On Sunday, January 27, 2013 5:35:22 PM UTC-5, freqflyer07281972 wrote: > > Hey everyone, > > I've been following this group a lot. I read it everyday and enjoy all of > the wonderful stuff that comes up, even if some of it tends towards ad > hominem, argument from authority, and petitio principi. Hey, we're humans, > right? That means we get to make these fallacies, in good conscience or > bad. > > Anyway, I wondered about what anyone/everyone thought about the notion of > 'chosenness' as a way to understand where we are here in the world. It > seems to me that concepts like MWI, Bruno's comp/mech hypothesis and the > 'dreams of numbers' ideas of subjectivity, and even Leibniz's 'best of all > possible worlds' don't actually do something like flee away from our > everyday responsibility to accept the basic fact that we have been CHOSEN > -- and when I say this, please don't immediately put a bunch of theological > baggage on it. I'm not saying God chose this reality as opposed to another, > although this might be a convenient shorthand. But what I am saying is > that, out of all the staggering possibilities that we know exist with > regards to our universe, our galaxy, our solar system, our planet, our > society, and even our individual selves, things could have very easily > turned out to be different than they were. The fact that they have turned > out in just this way and not another indicates this kind of chosenness, and > along with it, comes a certain degree of responsibility, I guess? > > It seems to me that all the various 'everything' hypotheses (MWI, comp, > Leibniz, and others) try to apply the Copernican principle to its breaking > point. True enough, there is from a purely 3p point of view nothing special > about our cosmic situation re: our planet and our sun. BUT, from an > existential 1p point of view there is a huge privilege that we have, i.e. > we are sentient observers, who love, feel pain, feel desire, and long for > transcendence. > > Moreover, the 3p point of view is a pure abstraction, kind of like eating > the picture of a meal rather than the actual meal. How do we know what any > kind of 3p account of truth would be? What would it even look like? A > universe with no observers. A falling tree without a hearer/listener. This, > to me, is nonsense. > > Aren't things like MWI of quantum physics and comp hypothesis of universal > dovetailer trying to, at a fundamental and existential level, an attempt to > try to run away from the concreteness and absolute 'givenness' (gift) of > the world as we find it? And isn't our role, in creation, as freely > choosing beings (sorry, John Clark, free will is more than just a noise) to > choose what will make other people with us now and in the future feel more > love and less pain? And isn't this why we were chosen? > > I'll go back to lurking now, but I'd appreciate any thoughts you might > have on this reflection of mine. > > Cheers, > > Dan >
What I propose is that a complete description of the universe must include: 1. The experience of significance. This speaks to the idea of chosen-ness, of choice, of free will, of improbability as a quality as the subject of appreciation. 2. The experience of the significance of the idea of insignificance. I word "the significance of the idea of insignificance" in this convoluted way to reflect the natural sequence in which the revelation of objectivity has occurred across all human societies. Since as far as I know: a. *all* cultures begin their history steeped in animistic shamanism, divination, creation myths and charismatic deities and b. *no* cultures develop eliminative materialism, mathematics, and mechanism earlier than philosophy or religion, and c. *all* individuals experience the development of their own psyche through imaginative, emotional, and irrational or superstitious thought d. *no* individuals are born with a worldview based only on generic facts and objectivity. Healthy children do not experience their lives in an indifferent and detached mode of observation but rather grow into analytical modes of thought through experience of the public world. We are so convinced by the sophisticated realism of objective insignificance that we tend to project it into a default position, when in fact, it does not occur naturally that way. It is we who choose subjectively whether or not to project objectivity beneath our own ability to choose it. The fact is, that were it that simple; were objectivity be the final word, then we should have had no reason to be separated from it in the first place. The whole notion of illusion depends on the non-illusory capacity of our own reason to deduce and discern illusion from reality, so that to question our own ability to freely choose, to some extent, how we reason, gives us no possibility of ever contacting any truth to deny. Looking at 1. and 2. more scientifically, I would link significance with teleology (choice) and insignificance with teleonomy (chance). I have proposed that while these two opposite potentials seem mutually exclusive to us from our subjective experience, that from an absolute perspective, they are in adjacent ranges of the same continuum. I suggest that the subjective experience of sensation, and nested layers of meta-sensation constitute significance, and that this significance is what allows the possibility of choice based on personal preference. It is the choice capacity itself which divides the sense of the world for the chooser between the chosen and the unchosen. This ontological fracture is what gives the impression that there is a difference between chance and choice and creates the possibility of feedback loops in which we can both question a. the reality of choice by choosing to adopt the perspective of impersonal chance, as well as b. question the reality of chance by choosing to adopt the perspective of super-personal chance. In both cases we cannot arrive at a perspective without exercising our will to choose one over the other, even for hypothetical consideration. There is no ontological possibility of our abdicating our choice altogether, although the position which elevates insignificance compels through an appeal to do just that. This is true of contemporary forms of science in general, as the outside-in bias inherently demands compulsory and involuntary acceptance of facts and unambiguous inferences between them rather than recognizing the self-same subjective autonomy which drives the scientific consideration from beginning to end. Science relies on peer-review to enforce the belief in disbelief - the faith that peer-review itself is an unexplained artifact of human weakness, and that the rest of the universe has no need for such deliberations, nor could it generate them even if it were useful. In practical terms, what this means is that a. you can choose to pursue the chosen-feeling significance of your experience, but you risk increasing possibility of delusion and conflicting intuitions. b. you can choose to pursue the unchosen analytical feeling of the significance of insignificance, but you risk cutting yourself off from the most unbelievable experiences of personal truth and participation. In both cases the potential rewards are equally intense. If you open the door, you open the door to Heaven and Hell. If you close the door, you can be more effective as a practical agent on Earth. Sometimes the choice seems to be coerced by circumstance. Sometimes we open the door in some contexts more often and close it more in others. Our choices can change and evolve. Sometimes it doesn't matter either way. The universe that we find ourselves in is chosen on the inside, chance on the outside, but it is only because we are inside that we can discern the difference. Without an inside, nothing can choose to recognize a difference. Craig -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected]. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en. 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