BruceS’s link to a series of discussions with the leading atheists of our day, about emergence, reductionism, and mostly just about how to make naturalism sound believable to the gathered masses the atheist preachers exist to proselytize to, is a rather entertaining bit of folly to indulge in. Its the end result of what you get when you band together the most well known atheists, each who consider themselves to be solely the smartest person in the world (due wholly to the history of their lucky accidental mutations which have no meaning, they will remind you over and over) and get them all to agree that they believe the same thing, and then listen as they all try to figure out what it is they believe. Madcap slapstick ensues.
So what you get is Jerry Coyne musing about quantum mechanics, Sean Carroll musing about biology, Terrence Deacon musing about end directedness and reductionism, Danniel Dennet wondering why ontological questions are interesting, Alex Rosenberg reminding everyone that we are all atheist right?, and Simon DeDeo telling everyone something that no one is sure why he is telling them. And Richard Dawkins wondering what time lunch is.
But one particular point, that they often brought up and caught my fancy, was the reference to the fictitious Laplaces Demon (at least we think its fictitious). The idea being that if someone could know the state and location of every atom on earth, we can know all events, both past present and future-for isn’t it certain that all of life is really just atoms, and the illusion that its something else (Yes, yes, the conference attendees all nod their heads, we all agree that’s all the world is. Emergence is just an illusion, because we aren’t the Demon, and we can’t know all the atoms..but if we could…life’s puzzle would be solved. Nod, nod!)
So a question comes to my mind. If they all believe, that if the demon could know the location of every atom, then there is nothing we couldn’t know, because ultimately that is all the world is. That is all you are, just your atoms. And if the demon knows the position of everyone one of your atoms, as well as the environment of atoms you exist in, nothing is a mystery. So let’s suppose if that was the case, does this mean, if another demon came along, who had the power to remove just one atom from the universe, and that Demon decided he would remove one of YOUR atoms, or one of Sean Carroll’s atoms and make it go puff, disappear, would Sean Carroll no longer be Sean Carroll? If they removed one of your atoms, would you no longer be you?
What if the demon removed two of your atoms? Or six? When would you no longer be you? How many atoms would it take? How many skins cell gone, until you are no longer you, and the demon must recalculate his entire predictions for the universe? Because if this is really what the confederacy of atheists really believe, then of course they believe that one less atom, makes you less you. The only question becomes, how much less, until you are not you?
How many atoms does it take to make Sean Carroll? I think this would have been a much more interesting question, then Alex Rosenberg and Terrence Deacon asking everyone if they agree we are all atheists. But then again, I don’t think they really wanted to answer questions.
Would BruceS be any less interested in the fundamental questions of life, if he were one less atom?
I’m glad you started this thread because I am in the middle of watching the videos (thanks to BruceS for the link).
There is a lot to talk about here. A few comments that I picked up, for instance:
Terrence Deacon talks about the need to get away from top down and bottom up causation and Alex Rosenberg accuses him of “mystery mongering,” Jerry Coyne cooments that “mutations are probably quantum phenomena”, and as far as I’ve watched, Richard Dawkins hasn’t said very much at all.
I wouldn’t say that they all agree that Laplace’s Demon could understand all events. Daniel Dennett for one argues that it couldn’t know how someone who makes arrangements on the phone could get it right about future events that confirmed their prediction of what was to occur. I think that was about half way through this video
Anyway I look forward to at least reading the discussions on these videos.
Yes, I watched that part. I found his sort of straddling the fence of naturalism kind of odd. He is first claiming that if we know all the atoms we know everything, and then he is backtracking by saying, well we really don’t know everything, just some things. I have no idea what that means.
If we can know why we think the way we do, but just knowing what the atoms are doing, why does he then qualify that idea, by saying, well, but we still wouldn’t understand how people know things. That sort of defeats the premise doesn’t it?
Can you give me a timestamp for one of the videos where they speak about this?
It’s amazing to read something like this. These people really really bug you to the core, don’t they? Why is that phoodoo?
I’m curious about why you find the discussion surrounding Laplace’s Demon so interesting. I assume you see something fundamental in that thought experiment. Can you elaborate on that phoodoo?
You man besides this entire post that just explained why?
Other than that you mean? Boy that’s a tough one. Another reason…hm?
I just lack belief in one fewer atom than you do phoodoo. I don’t know what to call it yet.
aatomism?
Phoodoo, your problem lies not with reductionism, or with anyone’s concept of the universe. Your problem lies with your concept of “you”.
You want “you” to be immutable and unchanging, but it’s not.
You want “you” to be irreducible, but it’s not.
You want “you” to be immortal, but it’s not.
I guess it sucks to be you.
