[MD] Quantum Enigma

[MarshaV]

same page....   


   "Our concern is with the"consciousness" central to the quantum enigma---the awareness that appears to affect physical reality.  We do not necessarily imply that consciousness is a "physical thing" that "reaches out" and does something physical.  We are describing an enigma, not proposing a solution."  


Okay, okay, I'll stop...   






On Sep 27, 2010, at 8:49 AM, MarshaV wrote:

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>   "We have talked about consciousness but have never fully defined it.  Dictionary definitions of "consciousness" are little better than those for "physics."  We've been using "consciousness" as roughly equivalent to "awareness." or perhaps the _feeling_ of awareness.  It certainly includes the perception of free will.  Our use of the term "consciousness" is that standard in the treatment of the quantum measurement problem.  (In any event, as Humpty Dumpty told Alice:  "When I use a word . . . it means just what I choose it to mean," and the philosopher Wittgenstein would more or less agree.)
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>   "It is often pointed out that we can know of the existence of consciousness in _no_ other way than through our first-person feeling of awareness or the second-person reports of others.  (In the following chapter we suggest a quantum challenge to this limitation.)  
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>   "We will not refer to many of the things found in discussions of consciousness from a psychological point of view.  For example, we will not talk of optical illusions, mental disturbances, self-consciousness, or Freud's seat of hidden emotions,  the _unconscious."
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>>>>>> (Rosenblum & Kuttner,'Quantum Enigma: Physics Encounters Consciousness', p.172,2006)    
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