Quantum thoughts

[Bill_Powers1]

[From Bill Powers (2005.04.03.1058 MDT)]

I do like books with happy endings, and Alastair Rae's book has a happy ending. Thanks for putting me onto it, Ely. And you were quite right in thinking it has something to do with PCT.

After approving of Prigogine's suggestions about "being and becoming", Rae puts the case in a much more down-to-earth way than Prigogine did.

"Instead of starting from the microscopic abstraction and and trying to derive laws from it that will describe both microscopic and macroscopic phenomena, he suggests that we do the opposite. Why not try taking reality as those processes in the physical world that are actually observed -- the cat's death, the blackening photographic emulsion, the formation of a bubble in the liquid-hydrogen bubble chamber; and treat as "illusion", or at least as an approximation to reality, the sub-atomic processes -- the photon passing through both slits or the elementary particle changing by two quantum processes simultaneously? Of course, as I pointed out in Chapter 9, this implies a revolutionary change in our thinking: fundamental reality is not now the existence of the physical world, but the irreversible changes occurring in it..."

[These 'irreversible changes' are the acts of measurement by which otherwise fleeting quantum states lead to knowledge and thus become permanent changes in the brains who study them. In other words, perceptions and memories.]

Then he says, a little later,

"I also like this approach to nature because it is fundamentally a scientific approach. Since the development of quantum theory,too many people, some of whom should have known better, have used it to open a door to some form of mysticism. The outrageous leap from the measurement problem to the necessity for the existence of the human soul is just one extreme example of this.

... Much of this is dispelled if the irreversible measuring processes are taken as the primary reality. ... It seems to me therefore that attempts to explain mental operations in traditional quantum terms are doomed to failure and that the idea sometimes put forward of a parallelism between quantum physics and psychology is only a superficial analogy at best."

That's in the book's last paragraph.

Well, hooray. As I kept reading I kept encountering my own "but"s, and the same general answers I had come across on my own (in far less justified form, of course). I think I can claim that PCT gives us a somewhat more graceful way to express the same conclusions which Prigogine and Rae arrived at earlier, primarily the idea that direct experience puts us in touch with reality to the extent possible, and that physics and its theories are necessarily of a lower degree of reality, since the basis of physics is invented entities and conjectured relations, none of which can be observed. The bedrock of all science is direct experience, and theories must be subordinated to it.

Best,

Bill P.

[Ely_Dorsey]

From Ely Dorsey
2005.04.04.08:58 EST

To all of us, applause,
applause. This is a great discussion.

We need one title with
the quantum discussion. We have several threads going on simultaneously all on
the same topic. Let’s agree to call it “quantum thoughts.” I am
just thinking of the archive use of our conversation.

There are several papers
already forming in my head on what we have been discussing. Anyone interested
in collaborating on publishing some of these ideas?

We should also transmit
in HTML because of the symbols and different punctuation that can be sent.

Bill, go back to chapter
7, p. 96, third ¶ , Rae, do you see any control theory forming in your head?

Now consider my earlier
remarks to Rick and others on the nature of classical physics v. quantum
physics. What is quantum epistemology? What does the adjective ‘quantum”
connote? I think we have to tackle this question.

Let me start. Epistemology
refers to theories of knowledge, that is, what is knowable, what ought to be
knowable and how is it knowable. So what is quantum knowledge? [Do you notice
that in any of the expository papers and texts, the following line, “…even
though some of these questions remain unanswered, experimental results
consistently agree with the predictions of quantum theory.” always appears
in some form or another? Does this make any sense to you?] Let me react to my
own reaction.

In quantum theory you
have this mathematical machine built up from experiment and modeling into a
strategy for creating experiments. The experiments go forth with more and more
sophistication as we learn more, and lo and behold, they yield what the
strategy for creating them said they would yield. So far, no big deal, since
all research is autobiographical. This is the scientific method *ad nauseum. * Nothing new. But quantum
theory is different in one critical sense. Here it is acknowledged that what
is observed is not explicable in that physical theory and physical reality will
not go hand in hand to explain what is being observed or produced in experiments.
So what is being called for: a new theory of explanation. That is why I ask
you to consider applying control theory or if you will PCT to quantum experiments
to see if you come up with anything interesting. Go to p. 96 and see if
something stirs.

Remember, you do not
have to explain it in the sense of accounting for it as in the physical
theory-physical reality nexus; you have to explain it in the sense of knowing
it, similar to your last remarks below.

