Split Thread Science cannot explain consciousness, therefore....

[baron]

How so?

If a mass has existed for a million years its gravitational field will extend a million light years. If you remove the mass the gravitational field will attenuate at the speed of light and therefore take a million years to vanish.

 

[Belz...]

If a mass has existed for a million years its gravitational field will extend a million light years.

Wouldn't that mean that it propagates at the speed of light?

If you remove the mass the gravitational field will attenuate at the speed of light and therefore take a million years to vanish.

Thanks for the explanation. Excuse my ignorance, but that means it doesn't work like light i.e. light just keeps going even if the source vanishes. Right?

 

[baron]

Wouldn't that mean that it propagates at the speed of light?

As far as we know, it does. Actually it would be slightly more if you could physically measure the extent, because space-time itself (i.e. the universe) is itself stretching, but that doesn't violate C.

Thanks for the explanation. Excuse my ignorance, but that means it doesn't work like light i.e. light just keeps going even if the source vanishes. Right?

It's more like a distortion of space-time, think of a cannon ball on a trampoline. Remove the cannon ball and the fabric of the trampoline will return to its original state. It's not a perfect analogy as even with an infinite trampoline the distortion wouldn't keep on propagating, but it's similar.

 

[Cheetah]

If a mass has existed for a million years its gravitational field will extend a million light years. If you remove the mass the gravitational field will attenuate at the speed of light and therefore take a million years to vanish.

Nope, exactly like the light beam keeps traveling after the bulb is off the gravity field also does. It really doesn't matter how long the bulb has been on.

If a mass has existed for x years, its gravitational field will have propagated a distance of x light years from the mass. If it disappears the gravitational field right by the mass will disappear and the disappearance of the field will propagate away at the speed of light. This hollow sphere of gravity field will continue propagating and get larger and larger and weaker and weaker, theoretically for ever, it never disappears.

 

[Belz...]

As far as we know, it does. Actually it would be slightly more if you could physically measure the extent, because space-time itself (i.e. the universe) is itself stretching, but that doesn't violate C.

That's my understanding as well.

It's more like a distortion of space-time, think of a cannon ball on a trampoline. Remove the cannon ball and the fabric of the trampoline will return to its original state. It's not a perfect analogy as even with an infinite trampoline the distortion wouldn't keep on propagating, but it's similar.

I was still holding up hope for the graviton.

 

[Dave Rogers]

If a mass has existed for a million years its gravitational field will extend a million light years. If you remove the mass the gravitational field will attenuate at the speed of light and therefore take a million years to vanish.

No. If the gravitational field is propagating, it will continue to propagate, even after the mass ceases to exist, exactly as it would have had the mass continued to exist. As the wave front is propagating at the speed of light, the information that the mass no longer exists cannot catch up with it.

However, this is not a realistic scenario. As has already been said, there is no means by which a mass can simply be removed from spacetime; vapourising it simply changes the phase of the matter involved (vapour has mass), and converting it to energy leaves the mass equivalent of the energy created still in existence. So, unless you can come up with a realistic scenario, your claim that a gravitational field can exist in the absence of a mass to generate it is not substantiated.

Dave

 

[IanS]

IOW yes, comprehension problems.

How do you prove to a solipsist that he is wrong? He just claims everything is happening in his mind.

Please demonstrate.

It's not possible to "prove" it to a solipsist (or to any philosophy students here), but only because it's not possible to actually "prove" anything! Science does not claim to actually "prove" even the most well established theories such as QM, GR or evolution.

Instead all we can ever do is look for genuine reliable evidence. And if that becomes so abundant, so clear and unarguable, then it eventually gets accepted as a "Theory". That is all we can ever do. And it's a great deal more than philosophy has ever done. But it's not an actual 100% certain "proof'.

However, anyone can make a claim like that to say perhaps the universe is un-real, or to say that perhaps all that exists is just in your own thoughts. But what science has shown is that any claims of that sort are completely worthless unless you can show how the claim could actually be true. IOW, it's no good anyone merely saying "X might be true". If they make a statement like that then the statement is not credible until they explain how it could be true ... how is it possible for humans to be detecting a universe that is significantly different to the way science has detected and explained it? ... what is the viable alternative explanation from philosophy? … how could thoughts arise in a disembodied mind?

 

[Belz...]

It's not possible to "prove" it to a solipsist (or to any philosophy students here), but only because it's not possible to actually "prove" anything! Science does not claim to actually "prove" even the most well established theories such as QM, GR or evolution.

Instead all we can ever do is look for genuine reliable evidence. And if that becomes so abundant, so clear and unarguable, then it eventually gets accepted as a "Theory". That is all we can ever do.

