The Holographic Universe (Reality=Illusion)

Originally posted by Astyanax
reply to post by Indigo_Child

 

So, now you've admitted that an idealist cannot possibly know anything worth knowing or act in any effective way, have you any comments to make on the holographic universe concept from an idealist point of view?

Since consciousness is immaterial and nonlocal, can this concept have any meaning at all to an idealist?

Does it support idealism?

Let me first answer your previous question of which pioneers in QM were idealists. Surprisingly, almost all of them are, and almost all of them had a connection to Hindu Idealism and have a reverential attitude to it. Their views tend to be either subject and object is inseparable or that fundamental to all reality is consciousness.

Niel Bohr

There is a lot to summarize about Bohr. Basically Bhor was of the opinion that subject and object cannot be separated, neither exists without the other. He never really acknowledged any strong allegiance to any idealist philosophies, but he did strongly rever Hindu idealist thought in the Upanishad. He is apparently on record saying "I go into the Upanishads to ask questions"

Read more about Niel Bhor's views and their development here: Here

Erwin Schrodinger

Schrodinger really is the main pioneer of Quantum mechanics and sometimes called the father of quantum physics. He was a very strong Hindu idealist, he was so convinced of Hindu idealism, he converted to Hinduism. He shared the Hindu view that consciousness is fundamental and all reality appears within it. Much of his physics was directly inspired by Hinduism from a very young age.

Some quotes from Schrodinger:

"I – I in the widest meaning of the word, that is to say, every conscious mind that has ever said or felt 'I' – am the person who controls the motion of the atoms according to the Laws of Nature…the insight is not new. The earliest records, to my knowledge, date back some 2500 years or more. From the early great Upanishads the recognition Atman = Brahman (the personal self equals the omnipresent)…was in Indian thought considered to represent the quintessence of deepest insight into the happenings of the world…Again, the mystics of many centuries, independently, yet in perfect harmony with each other (somewhat like the particles in an ideal gas) have described, each of them, the unique experience of his or her life in terms that can be condensed in the phrase: Deus factus sum (I have become God)." Erwin Schroedinger (1887-1961), 'The I That Is God'

""Consciousness is a singular of which the plural is unknown;… there IS only one thing, and what seems to be a plurality is merely a series of different aspects of this one thing." Erwin Schroedinger (1887-1961), 'The I That Is God'"

Schrodinger wrote in his book Meine Weltansicht:

“This life of yours which you are living is not merely apiece of this entire existence, but in a certain sense the whole; only this whole is not so constituted that it can be surveyed in one single glance. This, as we know, is what the Brahmins express in that sacred, mystic formula which is yet really so simple and so clear; tat tvam asi, this is you. Or, again, in such words as “I am in the east and the west, I am above and below, I am this entire world.”

Werner Heisenberg

Not surprisingly, as he was the student of Schrodinger, Heisenberg has similar idealist views. Although not as strong as Schrodingers, Heisenberg is more a believer of the inseparability of the observer and the object, which he sums up in his famous uncertainity principle. Like Schrodinger, Heisenberg was very influenced by Upanishadic thought and had attended a university in Indian run by the nobel prize winning Tagore as a guest to learn Indian Philosophy.

An interesting article on QM and its development, and the relationship and ideological clash between Heisenberg and Schrodinger can be found here:

The development of QM

David Bhom

David Bhom is considered to be one of the greatest scientists in QM. His mentors were Oppenheimer and Einstein. Perhaps, in terms of his philosophical views it was Oppenheimer which most influenced him. Oppenhemer was very strongly into Hinduism and even declared that the access to the Vedas was the greatest privellege this century could claim over the previous. David Bhom later even got a Hindu spiritual Guru, Krishnamurthy, who strongly influenced his thoeries. Bhom's theory was that reality was essentially holographic, a oneness or whole, in which consciousness and matter are mere projections. Unlike, Schrodinger who asserts that this one is consciousness, Bhom treats the one as an absolute beyond such definitions of consciousness and matter. Very much mimicing his Guru who had strong atheist teaching.


Archibald Wheeler

Wheeler only passed away last year, leaving a brilliant legacy in QM and theoretical physics. He was the one that coined the term "black hole" and contributed much to the physics of singualrities etc. He was also acquanited with Indian Philosophy, and credited it for being the source of Green Philosophy, but to what extent Indian Philosophy influenced his theory seems unknown. His views are virtually identical to the qualified non-dualism of Ramunjacharya viewpoint I discussed in my first post in this thread. He believes consciousness and matter to be participatory, neither exist without the other, but both are eternal and participate in each other.

In conclusion: QM is very strongly idealistic and very strongly allied with Eastern metaphysics. It does not subscribe to the realist school of classical physics or general relativity for that matter, but conceptualises the universe as being in a constant relationship with consciousness. The kind of idealism takes on two forms in QM, just as it does in Eastern metaphysics: Subject and object inseparability, but their interdependent existence(Heisenberg, Buddhism) and absolue subjectivity, where all objects can be reduced to consciousness.(Schrodinger, Hinduism)

All attempts at removing consciousness from the world will invariably fail. In future physics, not only will consciousness still remain in physics, it will be seen as fundamental. Thus leading to the inevitable conclusion, reached long ago by Hindu metaphysicians, "I am not my body" and thus the end of the body is not the end of "I"

[edit on 19-3-2009 by Indigo_Child]

reply to post by Indigo_Child

Oh, I see; you're a Vedantic idealist. No Veil of Maya for you, then?

Never mind. It is true that the quantum pioneers were great philosophical speculators. Understandably so - the discoveries they were making bore on those questions, and these were far from stupid men. And they were well read. Certainly, Hindu ideas were referred to in the course of their speculations, along with much Western philosophy. We are all aware that Oppenheimer chose to salute the first nuclear device with a snippet from the Bagavad-gita. But I don't believe any of the quantum pioneers were Hindus, nor that any of them declared expressly for idealism or any other school of philosophy.

In particular, I contest this statement of yours:

Schrodinger... was so convinced of Hindu idealism, he converted to Hinduism.

Sorry, I don't buy it. Yes, Schrödinger was fascinated by Hinduism and very knowledgeable about it and yes, he made those references you quote, and others. But nowhere do I read - except on a few apologist sites that come up when I google "erwin schrodinger hindu" - that he made a formall conversion.

Your first link took me to page 224 of Niels Bohr by Paul McEvoy. I found myself in the middle of a chapter that seemed to be a digest of the ideas of some early Enlightenment schools of philosophy; the page itself is devoted to Liebniz's famous monads. Was that the page you intended? Nothing new to me there, and nothing whatsoever to support your case. I cruised up and down a few pages but couldn't find anything more relevant in them either. Are you sure you linked to the right page, or did you expect me to read the whole book?

