Re: Why I am I?
On 06 Dec 2009, at 05:07, benjayk wrote: Bruno Marchal wrote: It is actually an art to find the dosage and the timing so that you understand better some, well, let us say statements you get there. One is just impossible to memorize, or you stay there, and a copy is send here. This is a copy effect experimented by a reasonable proportion of users. This is confusing me. When you say a copy is send it sounds like the copy is not the real thing. How can you distinguish copy and original? The copy probably won't say it is just a copy (as opposed to the original). You are right. It is even a key point in most thought experiments we discussed here. But we do suppose there that the copy are perfect, (a notion which makes sense with the computationalist hyp.). And what do you mean by stay there? Forever? Why should you stay there (can you choose)? And where is there? Is it forgetfulness oder remembrance? It is very difficult to describe any first person experience. We cannot even describe normal state of consciousness, so it is even harder to describe altered state of consciousness. Roughly speaking, such salvia copy-experiences I am describing, which occur clearly about a hundred times (among about 600 hundred hits) could be described in the following way, but I know it is quite paradoxal. I have to separate the first half of the experience from the second half, because they are strictly disconnected. First half: I am bruno marchal and I decide to smoke some salvia. After the hit I find myself in paradise. I am rather happy and, only for that reason, I want to stay there, and I insist for staying there. Some entity tells me that I can indeed stay there, and that they will send back on earth some copy to finish my job (but also to keep salvia legal!). I say OK, and I am witness of the beginning of the copy process ... Second half: ... I am. I am in paradise since infinity. I enjoy the being state, but there there is no past, and no future. I have no memory, but still a sort of personality. Suddenly I get memories and I think oh no, not again, because at that moment I have the feeling that something happens, which has already happened a lot of times. The memories get more and more precise, and at some point I accept them, but does not recognize them as personal memories, then I got the last memories which are I want to stay in paradise, and I understand that I am a copy send to earth to finish his job. I find myself on earth, but during some hours, I have still the memory of having always lived there, and almost got the feeling that the smoking of salvia made me going from paradise to earth. The first time I did that type of salvia experience, I kept during three days the strong feeling of being completely refresh or reborn, like if I was just on earth since some days. Everything looked as completely new. I did not feel any memory as being personal, and that has been indeed very useful useful for doing some annoying job, and taking annoying decisions, I have to make. That feeling faded away the fourth day after the experience. This staying there thought is chasing me on many of my psychedlic experience. I find it very scary, often it really hinders me to enjoy the experience, because the thought but I don't want to leave 'my reality' forever comes and makes me unable to relax. I did experience such things as well, but only with weed, in my youth, or with mushrooms (recently). In that case you feel a distinctively different sort of consciousness, and you may panic with the idea of staying in that stage. But with salvia it is different. You can sometimes feel like if the normal state of consciousness' is the altered state you want to avoid. Some people lives a similar experience except that, instead of feeling like being in paradise, they feel like being in hell. They live the memory retrieval and the coming back with a huge relief and they got the feeling they were dead, and got another chance ... Some even conclude they have to change their life in some way if they want to avoid ending there. I tried salvia several times, too. I got some weird effects, like thinking I die in every instant because I identified with a moment (scary, but somehow funny in retrospection). That happens sometimes, as you can see on erowid or on salvianet reports. Or remembering something exhilarating, but being unable to express it or store it in my memory completely (I tend to think it's just the realization that there are no bad problems, A general message is that there are no problem as far as you are clean with your own conscience. Apparently the plant is allergic to people lying to themselves. It is one of the most bizarre aspect of the salvia experience, it has a moral dimension. The more peaceful you are with yourself, the more divine you feel the bliss. It is very
Re: Why I am I?
