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...point two) not enough enough power (j/s) in one brain to effect cosmic scales. I agree. But can it affect the person? and the interactions around that person?
If it turns out that we can, in fact, interact with other universes, then it is highly unlikely that the interaction will be a causal interaction in accordance with any sort of causality currently known to physics (with the possible exception of dark matter/energy playing some role?). My best speculative guess at the moment is that the "Self" who is the "experiencer" in any given conscious moment is a "universal" in the philosophical sense (i.e., a single essence instantiated in (shared by) many particulars). If this is true then, in principle, it could be possible for "me" to experience (or have memories of experiencing myself as) being a physical system other than just this particular body that I am experiencing at this particular moment. From the point of view of current physics, the mechanism accounting for this "consciousness of multiple bodies" phenomena would be highly mysterious, but at the moment we have no good explanation for how I can experience being this one particularbody so there is simply nothing to rule out the possibility of experiencing multiple bodies in multiple universes. The Hard Problem is an open barn door. Lots of crazy beasts can wander in and out.
If it turns out that we can, in fact, interact with other universes, then it is highly unlikely that the interaction will be a causal interaction in accordance with any sort of causality currently known to physics (with the possible exception of dark matter/energy playing some role?). My best speculative guess at the moment is that the "Self" who is the "experiencer" in any given conscious moment is a "universal" in the philosophical sense (i.e., a single essence instantiated in (shared by) many particulars). If this is true then, in principle, it could be possible for "me" to experience (or have memories of experiencing myself as) being a physical system other than just this particular body that I am experiencing at this particular moment. From the point of view of current physics, the mechanism accounting for this "consciousness of multiple bodies" phenomena would be highly mysterious, but at the moment we have no good explanation for how I can experience being this one particularbody so there is simply nothing to rule out the possibility of experiencing multiple bodies in multiple universes. The Hard Problem is an open barn door. Lots of crazy beasts can wander in and out.
That's why I stay rooted in the summation of what we know, the periodic table. There is nothing else to even close as an anchor into the unknown.
would your memories "think" they are individuals or of the same group in a brain? I think they can be both.
There are several variations of the multiverse concept, and they are not mutually exclusive, so there is a good chance that Reality is multiversal in more than one way. But, as currently conceived, there is no known way in which different universes within a multiverse can interact. Probably the most well-known version of a multiverse is the Many World Interpretation of QM. If the MWI is correct, as currently conceived, then there is no known mechanism for interaction between the universe in which Schrodinger's cat is alive, and the one in which it dies. Once the branching occurs, the resulting universes are causally independent.
The "bubble universe" concept might allow for some interactions at the "edges" (and some cosmologists are actually looking for evidence of these "boundaries" in collision) but, here again, there is currently no known way for anything on Earth to interact with anything existing in another bubble. And so on.
Key point: The primary (and most scientifically devastating) criticism of all of the different multiverse theories is that they are seemingly untestable, and thus some say these ideas are all unscientific. Any theory that allows interactions with Earthly scientists would, in principle, be testable. So, yes, given current scientific theories, the idea that universes could interact is just plain old whacky. (Nevertheless, I see several speculative ways in which universes could interact, and if they could interact, then this could be an avenue for explaining various sorts of psi research data, without just assuming that the data is bad due to cheating, experimental incompetence, etc.
Here are some interesting links, for those of you who have not already run into this sort of stuff:
yes, that's why when it comes to god claims I stick within 1 AU, or 10. The biosphere is best described as "reaching for homeostasis" to me. (which we can argue it isn't right now) I think the life around us and our connections to it are what theist incorrectly call god. and the "deny everything because I hate religion" atheists are just not able to conceive.
Its such a simple notion that explains many things, I am at a lost why people run away from it.
Last edited by Arach Angle; 03-14-2018 at 06:09 PM..
yes, that's why when it comes to god claims I stick within 1 AU, or 10. The biosphere is best described as "reaching for homeostasis" to me. (which we can argue it isn't right now) I think the life around us and our connections to it are what theist incorrectly call god. and the "deny everything because I hate religion" atheists are just not able to conceive.
Its such a simple notion that explains many things, I am at a lost why people run away from it.
Just off hand I'd say that such a "reaching" might very well not entail consciousness, but a complex physical movement toward some kind of balance, so your theist would be leery, and that it could would have your atheist up in arms. Sounds like fun to ME!
