Time’s Passage and Conscious Experience:
Two Riddles – or One?
Avshalom C. Elitzur
Outline
1.
From Philosophy to Science
2.
The Heart of the First Problem: Qualia
3.
The Resolution that Failed: Consciousness is Not Causally Ineffective
4.
The Second Problem: Time Cannot Pass
5.
Opposing Clues: Perhaps it Does, after all
6.
Possible Affinities
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A metaphysical question gets a physical twist:
Do objects (or their properties) exist
prior to being observed?
Einstein
Plato
Berkeley
Kant
Schopenhauer
Bohr
Schrödinger
Heisenberg
Next, hopefully…
1. Is there something to conscious experience which is left
unexplained in the dynamics of the associated neuronal
process?
2. Is there something to the nature of time which is left
unexplained in physics’ dynamical laws?
Historical Caveats:
Analogies and disanalogies
Penrose
Hameroff
First Riddle:
What’s your Mind-Body Problem Anyway?
“In science, the qualitative is only a poor
form of the quantitative” (Rutherford)
qualitatively different from blue
Red is quantitatively
Same type of waves, different wavelength
qualitatively different from salty
Sweet is quantitatively
Same type of electrons, different numbers
qualitatively different from hate
Love is quantitatively
Same type of neurons, different configurations
The Heart of the Mystery: Qualia
No essential difference between a windmill and a brain.
Observing the brain’s operation tell us nothing about the associated experience!
Leibniz (1646-1716)
The Heart of the Mystery: Qualia
All progress in color vision research concerns only
the process of seeing a certain color, saying nothing
about the subjective experience associated with it.
The Heart of the Mystery: Qualia
1. The Problem of Inverted Qualia
RED
BLUE
The Heart of the Mystery: Qualia
1. The Problem of Inverted Qualia
RED
BLUE
The Heart of the Mystery: Qualia
2. The Problem of Absent Qualia
RED
BLUE
The Argument for Inessentialism:
The Closure of the Physical World
Romeo adores Juliet
(no quotes?!)
IF the laws of mechanics completely explain the motions
of billiard balls, plants’ water absorption, and reflex
movements (no subjective experience needed), THEN the
same holds for Romeo and Juliet’s behavior!
Muscle “responds” to stimulus
Plant cell “drinks” water
Balls “repel” one another
Complexity?
When does Consciousness Emerge?
William Grey Walter (1910-1977),
inventor of the “electronic turtle”
At what level of the turtle’s complexity would you file a
lawsuit against Gray-Walter on animal abuse?
"phototropic animals"
Machina speculatrix
Machina docilis
Where, along the Evolutionary Ladder, does
Consciousness Emerge?
Frightened human
Crab under threat
“Photophobic” bacterium
“Hydrophobic” molecule
‘isms
Physicalism: Only matter-energy is real,
mind is secondary
Dualism: “Mind differs from matter”
Interactionist Dualism: “Mind interacts with
matter”
Non-Interactionist Dualism: “Mind does not
interact with matter”
Epiphenomenalism: “Matter affects mind, never
vice versa”
Parallelism: “Matter and mind run parallel
without ever affecting one another”
Identity Theory: “Matter, somehow, is mind.”
Pan-Psychism: “Mind potentially exists within
matter.”
‘isms
Non-Interactionist Dualism: “Mind does not
interact with matter”
The Consciousness
Epiphenomenalism: “Matter affects
mind, never Inessentialism
Postulate:
vice versa”
“For every action which looks like a
Parallelism: “Matter and
mind run parallel
consequence
of a Quale there is a
without ever affecting
one
another”
neurophysiological explanation
which ignores qualia altogether.”
Identity Theory: “Matter, somehow, is mind.”
Pan-Psychism: “Mind potentially exists within
matter.”
Can Dualism be Avoided?
"Non, je ne regrette rien!"
The penalty:
Energy & momentum conservation laws violated!
René Descartes (1596-1650)
Indeed, Elitzur (1989) argues directly from the
existence of claims about consciousness to the
conclusion that the laws of physics cannot be
complete, and that consciousness plays an active
role in directing physical processes (he suggests
that the second law of thermodynamics might be
false). But I have already argued that interactionist
dualism is of little help in avoiding the problem of
explanatory irrelevance (p. 183).
Chalmers’ schizoid epiphenomenalism
1. I have consciousness.
2. I wrote this book on consciousness.
3. I would have written exactly the same book have I lacked
consciousness altogether.
The Asymmetry Proof:
Chalmers’ Epiphenomenalism leads to Contradiction
(Elitzur 2009 http://www.a-c-elitzur.co.il/site/siteArticle.asp?ar=67 )
1. A presumably conscious human (henceforth Chalmers) states there is a difference between his
percept (P) and its corresponding quale (Q).
