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  • Locked thread
Series DD Funding
Nov 25, 2014

by exmarx

rudatron posted:

You know, performance, acting, theatre. The suspension of disbelief, etc. For me, my body is meatbag I depend on. For the body relations of others, how could I really proclaim something like that with conviction? Saying something to the effect of "I know you better than you (dance puppets dance!)" is never going to come off as anything but arrogant and insulting. But that works both ways, I cannot know for certain what they're feeling, what's really motivating anybody. There's only behaviors, and on that basis there's definitely a lot of conviction behind stuff like gender identity. The stereotypical (and all too common) scene of two stubborn men trying to provoke each other to violence is a great example: for either to back down represents their own emasculation, so the whole situation has to escalate. People die over stuff like that. But whether that means there's some kind of 'kernel' of gender inside their head, whether that has to be something really exists...I'm not sure. I'm not feeling it.

To me, at least, it seems like there's a distinction between acts of gender and acts on the sexed body. I think it's most apparent for SRS. Do people go through major surgery to change their genitals for the "performance." People, cis and trans, certainly do go through body modification (like laser hair removal) for the sake of "gender", whatever it is, but I'm skeptical of fully extending it to SRS, both off of intuition and discussions with trans people I know. Maybe it's something more akin to a sexual orientation of the self?

To bring this back on topic, I'm interested in hearing from the Christian posters itt (no kyries) about sex/gender theology.

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Bel Shazar
Sep 14, 2012

Kyrie eleison posted:

Right... because the Church is actively trying to dismantle all traditional values.

So, your stance is that the Church has been trying to keep Saturnalia alive with the whole December 25th thing?

Kyrie eleison
Jan 26, 2013

by Ralp
He committed grievous acts of gender... He was a renegade

Here's the thoughts of one Christian who is not me: http://www.catholicherald.co.uk/news/2015/06/09/male-and-female-differences-must-be-recognised-and-valued-says-pope-francis/

TwoQuestions
Aug 26, 2011

Kyrie eleison posted:

Right... because the Church is actively trying to dismantle all traditional values.

You do want to rip apart all non-Catholic institutions and groups of people though, so yes you do want to dismantle all traditional values that aren't Catholic.

Man I gotta read 1984 again, it's been a while.

Rodatose
Jul 8, 2008

corn, corn, corn

rudatron posted:

Honestly I'm not attracted to buddhism. A lot of people interpret it in an orientalist 'escape from modernity' kind of way, which I can't respect (and in fact I'd go in the opposite direction), but even that is mistaken - it resolves the problem of suffering by removing subjectivity, I'm universalizing subjectivity. But maybe that's just my ignorance. There's other things I want to read before I get to buddhism texts though.

Well yeah I think that's a faulty interpretation; it's more "coping with suffering (while also being aware of the interconnectedness of actions in society)." There are many ways to cope beside reclusion. It's very much accepting of any modern methods that develop one's understanding and knowledge of the world and has recently interwoven with the field of neuroplasticity because of promising results of studies that show changes in brain physiology from employing certain methods of zen or mindfulness meditation. Namely, studies that show that some methods of zen or mindfulness meditation can reduce pain felt and increase tolerance to those painful situations, or can help shorten episodes of moderate chronic depression by derailing negative feedback loops (where severe chronic depression absolutely needs meds too).

For instance, mindfulness meditation reduced amount of chronic pain felt in this study, reduced symptoms of hypertension in this study, and in this one, allowed the group of normal college students randomly assigned with mindfulness instructions to be able to keep their hands in ice water longer than the group not given that briefing.
http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/BF00845519
http://www.jpgmonline.com/article.asp?issn=0022-3859;year=1980;volume=26;issue=1;spage=68;epage=73;aulast=Datey
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/smi.2446/abstract


Here's a lazy wikipedia link explaining more generally interplay between the two. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buddhism_and_science

Aside, there's no definitive statement one way or another whether there is or not a subjective "self"; rather, the most that's said is that attachment to a single fixed conception frozen in time of self is seen as harmful.