I think this is a flawed premise and therefore pursuing its implications is rather pointless.
Apart from knowing the location of every atom at a point in time, you would also need to know the momentum of every atom in order to know the past, predict the future and understand the world. Heisenberg has demonstrated that we cannot know both the location and the momentum of a particle, so this though experiment is flawed right from the start. If you really could know the location of every atom at one point in time, all it would give you is a snapshot without any context about the history, the dynamics or the future. Very far from a complete understanding, I would say.
Oh I’m sorry I misread your OP. I thought you were paraphrazing the ensuing discussion (I haven’t watched it myself). I wasn’t clear you were actually posing these questions. Okay, fair enough.
So I suppose you’re asking, essentially, if we’re “just” these huge collections of atoms arranged into certain structures and shapes, what is it that makes you “you”? Why do “you” persist over time, even though we know that you are constantly losing and gaining atoms and undergoing all sorts of physical changes? Do I have it right that this is your question?
You understand its a thought experiment right? I just want to clear that up.
But even if you do understand that, the idea is that by knowing the state of every atom, you will know both the past and the future. Did you also get that part?
So if its all a flawed thought experiment, maybe you can attend next years conference and tell them all. All you have to do is promise you only believe in naturalism, and be a good self promoter in the media. They will invite you.
Ha. Is this what you family therapist taught you?
But you still haven’t answered the question about how many atoms it takes to make Sean Carroll?
Almost. I am even more specifically saying that if you hold the view that everything is only the atoms of the world, and if you know the atoms you know everything-then does one less atom change everything you know about you, or about the world? Or what about 6 atoms? How many atoms does it take to make up your essence?
I don’t think anyone actually holds that belief, but the confederacy is trying to convince themselves this is what they believe. I guess its why Dennett was equivocating-he sees the absurdity even as he realizes he has no other real option, unless he rejects his worldview.
I believe the current thinking is 230,000, plus or minus 1500.
So around 7,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000
-230,000= waste. Give or take 1500.
phoodoo,
I guess that’s a good thing, because each time we lose one cell, that’s around 100 trillion gone right there.
Phoddo,
I didn’t enjoy this supposed symposium or meeting, or whatever it was, back when it was first released. It was boring, I didn’t find any insights, or I didn’t have the patience to find such insights within the larger noise of vague semi-random chatter.
However, I think it’s important to tell you that regardless of how successful or unsuccessful the meeting was, the point was not about “making naturalism sound believable to the masses,” but to come up with a renewed version of naturalism, given nowadays understanding of how things work, from physics to biology to emergence, etc., and whether that goes on to informing our human-worries. In other words, the intention wasn’t to fool the public.
I think this was not a productive meeting, but the reason seems to be that they hadn’t really thought about it before. Not carefully enough at least. From the potential for equivocal definitions, to reasoning if it’s really important or productive to construct some philosophy around that.
Naturalism can be two main things: the idea that nature is all there is, and a philosophy founded on such an idea. For me, naturalism, as in nature seems to be all there is, is more of a foundational position until there’s a coherent definition of what non-natural could mean, and until there’s an approach to figuring out if such non-natural stuff is there.
I think it’s obvious that it does. If the totality of existence consists of 6 atoms (say), and you’re 3 of them arranged in a particular way, then supposing one of the atoms that isn’t part of you stops existing, then the totality of existence is now 5 atoms. And if you have this Laplace’s Demon-type of knowledge about the existence of these atoms, then now your knowledge of the world is the knowledge of these 5 atoms instead. So yes I think your knowledge of the world has changed.
We don’t really know of course, but that doesn’t imply there isn’t some minimum number required to create this thing we call “you”. I don’t see how the answer would be different for “you” versus some other arbitrarily picked thing.
If your mind is actually the product of some particular 3dimensional structure of atoms, then it is entirely conceivable that removing atoms from this structure could eventually destroy, or substantially alter your essential attributes. “You” would either stop existing, or your personality would radically change. There could even be a gradual change, as more and more atoms are removed. Your personality could slowly change, and you might even gradually lose consciousness.
Not knowing exactly what those 3dimensional structures responsible for your mind are, or where exactly removing atoms from that structure causes annihilation or alteration of your conscious mind, isn’t an indication that such a relationship between mind and matter doesn’t actually exist.
If particular 3dimensional structures of atoms actually are responsible for creating particular minds with certain experiences and personality traits, then it would seem to follow that altering these structures by removing/adding, or relocating the atoms that make up these structures would also alter the properties of the mind they are generating. So I do. I actually hold that belief. I really do think that, if we were to remove individual atoms from your physical body one at a time, or move them around to different locations, creating new chemical bonds and different connections in your brain tissues, it would be possible for us to both alter your personality, your emotional states, and even to annihilate your conscious mind.