On 06 Dec 2009, at 05:21, Johnathan Corgan wrote: On Sat, Dec 5, 2009 at 2:27 PM, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote: All of this indicates that salvinorin A has potent but short-lived effects on the brain systems involved in memory, identity, body image and perception of time and space (along with a host of other effects not discussed here). Regardless of one's view on the use of these substances to alter one's cognition, it seems there is a great opportunity to study these effects to zero in on how these brain systems are related to our subjective experience of reality. Very difficult task, but very interesting, and probably parts of the experience/experiments needed to build an artificial brain. A double-blind study protocol to test for particular effects would be difficult to design, no doubt. I don't understand your reference to the need for an artificial brain. Some people can say yes to the doctor, not for a complete artificial brain, but for a part of the brain. Taking a drug, or a psycho-active substance is already an act of that type. Some molecules build by some plants (in general to attract or manipulate insects by acting on their brains or nervous system) can already be considered as artificial subpart of your brain (at the molecular level). The use of more and more specific agonist molecules for the brain molecules, is a way to learn about the brain, and how good can some new molecules can be to do some job in the brain. People will not necessarily ever say really yes to a doctor, but they will be propose evolving artificial part of the brain. Well, what I say, is that the self-brain-study, through entheogen, may accelerate the development of artificial brain parts. However, it would still be possible to carry out experimentation to correlate subjective reports of these altered 1-pov percepts with 3-pov data obtained by FMRI, EEG, etc. Exactly. We may never understand the whole human brain, but we can find those correlation by self-testing. Unfortunately, current laws in the U.S. restrict experimentation of this type to therapeutic applications. It is possible to test to see whether MDMA is a successful treatment for post-traumatic stress disorder, but not, say only to find out the dose/response curve for its psychedelic properties. This is weird. What is a psychedelic properties? It is vague term. I think that studies of that kind have been made on some meditation technics. Absent those types of studies, it would still be enormously educational for someone to conduct a meta-analysis of the many thousands of first-hand written and recorded reports of Salvia Divinorum use. While far from being a random sample, at least one would have a better map of the territory to guide further research. Yes. It is very informative on the consciousness phenomenon. It is fun too. I have a read a lot also of all the possible diaries of dreams, and I have written and studied my own dreams. I am no more, because it asks for work, a good lucid dreamer, but I have practice and develop technics at times, and the tools (mainly coffee!) to practice lucidity the night. Nowadays I use calea zacatechichi or salvia, which have some interesting impact on dreams (also on the non REM dreams, hypnagogic images, etc. Conscience et mécanisme contains a chapter on dreams, I tend to follow Hobson, and Dement, LaBerge, and Jouvet. In the REM dream, we are awake, hallucinated and paralysed. The cerebral stem plays a key role. Well, if we define a drug by something harmful and addictive, then salvia is not known to be a drug today, because there are no evidence it is harmful nor evidence it is addictive. Indeed, animal studies to date have shown that salvinorin A administration reduces the levels of dopamine in the portions of the brain associated with addiction and craving, which is exactly opposite the effects of strongly addictive and euphoriant drugs like cocaine and methamphetamine. Whether this is true in human brains remains to be seen (and difficult to study due to reasons above). In any case, this discussion is probably more relevant in other forums. I brought it up only because we frequently discuss consciousness, memory and identity, and lo and behold there is a drug which has radical effects on the subjective experience of all three, and a body of written reports to examine. Not only it is relevant, but it is at the cross of many levels of description of the data which we have to take into account if we want to progress on the everything riddle. The relation between a Brain and a Reality is akin to the relation between a Theory/Machine and a Model, in logic, and to the relation between an equation and its solution, in algebra. The common point is a Galois connection which entails something like, roughly speaking, that to a self-perburtation of the brain, or the theory/machine, or
Re: Why I am I?
Are you physicalist? I just don't know. All my everyday experience points towards physicalism: I'm a brain, embodied in a physical body, embedded in a physical environment and evolved via several billion year selection process. All the constituents of my mind could be explained in the evolutionary terms as devices that promoted the survival of my ancestor's genes. From the other hand, all the scientific knowledge imo points towards some kind of digital physics. For example, it's much much easier to just accept modern high-energy physics as a elaborate pure mathematical theory than try to understand it in the everyday terms of material world. Have you read Everett? There are already physicists who describe reality as a flux of information which differentiate in many histories, sometimes recombining by amnesia, etc. You may read the book by Russell Standish theory of Nothing. The book Mind's I, ed. by Hofstadter and Dennett is a good introduction to computationalism. Stathis mentioned Parfit's reasons and persons recently on the FOR list, where we discuss on similar many-reality conception of reality. I would recommend it too. In particular you may read David Deutsch's book the fabric of Reality. Gunther Greindl has put some more advanced references on the web page of the list. Are you aware of computer science and mathematical logic? You could be interested by my own contribution, which I explain on this list, see http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/publications/SANE2004MARCHALAbstract.html I didn't read Everett and Deutsch but I'm aware of MWI. I skimmed over Theory of Nothing some time ago and, to be honest, I didn't like to, partially due to Quantum Immortality thing - it was my first encounter with the subject and it seemed like a worst kind of unscientific wishful thinking. But maybe I should give it another, this time more serious try. I'll make an attempt to follow your UDA steps and can accept comp as a _hypothesis_, but now I'm highly skeptical about computationalism as a valid theory of consciousness. Every time I think about it I come to the simulated thunderstorm is NOT a real thunderstorm argument (I don't know the other name, for the first time I read about in some interview with Searle). It's easy for me to accept the possibility of conscious robot (I'm such a robot) but it's hard to accept the possibility of conscious pure (as in CS i.e. without side effects) computer program, as computationalism implies (if I understand it right). -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-l...@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.
Re: Why I am I?