I wouldn't consider myself a buddhist anyway because I eat meat

Kyrie eleison
Jan 26, 2013

by Ralp
Can we talk about our encounters with angels, faeries and wisps? I'm sure I'm not the only one who has daily occurrences with them... such as, when I'm walking down the street and some prankster elf trips me a bit and makes me stumble. The other day this happened and when I looked down I'm pretty sure I saw a glimmer of it, but it scurried away laughing before I could get a proper glimpse. And then just yesterday in the elevator, I was headed down after a hard day of work and suddenly the elevator jolted and stopped and the lights went off, and there was a creaking noise, and an evil voice said with a hiss, "C-ease your p-osting..." but I turned to the ghoul and shouted, "Never! I will never give up! Do you hear me, devil!" And immediately the lights came on and the elevator resumed its descent, and I said a quick Hail Mary, before the doors opened and I walked out into an unusually saturated world.

Nessus
Dec 22, 2003

After a Speaker vote, you may be entitled to a valuable coupon or voucher!



Rodatose posted:

I wouldn't consider myself a buddhist anyway because I eat meat
Well, so does the Dalai Lama; it's fairly common in Tibet, but I think a lot of that is the climate there.

clammy
Nov 25, 2004

Kyrie eleison posted:

Can we talk about our encounters with angels, faeries and wisps? I'm sure I'm not the only one who has daily occurrences with them... such as, when I'm walking down the street and some prankster elf trips me a bit and makes me stumble. The other day this happened and when I looked down I'm pretty sure I saw a glimmer of it, but it scurried away laughing before I could get a proper glimpse. And then just yesterday in the elevator, I was headed down after a hard day of work and suddenly the elevator jolted and stopped and the lights went off, and there was a creaking noise, and an evil voice said with a hiss, "C-ease your p-osting..." but I turned to the ghoul and shouted, "Never! I will never give up! Do you hear me, devil!" And immediately the lights came on and the elevator resumed its descent, and I said a quick Hail Mary, before the doors opened and I walked out into an unusually saturated world.

I don't think any of those things you saw were real outside of your mind; in that way they are much like God.

GAINING WEIGHT...
Mar 26, 2007

See? Science proves the JewsMuslims are inferior and must be purged! I'm not a racist, honest!

Kyrie eleison posted:

Can we talk about our encounters with angels, faeries and wisps? I'm sure I'm not the only one who has daily occurrences with them... such as, when I'm walking down the street and some prankster elf trips me a bit and makes me stumble. The other day this happened and when I looked down I'm pretty sure I saw a glimmer of it, but it scurried away laughing before I could get a proper glimpse. And then just yesterday in the elevator, I was headed down after a hard day of work and suddenly the elevator jolted and stopped and the lights went off, and there was a creaking noise, and an evil voice said with a hiss, "C-ease your p-osting..." but I turned to the ghoul and shouted, "Never! I will never give up! Do you hear me, devil!" And immediately the lights came on and the elevator resumed its descent, and I said a quick Hail Mary, before the doors opened and I walked out into an unusually saturated world.

Yeah dude it's ok lots of schizophrenics lead real kick-rear end lives

Kyrie eleison
Jan 26, 2013

by Ralp
In addition to being a cute girl, I am now, also, black. I'm so glad I can finally be free.

(USER WAS PUT ON PROBATION FOR THIS POST)

Rodatose
Jul 8, 2008

corn, corn, corn

GAINING WEIGHT... posted:

Yeah dude it's ok lots of schizophrenics lead real kick-rear end lives

that post was well done and funny. if you're hating too much all the time 1. you can't appreciate when someone is doing a part well and 2. you will get trolled really easily

e: vv haha vv

Rodatose fucked around with this message at 10:56 on Jun 19, 2015

Jesus Christ
Jun 1, 2000

mods if you can make this my avatar I will gladly pay 10bux to the coffers
thx, love all y'all

CommieGIR
Aug 22, 2006

The blue glow is a feature, not a bug


Pillbug

Jesus Christ posted:

thx, love all y'all

Oh Jesus, you got some 'splainin to do.