P.S. I will write you
about Bell’s
Inequality later. Its simplicity is its genius. Nothing fishy, just Venn
diagrams with some subtle ideas.

-----Original
Message-----

···

From: Control Systems Group Network (CSGnet) [mailto:CSGNET@listserv.uiuc.edu] On
Behalf Of Bill Powers

Sent: Monday, April 04, 2005 1:22 AM

To: CSGNET@listserv.uiuc.edu

Subject: Quantum thoughts

[From Bill Powers
(2005.04.03.1058 MDT)]

I do like books with
happy endings, and Alastair Rae’s book has a happy

ending. Thanks for
putting me onto it, Ely. And you were quite right in

thinking it has
something to do with PCT.

After approving of
Prigogine’s suggestions about “being and becoming”, Rae

puts the case in a much
more down-to-earth way than Prigogine did.

"Instead of
starting from the microscopic abstraction and and trying to

derive laws from it that
will describe both microscopic and macroscopic

phenomena, he suggests
that we do the opposite. Why not try taking reality

as those processes in
the physical world that are actually observed – the

cat’s death, the
blackening photographic emulsion, the formation of a

bubble in the
liquid-hydrogen bubble chamber; and treat as “illusion”, or

at least as an
approximation to reality, the sub-atomic processes – the

photon passing through
both slits or the elementary particle changing by

two quantum processes
simultaneously? Of course, as I pointed out in

Chapter 9, this implies
a revolutionary change in our thinking: fundamental

reality is not now the
existence of the physical world, but the

irreversible changes
occurring in it…"

[These ‘irreversible
changes’ are the acts of measurement by which

otherwise fleeting
quantum states lead to knowledge and thus become

permanent changes in the
brains who study them. In other words, perceptions

and memories.]

Then he says, a little
later,

"I also like this
approach to nature because it is fundamentally a

scientific approach.
Since the development of quantum theory, too many

people, some of whom
should have known better, have used it to open a door

to some form of
mysticism. The outrageous leap from the measurement problem

to the necessity for the
existence of the human soul is just one extreme

example of this.

… Much of this is
dispelled if the irreversible measuring processes are

taken as the primary
reality. … It seems to me therefore that attempts to

explain mental
operations in traditional quantum terms are doomed to

failure and that the
idea sometimes put forward of a parallelism between

quantum physics and
psychology is only a superficial analogy at best."

That’s in the book’s
last paragraph.

Well, hooray. As I kept
reading I kept encountering my own "but"s, and the

same general answers I
had come across on my own (in far less justified

form, of course). I
think I can claim that PCT gives us a somewhat more

graceful way to express
the same conclusions which Prigogine and Rae

arrived at earlier,
primarily the idea that direct experience puts us in

touch with reality to
the extent possible, and that physics and its

theories are necessarily
of a lower degree of reality, since the basis of

physics is invented
entities and conjectured relations, none of which can

be observed. The bedrock
of all science is direct experience, and theories

must be subordinated to
it.

Best,

Bill P.

[Martin_Taylor2]

[Martin Taylor 2005.04.04.09.42]

[From Bill Powers (2005.04.03.1058 MDT)]

I think I can claim that PCT gives us a somewhat more graceful way to express the same conclusions which Prigogine and Rae arrived at earlier, primarily the idea that direct experience puts us in touch with reality to the extent possible, and that physics and its theories are necessarily of a lower degree of reality, since the basis of physics is invented entities and conjectured relations, none of which can be observed. The bedrock of all science is direct experience, and theories must be subordinated to it.

I totally agree. It's more or less what I've been saying about constructs based on meso-scale control being what we have some assurance of, and why we shouldn't be surprised if the same concepts fail to work at the very large and very small.

(Incidentally, we use the words "perceptions" and "Perceptual signals" to refer to our constructs on the input side, but we don't have any PCT-theoretic labels for the equivalents on the output side. Yes, we say "reference signals", but that doesn't really carry the flavour of coordinated action in the same way that "perception" carries the flavour of coordinated input.)

I'm less pessimistic than you seem to be about our ability to derive pretty good descriptions of what goes on at large and small scales, since a lot of what we see and control for at human scale makes sense and is predictable largely by assuming that those "spooky" descriptions are reasonably close to the truth. It's what Rick has talked about when he says that a theory is accepted because it describes observations and measurements. The variables of the theory are not directly observed, but if the theory is correct, their consequences are.