As for this,

An interesting article on QM and its development, and the relationship and ideological clash between Heisenberg and Schrodinger can be found here:

The development of QM

it turned out to a highly speculative essay - and one that, to its credit, does not claim to be anything else. Its author, though attached to the Physics department of a Canadian university, appears to be more of an educator and statistician than a quantum man. Frankly, it's a bit far-fetched.

David Bhom later even got a Hindu spiritual Guru, Krishnamurthy, who strongly influenced his thoeries.

Yes, they were friends, I believe. Poor Bohm, a name for occultists and cranks to conjure with nowadays. He always went for the hook, not to mention the line and sinker. See here.

Bohm's creative work in physics is undisputable, but in other fields he was almost as gullible as Conan Doyle. He was favorably impressed by Count Alfred Korzybski's Science and Sanity, with the morphogenic fields of Rupert Sheldrake, the orgone energy of Wilhelm Reich, and the marvels of parapsychology. [1] For a while he took seriously Uri Geller's ability to bend keys and spoons, to move compasses, and produce clicks in a Geiger counter, all with his mind.

So Indigo_Child my friend, I think your conclusion that

QM is very strongly idealistic and very strongly allied with Eastern metaphysics. It does not subscribe to the realist school of classical physics or general relativity for that matter, but conceptualises the universe as being in a constant relationship with consciousness. The kind of idealism takes on two forms...

must be rejected as being, as I suspected, entirely without foundation. You have provided evidence of nothing but special pleading. I think I understand you a bit better now, though. Went and looked at your ancient Hindu technology thread, too. Some way-out stuff you've got there.

Anyway - how goes the answer to my hologram question?


[edit on 20/3/09 by Astyanax]

Never mind. It is true that the quantum pioneers were great philosophical speculators. Understandably so - the discoveries they were making bore on those questions, and these were far from stupid men. And they were well read. Certainly, Hindu ideas were referred to in the course of their speculations, along with much Western philosophy. We are all aware that Oppenheimer chose to salute the first nuclear device with a snippet from the Bagavad-gita. But I don't believe any of the quantum pioneers were Hindus, nor that any of them declared expressly for idealism or any other school of philosophy.

I think you have mistaken the position I am arguing for. I am not arguing for whether the QM pioneers were Hindus, but whether they were idealists. It is only coincidental that they have strong connections to Hinduism, which I mentioned because Hinduism is basically a religion of idealism.

Sorry, I don't buy it. Yes, Schrödinger was fascinated by Hinduism and very knowledgeable about it and yes, he made those references you quote, and others. But nowhere do I read - except on a few apologist sites that come up when I google "erwin schrodinger hindu" - that he made a formall conversion.

There are no formal conversions in Hinduism. You are Hindu if you identify with its beliefs strongly and make them your own, religiously read its scriptures, and try to find salvation through them. Schrodinger for all intents and purposes was very much Hindu and this very much shaped his work as well. He even identified himself as a Jnana Yogi(an adherent of the mystic path of Yoga) and a Mahavit(a knower of the world) and proclaimed the Upanishads as the truth. His own conclusions on the nature of the world are identical with it.

This shall be attested in his biography: “Life and Thought of Schrodinger” in the section which discusses his most personal writing, “Meine Welansicht”(My World View).

Please read this section:

Schrodinger: Life and Thought

He kept a copy of the most sacred of Hindu texts Gita and the Upanishads right besides his bed.

There is also clear evidence that Hinduism affected his work as well, and he used Hindu concepts throughout his work both philosophical and scientific.

From his biographer Walter Moore:

““The unity and continuity of Vedanta are reflected in the unity and continuity of wave mechanics. In 1925, the world view of physics was a model of a great machine composed of separable interacting material particles. During the next few years, Schrodinger and Heisenberg and their followers created a universe based on super imposed inseparable waves of probability amplitudes. This new view would be entirely consistent with the Vedantic concept of All in One." “


From the article “Development of QM” I mentioned earlier:

You may recall the Schrödinger's Cat paradox, which was first published in its "scientific form" in 1935 in Zeitschrift der Physick. However in his 1925 essay he recounts an ancient Sankhya Hindu paradox that, jazzed up with some technology, became the cat paradox. In that original form the paradox was cast in the form of two people, one looking at a garden, the other in a dark room. The modern equivalent would be one person looking in the box to see if the cat is alive or dead, while a second person waits out in the hall. As we discussed, in this modern form the state "collapses" for the first person while it does not collapse for the second person.

It would seem that the famous thought experiment of the cat in the box itself is a Hindu thing. Thus, the Hindu influences in QM are certainly strong.

it turned out to a highly speculative essay - and one that, to its credit, does not claim to be anything else. Its author, though attached to the Physics department of a Canadian university, appears to be more of an educator and statistician than a quantum man. Frankly, it's a bit far-fetched.

He does not appear to be anything really. He is someone giving a description of Schrodinger and Heisenberg and some discussion. He is not arguing a case for Hinduism and Buddhism or interpreting Schrodinger and Heisenberg. He is simply giving an overview of the development of QM for his students, within which these traditions have played a big part and thus they are mentioned. He has done the same for other areas of physics on this site. He is a professor of physics of Toronto University, so obviously the man is just doing his job.

It sounds like you just don’t like the fact that a physics professor would mention Hinduism or Buddhism in a article on the development of QM. I think you should stop living in denial on this one. It is quite clear that they played a significant part and have obviously been seen as compatible with QM.

[QUOTE]Yes, they were friends, I believe. Poor Bohm, a name for occultists and cranks to conjure with nowadays. He always went for the hook, not to mention the line and sinker. See here[/QUOTE]

I am sure you would agree that Bhom is probably an infinitely more accomplished person than you and I both. So these attempts at character assassination of somebody infinitely more accomplished than you will just back-fire and assassinate your own.
You are basically saying to me, “Oh, look he believes in parapsychology, obvious he’s crazy” there is nothing obvious there, other than your belief that “parapsychology is crazy” which is an invalid argument by itself.

must be rejected as being, as I suspected, entirely without foundation. You have provided evidence of nothing but special pleading. I think I understand you a bit better now, though. Went and looked at your ancient Hindu technology thread, too. Some way-out stuff you've got there. You have to be a believer to swallow that kind of thing; I guess you understand that now, from the replies you got in that thread.