Dear Bruno, on diverse lists (I cannot call them 'science-branches' since lately most domains are discussed in considering aspects of several of such on the diverse discussion-lists)- CONCEPTS (I wish I knew a better word) appear by different content. If somebody has the time and feels like (knows how to) do it, a brief reconsiderational ID listing would help us outsiders to reconfirm what WE mean by *Comp* - (computing, computer-universal or not,) The application of (=your relevance of) the *Church* thesis *Universa*l machine - BTW: machine, or God, as in (our) theology *White rabbit*, (and I don't even dare write:) *numbers,* - and in not much than 1-2 lines(!!!) ea: *UD, UDA, AUDA*, with: hints to YES *to the doctor*, and *maybe some more* - * which the 'old listers' apply here with ease (yet *maybe(!)* in their modified i.e. personalised taste?) - newcomers. however, usually first misinterpret into 'other' *vernaculars*. (It is my several decade long research experience to sit down once in a while and recap (recoop?) the terms used in the daily efforts. They change by the *(ab?)*use and re-realizing their original content may push the research effort ahead from a stagnant hole it falls into inevitably during most routine thinking. - In doing so, almost all the time there occurred an AHA. One cannot do it privately and alone. We cannot slip out from our skin. I did it with someone knowledgeable in the broader field (maybe even a fresh graduate?) or on a public lecture, where questions and opposite opinions could be expected. Best for the hooiday season: this may be a present for Chirstmas. On St. Nicholas Day John Mikes On Sat, Dec 5, 2009 at 4:15 PM, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote: On 05 Dec 2009, at 21:00, Rex Allen wrote: On Fri, Dec 4, 2009 at 10:35 PM, Brent Meeker meeke...@dslextreme.com wrote: Rex Allen wrote: What is your alternative to the everything universal acid? That things just are the way they are (uniquely), and there's ultimately no explanation for that. Right? Exactly so. It's just happened that way and Everything happens and so this happens too. are both equally useless. Progress is only made when we can explain why this rather than that. So, we have our observations, and we want to explain them, so we need some context to place them in. So we postulate the existence of an external universe. But then we want to explain what we see in this external universe, and the only option is to postulate the existence of a multiverse. Nothing can be explained in terms of only itself. To explain it, you have to place it in the context of something larger. Otherwise, no explanation is possible, you just have to say, this is the way it is because that's the way it is. Right? Basically there's only two way the process can end. Two possible answers to the question of Why is the universe this way instead of some other way?: 1) Because things just are the way they are, and there's no further explanation possible. 2) Because EVERYTHING happens, and so this was inevitable in that larger context of everything. What other option is there, do you think? Well in this list we follow the option 2. (As its name indicates). To progress we need to make the everything idea more precise. Most naive everything idea are either trivial and non informative, or can be shown inconsistent. QM is an amazing everything theory, astoundingly accurate. Yet it is based on comp (or variety of comp), which means that if you take serioulsy the first person experiences into consideration, then you have to derive the Schroedinger waves from a deeper purely arithmetical derivation. But with the computable, something happens: the discovery of the universal machine (accepting Church's thesis). This makes enough to confront all universal machine, actually the Löbian one will even understand why, with a consciousness/reality problem, or first-person/third person relation problem, and that the Löbian machine can develop the means to explore the many gaps which exists there. So we can take our observations of the world around us and construct a narrative that is consistent with what we see...a narrative that involves big bangs and electrons. But what caused the big bang? Why do electrons have the particular properties that they have? If you propose a particular cause for these things, what caused that cause? How is that better than a narrative that allows for everything? They would seem to have equal explanatory power. Which is to say: zero. We have much evidence about the big bang and some theories as to how it may have happened which are testable. So the existence of a big bang event certainly seems consistent with our observations. But so does the idea of a Boltzmann style statistical fluctuation from thermal equilibrium. Or the idea that this
Re: Why I am I?
On Sun, Dec 6, 2009 at 1:35 PM, soulcatcher☠ soulcatche...@gmail.comwrote: Are you physicalist? I just don't know. All my everyday experience points towards physicalism: I'm a brain, embodied in a physical body, embedded in a physical environment and evolved via several billion year selection process. All the constituents of my mind could be explained in the evolutionary terms as devices that promoted the survival of my ancestor's genes. From the other hand, all the scientific knowledge imo points towards some kind of digital physics. For example, it's much much easier to just accept modern high-energy physics as a elaborate pure mathematical theory than try to understand it in the everyday terms of material world. Have you read Everett? There are already physicists who describe reality as a flux of information which differentiate in many histories, sometimes recombining by amnesia, etc. You may read the book by Russell Standish theory of Nothing. The book Mind's I, ed. by Hofstadter and Dennett is a good introduction to computationalism. Stathis mentioned Parfit's reasons and persons recently on the FOR list, where we discuss on similar many-reality conception of reality. I would recommend it too. In particular you may read David Deutsch's book the fabric of Reality. Gunther Greindl has put some more advanced references on the web page of the list. Are you aware of computer science and mathematical logic? You could be interested by my own contribution, which I explain on this list, see http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/publications/SANE2004MARCHALAbstract.html I didn't read Everett and Deutsch but I'm aware of MWI. I skimmed over Theory of Nothing some time ago and, to be honest, I didn't like to, partially due to Quantum Immortality thing - it was my first encounter with the subject and it seemed like a worst kind of unscientific wishful thinking. But maybe I should give it another, this time more serious try. I'll make an attempt to follow your UDA steps and can accept comp as a _hypothesis_, but now I'm highly skeptical about computationalism as a valid theory of consciousness. Every time I think about it I come to the simulated thunderstorm is NOT a real thunderstorm argument (I don't know the other name, for the first time I read about in some interview with Searle). It's easy for me to accept the possibility of conscious robot (I'm such a robot) but it's hard to accept the possibility of conscious pure (as in CS i.e. without side effects) computer program, as computationalism implies (if I understand it right). If you can accept the possibility of a conscious robot, whose senses are hooked up to video cameras, microphones, etc. would you say the robot would still be conscious if one were too hook up the video and audio inputs of the robot to the output of a virtual environment (think video game)? Now what if both the robot's software and environment rendering software ran within the same computer? Jason -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-l...@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.
