Based on physics, what insights do you make about reality?

Page 6 of 10 [ 160 posts ]  Go to page Previous  1 ... 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10  Next

techstepgenr8tion
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 6 Feb 2005
Age: 44
Gender: Male
Posts: 24,150
Location: 28th Path of Tzaddi

10 Sep 2017, 5:09 pm

I'm not mikeman7918.


_________________
“Love takes off the masks that we fear we cannot live without and know we cannot live within. I use the word "love" here not merely in the personal sense but as a state of being, or a state of grace - not in the infantile American sense of being made happy but in the tough and universal sense of quest and daring and growth.” - James Baldwin


Michael829
Toucan
Toucan

Joined: 29 Aug 2017
Gender: Male
Posts: 256
Location: United States

10 Sep 2017, 6:12 pm

After I posted this, I checked the messages, and realized what you meant. ...and replied in my next post after this one. I tried to delete this post, but that can't be done, and so I'm just adding this edit, and have sent a better reply, in my post after this one.

techstepgenr8tion wrote:
I'm not mikeman7918.


That was your post that I just replied to?

But whose name was quoted in the quote-box at the top of my post? The post I was replying to was by that person.

If that post was by you, then that would be fine too, because it would just mean that I replied to your post (and now should find out if there's different on that I didn't reply to.)

Michael829


_________________
Michael829


Last edited by Michael829 on 10 Sep 2017, 6:26 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Michael829
Toucan
Toucan

Joined: 29 Aug 2017
Gender: Male
Posts: 256
Location: United States

10 Sep 2017, 6:20 pm

Techstepgener8tion:

{You said}
Exactly! :thumright: That's my approach as well.
{unquote}

{I said}
Then I refer you to my answer to mikeman7918.
{unquote}

Alright, Techstepgener8tion, I see what you meant.

But, though you aren't mikeman, you said that your approach is his approach, and so I referred you to my answer to his approach.

In other words, my answer to mikeman is also an answer to you.

Michael829


_________________
Michael829


techstepgenr8tion
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 6 Feb 2005
Age: 44
Gender: Male
Posts: 24,150
Location: 28th Path of Tzaddi

10 Sep 2017, 7:19 pm

Michael829 wrote:
{You said}
Exactly! :thumright: That's my approach as well.
{unquote}

I'm not Lintar either.


_________________
“Love takes off the masks that we fear we cannot live without and know we cannot live within. I use the word "love" here not merely in the personal sense but as a state of being, or a state of grace - not in the infantile American sense of being made happy but in the tough and universal sense of quest and daring and growth.” - James Baldwin


Michael829
Toucan
Toucan

Joined: 29 Aug 2017
Gender: Male
Posts: 256
Location: United States

10 Sep 2017, 7:35 pm

mikeman7918 wrote:
I would have responded to this earlier but it wasn't obvious that your post was addressed to me since it lacked the quote boxes with my name on them. If your only complaint with quote boxes is size then just use the [ size=number] attribute (but without the space). Just to demonstrate I will use that here on your quotes.


Mikeman: Somehow I posted this reply with a box-quote from Techstepgener8ion at the top, which obscured the fact that it was a reply to a message by you.

So I'm posting it again, this time with a box-quote from you at the top, so you'll get notification that you were quoted.

{You said}
.
I would have responded to this earlier but it wasn't obvious that your post was addressed to me since it lacked the quote boxes with my name on them. If your only complaint with quote boxes is size then just use the [ size=number] attribute (but without the space).
{unquote}
.
That expression in square brackets [size=(some number)], placed inside the square-bracketed quoting-expression at the top of the reply-writing screen?
.
If not, then where would I write the [size=(some number)], and what number did you use?
.
Of course, since I often reply via Word, I could just do the enlarging there. But my question above is relevant, because, writing a short reply, I often just reply at the forum without using Word. Also, of course the box-quote is easier than the { }.
.
{I’d said}

.
The notion that this universe is someone’s computer-simulation doesn’t hold up metaphysically, so it isn’t a matter of whether it’s experimentally falsifiable.

.
Let me answer about that issue again:
.
This universe couldn’t be created by a computer-simulation, because you can’t create what already is.

.
{You said}
That is a matter of semantics. What I care about is if there is a simulated version of this world and a real version of this world then if the person in charge of the simulation decided to blow up the Earth then would this Earth that I'm currently standing on explode?
{unquote}
.
Of course it wouldn’t !
.
What is that guy, a sorcerer?
.
Maybe he’d decided to simulate a planet in a universe, and it just happened to be our planet in our universe. …duplicating, but not creating, our world.
.
So then he intervenes in his simulated world, and, contrary to its own physical laws (that he’d presumably previously given to it), he alters things so that the universe is destroyed.
.
Our world is a possibility-world because it’s self-consistent. Otherwise it would be an impossibility-world, logically-contradictory. It wouldn’t have the abstract logical facts that I’ve spoken of as the components of our possibility-world.
.
So your programmer can do whatever he wants to his world, but our world operates according to its physical laws and won’t self-destruct just because someone somewhere alters his simulation-program. He then just won’t be simulating our world anymore.
.
Now, of course, when, after his program modification, he has a new universe, with different physical laws that result in its early self-destruction, and if that’s all self-consistent, then of course he’ll again (as before) be simulating some already-existent possibility world that does self-destruct. But that isn’t our world, because he achieved it by changing his universe’s laws, so that they’re no longer the laws of our universe.
.
{You said}
Just because things are identical doesn't mean that they are the same thing
{unquote}
.
Agreed.
.
{You said}
, you can have two of something without then being one thing because they are identical.
{unquote}
.
Yes.
.
{You said}
You can indeed create something that already exists, that's called duplication.
{unquote}
.
Duplication isn’t creation.
.
Ok, I’ll Xerox your term-paper, sign my name on it, and turn it in, and get credit for creating it.
.
If you want to expand the meaning of “create”, that’s fine, but the fact remains that your programmer can’t affect the possibility-worlds that he simulates.
.
And he’s only duplicating possibility-worlds that were already there.
.
{I’d said}

This universe is one of infinitely-many hypothetical possibility-worlds.
.
As I’ve described in previous posts here, it’s a system of inter-referring if-then facts. Those facts, and that system of them, are already there.
{unquote}

.
{You said}
Citations needed.
{unquote}
.
No, not really.
.
A system of inter-referring if-thens exists within its own inter-referring context. There are infinitely-many such.
.
As I’ve mentioned more than once, such a system’s existence in its own inter-referring context isn’t debatable. It’s inevitable.
.
Some of them are universe possibility-worlds like ours.
.
Ours is real for us, because it’s the context of our lives.
.
I could cite Faraday, Tippler and Tegmark. Look up “Tegmark, MUH” (without the quotes), at a browser, if you want to.
.
Where my proposal differs from theirs is that I say that what’s primary is you and your life-experience possibility-story, and that this possibility-world is secondary, as the setting for that story. In an earlier post, I told why I prefer that emphasis.
.
But, all of these versions of Eliminative Ontic Structuralism propose the same possibility-world.
.
I don’t agree with Tippler’s belief in computer simulations creating universes.
.
{I’d said}

The only thing that a computer simulation could create would be an opportunity for its programmer to observe this possibility-world.
{unquote}

.
{You said}
.
Observe as well as change it without changing the real one because it's not the real one.
{unquote}
.
Exactly.
.
If he was duplicating a pre-existing possibility-world (and they’re all pre-existing), and then changed something to destroy it, by either contravening or changing its physical laws, then, when he makes that change, he’s no longer duplicating the possibility-world that he was duplicating before making that change.
.
He can do whatever he wants in his simulation, and he won’t affect anyone or their world.
.
{I’d said}

As I said, you can’t create what’s already there.
.
But the simulation notion is interesting, because it shows that not everyone is a Materialist.
.
If you regard this universe as possibly a simulation, then that means that you aren’t a Materialist, and that you’re open to the notion of it being a hypothetical possibility-world (which is what it is).