You clearly do not understand what idealism is. It is a philosophy or worldview that says that there is no real world i.e., a world which exists independently from the mind. Now, read about all the QM pioneers I described above and you will clearly see they are idealists. They do not subscribe to realism, none of them, they state the inseparability of the observer and the world, and Schrodinger goes as far as to state that it is all consciousness.

I can understand if you don’t agree with them, but just because you don’t agree with them, does not mean you deny that they are making that position. It appears to me you are in a denial of the obvious idealism that underpins QM, and are uncomfortable with its allegiance to Eastern religions. Unfortunately, if you still want to hold onto QM, you are going to have to accept its idealist and Eastern philosophical foundations.

[edit on 20-3-2009 by Indigo_Child]

Originally posted by Astyanax
reply to post by Indigo_Child

 

Oh, I see; you're a Vedantic idealist. No Veil of Maya for you, then?

Anyway - how goes the answer to my hologram question?


[edit on 20/3/09 by Astyanax]

Yes, I am a Vedantic idealist, and non-dualist. Your question really is no problem for me, because I do not deny the world exists. The founder of the non-dualist thought, Sankarcharya, does not deny it either. We believe the empirical world exists, but it is only less real than consciousness. How is this explained in terms of the hologram question. Take an example of a sun. The sun projects rays of light, but the further away the observer is from the rays of light, the dimmer it seems and when one cannot see any light it leads us to think there is darkness and we begin to identify darkness as a separate category. Actually, darkness does not have any positive existence. Likewise, the empirical world has no positive existence, it only appears to be inert because the observer is so distant from the source of life or pure consciousness.

How does this 'distancing' arise? This distancing taking places due to the force of Maya which brings about multiplicity in the pure consciousness through space and time. When the observer becomes identified with the categories of space and time it arranges itself in terms of a spatial and temporal relationship with the source, and its identity then becomes a function of its position in space and time. As soon as it collapses the categories of space and time, the observer unifies with the source(pure consciousness)

How does the observer collapse the category of space and time? The observer becomes aware of the source and then seeks to reorganize its relationship with it. Initially, its recognition of the source is instinctual, but later finds expression in the abstract and then spiritual.

[edit on 20-3-2009 by Indigo_Child]

reply to post by Indigo_Child

You clearly do not understand what idealism is.

Alas, it is you, not I, who have trouble with this.

It is a philosophy or worldview that says that there is no real world i.e., a world which exists independently from the mind.

That is only one kind of idealism. It would be more broadly correct to say that idealism is the belief that nothing can be known except as percepts, that is to say, mental contents.

Now, read about all the QM pioneers I described above and you will clearly see they are idealists.

As well as having pursued an honours degree in physics, I have read some of the modern history of the subject and I know perfectly well these men were not idealists. You've read the The Tao of Physics and The Dancing Wu Li Masters and a bunch of other New Age guff and you think you know about quantum mechanics. It isn't that easy, I'm afraid.

The simple fact is that no scientist can possibly be an idealist in the sense you mean; if he was, he could never believe in experimental results and would be obliged to abandon science as a career.

They do not subscribe to realism, none of them, they state the inseparability of the observer and the world, and Schrodinger goes as far as to state that it is all consciousness.

I see you are with those who bounce happily from the quantum scale to the macroscopic and back again like cute little holistic golfballs on fire. Actual quantum scientists know better than to do that. Schrödinger's philosophical speculations at the end of a long and adventurous life are interesting but hardly representative of his views when he was an active physicist. Neither do they represent the ideas of all quantum theorists. Sorry; you just don't have the first idea what you're talking about. Self-interfering photons, cats in boxes and spooky action at a distance do not mean what your sources tell you they do.

It appears to me you are in a denial of the obvious idealism that underpins QM...

There is no such obvious idealism, except in your perception. Doubtless that is sufficient for you to say it exists. Some of us are a little more empirical in our outlook.

...(and) uncomfortable with its allegiance to Eastern religions.

You see, mate, I am (like you are, I suspect) actually from the part of the world where these religions originate. I have been surrounded by Hindu and Buddhist culture since I was born. I have talked long and often with venerable Buddhist and Hindu religious, plumbing the near-bottomless depths of their misunderstanding of science and the modern world, and been amazed by their arrogant, utterly unfounded belief that somehow their forefathers anticipated it all, that it's all there in their precious Upanishads and Vedas and Tripitakas and Vinayas. In reality, the holy man always turns out to be an of ignorant, opportunistic vampire looking for his next credibility transfusion. Currently some of them think physics provides it.

Oh, and I've read the texts too - some of them. Interesting, but certainly nothing beyond what the Classical Greeks explored so much more thoroughly and articulated so much more clearly.

Unfortunately, if you still want to hold onto QM, you are going to have to accept its idealist and Eastern philosophical foundations.

Fiddlesticks.

There are no formal conversions in Hinduism.

Then Schrodinger never converted to Hinduism.

You are Hindu if you identify with its beliefs strongly and make them your own, religiously read its scriptures, and try to find salvation through them.

Try telling that to the RSS.

I'm done with you.

[edit on 21/3/09 by Astyanax]

Originally posted by Astyanax
reply to post by Indigo_Child

 

You clearly do not understand what idealism is.

Alas, it is you, not I, who have trouble with this.


Astyanax, you clearly are in denial that QM is idealist, and now I can see why you are uncomfortable with Hinduism/Buddhism as well. This clearly is a very personal issue for you, and you obiously don't know better but to let your emotions cloud your judgement.

It is a philosophy or worldview that says that there is no real world i.e., a world which exists independently from the mind.

That is only one kind of idealism. It would be more broadly correct to say that idealism is the belief that nothing can be known except as percepts, that is to say, mental contents.

First of all, you should really look up in a philosophy dictionary and not an atheism website. Idealism does not necessarily deny the existence of the world, only it considers it nothing more than content of the mind. I believe I said that much earlier on when I say denying matter is no problem for idealism because matter is only a category in the mind.

Take Kants or even Sankara's idealism, both state that reality is what appears to us through the meditation of our senses, and thus whatever we can know is limited to the empirical domain. They do not deny that this empirical domain exists, but simply state that it is an appearance of a more fundamental reality. That's sometimes called critical or transcedental idealism.

So idealism does not say "we cannot know the empirical" but rather says, "all we can know is empirical" and thus the notion of the inseparabiity of the observer and observed.

Here is a definition of idealism from the Princeton Philosophy University dictionary: "S: (n) idealism ((philosophy) the philosophical theory that ideas are the only reality"

Whatever we know, is a representation of something, but we cannot say what that something is. It could be an object which is out there(realism) which impinges on our senses, or there may not be anything out there at all. Idealism's position is that irrespective of whether there is something out there or not, reality only takes place within the mind and nowhere else. If there is no mind, there is no reality and no existence.