Re: Why I am I?
Rex, or Brent? (I am mixed up between th (-)s and the unmarked text. No signature. I rather paste my cpmment to the end of this posting, since it pertains to the last par.-s. John M On Sat, Dec 5, 2009 at 3:00 PM, Rex Allen rexallen...@gmail.com wrote: On Fri, Dec 4, 2009 at 10:35 PM, Brent Meeker meeke...@dslextreme.com wrote: Rex Allen wrote: What is your alternative to the everything universal acid? That things just are the way they are (uniquely), and there's ultimately no explanation for that. Right? Exactly so. It's just happened that way and Everything happens and so this happens too. are both equally useless. Progress is only made when we can explain why this rather than that. So, we have our observations, and we want to explain them, so we need some context to place them in. So we postulate the existence of an external universe. But then we want to explain what we see in this external universe, and the only option is to postulate the existence of a multiverse. Nothing can be explained in terms of only itself. To explain it, you have to place it in the context of something larger. Otherwise, no explanation is possible, you just have to say, this is the way it is because that's the way it is. Right? Basically there's only two way the process can end. Two possible answers to the question of Why is the universe this way instead of some other way?: 1) Because things just are the way they are, and there's no further explanation possible. 2) Because EVERYTHING happens, and so this was inevitable in that larger context of everything. What other option is there, do you think? So we can take our observations of the world around us and construct a narrative that is consistent with what we see...a narrative that involves big bangs and electrons. But what caused the big bang? Why do electrons have the particular properties that they have? If you propose a particular cause for these things, what caused that cause? How is that better than a narrative that allows for everything? They would seem to have equal explanatory power. Which is to say: zero. We have much evidence about the big bang and some theories as to how it may have happened which are testable. So the existence of a big bang event certainly seems consistent with our observations. But so does the idea of a Boltzmann style statistical fluctuation from thermal equilibrium. Or the idea that this is just the dream of the infinitude of relations between numbers. We construct narratives that are consistent with our observations, but these narratives are about our observations, not about what really exists. You seem to have jumped to some unfounded ontological conclusions. You can talk about big bangs if that helps you think about your observations, helps you identify patterns in what you experience. But, that's as far as it can reasonably go, right? At the end of the day, we're always right back at where we started...with our observations...with our subjective conscious experience. JM: I went one little step further and talked about a 'reversed' logic: Conventional science (as it developed over the millennia) constructed the 'axioms' as the conditions necessary to make the theoreticals VALID. I did not condone the idea of the Big Bang according to the conventionals (including the several variants available) and wrote (my) narrative in a different view (no conventionals). (For those who have a taste for oddities: Karl Jaspers Forum - TA 62 (MIK) of 2003. ) Once we enter the conventional figments of (reductionistic) sciences (ontology) we can only devise variants WITHIN. All, where the formulated 'axioms' help. And that pertains also to 2 + 2 = 4, where it may be 22 as well. Or: in Bruno's longer version: (2,(0),) + (2, (0),) = 2020 as well. Bruno, please excuse if I goofed your formula). Just in another way of axioms-formulation, while as II + II is always . Axiom or not. JM -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-l...@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.
Re: Why I am I?
