QUANTUM MECHANICS VERSUS SOCIOLOGY

 

HEADLINE: Could quantum physics hold key to unlocking secrets of human behavior? https://studyfinds.org/quantum-physics-human-behavior/

THE ARGUMENT: Human behavior is an enigma that fascinates many scientists. And there has been much discussion over the role of probability in explaining how our minds work. Probability is a mathematical framework designed to tell us how likely an event is to occur – and works well for many everyday situations. For example, it describes the outcome of a coin toss as ½ – or 50% – because throwing either heads or tails is equally probable.[Uh oh: Coin flips don't truly have a 50/50 chance of being heads or tailResearchers who flipped coins 350,757 times have confirmed that the chance of landing the coin the same way up as it started is around 51 per cent. https://www.newscientist.com/article/2397248-coin-flips-dont-truly-have-a-50-50-chance-of-being-heads-or-tails/].

 Yet research has it that human behavior can’t be fully captured by these traditional or “classical” laws of probability. Could it instead be explained by the way probability works in the more mysterious [???] world of quantum mechanics?

THE COUNTER ARGUMENT: A proposed experiment for the quantum physicists of human behavior.

It should now or soon be possible to do this experiment with brains created in the laboratory.  We might not be able to create brains that are complex enough for the experiment.  In that case, we can carry out the experiment in a computer simulation or a paper and pencil mathematical model.  If I can imagine how to do this, the big brain quantum physicists should have no trouble.  In brief, create an Earth-like environment or world and populate it with brains.  Not people, not social groups, just brains.  Press “GO.”  Watch what happens.  What you will not get is human behavior. 

Some questions: Is “explaining human behavior” the same process as “explaining how our minds work?”  Is the fact that you model something the same thing as explaining that something?  What assumptions have to be in place to make the leap from human behavior to mathematical probability models or vice versa and what is the rationale for those assumptions (research principle: chercher les rationales). Is quantum physics addressing human behavior as understood within the basic psychological paradigm?  In that case, is it based on the myth of individualism and the myth of a brain independent of the body, society, and the world?  What do quantum physicists have to say about the scientific propositional sociology of Randall Collins? (Conflict Sociology, 1975; The Sociology of Philosophies, 1998?).  Why don’t quantum physicists engage with sociology?  Is it because they assume free will and agency and that drives their science?  But what if as I claim the introspective transparency of free will and agency is an illusion?  Oh, and what are those “secrets of human behavior” that have the quantum physicists’ baffled? 

 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

GENESIS: A NOVEL

I WILL BE PUBLISHING THIS WORK IN PROGRESS EMERGING OUT OF THE HOLOMOVEMENT OF MY CONSCIOUSNESS PARAGRAPH BY PARAGRAPH AS THE MOMENT STRIKES ME CHAPTER 1.  ALREADY, ALWAYS, EVERYWHERE, AND FOREVER There is no beginning and there is no end to the VOID.  It is already, always, everywhere, and forever infinite in all directions.  It is a plenum that seethes with potential in utter darkness. There is movement in stilllness, energy fluctuations that can without reason or cause in any sense humans can comprehend erupt creatively.  Invisible ripples can suddenly become focused, hot, and dense.  Ripples become fluctuations, fluctuations get stretched out, and now they begin to erupt in hot and cold spots.  And now we are the first moments – moments to small for humans to comprehend – leading up to The Creation.  This is the measureable in principle but invisible to humans zero-point  enfolded in the plenum for the elements of any and all Creations.  Only matter is enfolded in the plenum  It ca
Read more

FLORIDA, SOCIOLOGY, AND EXISTENTIAL THREATS

  By now you have probably read about the decision in Florida to remove “Principles of Sociology” from the state’s general education core course options. We are grateful to our members in Florida and beyond who have been working hard to make the case for the value of sociology. ASA has also been working hard to advocate for our discipline in Florida and in other states facing the prospect of similar decisions. In advance of the final Florida decision, ASA submitted a public comment objecting to the proposal, joining in an effort undertaken by many local sociologists who shared deeply compelling arguments in writing and in person. Once the decision was made, ASA responded with comment to the media, leading to extensivE coverage in outlets including the New York Times , Washington Post , Huff Post , Guardian , Fox News , and Tampa Bay Times . We’ve reached out directly to relevant Florida staff and will continue lobbying members of the Board of Governors of the State
Read more

"FREE WILL" REDUX

   Free will is an illusion.  There is an elegant discussion of this illusion in Tolstoy's War and Peace.  Consider: free will is an experience.  Can we trust experience?  Consider: experience tells us that the earth does not move.  But we know it is moving in many different ways and directions at enormous speeds.  So we cannot trust our individual experience.  How do we know about all of the earth's various movements?  We know about them through the collective experience of scientists over many generations.  So experience counts but not individual experience. The Tolstoy Fallacy: That experience and feeling are trustworthy modes of interrogating and knowing reality. As in the question of astronomy then, so in the question of history now, the whole difference of opinion is based on the recognition or nonrecognition of something absolute, serving as the measure of visible phenomena. In astronomy it was the immovability of the earth, in history it is the independence
Read more