Physical dualism
“There are no limits to the degree in which we can split reality” – Amorphos
“Everything observable or otherwise detectable is ‘there’, it is a reality of some kind” – Amorphos ~
There are/are no, qualia of mind…
One cannot have a something e.g. a qualia of mind, that is not there and not in the real ‘physical’ world. What is produced via informations of mind, can be equally produced by similar or the same derivative informations in the world i.e. not of mind.
Quantum duality should include these extra ontology’s;
- Two or more correlating things may exist in the same spatial location.
- No two exact things may arrive in the same place.
- Reality may be divided endlessly.
- All things eventually resolve into emptiness = 0. Thus reality [in the particular or ‘real things’] ultimately or fundamentally doesn’t exist. Contrasted with that in the complexity of the duality of existence, things are real! ~ It’s a duality it can and does contradict itself; rather than ‘x’ is a given ‘thing/object or information’ we should consider all things to be in a constant ‘dualistic flux’ more as if: ‘x’ = either, neither and both elements or aspects of a thing.
Internal and external physicalism. [or, different layers and perspectives of physicalism]
We live in a perspective based [including subjective/objective in humans] physical duality. There can be more than one instance of a thing ‘in the same spatial location’!
Such instances can be inverted in terms of their correlations; colour and light can derive from differing informations e.g. photons [in the external world] or electrons [in the mental world [including the physical brain], nature can interpret them as having the same expression. Colour in mind is the same as colour externally in the world, in the mind it is derived from thought ~ electrical signals and chemical/magnetic polarities and complexities thereof ~ as with the resolution to my three boxes conundrum…
[i]Three boxes conundrum and relative thought experiments…
We have three boxes, in one, color is photonic wavelengths, in the next it is electrical signals and chemicals in our brain, and in the final box color is perceptual. So which one is color in?
Really it is in neither; it’s something which flows through them all and changes as required. Which means that it transmigrates form, from light to electric, to perceptual arrangements and patterns.
For me the brain in a sense listens too and looks at all three boxes, it gives credence to the perceptual box because in that box the world-view has been arranged, it’s like the image on the monitor rather than the input into the computer.
However, we can also look in any of the boxes and not find quale as literally there, it’s neither directly physical nor mental [1] [2] [below].
I feel sure though, that color is out there in the world, this ‘yellow lemon’ I see on the table also has color ‘quale’, but we can no longer refer to color as a mental quale. We have found it to be in none of the boxes, yet we know that the yellow lemon is in our perception because we experience it there. We also know from physics that there is a relationship between it and the other boxes, there would be no way for us to determine the yellow lemon as an external object otherwise.[/i]
[i]1. Viking thought experiment; if I take an axe and plunge it into a conscious living human head then clasp my hands onto the split skull and open it up exposing the brains innards; would I see anything which resembles the mental experience? Would I literally see colors and if spliced carefully in some manner, would I see the image in our minds eye as if displayed on a monitor?
If I looked at it in every possible manner, through a microscope or via any instrumentation [remember that the colors on a screen are not in the brain, or that screen, but are in the mind], would I see what I am seeing? Would there be words in there, concepts, any quale et al?
- If we take Leibnitz example; if the mind was a room, it would be completely empty. The mind only experiences quale when it is directed to either by the senses or the imagination , otherwise quale do not occur and the mind is empty.
We can observe ourselves that colour and light occur in our experience, that it can be manifest in the perception via electrical signals and other phenomena in the brain. Yet if we look at the brain we only see ‘external’ physicalism [consider; Viking thought experiment, above], we don’t see the perceived colours. We also know via optical illusions and the very interpretative nature of vision, that the brain can reconfigure the light information brought into its perception from external sources. The brain can also create its own imagery [much like a computer graphics card and software] independent of such sources e.g. in dreams and hallucinations.
I can see no reason why the latter are in any way different from the former, as the brain is still changing colour and images in the perception. The difference being that in our vision of the world, the brain is informed by informations deriving from the world [not purely internally as with dreams etc], thus it may portray that world reasonably realistically i.e. relative the accuracy of info and the ability of the brain to interpret that correctedly.
Let us here call internal physicalism ‘Ether’ just so we have a label for qualia and some way to wrap our heads around it.
What energy is to matter, ‘ether’ is to information [that of matter or other]. A pocketful of information can equate to a world of experiences and ether. Even though the brain is full of info in the billions, those relatively few physical objects can represent a vast complexity of corresponding colour imagery, quale and knowledgeable [mental] information. Physical info is largely just signals/vibrations/frequencies telling the ether what is required of it. The way i see it is that informations ‘hit’ the fabric of reality, which responds by producing what has been requested of it [colour, experience, thought], most of what is in the world is this occurrence more than the external physical info ‘shaping’ it. The important thing to note is that realities may be expressed in layers and without seemed contradiction, as the ancient Hindus would say; ‘you can take an infinity from infinity leaving an infinity remaining’, and the same here applies in the particular and relative limited aspects of reality!
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I doubt it has, for me everything even in the macroscopic is in a dualistic flux i.e. undecided until paths are found, as like with ‘coincidence’ and ‘chance’. Not to mention that here nothing of our experience is excluded and pertains to a general and universal medium [‘ether’] ~ the physical aspects are not the greater reality, merely the causes of the greater experience. Colour here for example, is not an attribute of photonic wavelengths, well it is in terms of the relationship the said info has with reality [seen as a whole and base], but more it is its own entity. It [said entity/quale] exists when the info from photonic wavelengths hits reality which responds by manifesting as colour entity, note; that is not energy. Equally the same result occurs from electrical signals, hence there is that universal medium medium. Doesn’t sound like anything i have heard of, but i’ll be happy to be proved wrong.