Bruno Marchal wrote: And what do you mean by stay there? Forever? Why should you stay there (can you choose)? And where is there? Is it forgetfulness oder remembrance? It is very difficult to describe any first person experience. We cannot even describe normal state of consciousness, so it is even harder to describe altered state of consciousness. That's certainly true. Words can never convery an experience, they can only link the experience and known experiences. But sometimes even this is difficult. The difference between looking at a plain wall with my normal state of consciousness and on shrooms is somehow pretty small, yet very big. It looks the same, only more clear, crisp, real and incomparably more beatiful... But many people simply won't get how a wall could look more real, especially when you cloud your mind with drugs - they will say I just imagined it or I was too wasted, which is totally ridiculous to me. Bruno Marchal wrote: Second half: ... I am. I am in paradise since infinity. I enjoy the being state, but there there is no past, and no future. But in retrospection, isn't this wrong? Because you are in the future now, aren't you? Or maybe you never really leave this place? So you are still there... After all, you are always in the present, now matter what happens. And in some way you are in paradise, since even if you experience something bad, at least it admits that it is bad and wants to go, so it is meaningless compared to infinite possibilities of constant or growing well-being. Maybe if you can take this knowledge with you (even though it seems impossible; maybe it is possible partially?), nirvana (The word seems to fit what you experienced) and samsara begin to appear as what they really are, the same (according to Mahāyāna Buddhism). Is this what being (or becoming?) enlightened is about? Somehow I can't believe reality could be so dual: That there is this place, and our totally different place, that are disconnected. Bruno Marchal wrote: I have no memory, but still a sort of personality. Suddenly I get memories and I think oh no, not again, because at that moment I have the feeling that something happens, which has already happened a lot of times. It's funny, I get that feeling sometimes on shrooms, though not at returning, but at the beginning of going to this place of oneness. Like I remember that I begin to arrive at home, at the place I really belong. At first I feel really comforted, but then fear (and/or aversion) starts to set in. I actually feel like having been there somehow, but not in this life, or not completely or not yet? It is so familiar, yet I don't think I really was there. Bruno Marchal wrote: The memories get more and more precise, and at some point I accept them, but does not recognize them as personal memories, then I got the last memories which are I want to stay in paradise, and I understand that I am a copy send to earth to finish his job. I find myself on earth, but during some hours, I have still the memory of having always lived there, and almost got the feeling that the smoking of salvia made me going from paradise to earth. Maybe it's just a illusion that you leave paradise? Maybe earth is a part of paradise. Bruno Marchal wrote: The first time I did that type of salvia experience, I kept during three days the strong feeling of being completely refresh or reborn, like if I was just on earth since some days. Everything looked as completely new. I did not feel any memory as being personal, and that has been indeed very useful useful for doing some annoying job, and taking annoying decisions, I have to make. That feeling faded away the fourth day after the experience. I think I know what you mean. Though for me it just lasts seconds or minutes. When I'm on shrooms (and it happened on salvia + weed, too) sometimes I feel like being able to view the world like being reborn. Bruno Marchal wrote: Some people lives a similar experience except that, instead of feeling like being in paradise, they feel like being in hell. I think that's what I experienced on N2O. All meaning started to disintegrate. All I could think about was: What is the worst experience you could possibly imagine. As far as I remember I literally repeated this sentence in my mind over and over (in german though). And I felt ever more shallow and useless and imprisoned. There was no path left except the path of self-destruction. I simply seemed unable to remember anything positve. At one moment I believed I'm the only person doomed to hell. Probably this was the worst moment in my life. Sometimes I think or hope it is the worst moment you can have. At least I can't think of a worse thought than being the only person going to eternal hell. But then I realized I'm am NOT that and I felt immensely relieved... Maybe what I realized was: I am not nobody as I thought before - 'only nobody'
Re: Why I am I?
I mark my small part below with brackets [ ]. John Mikes wrote: Rex, or Brent? (I am mixed up between th (-)s and the unmarked text. No signature. I rather paste my cpmment to the end of this posting, since it pertains to the last par.-s. John M On Sat, Dec 5, 2009 at 3:00 PM, Rex Allen rexallen...@gmail.com mailto:rexallen...@gmail.com wrote: On Fri, Dec 4, 2009 at 10:35 PM, Brent Meeker meeke...@dslextreme.com mailto:meeke...@dslextreme.com wrote: Rex Allen wrote: What is your alternative to the everything universal acid? That things just are the way they are (uniquely), and there's ultimately no explanation for that. Right? Exactly so. It's just happened that way and Everything happens and so this happens too. are both equally useless. Progress is only made when we can explain why this rather than that. So, we have our observations, and we want to explain them, so we need some context to place them in. So we postulate the existence of an external universe. But then we want to explain what we see in this external universe, and the only option is to postulate the existence of a multiverse. Nothing can be explained in terms of only itself. To explain it, you have to place it in the context of something larger. Otherwise, no explanation is possible, you just have to say, this is the way it is because that's the way it is. Right? Basically there's only two way the process can end. Two possible answers to the question of Why is the universe this way instead of some other way?: 1) Because things just are the way they are, and there's no further explanation possible. 