GAINING WEIGHT...
Mar 26, 2007

See? Science proves the JewsMuslims are inferior and must be purged! I'm not a racist, honest!

Jesus Christ posted:

thx, love all y'all

thread delievered

America Inc.
Nov 22, 2013

I plan to live forever, of course, but barring that I'd settle for a couple thousand years. Even 500 would be pretty nice.
I find it increasingly hard to believe that death is really a final end to our conscious existence in the universe, or indeed to be feared as a termination of consciousness.
Death, as far we can tell, cannot be experienced because it is by definition outside consciousness. Experience appears to be a quality of only alive, conscious beings. The CMB seems to support the claim that the universe is infinite, so I see no reason why the moment you die you don't just immediately come back as something else in some random spot of the universe, even considering the highly unlikely odds of any random assemblage of atoms being a living being.
I mean this isn't even a religious thing, it just seems to me that consciousness is not a fluke but rather an inevitability. You're either conscious or waiting to wake up again.

America Inc. fucked around with this message at 07:03 on Jun 21, 2015

Asshole Businessman
Aug 8, 2007
I heart Donald Trump.
I don't understand. Are you saying because the universe is infinite, your conciousness must be infinite as well? I don't see how that's the case when there's no recollection of experience before your birth. Furthermore, even if it were the case that an exact configuration of atoms that makes you you were to arise again, this isn't an example of surviving death, its merely an exact copy of you that's not you specifically.

Clearly conciousness is a very fragile, fleeting thing, a phenomenon born of a very unique scaffolding of atoms that eventually falls apart much like all higher order structures in the universe do. I find the concept of death to be quite entertwined with the experience of living, if one wants to get fancy with the idea. You, as you were a year ago, is dead, never to return. And so are all the other brain states you've experienced thus far. Your terminal death will just be the final death of a series of deaths that you experience throughout your life. Death is very much a part of conciousness, moment to moment.

Homura and Sickle
Apr 21, 2013

LookingGodIntheEye posted:

I find it increasingly hard to believe that death is really a final end to our conscious existence in the universe, or indeed to be feared as a termination of consciousness.
Death, as far we can tell, cannot be experienced because it is by definition outside consciousness. Experience appears to be a quality of only alive, conscious beings. The CMB seems to support the claim that the universe is infinite, so I see no reason why the moment you die you don't just immediately come back as something else in some random spot of the universe, even considering the highly unlikely odds of any random assemblage of atoms being a living being.
I mean this isn't even a religious thing, it just seems to me that consciousness is not a fluke but rather an inevitability. You're either conscious or waiting to wake up again.

Have you ever taken a nap or passed out and not dreamed? That + a scary traumatic prelude, that's death. Not too hard to conceptualize.

OwlFancier
Aug 22, 2013

Jagchosis posted:

Have you ever taken a nap or passed out and not dreamed? That + a scary traumatic prelude, that's death. Not too hard to conceptualize.

Personally I find that slightly hard to conceptualise because that experience is essentially a time skip for me, like blinking and the world jumps forward a few hours.

It is the absence of experience and I don't have any concept of it because the actual unconsciousness is not something I remember or experience, just the before and after.

America Inc.
Nov 22, 2013

I plan to live forever, of course, but barring that I'd settle for a couple thousand years. Even 500 would be pretty nice.

rear end in a top hat Businessman posted:

I don't understand. Are you saying because the universe is infinite, your conciousness must be infinite as well?
Not as you seem to be thinking of it, no.

quote:

I don't see how that's the case when there's no recollection of experience before your birth. Furthermore, even if it were the case that an exact configuration of atoms that makes you you were to arise again, this isn't an example of surviving death, its merely an exact copy of you that's not you specifically.
I don't see why it needs to be you, or have any of memory of your past self.
I think you're touching on my idea in a roundabout way at the end of your post:

quote:

You, as you were a year ago, is dead, never to return. And so are all the other brain states you've experienced thus far. Your terminal death will just be the final death of a series of deaths that you experience throughout your life. Death is very much a part of conciousness, moment to moment.
This is what I mean. Do you remember what it was like to be two? If you can't remember, does it mean you were not alive or conscious then? I'm simply arguing that what we consider to be "death" is not an end to conscious experience of any kind, whether it be human, insect, an alien in another galaxy, or whatever.