An Intellectual's Christian Narrative: A Non-Magical Alternative
The various unfalsifiable theories out there are in the category of faith-based speculation. The only differences among them are the sources of the faith - theist or atheist. The Christians this thread addresses have faith in a loving God as the source of our existence while the science-based speculations operate on a faith in an indifferent material existence until proven otherwise. Having been in both camps during my life I understand why the different faiths produce such rigidity about the unfalsifiable. I spent decades trying to explain it to my intellect by resolving the differences.
I have come to realize that the kind of philosophical perspective necessary to see the actual issues that form the divide is not very prevalent. I have engaged some very intelligent adversaries on the difference between USING mathematics as a modeling device to predict outcomes and INTERPRETING its symbols as philosophical indices of the composition of our reality. By necessity, the measures and the manipulations follow an artificial rubric with various degrees of success. Unfortunately, the perspective that is needed to view the symbols as indicators of the composition of our reality is precluded by the taken-for-granted
associations with the mathematical manipulations and their outcomes.
It seems that the antipathy to religious theism on the atheist side plays a significant role in the resistance to adopting the open-minded philosophical perspective needed to even comprehend my views. In the many vigorous discussions in the early days of my appearance here when science was not taboo, I became more than a little annoyed (okay - somewhat bellicose) by my failure to communicate the needed change in perspective amidst the attacks on my knowledge and intellect by some genuine harassers. I have come to accept my communication failures as I saw how a genuine philosophical communicator explains the issues. Gaylen is truly gifted and he evokes much less visceral rejection than I.
For my Christian brothers and sisters, I would only encourage you to abandon ANY of the unloving "precepts and doctrines of men" that currently corrupt Christ's Gospel of love in the churches. Truly embrace Christ's instructions to love God and each other every day and repent when you don't. None of the other stuff that promotes fear of judgment and condemnation is real. God truly IS love and there is nothing to fear except our own selfishness and willingness to deceive, harm or hurt others in pursuit of our desires. We will reap whatever we sow as natural consequences of our actions here. But instead of fearing to fall into the hands of a fearful God, just believe Jesus that we are falling into the hands of a loving God.
For my atheist/agnostic adversaries, I apologize for my failure to communicate and explain my views adequately. Those who currently are convinced they know my views have revealed that they really do not. That is my fault but I am without recourse to correct the situation. For those who seek to understand my perspective especially about the use versus interpretation of mathematics, I suggest you at least try to accept the fact that our reality is NOT doing mathematics. Mathematics imposes an artificial veneer over WHATEVER our efforts are measuring and manipulating. Seek to look beneath that veneer and ask what do those measures reveal about the underlying composition of our reality itself.
your first line line isn't quite right. It doesn't describe us middle of the road science people.
Science: use what we know to describe what we don't. Of course, I say give it to the experimental physicists myself. It engineers a truth. It best we got.
Just off hand I'd say that such a "reaching" might very well not entail consciousness, but a complex physical movement toward some kind of balance, so your theist would be leery, and that it could would have your atheist up in arms. Sounds like fun to ME!
lmao, yup.
Yes, you make a good point with consciousness. "complex movement towards balance" is life. It doesn't have to be "awake". But to deny the the notion of ((information exchange)/volume ) is like ignoring climate change to me. To deny that we are warming up points to an emotional need or alterior motive ... because its not about just describing how the surface conditions change over time for them. It can't be.
sticks from one side and stones from the other. and they do hurt, I don't care what they call me; those dern things hurt.
I do like tran's change from "deny everything" to 'irreligious". That actually shows some growth in that sect of atheism to me. I am glad somebody in their ranks gets it. Luckily they have some wind-ups that work.
The various unfalsifiable theories out there are in the category of faith-based speculation. The only differences among them are the sources of the faith - theist or atheist. The Christians this thread addresses have faith in a loving God as the source of our existence while the science-based speculations operate on a faith in an indifferent material existence until proven otherwise.
That's a pretty good synopsis, but I would point out this:
The faith you attribute to "science-based" thinking is slightly off-target. It's generally not an explicit faith in "an indifferent material existence" directly so much as faith in a method of inquiry that, due to its heavy bias toward objective confirmation, limits their options for what they can count as knowledge. In other words, their faith in the objective method leads them to belief in an indifferent material existence, which then explains the concluding phrase in your sentence "until proven otherwise." If they actually did, as you suggest, have faith directly in "indifferent material existence" then there would be no room whatsoever for "until proven otherwise." It is precisely because their belief in "indifferent material existence" is a consequence of their faith in the objective method that the notion of "until proven otherwise" has any role to play. IF, somehow, the method could end up confirming God's existence, THEN their belief could change.
