Monday, February 14, 2011

A Little More On Consciousness

I did a littlle bit more digging and came up with this nice summary of "The Grand Design". Hawking and his co-author Leonard Mlodinow don't claim to know everything, they just claim to do away with the need for God. They weasel word their answers in order to strike at theology without making their readers soil their pantaloons with existential dread.
On September 9, 2010, Larry King interviewed Stephen Hawking and Cal Tech physicist Leonard Mlodinow, who together co-authored The Grand Design. In this book, they propose that “God may exist, but science can explain the universe without a need for a creator.” They go on to say that “The scientific account is complete. Theology is unnecessary.”
Apparently, there are criticisms of the construct they use to create something from nothing (Genesis without God, but with Hawking and Mlodinow), but I'll leave those be for now. Here's an interesting quote.
From out of left field, King asked Mlodinow what happens to us when we die. After recovering from being stunned at the question, he deflected it a bit, but it led to a very interesting response about consciousness and the limits of science to quantify it. He said, “there’s no physics explanation for consciousness. And as far as I can tell, I’ve never seen consciousness defined in a way that a scientist can really deal with.”
So why write books publicized as doing away with theology when you know it does away with consciousness as well? The only answer I can come up with is that it sells. It would hardly do to tell you're readers they don't exist. Apparently, that concept is even too scary for some scientists.
As (Dr. Robert Lawrence) Kuhn says in the episode (of Closer to the Truth), What Things are Conscious?, "when all the great answers of physics have been found, we will not have begun to unravel the mysteries of consciousness."
Why? If you've got physics done and all wrapped up, you've got everything explained, right? After all, we're just aggregate blobs of components described by physics. This is just wishful thinking and an appeal to magic to console yourself that you really exist. Applying logic and experimental method to one existential issue, but deliberately avoiding applying it to another while wrapping yourself in the mantle of SCIENCE! is pathetic.


This is real, too, because I want it to be and I'm a scientist.

25 comments:

Jeff Burton said...

there’s no physics explanation for consciousness

What a weasel. He's clearly a reductionist. He's just afraid to spell it out.

Anonymous said...

In looking at it, this isn't a summary of the book at all, but rather a brief summary of a Larry King TV show interviewing the authors. It's written by MaAnna Stephenson, who calls herself a shamanka, which seems to be some kind of mystic healer. She also belongs to "Noetic Now," which appears to be dedicated to precognition and parapsychology.

K T Cat said...

The summary therein matches the ones I've read elsewhere. The link was a convenient one because it placed that in proximity with the one where the dude is claiming that once we're done with physics, we still won't understand consciousness. That it comes from a shaman or a shamu is immaterial to me.

In the end, it looks like the authors are going after theology because they feel like it, not because there's any real purpose to it.

K T Cat said...

By the by, here's Dr. Kuhn. I'm not intimately familiar with him, but he doesn't seem shamanistic.

Ron Krumpos said...

In "The Grand Design" Hawking says that we are somewhat like goldfish in a curved fishbowl. Our perceptions are limited and warped by the kind of lenses we see through, “the interpretive structure of our human brains.” Albert Einstein rejected this subjective approach, common to much of quantum mechanics, but did admit that our view of reality is distorted.

Einstein’s Special Theory of Relativity has the surprising consequences that “the same event, when viewed from inertial systems in motion with respect to each other, will seem to occur at different times, bodies will measure out at different lengths, and clocks will run at different speeds.” Light does travel in a curve, due to the gravity of matter, thereby distorting views from each perspective in this Universe. Similarly, mystics’ experience in divine oneness, which might be considered the same "eternal" event, viewed from various historical, cultural and personal perspectives, have occurred with different frequencies, degrees of realization and durations. This might help to explain the diversity in the expressions or reports of that spiritual awareness. What is seen is the same; it is the "seeing" which differs.

In some sciences, all existence is described as matter or energy. In some of mysticism, only consciousness exists. Dark matter is 25%, and dark energy about 70%, of the critical density of this Universe. Divine essence, also not visible, emanates and sustains universal matter (mass/energy: visible/dark) and cosmic consciousness (f(x) raised to its greatest power). During suprarational consciousness, and beyond, mystics share in that essence to varying extents. [quoted from my e-book on comparative mysticism]

K T Cat said...

Ron, you rock. Or at least I think you do. Your erudite (and somewhat information-dense) comment will require some thinking on my part to digest. In any case, thanks for taking the time and effort to leave it.

ligneus said...

Funny how so many atheists find the need to go after religion the way they do, Hitchens being a good example. You'd think if they were as confident as they sound they'd just leave it alone, you could almost use 'live and let live' as a test of a person's genuineness.
I linked back to Ron, he has an interesting downloadable book there.

tim eisele said...

