Category: physics
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David Bohm on Thought, Perception and Matter
Quotes from David Bohm, Thought as a System p. 146 “Thought’s participation produces all sorts of things. And it effects perception – what you think affects what you perceive outside and how you feel inside.” p. 146 “You see of feel something produced by thought, but then the next thought comes along and says ‘I’m…
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Laws of Physics and Theology
A quote from Paul Davies, Universe from Bit in Information and the Nature of Reality: From Physics to Metaphysics (suggested by Wendy Wheeler on biosemiotics list) ‘It is remarkable that this view [the orthodox concept of laws of physics derives directly from theology] has remained largely unchallenged after 300 years of secular science. Indeed, the “theological model”…
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Stephen Hawking: Philosophy is Dead
Recently I have listened to The Grand Design by Stephen Hawking and Leonard Mlodinow and below there are a few comments. The book starts with that philosophy is dead. “Traditionally these are questions for philosophy, but philosophy is dead. Philosophy has not kept up with modern developments in science, particularly physics. Scientists have become the bearers…
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From Boltzmann’s fluctuation hypothesis to Boltzmann’s Brain
While reading Klaus Mainzer, ‘Thinking in Complexity: The Computational Dynamics of Matter, Mind, and Mankind‘ I have seen a description of Boltzmann’s fluctuation hypothesis in Chapter 3.2 Boltzmann’s Thermodynamics and the Evolution of Organisms. I have read about this hypothesis when I have studied statistical thermodynamics long time ago. However it was a surprise for me…
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Science: Free Will is Illusion
Richard Dawkings http://www.edge.org/q2006/q06_9.html “But doesn’t a truly scientific, mechanistic view of the nervous system make nonsense of the very idea of responsibility, whether diminished or not? Any crime, however heinous, is in principle to be blamed on antecedent conditions acting through the accused’s physiology, heredity and environment. Don’t judicial hearings to decide questions of blame…
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Quantum Dualist Interactionism
Max Velmans, Understanding Consciousness In Chapter 2, Conscious Souls, Brains and Quantum Mechanics there is a nice section Quantum Dualist Interactionism (p. 17 – 21) where Max Velmans describes works that present interpretation of dualism in the framework of quantum mechanics. Stapp, H. (2007a) ‘Quantum mechanical theories of consciousness’ in The Blackwell Companion to Consciousness,…
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God as a Cosmic Operator
I will start with a couple of quotes from the Chapter 2, The Disunity of Science, Paul Feyerabend, The Tyranny of Science “After Newton had found his law of gravitation, he applied it to the moon and to the planets. It seemed that Jupiter and Saturn, when treated in this way, slowly moved away from each…
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The Unavoidable Cost Of Computation Revealed
Some quotes (mostly mine) from the discussion on the everything list http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list/t/aea1a68dd8286d97 13.03.2012 18:28 Evgenii Rudnyi: Could you please give one example from physics (yet please not a thought experiment) where information allows us to reduce entropy? 13.03.2012 20:09 Brent: http://www.nature.com/news/2010/101114/full/news.2010.606.html 25.03.2012 15:44 Evgenii Rudnyi: I have looked the paper that you have linked. Shoichi Toyabe,…