But agreeing that something exists is not the same as understanding how or why it exists.
We don’t understand why, but then again we don’t know why anything exists. In practice, something as basic as subjective experience is always taken as a given. As for how, our inner phenomenology reveals far more about subjective experience than physics ever could.
Nevertheless, we do also want to know how the self might relate to our physical models; and contrary to what might be expected, macroscopic quantum superposition is actually the parsimonious hypothesis here for a wide variety of reasons.
Unless QM as we know it is badly wrong, it just doesn’t fit our models of physical reality that anything resembling “the self” would be instantiated in a hugely complicated classical system (a brain with an arrangement of brain regions and billions of neurons? Talk about an arbitrary bridging law!) as opposed to a comparatively simple quantum state.
Moreover, it is eminently plausible that evolution should have found some ways of exploiting quantum computation in the brain during its millions-of-years-long development. The current state of neuroscience is admittedly unsatisfactory, but this shouldn’t cause us to shed too much confidence.
We don’t understand why, but then again we don’t know why anything exists.
I am talking about why subjective experience exists given that the physical universe exists. Are you being deliberately obtuse?
Unless QM as we know it is badly wrong, it just doesn’t fit our models of physical reality that anything resembling “the self” would be instantiated in a hugely complicated classical system (a brain with an arrangement of brain areas and billions of neurons? Talk about an arbitrary bridging law!) as opposed to a comparatively simple quantum state.
You are failing to address my actual position, which is that there is no arbitrary bridging law, but a mapping from the mathematical structure of physical systems to subjective experience, because that mathematical structure is the subjective experience, and it mathematically has to be that way. The explanation of why and how I am talking about is an understanding of that mathematical structure, and how physical systems can have that structure.
If you believe that we evolved systems for maintaining stable macroscopic quantum superposition without decoherence, and that we have not noticed this when we study the brain, then QM as you know it is badly wrong.
I am talking about why subjective experience exists given that the physical universe exists.
Interesting. How do you know that the physical universe exists, though? Could it be that your certainty about the physical universe has something to do with your subjective experience?
a mapping from the mathematical structure of physical systems
“The mathematical structure of physical systems” means either physical law, or else something so arbitrary that a large rock can be said to instantiate all human consciousnesses.
If you believe that we evolved systems for maintaining stable macroscopic quantum superposition without decoherence, and that we have not noticed this when we study the brain, then QM as you know it is badly wrong.
Evidence please. Quantum biology is an active research topic, and models of quantum computation differ in how resilient they are to decoherence.
We don’t understand why, but then again we don’t know why anything exists. In practice, something as basic as subjective experience is always taken as a given. As for how, our inner phenomenology reveals far more about subjective experience than physics ever could.
Nevertheless, we do also want to know how the self might relate to our physical models; and contrary to what might be expected, macroscopic quantum superposition is actually the parsimonious hypothesis here for a wide variety of reasons.
Unless QM as we know it is badly wrong, it just doesn’t fit our models of physical reality that anything resembling “the self” would be instantiated in a hugely complicated classical system (a brain with an arrangement of brain regions and billions of neurons? Talk about an arbitrary bridging law!) as opposed to a comparatively simple quantum state.
Moreover, it is eminently plausible that evolution should have found some ways of exploiting quantum computation in the brain during its millions-of-years-long development. The current state of neuroscience is admittedly unsatisfactory, but this shouldn’t cause us to shed too much confidence.
I am talking about why subjective experience exists given that the physical universe exists. Are you being deliberately obtuse?
You are failing to address my actual position, which is that there is no arbitrary bridging law, but a mapping from the mathematical structure of physical systems to subjective experience, because that mathematical structure is the subjective experience, and it mathematically has to be that way. The explanation of why and how I am talking about is an understanding of that mathematical structure, and how physical systems can have that structure.
If you believe that we evolved systems for maintaining stable macroscopic quantum superposition without decoherence, and that we have not noticed this when we study the brain, then QM as you know it is badly wrong.
Interesting. How do you know that the physical universe exists, though? Could it be that your certainty about the physical universe has something to do with your subjective experience?
“The mathematical structure of physical systems” means either physical law, or else something so arbitrary that a large rock can be said to instantiate all human consciousnesses.
Evidence please. Quantum biology is an active research topic, and models of quantum computation differ in how resilient they are to decoherence.