Yes, those people do seem to bug phoodoo.
However, in my experience, I mainly hear those things coming from phoodoo, who ascribes it to atheists. Perhaps phoodoo is mainly making it up as he goes along.
If that is what they say, they are wrong. You can either know the location, or the momentum, but not both.
I think phoodoo is onto something interesting here: if one accepts a really demanding reductionism (perhaps what Rosenberg believes, though no one else), then there’s going to be a ship of Theseus problem as atoms come and go (which they are of course constantly doing).
I first heard of that in high school. And I already doubted it at that time, because it seemed to imply something different from what we experience.
No, that wouldn’t work. You would need to know that about every atom in the cosmos. And you would need cosmos to be finite. Otherwise the thought experiment doesn’t go through. And, of course, QM says it’s all wrong anyway.
My current thinking is that we are bundles of behaviors, with the atoms as mere implementation details.
I think that the linked playlist raises some interesting questions, but does not necessarily do a good job of answering any.
phoodoo appears to be focusing on the idea that a Laplacean Demon would know the future (perhaps, iff he could violate Heisenberg and had access to some hidden variables — but Laplacean Demons cannot exist, so they make for rather lame-ass thought experiments. We have covered this ground before, methinks)
phoodoo is also focusing on a “Ship of Theseus” view of identity, which he somehow thinks is problematic for a reductionist view. It isn’t.
I encourage readers to ignore phoodoo’s misconstrual of what various people are saying (as ever) and consider what they actually do say.
In support of Rumraket’s view, I give you Phineas Gage, who lost a few atoms.
ETA: Theseus’ed by KN!
I don’t know the OP’s motives, but the OP itself is just an exercise in taking thoughtless cheap shots against the participants and the nature of anti-reductionism and its role in naturalism.
‘Nuff said.
Right.
Yes. Cells are a terrible thing to waste.
Physical limits of inference
David H. Wolpert
(Submitted on 10 Aug 2007 (v1), last revised 23 Oct 2008 (this version, v2))
Funny, but what makes it difficult to recognize myself (my self) in the mirror is an excess of cells.
That’s a generous reading of the OP.
As you point out, and to paraphrase Feynman: : “What are today’s brains? Yesterday’s mashed potatoes!”. I doubt that any philosophical reductionist would be troubled by arguments about replacing atoms one by one; the fact that is how complex living organisms work would be common knowledge to them and they would allow for it.
I thought the ship of Theseus arguments got interesting only when one talked about re-assembling the pieces and asked which one was the ship?. And as I posted in other thread, I don’t believe that it would be possible for humans to assemble bodies without the organizational plans provided by other domains in science. (Another reason to favour explanation by modern concepts of mechanism).
Reductionists might accept that but still say that any natural actions, including human ones, are reducible (eg Rosenberg denies reality to intentionality). It likely requires separating epistemology from ontology.
One-less-atomism. Obviously.
I had an uncle that people called gravy for brains. I guess they’d read Feynman.
I think this question got more attention than it deserves in Toy Story 2, which explores the question. which is the real Buzz Lightyear.
Hmmm
Good job phoodoo!
Don’t forget that the unnecessary attention you give Bruce_S_Lee makes him more confident, especially after he has embarrassed himself by making fundamental errors in his statements about quantum mechanics… Not only that, another “experimental scientist” in quantum mechanics, K_Naturalists confirmed his “scientific statements”…What can you do when you have the resurrected Einstein and Bohr commenting at TSZ?
You feel like giving up…. I do…lol
Because Jock says so…
This is about as meaningful as Bruce saying,
In others words, saying nothing.
So a completely new definition of reality, based not on any known physical laws, but just based on ?? …mysticism?
Haha, you mean the misconstrual that they were talking about Laplaces demon? That didn’t actually happen? More comedy from you?
I love when the objections from people about thought experiments like Laplaces go something like-“Well, that could never happen, when would Laplaces demon have time to eat, impossible!” or “Well, how could he know ALL the atoms, that’s a lot of atoms!” or “You can either know the location, or the momentum, but not both!”
Newsflash-No one is saying there really could be a Laplace Demon! Because, you know, if materialism were true then there would not be atom-less demons!
More madcap slapstick at TSZ.
I thought I was talking about us, not about reality. We are only a small part of reality.
A corpse of a recently dead person has a very similar molecular arrangement to that of a living person. But the behavior is very different. And I’m pretty sure that when we recognize somebody walking down street, we are not doing an assay of their molecular content.
No, I don’t think there is anything mystical about this.
