Bertrand Russell
So long as we
adhere to the
conventional notions of mind and matter, we are condemned to a view of
perception which is miraculous. We suppose that a physical process
starts from a visible object, travels to the eye, there changes into
another physical process, causes yet another physical process in the
optic nerve, and finally produces some effect in the brain,
simultaneously with which we see the object from which the process
started, the seeing being something "mental", totally different from
the physical processes which precede and accompany it. This view is so
queer that metaphysicians have invented all sorts of theories designed
to substitute something less incredible.
Russell
matter
perception
What we see depends on light entering the eye. Furthermore we do not even perceive what enters the eye. The things transmitted are waves or—as Newton thought—minute particles, and the things seen are colors. Locke met this difficulty by a theory of primary and secondary qualities. Namely, there are some attributes of the matter which we do perceive. These are the primary qualities, and there are other things which we perceive, such as colors, which are not attributes of matter, but are perceived by us as if they were such attributes. These are the secondary qualities of matter.
Why should we perceive secondary qualities? It seems an unfortunate arrangement that we should perceive a lot of things that are not there. Yet this is what the theory of secondary qualities in fact comes to. There is now reigning in philosophy and in science an apathetic acquiescence in the conclusion that no coherent account can be given of nature as it is disclosed to us in sense-awareness, without dragging in its relation to mind.
Whitehead
Alfred North Whitehead
secondary
Wolfgang Pauli
For the invisible reality, of which we have small
pieces of evidence in both quantum physics and
the psychology of the unconscious, a symbolic
psychophysical unitary language must ultimately
be adequate, and this is the far goal which I actually
aspire. I am quite confident that the finalobjective is
thesame, independent of whether one starts from the
psyche (ideas) or from physis (matter). Therefore,
I consider the old distinction between materialism
and idealism as obsolete.
pieces of evidence in both quantum physics and
the psychology of the unconscious, a symbolic
psychophysical unitary language must ultimately
be adequate, and this is the far goal which I actually
aspire. I am quite confident that the finalobjective is
thesame, independent of whether one starts from the
psyche (ideas) or from physis (matter). Therefore,
I consider the old distinction between materialism
and idealism as obsolete.
Pauli, letter to Jung
physis
One may then ask what is the relationship between the physical and the mental processes? The answer that we propose here is that there are not two processes. Rather, it is being suggested that both are essentially the same.
Bohm & Hiley
David Bohm
mental
John S Bell
It is shown that the matrix models which give non- perturbative definitions of string and M-theory may be interpreted as non-local hidden variables theories in which the quantum observables are the eigenvalues of the matrices while their entries are the non-local hidden variables.
It
is just like the mathematics of the addition of vectors, where (a, b, c
) are the components of one vector, and (a', b', c' ) are those of
another vector, and the new light Z is then the "sum" of the vectors.
This subject has always appealed to physicists and mathematicians. In
fact, Schrödinger wrote a wonderful paper on color vision in which he
developed this theory of vector analysis as applied to the mixing of
colors.
Feynman
Richard Feynman
In fact,
biologists
are trying to interpret as much as
they can about life in terms of chemistry, and as I already explained, the theory behind chemistry is quantum electrodynamics.
they can about life in terms of chemistry, and as I already explained, the theory behind chemistry is quantum electrodynamics.
vector
QED
Take
some range of phenomenal qualities. Assume that these qualities can be
arranged according to some abstract n-dimensional space, in a way that
is faithful to their perceived similarities and degrees of similarity—just as, according to Land, it is possible to arrange the phenomenal
colors in his three- dimensional color solid. Then my Russellian
proposal is that there exists, within the brain, some physical system,
the states of which can be arranged in some n-dimensional state space
[...] And the two states are to be equated with each other: the
phenomenal qualities are identical with the states of the corresponding
physical system.
Lockwood
Doppler effect
Change in energy ->
change in frequency ->
change in wavelength ->
change in color ->
rotation by tensor operator
matrix
Paul Churchland
These
predictions will be drawn, in a standard and unproblematic way, from
the assumptions of what deserves to be called the Standard Model of how
color is processed and represented within the human brain [...] I am
thus posig only as a consumer of of existing cognitive neuroscience,
not as an advocate of a new theory. But standard or not, this familiar
'color-opponency' theory of chromatic information processing has some
unexpected and unappreciated consequences concerning the full range of
neuronal activity possible, in an extreme, for the human visual
system. From
there, one needs only the tentative additional assumption of a
systematic identity between neuronal coding vectors on the one hand,
and subjective color qualia on the other—a highly specific material
assumption in the spirit of classical identity theory, and in the
spirit of intertheoretic reductions generally—to formally derive the
unexpected but qualia-specific predictions at issue.
Churchland, PM
[The] tensor calculus emerges as the natural framework with which to address such matters.
Churchland, PM
Dirac
Jeans
Fourier
A trained-up network is one in which, for appropriate input vectors, the network gives the correct response, expressed in terms of an output vector. Training up a network involves adjusting the many weights so that this end is achieved. This might be done in a number of different ways. One might hand-set the weights, or the weights might be set by a back-propagation of error or by an unsupervised algorithm. Weight configurations too are characterizable in terms of vectors, and at any given time the complete set of synaptic values defines a weight state space, with points on each axis specifying the size of a particular weight. [...]
It is conceptually efficient to see the final resting region in weight space as embodying the total knowledge stored in the network. Notice that all incoming vectors go through the matrix of synaptic connections specified by that weight-space point. [...]
A matrix is an array of values, and the elements of an incoming vector can be operated on by some function to produce an output vector.
Churchland, PS
Patricia Churchland
When
a state is formed by the superposition of two other states, it will
have properties that are in some vague way intermediate between those
of the original states and that approach more or less closely to those
of either of them according to the greater or less 'weight' attached to
this state in the superposition process.
Dirac
Fourier's theorem is probably the most far-reaching principle of mathematical physics.
Feynman
The
theorem tells us that every curve, no matter what its nature may be, or
in what way it was originally obtained, can be exactly reproduced by
superposing a sufficient number of simple harmonic curves—in brief,
every curve can be built up by piling up waves.
Jeans
Fourier's theorem is probably the most far-reaching principle of mathematical physics.
Feynman