{unquote}

{You replied}
I beg to differ. I may be a materialist…
{unquote}

No, if you’re really a Materialist, and you’re sure that you’re a Materialist, then the simulation-theory is ruled out by your Materialist metaphysics.

Or, to say it in another way, if you consider the simulation-theory at all possible, then you aren’t a Materialist. …and that’s a good thing.
.
{You said}
you will never catch me saying that I'm 100% sure about anything.
{unquote}
.
“If all dogs are mammals, and if all mammals are animals, then all dogs are animals.”
.
Are you less than 100% sure of that if-then fact?
.
That’s an if-then fact, and it’s a 100% certain if-then fact.
.
There are many such abstract logical facts that, likewise, are 100% certain. …including mathematical theorems, which are if-then facts whose “if” clause includes (but isn’t limited to) a set of mathematical axioms (arithmetical or geometrical, etc.)
.
Such if-then facts comprise the systems of inter-referring if-then facts that I speak of as possibility-worlds. …or, more accurately, as life-experience possibility-stories. …of which there are infinitely-many.
.
{I’d said}
For that reason, I regard the simulation notion as a positive direction. Though it can’t be true, it’s fairly close to the truth of the matter.

{unquote}
.
You keep saying "the truth of the matter" as if you have the slightest clue what's going on. You were thrown into this confusing universe and had to learn to pretend what's going on just like the rest of us. Under empiricism you can never be 100% of anything
{unquote}
.
See above. Yes, there are if-then facts that are 100% certain. They can inter-refer as a system of if-then facts. Such a system can be arbitrarily large and complex. One of them can be, and is, complicated enough to be your life-experience possibility-story, and that’s why you’re in a life.
.
In case you didn’t read my earlier posts to this thread, then let me say that a physical law is a hypothetical fact that relates some physical-quantity values. That physical law, and some of those physical quantity-values, are part of the “if” clause of various if-then statements. The “then” clauses of those if-then statements’ consist of the other physical quantity-values that that physical law relates.
.
I emphasize that the physical law, itself, is a hypothetical fact…a fact that’s part of an “if “ clause.
.
My point is that the existence of these entirely hypothetical possibility worlds (including this one), and life-experience possibility-stories (including the one about your life-experience), isn’t in doubt. …isn’t debatable.
.
They’re inevitably there.
.
{You said}
and the only way I know to get that sure about anything is the Dunning-Kruger effect, that is why I don't trust people who claim to have the absolute truth as a general rule.
{unquote}
.
Not about anything?
.
Then see above.
.
About the matter of reincarnation and falsifiability:
.
I’m not here to convince anyone about reincarnation. But your reasoning about it, on the basis of falsifiability, doesn’t sound right. The fact that there’s a reincarnation-belief that says some people remember past lives, in no way counts against other reincarnation proposals that don’t say that.
.
I wouldn’t expect people to be able to remember past lives. In fact, it seems to me that, even with reincarnation, past lives are moot.
.
If there’s reincarnation, then there will probably be a future life. In that next life, I wouldn’t expect you to be able to remember this one.
.
Now, if one life can lead to another, than, with an infinity of life-experience possibility-stories, of course it would be likely (certain?) that there’d be one that would lead to your current life.
.
But that can’t be called the cause of your current life. …because the infinity of life-experience possibility-stories just is. Period. In other words, a previous life isn’t needed to explain your current one. Your current life is self-explanatory and already there as a possibility-story.
.
Anyway, if the past-life-memory belief is falsified by a lack of verified reports, that says nothing about reincarnation proposals that don’t predict memory of past-lives.
.
So I don’t think that there’s a falsification-basis for drawing probability-conclusions about reincarnation.
.
Now, for the usual “skeptical” debunker, Materialism, Exclusive-Materialism, is the default dogma, and therefore the non-existence of reincarnation is the default position.
.
…if you’re an Exclusive-Materialist. (That’s what I call someone who not only believes in Materialism’s fundamentally, independently, objectively real “Stuff”, but also (don’t ask me how) believes that this physical world comprises all of Reality.)
.
But if you’re not an Exclusive-Materialist, then there’s nothing default about the no-reincarnation belief.
.
What are the alternatives?
.
* Traditional Christian eternal Heaven and Hell.
.
* Other Eternity.
.
* Just uneventfully going to sleep. (I’ve commented on that in a previous post to this thread.)
.
I suspect that the just-going-to-sleep theory doesn’t really hold up. …because, if, during the death-process, there’s a time at which your body has thoroughly shut down, and there’s no perception at all, because you’re quite dead, then there must be a time, just before that, when you haven’t entirely lost consciousness and perception.
.
It’s plausible and natural that, at that late stage of shutdown, you might not know that you were recently in a life. After all, in dreams you often don’t know about your waking-life, and often you believe the dream-reality.
.
It’s plausible that, at that late stage, all that remains of you are your most basic tendencies, inclinations, subconscious habits, and your orientation towards a future. Vedanta calls those tendencies Vasanas.
.
At that time, with only those Vasanas remaining, when you’re so shut-down that don’t know whether you’re coming or going, but are still subconsciously strongly future-oriented, you’re still (as you were in this life) someone about whom there is a life-experience possibility-story. I’ve been saying that that’s the reason why there’s this life-story about you with you as its protagonist, why you’re in a life.
.
So, if the reason why you’re in this life remains, at the end of this life, then what obvious conclusion does that suggest?
.
That’s why I say that reincarnation is consistent with, or even implied by, my metaphysics.
.
Yes, it’s true that going to sleep seems mostly uneventful, but it’s now known that we don’t remember most of our dreams. So, not remembering experiences doesn’t mean that there weren’t any.
.
Anyway, even the fact that we remember some dreams shows that sleep needn’t be regarded as uneventful.
.
Reincarnation as one of the possibilities:
.
(The Eastern position is that only a very few particularly life-completed people will be life-uninvolved and dispassionate enough to reach Eternity instead of reincarnation at the end of this life.)
.
I feel that the Judeo-Christian, Abrahamic, Western/Middle-Eastern system of religions is authoritarian, and far away from whatever early justification and meaning that it might have once had.
.
The past-life-memory belief is falsified if we don’t have verified, proven-correct, reports. But that says nothing about other reincarnation proposals that don’t predict past-life-memory.
.
I don’t claim that it can be known whether there’s reincarnation.
.
{I’d said}
Reincarnation is consistent with, and arguably implied by, the most parsimonious metaphysics.
.

In fact, I take the unusual and brazen position that the metaphysics that I propose is inevitable and indisputable.

