Beyond the neutron star

Neutron stars are incredible objects.  They are the result of the collapse of large stars after those stars have used up their nuclear fuel and can no longer maintain their size due to heat.  The core of a star collapses until the pressure forces the electrons and protons together to form neutrons.  This happens very quickly.  The rest of the star bounces off the surface of this tiny remnant - mere tens of km in diameter - and expands towards a colossal explosion.  The explosion comes close to failing, but then happens because during the formation of the neutrons a tiny and almost massless particle - the neutrino - is given off in vast numbers.  Neutrinos usually pass through just about anything, but the density of the material that has bounced of the neutron star is so great and the neutrinos so numerous that the incredible explosion of a supernova results.

Neutron stars are stable because the incredible force of gravity is resisted by a quantum-mechanical effect called the Fermi Exclusion Principle which does not allow particles such as neutrons to superimpose.  If there is enough mass in a collapsing star and not even that quantum effect can resist gravity, and the result is a black hole.

Or maybe not.

There may be smaller and stranger objects than neutron stars.  One of these is called a 'quark star', in which the structure of neutrons is no longer present, but the particles that make up protons and neutrons - quarks - can still resist collapse.  Stranger still is an 'Electroweak star':  it's known that electromagnetism and the weak force responsible for neutrinos interacting with other particles, and also for some radioactive decays, are different aspects of the same force: the 'electroweak' force.  Given enough energy the electroweak force can start to act by converting quarks into leptons (such as electrons).  This process gives off lots of energy, so much that it may be able to prevent the collapse of some stars to black holes, at least for a while.  For millions of years such strange dense objects may resist the final stage of collapse.   But eventually, even these objects will crunch down into the bottomless pit that is a black hole.

The Second Law isn't a Law

First, let's deal with terms: the second law of thermodynamics isn't a law!  The overall increase in disorder - the tendency of things to 'fall apart' - is just a statistical thing: it's about probabilities, not rules.  Given enough time, anything can and will happen.

Think of a sealed box full of air.  The air is spread out, filling the box evenly.  This is the situation known as 'equilibrium'.  The air will tend to stay like this, but not always, just on average.  The random movements of the air molecules mean that all throughout the box there are tiny volumes in which air is above average density and there are other volumes in which are is below average density.  These fluctuations quickly disappear almost all the time.  But not forever.  Suppose there was a random fluctuation of density which meant that, overall, one half of the box had slightly more air in than the other half.  It's overwhelmingly likely the next few random fluctuations will reverse this situation.  But it might not happen.  It might be that another fluctuation makes the air even denser in the denser half, and even less dense in the other half.  And so on.  The probabilities are astronomically crazy, but it's entirely possible that after enough time all the air will have moved to one half of the box.  Of course, it's very unlikely to stay there.  Quicker than the eye can see it will spread throughout the box again.  Probably.

So, the second law of thermodynamics isn't a law at all - it's just a tendency based on statistics.  Given enough time and a system full of randomly moving particles anything is possible, and everything possible will actually happen.

Why human consciousness isn't involved in quantum stuff

It was the early quantum physicists who are guilty.  They struggled with what quantum mechanics was all about and in doing so came up with thought experiments (such as Schrodinger's Cat) and phrases ('the observer effect') that messed up thinking about quantum mechanics for close to a century; a mess that shows little sign of fading.

One of the worst aspects of all this is the supposed connections between quantum mechanics and minds.  It's very easy to clear this up, and the connection between quantum mechanics and minds is very easy to express: none at all.  There is no connection between minds and consciousness and weird quantum effects, and observations by human minds aren't at all relevant to quantum measurement or wavefunction collapses or anything else.  The reason is clear: human minds don't operate on a quantum scale, and with very good reason: quantum mechanical effects are to do with probabilities while human brains need to deal with accuracy.  Fortunately for human mental processes the building blocks of the human brain - cells - are so large as to be beyond the scale of quantum strangeness.  What can happen in individual molecules within cells, such as transmission of energy in light capturing systems in plants, can involve quantum mechanics, but on the overall scale of cells, quantum strangeness doesn't happen.  This is good for the brain - it means it can use cells to wire things up in intricate patterns and get reliable results from signal processing by such cells.  Cells are the building blocks of the brain, but the basic units of operation of the brain are though to be larger - they are neural networks, consisting of connected groups of brain cells.  Neural networks are robust, and their functioning can survive both the death of individual cells and the addition of new cells.  So, if the removal and replacement of entire cells doesn't significantly effect what goes on in the brain, there is no way at all that any tiny, brief and incredibly fragile quantum effect is going to do anything at all.

So, we can't experience quantum effects, and there is also a good reason why we can't be 'quantum observers':  we are made of atoms.    At the smallest scale, we are made of parts that are absolutely typical of what the universe is made up on.  A quantum state that encounters our bodies doesn't experience anything different than if it encountered a brick wall.  There is no special 'observer' nature to the atoms of our bodies, and so to our cells, and so to our brains and so to our minds.  Because we aren't made of anything that is in anyway different from the rest of the universe, there is no reason to believe we have any effect on quantum systems that is in anyway different from the rest of the universe.

