[extropy-chat] Psychogenic Fields (was Role of MWI and Time Travel)

[Samantha Atkins]

On May 31, 2006, at 8:16 PM, The Avantguardian wrote:

>
>
> --- Samantha Atkins <sjatkins at mac.com> wrote:
>
>>> Hold on. I did not say that consciousness was
>> separate
>>> from the brain. I said that it does not seem to
>> simply
>>> be explained by "information processing" in the
>> brain.
>>> Otherwise ANY complex information processing
>> system
>>> SHOULD be, to a greater or lesser extent,
>> conscious
>>> including the Internet.
>>
>> How so?  Conscious, as we think of it in human
>> consciousness at
>> least, requires specific types of processing.
>>  Any
>> old processing
>> will not do.  I was under the impression that
>> originally we were
>> talking of human consciousness rather than any old
>> consciousness or
>> thing that some may want to call consciousness.
>
> Nonsense. There is nothing fundamentally unique or
> special about human biology, to account for
> "human-specific consciousness". Any consciousness
> generating mechanism humans have is shared by all
> mammals for certain and possibly by all cell-based
> life or perhaps even by all matter depending on
> precisely what that SOMETHING is determined to be.

What are you talking about?  Are you claiming that any old cause- 
effect relationship even down to the most basic particle is  
synonymous with human consciousness?    You seem to be talking about  
something utterly different than what I took the subject to be.

>
> We have more literal brain than a rat but not so much
> more so that we can base some religious notion of
> "human-specific consciousness" on some emergenct
> property of complexity.
>

I don't see how this is particularly relevant to the original context.

>>> Moreover according to quantum
>>> mechanics individual atoms process information in
>>> deciding whether to jump to higher or lower energy
>>> states. If this psychogenic field I am proposing
>> is
>>> generated by the brain then it may be altered by
>> brain
>>> injuries leading to altered consciousness. I am
>>> talking a tensor field here, not hocus pocus
>> magic.
>
>> This is irrelevant for the reason above.
>
> Huh? Is this cheap debate trick or do you not
> understand what I am getting at here?
>

You are apparently riding an altogether different horse in a  
different direction.  Perhaps we should part ways in this confused  
bit of the exchange amicably.  I do not use cheap debating tricks.


>> As long
>> as it is not
>> measurable and not provably causative and it yields
>> no useful
>> explanation or predictions you may as well be
>> talking magic.
>
> But the psychogenic field is entriely measurable. EEGs
> and magnetoencephalography are both ways to measure
> it. As far as being provably causative, that is way
> too stringent a criterion. Causality is over-rated and
> seldomly provable in any context. Physicists may have
> the luxury of studying simplified single variable
> systems in the lab and thus might be able to
> unequivocally show causality but biologists are not so
> lucky.
>

Why?  You are calling a known electromagnetic field property of the  
brain something else.  What for?  It seems to be adding legs to a  
snake to me.   If these extra legs add nothing in explanative and/or  
predictive power then what is the point in positing such?

> Very little of scientific theory is provably causative
> except perhaps classical mechanics. Causality
> certainly does start to break down at the quantum
> level (see EPR paradox, Bell's Theorem, etc. for
> examples.)
>

You seem to be missing the point above.
>

> That being said, I think that the psychogenic field
> hypothesis is entirely testable. If it is correct then
> one would expect to be able to measure brain function
> from outside of the brain. Guess what? EEGs and
> magnetoencephalography do exactly that. Furthermore
> they do not involve introducing anything foreign into
> the brain. Sure does sound like they are measuring a
> field to me.
>

This won't fly for the reason above.

> You can say they are measuring "brain function" but
> that is only true by proxy. What they are measuring is
> electromagnetic flux issuing forth from the brain and
> extending OUTSIDE of the brain and using it to INFER
> function inside of the brain.
>

Then why call this electromagnetic flux by some new name?  What does  
it add that we didn't already know?

> Other predictions of mine include:
>
> 1. When measured at high enough resolution, the
> psychogenic field should be assymetric and non-uniform
> in both space and time.

Not sure what you are getting at here that you consider important.

>
> 2. Every possible stimulus, sensation, feeling,
> thought, or memory should have a unique configuration
> (tensor value) of the psychogenic field that can with
> effort be cataloged and deciphered.
>

We get different readings using electromagnetic and other means of  
scanning brains today. So what?

> 3. Technology capable of non-invasively scanning the
> information content of brains should be possible.
> Although even if I am right, I don't see it working on
> brains that are not metabolically active. So all those
> frozen heads will still be out of luck.
>

We already do this today.

>> My beef is that it seems an empty idea.
>
> Well then hopefully I have fleshed it out enough for
> you to make an INFORMED critique of my idea.
>
>
> Stuart LaForge
> alt email: stuart"AT"ucla.edu
>
> "What I am going to tell you about is what we teach our physics  
> students in the third or fourth year of graduate school... It is my  
> task to convince you not to turn away because you don't understand  
> it. You see my physics students don't understand it... That is  
> because I don't understand it. Nobody does." - Richard Feynman on QM
>
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