Wouldn't that fit the popular definition of "proof", however? It might not be mathematical proof but when we say "proof" we mean "convincingly demonstrated with evidence and argument" or something similar. I think it's needlessly pedantic to argue about the use of this word.

 

[baron]

Nope, exactly like the light beam keeps traveling after the bulb is off the gravity field also does. It really doesn't matter how long the bulb has been on.

If a mass has existed for x years, its gravitational field will have propagated a distance of x light years from the mass. If it disappears the gravitational field right by the mass will disappear and the disappearance of the field will propagate away at the speed of light. This hollow sphere of gravity field will continue propagating and get larger and larger and weaker and weaker, theoretically for ever, it never disappears.

We're getting hung up on minutiae here. A vanishingly small remnant, no remnant, OK. The point is that the gravitational force exists after the mass has vanished. You're actually supporting my argument in stronger terms than I stated it originally. I said that a gravitational force can exist independently of mass for <whatever> time-scale. You're arguing that a gravitational force can exist independently of mass for ever. There you go.

However, this is not a realistic scenario. As has already been said, there is no means by which a mass can simply be removed from spacetime; vapourising it simply changes the phase of the matter involved (vapour has mass), and converting it to energy leaves the mass equivalent of the energy created still in existence. So, unless you can come up with a realistic scenario, your claim that a gravitational field can exist in the absence of a mass to generate it is not substantiated.

That doesn't matter. The point is that the principle is correct. A gravitational force can theoretically exist in the absence of mass. As I already said, if you blast the Earth and convert it into radiation then that gravitational field is no longer being maintained by that mass, by definition. If you dispute this, show me the equate you would use to calculate it. You can argue about how energy has not been lost, of course it hasn't, but that doesn't change the facts as relate to my analogy.

 

[LarryS]

Provide another interpretation that has some credibility beyond being mere unsupported assertion or belief.

You are missing the point-the explanation I provided does not require any belief, it’s the assertion of physical matter that requires belief.

 

[Myriad]

You have a mass. You vapourise or otherwise destroy that mass; its gravitational field attenuates at the speed of light. If you vapourise a mass that has been in existance for a million years then it will take a million years for that mass's gravitational field to disappear. So the gravitational field clearly exists in the absence of the mass.

You cannot destroy the mass. You can in principle (and to a very limited extent in practice) convert some or all of it to energy. But energy also has a gravitational field. In fact the amount of energy that the mass was converted into will have the same aggregate gravitational attraction as the mass that was converted. Subsequent displacement of the mass or energy will alter the gravitational field, the changes propagating at the speed of light as gravity waves. The gravitational field cannot and will not disappear.

The question is, if you deleted that paragraph, would its field of pedantry disappear or simply change to a different form? It's ridiculous. If you measure the gravitational field generated by the Earth, vapourise the Earth with a big laser, then come back in four billion year's time would you say, "Oh, there has been no effect on the gravitational field of the Earth" or "The gravitational field of the Earth has well and truly disappeared"? I think we know the answer. g=GM/r2 is kind of tricky to calculate without M or r.

There's an equation that can supply you the M after the earth has been vaporized. (I'll assume that by "vaporization" you mean converted into energy rather than into vapor, even though a laser wouldn't do that, because vapor has mass so M would still be readily at hand.) You might have heard of this equation before. E=MC². Solve for M (it's not too difficult).

As for the absence of an r, I think you're confused. (Hint: r is not the radius of the earth, in the equation you cite, except in one special case.)

Stop talking soft.

I think you mean...

 

[Darat]

You are missing the point-the explanation I provided does not require any belief, it’s the assertion of physical matter that requires belief.

You do not believe you exist?

 

[Ron_Tomkins]

As I said before, science has already begun explaining the mechanism behind many of the phenomena of consciousness: cognition, memory, emotions, deja vu, etc...

What science cannot do (and I suspect, this is what a lot of people expect it to do, as a consequence of being able to explain it) is predict which way is a given fom of consciousness going to behave with 100% accuracy. But because of its intricate complexity, a given form of consciousness will not follow any predictive rules. It has a life of its own, so to speak.

I think of it as, say a sport, like soccer. You can explain soccer to someone. You can describe how the game works in detail, what are the rules of the game, etc... But as soon as a soccer match starts, any infinite number of interactions can happen, and you're always up for a surprise. It's a living entity with its own random behavior. That's what makes it impossible to predict (and that's what makes the sports fun)

Likewise, with consciousness. I think no matter how good science gets at explaining every part of its internal mechanism, there will never come a point where we can explain its function so well, that we can predict exactly how an individual is going to behave at any given time, or what processes is his mind going to go through, etc.