2) Because EVERYTHING happens, and so this was inevitable in that larger context of everything. What other option is there, do you think? So we can take our observations of the world around us and construct a narrative that is consistent with what we see...a narrative that involves big bangs and electrons. But what caused the big bang? Why do electrons have the particular properties that they have? If you propose a particular cause for these things, what caused that cause? How is that better than a narrative that allows for everything? They would seem to have equal explanatory power. Which is to say: zero. [Brent We have much evidence about the big bang and some theories as to how it may have happened which are testable.] So the existence of a big bang event certainly seems consistent with our observations. But so does the idea of a Boltzmann style statistical fluctuation from thermal equilibrium. Or the idea that this is just the dream of the infinitude of relations between numbers. We construct narratives that are consistent with our observations, but these narratives are about our observations, not about what really exists. You seem to have jumped to some unfounded ontological conclusions. You can talk about big bangs if that helps you think about your observations, helps you identify patterns in what you experience. But, that's as far as it can reasonably go, right? At the end of the day, we're always right back at where we started...with our observations...with our subjective conscious experience. JM: I went one little step further and talked about a 'reversed' logic: Conventional science (as it developed over the millennia) constructed the 'axioms' as the conditions necessary to make the theoreticals VALID. This seems like an abuse of terminology. Science doesn't deal in axioms. Axioms are statements accepted for purposes of mathematical inference. They are part of mathematics, not science. Similary, valid refers to a truth preserving sequence of inferences; a mathematical rather than scientific term. Of course science uses mathematics because mathematical description is a way of avoiding self-contradiction. But economists, surveyors, programmers, and just about everybody else also use mathematics. I did not condone the idea of the Big Bang according to the conventionals (including the several variants available) and wrote (my) narrative in a different view (no conventionals). (For those who have a taste for oddities: Karl Jaspers Forum - TA 62 (MIK) of 2003. ) Once we enter the conventional figments of (reductionistic) sciences (ontology) we can only devise variants WITHIN. I don't understand this. I think science is necessarily reductionist in it's methodology simply because we can't understand everything at once and we can't experiment on everything at once. But science also synthesizes so the reduction is only methodological. Brent All, where the formulated 'axioms' help. And that pertains also to 2 + 2 = 4, where it may be 22 as
Re: Why I am I?
On Sat, Dec 5, 2009 at 5:22 PM, Brent Meeker meeke...@dslextreme.com wrote: Rex Allen wrote: On Fri, Dec 4, 2009 at 10:35 PM, Brent Meeker meeke...@dslextreme.com wrote: Rex Allen wrote: What is your alternative to the everything universal acid? That things just are the way they are (uniquely), and there's ultimately no explanation for that. Right? Exactly so. It's just happened that way and Everything happens and so this happens too. are both equally useless. Progress is only made when we can explain why this rather than that. So, we have our observations, and we want to explain them, so we need some context to place them in. So we postulate the existence of an external universe. But then we want to explain what we see in this external universe, and the only option is to postulate the existence of a multiverse. Nothing can be explained in terms of only itself. To explain it, you have to place it in the context of something larger. Otherwise, no explanation is possible, you just have to say, this is the way it is because that's the way it is. Right? Basically there's only two way the process can end. Two possible answers to the question of Why is the universe this way instead of some other way?: 1) Because things just are the way they are, and there's no further explanation possible. 2) Because EVERYTHING happens, and so this was inevitable in that larger context of everything. What other option is there, do you think? Look at what we actually take to be explanations. For example, inflation is taken to be an explanation for the homogeneity of the CMB, for the flatness of space, for the absence of magnetic monopoles. Why? First, because it replaces these seemingly disparate observed facts with a single theory that is consistent with our other theories. Second, and more importantly, it predicted higher order correlations in the CMB which were then observed. So we are still faced with explaining the inflation; which some people might explain as, That's just the way it is. and others might explain,Out of all possible universes some must inflate, but neither of those predicts anything or leads to any experiment. A real explanation would be one describing an inflaton field and predicting its experimental manifestation. So the option is don't adopt non-explanations and simply admit that there are things we don't know and that's why we do research. Theories need to be consilient and specific and testable and predict something we didn't already know, but turns out to be true. That's the gold standard. So I agree that in some sense the two options you present above seem to be the only possible ultimate statements, sort of like the schoolmen who proved that God did it was the ultimate answer everything. But, I don't think ultimate statements are worth much because they are like junk food explanations - no nutritional value. Brent Well, I would say that your explanations provide the illusion of nutritional value, but in fact are also junk food. It seems to me that your example isn't an explanation, but a narrative that just describes a plausible scenario consistent with what we observe. The difference between explanation and description is maybe a subtle difference, but it seems like an important one when thinking about metaphysics and ontology. I think there is a problem when you try to find a place for yourself inside your own narrative. When you try to explain your experience of observing, in addition to WHAT you observe. Assuming physicalism and barring downwards causation, *within that framework* what does it mean to claim that you understand something, that you have explained something, or that you have predicted something? Within the framework of bottom-up physicalism, what does it even mean to say that you exist...since you are (apparently) not a fundamental entity and so don't appear on any inventory of the contents of such a universe. Electrons: check. Quarks: check. Brent Meekers: Nope, none of those...only electrons and quarks (and other fundamental entities). But even if you exist within such a system, and are fully accounted for by the system, then your experiences are a kind of epiphenomenal residue of the fundamental processes of the system. You don't have a handle on the universe...the universe has a handle on you. You are run through your paces by your constituent molecules, experiencing whatever their configuration entails in each given moment. But why would this experience necessarily be of what actually exists? Returning to the earlier point, what are observations? How are they accounted for in a physicalist ontology? Why do some configurations of matter and energy have conscious subjective experiences, when there is nothing in our conception of matter, energy, OR configurations which would lead one to conclude (before the fact) that by arranging them in particular ways one could create
Re: Why I am I?
