[colemannugent]

I'm afraid I still don't understand. Are you arguing that there is some utility in considering "concepts or ideas" non-physical from an ontological perspective? Because I think we both agree they're solidly physical in the sense that a "thought" can be reduced to chemical signaling.

On the QM side, I'm pretty sure that you're incorrect in your postscript. It was my understanding that certain physical processes can only be understood though probability and that talking in terms of wavefunctions is the most correct way to do that.

[joeberon]

> Because I think we both agree they're solidly physical in the sense that a "thought" can be reduced to chemical signaling.

I don’t agree with that. I think there is an inseparable spiritual element that justifies the subjective experience.

For the QM part, that still does not mean that ontologically the probabilities have a physical reality. Google “interpretations of quantum mechanics”, we have very little idea of what quantum mechanics actually means yet. We can set up the problems and do the maths but no one even knows what exactly it means to do a measurement (again Google “measurement problem”). I am an expert in quantum mechanics (it is my job) so I would be happy to answer questions about it in the morning.