In my odd "free" moments over the last few days, I've been working on a longish message on this topic, based on a coalescance of the "Perception in Science" and the "Quantum Discussion" Threads. I have no idea when it will be ready, but if it isn't in the next few days, it will not be until the end of May.

Martin

[Bruce_Gregory6]

[From Bruce Gregory (2005.0404.1034)]

[Martin Taylor 2005.04.04.09.42]

[From Bill Powers (2005.04.03.1058 MDT)]

I think I can claim that PCT gives us a somewhat more graceful way to express the same conclusions which Prigogine and Rae arrived at earlier, primarily the idea that direct experience puts us in touch with reality to the extent possible, and that physics and its theories are necessarily of a lower degree of reality, since the basis of physics is invented entities and conjectured relations, none of which can be observed. The bedrock of all science is direct experience, and theories must be subordinated to it.

I totally agree.

Well I guess I'm the odd man out. What we call direct experience is _not_ the bedrock of the science I know, since even that is "invented" out of neural signals (which are, needless to say, inventions). Science is based on our ability to agree on how to test claims (which are themselves inventions). Everything is either an experience or a story about that experience. No bedrock at all.

···

A true believer knows the solution before he understands the problem.

[B_Thalhammer]

[From Bryan Thalhammer (2005.04.04.0915)]

Bill, thanks for the review. I have not had a chance to find the Rae book, so it
was particularly good to get your review of it.

I had seen the Elegant Universe on PBS, and saw the book over the weekend in
Border's. It talks of moving from Newtonian physics, GR, QM, to String Theory...
The main critique of String Theory is that is is not easily testable through
scientific experimentation. So just as any measurement is going to involve
probabilities of sample selection and causal factors, the interfering
observations may be treated in the same way.

It seems like nothing changes about the acts of measurement, the view expressed
in the book seems to be encouraging. Ok, so can a non-engineer, non-math guy get
something from the Rae book?

"The bedrock of all science is direct experience, and theories must be
subordinated to it." Yay.

Thanks,

--Bryan

Quoting Bill Powers <powers_w@FRONTIER.NET>:

···

[From Bill Powers (2005.04.03.1058 MDT)]

I do like books with happy endings, and Alastair Rae's book has a happy
ending. Thanks for putting me onto it, Ely. And you were quite right in
thinking it has something to do with PCT.

After approving of Prigogine's suggestions about "being and becoming", Rae
puts the case in a much more down-to-earth way than Prigogine did.

"Instead of starting from the microscopic abstraction and and trying to
derive laws from it that will describe both microscopic and macroscopic
phenomena, he suggests that we do the opposite. Why not try taking reality
as those processes in the physical world that are actually observed -- the
cat's death, the blackening photographic emulsion, the formation of a
bubble in the liquid-hydrogen bubble chamber; and treat as "illusion", or
at least as an approximation to reality, the sub-atomic processes -- the
photon passing through both slits or the elementary particle changing by
two quantum processes simultaneously? Of course, as I pointed out in
Chapter 9, this implies a revolutionary change in our thinking: fundamental
reality is not now the existence of the physical world, but the
irreversible changes occurring in it..."

[These 'irreversible changes' are the acts of measurement by which
otherwise fleeting quantum states lead to knowledge and thus become
permanent changes in the brains who study them. In other words, perceptions
and memories.]

Then he says, a little later,

"I also like this approach to nature because it is fundamentally a
scientific approach. Since the development of quantum theory,too many
people, some of whom should have known better, have used it to open a door
to some form of mysticism. The outrageous leap from the measurement problem
to the necessity for the existence of the human soul is just one extreme
example of this.

... Much of this is dispelled if the irreversible measuring processes are
taken as the primary reality. ... It seems to me therefore that attempts to
explain mental operations in traditional quantum terms are doomed to
failure and that the idea sometimes put forward of a parallelism between
quantum physics and psychology is only a superficial analogy at best."

That's in the book's last paragraph.

Well, hooray. As I kept reading I kept encountering my own "but"s, and the
same general answers I had come across on my own (in far less justified
form, of course). I think I can claim that PCT gives us a somewhat more
graceful way to express the same conclusions which Prigogine and Rae
arrived at earlier, primarily the idea that direct experience puts us in
touch with reality to the extent possible, and that physics and its
theories are necessarily of a lower degree of reality, since the basis of
physics is invented entities and conjectured relations, none of which can
be observed. The bedrock of all science is direct experience, and theories
must be subordinated to it.