Rex Allen wrote: On Sat, Dec 5, 2009 at 5:22 PM, Brent Meeker meeke...@dslextreme.com wrote: Rex Allen wrote: On Fri, Dec 4, 2009 at 10:35 PM, Brent Meeker meeke...@dslextreme.com wrote: Rex Allen wrote: What is your alternative to the everything universal acid? That things just are the way they are (uniquely), and there's ultimately no explanation for that. Right? Exactly so. It's just happened that way and Everything happens and so this happens too. are both equally useless. Progress is only made when we can explain why this rather than that. So, we have our observations, and we want to explain them, so we need some context to place them in. So we postulate the existence of an external universe. But then we want to explain what we see in this external universe, and the only option is to postulate the existence of a multiverse. Nothing can be explained in terms of only itself. To explain it, you have to place it in the context of something larger. Otherwise, no explanation is possible, you just have to say, this is the way it is because that's the way it is. Right? Basically there's only two way the process can end. Two possible answers to the question of Why is the universe this way instead of some other way?: 1) Because things just are the way they are, and there's no further explanation possible. 2) Because EVERYTHING happens, and so this was inevitable in that larger context of everything. What other option is there, do you think? Look at what we actually take to be explanations. For example, inflation is taken to be an explanation for the homogeneity of the CMB, for the flatness of space, for the absence of magnetic monopoles. Why? First, because it replaces these seemingly disparate observed facts with a single theory that is consistent with our other theories. Second, and more importantly, it predicted higher order correlations in the CMB which were then observed. So we are still faced with explaining the inflation; which some people might explain as, That's just the way it is. and others might explain,Out of all possible universes some must inflate, but neither of those predicts anything or leads to any experiment. A real explanation would be one describing an inflaton field and predicting its experimental manifestation. So the option is don't adopt non-explanations and simply admit that there are things we don't know and that's why we do research. Theories need to be consilient and specific and testable and predict something we didn't already know, but turns out to be true. That's the gold standard. So I agree that in some sense the two options you present above seem to be the only possible ultimate statements, sort of like the schoolmen who proved that God did it was the ultimate answer everything. But, I don't think ultimate statements are worth much because they are like junk food explanations - no nutritional value. Brent Well, I would say that your explanations provide the illusion of nutritional value, but in fact are also junk food. It seems to me that your example isn't an explanation, but a narrative that just describes a plausible scenario consistent with what we observe. The difference between explanation and description is maybe a subtle difference, but it seems like an important one when thinking about metaphysics and ontology. I think there is a problem when you try to find a place for yourself inside your own narrative. When you try to explain your experience of observing, in addition to WHAT you observe. Assuming physicalism and barring downwards causation, *within that framework* what does it mean to claim that you understand something, that you have explained something, or that you have predicted something? Within the framework of bottom-up physicalism, what does it even mean to say that you exist...since you are (apparently) not a fundamental entity and so don't appear on any inventory of the contents of such a universe. Electrons: check. Quarks: check. Brent Meekers: Nope, none of those...only electrons and quarks (and other fundamental entities). But even if you exist within such a system, and are fully accounted for by the system, then your experiences are a kind of epiphenomenal residue of the fundamental processes of the system. You don't have a handle on the universe...the universe has a handle on you. You are run through your paces by your constituent molecules, experiencing whatever their configuration entails in each given moment. But why would this experience necessarily be of what actually exists? Returning to the earlier point, what are observations? How are they accounted for in a physicalist ontology? Why do some configurations of matter and energy have conscious subjective experiences, when there is nothing in our conception of matter, energy, OR configurations which
Re: Why I am I?
