[extropy-chat] Cramer on Afshar

[scerir]

> So I always think the so-called grand unified theory 
> of 4 forces is really missing some very important 
> ingredients consisting of life or consciousness.
> There is really something missing.
> Walter.

If you mean than man is older than science, you are
right. And if you mean that in "Nature" almost
everything can be seen as a transition between two 
boundary conditions (birth/death; preselection/postselection;
past/future; etc.) that is possible. But if you
wish to inject life and consciousness into measurements
which are performed by robots (at Cern), or by dogs
(down the road), or by nobody (zillions of seconds ago),
you are wrong, imo. And if you wish to inject life and
consciousness into equations you must be an artist.
s.

Ok, sometimes you can read bad things written by bad
scientist, such as Niels Bohr.

"For a parallel to the lesson of atomic theory regarding
the limited applicability of such customary idealisations,
we must in fact turn to quite other branches of science,
such as phychology, or even to that kind of epistemological
problems with which already thinkers like BUDDHA and LAO TSE
have been confronted, when trying to harmonize our position
as spectators and actors in the great drama of existence"
- Niels Bohr (Biology and Atomic Physics, Bologna 1938)

"Incidentally, medical use of psychoanalytical treatment 
in curing neurosis may be said to restore balance in the 
content of the memory of the patient by bringing him 
new conscious experience rather than by helping him 
to fathom the abysses of his subconsciousness"
- Niels Bohr, "Unity of Knowledge" - Address
delivered at a Conference celebrating the Bicentennial
of Columbia Univesity, N.Y., on 28 October 1954 -
Doubleday & Co., N.Y., 1954.