Best,

Bill P.

[Ely_Dorsey]

From Ely Dorsey 2005.04.04.10:46 EST

String Theory is not testable in the classical sense of Newtonian
Physics.

The Rae book is especially written for the sophisticated reader who is
a non-engineer, non-math person. There will be a section where high school
trigonometry will come in: Chapter 3. Just review your HS trig for
the values of the cosine and the sine. Let me give it to you now:

  Sin<sup>2</sup>(x) + Cos<sup>2</sup>(x)

= 1. (It is the right triangle
relationship you learned a long time ago.)

Then you will see some
more HS trig formulas floating around. Straight forward stuff.
Nothing heavy. This chapter gives a heuristic proof of Bell’s Theorem which is a critical
result in the evolution of quantum theory. It is the only chapter that
does any math at all, the rest are on the level of the New York Times Book
Review Section.

···

-----Original Message-----

From: Control Systems Group Network (CSGnet) [mailto:CSGNET@listserv.uiuc.edu] On
Behalf Of Bryan Thalhammer

Sent: Monday, April 04, 2005 11:12 AM

To: CSGNET@listserv.uiuc.edu

Subject: Re: Quantum thoughts

[From Bryan Thalhammer (2005.04.04.0915)]

Bill, thanks for the review. I have not had a chance to find the Rae
book, so it

was particularly good to get your review of it.

I had seen the Elegant Universe on PBS, and saw the book over the
weekend in

Border’s. It talks of moving from Newtonian physics, GR, QM, to String
Theory…

The main critique of String Theory is that is is not easily testable
through

scientific experimentation. So just as any measurement is going to
involve

probabilities of sample selection and causal factors, the interfering

observations may be treated in the same way.

It seems like nothing changes about the acts of measurement, the view
expressed

in the book seems to be encouraging. Ok, so can a non-engineer,
non-math guy get

something from the Rae book?

"The bedrock of all science is direct experience, and theories
must be

subordinated to it." Yay.

Thanks,

–Bryan

Quoting Bill Powers powers_w@FRONTIER.NET:

[From Bill Powers (2005.04.03.1058 MDT)]

I do like books with happy endings, and Alastair Rae’s book has a
happy

ending. Thanks for putting me onto it, Ely. And you were quite
right in

thinking it has something to do with PCT.

After approving of Prigogine’s suggestions about “being and
becoming”, Rae

puts the case in a much more down-to-earth way than Prigogine did.

"Instead of starting from the microscopic abstraction and and
trying to

derive laws from it that will describe both microscopic and
macroscopic

phenomena, he suggests that we do the opposite. Why not try taking
reality

as those processes in the physical world that are actually
observed – the

cat’s death, the blackening photographic emulsion, the formation
of a

bubble in the liquid-hydrogen bubble chamber; and treat as
“illusion”, or

at least as an approximation to reality, the sub-atomic processes
– the

photon passing through both slits or the elementary particle
changing by

two quantum processes simultaneously? Of course, as I pointed out
in

Chapter 9, this implies a revolutionary change in our thinking:
fundamental

reality is not now the existence of the physical world, but the

irreversible changes occurring in it…"

[These ‘irreversible changes’ are the acts of measurement by which

otherwise fleeting quantum states lead to knowledge and thus
become

permanent changes in the brains who study them. In other words,
perceptions

and memories.]

Then he says, a little later,

"I also like this approach to nature because it is
fundamentally a

scientific approach. Since the development of quantum theory,too
many

people, some of whom should have known better, have used it to
open a door

to some form of mysticism. The outrageous leap from the
measurement problem

to the necessity for the existence of the human soul is just one
extreme

example of this.

… Much of this is dispelled if the irreversible measuring
processes are

taken as the primary reality. … It seems to me therefore that
attempts to

explain mental operations in traditional quantum terms are doomed
to

failure and that the idea sometimes put forward of a parallelism
between

quantum physics and psychology is only a superficial analogy at
best."

That’s in the book’s last paragraph.

Well, hooray. As I kept reading I kept encountering my own
"but"s, and the

same general answers I had come across on my own (in far less
justified

form, of course). I think I can claim that PCT gives us a somewhat
more

graceful way to express the same conclusions which Prigogine and
Rae

arrived at earlier, primarily the idea that direct experience puts
us in

touch with reality to the extent possible, and that physics and
its

theories are necessarily of a lower degree of reality, since the
basis of

physics is invented entities and conjectured relations, none of
which can

be observed. The bedrock of all science is direct experience, and
theories

must be subordinated to it.