If I cannot experience being dead, but I can experience being alive, then I only ever get to experience being alive, even if the interval between one life to another spans millions or billions of years.
I just think this concept that your life is the only life is stuck ironically in the same trap as Christians in thinking of consciousness as something outside of the material universe, like you have a soul tied down to the universe within your brain, that this one brain was the only one that could give you consciousness in the entire universe for billions of years in an infinite universe. The concept really doesn't make sense to me.

What really makes you you?

Jagchosis posted:

Have you ever taken a nap or passed out and not dreamed? That + a scary traumatic prelude, that's death. Not too hard to conceptualize.
Well yeah that's the idea, except when you wake up you can't remember what happened before you were asleep either, like waking up after a bender.

America Inc. fucked around with this message at 08:43 on Jun 21, 2015

OwlFancier
Aug 22, 2013

LookingGodIntheEye posted:

Not as you seem to be thinking of it, no.

I don't see why it needs to be you, or have any of memory of your past self.
I think you're touching on my idea in a roundabout way at the end of your post:

This is what I mean. Do you remember what it was like to be two? If you can't remember, does it mean you were not alive or conscious then? I'm simply arguing that what we consider to be "death" is not an end to conscious experience of any kind, whether it be human, insect, an alien in another galaxy, or whatever.


If I cannot experience being dead, but I can experience being alive, then I only ever get to experience being alive, even if the interval between one life to another spans millions or billions of years.
I just think this concept that your life is the only life is stuck ironically in the same trap as Christians in thinking of consciousness as something outside of the material universe, like you have a soul tied down to the universe within your brain, that this one brain was the only one that could give you consciousness in the entire universe for billions of years.

What really makes you you?

Just because you can't remember or experience something in your mind doesn't mean it can't happen.

Ability to conceptualize something is not a necessity for its existence, nor is it necessary for conceptualization to occur in general, otherwise you might as well argue that the universe stops existing when people aren't looking at it, and that the universe exists explicitly for the purpose of humans experiencing it, which is silly.

America Inc.
Nov 22, 2013

I plan to live forever, of course, but barring that I'd settle for a couple thousand years. Even 500 would be pretty nice.

OwlFancier posted:

Just because you can't remember or experience something in your mind doesn't mean it can't happen.

Ability to conceptualize something is not a necessity for its existence, nor is it necessary for conceptualization to occur in general, otherwise you might as well argue that the universe stops existing when people aren't looking at it, and that the universe exists explicitly for the purpose of humans experiencing it, which is silly.
These are valid points, but I feel like we need to get a better grasp of what exactly provides consciousness in our brains because the idea that you are inextricably bound to your brain seems to fall flat as a claim to me. If I were to take my brain, and replace it piece by piece with a machine, which piece would kill me if I lost it?

Homura and Sickle
Apr 21, 2013

LookingGodIntheEye posted:

Well yeah that's the idea, except when you wake up you can't remember what happened before you were asleep either, like waking up after a bender.

If you want to go the pseudo-Buddhist resurrection route, then fair enough. But a consciousness ending completely and a consciousness that rejuvenates without its memories are essentially the same thing anyway. The continuity of experience is what makes sentient life. If you seek the idea of resurrection for comfort from the finality of death then more power to you, but it is still a definitive end to who and what every aspect of your waking being is, even if you subscribe to this idea.

America Inc.
Nov 22, 2013

I plan to live forever, of course, but barring that I'd settle for a couple thousand years. Even 500 would be pretty nice.