On Sun, Dec 6, 2009 at 8:09 PM, Brent Meeker meeke...@dslextreme.com wrote: You seem to be reading a lot into my post. Ha! Ya, once I got going I figured I'd just throw everything in there and see if any of it elicited any interesting feedback. I never said that consciousness is an illusion. In fact I didn't say anything about consciousness at all. My post was about what makes an explanation a good one and that being ultimate is historically not one of them. So my point is that: in a reductionist theory which implies a physicalist reality with no downwards causation, nothing means anything. Things only have the appearance of meaning. In such a reality, things just are what they are. If you find some explanations good and others bad, that's just the epiphenominal residue of more fundamental physical processes which are themselves unconcerned with such things. In such a reality if you predict an event that comes to pass, both your prediction AND the event were inevitable from the first instant of the universe, implicit in it's initial state plus the laws of physics. Looked at in a block-universe format: the first instant, you making the prediction, and the predicted event all coexist simultaneously. In this view, while your prediction was accurate, there's no reason for that...it's just the way things are in that block of reality. Scientific theories only describe this fact, they don't explain it. So what science deals in is descriptions. Not explanations. The feeling that something has been explained is an aspect of consciousness, not an aspect of reality (at least not reality as posited by physicalism). I don't think that this is usually made clear. And it seems like a subtle but important distinction, philosophically. So I take your point about the schoolmen. There aren't many practical applications for the idea that things just are the way they are. But still it's an interesting piece of information, if true. But if physicalism is correct, then how useful are your explanations really? You *feel* as though it's useful to know about inflation and the CMB, but underneath your feelings, your constituent quarks and electrons are playing out the parts that were set for them by the initial state of the universe plus the laws that govern it's evolution. Maybe that initial state and the particular governing laws were set according to the rules of some larger multiverse...or maybe they just are what they are, for no reason. How about this: Science is about observations. Philosophy is about clarity. I just want to be clear about the implications of the various narratives that are consistent with what we observe. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To post to this group, send email to everything-l...@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.
Re: Why I am I?
Rex Allen wrote: On Sun, Dec 6, 2009 at 8:09 PM, Brent Meeker meeke...@dslextreme.com wrote: You seem to be reading a lot into my post. Ha! Ya, once I got going I figured I'd just throw everything in there and see if any of it elicited any interesting feedback. I never said that consciousness is an illusion. In fact I didn't say anything about consciousness at all. My post was about what makes an explanation a good one and that being "ultimate" is historically not one of them. So my point is that: in a reductionist theory which implies a physicalist reality with no downwards causation, What defines "upwards" and "downwards". Why would "downwards" causation make any difference? nothing means anything. You mean things don't stand as symbols for something else? That reminds me of George Carlin's quip, "If we're here to care for other people, what are those other people here for?" Things only have the "appearance" of meaning. The above words have the appearance of meaning to me - and so they do have meaning to me. I don't know what else I could ask for? In such a reality, things just are what they are. If you find some explanations "good" and others "bad", that's just the epiphenominal residue of more fundamental physical processes which are themselves unconcerned with such things. Having predictive theories was no doubt selected by evolution - as well as a psychological to see meaning in things. In such a reality if you predict an event that comes to pass, both your prediction AND the event were inevitable from the first instant of the universe, implicit in it's initial state plus the laws of physics. That's one theory, formerly more popular than now. Looked at in a block-universe format: the first instant, you making the prediction, and the predicted event all coexist simultaneously. In this view, while your prediction was accurate, there's no reason for that...it's just the way things are in that block of reality. Scientific theories only describe this fact, they don't explain it. So what science deals in is descriptions. Not explanations. The feeling that something has been explained is an aspect of consciousness, not an aspect of reality (at least not reality as posited by physicalism). But then you need to ask yourself what does constitute an explanation? If you dismiss scientific models that show you how to make choices and manipulate the world and allow you to predict events, what is it you're looking for? What's your definition of "explanation"? Can you give an example of a good explanation? Does it have to be teleological? ultimate? holistic? I don't think that this is usually made clear. And it seems like a subtle but important distinction, philosophically. So I take your point about the schoolmen. There aren't many practical applications for the idea that "things just are the way they are". But still it's an interesting piece of information, if true. But if physicalism is correct, then how useful are your "explanations" really? You *feel* as though it's useful to know about inflation and the CMB, but underneath your feelings, your constituent quarks and electrons are playing out the parts that were set for them by the initial state of the universe plus the laws that govern it's evolution. Well I haven't used quark theory, but my "explanations" have helped me design a very fast ramjet. I'd feel a little uncertain about flying in an airliner designed by people who thought aerodynamics didn't explain anything. Maybe that initial state and the particular governing laws were set according to the rules of some larger multiverse...or maybe they just are what they are, for no reason. How about this: "Science is about observations. Philosophy is about clarity." I'd say science is about making models that predict what is observed and not the contrary. Since you rambled about consciousness I'll share my speculation about it. I think people resort to "philosophical" explanations when they don't have scientific ones and when scientific ones are found they stop worrying about the philosophical questions. At one time people worried about vitality, the life-force, elan vitale, that animated things. But as more and more was learned about molecular biology, DNA, metabolism, evolution, etc, people stopped worrying about "life". They didn't explain it. They only described it and how it worked (in great detail). The DNA isn't alive, none of the molecules are alive and yet there is no elan vitale either. The old questions about life just seem ill posed. Not answered, yet irrelevant. I think the same thing will happen to "consciousness" that happened to "life". We will learn to describe consciousness by causal models, we'll predict the effect of salvia and mushrooms on different people's consciousness. We'll build robots which appear to be conscious. We'll add electronics to brains