In QM we find similar conclusions being reached by its founders, what may exist out there is only potentiality, which only assumes existence when observed.

As well as having pursued an honours degree in physics, I have read some of the modern history of the subject and I know perfectly well these men were not idealists. You've read the The Tao of Physics and The Dancing Wu Li Masters and a bunch of other New Age guff and you think you know about quantum mechanics. It isn't that easy, I'm afraid.

You clearly are a very ignorant person. If scientists are writing books like "Tao of Physics", professors of physics at major universities are acknowleding the unmistable influences of Hinduism/Buddhism on QM, and when the pioneers of QM themselves are invested in these traditions, and are stating themselves subject and object inseparability, some even using Hindu/Buddhist terms to describe it, how can you deny that this is happening at all?

I think you are very out of your depth here.

The simple fact is that no scientist can possibly be an idealist in the sense you mean; if he was, he could never believe in experimental results and would be obliged to abandon science as a career.

You are the one ascribing the sense to me. I have already said several times before that I do not deny the world exists, and nor do all idealists deny the world exists. So it is possible to do science, but only insofar as you aware of the limitations of empirical science.

Schrödinger's philosophical speculations at the end of a long and adventurous life are interesting but hardly representative of his views when he was an active physicist. Neither do they represent the ideas of all quantum theorists. Sorry; you just don't have the first idea what you're talking about. Self-interfering photons, cats in boxes and spooky action at a distance do not mean what your sources tell you they do.

And what gives you the right to tell Schrodinger what he is? His own biographer does not separate his Vedanta philosophy from his work, and nor does Schrodinger. He uses those terms throughout his works and they even find their way into his physics works, such as was pointed out by the Canadian professor, the cat in the box paradox itself. His interest in Vedanta was not in later life, but was ongoing throughout his life from a young age.

Your repeated attempts at trying to separate all associations of Vedanta from him seems to suggest a religious-political agenda. I am sure some reading this thread will be wondering, "Just what is this guys problem" Stop living in denial mate. Schrodinger was strongly inspired by Hinduism in his work, and even his biographers note just how strong that influence was.

There is no such obvious idealism, except in your perception. Doubtless that is sufficient for you to say it exists. Some of us are a little more empirical in our outlook.

In my correct perception yes. What is different in the worldview between classical mechanics and quantum mechanics? The former is based on a determinate realistic worldview, that the world consists of particles on which forces act, and the latter is based on an indeterminate idealist worldview, that the world consists of probabilities and observations. Before any observation is made all events exist in superpositioned states. This Schrodinger was illustrating in his famous cat in the box thought experiment, which he adapted from the Hindu Samkhya paradox.

You are probably not familiar with Samkhya philosophy. Samkhya considers all of the reality to be three elemental forces/qualities/modes called the Gunas which are the foundation of the unmanifest and undifferentiated universe(moolaprakriti). These forces are in a state of equilibruim and this state contains in potential form the manifest universe(prakriti) The equibruim is only broken when Purusha(conscious principle) observes moolaprakriti. This causes the forces to break out of equilibruim, and the paramanus(primordial atoms) to aggregate and form various combinations. The import of this is that all matter is the vibration of the moolaprakriti state, and hence the Hindu teachings of AUM being the sound of creation. Another unique feature of Samkhya is its statement that all phenomena are cyclic-units(body, mind, matter, particles, universe) which are governed by the Gunas, which manifest, then go back into the unmanifest into the original state.

In reality, the holy man always turns out to be an of ignorant, opportunistic vampire looking for his next credibility transfusion. Currently some of them think physics provides it.

Very strong words there. Anyway it explains your behaviour in this thread. Obviously, you've been disappointed with these religions before, and are bringing those prejudices into this thread and also projecting them onto me, and everyone else that is pointing out the similarities between these religions and science.

Oh, and I've read the texts too - some of them. Interesting, but certainly nothing beyond what the Classical Greeks explored so much more thoroughly and articulated so much more clearly.

Then you have not read them properly. I am a graduate in Philosophy and have studied both Western and Eastern Philosophy, and am also familiar with the history of philosophy. Classical-Greek Philosophy is not even close to the analytics of Eastern Philosophy. An interesting parallel would be Aristotle vs Nyaya-Vaiseshika, while Aristotle believes that all objects remain at rest, the Nyaya-Vaiseshika is more in agreement with Classical mechanics that all objects continue in a straight line, until forces is applied and this how it explains the movement of an arrow due to vector forces. Moreover, Classical Greek Philosophy has been influenced by Eastern Philosophy. To learn about about this read a book called, "The Shape of Ancient thought" a master schoarly work based on 40 years of research on Indo-Greek thought.

In any case an argument on who is better Greeks or Indians is too petty to get into and it has nothing to do with this topic. But it is interesting, that you being of Indian origin, would actually downplay your own. This only reconfirms my suspicision that you are taking this very emotionally and personally, which is enough to invalidate your position in a professional academic environment.

Try telling that to the RSS.

Another buzz word. Now you are bringing extreme right-wing Hindu political organizations into the picture. Again, nothing to do with the topic.
You sound like a disgruntled Indian to be honest, with some kind of personal vedetta against Hinduism, and cannot abide that it is being associated with science. So you attack everyone that makes that association, including pioneering scientists. I think your credibility has really suffered in this discussion.

[edit on 21-3-2009 by Indigo_Child]

[edit on 21-3-2009 by Indigo_Child]

I found a very good paper online, in defense of Quantum Idealism from the Russian Academy of Sciences on Quantum Mechanics and its relationship with idealism. A highly recommended read for anybody interested:

Extract

In Defense of Quantum Idealism

Since Bell's discovery, a number of experimental tests
have been performed successfully [by J Clauser and S Freed-
man (1972), A Aspect, J Dalibard, and G Roger (1982), and
G Weihs, Ch Simon, T Jennewein, H Weinfurter, and
A Zeilinger (1998)] [18]. The results of EPR-experiments have a fundamental philosophical meaning, namely:
(1) EPR-experiments proved that it is impossible to find
such `local reality' in quantum physics (in the Einsteinian sense) that could be independent of the consciousness of the
physicist-observer.
(2) Thus, quantum idealism as a form of philosophical
idealism became a branch of experimental science for the first
time in the history of idealism.
(3) This means that for the first time in its very long
history, idealistic philosophy in the 21st century has exact,
experimental arguments that cannot be rejected by ignorant
governments, popular realists, or anti-philosophers without
new and more precise experiments, in general!