That said, science can make a lot of predictions about consciousness, in terms of its mechanism. We know that if we deprive the brain of certain chemicals or connections, it won't be able to perform specific functions. For instance, Capgras Delusion is a "circuit break" between the temporal cortex and the lymbic system in the brain, depriving the individual from a specific "cable" that send the "emotional signal" to the brain when they see a subject such as their mother, creating the illusion in their brain that the person they are observing is not their real mother, but rather an impostor. Many similar experiments have been made, such in cases like the Capgras Syndrome, proving that every single time such "circuit break" happens, the symptom pops up automatically.

These kind of experiments are the ones that have shown us that the brain, magnificent as it is, is no different from a computer. A much much complex computer, but still, subject to changes in functionality based on lack of proper connections, just like a computer. Science has made an amazing amount of progress explaining the brain's circuitry (and consequntially, the consciousness that arises from its connectivity) and will continue to do so. How far it will get in accuracy is something that only time will tell. But I doubt we will ever be able to entirely predict every single behaviour from any given form of consciousness, even if it's a form of consciousness we ourselves create (Artificial Intelligence) The whole "point" of consciousness is that it is unpredictable. It has a life of its own.

 

[IanS]

What about if a computer could "look" at reality and, for example, identify flowers. Would that be an independent test?

Unfortunately philosophers would claim that it's not at all an independent test, because the only way you could know anything about any computer results is through your own mind telling you what you believe the computer had shown. You are still entirely reliant upon your own mind/brain/senses.

It's really just pointing out that if intelligent beings of any sort (even any super-advanced aliens from planet Zog), have any personal/individual means of awareness at all, then everything they ever detect will always have to be known to them entirely through that method of personal awareness.

E.g., even if the Aliens from Zog had something very different to our brain & sensory system, so that they detected and “understood” everything through a means called “X”, then philosophers could still claim that whatever the Zogians thought they experienced was still only an image inside of X, and that any external reality (or lack of any such reality) could be totally different from the way it seemed inside of X.

 

[Myriad]

The question is, if you deleted that paragraph, would its field of pedantry disappear or simply change to a different form?

Getting back toward the original topic, that analogy is a far better one than vanishing mass-energy and gravitational fields.

If I regard my conscious experience as the creation of an ongoing narrative by a massively powerful ongoing computation in my brain, I must (after careful observation) also conclude that that process and the resulting narrative construct is far from self-contained. Most of its elements are actually a bricolage of inputs into the computation, sometimes (but not always) rearranged or transformed in various ways. The inputs come primarily from the outside world via my senses; and less directly from past interactions with the outside world via my memories. In both cases, most of "me" (the narrative) is actually made of the world—the things I've seen, the books I've read, the people I've met, the environments I've lived in. The effects of that computation, pieces of that ongoing constructed narrative, in the form of my words and actions, also emanate into the world and inevitably feed into a lot of other ongoing computations and feature in other ongoing narratives.

If I had been vaporized by a big laser just after posting the paragraph you referenced above, the paragraph would still have been there and your response would have been the same as if I were still a living person (assuming you weren't also in the AOE of the big laser!). If the paragraph had been deleted just after you'd read it, the pedantry within it would still be in your conscious thoughts and evoking your reply, now a part of your narrative.

That concept is crudely recognized in the ancient, crude, and common idea of "immortality through fame." But chaos theory and computational theory put a much finer polish on it. Fame, notoriety, victories, great deeds, great works; these are all significant perturbations in the interactive web of the world, but no strand is irrelevant; in the long term the butterflies matter as much as the hurricanes.

You don't need to bring in unevidenced "consciousness fields" to make a case that the individuality and transience of the self are largely cognitive illusions.

 

[surreptitious57]

There is no evidence that consciousness can exist outside of a brain. And dualism separates the mental from the physical
but the mental is merely the physical at a more subtle level. The demarcation exists not because it is real rather because
of the human need to categorise and compartmentalise everything. The map is not the terrain just an approximation of it

 

[LarryS]

You do not believe you exist?

Do I believe that anything exists as an independent physical object? No, I don’t see any advantage to such a belief. Seems like much woo to me.

 

[John Jones]

Do I believe that anything exists as an independent physical object? No, I don’t see any advantage to such a belief. Seems like much woo to me.

Solipsism then. Auf Wiedersehen.

 

[The Norseman]

But there are.

If you have some specific questions of how I'm unclear, I'd be willing to explain it.

You are missing the point-the explanation I provided does not require any belief, it’s the assertion of physical matter that requires belief.

The whole point is that it actually doesn't require belief. It exists whether or not you believe in it.

 

[The Norseman]

Do I believe that anything exists as an independent physical object? No, I don’t see any advantage to such a belief. Seems like much woo to me.

Oh, that's BS. Of course you act like things exist independently of you. You would have died long ago through some sort of accident or you doing something because you believed differently but reality intruded.