Jagchosis posted:

If you want to go the pseudo-Buddhist resurrection route, then fair enough. But a consciousness ending completely and a consciousness that rejuvenates without its memories are essentially the same thing anyway. The continuity of experience is what makes sentient life. If you seek the idea of resurrection for comfort from the finality of death then more power to you, but it is still a definitive end to who and what every aspect of your waking being is, even if you subscribe to this idea.
I guess it can provide some comfort, but I'm coming from this viewpoint more because consciousness as tied to one physical brain doesn't make sense to me with our current knowledge. considering that the brain is plastic and what we define as a self is a very tenuous, malleable concept. There doesn't seem to be one singular part of the brain that makes you conscious, one part that ties you down permanently to your own corner in time and space..

OwlFancier
Aug 22, 2013

LookingGodIntheEye posted:

These are valid points, but I feel like we need to get a better grasp of what exactly provides consciousness in our brains because the idea that you are inextricably bound to your brain seems to fall flat as a claim to me. If I were to take my brain, and replace it piece by piece with a machine, which piece would kill me if I lost it?

Depends what you are calling "you".

Conceivably you could replace your brain entirely with a machine and it would be able to operate your body in broadly the same manner as you do, with enough programming it could be made to interact with others in ways indistinguishable from the way you do now. You as a functional entity would not die, your place in life would be continued adequately by your robot brain.

If you mean your own internal narrative, the bit that says your posts in your head as/before you type them, that would degrade as parts of your memory and motor control was replaced by an autonomous machine, depending on how much space is necessary to create a mechanical replica of your function, it is conceivable that some parts of your internal narrative could be preserved, disconnected from control of your body. Conceivably you could have a robotic replacement of you as well as most of the original you, existing at the same time, though I imagine the one stuck inside your head with no control and possibly no ability to observe the outside world might not have much of a fun time of things.

Broadly, you would "die" piecemeal as parts of what you consider you at the moment are lost, either to surgical removal or the psychological trauma stemming from having your bodily control removed. However it is worth noting that this happens all the time, you constantly adopt a new identity based on changes to your body and environment. If you lose an arm you don't consider yourself dead because "you" have two arms so this can't possibly be you, you adjust your concept of self to meet your new situation.

If I had to guess, you would constantly readjust your concept of self until "you" were whatever was left after most of your brain was scooped out and replaced with circuitry. Externally, everyone else would also adjust their concept of who you are to account for the changes they saw in robot-you's personality, and everyone would have an interesting case study for the Chinese Room Experiment.

Nessus
Dec 22, 2003

After a Speaker vote, you may be entitled to a valuable coupon or voucher!



Always with the brain uploading! Never with the biological curing of senescence and robust anticancer treatments.

America Inc.
Nov 22, 2013

I plan to live forever, of course, but barring that I'd settle for a couple thousand years. Even 500 would be pretty nice.

OwlFancier posted:

the Chinese Room Experiment.
It's amazing how qualia make even the most basic of human experiences like the self-awareness of other people completely unfathomable to the human mind.

OwlFancier
Aug 22, 2013

It's not unfathomable, just impossible to prove, and statistically improbable.

Besides you can extend the idea further and suggest that self awareness itself is an illusion, we might well all be sufficiently good facsimiles of 'true' self aware beings, all constantly believing that we are much deeper than we really are, when in reality we are pure mechanical constructs devoid of soul or anything beyond the processes we need from day to day.

It also does a good job of demonstrating that the knowledge of whether we or others are self aware is entirely unnecessary so don't worry about it if you don't want to.

OwlFancier fucked around with this message at 10:39 on Jun 21, 2015

Kyrie eleison
Jan 26, 2013

by Ralp
Actually materialism is bunk because of the double slit experiment. The entire universe only exists because it is observed by conscious entities, and is otherise merely a waveform of potentiality. See also Schrodinger's Cat. I effing love science.