[edit on 21-3-2009 by Indigo_Child]

A very simple, but effective explanation of idealism in QM via the discussion of the observers role into the manifestation of any phenomena is offered by this NASA gov education site:

www.grc.nasa.gov...

Extract:

Let us assume an observer and a system to be observed-any observer and any system. Between them, imagine a boundary, and call it an interaction boundary. This boundary is strictly mathematical; it has no necessary physical reality. In order for the observers to learn about the system, they must cause at least one quantum of "information" (energy, momentum, spin, or what-have-you) to pass from themselves through the boundary. The quantum of information is absorbed by the system (or it might be reflected back) and the system is thereby perturbed. Because it has undergone a perturbation, it causes another quantum of information to pass back through the boundary to the observer. The "observation" is the observer's subjective response to receiving this information. In a simple diagram, the situation looks like this:


O | S


where O and S represent the observer and the system, the vertical line represents the interaction boundary, and the arrows represent the information exchanged in the act of observation.





My comments from hereon. Again this is basically idealism, all reality exists only in a potential form until it is observed. The ramifications of this are obviously causing discontent among atheists, physicalists and realists, but they are free to reject QM if they want, nobody is forcing them to accept it. But you can't accept both QM and realism, because they contradict one another. You're either an idealist or you're not.

What are the implications of QM? Simple really it allows for a far more strange universe than was ever thought possible. It allows for the existence of souls, it allows for omnipresence(a particle being in two places at a time) it allows for instant information transfer beyond space and time(via quantum entanglement) thus giving theoretical basis to parapsycholgy and it gives at least some credence to the existence of an absolute consciousness. In string theory(which is a logical progression of QM) it's even more strange. It allows for parallel dimensions(multiple world theory), and higher and lower dimensions, within which higher and lower dimensional life forms can exist, giviing theoretical basis to heavens and hells, angels and demons.

Basically in cutting edge physics the world is no longer thought to be ordinary, it's very very very strange. Only those who are taught outdated physics have a problem with it.

How does this relate to Hinduism etc? It gives theoretical basis to its all its ideas of parallel, higher and lower dimensions, of all of reality occuring within consciousness and of all matter being just vibratons in the universal field. The kind of religion that would form on the basis of a QM and string theory worldview would be like Hinduism. Hence, why I am quite convinced Hinduism is a religion of an advanded scientific civilisation which has survived from pre-glacial times. Not that I am imposing this belief on you.



[edit on 21-3-2009 by Indigo_Child]

Originally posted by Indigo_Child
Astyanax, you clearly are in denial that QM is idealist, and now I can see why you are uncomfortable with Hinduism/Buddhism as well.

I am uncomfortable with - and largely hostile to - all speculative views on reality that put themselves forward as being more than speculative.

You should really look up in a philosophy dictionary and not an atheism website.

See below.

Idealism does not necessarily deny the existence of the world, only it considers it nothing more than content of the mind.

This is only one kind of idealism; there are others, as I have shown.

Take Kants or even Sankara's idealism, both state that reality is what appears to us through the meditation of our senses, and thus whatever we can know is limited to the empirical domain. They do not deny that this empirical domain exists, but simply state that it is an appearance of a more fundamental reality. That's sometimes called critical or transcedental idealism.

Yes, this too is one kind of idealism, as you have now admitted.

Russel, in his History of Western Philosophy, does not define idealism. The word has six index entries in the book. Perusing them, I read that

Descartes [who, as you know, is the arch-rationalist in Western philosophy, and thus, you might say, the arch-idealist]... adopts as a general rule the principle: All things that we conceive very clearly and very distinctly are true.

and that

No one has yet succeeded in inventing a philosophy at once credible and self-consistent.

As the moron said when he saw three wells: well, well, well.

Here is a definition of idealism from the Princeton Philosophy University dictionary: "S: (n) idealism ((philosophy) the philosophical theory that ideas are the only reality"

Googling dictionary philosophy princeton shows no results for a 'Princeton Dictionary of Philosophy' or any similarly titled work. And of course there's no such place as 'Princeton Philosophy University' Are you sure you aren't just telliing porkies?

Anyway, never mind all that: here are the results of a search for the word 'idealism' in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (which really exists). There are 168 entries. I'll save you the trouble of a trawl: none of them have anything to do with quantum mechanics, except, tenuously, the entry on symmetry breaking, where the word appears in the title of a work referred to in the entry bibliography.

You might, however, learn something to your profit if you were to run your eye over this entry in the Stanford encyclopedia, which explains exactly where and how far you have departed the rails. I'll quote just one tiny gem from it:

Bohr flatly denied the ontological thesis that the subject has any direct impact on the outcome of a measurement. Hence, when he occasionally mentioned the subjective character of quantum phenomena and the difficulties of distinguishing the object from the subject in quantum mechanics, he did not think of it as a problem confined to the observation of atoms alone. For instance, he stated that already "the theory of relativity reminds us of the subjective character of all physical phenomena" (ATDN, p. 116). Rather, by referring to the subjective character of quantum phenomena he was expressing the epistemological thesis that all observations in physics are in fact context-dependent. There exists, according to Bohr, no view from nowhere in virtue of which quantum objects can be described.

So... ho hum...

You clearly are a very ignorant person. If scientists are writing books... professors of physics at major universities are acknowleding the unmistable influences... pioneers of QM themselves are invested... how can you deny that this is happening at all?

I think you are very out of your depth here.

Arguments from authority somehow fail to appeal. Neither do appeals to other people's ignorance. Funny, that.

You are probably not familiar with Samkhya philosophy. Samkhya considers all of the reality to be three elemental forces/qualities/modes called the Gunas which are the foundation of the unmanifest and undifferentiated universe(moolaprakriti). These forces are in a state of equilibruim and this state contains in potential form the manifest universe(prakriti) The equibruim is only broken when Purusha(conscious principle) observes moolaprakriti. This causes the forces to break out of equilibruim, and the paramanus(primordial atoms) to aggregate and form various combinations. The import of this is that all matter is the vibration of the moolaprakriti state, and hence the Hindu teachings of AUM being the sound of creation. Another unique feature of Samkhya is its statement that all phenomena are cyclic-units(body, mind, matter, particles, universe) which are governed by the Gunas, which manifest, then go back into the unmanifest into the original state.

Post hoc correspondences? Dodgy, very dodgy. Hobbyist stuff at best.

But it is interesting, that you being of Indian origin, would actually downplay your own. This only reconfirms my suspicision that you are taking this very emotionally and personally, which is enough to invalidate your position in a professional academic environment.

