Re: Is idealism fundamentally unthinkable ?

[Lawrence Crowell]

On Tuesday, October 22, 2019 at 1:42:20 PM UTC-5, Philip Thrift wrote:
>
>
>
> On Tuesday, October 22, 2019 at 12:18:45 PM UTC-5, Lawrence Crowell wrote:
>>
>> On Tuesday, October 22, 2019 at 9:25:11 AM UTC-5, Cosmin Visan wrote:
>>>
>>> That's such a silly argument. This only proves there are interactions 
>>> between consciousnesses.
>>>
>>> On Tuesday, 22 October 2019 14:25:04 UTC+3, Lawrence Crowell wrote:


 I think Samuel Johnson had a good reply to Bishop Berkeley on refuting 
 idealism, "If I kick this rock thusly," which Johnson did, "It then kicks 
 back." This is not a complete proof, but it works well enough FAPP.


>> It is not silly. It is empirical. If you are interested in some sort of 
>> firm "mathy" type of proof, then I would suggest the burden is more upon 
>> you to prove your case that idealism is true.  I have no particular 
>> interest in the subject to begin with, so I put the ball in your court. 
>> Prove your case. 
>>
>> LC
>>
>
>
>
> Empiricism cannot say whether it's (all) matter, consciousness, or numbers.
>
> What makes the latter two dismissible is they do not explain what we know 
> of our own consciousness - that it is finite in time and bounded in space.
>
> @philipthrift 
>

I am not saying "if I kick it it kicks back" means everything is matter. In 
fact the total mass-energy of the universe is zero. However, it does lend 
weight to the proposition there exists at least locally matter that is 
external to mind. Matter does not conform to what my mind might otherwise 
desire things to be. Statistical mechanics even shows that what we see as a 
desired order is just one rather small macrostate in the energy surface of 
phase space. Besides, our conscious lives are pretty fragile in the face of 
things.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jdf5EXo6I68

LC

-- 
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups 
"Everything List" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email 
to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com.
To view this discussion on the web visit 
https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/everything-list/625a046a-3536-4a5f-94b4-39d1869d1222%40googlegroups.com.

Re: Something deeply hidden in the forest

[Bruce Kellett]

On Wed, Oct 23, 2019 at 12:22 AM John Clark  wrote:

> On Mon, Oct 21, 2019 at 6:07 PM Bruce Kellett 
> wrote:
>
> >> That statement is worse than false, you're talking logical nonsense.
>>> The photograph itself contains which way information, if the photo has no
>>> interference pattern then you know the photon went through one and only one
>>> slit, and if it does have a interference pattern then you know the photon
>>> went through both slits. So if you have the ability and really and truly
>>> want to destroy the which way information *AFTER* the photon hits the
>>> photographic plate (or screen) then you MUST destroy the photograph too and
>>> do so before anybody looks at it. In 1801 Thomas Young was not a fool and
>>> that's why he had no desire to destroy his screen *BEFORE *he looked at
>>> it, and that's why he saw a interference pattern; but it's true if he had
>>> he would have not seen a interference pattern, he would not see anything at
>>> all because there would be no screen to look at because he destroyed it.
>>>
>>
> *> I quote from the Xiao-song Ma et al. paper (Zeilinger group): "The
>> authors proposed to combine the delayed-choice paradigm with the quantum
>> erasure concept. Since the welcher-weg information of the atoms is carried
>> by the photons, the choice of measurement of the photons -- either
>> revealing or erasing  the atoms' welcher-weg information -- can be delayed
>> until 'long after the atoms have passed' the photon detectors at the double
>> slit.*
>>
>
> Bruce it clearly said "*the photon detectors at the double slit*",
> and that detector, the one right at the double slit, is the very thing that
> produces the which way information that you may or may not erase!
>

As usual, your basic dishonesty is revealed by the fact that you have
deleted the all-important following sentence: "The later measurement of the
photons 'decides' whether the atoms can show interference or not even after
the atoms have been detected."

I have not confused the 'welcher-weg' photons with the atoms that pass the
slits and show interference or not. Ma is describing an earlier experiment
by Scully et al. which did not use the photon down-conversion that Ma et
al. used. So Scully et al. detected the passage of atoms through the slits
by using photons. Subsequent detection of the photons could reveal
welcher-weg information, but that could be done long after the atoms hit
the screen and showed interference or not. You should read more carefully
before you jump in and accuse others of not understanding the situation.