{unquote}
.
{You replied}
That is certainly an unusual position that I would love to see your supporting evidence for it.
{unquote}
.
I’ve told, above, about how there are if-then statements, about hypotheticals, that aren’t in doubt. There are logical and mathematical facts that aren’t in doubt.
.
Therefore there are systems of inter-referring if-then facts, indisputable abstract logical and mathematical facts, that likewise aren’t in doubt.
.
All of that’s inevitable.
.
Such a system can be arbitrarily complex and complicated. It can be complicated enough to be your life-experience story. In fact there’s such a system that is your life-experience possibility-story.
.
In fact, there’s no experience, observation or experiment that isn’t consistent with that.
.
Now, I don’t claim to have proof that Materialism’s “Stuff “ doesn’t (additionally) exist too. But, if it does, then it’s superfluous and irrelevant, because the logical/mathematical relational-structure described above is all the explanation needed for your life-experience (and the possibility-world that is that the setting for that experience).
.
There seems to be a belief that I call “Exclusive-Materialism” that says that Materialism’s fundamentally, independently, objectively existent physical world comprises all of Reality. That belief is insupportable, because it’s contradicted by the inevitable facts discussed above.
.
I emphasize that, because no one can say for sure what is experienced in sleep and unconsciousness, it isn’t possible to prove that there’s reincarnation.
.
If you object that the reincarnation is perceived by a body that’s about to shut down, then I remind you that I claim that that body, and its life, are only there because of a possibility-story anyway.
.
If this all sounds fantastic, what do you think this life is? The fact that this life started, that you’re in a life at all, is surprising and remarkable.
.
I emphasize that, though reincarnation is consistent with, and probably implied by, my metaphysics, it isn’t part of that metaphysics. That metaphysics doesn’t depend on a belief in reincarnation.
.
Michael829


_________________
Michael829


Lintar
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 22 Nov 2012
Age: 56
Gender: Male
Posts: 1,777
Location: Victoria, Australia

10 Sep 2017, 7:52 pm

mikeman7918 wrote:
Just because things are identical doesn't mean that they are the same thing, you can have two of something without then being one thing because they are identical. You can indeed create something that already exists, that's called duplication.


Yes, that appears to be rather obvious, but upon seeing this I was instantly reminded of a certain YouTuber name Johannan Raatz, who likes to use Leibniz' indiscernability of identicals to somehow "prove" the opposite. His clips are actually quite good, even though I often disagree with him, but I really do wish he wouldn't have that annoying background music going, it being unbelievably distracting for someone like me who simply cannot concentrate on what someone is saying if there is a loud background sound.



mikeman7918
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 7 Mar 2016
Age: 26
Gender: Male
Posts: 1,929
Location: Utah, USA

12 Sep 2017, 12:34 am

Michael829 wrote:
That expression in square brackets [size=(some number)], placed inside the square-bracketed quoting-expression at the top of the reply-writing screen?
.
If not, then where would I write the [size=(some number)], and what number did you use?
.
Of course, since I often reply via Word, I could just do the enlarging there. But my question above is relevant, because, writing a short reply, I often just reply at the forum without using Word. Also, of course the box-quote is easier than the { }.

I used size 150 if I recall. I believe it is based on percentages of normal size, so 100 is normal and the maximum size is 300.

Michael829 wrote:
Of course it wouldn’t !
.
What is that guy, a sorcerer?
.
Maybe he’d decided to simulate a planet in a universe, and it just happened to be our planet in our universe. …duplicating, but not creating, our world.
.
So then he intervenes in his simulated world, and, contrary to its own physical laws (that he’d presumably previously given to it), he alters things so that the universe is destroyed.
.
Our world is a possibility-world because it’s self-consistent. Otherwise it would be an impossibility-world, logically-contradictory. It wouldn’t have the abstract logical facts that I’ve spoken of as the components of our possibility-world.
.
So your programmer can do whatever he wants to his world, but our world operates according to its physical laws and won’t self-destruct just because someone somewhere alters his simulation-program. He then just won’t be simulating our world anymore.
.
Now, of course, when, after his program modification, he has a new universe, with different physical laws that result in its early self-destruction, and if that’s all self-consistent, then of course he’ll again (as before) be simulating some already-existent possibility world that does self-destruct. But that isn’t our world, because he achieved it by changing his universe’s laws, so that they’re no longer the laws of our universe.

Here's the thing though, that simulated version of our universe would include simulated versions of you and I having this exact conversation. You would be just as insistent that the world you are standing on would be unaffected by the programmer's actions yet that version of you actually would be killed if the programmer decided to blow up the Earth. If we assume that there is only one real version of this universe and one simulated version of this universe then there is a 50% chance that we are the simulated version and not the real version.

Michael829 wrote:
Duplication isn’t creation.
.
Ok, I’ll Xerox your term-paper, sign my name on it, and turn it in, and get credit for creating it.
.
If you want to expand the meaning of “create”, that’s fine, but the fact remains that your programmer can’t affect the possibility-worlds that he simulates.
.
And he’s only duplicating possibility-worlds that were already there.

Before we continue I am going to define a few terms here as I am using them in the context of my argument.

Design:
A process that is usually very calculation intensive in which a way of creating something which does an intended task within the limitations imposed my the laws of physics is devised.

Create:
To take a design and manifest it within the physical world.

Appear:
To come into existence without a design.

In your example, I would have both designed and created the paper but you would have just created it and stolen my design. In the case of universes though I believe we can agree that they were never designed, they just appeared. This would also mean that although a universe simulating program would have been designed the universes it simulates would not be created but would just appear based on your model.

tl;dr: that's a false analogy fallacy.

Michael829 wrote:
No, not really.
.
A system of inter-referring if-thens exists within its own inter-referring context. There are infinitely-many such.
.
As I’ve mentioned more than once, such a system’s existence in its own inter-referring context isn’t debatable. It’s inevitable.
.
Some of them are universe possibility-worlds like ours.
.
Ours is real for us, because it’s the context of our lives.
.
I could cite Faraday, Tippler and Tegmark. Look up “Tegmark, MUH” (without the quotes), at a browser, if you want to.
.
Where my proposal differs from theirs is that I say that what’s primary is you and your life-experience possibility-story, and that this possibility-world is secondary, as the setting for that story. In an earlier post, I told why I prefer that emphasis.
.
But, all of these versions of Eliminative Ontic Structuralism propose the same possibility-world.
.
I don’t agree with Tippler’s belief in computer simulations creating universes.

I have heard this concept referred to as the "ultimate multiverse" model, my problem is not that you take it seriously but that you believe it to be correct without observable evidence.

Michael829 wrote:
Exactly.
.
If he was duplicating a pre-existing possibility-world (and they’re all pre-existing), and then changed something to destroy it, by either contravening or changing its physical laws, then, when he makes that change, he’s no longer duplicating the possibility-world that he was duplicating before making that change.
.
He can do whatever he wants in his simulation, and he won’t affect anyone or their world.

But it would effect the people in the simulation which for all we know we could be.

Michael829 wrote:
No, if you’re really a Materialist, and you’re sure that you’re a Materialist, then the simulation-theory is ruled out by your Materialist metaphysics.

Or, to say it in another way, if you consider the simulation-theory at all possible, then you aren’t a Materialist. …and that’s a good thing.

This is like the classic "atheists are 100% sure that there is no God" strawman. Yes, by your definition I am not a materialist but that is not the definition that myself or anyone else that I know uses. As I said before I am above and beyond all else an empiricist which means that every belief I have is subject to change if new information suggests that I'm wrong. I am a materialist because I believe that what I can see or otherwise measure exists and anything I can't see or otherwise measure by definition doesn't effect anything and therefore can safely be ignored. I don't believe that anything exists besides matter and energy because I have no empirical reason to, you could have all the explanatory power in the world but without predictive power a theory is worthless.

Michael829 wrote:
“If all dogs are mammals, and if all mammals are animals, then all dogs are animals.”
.
Are you less than 100% sure of that if-then fact?
.
That’s an if-then fact, and it’s a 100% certain if-then fact.
.
There are many such abstract logical facts that, likewise, are 100% certain. …including mathematical theorems, which are if-then facts whose “if” clause includes (but isn’t limited to) a set of mathematical axioms (arithmetical or geometrical, etc.)
.
Such if-then facts comprise the systems of inter-referring if-then facts that I speak of as possibility-worlds. …or, more accurately, as life-experience possibility-stories. …of which there are infinitely-many.