You sound like a disgruntled Indian.

Well, that's odd, because I'm not Indian. And to my immense good fortune, I have no reason to care about the opinions of professionals in an academic environment.

I've met a few philosophers, though.

[edit on 21/3/09 by Astyanax]

Perhaps this is will help the conversation:

Electrodes implanted in the brains of people with epilepsy might have resolved an ancient question about consciousness.

Signals from the electrodes seem to show that consciousness arises from the coordinated activity of the entire brain. The signals also take us closer to finding an objective "consciousness signature" that could be used to probe the process in animals and people with brain damage without inserting electrodes.

Previously it wasn't clear whether a dedicated brain area, or "seat of consciousness", was responsible for guiding our subjective view of the world, or whether consciousness was the result of concerted activity across the whole brain.

Probing the process has been a challenge, as non-invasive techniques such as magnetic resonance imaging and EEG give either spatial or temporal information but not both. The best way to get both simultaneously is to implant electrodes deep inside the skull, but it is difficult to justify this in healthy people for ethical reasons.

Brainy opportunity
Now neuroscientist Raphaël Gaillard of INSERM in Gif sur Yvette, France, and colleagues have taken advantage of a unique opportunity. They have probed consciousness in 10 people who had intercranial electrodes implanted for treating drug-resistant epilepsy.

While monitoring signals from these electrodes, Gaillard's team flashed words in front of the volunteers for just 29 milliseconds. The words were either threatening (kill, anger) or emotionally neutral (cousin, see).

The words were preceded and followed by visual "masks", which block the words from being consciously processed, or the masks following the words weren't used, meaning the words could be consciously processed. The volunteers had to press a button to indicate the nature of the word, allowing the researchers to confirm whether the volunteer was conscious of it or not.

Between the 10 volunteers, the researchers received information from a total of 176 electrodes, which covered almost the whole brain. During the first 300 milliseconds of the experiment, brain activity during both the non-conscious and conscious tasks was very similar, indicating that the process of consciousness had not kicked in. But after that, there were several types of brain activity that only occurred in the individuals who were aware of the words.

Lost seat
First, there was an increase in the voltage levels of the signals in their brains. Second, the frequency and phase of neurons firing in different parts of the brain seemed to synchronise. Then some of these synchronised signals appeared to be triggering others. For example, activity in the occipital lobe seemed to cause activity in the frontal lobe.

Because this activity only occurred in volunteers when they were aware of the words, Gaillard's team argue that it constitutes a consciousness signature. As much of this activity was spread across the brain, they say that consciousness has no single "seat". "Consciousness is more a question of dynamics, than of a local activity," says Gaillard.

Bernard Baars of the Neuroscience Institute in San Diego, California, who proposed a "global access" theory of consciousness in 1983 agrees: "I'm thrilled by these results."

He says they provide the "first really solid, direct evidence" for his own theory. He also says that having such a signature will make it easier to look for signs of consciousness in people with brain damage, infants and animals with the help of non-invasive techniques such as EEG.

Journal reference: PLoS Biology, DOI: 10.1371/journal.pbio.1000061

SOURCE:[url]http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn16775-consciousness-signature-discovered-spanning-the-brain.html?DCMP=OTC-rss&nsref=online-news[/url ]



[edit on 21-3-2009 by Watcher-In-The-Shadows]

I am uncomfortable with - and largely hostile to - all speculative views on reality that put themselves forward as being more than speculative.

Then you should be uncomfortable with everything, because everything is a speculation on reality. It sounds like you think certain worldviews, no doubt the one you share, is not a speculation... OK.

Simplified to the core sentiment, its just a case of "Im right, you're wrong, because I say so" not anymore sophisticated than a child.

This is only one kind of idealism; there are others, as I have shown.

You have not really shown anything of the sort. You posted a link to the About: Atheism web site and left it at that.

Yes, this too is one kind of idealism, as you have now admitted.

I think it would be more correct to say that now you have understood. I have been saying from the start that idealism does not necessarily deny the existence of the world, only its position is that mind is more fundamental.

]Russel, in his History of Western Philosophy, does not define idealism. The word has six index entries in the book. Perusing them, I read that

Descartes [who, as you know, is the arch-rationalist in Western philosophy, and thus, you might say, the arch-idealist]... adopts as a general rule the principle: All things that we conceive very clearly and very distinctly are true.

and that

You are bound to arrive at such misconceptions with lay superficial reading on google searches Descartes was a dualist, not an idealist. I have studied Descrates extensively and read his Meditations, and supplementary literature on it. I assure you he is not idealist. Descrates posits that there are two domains; mind and matter and they do not affect each other. This is called the interaction or mind-body problem in philosophy(because they do interact)

In other words Descrates is saying both mind and matter exist, but they are separate substances. In contrast, idealism says that mind and matter are inseparable, but it is mind that is more fundamental than matter. In contrast to idealism is materialism that says mind is matter. It's important that you understand these different views and not conflate them.

Yes, there are different kinds of idealism, just as there are different type of dualisms and materialism. However, idealism as a general position means "a philosophy that says idea/mind is the only reality"

As the moron said when he saw three wells: well, well, well.

You suren't that wasn't you? I don't believe I ever claimed that the theory of idealism was complete and self-consistent, so it is questionable why would bring it up. Actually no theory, worldview, perspective is complete and self-consistent, even mathematics. Read Godel's theorem of incompleteness. So to say idealism is not conclusive, means nothing, because nothing is conclusive. Everything is a speculation on reality.

Here is a definition of idealism from the Princeton Philosophy University dictionary: "S: (n) idealism ((philosophy) the philosophical theory that ideas are the only reality"

Googling dictionary philosophy princeton shows no results for a 'Princeton Dictionary of Philosophy' or any similarly titled work. And of course there's no such place as 'Princeton Philosophy University' Are you sure you aren't just telliing porkies?

You are being what I would call a stupid skeptic. Somebody who challenges for the sake of challenging. Why would I lie to you on the philosophical definition of idealism? Don't you think, being a graduate in Philosophy, that I would know what idealism is, and the various types that exist and probably have read on all of the major idealists and their original works.

It has taken almost a full page to explain to you what idealism is. If that is not stupid, then I don't know what is. Most people pick it up quite easily. It's hardly a complicated concept. It's a worldview that considers idea or mind to be more fundamental than material.