Bruce



>   You're confusing the photon detector that is directly at the slit, with
> the far distant interference detector which could be a photographic plate
> or a screen or electronic device; that second detector will see or not
> see a interference pattern depending on if the which way information that
> the first detector has produced has been erased or not. And yes, the
> decision to erase or not to erase the which way information could be
> delayed for a billion years after it passed the first detector provided the
> two detectors were a billion light years apart.
>

-- 
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups 
"Everything List" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email 
to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com.
To view this discussion on the web visit 
https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/everything-list/CAFxXSLTxBzEVBfbgELCny3DJtOPj9bg13%3DA2v5WQXS1DUT7v_Q%40mail.gmail.com.

Re: Is idealism fundamentally unthinkable ?

[Philip Thrift]

On Tuesday, October 22, 2019 at 12:18:45 PM UTC-5, Lawrence Crowell wrote:
>
> On Tuesday, October 22, 2019 at 9:25:11 AM UTC-5, Cosmin Visan wrote:
>>
>> That's such a silly argument. This only proves there are interactions 
>> between consciousnesses.
>>
>> On Tuesday, 22 October 2019 14:25:04 UTC+3, Lawrence Crowell wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>> I think Samuel Johnson had a good reply to Bishop Berkeley on refuting 
>>> idealism, "If I kick this rock thusly," which Johnson did, "It then kicks 
>>> back." This is not a complete proof, but it works well enough FAPP.
>>>
>>>
> It is not silly. It is empirical. If you are interested in some sort of 
> firm "mathy" type of proof, then I would suggest the burden is more upon 
> you to prove your case that idealism is true.  I have no particular 
> interest in the subject to begin with, so I put the ball in your court. 
> Prove your case. 
>
> LC
>



Empiricism cannot say whether it's (all) matter, consciousness, or numbers.

What makes the latter two dismissible is they do not explain what we know 
of our own consciousness - that it is finite in time and bounded in space.

@philipthrift 

-- 
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups 
"Everything List" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email 
to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com.
To view this discussion on the web visit 
https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/everything-list/5742eb5d-6726-4305-81e8-5b86dbb74095%40googlegroups.com.

Re: Is idealism fundamentally unthinkable ?

['Brent Meeker' via Everything List]

On 10/22/2019 4:49 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:
It can be proved that we cannot explain (or prove the existence) of a 
universal machinery without assuming one, so we cannot do better.


But that's equally true of primary matter, ideas, or whatever your 
fundamental ontology is.  It's just a consequence of taking it as 
fundamental.  If it had an explanation or proof it wouldn't be 
fundamental.  So it's not some profound evidence for your theory.


Brent

--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups 
"Everything List" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email 
to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com.
To view this discussion on the web visit 
https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/everything-list/4b9e2247-1e27-3ec3-63e4-a38523362a0d%40verizon.net.

Re: Is idealism fundamentally unthinkable ?

[Lawrence Crowell]

On Tuesday, October 22, 2019 at 9:25:11 AM UTC-5, Cosmin Visan wrote:
>
> That's such a silly argument. This only proves there are interactions 
> between consciousnesses.
>
> On Tuesday, 22 October 2019 14:25:04 UTC+3, Lawrence Crowell wrote:
>>
>>
>> I think Samuel Johnson had a good reply to Bishop Berkeley on refuting 
>> idealism, "If I kick this rock thusly," which Johnson did, "It then kicks 
>> back." This is not a complete proof, but it works well enough FAPP.
>>
>>
It is not silly. It is empirical. If you are interested in some sort of 
firm "mathy" type of proof, then I would suggest the burden is more upon 
you to prove your case that idealism is true.  I have no particular 
interest in the subject to begin with, so I put the ball in your court. 
Prove your case. 

LC

-- 
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups 
"Everything List" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email 
to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com.
To view this discussion on the web visit 
https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/everything-list/2bce70a5-e527-4995-83f1-71c6ca957cfc%40googlegroups.com.

Re: Something deeply hidden in the forest

['scerir' via Everything List]

> Il 22 ottobre 2019 alle 10.14 Philip Thrift  ha 
> scritto:
> 
> "Nor do they demonstrate ‘temporal nonlocality’ in their ‘delayed choice’ 
> form, beyond standard EPR correlations."
> 
> or
> 
> "Nor do they demonstrate ‘temporal nonlocality’ in their ‘delayed choice’ 
> form beyond standard EPR correlations."
> (removing the comma in the original sentence)
> 
> 
> That's it right there! Very sly.
> 

Temporal nonlocality = Retrocausality?