Sure, given that "if A then B" and "A is true" then I could conclude with 100% certainty that "B is true". Here's the problem: in the real world we never have premises that we can be 100% certain about. We can only be certain about things we imagine, such as the definitions of words that make all dogs classified as animals. That is something we made up which is the only reason we can be so sure about it. When it comes to reality outside of our minds we don't have this luxury, it's impossible to be 100% sure about anything.

Michael829 wrote:
See above. Yes, there are if-then facts that are 100% certain. They can inter-refer as a system of if-then facts. Such a system can be arbitrarily large and complex. One of them can be, and is, complicated enough to be your life-experience possibility-story, and that’s why you’re in a life.
.
In case you didn’t read my earlier posts to this thread, then let me say that a physical law is a hypothetical fact that relates some physical-quantity values. That physical law, and some of those physical quantity-values, are part of the “if” clause of various if-then statements. The “then” clauses of those if-then statements’ consist of the other physical quantity-values that that physical law relates.
.
I emphasize that the physical law, itself, is a hypothetical fact…a fact that’s part of an “if “ clause.
.
My point is that the existence of these entirely hypothetical possibility worlds (including this one), and life-experience possibility-stories (including the one about your life-experience), isn’t in doubt. …isn’t debatable.
.
They’re inevitably there.

So you are saying that if-then statements make up all of reality? That proposition has one fatal flaw: where do they start? There must be a first if-then statement or set of if-then statements, but then what would be the "if"? This is why math is based on axioms, which are assumed to be true and can't be supported mathematically without it becoming circular logic. These axioms are supported generally by things like common sense and real world experience which are things that are known to be fallible. Although we can be pretty darn sure that if A=B and B=C then A=C we can never truly be 100% sure, only arbitrarily close. You can prove it with math all you want, but since this is an assumption that math is based on it would be circular reasoning.

So tell me, if reality is based on logic then what are it's axioms?

Michael829 wrote:
Not about anything?
.
Then see above.

Well, I admit that you can be sure about things that have been made up but I will modify my comment. The only way to be 100% sure about anything about reality outside of our made up definitions and hypothetical worlds is the Dunning-Kruger effect.

Michael829 wrote:
About the matter of reincarnation and falsifiability:
.
I’m not here to convince anyone about reincarnation. But your reasoning about it, on the basis of falsifiability, doesn’t sound right. The fact that there’s a reincarnation-belief that says some people remember past lives, in no way counts against other reincarnation proposals that don’t say that.
.
I wouldn’t expect people to be able to remember past lives. In fact, it seems to me that, even with reincarnation, past lives are moot.
.
If there’s reincarnation, then there will probably be a future life. In that next life, I wouldn’t expect you to be able to remember this one.
.
Now, if one life can lead to another, than, with an infinity of life-experience possibility-stories, of course it would be likely (certain?) that there’d be one that would lead to your current life.
.
But that can’t be called the cause of your current life. …because the infinity of life-experience possibility-stories just is. Period. In other words, a previous life isn’t needed to explain your current one. Your current life is self-explanatory and already there as a possibility-story.
.
Anyway, if the past-life-memory belief is falsified by a lack of verified reports, that says nothing about reincarnation proposals that don’t predict memory of past-lives.
.
So I don’t think that there’s a falsification-basis for drawing probability-conclusions about reincarnation.

OK, then we have a different dilemma. Either an unmeasurable form of reincarnation happens that leaves no trace and is physically impossible to measure in any way, or there is another darn good reason who it can't be measured which is that it doesn't happen. Two models which predict the same thing, but one is unnecessarily complex and the other one is simple. Call me crazy, but I think physics is complex enough as is and if it can be made simpler without taking away from it's predictive power and usefulness in the slightest then that is what I will subscribe to.

Michael829 wrote:
Now, for the usual “skeptical” debunker, Materialism, Exclusive-Materialism, is the default dogma, and therefore the non-existence of reincarnation is the default position.

Something that should be noted is that the only reason I am arguing against reincarnation is because you are arguing for it, if you were saying that you were 100% sure that reincarnation is impossible then I would be arguing against that too. This is the case for a lot of the things we are debating, for example recently in another thread I argued that this reality is likely not a simulation even though here I'm arguing that it might be. This is the case for every other person I know who calls themselves a materialist, the position I am arguing for is that we don't know a lot of this stuff.

Sure, I do lean towards one side on many things but it's always the model that is the most falsifiable and the simplest. That is why I can not believe in a God, not believe in an afterlife, not believe in a multiverse, and not believe that we are in a simulation. These are positions which I have a high level of uncertainty about and are highly subject to change given empirical evidence.

Michael829 wrote:
…if you’re an Exclusive-Materialist. (That’s what I call someone who not only believes in Materialism’s fundamentally, independently, objectively real “Stuff”, but also (don’t ask me how) believes that this physical world comprises all of Reality.)
.
But if you’re not an Exclusive-Materialist, then there’s nothing default about the no-reincarnation belief.
.
What are the alternatives?
.
* Traditional Christian eternal Heaven and Hell.
.
* Other Eternity.
.
* Just uneventfully going to sleep. (I’ve commented on that in a previous post to this thread.)
.
I suspect that the just-going-to-sleep theory doesn’t really hold up. …because, if, during the death-process, there’s a time at which your body has thoroughly shut down, and there’s no perception at all, because you’re quite dead, then there must be a time, just before that, when you haven’t entirely lost consciousness and perception.
.
It’s plausible and natural that, at that late stage of shutdown, you might not know that you were recently in a life. After all, in dreams you often don’t know about your waking-life, and often you believe the dream-reality.
.
It’s plausible that, at that late stage, all that remains of you are your most basic tendencies, inclinations, subconscious habits, and your orientation towards a future. Vedanta calls those tendencies Vasanas.
.
At that time, with only those Vasanas remaining, when you’re so shut-down that don’t know whether you’re coming or going, but are still subconsciously strongly future-oriented, you’re still (as you were in this life) someone about whom there is a life-experience possibility-story. I’ve been saying that that’s the reason why there’s this life-story about you with you as its protagonist, why you’re in a life.
.
So, if the reason why you’re in this life remains, at the end of this life, then what obvious conclusion does that suggest?
.
That’s why I say that reincarnation is consistent with, or even implied by, my metaphysics.
.
Yes, it’s true that going to sleep seems mostly uneventful, but it’s now known that we don’t remember most of our dreams. So, not remembering experiences doesn’t mean that there weren’t any.
.
Anyway, even the fact that we remember some dreams shows that sleep needn’t be regarded as uneventful.
.
Reincarnation as one of the possibilities:
.
(The Eastern position is that only a very few particularly life-completed people will be life-uninvolved and dispassionate enough to reach Eternity instead of reincarnation at the end of this life.)
.
I feel that the Judeo-Christian, Abrahamic, Western/Middle-Eastern system of religions is authoritarian, and far away from whatever early justification and meaning that it might have once had.
.
The past-life-memory belief is falsified if we don’t have verified, proven-correct, reports. But that says nothing about other reincarnation proposals that don’t predict past-life-memory.
.
I don’t claim that it can be known whether there’s reincarnation.

I am confused. So are you saying that just because you are alive in one instant and that you care about the future it means that it can't end in the next instant? That makes no sense. Neurology is no new field of study and they keep on finding evidence that everything about us from our memories to our personality is stored within the neural connections within that gray lump of matter in our heard. I don't like the analogy of comparing death to sleep because in sleep you are still experiencing things but in death you have no brain activity at all. The parts of your brain that determine everything about you turn to mush and decompose, including the parts responsible for perceiving and experiencing things. My belief that there is nothing after death is based on that.

