Quantum Computers

Steve Kinney admin at pilobilus.net
Wed Sep 7 05:42:01 PDT 2016


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On 09/07/2016 02:50 AM, Georgi Guninski wrote:
> On Tue, Sep 06, 2016 at 09:07:25PM -0400, Steve Kinney wrote:

>> A new Hilaritas Press print edition of RAW's Quantum Psychology
>> just
> 
> Wikipedia has an article about "Quantum Mind", basically claiming
> that the mind heavily depends on quantum stuff. Pretty sure medical
> students don't study this.
> 
> Are the theories about quantum mind taken seriously?

Not by me.  To grossly oversimplify:

1)  Quantum physics is spooky and inexplicable.
2)  Consciousness is spooky and inexplicable.
3)  Therefore, quantum physics explains consciousness.

Maybe.  But the missing link is evidence.  Or even a clearly
articulated model that can tell us where to look for evidence.

People who just "have to" explain everything in terms of concrete and
familiar concepts have been known to assert that consciousness does
not exist.  Maybe they are right in a limited set of cases:  The
Gnostics maintained that most humans are born without souls.  The
Taoists and Sufis posit that the soul is a latent potential that
remains dormant unless developed through self observation, and may be
extinguished by the weight of neurotic compulsive attachments to
"materialistic" motives and activities.  By "soul" I think they mean
consciousness exhibiting the ability to directly modify thought or
behavior, and/or perceive something other than the activity of the
nervous system, but that's a shot in the dark on my part.

Two questions at the opposite ends of scale sit there like bookends on
the library of human knowledge:  What is consciousness made of?  What
contains the Universe and enforces the laws of physics?

Again, those who simply "must know everything" assert that these are
meaningless questions and/or that there is "nothing there at all." The
scientific method addresses "how" but not "why" questions and to them,
if it's not science it's not real.

Those with a more experiential / subjective frame of reference often
arrive at the conclusion that consciousness and existence are
manifestation of the same thing.  Philosophers who tend toward
rigorous argument assert that by definition consciousness and
existence are the same thing for all practical purpose, and that this
tells us almost nothing except to define the limits on what /can/ be
known by human beings.

In Quantum Psychology, Wilson provides a guided tour of a lot of this
landscape and presents some practical tools, like the E-Prime variant
of English, for correcting some of the problems that arise from
believing that we know things we can not know, and behaving accordingly.

> A news headline like "5 yro savant boy from Uganda breaks root cert
> in his head for 42 kilograms of western chocolate" will make my day
> ;)

If he does, he will probably use a crystal ball, or dance until he
drops while tripping balls on the best available local psychedelic.
We have ways of getting at content that is "off limits" to normal
waking consciousness.  But he probably won't get the desired result
because in these matters, the process very notoriously has its own
agenda.  By way of analogy, one does not interrupt a paramedics
working at a disaster site with a request that she solve a crossword
puzzle.  You can try but she will ignore you or, if you continue
pestering her, kick your ass.

:o)


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