Best,

Bill P.

[Richard_Marken2]

[From Rick Marken (2005.04.04.0840)]

Martin Taylor (2005.04.04.09.42)

Bill Powers (2005.04.03.1058 MDT)

I think I can claim that PCT gives us a somewhat more graceful way
to express the same conclusions which Prigogine and Rae arrived at
earlier, primarily the idea that direct experience puts us in touch
with reality to the extent possible, and that physics and its
theories are necessarily of a lower degree of reality, since the
basis of physics is invented entities and conjectured relations, none
of which can be observed. The bedrock of all science is direct
experience, and theories must be subordinated to it.

I totally agree.

I am pleasantly flabbergasted, Martin! I totally agree as well.

Bruce Gregory (2005.0404.1034)

Well I guess I'm the odd man out.

So far.

Best

Rick

···

---
Richard S. Marken
MindReadings.com
Home: 310 474 0313
Cell: 310 729 1400

--------------------

This email message is for the sole use of the intended recipient(s) and
may contain privileged information. Any unauthorized review, use,
disclosure or distribution is prohibited. If you are not the intended
recipient, please contact the sender by reply email and destroy all copies
of the original message.

[Bruce_Gregory6]

[From Bruce Gregory (2005.0404.1213)]

Rick Marken (2005.04.04.0840)

Martin Taylor (2005.04.04.09.42)

Bill Powers (2005.04.03.1058 MDT)

I think I can claim that PCT gives us a somewhat more graceful way
to express the same conclusions which Prigogine and Rae arrived at
earlier, primarily the idea that direct experience puts us in touch
with reality to the extent possible, and that physics and its
theories are necessarily of a lower degree of reality, since the
basis of physics is invented entities and conjectured relations, none
of which can be observed. The bedrock of all science is direct
experience, and theories must be subordinated to it.

I totally agree.

I am pleasantly flabbergasted, Martin! I totally agree as well.

Bruce Gregory (2005.0404.1034)

Well I guess I'm the odd man out.

So far.

Some day you guys will have to explain to me how you can compare anything with direct experience.

A true believer knows the solution before he understands the problem.

[Bruce_Gregory6]

[From Bruce Gregory (2005.0404.1324)]

Maybe you could start by explaining to me exactly what direct experience is. When I look out the window at the marsh in front of my house, what part of what I see constitutes a direct experience? Is the house across the cove a direct experience? How about the water and the grasses? How about my mood when it is dark and raining as it is today? If I feel the love of God, is that a direct experience? How do I compare the predictions of physics directly with any of these experiences?

A true believer knows the solution before he understands the problem.

[Richard_Marken2]

[From Rick Marken (2005.04.04.1240)]

Bruce Gregory (2005.0404.1324)--

Maybe you could start by explaining to me exactly what direct
experience is.

I think direct experience is just what we experience. It's the world around
us and inside us (the feeling of an "upset stomach", for example, is a
direct experience). I think an "indirect experience" would be an imagined
experience, the kind we get when we read stories or invent theories.

When I look out the window at the marsh in front of my
house, what part of what I see constitutes a direct experience?

Everything. The house, the marsh, the relationship of house to marsh, the
colors and patterns that make up the scene, etc, etc. It's all your direct
experience, if that is what you experience.

Is the house across the cove a direct experience?

Yes.

How about the water and the grasses?

Yep.

How about my mood when it is dark and raining as it is today?

Yes, though only you can experience that. The house, water and grasses can
all be experienced by you and others at the same time.

If I feel the love of God, is that a direct experience?

Yes. Though, like the mood, only you can experience it.

How do I
compare the predictions of physics directly with any of these
experiences?

I believe the predictions of physics are compared to more carefully produced
experiences, such as the experience of the photometer reading when light is
passed though a sequence of differentially oriented polarizing filters.

Best

Rick

···

--
Richard S. Marken
MindReadings.com
Home: 310 474 0313
Cell: 310 729 1400

--------------------

This email message is for the sole use of the intended recipient(s) and
may contain privileged information. Any unauthorized review, use,
disclosure or distribution is prohibited. If you are not the intended
recipient, please contact the sender by reply email and destroy all copies
of the original message.