OwlFancier
Aug 22, 2013

The uncertainty principle does not have anything to do with consciousness, it argues that all methods of observation interfere with the result, a thing entirely un-acted upon by outside forces can be in many states, and only once an outside force does act on it can that state be observed, it is impossible to observe a thing without changing what it is, but that again has nothing to do with consciousness.

Kyrie eleison
Jan 26, 2013

by Ralp
How can something be observed without consciousness.

OwlFancier
Aug 22, 2013

Kyrie eleison posted:

How can something be observed without consciousness.

It can't, but the uncertainty principle doesn't say "observation changes things because magic consciousness" as much as it says "observation requires interaction" and that interaction changes the thing observed.

A thing entirely un-acted upon by outside forces is subject to uncertainty, observation is simply one way of interacting with it. You could run the experiment without looking at the results and it would have the same effect, though you wouldn't know what the effect is unless you looked.

Kyrie eleison
Jan 26, 2013

by Ralp

OwlFancier posted:

It can't, but the uncertainty principle doesn't say "observation changes things because magic consciousness" as much as it says "observation requires interaction" and that interaction changes the thing observed.

A thing entirely un-acted upon by outside forces is subject to uncertainty, observation is simply one way of interacting with it. You could run the experiment without looking at the results and it would have the same effect, though you wouldn't know what the effect is unless you looked.

But the "interaction" is nothing more than observation. Therefore observation changes the thing, and as you agree observation requires consciousness.

How do you know if you ran the experiment without looking at the results that it would have the same effect?

OwlFancier
Aug 22, 2013

Kyrie eleison posted:

But the "interaction" is nothing more than observation. Therefore observation changes the thing, and as you agree observation requires consciousness.

How do you know if you ran the experiment without looking at the results that it would have the same effect?

The point is that while observation has traditionally been regarded as non-interfering, this isn't the case.

Because observing something means you're doing something to it, you're shining light on it, absorbing part of what it emits with a sensor, even the most passive observation involves changing the thing being observed.

When you're dealing with things as minute as elementary particles, bombarding them with photons so you can look at them changes them massively.

If you are truly not interacting with a thing, then the thing is not emitting any radiation, and is not being subjected to any light or other materiel so that you can observe its reflection. It exists in a vacuum, and so you can't see it.

If you can observe a thing, you are changing it, so a thing unobserved is a thing completely in isolation, and you can't know what a thing completely in isolation is, or what it's doing, obviously.

Observation is always active, never passive, that's the point. You can't observe a thing in its natural, unaffected state because if you're observing it, it isn't in its natural state.

Obdicut
May 15, 2012

"What election?"

Kyrie eleison posted:

Actually materialism is bunk because of the double slit experiment. The entire universe only exists because it is observed by conscious entities, and is otherwise merely a waveform of potentiality. See also Schrodinger's Cat. I effing love science.

Schrodinger's cat was an example by Schrodinger of the absurd lengths not to take his concept. He wasn't actually claiming the cat is in a superposition. It is used exactly backwards by 99% of people, and tends to attract the mystical woo-wooers.

quote:

One can even set up quite ridiculous cases. A cat is penned up in a steel chamber, along with the following device (which must be secured against direct interference by the cat): in a Geiger counter, there is a tiny bit of radioactive substance, so small, that perhaps in the course of the hour one of the atoms decays, but also, with equal probability, perhaps none; if it happens, the counter tube discharges and through a relay releases a hammer that shatters a small flask of hydrocyanic acid. If one has left this entire system to itself for an hour, one would say that the cat still lives if meanwhile no atom has decayed. The psi-function of the entire system would express this by having in it the living and dead cat (pardon the expression) mixed or smeared out in equal parts.

It is typical of these cases that an indeterminacy originally restricted to the atomic domain becomes transformed into macroscopic indeterminacy, which can then be resolved by direct observation. That prevents us from so naively accepting as valid a "blurred model" for representing reality. In itself, it would not embody anything unclear or contradictory. There is a difference between a shaky or out-of-focus photograph and a snapshot of clouds and fog banks.