"Our work demonstrates and con firms that whether the correlations between two 
entangled photons reveal welcherweg information or an interference pattern of 
one (system) photon, depends on the choice of measurement on the other 
(environment) photon, even when all the events on the two sides that can be 
space-like separated, are space-like separated. The fact that it is possible to 
decide whether a wave or particle feature manifests itself long after - and 
even space-like separated from - the measurement teaches us that we should not 
have any naive realistic picture for interpreting quantum phenomena. Any 
explanation of what goes on in a specifi c individual observation of one photon 
has to take into account the whole experimental apparatus of the complete 
quantum state consisting of both photons, and it can only make sense after all 
information concerning complementary variables has been recorded. Our results 
demonstrate that the view point that the system photon behaves either defi 
nitely as a wave or defi nitely as a particle would require faster-than-light 
communication. Since this would be in strong tension with the special theory of 
relativity, we believe that such a view point should be given up entirely."

https://arxiv.org/abs/1206.6578 https://arxiv.org/abs/1206.6578, , page 7

"Quantum erasure with causally disconnected choice"

Authors: Xiao-song Ma 
https://arxiv.org/search/quant-ph?searchtype=author&query=Ma%2C+X , Johannes 
Kofler https://arxiv.org/search/quant-ph?searchtype=author&query=Kofler%2C+J , 
Angie Qarry 
https://arxiv.org/search/quant-ph?searchtype=author&query=Qarry%2C+A , Nuray 
Tetik https://arxiv.org/search/quant-ph?searchtype=author&query=Tetik%2C+N , 
Thomas Scheidl 
https://arxiv.org/search/quant-ph?searchtype=author&query=Scheidl%2C+T , Rupert 
Ursin https://arxiv.org/search/quant-ph?searchtype=author&query=Ursin%2C+R , 
Sven Ramelow 
https://arxiv.org/search/quant-ph?searchtype=author&query=Ramelow%2C+S , Thomas 
Herbst https://arxiv.org/search/quant-ph?searchtype=author&query=Herbst%2C+T , 
Lothar Ratschbacher 
https://arxiv.org/search/quant-ph?searchtype=author&query=Ratschbacher%2C+L , 
Alessandro Fedrizzi 
https://arxiv.org/search/quant-ph?searchtype=author&query=Fedrizzi%2C+A , 
Thomas Jennewein 
https://arxiv.org/search/quant-ph?searchtype=author&query=Jennewein%2C+T , 
Anton Zeilinger 
https://arxiv.org/search/quant-ph?searchtype=author&query=Zeilinger%2C+A

-- 
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups 
"Everything List" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email 
to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com.
To view this discussion on the web visit 
https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/everything-list/1287409330.1326216.1571760350886%40mail1.libero.it.

Re: Is idealism fundamentally unthinkable ?

['Cosmin Visan' via Everything List]

That's such a silly argument. This only proves there are interactions 
between consciousnesses.

On Tuesday, 22 October 2019 14:25:04 UTC+3, Lawrence Crowell wrote:
>
>
> I think Samuel Johnson had a good reply to Bishop Berkeley on refuting 
> idealism, "If I kick this rock thusly," which Johnson did, "It then kicks 
> back." This is not a complete proof, but it works well enough FAPP.
>
>

-- 
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups 
"Everything List" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email 
to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com.
To view this discussion on the web visit 
https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/everything-list/6d72d11d-af82-4a2e-9638-f9774861b753%40googlegroups.com.

Re: Is idealism fundamentally unthinkable ?

['Cosmin Visan' via Everything List]

Not my consciousness, but consciousness generally.

On Tuesday, 22 October 2019 14:06:02 UTC+3, Philip Thrift wrote:
>
>
> You posit *consciousness is all there is*.
>
> How do you account for it having a finite existence (bounded by birth to 
> death of an individual)?
>
> With matter, there is an explanation.
>
> @philipthrift
>

-- 
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups 
"Everything List" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email 
to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com.
To view this discussion on the web visit 
https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/everything-list/1984505a-6846-4f88-9b96-2e68cbea2e20%40googlegroups.com.