[Bruce_Gregory6]

[From Bruce Gregory 92005.0404.1610)]

Rick Marken (2005.04.04.1240)

I think direct experience is just what we experience. It's the world around
us and inside us (the feeling of an "upset stomach", for example, is a
direct experience). I think an "indirect experience" would be an imagined
experience, the kind we get when we read stories or invent theories.

And we cannot be mistaken about our direct experiences, right? They are absolutely certain, so when I experience God I cannot be mistaken. Or can I? And if I can be mistaken about my direct experience of God, why can't I be mistaken about my direct experience of the house across the cove? Or my experience that George W. Bush is one of the great American Presidents?

A true believer knows the solution before he understands the problem.

[Martin_Taylor2]

[Martin Taylor 2005.04.04.16.14]

[From Bruce Gregory (2005.0404.1034)]

[Martin Taylor 2005.04.04.09.42]

[From Bill Powers (2005.04.03.1058 MDT)]

I think I can claim that PCT gives us a somewhat more graceful way to express the same conclusions which Prigogine and Rae arrived at earlier, primarily the idea that direct experience puts us in touch with reality to the extent possible, and that physics and its theories are necessarily of a lower degree of reality, since the basis of physics is invented entities and conjectured relations, none of which can be observed. The bedrock of all science is direct experience, and theories must be subordinated to it.

I totally agree.

Well I guess I'm the odd man out. What we call direct experience is _not_ the bedrock of the science I know, since even that is "invented" out of neural signals (which are, needless to say, inventions). Science is based on our ability to agree on how to test claims (which are themselves inventions). Everything is either an experience or a story about that experience. No bedrock at all.

I guess it depends on what you mean by "bedrock". My position is that the perceptual input functions are themselves theories, but ones that have long stood the test of (perhaps evolutionary) time. They record the stable features of the universe over which we have some perceptual control, or that enter into perceptions over which we have some control.

The signals out of those functions (our experienced perceptions) are the _only_ contact we have with the real world other than our ability to act on it and thereby influence those perceptions. I grant they are more like sandpiles than like bedrock, but they are the best approximation to bedrock we have, or ever will have.

Martin

[Martin_Taylor2]

[Martin Taylor 2005.04.04.16.21]

[From Bruce Gregory 92005.0404.1610)]

Rick Marken (2005.04.04.1240)

I think direct experience is just what we experience. It's the world around
us and inside us (the feeling of an "upset stomach", for example, is a
direct experience). I think an "indirect experience" would be an imagined
experience, the kind we get when we read stories or invent theories.

And we cannot be mistaken about our direct experiences, right? They are absolutely certain, so when I experience God I cannot be mistaken. Or can I? And if I can be mistaken about my direct experience of God, why can't I be mistaken about my direct experience of the house across the cove? Or my experience that George W. Bush is one of the great American Presidents?

You can't be mistaken THAT you experience. You can be mistaked about a predicted relationship between one experience and another. In particular you can be mistaken about your experience and the likelihood that someone else might report the same experience (their report being something else you experience).

You have to think carefully about this kind of argument, because it's all too easy to use a word in two different ways. What do you mean by "experience" or "mistaken about"? I think both have a nasty tendency to get used in two roles. The experience you have is that of Nicole Kidman in the grocery store. The "mistaken about" is the experience of "Nicole Kidman" in the grocery store. Big difference, which is marked in writing only by quotation marks, and in speech possibly is not marked at all.

Martin

[Bruce_Gregory6]

[From Bruce Gregory (2005.0404.1628)]

Martin Taylor 2005.04.04.16.14

I guess it depends on what you mean by "bedrock". My position is that the perceptual input functions are themselves theories, but ones that have long stood the test of (perhaps evolutionary) time. They record the stable features of the universe over which we have some perceptual control, or that enter into perceptions over which we have some control.

The signals out of those functions (our experienced perceptions) are the _only_ contact we have with the real world other than our ability to act on it and thereby influence those perceptions. I grant they are more like sandpiles than like bedrock, but they are the best approximation to bedrock we have, or ever will have.

I guess it depends on what you mean by "totally agree". I agree with you but apparently not with Bill or Rick. I'm not sure where that leaves us.

A true believer knows the solution before he understands the problem.

[Jason_Gosnell]

[From Jason Gosnell (2005.04.04 15.35CST)]

Martin Taylor 2005.04.04.16.14

My position is that the perceptual input functions are themselves theories,

but ones that

have long stood the test of (perhaps evolutionary) time.

