions Systems/etc.... It might not be that far.

crazygringo 3y ago

Conscious awareness appears to be a fundamental aspect of the universe -- as fundamental as the four known fundamental forces -- and physics is concerned with describing the laws of the universe. How could consciousness not be lumped in with physics, from this perspective? It doesn't matter whether consciousness pervades the universe in a form of panpsychism, or is emergent out of interactions we already understand. Fluid mechanics is emergent too, in a sense -- that doesn't put it outside of physics.

some_furry 3y ago
> Conscious awareness appears to be a fundamental aspect of the universe -- as fundamental as the four known fundamental forces -- and physics is concerned with describing the laws of the universe. Why do you believe this to be true? If it's a self-evident observation, try explaining it to me like I'm 5.
- crazygringo 3y ago
  Sure, ELI5: the only things we actually know are from our conscious experience. Everything else we have to logically infer from those conscious experiences. Literally everything is built upon our conscious awareness. We have direct experience of our conscious awareness before we can even do physics to determine the four fundamental forces at all. To clarify, consciousness isn't just a fundamental aspect of the universe -- for our human minds, it's the most fundamental aspect. If you want to take this to an extreme: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Idealism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Idealism
  - some_furry 3y ago
    That's an interesting philosophy, but I don't see how consciousness is implied by the standard model or the current investigations into physics beyond the standard model.
    - crazygringo 3y ago
      It isn't. It still has to be integrated with it, that's the whole point. We don't know how gravity is implied by the standard model either, but we still know it's there. The point is that, at the end of the day, it's still necessarily going to be physics.

bradleyishungry 3y ago

I think the neuroscientists who question why a first-person-perspective happens in the brain generally assume it comes about from the physical formation of electromagnetic fields. Most don’t believe there’s some unexplored part of the universe that forms it, just that its something to do with the structure. So its still physics, just not pseudoscience. I am certainly not well versed on the field though and have only read a paper on the topic, and it could have been bad science, but I did find it informative when I read it. https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fnhum.2022.767612/full https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fnhum.2022.7676...

nico 3y ago

> What's the deal with these things being lumped in with physics? Definition of natural philosophy: > natural science, especially physical science Physics at its core is philosophy, and its models, as sophisticated or complete as may be, can never be separated from an interpreter Religion is also in great part philosophy, and both physics and religion similarly arise from a drive to understand the nature of the universe All of these things intersect, and the article is about one of those points of intersection Which angle you want to take is your own personal choice. But please don’t be so quick to dismiss others’ interest in probing at the fundamentals of the universe just because you don’t agree with the way they go about it

adr1an 3y ago

Well, to be fair even Isaac Newton was searching for 'meaningfulness'.

thomassmith65 3y ago

It doesn't at all seem like reaching for religion to me; seems materialist as can be. If consciousness isn't a phenomenon that requires a soul to explain, surely it's appropriate for physicists to study its nature. To call consciousness 'part of the fabric of the universe' seems like a fancy way of arguing that consciousness is a property of matter - and does it make sense, to a materialist, to call it anything else?