2. Chalmers further argues that a zombie duplicate of him (henceforth Charmless) is
conceivable, which is similar to him in all aspects, save that he has only P without Q.
3. Chalmers asserts, however, that, by physical law, Charmless must notice a difference between
what he knows about the physical process underlying his percept and the unmediated percept
itself, which, within Charmless, presumably plays the role of Q.
4. Chalmers then argues that this difference must produce in Charmless the same behavioral
consequences as the difference between P and Q.
5. Ask now Chalmers: Can you conceive of a Charmless who is identical to you but lacks Q? His
answer, by (2), is “Yes.”
6. Next ask Charmless: Can you conceive of a duplicate of you (henceforth Harmless) who is
identical to you but lacks Q? His answer, by (3), must be “No; unmediated percepts,
regardless of what is known about them, must occur.”
7. As Chalmers can conceive of Charmless but Charmless cannot conceive of Harmless,[1] the
two kinds of bafflement, associated with (1) and (3), are essentially different. Which is why
we don’t need to worry about Armless and so on.
8. Hence, the physical explanation for (3) does not hold for (1).
[1] which is why we don’t have to worry about Armless and so on.
Second Riddle:
"And yet it (time) moves"
Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica (1687)
In every physical state, given the
relevant law and initial conditions, it is
possible to predict other states at any
time in the past or future.
Earth’s gravitational constant
initial height
gt
h  h0 
2
2
time
Time: The Common View
Events Become and Go, One by One
Time: The Relativistic View
All Events Coexist along Time
Relativistic Contraction is a Consequence of
the “Coexistence” of Past and Future States
Relativistic Contraction is a Consequence of
the “Coexistence” of Past and Future States
Relativistic Contraction is a Consequence of
the “Coexistence” of Past and Future States
Relativistic Contraction is a Consequence of
the “Coexistence” of Past and Future States
x
t
Relativistic Contraction is a Consequence of
the “Coexistence” of Past and Future States
x
t
Relativistic Contraction is a Consequence of
the “Coexistence” of Past and Future States
The Block Universe Account of Time
All events – past, present and future – have the
same degree of existence. There is no privileged
“Now.”
“There is no irreversibility
in the basic laws of physics.
You have to accept the idea
that subjective time with its
emphasis on the now has no
objective meaning.”
“Michele has preceded me a little
in leaving this strange world.
This is not important. For us who
are convinced physicists, the
distinction between past, present,
and future is only an illusion,
however persistent.”
(not irreversible, eh?)
Let’s go Quantum
A metaphysical question gets a physical twist:
Do objects (or their properties) exist
prior to being observed?
Einstein
Plato
Berkeley
Kant
Schopenhauer
Bohr
Schrödinger
Heisenberg
The Elitzur-Dolev Quantum Liar Paradox (2005)
“I do not corroborate my twin particle.”
“That's right, he doesn’t!”
Большая Советская Энциклопедия
Bibliography
1. (Elitzur, A.C., & Dolev, S. (2003) Is there more to T? Why time's description in
modern physics is still incomplete. In Buccheri, R., Saniga, M., & Stuckey, W. M.
[Eds.] The Nature of Time: Geometry, Physics & Perception. NATO Science Series,
II: Mathematics, Physics and Chemistry, 95, 297-306. New York: Kluwer.
2. Elitzur, A.C., & Dolev, S. (2005) Quantum phenomena within a new theory of time.
In Elitzur, A.C., Dolev, S., & Kolenda, N. [Eds.] Quo Vadis Quantum Mechanics?,
325-350. New York: Springer.
3. Elitzur, A.C., & Dolev, S. (2005) Becoming as a bridge between quantum mechanics
and relativity. In Saniga, M., Buccheri, R., and Elitzur, A.C. [Eds.] Endophysics,
Time, Quantum and the Subjective, 589-606. London: World Scientific.
4. Elitzur, A.C. (2009) Consciousness makes a difference: A reluctant dualist’s
confession. In Batthyány, A., & Elitzur, A. C. [Eds.] Irreducibly Conscious: Selected
Papers on Consciousness. pp. 43-72. Heidelberg: Universitätsverlag Winter.
Summary (well, kind of…)
Therefore, if Bergson could have studied the quantum theories in detail,
he would have noted certainly with joy that, in the image that they offer us
of the evolution of the physical world, they show us nature in all its
occasions hesitating between several possibilities, and he would have
undoubtedly repeated, as in La Pensée et le Mouvant [Thought and
Motion], that “time is that very hesitation or it is nothing at all”
(L. De Broglie, 1941, 252-253).