Re:Transhumanism Is a Dead End (2017)
by slooonz on Wednesday May 01, 2019 @04:34AM
(#19795451)
> I always failed to understand what the "consciousness isn't local" can predict
It predicts that a human equipped with a non-local, non-materialistic mind (let’s call it "soul" for short) will behave differently from the same human without such a mind. He will, for example, write "I think therefore I am" where a soul-less (but otherwise materially equivalent human body) wouldn’t.
Now if you trace back the chain of events of this deviation, you will trace the movements of the hand (that wrote that sentence) to muscle movements. Muscle movements can be traced back to neural impulses, which can be traced back to the brain.
So, ultimately, non-materialism states that the brain of a soul-ful humain behaves differently from a soul-less human one.
In practice, it means that sometimes, neurons that should have fired (according to the laws of physics) don’t, and neurons that should have stayed at rest (according to the laws of physics) will fire. Those mismatches are first measurable manifestations of the immaterial mind ("soul") in the physical universe.
tl;dr: non-materialism predicts that there will be significant (greater in magnitude that thermal noise, at the very least) violations of the laws of physics (such as thermodynamics, chemistry and electromagnetism) in the brain.
It predicts that a human equipped with a non-local, non-materialistic mind (let’s call it "soul" for short) will behave differently from the same human without such a mind. He will, for example, write "I think therefore I am" where a soul-less (but otherwise materially equivalent human body) wouldn’t.
Now if you trace back the chain of events of this deviation, you will trace the movements of the hand (that wrote that sentence) to muscle movements. Muscle movements can be traced back to neural impulses, which can be traced back to the brain.
So, ultimately, non-materialism states that the brain of a soul-ful humain behaves differently from a soul-less human one.
In practice, it means that sometimes, neurons that should have fired (according to the laws of physics) don’t, and neurons that should have stayed at rest (according to the laws of physics) will fire. Those mismatches are first measurable manifestations of the immaterial mind ("soul") in the physical universe.
tl;dr: non-materialism predicts that there will be significant (greater in magnitude that thermal noise, at the very least) violations of the laws of physics (such as thermodynamics, chemistry and electromagnetism) in the brain.