On Sunday, January 27, 2013 10:24:57 PM UTC-5, Brent wrote: > > On 1/27/2013 7:13 PM, Craig Weinberg wrote: > > > > On Sunday, January 27, 2013 10:06:37 PM UTC-5, Brent wrote: >> >> On 1/27/2013 2:35 PM, 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. >> >> >> There's a desire to respect the Copernican principle (don't assume we're >> 'special') but also to avoid randomness. This then leads to the hypothesis >> that *everything* (in some sense) exists. That way you avoid randomness >> without assuming that we're special. >> >> >> 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? >> >> >> To say we're chosen is just another way to avoid randomness. >> > > To say we are avoiding randomness is to assume that there is something > other than randomness to be embraced. > > > That's what being 'chosen' implies - that there is a 'choser', an > alternative teleology to be embraced. >
There doesn't have to be just one chooser. The universe could be made of choosers that can appear random when seen from a distant or incomplete frame of reference. But in a universe where there were no choosers, how would it be possible for anything to be 'embraced', let alone non-randomness? > > > Why should anything that exists want to avoid randomness? > > > Ask somebody else, I'm not avoiding it. > I'm talking about in principle, ontologically, how is it possible for anything to 'want to avoid randomness' if there is no ontological alternative? > > Brent > -- 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. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