Bohr felt the same way. If you stop and think about it for a second or two, it makes sense that you're not really claiming some maybe-dead-maybe-alive cat. Schrodinger was presenting this as a paradox that showed the incompleteness of the thinking about quantum mechanics.

To help you think about it a bit more and not embarrass yourself by claiming that it has mystic significance: the cat is also an observer of the system. Or, if you want to only concentrate on human minds, imagine one human who is standing some feet back from the box and can't see inside when it is opened. Does it 'collapse' for him or not when the box is opened and the person closer to it observes the alive or dead cat?

It's a cool thought experiment that was meant to show problems in QM and it's kind of hilarious that so many people use it exactly backwards.

Kyrie eleison
Jan 26, 2013

by Ralp

OwlFancier posted:

The point is that while observation has traditionally been regarded as non-interfering, this isn't the case.

Because observing something means you're doing something to it, you're shining light on it, absorbing part of what it emits with a sensor, even the most passive observation involves changing the thing being observed.

When you're dealing with things as minute as elementary particles, bombarding them with photons so you can look at them changes them massively.

If you are truly not interacting with a thing, then the thing is not emitting any radiation, and is not being subjected to any light or other materiel so that you can observe its reflection. It exists in a vacuum, and so you can't see it.

If you can observe a thing, you are changing it, so a thing unobserved is a thing completely in isolation, and you can't know what a thing completely in isolation is, or what it's doing, obviously.

Observation is always active, never passive, that's the point. You can't observe a thing in its natural, unaffected state because if you're observing it, it isn't in its natural state.

Your argument rests on the idea that it is impossible to observe something without as you say "bombarding it with photons." Basically you think the tool used to observe the particle is causing some sort of physical interruption which has nothing whatsoever to do with the fact the tool is observing it. But this is not the uncertainty principle. The uncertainty principle is the idea that merely knowing the state the particle is in affects the outcome, not that the tool has caused some disruption outside the observation itself. The only disruption it has caused, according to the uncertainty principle, is that it obtained information about its current location.

Obdicut posted:

Schrodinger's cat was an example by Schrodinger of the absurd lengths not to take his concept. He wasn't actually claiming the cat is in a superposition. It is used exactly backwards by 99% of people, and tends to attract the mystical woo-wooers.


Bohr felt the same way. If you stop and think about it for a second or two, it makes sense that you're not really claiming some maybe-dead-maybe-alive cat. Schrodinger was presenting this as a paradox that showed the incompleteness of the thinking about quantum mechanics.

To help you think about it a bit more and not embarrass yourself by claiming that it has mystic significance: the cat is also an observer of the system. Or, if you want to only concentrate on human minds, imagine one human who is standing some feet back from the box and can't see inside when it is opened. Does it 'collapse' for him or not when the box is opened and the person closer to it observes the alive or dead cat?

It's a cool thought experiment that was meant to show problems in QM and it's kind of hilarious that so many people use it exactly backwards.

It may appear absurd, but it is a logical consequence of the Copenhagen interpretation, which is still the mainstream view of quantum mechanics. Appearing absurd is not however grounds for dismissal, it is just a challenge to our normal materialistic view of the world. Many will reject it because they want to believe in materialism, but I prefer to accept the most strongly supported scientific evidence.

Obdicut
May 15, 2012

"What election?"

Kyrie eleison posted:



It may appear absurd, but it is a logical consequence of the Copenhagen interpretation, which is still the mainstream view of quantum mechanics. Appearing absurd is not however grounds for dismissal, it is just a challenge to our normal materialistic view of the world. Many will reject it because they want to believe in materialism, but I prefer to accept the most strongly supported scientific evidence.

Nah, you just don't really understand the Copenhagen interpretation. You just don't get it, and Bohr and Schrodinger would either laugh at you or find you depressing, I'm not sure which.