The problem (as I see it) is that the deeply "hard-limit" limiting of "the method" to what is typically understood as "objective verification" is, in itself, a type of self-inflicted blindness. To see no evil, so to speak, just cover your eyes and then you can feel like you don't have to deal with it. I can't prove that it is absolutely impossible to objectively verify God's existence but, given the history and nature of things, I suspect that there is some underlying reason why it is probably impossible to objectively prove the existence of God - either because God does not exist (that's my agnosticism kicking in) or because "God" is an intrinsically subjective element or aspect of Reality and thus faith in a traditional (I would say naïve) conception of "objectivity" will simply impose blindness to that realm of knowledge.
My proposed path to a solution is to jettison the traditional (naïve) conception of "objectivity" in favor or a more nuanced conception of objectivity - which very roughly boils down to "objectivity" = "inter-subjective agreement" due to the underlying structural nature of qualitative experience as a fundamental aspect of Reality (back to that "dual-aspect" stuff again). This tracks back to Kant's transcendental approach ("transcendental" terminology refers to logical investigation of the necessary conditions for the possibility of conscious experience) and, then, to Edmund Husserl's founding of the branch of philosophy called "phenomenology." I'm stilly trying to figure out how to translate the concepts of phenomenology in ways that non-philosophers can appreciate (and in ways that I, as a traditionally more analytic type of philosopher, can appreciate) but, so far, I seem to keep failing. But with every failure I feel a hint of progress and a slightly deeper understanding on my part, so I keep coming back and trying again and again. (Last semester I sat in on another class on Kant, and this semester I'm sitting in on another class taught by a phenomenologist, so stay tuned. I might acquire a few new tools to use on your guys - my expository guinea pigs.)
BTW: I don't see my approach as paving a road to "finding God" exactly (phenomenologists often tend to be existentialist/atheist for good reason), but I do see it as paving the road to a more profound understanding of consciousness which (for some folks like MPhD), can serve double-purpose as (potentially?) a way to non-magically explain God's nature. Since I am agnostic about most non-traditional/mystical conceptions of God, it could turn out that God "rides in on the coattails" of my investigations, and that is fine by me, but it's simply not my current focus.
BTW-2: For those who are keep score at home, my current class is on philosophy of the "Imagination" and the professor (Dr. Aldea) is a Husserl scholar, so thus I'm getting a big dose of Husserl (along with Sartre). Here are some links to Dr. Aldea's writings. If you take a peek at the abstracts for her papers, you will see why I might have trouble putting this stuff into "man on the street" terminology ;-)
Qualia is a little soupy to me for now. I am more of a use what we know to describe what we don't know. For now, its more valid to have all beliefs linked back to the P.T.. We need all information exchanges, like god's miracles, to lead back to the PT. we know its incomplete, but its better than "individual experience only". to me.
our processor is based on the state changes, or information exchanges, within a certain volume of the universe. Change those exchanges and I change you. I changed how that volume of the universe will react to certain conditional changes.
red is no longer red anymore. its pink. real men wear pink.
The various unfalsifiable theories out there are in the category of faith-based speculation. The only differences among them are the sources of the faith - theist or atheist. The Christians this thread addresses have faith in a loving God as the source of our existence while the science-based speculations operate on a faith in an indifferent material existence until proven otherwise. Having been in both camps during my life I understand why the different faiths produce such rigidity about the unfalsifiable. I spent decades trying to explain it to my intellect by resolving the differences.
I have come to realize that the kind of philosophical perspective necessary to see the actual issues that form the divide is not very prevalent. I have engaged some very intelligent adversaries on the difference between USING mathematics as a modeling device to predict outcomes and INTERPRETING its symbols as philosophical indices of the composition of our reality. By necessity, the measures and the manipulations follow an artificial rubric with various degrees of success. Unfortunately, the perspective that is needed to view the symbols as indicators of the composition of our reality is precluded by the taken-for-granted
associations with the mathematical manipulations and their outcomes.
It seems that the antipathy to religious theism on the atheist side plays a significant role in the resistance to adopting the open-minded philosophical perspective needed to even comprehend my views. In the many vigorous discussions in the early days of my appearance here when science was not taboo, I became more than a little annoyed (okay - somewhat bellicose) by my failure to communicate the needed change in perspective amidst the attacks on my knowledge and intellect by some genuine harassers. I have come to accept my communication failures as I saw how a genuine philosophical communicator explains the issues. Gaylen is truly gifted and he evokes much less visceral rejection than I.