By the way, I can agree that most religions are very authoritarian and have this tendency to get people's money by scaring them with eternal punishment but that's a discussion for another day and something which we seem to agree about anyway.

Michael829 wrote:
I’ve told, above, about how there are if-then statements, about hypotheticals, that aren’t in doubt. There are logical and mathematical facts that aren’t in doubt.
.
Therefore there are systems of inter-referring if-then facts, indisputable abstract logical and mathematical facts, that likewise aren’t in doubt.
.
All of that’s inevitable.
.
Such a system can be arbitrarily complex and complicated. It can be complicated enough to be your life-experience story. In fact there’s such a system that is your life-experience possibility-story.
.
In fact, there’s no experience, observation or experiment that isn’t consistent with that.

That's a bug, not a feature. A model that can explain literally anything is unfalsifiable and incapable of making any useful predictions. It's kind of like the classic Christian explanation of "God did it", it can explain literally anything and has no predictive power whatsoever making it useless but falsely satisfying.

Michael829 wrote:
Now, I don’t claim to have proof that Materialism’s “Stuff “ doesn’t (additionally) exist too. But, if it does, then it’s superfluous and irrelevant, because the logical/mathematical relational-structure described above is all the explanation needed for your life-experience (and the possibility-world that is that the setting for that experience).
.
There seems to be a belief that I call “Exclusive-Materialism” that says that Materialism’s fundamentally, independently, objectively existent physical world comprises all of Reality. That belief is insupportable, because it’s contradicted by the inevitable facts discussed above.
.
I emphasize that, because no one can say for sure what is experienced in sleep and unconsciousness, it isn’t possible to prove that there’s reincarnation.
.
If you object that the reincarnation is perceived by a body that’s about to shut down, then I remind you that I claim that that body, and its life, are only there because of a possibility-story anyway.

Well, I still say that assuming additional stuff without it adding to your predictive power is a waste of time.

Michael829 wrote:
If this all sounds fantastic, what do you think this life is? The fact that this life started, that you’re in a life at all, is surprising and remarkable.
.
I emphasize that, though reincarnation is consistent with, and probably implied by, my metaphysics, it isn’t part of that metaphysics. That metaphysics doesn’t depend on a belief in reincarnation.
.
Michael829

I just found myself here and I have no idea why, nobody does. Sure, life is pretty amazing but that is no excuse to start asserting things. We're all trying to figure out what's gong on and I have decided to use empiricism to do that, so I end up saying "I don't know" a lot but when I do know something I can demonstrate it.


_________________
Also known as MarsMatter.

Diagnosed with Asperger's, ADD, and Generalized Anxiety Disorder in 2004.
In denial that it was a problem until early 2016.

Deviant Art


SilverBoltsisWmax
Sea Gull
Sea Gull

User avatar

Joined: 12 Aug 2017
Age: 31
Gender: Male
Posts: 245
Location: South Carolina

12 Sep 2017, 12:46 am

I believe in a pseduo Chuck sort of god being the actual real god. That's the way I can easily see reality going.



LoveNotHate
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 12 Oct 2013
Gender: Female
Posts: 6,195
Location: USA

12 Sep 2017, 2:26 am

One of the most striking quantum phenomena to me, and indicative of a possible simulation is that the same matter can be in two different positions at the same time.

" Quantum-mechanically, the atom would instead occupy a superposition of the two positions".
https://phys.org/physics-news/quantum-physics/



Michael829
Toucan
Toucan

Joined: 29 Aug 2017
Gender: Male
Posts: 256
Location: United States

12 Sep 2017, 3:33 pm

techstepgenr8tion wrote:
Michael829 wrote:
{You said}
Exactly! :thumright: That's my approach as well.
{unquote}

I'm not Lintar either.


Thank you, Techstepgener8ion.

I've quoted you above, just so that this post will be officially displayed as a reply to you, and so that you'll be notified that you were quoted.

Directly below is my reply to your recent reply:

{I’d said}
1. (as mentioned above) Which statement, premise or conclusion of mine didn’t have empirical support that it needed?
{unquote}

.
{You replied}
For as tough as it's been to read between the lines, it seems like you've bought into something like a model of panpsychism where each atom or subatomic particle is both consciousness and a physical artifact. {unquote}
.
You’re reading too much between the lines.
.
I meant only what I said.
.
I’m saying something much simpler:
.
Our 1st-person experience is exactly what one would expect it to be for an animal designed by natural selection, to purposefully respond to its (our) surroundings.
.
Anyone who insists on a separate Consciousness, different from the body, is making it more complicated than it is.
.
{You said}
You also seem to imply that emergence is all materialist hand-waiving…
{unquote}
.
Not always Materialist, but yes, many Materialists do that handwaving.
.
{You continued}
…or that suggesting that there's a separate mind/body is something that should be looked at as 'spiritualist'.
{unquote}
.
Yes.
.
{You said}
As far as I can tell, emergence doesn't necessarily need to be a blunt appearance of something so much as it can be a useful model for how such groupings collate to one another to form more advanced and versatile systems.
{unquote}
.
Emergentism is supposedly needed to explain a completely different and new entity or metaphysical substance arising from something else. …something that I don’t accept as true anyway.
.
Well, I say that “Emergentism” is mystical mumbo-jumbo intended to obfuscate one’s way out of a problem that doesn’t exist. …thereby validating the nonexistent problem.
.
{You said}
My problem right now is seeing where you go with the esoteric side of this - ie. as if our ability to track our surroundings gets drawn and quartered as our bodies break down.
{unquote}
.
Of course our knowledge and memory of our life and its details fades out as we shut down. How could it not?
.
{You said}
I've seen too much evidence that very self-aware consciousness exists without physical embodiment as we'd usually think of it
{unquote}
.
Yes, one can say that we, the Experiencer, are primary. After all, right at the end of lives, there’s no experience of, or knowledge of, a body, a physical world, a life in a world, time, or events. But it’s a reasonable presumption that there’s perception nevertheless, in Timelessness.
.
So yes, that supports what you said in the above quote.
.
So I don’t disagree.
.
But I feel that there’s an “equivalence-principle”: There’s always a physical-body explanation for our experiences too. I’m not saying the physical surroundings and explanation is primary. I think that we’re primary. But that equivalence-principle still obtains, and you can find a physical-body “explanation” for us too (even though it isn’t primary).
.
{You said{]/b]
and it seems like there's enough information out there with respect to NDE's and the like to suggest that most people aren't going through the sort of no-identity fog that you're suggesting.
[b]{unquote}

.
No. NDEs happen at the beginning of the death process, long before the stage (I call it “stage 1”) when reincarnation would take place; and long before the later no-identity stage (I call it “stage 2”) when Timelessness is reached. (Incidentally, presumably if there’s reincarnation, very few people reach stage 2.)
.
The NDEs could be the beginning of the temporary Heavens and Hells referred to by Hinduism and Buddhism.
.
But, inevitably, just before complete shutdown, after which the person is quite dead, there must be as stage at which the person is still conscious, but without awareness of his/her previous life, or even that there ever were such things life, a body, identity, time, or events.
.
…because, just before we completely lose consciousness, we surely will have lost awareness of all the details about our life that has ended.
.
{I’d said}
2. What metaphysics has better empirical support than Skepticism (the metaphysics that I prose)?
{unquote}