Ligneus said:

"Funny how so many atheists find the need to go after religion the way they do"

Back when I was in junior high, the teachers all said "When the other kids pick on you, just ignore them, and they'll go away".

You know what? That's a lie. They don't go away. They just get bolder and more aggressive and keep pushing, and pushing, and pushing, until you finally have no choice but to throttle the smarmy little creeps if you want your life to be tolerable.

The same with the crazy fundamentalists: if the atheists (and all the not-crazy people) just ignore them, they keep pushing, and pushing, and pushing, until finally you have to slap them down to keep them from taking over the school boards or the city government or barging into the schools to harass the students or keeping atheists/catholics/non-funamentalists/ out of public office, or whatever crazy agenda they happen to have whipped themselves into this time.

And then when someone who happens to be an atheist does slap them down, a lot of the not-crazy people who happen to be religious act like the atheists started it, and tell them the same thing that the teachers used to tell me in school - that if we just all ignore the crazy fundamentalists, they will go away.

It's still a lie.

ligneus said...

Tim, your argument falls down because it isn't just the 'crazy fundamentalists' they're against, they're against all religions and religious people, the least sign of religion sets them frothing at the mouth, people who would just like to practice their religion quietly and not bother anyone equally drives them round the bend. So who are the bullies here?

tim eisele said...

Hey, Ligneus, *nice* strawman! So big, so plump, so incendiary, so . . .

. . . unlike any atheists that I'm personally acquainted with.

Honestly. How many atheists do you *really* know who are like that? Oh, sure, there are a few, some who are actually pretty prominent (hey, being provocative in public is a proven money-maker, after all. And some people just love to argue, and would be in-your-face regardless of what you think. And will go so far as to change their beliefs to oppose you, if necessary, just to get a good fight). But all the ones I know are mainly opposed to the crazy creationists, and are perfectly happy to coexist with Catholics, Mainline Protestants, and other non-crazy religions. Many of whom are their own family members, after all.

Even the ones like Dawkins: If you read his earlier books, he started out being almost entirely writing specifically to oppose the anti-evolution young-earth creationists. Which is still his main focus. He mainly opposes religion only to the extent that it supports such people.

K T Cat said...

I would bet that the number of obnoxious zealots on both sides is far less than it seems, thanks to the press. Not many calm, rational, accomodating people make the news or appear on talk shows.

ligneus said...

I was thinking of the constant whining about separation of church and state, things like lawsuits to remove the ten commandments from courthouse walls and to remove the words of In God We Trust from wherever it might be found.

K T Cat said...

ligneus, I agree that it's gone way overboard. Removing the cross from the seal of LA? That was necessary because ... why?

ligneus said...

I had more in mind a kind of institutionalised atheism rather than individual atheists though of course 'institutions' are made up of individuals.
In today's National Post there is a column by Ian Hunter A Refuge from Moral Relativism.
If you read it you'll see what I'm getting at.
I think I also connect it to the left of the political divide, anyone who doesn't conform to their views in not just wrong but immoral.

Canadian Association of University Teachers, CAUT executive director James Turk defended his organization's witch-hunt against faithbased universities. He argued that CAUT's investigation of religious schools was necessary to ensure that parents know what kinds of institutions their sons and daughters are attending-- and, as Mr. Turk puts it, "to ensure that neither universities nor outside groups impose ideological requirements on academic staff." In other words, we are asked to believe that CAUT commissioned studies of Trinity Western University in Langley, B.C., Redeemer University in Ancaster, Ont., and others, in an effort to glean information readily available to anyone who took the time to glance at the universities' respective calendars.

The arrogance is appalling. as if an organisation shouldn't be religiously inclined if it wants and as if parents and students need nannying in case they're too stupid to know what kind of school they're applying to.

Just for the record, I too have the flu and my brain has been taken over by cotton wool, I have no idea if I'm making sense. Just read the article.

ligneus said...

But all the ones I know are mainly opposed to the crazy creationists, and are perfectly happy to coexist with Catholics, Mainline Protestants, and other non-crazy religions.

A tad judgemental aren't we.

tim eisele said...

Ligneus:

Am I being judgemental when I say that the majority of religions are non-crazy? Well, if you want to tell me that the Christians and Protestants and Jews and so forth are crazy too, that's your perogative, I guess.

tceisele said...

I think the whole separation-of-church-and-state thing is something else entirely.

You are aware that it is not an exclusively atheist/agnostic position, right? That a lot of religious people (particularly members of minority religions like Judaism, or of religions that have historically had problems with the authorities like Catholicism)also support separation of church and state?