The most strongly supported scientific evidence is that the cat in the box would, if dead, be demonstrably have been so for a period of time before you opened the lid of the box. Even just the temperature of the body alone would tell you that. Unless you literally think that, when hiking in the woods, the woods are coalescing in front of you, resolving from their various superpositions, unless you're that much of a crazy solipsist, you don't actually believe what you think you do.

Effectronica
May 31, 2011
Fallen Rib

Kyrie eleison posted:

Your argument rests on the idea that it is impossible to observe something without as you say "bombarding it with photons." Basically you think the tool used to observe the particle is causing some sort of physical interruption which has nothing whatsoever to do with the fact the tool is observing it. But this is not the uncertainty principle. The uncertainty principle is the idea that merely knowing the state the particle is in affects the outcome, not that the tool has caused some disruption outside the observation itself. The only disruption it has caused, according to the uncertainty principle, is that it obtained information about its current location.

That's not the uncertainty principle. The uncertainty principle is that certain physical properties of objects are paired in complementarity, and as a result the certainty of one's knowledge of one of these properties is limited according to the relationship σAB ≥ ℏ/2. These complementary properties include position and momentum (and thus time and energy), spin along different axes, wave and particle natures, field value and field change at a given point, etc.

woke wedding drone
Jun 1, 2003

by exmarx
Fun Shoe

Kyrie eleison posted:

Actually materialism is bunk because of the double slit experiment. The entire universe only exists because it is observed by conscious entities, and is otherise merely a waveform of potentiality. See also Schrodinger's Cat. I effing love science.

No, you love science filtered through the babble of priests desperate to use it as a way to avoid becoming atheists. But the priests couldn't keep from becoming atheist.

Brutal Garcon
Nov 2, 2014



LookingGodIntheEye posted:

It's amazing how qualia make even the most basic of human experiences like the self-awareness of other people completely unfathomable to the human mind.

I think we've found the best troll.

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Kyrie eleison
Jan 26, 2013

by Ralp

Obdicut posted:

Nah, you just don't really understand the Copenhagen interpretation. You just don't get it, and Bohr and Schrodinger would either laugh at you or find you depressing, I'm not sure which.

The most strongly supported scientific evidence is that the cat in the box would, if dead, be demonstrably have been so for a period of time before you opened the lid of the box. Even just the temperature of the body alone would tell you that. Unless you literally think that, when hiking in the woods, the woods are coalescing in front of you, resolving from their various superpositions, unless you're that much of a crazy solipsist, you don't actually believe what you think you do.

You claim that I don't understand the Copenhagen interpretation, but I think Wikipedia supports my understanding of it. I also think you misrepresent Bohr's opinion. It seemed it was mainly Einstein who wanted to insist on classical determinism, but he was never able to prove it, and Bohr would disagree with them. Einstein believed that "God does not throw dice." They had famous debates on the subject which Bohr won.

I'm aware that the cat would appear to have been dead for a period of time, but its history would not have been until observed. It would have existed in a state of alive and dead simultaneously, in a waveform of potentialities, until it was observed, at which point its history would collapse into one of the potentialities. This is just like the particle in the double slit experiment which suddenly appears to have always been heading towards only one of the slits. Observation decides the apparent past as well as the present, without actually changing the true past, in which it existed as a potentiality.

I wanted to address something you mentioned earlier but I forgot to reply to, which is the consciousness of the cat. I think this is a good point which I also thought of myself. This all depends on whether or not the cat is "conscious." I cannot say for certain if it is, but the thought experiment takes as assumption that the cat does not qualify and that human reason is required to observe. If the cat is capable of observation, then this would be a fault in the experiment. But we have no evidence for this either way and I can't think of any way to determine if cats or other non-human creatures can collapse wave-form potentialities.

In order for this view to become solipsist, you'd have to believe that you yourself have the unique ability to collapse wave-form potentialities. But assuming there are actually other conscious observers, which is certainly the Christian view, then one would not be a solipsist. Otherwise I think you'd be believing that you are uniquely God, essentially.

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