I didn't know I would have to eventually spood feed a physics student on what something means:

From a series of online Philosophy Dictionaries:

"Belief that only mental entities are real, so that physical things exist only in the sense that they are perceived. Berkeley defended his "immaterialism" on purely empiricist grounds, while Kant and Fichte arrived at theirs by transcendental arguments. German, English, and (to a lesser degree) American philosophy during the nineteenth century was dominated by the monistic absolute idealism of Hegel, Bradley, and Royce. "

Source: www.philosophypages.com...

"Idealism: Any system or doctrine whose fundamental interpretative principle is ideal. Broadly, any theoretical or practical view emphasizing mind (soul, spirit, life) or what is characteristically of pre-eminent value or significance to it. Negatively, the alternative to Materialism."

Source: www.ditext.com...

From Enyclopedia Brittanica:

in philosophy, any view that stresses the central role of the ideal or the spiritual in the interpretation of experience. It may hold that the world or reality exists essentially as spirit or consciousness, that abstractions and laws are more fundamental in reality than sensory things, or, at least, that whatever exists is known in dimensions that are chiefly mental—through and as ideas.


Thus the two basic forms of Idealism are metaphysical Idealism, which asserts the ideality of reality, and epistemological Idealism, which holds that in the knowledge process the mind can grasp only the psychic or that its objects are conditioned by their perceptibility. In its metaphysics, Idealism is thus directly opposed to Materialism, the view that the basic substance of the world is matter and that it is known primarily through and as material forms and processes; and in its epistemology, it is opposed to Realism, which holds that in human knowledge objects are grasped and seen as they really are—in their existence outside and independently of
the mind.

Source: www.britannica.com...

Bohr flatly denied the ontological thesis that the subject has any direct impact on the outcome of a measurement. Hence, when he occasionally mentioned the subjective character of quantum phenomena and the difficulties of distinguishing the object from the subject in quantum mechanics, he did not think of it as a problem confined to the observation of atoms alone. For instance, he stated that already "the theory of relativity reminds us of the subjective character of all physical phenomena" (ATDN, p. 116). Rather, by referring to the subjective character of quantum phenomena he was expressing the epistemological thesis that all observations in physics are in fact context-dependent. There exists, according to Bohr, no view from nowhere in virtue of which quantum objects can be described.

So... ho hum...

Very mature interpretation "Ho, Hum" I am talking to a child, aren't I?
All that shows is that Bohr is not a strong idealist, but I would argue this epistemological conclusion that all measurements are context paves the way for idealism. In fact, hardly suprisingly, because Bohr was still working within the obsolete materialist paradigm before Schrodinger came along and ruffled its feathers. Schrodinger introduced the observer into physics and put it it right at the centre, and since its always been in the centre. Even a layman is aware of just how central the observer is in QM.

Arguments from authority somehow fail to appeal. Neither do appeals to other people's ignorance. Funny, that.

You clearly don't understand argument from authority either. An argument from authority is to use authority as evidence for something. So and says x, so x. I am not doing that at all. I am not saying that Schrodinger said x, therefore x. I am saying Schrodinger said x, therefore "he said x" in other words I'm just reporting, just like his biographer is just reporting.

Post hoc correspondences? Dodgy, very dodgy. Hobbyist stuff at best.

That doesn't even meaning anything. What correspodence? Did I say, "Samkhya says that the universe prior to manifestation exists in a superpositioned state with the forces in supersymmetry" Nope. I simply reported what Samkhya theory says using its own terms(moolaprakriti, gunas, manifest, unmanifest) Obviously you saw the correspodence yourself, I did not tell you any correspodences.

The only thing that is dodgy here is your rather humerous and desperate attempts at denying that any of this stuff exists. Like some kind of surivival mechanism lol

Well, that's odd, because I'm not Indian. And to my immense good fortune, I have no reason to care about the opinions of professionals in an academic

I assumed you were Indian because you said you were from that part of the world and then you mentioned RSS. An easy mistake to me. Anyway its quite obvious you don't care about what academics think. Your'e an arm-chair critic if I ever saw one. You seem to be sitting there criticising everything and everyone, from QM pioneers, to professors pf Physics at University, to myself a graduate of Philosophy, from an absolute perspective, without having any credentials in those areas.

Seriously we could have saved a lot of time and space if you just said, "I'm right, everyone else is wrong" at the start. That is indeed what your position is in this thread once you strip away all the fatty matter.


[edit on 21-3-2009 by Indigo_Child]

reply to post by Watcher-In-The-Shadows


This was discussed earlier before this discussion turned into one about QM and Idealism. In short the experiment only shows correlation between brain states and consciousness states, but not any causality.




Astyanax, now that you aware of what idealism is, and if you still aren't, then I am not going trying to explain it further. You can see how QM is based on idealist metaphysics because all QM events cannot occur without an observer, all events are observer dependent in QM. Thus placing the observer at the centre of QM and hence QM is clearly idealist. Also read the articles I posted earlier which state the same point .

Of course you can continue to live in denial. I have no interest in influencing any of your beliefs.

[edit on 21-3-2009 by Indigo_Child]

reply to post by Indigo_Child

Astyanax, now that you aware of what idealism is, and if you still aren't, then I am not going trying to explain it further.

Actually, your Philosophy Pages definition is a bit basic. The other two are much better and make it clear that even for idealists (some of them) the external world can have its own reality, whether or not our perceptions of it are representative.

Anyway, enough arguing over definitions. This is what most philosophical arguments eventually degenerate into: disputes over the meanings of words.

You can see how QM is based on idealist metaphysics because all QM events cannot occur without an observer, all events are observer dependent in QM. Thus placing the observer at the centre of QM and hence QM is clearly idealist.

This is the core of your misunderstanding. Universal processes do not require spectators. The birthpangs of the universe were witnessed by no-one, unless you want to be a Berkeleian type of idealist and insist that God was on hand to resolve the paradox. The so-called observer effect is an effect of the way quantum mechanics interrogates reality, not the way reality actually 'is'.

But - as you rightly point out - further argument is useless.

So, anything to contribute about the philosophical implications of a holographic universe, then? Any on-topic contributions to make?

reply to post by Watcher-In-The-Shadows

Thanks for the contribution. This if from the article you quoted:

As much of this activity was spread across the brain, they say that consciousness has no single "seat". "Consciousness is more a question of dynamics, than of a local activity," says Gaillard.

Yes, certainly. But, as I'm sure you'll agree, this offers no grounds for assuming that consciousness is located somewhere outside the brain, or in some transcendental never-never-land.

Here's a long quote from Self Awareness: The Last Frontier, an essay by the neuroscientist V.S. Ramachandran. The article is excellent reading. The section I quote describes various neurological conditions studied by Prof. Ramachandran and his colleagues, which arise from developmental irregularities and other damage to specific parts of the brain. There are also some interesting comments by others.