It has been argued that the very reason that the US is the most strongly-religious developed country, is because we *do* have a strong church-state separation principle. Look at Europe - most of those countries have state religions. It hasn't worked out that well for the religions in question. And I would argue that in cases where a religion has taken a large amount of political power, like Iran and Saudi Arabia, it hasn't worked out that well for the populace.

ligneus said...

I'm not being clear enough, shouldn't write when sick and with a cotton wool brain, I meant the misuse of the separation of church and state law to justify for instance the removal of religious texts, artifacts, Christmas trees even! from public places.

ligneus said...

I had more in mind a kind of institutionalised atheism rather than individual atheists though of course 'institutions' are made up of individuals.
In today's National Post there is a column by Ian Hunter A Refuge from Moral Relativism.
If you read it you'll see what I'm getting at.
I think I also connect it to the left of the political divide, anyone who doesn't conform to their views in not just wrong but immoral.

Canadian Association of University Teachers, CAUT executive director James Turk defended his organization's witch-hunt against faithbased universities. He argued that CAUT's investigation of religious schools was necessary to ensure that parents know what kinds of institutions their sons and daughters are attending-- and, as Mr. Turk puts it, "to ensure that neither universities nor outside groups impose ideological requirements on academic staff." In other words, we are asked to believe that CAUT commissioned studies of Trinity Western University in Langley, B.C., Redeemer University in Ancaster, Ont., and others, in an effort to glean information readily available to anyone who took the time to glance at the universities' respective calendars.

The arrogance is appalling. as if an organisation shouldn't be religiously inclined if it wants and as if parents and students need nannying in case they're too stupid to know what kind of school they're applying to.

[I've been trying to post this since yesterday, it wouldn't appear]

K T Cat said...

Historically, the fastidious separation of church and state that we're familiar with now is a relatively new invention. For example, for much of our history, many public schools taught Bible classes. One can argue that most of our progress towards being the world's superpower came prior to the years when we wet our beds over a tiny cross on LA's logo.

ligneus said...

I've been trying to post this reply to an earlier comment of Tim's but it keeps disappearing!

I had more in mind a kind of institutionalised atheism rather than individual atheists though of course 'institutions' are made up of individuals.
In today's National Post there is a column by Ian Hunter A Refuge from Moral Relativism.
If you read it you'll see what I'm getting at.
I think I also connect it to the left of the political divide, anyone who doesn't conform to their views in not just wrong but immoral.

Canadian Association of University Teachers, CAUT executive director James Turk defended his organization's witch-hunt against faithbased universities. He argued that CAUT's investigation of religious schools was necessary to ensure that parents know what kinds of institutions their sons and daughters are attending-- and, as Mr. Turk puts it, "to ensure that neither universities nor outside groups impose ideological requirements on academic staff." In other words, we are asked to believe that CAUT commissioned studies of Trinity Western University in Langley, B.C., Redeemer University in Ancaster, Ont., and others, in an effort to glean information readily available to anyone who took the time to glance at the universities' respective calendars.

The arrogance is appalling. as if an organisation shouldn't be religiously inclined if it wants and as if parents and students need nannying in case they're too stupid to know what kind of school they're applying to.

ligneus said...

I thought it started with 'Render unto Caesar......'

ligneus said...

A Refuge from Moral Relativism.

ligneus said...

I've been trying to post a reply to one of Tim's earlier comments but it keeps disappearing, must be the link, here is the comment without it.

I had more in mind a kind of institutionalised atheism rather than individual atheists though of course 'institutions' are made up of individuals.
In today's National Post there is a column by Ian Hunter A Refuge from Moral Relativism.
If you read it you'll see what I'm getting at.
I think I also connect it to the left of the political divide, anyone who doesn't conform to their views in not just wrong but immoral.

Canadian Association of University Teachers, CAUT executive director James Turk defended his organization's witch-hunt against faithbased universities. He argued that CAUT's investigation of religious schools was necessary to ensure that parents know what kinds of institutions their sons and daughters are attending-- and, as Mr. Turk puts it, "to ensure that neither universities nor outside groups impose ideological requirements on academic staff." In other words, we are asked to believe that CAUT commissioned studies of Trinity Western University in Langley, B.C., Redeemer University in Ancaster, Ont., and others, in an effort to glean information readily available to anyone who took the time to glance at the universities' respective calendars.

The arrogance is appalling. as if an organisation shouldn't be religiously inclined if it wants and as if parents and students need nannying in case they're too stupid to know what kind of school they're applying to.

ligneus said...

I'll try the link separately.

A Refuge from Moral Relativism.