I am fascinated by this statement. Maybe you have elaborated elsewhere and I
didn't latch onto it. Would you be able to provide some more elaboration on
this one aspect of your understanding? It seems that you are saying that on
lower levels of control we are also "theorizing" in a sense--it's just not
based on thought as we define it. And this theorizing has evolved over time
in the form of our body-mind apparatus at all levels of control. Is this
right? And so this would include functions even at the cellular level? What
might this look like at these other levels? Is it just to sense and respond
based on reference signals that have evolved?

They record the stable features of the universe over which we have some
perceptual control, or that enter into perceptions over which we have
some control.

Are there any stable features to the universe...or my experience? Even my
perceptions seem unstable or in transition.

Jason Gosnell

···

-----Original Message-----
From: Martin Taylor [mailto:mmt-csg@ROGERS.COM]
Sent: Monday, April 04, 2005 4:19 PM
To: CSGNET@listserv.uiuc.edu
Subject: Re: Quantum thoughts

[Martin Taylor 2005.04.04.16.14]

[From Bruce Gregory (2005.0404.1034)]

[Martin Taylor 2005.04.04.09.42]

[From Bill Powers (2005.04.03.1058 MDT)]

I think I can claim that PCT gives us a somewhat more graceful
way to express the same conclusions which Prigogine and Rae
arrived at earlier, primarily the idea that direct experience puts
us in touch with reality to the extent possible, and that physics
and its theories are necessarily of a lower degree of reality,
since the basis of physics is invented entities and conjectured
relations, none of which can be observed. The bedrock of all
science is direct experience, and theories must be subordinated to
it.

I totally agree.

Well I guess I'm the odd man out. What we call direct experience is
_not_ the bedrock of the science I know, since even that is
"invented" out of neural signals (which are, needless to say,
inventions). Science is based on our ability to agree on how to test
claims (which are themselves inventions). Everything is either an
experience or a story about that experience. No bedrock at all.

I guess it depends on what you mean by "bedrock". My position is that
the perceptual input functions are themselves theories, but ones that
have long stood the test of (perhaps evolutionary) time. They record
the stable features of the universe over which we have some
perceptual control, or that enter into perceptions over which we have
some control.

The signals out of those functions (our experienced perceptions) are
the _only_ contact we have with the real world other than our ability
to act on it and thereby influence those perceptions. I grant they
are more like sandpiles than like bedrock, but they are the best
approximation to bedrock we have, or ever will have.

Martin
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[Bruce_Gregory6]

[From Bruce Gregory (2005.0404.1644)]

[Martin Taylor 2005.04.04.16.21]

You can't be mistaken THAT you experience. You can be mistaked about a predicted relationship between one experience and another. In particular you can be mistaken about your experience and the likelihood that someone else might report the same experience (their report being something else you experience).

O.K. I can't be mistaken that I experience, but I can be mistaken about anything that I experience. Now I have no idea why Bill said, and everyone agreed that, "The bedrock of all science is direct experience, and theories must be subordinated to it." If I can be mistaken about everything I experience, how can that experience be the bedrock of science so that theories must be subordinate to it? Not much of a bedrock if you ask me.

A true believer knows the solution before he understands the problem.

[Richard_Marken2]

[From Rick Marken (2005.04.04.1400)}

Bruce Gregory 92005.0404.1610)--

Rick Marken (2005.04.04.1240)

I think direct experience is just what we experience. It's the world
around us and inside us (the feeling of an "upset stomach", for example,
is a direct experience). I think an "indirect experience" would be an
imagined experience, the kind we get when we read stories or invent
theories.

And we cannot be mistaken about our direct experiences, right? They are
absolutely certain, so when I experience God I cannot be mistaken. Or
can I? And if I can be mistaken about my direct experience of God, why
can't I be mistaken about my direct experience of the house across the
cove? Or my experience that George W. Bush is one of the great American
Presidents?

You are conflating (verbally) the experience with an explanation of the
experience. When you say "experience Gad" you are describing an experience
(which might be seeing a guy with a white beard and robes floating in the
sky) _and_ implying what the real world cause of that experience is (God).
What I am saying is that it's the experience itself that cannot be mistaken;
the explanation can be.