Re: Something deeply hidden in the forest

[John Clark]

On Mon, Oct 21, 2019 at 6:07 PM Bruce Kellett  wrote:

>> That statement is worse than false, you're talking logical nonsense. The
>> photograph itself contains which way information, if the photo has no
>> interference pattern then you know the photon went through one and only one
>> slit, and if it does have a interference pattern then you know the photon
>> went through both slits. So if you have the ability and really and truly
>> want to destroy the which way information *AFTER* the photon hits the
>> photographic plate (or screen) then you MUST destroy the photograph too and
>> do so before anybody looks at it. In 1801 Thomas Young was not a fool and
>> that's why he had no desire to destroy his screen *BEFORE *he looked at
>> it, and that's why he saw a interference pattern; but it's true if he had
>> he would have not seen a interference pattern, he would not see anything at
>> all because there would be no screen to look at because he destroyed it.
>>
>
*> I quote from the Xiao-song Ma et al. paper (Zeilinger group): "The
> authors proposed to combine the delayed-choice paradigm with the quantum
> erasure concept. Since the welcher-weg information of the atoms is carried
> by the photons, the choice of measurement of the photons -- either
> revealing or erasing  the atoms' welcher-weg information -- can be delayed
> until 'long after the atoms have passed' the photon detectors at the double
> slit.*
>

Bruce it clearly said "*the photon detectors at the double slit*", and
that detector, the one right at the double slit, is the very thing that
produces the which way information that you may or may not erase!  You're
confusing the photon detector that is directly at the slit, with the far
distant interference detector which could be a photographic plate or a
screen or electronic device; that second detector will see or not see a
interference pattern depending on if the which way information that the
first detector has produced has been erased or not. And yes, the decision
to erase or not to erase the which way information could be delayed for a
billion years after it passed the first detector provided the two detectors
were a billion light years apart.

John K Clark

-- 
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups 
"Everything List" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email 
to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com.
To view this discussion on the web visit 
https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/everything-list/CAJPayv1b2RAt6BPR6FrLRXPe%3DiYWT44nCD3qVp8AWODtDiREJA%40mail.gmail.com.

Re: Is idealism fundamentally unthinkable ?

[Philip Thrift]

On Tuesday, October 22, 2019 at 6:59:52 AM UTC-5, Bruno Marchal wrote:
>
>
> On 22 Oct 2019, at 13:06, Philip Thrift > 
> wrote:
>
>
>
> On Tuesday, October 22, 2019 at 4:55:33 AM UTC-5, Cosmin Visan wrote:
>>
>> I never understood this "if consciousness is all there is, then it is 
>> allpowerful". How does that follow ?
>>
>
> You posit *consciousness is all there is*.
>
> How do you account for it having a finite existence (bounded by birth to 
> death of an individual)?
>
> With matter, there is an explanation.
>
>
> Only through an identity thesis (brain-mind) which requires actual 
> infinities incompatible with Mechanism.
> With mechanism we explain consciousness (the feeling of appearances) and 
> matter (why some of those feeling are first person plural and sharable, and 
> why it stabilises, … or not, which we can test).
>
> That does not make the mechanist explanation true, but it becomes 
> testable, and rather well test if we are willing to take seriously quantum 
> mechanics without collapse (à-la Everett).
>
> Bruno
>
>
>
But with pure arithmetic, it's the same problem as pure consciousness.

If consciousness is a pure arithmetical machine (PAM), why should PAM have 
a lifetime beginning (birth) and end (death)?

A purely mathematical Turing machine exists outside time. It doesn't have a 
birth and a death. It just exists as Platonic mathematical abstraction for 
all time.

@philipthrift. 

-- 
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups 
"Everything List" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email 
to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com.
To view this discussion on the web visit 
https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/everything-list/aae72905-9dcb-47fa-8cff-f61025e80996%40googlegroups.com.

Re: Superposition Misinterpreted

[Bruno Marchal]

> On 21 Oct 2019, at 13:40, Bruce Kellett  wrote:
> 
> On Mon, Oct 21, 2019 at 10:18 PM Bruno Marchal  > wrote:
> 
> As you seem to disbelieve in the mechanist theory of mind, there is no 
> problem with your approach, even less if you limit yourself to the study of 
> local predictions FAPP. But from a fundamental science, that does not work.
> 
> Sorry Bruno, but that is fundamental science, and it works very well indeed.