{You said}
I'm still not even sure what you mean by that.
{unquote}
.
Well, it’s a fairly straightforward question.
.
Which part of it don’t you understand?
.
(A metaphysics is a proposal regarding “what is”, or what Reality is. …a proposal such as Materialism, or Skepticism.)
.
{You said}
.
If you're talking about you're if-then structures we still need to hear more about what that breaks down to on a practical level.
{unquote}
.
That isn’t a very specific question. As a practical matter, we just live our lives as well as possible.
.
Things we like.
.
Getting by.
.
Ethically, caringly living right.
.
If you’re asking about the consequences of Skepticism, then, though it’s difficult to put it in words, the following is my personal impression of some differences between Skepticism and Materialism:
.
I’d say simplicity, openness. A certain openness and looseness, compared to the closed, straitlaced, circumscribed world of Materialism.
.
But none of that discussion is necessary in regards to arguments for or against Skepticism.
.
{You said}
I'm seeing too many veils here - particularly with respect to the notion of gaining a working knowledge of consciousness.
{unquote}
.
Sorry, I can’t help you there. I don’t believe in the Hard-Problem-Of-Consciousness.
.
Anyway, you’re changing the subject to philosophy-of-mind. We were discussing metaphysics. Discussion isn’t possible when the subject gets changed.
.
{You said}
I don't understand why that would have to be an inherently 'materialist' endeavor.
{unquote}
.
I didn’t mean to say that it is. Materialists might not be the only people who struggle with the nonexistent Hard-Problem-Of-Consciousness.
.
For example, you aren’t a Materialist, and you seem to believe in the Hard-Problem-Of-Consciousness.
.
In any case, from your answer above, I take that as a statement that no, you can’t name a metaphysics that’s better supported than Skepticism.
.
{You said}
I also got reminded, seeing a recent interview with Stuart Hameroff, that there are sound medical reasons for trying to understand consciousness - especially in the areas of treating mental illness.
{unquote}
.
Now you’re confusing philosophy-of-mind with psychology. Two entirely different subjects.
.
Philosophy-of-mind is about the (unnecessary, futile) search for a general explanation of Consciousness, as an entity separate from the body.
.
{You said}
As far as trying to discuss culture or advancement that would probably be beyond the scope of this response
{unquote}
.
Yes.
.
{You said}
but I also think and understanding of consciousness is critical for us to make good decisions going forward
{unquote}
.
Oh come on—Don’t use that executive-talk expression “going forward”
.
Of course we’re all future-oriented to some degree, because we’re in life.
.
(But of course we shouldn’t defer happiness to the future—but that’s a different philosophical topic.)
.
{You said}
, especially knowing in what ways we can help ourselves better adapt to the environment that we're creating with the rapid pace of technological advancement and just how much that's changing how we interact and 'do' culture.
{unquote}
.
Because I’m not interested in that topic, which is why I’m not on the political threads, then I won’t question your claim that philosophy-of-mind is important to that endeavor.
--------------------
I don’t question the validity or meaning of the experiences that you describe.
.
{You said}
a purely logic-based system won't surprise you or throw you any curveballs the way a scientific experiment, or an occult magical experiment for that matter, could.
{unquote}
.
So?
.
Anyway, maybe that isn’t so. For example, the logic-based metaphysics that I’ve proposed is difficult for some people here to accept.
.
The suggestion to give up the notion of objective existence and reality is very difficult for many people.

.
That could be called a “curveball” that you reject.
.
{I’d said}
.
4. What would be an example of a philosophical conclusion that you’ve reached from empirical evidence?
{unquote}

.
{You answered}

.
Admittedly I have no idea whether these experiences are exactly what they present as but most of this suggests to me that conscious systems can swim through one another, join and separate, when one joins you can't even really tell once that happens unless that merge is broken (in that last example by a profound enough disagreement on something - and even there I think it was more just pushed to an extreme hyphenation),
{unquote}
.
Though it isn’t what I’d say, I don’t have an argument with that. Things can be discussed and described from different points of view, and with regard to different matters.
.
{You continued}
and none of that really squares away for me with the suggestion that we're locked in to our subatomic particles
{unquote}
.
I agree that we’re primary, but I suggest that that “principle-of-equivalence” that I described obtains too.
.
{You said}
or that we'd diffuse into a sort of vague I AM-ness with no memory, basking in eternity, until we re-embody.
{unquote}
.
That’s sounds a lot like what I said. …except that, when we reach Timelessness, we don’t re-embody.
.
Reincarnation would be from an earlier stage of shutdown, in which we still have identity, and our subconscious life-inclinations and future-orientation.
.
{You said}
What it suggests to me is that consciousness is either in dynamic systems themselves, or free to move through them at will. Either way I don't see the tethering.
{unquote}
.
The “teathering” is the equivalence-principle that I spoke of.
.
If you’re right, and a person remains fully conscious of all the life-details that they’re conscious of in life, and that will always endure, even after death, at the end of lives, then eventually you’ll know that you were right, and that I was wrong.
.
But, if I’m right, then by the time that makes a difference, you won’t know that this discussion took place.
.
But I could ask you: Why would you want to remember all the life-details, at the end of lives? Aren’t the life-details, such things as the fact that there was a life, identity, time, events, etc. irrelevant at the end of lives?

.

{You said}

IMHO it's [Materialism] too incoherent to even be looked at as a thing to be avoided.
{unquote}
.
Yes.
.
But I still discuss it, because there are still people who believe in it, and there are some at this forum.
.
{I’d said}
My metaphysics is founded on a system of inter-referring if-then facts, which are about hypothetical facts.
.
(It’s true that a “hypothetical fact” isn’t, strictly-speaking, a fact. But an if-then fact can be a valid, inevitably-true fact, though its “if” clause (and therefore its “then” clause) is hypothetical. The if-then fact’s relation between those two hypotheticals can be a genuine fact.)
.
I emphasize that if-then facts relating hypotheticals can be inevitable and indisputable facts. “If it rains tomorrow, the ground will get wet.” The rain tomorrow is hypothetical. So is the wetting of the ground, which might not happen (if it doesn’t rain tomorrow). But the overall if-then fact that relates those two hypotheticals is a certainty (assuming that no one has covered all the ground with a tarp).
.
Likewise abstract logical facts and mathematical theorems. No empirical evidence needed.
.
Not all if-then facts are surely-true facts. Some are hypothetical, and are part of the “if” clause of other if-then facts.
.
Such are physical laws.
.
But the point is that all of this is founded upon hypotheticals, and if-then facts that relate those hypotheticals.
.
In other words, none of it needs “empirical evidence”.
.
To demand “empirical evidence” for abstract facts is inappropriate and ridiculous.

{unquote}
.
{You replied}
If the universe were as uncomplicated and easy to understand as any Joe on the internet, or any in history, would have thought - science would be redundant to philosophy and wouldn't be needed.
{unquote}
.
No, even if the laws of physics were simpler than they are, physics would still be needed. Philosophy (such as metaphysics) isn’t intended as, and wouldn’t be, a substitute for science. They’re entirely different subjects, with entirely separate and different areas of applicability.
.
{You said}