Neil Rickert,
I have no problem at all with the concept. I am just trying to figure out how it corresponds in any way with those reductionist s views of naturalism.
You are suggesting a whole new meaning of humans which has nothing to do with physics. I agree.
We are only a small part of reality. If we are talking about us, we are not talking about reality. Because we are only a small part of reality.
You can’t make this shit up.
Through modern astronomy we gaze out into the heavens in the same way that Laplace’s demon gazes at the atoms.
If, on looking through our microscopes, observations at the atomic level tells us nothing about the mental/conscious level of individual organisms. then it is also true that, on looking through our telescopes, our astronomical observations can tell us nothing about any mind/consciousness at the macroscopic level of astronomy. We see the movements of stars and galaxies in exactly the same way as we see the movements of atoms within brains.
But what are we missing out by this method. It is like examining in great detail all the letters of the alphabet but taking no consideration of meanings obtained when words are combined in written language.
Steiner traces the development of thought in the nineteenth century to the point where thinkers could imagine the world of atoms as a system of moving bodies similar to the movements that are observed in the heavens:
The conversion of energy from one form to another such as heat or electrical into mechanical can be seen as just changing one type of movement for another.
Steiner:
Steiner explains that Du Bois-Reymond drew attention to a thought experiment where someone could shrink down and be able to walk among the molecules inside a person’s brain and observe all the movements they still would not know anything about conscious experiences such as seeing colours. Although he points out Du Bois-Reymond’s error in thinking, among other things, that the relative positions of atoms is indifferent to them. He says:
But
So I’ll repeat this important point:
If our observations at the atomic level tells us nothing about the mental/conscious level of individual organisms. then it is also true that our astronomical observations can tell us nothing about any mind/consciousness at the macroscopic level of astronomy. We see the movements of stars and galaxies in exactly the same way as we see the movements of atoms within brains.
I feel as if this is a battle I have pretty much won. If we were to posit a natural explanation for life, before knowing anything about life, or a supernatural explanation about life, before knowing any details of the two worlds, I think its fair to say that if you said all of life, including humans are made up up these essential blocks, we call atoms, the atoms just so happen to stick together in certain ways, that cause a whole assortment of different forms, some of which are so sophisticated they can actually think about their own construction.
I think this would give one pause for thought, as being just a random natural explanation.
I think if we then added in, “Oh, and by the way, those atoms, and those things that are called distinct beings, called humans, and other animals, those essential blocks that make up the discrete beings, they change all the time. Constantly. But we still consider the essential forms to be exactly the same thing.”
I think almost everyone would have to save, “Oh come on now. What the fuck? That’s the NATURAL explanation?”
And then we also said, But there’s more. Those building blocks we call atoms. The are like small particles. But if you look at them really really closely, they are not like small particles at all. In fact, if you look at them real closely, you essentially can not see anything, they are just like movement. But not just movement, more like possible movement. That could be anywhere. They can kind of appear and disappear, and move and not move, and be and not be, and well, they are really just math of some kind , perhaps.
The only proper response would be, get the hell out of here. You are making this all up. Get the fuck out.
So here’s a much better explanation: magic did it.
Magic and quantum physics.
phoodoo,
Great. See ya!
There’s a difference?
Yes. One is used to sound sciency.
“It’s the collapse of the wavefunction, don’cha know?”.
“Really? Tell us more”.
“Well… there isn’t any more”.
Therefore the universe is a humungous mind / consciousness!
So obvious!
And yet those very properties explain pretty much all properties of living cells. The physical behavior of membranes, of proteins, of DNA, of any and all organic molecules. Their affinities and structures, their solubility in different solvents. They explain your weight, the physical interactions between your body and other physical objects, your need to consume food (and the constituents of food, why it is your body can even use some things as fuel and raw material, and not others) to power your actions. The internal actions of your muscles down to subatomic scales. The requirement for new atoms, again being delivered through food and processed by metabolism, to replace degrading molecules etc. etc. Why it is you need to breathe to stay alive. How the muscles that cause the expansion and contraction of your lungs is how you breathe. The constituents, attributes, and functions of blood at all levels from macroscopic to subatomic. The molecular and genetic causes of countless diseases, birth defects, the functions of the immune system. I couldn’t possibly numerate all the things which atoms and atomic physics explain about the phenomenon of life, it would take a lifetime.
All of 19th, 20th, and 21st century science has been one long non-stop victory for the power of atomic physics and chemistry at explaining the physical nature and attributes of living cells.
Your “feeling” that you’ve already won is nothing short of delusional.
I agree with you…though I have a hard time believing that we can actually agree on something…
PS. Conscious observer and humungous mind are not the same thing in my view…I could be wrong CharlieM…lol