The physical prediction works only with the assumption of one-brain/one-mind, 
which is falsified when we assume that the brain is Turing emulable at some 
level relevant for our mind to persist after a functional substitution made at 
that level.



> Your “mechanism"

It is not mine, it is Descartes' one, or Darwin’s one, in the version of 
Turing’s notion of digital mechanism. The opposite of “mechanism” is the 
assumption that there is some magic operating in the body, so as to select the 
computation out of the arithmetical reality (which executes all computations in 
its extreme redundant and structured way). With mechanism, we must explain from 
that structure the appearance and stability of the observable, or we put 
(again) the mind-body problem under the rug.


> doesn't work because you can't even explain why there is a basis problem in 
> quantum mechanics.

I don’t see this. You can elaborate. Up to now, we cannot even explain with 
mechanism the existence of any basis, but at least, we got the relation 
consciousness/physics right, without adding actual infinities and magic action. 
It explains also why there is observable, which physics just assumes, and 
assumes a stability which has to be explained if we accept Mechanism (the older 
metaphysics in history).

Bruno



> 
> Bruce
> 
> -- 
> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups 
> "Everything List" group.
> To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an 
> email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com 
> .
> To view this discussion on the web visit 
> https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/everything-list/CAFxXSLRP1iVJCC7s8cZYP%2BRdovKP-bJ3cZCWrLijZG417g8QfA%40mail.gmail.com
>  
> .

-- 
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups 
"Everything List" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email 
to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com.
To view this discussion on the web visit 
https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/everything-list/A4BAE181-47CF-4DD2-92EF-01CEC542BECD%40ulb.ac.be.

Re: Superposition Misinterpreted

[Bruno Marchal]

> On 21 Oct 2019, at 13:17, Bruce Kellett  wrote:
> 
> On Mon, Oct 21, 2019 at 10:08 PM Bruno Marchal  > wrote:
> 
> As you cannot track the behaviour of all molecules, you are unable to extract 
> interference pattern from that superposition, and it will look like a mixed 
> state. But without collapse of the wave, the cat, the molecules and yourself 
> will remain in the superposition state and this forever, and whatever base is 
> chosen to describe the wave describing you, the molecules and the cat.
> 
> Hilbert space might be independent of the basis chosen to describe it. But 
> our experience is not independent of the basis.

Our experience of observer depends on a base, but that very fact remains the 
same whatever base is chosen to describe the composite system “observer + base”.



> And it is our experience that science seeks to explain. Explanation is not 
> independent of the basis.


The local explanation is like that, but the “big picture” does not depend of 
the choice of the base. I think we agree.

Bruno



> 
> Bruce
> 
> -- 
> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups 
> "Everything List" group.
> To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an 
> email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com 
> .
> To view this discussion on the web visit 
> https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/everything-list/CAFxXSLSnTe-K3Sg1BFiDGfayUrkeqDWXOSiJrw1ZDJVBv1OQAQ%40mail.gmail.com
>  
> .

-- 
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups 
"Everything List" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email 
to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com.
To view this discussion on the web visit 
https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/everything-list/E080A388-4DC2-4CB4-96FA-07F32A71015F%40ulb.ac.be.

Re: Is idealism fundamentally unthinkable ?

[Bruno Marchal]

> On 22 Oct 2019, at 13:06, Philip Thrift  wrote:
> 
> 
> 
> On Tuesday, October 22, 2019 at 4:55:33 AM UTC-5, Cosmin Visan wrote:
> I never understood this "if consciousness is all there is, then it is 
> allpowerful". How does that follow ?
> 
> You posit consciousness is all there is.
> 
> How do you account for it having a finite existence (bounded by birth to 
> death of an individual)?
> 
> With matter, there is an explanation.

Only through an identity thesis (brain-mind) which requires actual infinities 
incompatible with Mechanism.
With mechanism we explain consciousness (the feeling of appearances) and matter 
(why some of those feeling are first person plural and sharable, and why it 
stabilises, … or not, which we can test).

That does not make the mechanist explanation true, but it becomes testable, and 
rather well test if we are willing to take seriously quantum mechanics without 
collapse (à-la Everett).

Bruno



> 
> @philipthrift
> 
> -- 
> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups 
> "Everything List" group.
> To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an 
> email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com 
> .
> To view this discussion on the web visit 
> https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/everything-list/0c62b308-15ed-472d-b867-b582f1e00e83%40googlegroups.com
>  
> .