As it stands there may be competing theories in philosophy, scientific experiment comes to bear on that topic…
{unquote}
.
No, it doesn’t. Physics and its experiments don’t bear on metaphysics. As I said above, they’re two entirely separate topics.
.
There is one notable exception:
.
In a book by a Physics professor, a recognized authority on quantum-mechanics (The author was probably named Mullen), the author said that quantum mechanics has laid to rest the belief in an objectively-existent physical world.
.
That’s a rare (unique?) instance of physics saying something about metaphysics.
.
{you continued}
and either edifies one at the expense of the other or may even crush all of the competing hypotheses with something which was too odd to be expected.
{unquote}
.
No, science can’t do that (though I mentioned an evidently unique exception above). They’re different topics.
.
{You said{
That's where I think philosophy really can't be a stand-in for science.
{unquote}
.
Did anyone say that philosophy is a stand-in for science?
..
{You said}
Philosophy has no place for projecting or anticipating the truly counter-intuitive
{unquote}]/b]
.
Well, giving up the notion of the universe’s objective existence and reality is very counter-intuitive, so much so that you don’t accept it.
.
[b]{You said}

and anytime you'd run into the truly counter-intuitive, reflexively by its nature, you'd have no reason to surmise it - rather any person, without knowing facts that are yet to be known, would pave right over the paradoxes with what seem to be perfectly sound and reasonable expectations. Expectations and actualities rarely quite map the way we think they would - hence, I think for good reason,
{unquote}
.
I don’t know what you mean by that.
.
{You said}
I don't trust any theory advancing toward a TOE because they're almost always drastic overreaches.
{unquote}
.
I doubt that physicists will ever find the elusive theory of everything (physical) (TOE).
.
{You said}
This is also why I don't like throwing wall-texts up, they're almost never worth the effort and even when you think the effort might be justified you're taking a gamble as to whether anyone will even read it.
{unquote}
.
Sorry, Techstepgener8ion, but I don’t just do soundbites.
.
Forgive me for taking the time to reply to what you say.
.
If you don’t like that, then of course I won’t do it again. I promise.
.
(…but is it alright if I finish this reply?)
.
I take the time to support what I say. I take the time to fully reply to people (but I refer you to what I just now said above).
.
If you prefer soundbites, then maybe you’d be happier with tv news.
.
But, if my replies to you have to be soundbites, then I might not reply to you, because I’m not into soundbites.
.
{You said}

As far as skepticism though, I'm still not sure what you're getting out of it.
{unquote}

.
Not at all sure what you’re asking.
.
What do you want to get from a metaphysics???
.
{You said}
I understand skepticism in the usual sense of the word.
{unquote}
.
Good. But see below.
.
{You said}
To try and say that you mean skepticism as 'if-then statements are the bread and butter of reality' - I don't feel like you've walked through what that means well enough to even make a particularly educated comment on it.
{unquote}
.
Educate yourself to this:
.
Merriam-Webster Collegiate Dictionary:
.
Skepticism:
.
1. An attitude of doubt or a disposition to incredulity, either in general or toward a particular object.
.
Incredulity:
.
The quality or state of being incredulous.
.
Incredulous:
.
Unwilling to admit or accept what is offered as true. Not credulous.
.
Credulous:
.
Ready to believe, especially on slight or uncertain evidence.
.
[end of definitions]
.
My metaphysics rejects and avoids assumptions and brute-facts.
.
That’s skepticism, as define above.
.
In fact, that’s skepticism itself.
.
That’s why I call my metaphysics Skepticism.
.
But, note that I capitalize Skepticism, as the name of a metaphysics.
.
Uncapitalized, skepticism, is a common noun, the one whose definition I quoted above.
.
Michael829


_________________
Michael829


techstepgenr8tion
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 6 Feb 2005
Age: 44
Gender: Male
Posts: 24,150
Location: 28th Path of Tzaddi

13 Sep 2017, 12:48 am

Michael829 wrote:
You’re reading too much between the lines.
.
I meant only what I said.
.
I’m saying something much simpler:
.
Our 1st-person experience is exactly what one would expect it to be for an animal designed by natural selection, to purposefully respond to its (our) surroundings.
.
Anyone who insists on a separate Consciousness, different from the body, is making it more complicated than it is.

Except that's vacuous. A good car is exactly what it's designed to be, an IPhone is exactly what it's designed to be. Galaxies, solar systems, suns, planets, moons, mountains, clouds, biomes, or individual lifeforms - these are remnants or surviving remainders of natural processes. When it comes to living systems they are a consequence of the forces of the universe. Also, being that we probably started from RNA, RNA ribozymes pulled into lipid bubbles to form the first cells, cells teamed with other cells for survival, and thus the potter's wheel spun itself with no sign of a potter.

What we have, from the earliest twitches of an enzyme or protein, and I think this is what you're seeing, was an inkling of kinetic structures, based on the intrinsic properties of their structure, to do whatever they did. That amplified as said structures enlarged. As they enlarged they specialized. New systems came online as these structures specialized their function, and really the apogee of this - at least that we have historical reference for - is the human prefrontal cortex, if an earlier race of beings more advanced than us didn't either blow themselves up or get wiped out by asteroid impact or whatever else - we're pretty much the current apex for inductive reasoning. Some animals, certain apes for example, have been shown to dwarf us on short-term memory, I'm sure there'll be more research done into other animals and I'm sure quite a few of them have stunning cognitive powers, just that we evolved the capacity to leverage a lot more out of what we had - a lot of that probably was situational.

While the whole might be greater than the sum of its parts with respect to the human brains (yes, we have multiple dense nerve centers in our bodies that have been shown to even have significant count of brain cells), and I think that can be said with most data-processing systems, it's still the sum of parts. I think that's where the term emergence is helpful - ie. with enough resources a new order of affairs is able to commence. That new order is an energy economy that couldn't happen previously because the specializations required for it to happen would have been too costly. That instance of change and 'change into what?' isn't even a decision, it's a shifting of natural laws as a system engages a new energy plateau. The human brain, or even animal brain, is not the beginning of awareness necessarily, just that there clearly seem to be certain thresholds at which new things come online.

Michael829 wrote:
Emergentism is supposedly needed to explain a completely different and new entity or metaphysical substance arising from something else. …something that I don’t accept as true anyway.

That's what's often termed 'strong emergence'.

Michael829 wrote:
.
Of course our knowledge and memory of our life and its details fades out as we shut down. How could it not?

Easy enough - it simply wouldn't, and we'd have to figure out why.

Michael829 wrote:
.
{You said}
I've seen too much evidence that very self-aware consciousness exists without physical embodiment as we'd usually think of it
{unquote}
.
Yes, one can say that we, the Experiencer, are primary. After all, right at the end of lives, there’s no experience of, or knowledge of, a body, a physical world, a life in a world, time, or events. But it’s a reasonable presumption that there’s perception nevertheless, in Timelessness.
.
So yes, that supports what you said in the above quote.
.
So I don’t disagree.

Except that you've been making a case all this time that when atoms lose their order for conducting a dynamic system, in our case neurons, it all dissolves. In that sense I've been forced to - largely by my own experiences and that of a lot practicing magicians and mystics. The way I phrased it - I can't tell you that other people's word, or mine, seals the deal, just to say that there are tools that you could use if you really wanted to put your own ideas to the test.

Michael829 wrote:
.
But I feel that there’s an “equivalence-principle”: There’s always a physical-body explanation for our experiences too. I’m not saying the physical surroundings and explanation is primary. I think that we’re primary. But that equivalence-principle still obtains, and you can find a physical-body “explanation” for us too (even though it isn’t primary).

It's probably not perfectly pure and tidy, and in human debates we seem to love absolutes. I think the equivalence principle you're mentioning, which the technical term for in most people's parlance is panpsychism, doesn't bear out when you see how conscious systems interact.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C3aP905vW-c

What the guy above is talking about seems to offer a pretty good explanation of complex systems, emergence, and essentially he's pointing the way toward functionalism - which I suggested is complete with mutliple realizability, in that my stomach is a stomach but it's also my stomach, I'm me but I'm also an American who lives in a city. Ant colonies of more than three ants self-organize. Biomes self-organize. Societies by and large tend to self-organize. The little bit extra that seems to intuitively prompt us toward certain behavior, give us strange coincidences or what Jung called 'synchronicities', is really our membership in a society and that society being something like a wireless brain - not a dominant or overriding brain, the way my brain enslaves my own neurons, but a much more loosely knit brain that deals more in subtle suggestion, influences dreams, can even cause religious or mystical experiences at the right times, and you see it perhaps at its most coercive or dominant in the case of crowd/mob hysteria, but it's essentially the brain of a culture, a continent sometimes, its tight nervous system, rather than being us, is accelerated or supported by the internet (a good analogy - the internet is its white matter).