What we observe is what comes in through our senses.  Our senses can't pick up individual quantum events (with some very rare exceptions - astronauts can experience flashes of light which are the result of cosmic rays colliding with their eyes!).

Mystery and ineffability do not mix

Conciousness is said, by some, to be both mysterious and ineffable.  It is both beyond our present-day understanding and it has aspects that will be always beyond our explanation.  One of those aspects is the quale, the unit of the quality of experience, the atom of what-it-is-likeness.  It's clearly impossible that qualia can be reduced to an explanation which involves only the movement of particles, as, after all, how can the redness and scent of a rose, and the pain of its thorns, ever be expressed in the language of physics?

This argument has the feel of truth, because it's hard to deny the feeling of the inexplicable when we think of our conscious lives.  And yet, feeling isn't proof.   Feeling isn't evidence for anything but the feeling itself.  Feeling doesn't inform.

The argument is a mistake, an incorrect use of labels.  Mystery isn't an attribute of consciousness - it describes our beliefs.  Mystery is always provisional, because part of the nature of mystery is that you can never know when the mystery disappears.  While there is mystery there can be no claims to ineffability, as this is a claim of knowledge, knowledge that mystery denies.  A path cannot be claimed to be beyond navigation while there is no knowledge of the route of the path.

When it comes to consciousness, we don't know if a physical explanation will satisfy, but we do know that we aren't able to make judgements yet.  Until the physical is explored in great detail, insistence that consciousness is beyond the physical are hugely premature, even assuming this position is coherent.

Skepticism and Mr Deity

In this video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gI0ztr3Rn0E Brian Dalton (Mr Deity) satirises the idea that one can be both a believer and an atheist.  He's witty, but I don't agree with him about atheism.  I also don't agree with him about skepticism and astrology.  Skepticism is an approach to looking at reality.  Encouraging people to be skeptics is about showing them how they can start on a journey that's never ending.  You don't reject people who are thinking about starting on the journey because they haven't arrived at where you happen to be.  I have many positions based on skepticism and reason that I know other skeptics don't agree with.  I believe in criminalising gun ownership.  I don't believe in physical dualism.  I don't believe in deism.  Does my not believing in deism mean I should reject as a false skeptic someone who does?  What about a gun owner?

We skeptics are all on a journey, and the decision to take that journey is important; too important to reject those who are slower or who haven't travelled as far.

Depression

I'm not depressed.  I have felt sometimes desperately unhappy in recent months because of the loss of my dog, but that is lifting, and it's not depression.  It's nothing like depression, at least not my depression.  For me, depression has always been one thing: fear.  Depression for me has always been an anxiety attack that just won't end, not after hours, days, months.  It's a floating anxiety that hunts for new things to be anxious about.  I have had cosmic anxiety, a sweaty fear of imminent instant oblivion from some astronomical disaster.  I have had existential anxiety, a constant feeling of the strangeness of existence.  The fear hunts for new worries.  Meanwhile, I'm curled up trying desperately not to think, not to feel - a state that can last for weeks or even months.  It seems a paradox that while I'm feeling so very tired (another symptom of depression) my mind can work so hard to generate anxiety.

I'm lucky.  There are drugs that suit me and that deal with depression pretty quickly when it starts.  It's not a chronic condition for me.  Because when you are out of depression it's hard to recall what it felt like, I can't imagine how awful it must be for people like Stephen Fry who have chronic depression.

Depression is nothing to be ashamed of.  It's an illness, just like diabetes is an illness.  Some people have forms that can be managed, some don't.  But what we do need is much more openness about the illness so that there is no shame in admitting you have it, and no hesitation in getting help.

Same-sex marriage - the poison of 'conscience'

It looks certain now that same-sex marriage will become legal in the UK very soon.  This is a huge step forward for equality and should also give less ammunition to those who will continue to insist that same-sex relationships are inferior or wicked.  

However.. there will be legal protection, it is said, for those who don't wish to teach about same-sex relationships or perform marriage ceremonies on the basis of conscience.  This sounds reasonable, but it really isn't.  If the purpose of the new laws on same-sex marriage will be to give equality to same-sex relationships then there is no excuse for providing support for those who reject such equality.  'Conscience' is no justification for rejecting equality.  In the past, there has been rejection of rights for women and support for racist views on the basis of conscience.  There would be no acceptance of conscience-based racism these days.  

One of the justifications for same-sex marriage is to help reduce bigotry, and yet some of the most poisonous bigotry comes from those who denounce same-sex relationships as wicked.  It's the 'consciences' of such people that is a real problem.

There is either equality or there is not.  Equality except for protection of those who reject equality for religious reasons is not true equality.