-- 
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups 
"Everything List" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email 
to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com.
To view this discussion on the web visit 
https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/everything-list/7E340B39-E0DD-431C-B008-343D54AEC0C3%40ulb.ac.be.

Re: Is idealism fundamentally unthinkable ?

[Bruno Marchal]

> On 22 Oct 2019, at 08:47, 'Cosmin Visan' via Everything List 
>  wrote:
> 
> Prove there is something outside consciousness!

In which theory?

Proving is a relative notion. 

Proving a proposition does not make it necessarily true? It depends on the 
axioms, which usually are not provable or justifiable. At some point we have to 
rely to our intuition.

The argument “prove there is something outside consciousness” is close to 
solipsism. I certainly bet that you and your body is outside “my human 
consciousness”.

The real problem of assuming consciousness, or assuming matter, is that this 
assumes what some of us want to understand/explain from simpler notions.

Bruno



> 
> On Tuesday, 22 October 2019 03:27:03 UTC+3, Lawrence Crowell wrote:
> 
> Idealism is of course rather silly. The idea that all that exists is 
> consciousness is a "feel good" idea that is utterly preposterous.
> 
> 
> -- 
> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups 
> "Everything List" group.
> To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an 
> email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com 
> .
> To view this discussion on the web visit 
> https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/everything-list/c5b2a509-2cdb-410b-8d1f-630f39db0d46%40googlegroups.com
>  
> .

-- 
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups 
"Everything List" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email 
to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com.
To view this discussion on the web visit 
https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/everything-list/DB4F9B3E-AD5D-44E3-8F38-407D36803C2A%40ulb.ac.be.

Re: Is idealism fundamentally unthinkable ?

[Bruno Marchal]

> On 21 Oct 2019, at 14:12, 'Cosmin Visan' via Everything List 
>  wrote:
> 
> Probably the single big confusion that lead to the creation of materialism is 
> the confusion between ontological states and their epistemic content. People 
> experienced the ontological state with epistemic content of "chair outside 
> me" and they took the epistemic content as representing an ontological state 
> of the world, so they thought there really is a "chair outside me", when the 
> real ontological state was that of a state of consciousness. Therefore, it 
> appears that in order to get rid of materialism is to stop making this 
> confusion. The problem that arises is that no matter how hard we would try to 
> do that, any retreat from the epistemic content of an ontological state will 
> only gives us just another ontological state with the only difference being a 
> different epistemic content. No matter what, we cannot escape epistemic 
> contents. Is idealism therefore fundamentally unthinkable ?
> 
> I opened this topic after reading about process philosophy. They say that the 
> solution to understanding the world is to not think in terms of "substances", 
> but in terms of "events". The problem is that "events" is also an epistemic 
> content, in the sense that the concept of "event" is extrapolated from the 
> subjective feeling of passage of time. But the "passage of time" is just a 
> quality/an epistemic state of consciousness. To take it as revealing to us a 
> deep character of the world is to do the same mistake materialism is doing. 
> So, in order to avoid the mistake of materialism is to recognize this fact, 
> and thus to reject that "event" can be anything ontologically meaningful. Is 
> there any way to escape this vicious circle of confusions between ontological 
> states and epistemic contents and get to an idealistic conception of the 
> world, or is idealism fundamentally unthinkable ?


It is thinkable, but when we assume Mechanism, The appearance of matter must be 
explained from the assumption of the existence of a universal machinery (in the 
sense of Turing, Church). The natural numbers with addition and multiplication 
is such a universal machinery so we can start from that. 
It can be proved that we cannot explain (or prove the existence) of a universal 
machinery without assuming one, so we cannot do better. Then physics and 
psychology/theology can be extracted, constructively, so we can test Mechanism 
(and upon to now, thanks to QM, it fits very well).

Is it idealism? If you consider the numbers as God’s idea, it is idealism. If 
not, it is “only” immaterialism. It is a neutral monism (neither mind nor 
matter) explaining well both the appearance of mind and the appearance of 
matter. The universal machine/number have a very rich neoplatonic-like type of 
theology, close to Moderatus of Gades (first century) and Plotinus and its 
followers, like Proclus notably.

Bruno




> 
> -- 
> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups 
> "Everything List" group.
> To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an 
> email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com 
> .
> To view this discussion on the web visit 
> https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/everything-list/b30ad355-dc71-4657-9b44-0e194b7234bf%40googlegroups.com
>  
> .