The problem of self... is an empirical one that can be solved—or at least explored to its very limit—by science. If and when we do it will be a turning point in the history of science. Neurological conditions have shown that the self is not the monolithic entity it believes itself to be. It seems to consist of many components each of which can be studied individually, and the notion of one unitary self may well be an illusion. (But if so we need to ask how the illusion arises; was it an adaptation acquired through natural selection?)

Consider the following disorders which illustrate different aspects of self.

• Out of body experiences: patients with right fronto-parietal strokes report floating out into space watching their body down below—undoubtedly contributing to the myth of disembodied souls. Left hemisphere strokes result in the feeling of a mysterious presence—a phantom twin—hovering behind the patient's left shoulder.
  
• Apotemnophilia: An otherwise completely normal person develops an intense desire to have his arm or leg amputated. The right parietal (a part of it known a SPL) normally contains a complete internal image of the body. We showed recently that in these patients the part of the map corresponding to the affected limb is congenitally missing, leading to alienation of the limb.
  
  The patients are sometimes sexually attracted to amputees, We postulate that in " normal" individuals there is a genetically specified homunculus in S2 that serves as a template acting on limbic and visual areas to determine aesthetic preference for ones own body type. Hence pigs are attracted to pigs not people. (Which is not to deny an additional role for olfactory and visual imprinting) But if the image in S2 is missing a limb this may translate into an aesthetic preference toward an amputee - mediated by reverse projections that are known to connect the ("emotional") amygdala to every stage in the visual hierarchy.
  
• Transsexuality; A woman claims that for as far back as she can remember she felt she was a man trapped in a woman's body—even experiencing phantom penises and erections. Our ordinary notion of every person having a single sexual identity (or self) is called into question. It turns out there are at least four distinct aspects of sexuality; your external anatomy, your internal brain-based body image, your sexual orientation and your sexual identity—who you think others think of you as. Normally these are harmonized in fetal development but if they get uncoupled you become a transsexual person. (It is important to note there is nothing "abnormal" about them, any more than you would regard being gay as abnormal.)
  
• A patient with a phantom arm simply watches a student volunteer's arm being touched. Astonishingly the patient feels the touch in his phantom. The barrier between him and others has been dissolved.
  
• Cotards syndrome; the patient claims he is dead and rejects all evidence to the contrary.
  
• Capgras delusion; the patient claims that his mother looks like his mother but is in fact an imposter. Other patients claim that they inhabit a house that's a duplicate of their real house. Bill Hirstein and I (and Haydn Ellis and Andrew Young) have shown that this highly specific delusion arises because the visual area in the brain is disconnected from emotional areas. So when our patient David sees his mother he recognizes her—along with the penumbra of memories linked to her. But no emotions and no jolt of familiarity is evoked so he rationalizes away his curious predicament saying she is an imposter. It is important to note that these patients are usually intelligent and mentally stable in most other respects. It is the selective nature of the delusion that makes it surprising and worth studying

Read the article; there's a lot more in there. Fascinating stuff, and far more exciting, to my mind at least, than the impotent cavils of idealism.

Reading you two long winded posters go on grows tedious. It is non stop mile long posts that kills threads... even interesting ones. Give it a break.

As a matter of fact Ken Wilber edited a book called "the Holographic Paradigm and other Paradoxes" in 1982.

Doublepost

[edit on 21/3/09 by Astyanax]

reply to post by grover

Fair enough.

Actually it's the quotes from Indigo_Child that make my posts so long...

I'll be slouching off to Bethlehem then.

reply to post by Astyanax


Bad philosophers turn every discussion into what a word means. Philosophers do not argue on what general terms mean as used in regular parlance. A philosopher will know his behaviourism from functionalism, materiaism from idealism, dualism from non-nondualism. You have entered in a rather useless debate with me on what idealism means.

Idealism does not deny that another world exists that is separate from the mind, only that whatever we can know about it is through the mind, and thus any kind of reality which is possible is through the mind. This is known as the phenomenon and noumenon distinction of Philosophy: the thing as it appears and the thing-in-itself. The same theme repeats in QM - all we can know is that the thing as it appears, but not the thing-in-itself.

Your understanding of QM is obviously flawed. No QM effects can take place without an observer. Schrodinger was bringing this point home with the cat in the box. The above articles I cited also mentioned exactly the same thing.

What are the implications of a holographic universe? Nothing really, it just tells us that the universe may not exist at all, and hence this life may not be the only life. It simply givies a theoretical basis to spirituality grounded in science.

[edit on 21-3-2009 by Indigo_Child]

Originally posted by dbates

Originally posted by jester87
what the hell is the video number?

The video number is the text right after "v=" in the URL.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=[size=+1]vnvM_YAwX4I


[edit on 25-2-2009 by dbates]

Actually thats a string, not a number...

Insert an example in that message box and you will help a lot of non technical people.

]Here's a long quote from Self Awareness: The Last Frontier, an essay by the neuroscientist V.S. Ramachandran. The article is excellent reading. The section I quote describes various neurological conditions studied by Prof. Ramachandran and his colleagues, which arise from developmental irregularities and other damage to specific parts of the brain. There are also some interesting comments by others.

]

Yep, I am familiar with V.S Ramachandhan and the fact that he is cited by many neuroscientists and eliminitative materialists His experiments are interesting, he shows that our conscious experience of things is actually a virtual thing, it does not correspond to a real existence e.g., phantom limbs. The problem is taking this research, as many neuroscientists do like Metzinger and misapplying it to conclude all conscious experience is equivalent to brain states and functional states. Primitive Neruoscience tends to make this conclusion, "stimulate x in the brain, to cause y conscious experience" A conclusion was reached that memory actually has a physical locality in the brain, simply because if you stimulate a certain area of the brain, the subject reports that memory. Then Prebram came along and demonstrated that memories are not stored in any single part of the brain, but rather every cell in the brain can store same memory, thus proposing a revolutionary theory of brainscience known as the holographic model of the brain, where memory is non-local.

The import of all this research is suggesting that the consciousness domain is non-local to the body and that there is no necessary correspondence between consciousness and body(such as in Phantom limbs) This naturally can lead us to a conclusion that the absence of body does not entail the absence of consciousness. There is no research that contradicts this as of yet. Thus a rationalist has no reason to believe that the death of its body will lead to the death of its self, rather the rationalist has every reason to believe that they will wake up in another body after physical death.

[edit on 21-3-2009 by Indigo_Child]