For my Christian brothers and sisters, I would only encourage you to abandon ANY of the unloving "precepts and doctrines of men" that currently corrupt Christ's Gospel of love in the churches. Truly embrace Christ's instructions to love God and each other every day and repent when you don't. None of the other stuff that promotes fear of judgment and condemnation is real. God truly IS love and there is nothing to fear except our own selfishness and willingness to deceive, harm or hurt others in pursuit of our desires. We will reap whatever we sow as natural consequences of our actions here. But instead of fearing to fall into the hands of a fearful God, just believe Jesus that we are falling into the hands of a loving God.
For my atheist/agnostic adversaries, I apologize for my failure to communicate and explain my views adequately. Those who currently are convinced they know my views have revealed that they really do not. That is my fault but I am without recourse to correct the situation. For those who seek to understand my perspective especially about the use versus interpretation of mathematics, I suggest you at least try to accept the fact that our reality is NOT doing mathematics. Mathematics imposes an artificial veneer over WHATEVER our efforts are measuring and manipulating. Seek to look beneath that veneer and ask what do those measures reveal about the underlying composition of our reality itself.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Gaylenwoof
That's a pretty good synopsis, but I would point out this:
The faith you attribute to "science-based" thinking is slightly off-target. It's generally not an explicit faith in "an indifferent material existence" directly so much as faith in a method of inquiry that, due to its heavy bias toward objective confirmation, limits their options for what they can count as knowledge. In other words, their faith in the objective method leads them to belief in an indifferent material existence, which then explains the concluding phrase in your sentence "until proven otherwise." If they actually did, as you suggest, have faith directly in "indifferent material existence" then there would be no room whatsoever for "until proven otherwise." It is precisely because their belief in "indifferent material existence" is a consequence of their faith in the objective method that the notion of "until proven otherwise" has any role to play. IF, somehow, the method could end up confirming God's existence, THEN their belief could change.
The problem (as I see it) is that the deeply "hard-limit" limiting of "the method" to what is typically understood as "objective verification" is, in itself, a type of self-inflicted blindness. To see no evil, so to speak, just cover your eyes and then you can feel like you don't have to deal with it. I can't prove that it is absolutely impossible to objectively verify God's existence but, given the history and nature of things, I suspect that there is some underlying reason why it is probably impossible to objectively prove the existence of God - either because God does not exist (that's my agnosticism kicking in) or because "God" is an intrinsically subjective element or aspect of Reality and thus faith in a traditional (I would say naïve) conception of "objectivity" will simply impose blindness to that realm of knowledge.
My proposed path to a solution is to jettison the traditional (naïve) conception of "objectivity" in favor or a more nuanced conception of objectivity - which very roughly boils down to "objectivity" = "inter-subjective agreement" due to the underlying structural nature of qualitative experience as a fundamental aspect of Reality (back to that "dual-aspect" stuff again). This tracks back to Kant's transcendental approach ("transcendental" terminology refers to logical investigation of the necessary conditions for the possibility of conscious experience) and, then, to Edmund Husserl's founding of the branch of philosophy called "phenomenology." I'm stilly trying to figure out how to translate the concepts of phenomenology in ways that non-philosophers can appreciate (and in ways that I, as a traditionally more analytic type of philosopher, can appreciate) but, so far, I seem to keep failing. But with every failure I feel a hint of progress and a slightly deeper understanding on my part, so I keep coming back and trying again and again. (Last semester I sat in on another class on Kant, and this semester I'm sitting in on another class taught by a phenomenologist, so stay tuned. I might acquire a few new tools to use on your guys - my expository guinea pigs.)
BTW: I don't see my approach as paving a road to "finding God" exactly (phenomenologists often tend to be existentialist/atheist for good reason), but I do see it as paving the road to a more profound understanding of consciousness which (for some folks like MPhD), can serve double-purpose as (potentially?) a way to non-magically explain God's nature. Since I am agnostic about most non-traditional/mystical conceptions of God, it could turn out that God "rides in on the coattails" of my investigations, and that is fine by me, but it's simply not my current focus.
BTW-2: For those who are keep score at home, my current class is on philosophy of the "Imagination" and the professor (Dr. Aldea) is a Husserl scholar, so thus I'm getting a big dose of Husserl (along with Sartre). Here are some links to Dr. Aldea's writings. If you take a peek at the abstracts for her papers, you will see why I might have trouble putting this stuff into "man on the street" terminology ;-)
You do an amazing job of putting the complex philosophical issues into "man on the street" terminology, Gaylen. I remember my first encounter with the works of Alfred North Whitehead as an exercise in reading comprehension that exceeded anything I had ever encountered before. Thanks for the cites.
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An Intellectual's Christian Narrative: A Non-Magical Alternative
I remember my first encounter with the works of Alfred North Whitehead as an exercise in reading comprehension that exceeded anything I had ever encountered before. Thanks for the cites.