-- 
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups 
"Everything List" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email 
to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com.
To view this discussion on the web visit 
https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/everything-list/9E3EB473-4C6C-475D-825B-679AF550C97C%40ulb.ac.be.

Re: Is idealism fundamentally unthinkable ?

[Lawrence Crowell]

On Tuesday, October 22, 2019 at 1:47:58 AM UTC-5, Cosmin Visan wrote:
>
> Prove there is something outside consciousness!
>

I think Samuel Johnson had a good reply to Bishop Berkeley on refuting 
idealism, "If I kick this rock thusly," which Johnson did, "It then kicks 
back." This is not a complete proof, but it works well enough FAPP.

LC
 

>
> On Tuesday, 22 October 2019 03:27:03 UTC+3, Lawrence Crowell wrote:
>>
>>
>> Idealism is of course rather silly. The idea that all that exists is 
>> consciousness is a "feel good" idea that is utterly preposterous.
>>
>>

-- 
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups 
"Everything List" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email 
to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com.
To view this discussion on the web visit 
https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/everything-list/556f8a1c-50f4-489c-aa4f-3feeb9ce0606%40googlegroups.com.

Re: Is idealism fundamentally unthinkable ?

[Philip Thrift]

On Tuesday, October 22, 2019 at 4:55:33 AM UTC-5, Cosmin Visan wrote:
>
> I never understood this "if consciousness is all there is, then it is 
> allpowerful". How does that follow ?
>

You posit *consciousness is all there is*.

How do you account for it having a finite existence (bounded by birth to 
death of an individual)?

With matter, there is an explanation.

@philipthrift

-- 
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups 
"Everything List" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email 
to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com.
To view this discussion on the web visit 
https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/everything-list/0c62b308-15ed-472d-b867-b582f1e00e83%40googlegroups.com.

Re: Is idealism fundamentally unthinkable ?

['Cosmin Visan' via Everything List]

I never understood this "if consciousness is all there is, then it is 
allpowerful". How does that follow ?

-- 
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups 
"Everything List" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email 
to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com.
To view this discussion on the web visit 
https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/everything-list/c1a1ee0f-e1c4-4cf1-b4d7-297afe5bf931%40googlegroups.com.

Re: Is idealism fundamentally unthinkable ?

[Philip Thrift]

If consciousness is all there is, then why do our consciousnesses don't go 
back 100 years, or 1 years, or whatever? Do you think yours does? If 
there were no material births (because there is no matter), there is no 
reason you you shouldn't remember things from millions of years ago, 
because there is no material constraint on the eternity of pure 
consciousness.

@philipthrift

On Tuesday, October 22, 2019 at 1:47:58 AM UTC-5, Cosmin Visan wrote:
>
> Prove there is something outside consciousness!
>
> On Tuesday, 22 October 2019 03:27:03 UTC+3, Lawrence Crowell wrote:
>>
>>
>> Idealism is of course rather silly. The idea that all that exists is 
>> consciousness is a "feel good" idea that is utterly preposterous.
>>
>>

-- 
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups 
"Everything List" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email 
to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com.
To view this discussion on the web visit 
https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/everything-list/640f9fb5-9a28-4220-9374-3427eec5071e%40googlegroups.com.

Re: Something deeply hidden in the forest

[Philip Thrift]

On Monday, October 21, 2019 at 5:42:46 PM UTC-5, Brent wrote:
>
>
> Here's a good paper analyzing the experiment and showing it's entirely 
> explained just by the non-local correlation which is exemplified in the 
> effect of the space-like measurement choice.
>
> https://arxiv.org/ftp/arxiv/papers/1905/1905.03137.pdf
>
> Brent
>
>
"Nor do they demonstrate ‘temporal nonlocality’ in their ‘delayed choice’ 
form, beyond standard EPR correlations."

or

"Nor do they demonstrate ‘temporal nonlocality’ in their ‘delayed choice’ 
form beyond standard EPR correlations."
(removing the comma in the original sentence)


That's it right there! Very sly.

@philipthrift 

-- 
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups 
"Everything List" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email 
to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com.
To view this discussion on the web visit 
https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/everything-list/20c64eb2-d67d-4561-af15-2cb93eaa8880%40googlegroups.com.