This kind of ambiguity (of the experience and explanation of the experience)
is most obvious when we are talking about certain kinds of perceptions, like
of Gods and great presidents. But it also exists when we talk about more
familiar, lower level perceptions, like houses and marshes, but it is less
noticeable, probably because people assume that the explanation of why they
see the house and march is because there's a house and marsh out there.

But these explanations of the house and marsh experiences are just as
questionable as the explanation of the God experience. In fact, we now
believe that you see the house because there's there a bunch of molecules
out there that happen to reflect photons in a particular way. But even
though we now believe that houses (like Gods) don't exist, we can't be
mistaken when we experience (perceive) what we refer to as "houses" or
"Gods".

Regards

Rick

···

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Richard S. Marken
MindReadings.com
Home: 310 474 0313
Cell: 310 729 1400

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[Bruce_Gregory6]

[From Bruce Gregory (2005.0404.1710)]

Rick Marken (2005.04.04.1400)

But these explanations of the house and marsh experiences are just as
questionable as the explanation of the God experience. In fact, we now
believe that you see the house because there's there a bunch of molecules
out there that happen to reflect photons in a particular way. But even
though we now believe that houses (like Gods) don't exist, we can't be
mistaken when we experience (perceive) what we refer to as "houses" or
"Gods".

I can only repeat my comment to Martin. If I can't be mistaken that I perceive, but all my explanations of my perceptions are questionable, how can I say that the bedrock of all science is direct experience, and theories must be subordinated to it.

A true believer knows the solution before he understands the problem.

[Bill_Powers1]

[From Bill Powers (2005.04.04.1518 MST)]

Bruce Gregory (2005.0404.1324) --

Maybe you could start by explaining to me exactly what direct experience is. When I look out the window at the marsh in front of my house, what part of what I see constitutes a direct experience? Is the house across the cove a direct experience? How about the water and the grasses? How about my mood when it is dark and raining as it is today? If I feel the love of God, is that a direct experience? How do I compare the predictions of physics directly with any of these experiences?

All of what you see is direct experience: seeing is a direct experience. The problem here is that you're confusing experience with the thing experienced.You say there is a marsh in front of your house. So right away you've placed the marsh in an objective world outside of you, and you can make all sorts of statements about it, such as saying it's really there.

Whether it's really there or not is beside the point. Ideas like the reality of the marsh, its physical nature, the reliability of your thoughts about it, are all beside the point. The first fact is that you experience a marsh, a house, a relationship between the marsh and your house. If I replied to you by saying, "No, you didn't experience anything of the sort; what you experienced was a vanilla ice cream cone with a pickle in it," you would be perfectly justified in telling me I was nuts, and that you most certainly did have an experience of a marsh etc. and not an ice cream cone. This has nothing to do with whether there is actually a marsh in front of your house or whether you really meant to describe the ice cream cone. You are simply describing what was in your consciousness and not making any claims about it. You're just reporting, "This is what appears in my consciousness right now." There is no way you can be mistaken about that. You don't have to prove it. If a theory says you're not having that experience, the theory is wrong.

Suppose quantum theory leads you to expect a light to be turned on, indicating vertical polarization. If the theory says the light should turn on, and you look, and the light doesn't turn on, either the apparatus is broken or the theory is wrong. For you, the turning on of the light is a direct experience; you know whether you saw a light turn on or if you saw a light staying dark. You can raise the question of whether you imagined the light (whether the perception originated internally or externally), but if you saw a light turn on, that is what your direct experience was. Assuming that you rule out imagination and broken apparatus, you can say that if you don't experience a light turning on, the theory has predicted incorrectly, because the whole point of a theory is to predict what we will experience. That's why we do experiments and view the results.

Direct experience doesn't mean "correct" experience. It means experience, period, with no intermediaries.

Best,

Bill P.

The same goes for your mood, your religious experience, and so forth. If you are conscious of it, it is in your direct experience.

···

A true believer knows the solution before he understands the problem.

[Bill_Powers1]

[From Bill Powers (2005.0-4.04.1541 MDT)]

Rick Marken (2005.04.04.1240)

Bruce G.:

> When I look out the window at the marsh in front of my
> house, what part of what I see constitutes a direct experience?

Rick:

Everything. The house, the marsh, the relationship of house to marsh, the
colors and patterns that make up the scene, etc, etc. It's all your direct
experience, if that is what you experience.

People reading this post are going to accuse us of collusion. I affirm that I wrote my post before reading yours, and you wrote yours and sent it before I sent mine.

Best,

Bill P.