Any which way systems stack - the individual component of the system communicates with the system as a whole and the system as a whole communicates with the individual unit. My pain receptors tell me things, I do things in response. I behave in a certain way in human culture, i get a sort of response back from culture as do we all and it shapes how we behave in the world.

Larger systems actually can't really exist until the components of those systems do. Where that can happen in reverse is mass destruction or explosions, such as the big bang, but generally the sum total of forces on the large level tends to have a returning downward effect on its constituents that gives it shape. This is part of why clouds look the way they do perhaps, and the likeness of galactic clusters to neural tissue seems to also suggest that we aren't a fluke and that neurons aren't a fluke either - such structures are tied into the laws of nature. There's an exciting possibility - being that the only places that we see neuron-like structure, aside from neurons, are in certain slime molds, traffic systems, and telecom networks. If that is the case the galactic clusters seem to be working on some type of model of efficiency based on that inherent sort of consciousness in matter.

Michael829 wrote:
.
No. NDEs happen at the beginning of the death process, long before the stage (I call it “stage 1”) when reincarnation would take place; and long before the later no-identity stage (I call it “stage 2”) when Timelessness is reached. (Incidentally, presumably if there’s reincarnation, very few people reach stage 2.)
.
The NDEs could be the beginning of the temporary Heavens and Hells referred to by Hinduism and Buddhism.

Are you sourcing this from Hinduism and Buddhism or other places as well?

Michael829 wrote:
.
But, inevitably, just before complete shutdown, after which the person is quite dead, there must be as stage at which the person is still conscious, but without awareness of his/her previous life, or even that there ever were such things life, a body, identity, time, or events.

I highlighted the 'must'. I see a lot of that in your writings but not a lot in the way of explanation as to why aside from that they must fit your models.

Michael829 wrote:
.
Well, it’s a fairly straightforward question.
.
Which part of it don’t you understand?

Your conflation of the dictionary meaning of Skepticism and your private definition of Skepticism - which as far as I can tell are completely orthogonal. I think antirealism might fit what you're saying better and that seems to map back to the idea that you can only know the whole in terms of its smallest parts - working from reductionism first and then trying to map everything back up.

My fundamental disagreement with that right now is that I don't see where granular if-then interactions (which has nothing to do with 'Skepticism - it's something I'm sure but clearly something else) by itself tells us much of anything unless we're paying attention to how those if-thens bundle into large currents, paying attention to the laws of those currents, and it seems like the more we look at living systems or even geological natural systems like rivers, we see patterns such as bifurcation. A particular Robert Sapolsky lecture I was watching went into how the bifurcation of neurons, of blood vessels, of pathways in our lungs, etc.. etc.. aren't even genetically coded - that most of what our bodies do leverage certain natural laws when bringing their complexity about, and somewhat shockingly he started talking about Julia sets, Mandelbrot, etc.. There's no one-off tool to understand that, rather we have to be able to flip between many points of reference, almost simultaneously, to try and get any circumspect understanding of what things like this tell us.

Michael829 wrote:
.
If you're talking about you're if-then structures we still need to hear more about what that breaks down to on a practical level.
{unquote}
.
That isn’t a very specific question. As a practical matter, we just live our lives as well as possible.
.
Things we like.
.
Getting by.
.
Ethically, caringly living right.

If you can't give really practical examples of what seeing the world as a stack of if-then reactions means the idea's in serious trouble as far as it's utility. I'm not saying you yourself can't find it beautiful, just that to most onlookers it'll be like trying to raise people's awareness that a Luna-centric understanding of the universe where all bodies oscillate around our moon is the best way to measure and predict the universe.

That's why I'm asking you - really for the best examples of why the cosmology you're describing is the best case. Without persuasive examples, or being able to point toward persuasive examples, you'd be putting a lot of effort into a non-starter.

Michael829 wrote:
.
In any case, from your answer above, I take that as a statement that no, you can’t name a metaphysics that’s better supported than Skepticism.

This is a massive red-herring, partly that I'm still trying to deal with Skepticism and then Michael829 'Skepticism'. They seem to be getting used interchangeably. The other problem with the question 'What's better than Skepticism' can be seen in questions like 'What's better than Capitalism?' or 'What's better than Socialism?' - they're management tools for handling certain kinds of terrain. When people think that the whole world can be boiled down to one thing they turn into nutjobs. When they think it's economics they break out the hammer and sickle. When they think it's power they become postmodernists, SJW's, and intersectionalists. When they think it's all about acceptance or rejection by Allah or Yahweh they do other strange things.

There are plenty of systems that need skepticism for the subterfuge to be untangled for further analysis. There are plenty of places where reductionism helps us figure things out, such as understanding germs and disease. As far as philosophy and metaphysics - they're big systems of educated guess. The reason why I say that they play second-fiddle to science is that they occupy a zone that science can't operate in (*provisionally* - which is key), until science can operate in that zone, and they retreat - not because philosophy or metaphysics are somehow bad, it's just that there's never any assurance that they tell us anything about reality. Moral philosophy is probably the closest thing to a true zone of operation, ie. how to be in the world, that science really can't do much with and as it stands when you think of it there is a structural stacking, zones we don't seem to be able to cross well, but at each level higher our science is softer and more flimsy - physics (lowest and strongest), chemistry, biology, psychology, sociology. At the level of quarks and leptons there's hardly any complexity, at the level of nations our brains are ash.

Michael829 wrote:
.
{You said}
I also got reminded, seeing a recent interview with Stuart Hameroff, that there are sound medical reasons for trying to understand consciousness - especially in the areas of treating mental illness.
{unquote}
.
Now you’re confusing philosophy-of-mind with psychology. Two entirely different subjects.

I'm starting to worry that you're the type of guy who gets in an airplane, flies over Illinois, but doesn't believe it's Illinois because Illinois is pink on your globe at home.

Mental illness is conscious suffering and it's suffering directly related to certain ways that consciousness is placed in duress by genetic patterns. Looking at the first definition googles for 'philosophy of mind':

Quote:
Philosophy of Mind is the branch of philosophy that studies the nature of the mind (mental events, mental functions, mental properties and consciousness) and its relationship to the physical body.

I fail to see why or how the aims of psychiatry and the study of neurological diseases doesn't at least take a significant role in that definition.

Michael829 wrote:
.
Philosophy-of-mind is about the (unnecessary, futile) search for a general explanation of Consciousness, as an entity separate from the body.

In other words more terms that I can find on Google in a few seconds that you're adding your own double-meanings to. I'm sorry but that's a really bad habit and I can't say it more gently. It's great if all you care about is laying down debate gauntlets but its not something you want to do if you're seeking truth at all because you won't be able to have clear conversations with people. You mentioned not liking politics - contorting language is what that stuff's all about.

Michael829 wrote:
{You said}
a purely logic-based system won't surprise you or throw you any curveballs the way a scientific experiment, or an occult magical experiment for that matter, could.
{unquote}
.
So?
.
Anyway, maybe that isn’t so. For example, the logic-based metaphysics that I’ve proposed is difficult for some people here to accept.
.
The suggestion to give up the notion of objective existence and reality is very difficult for many people.

.
That could be called a “curveball” that you reject.

Except that there's nothing curveball about it - it's a hypothetical universe built on an assumption. I don't agree with it for the same reason I don't agree with Communism or intersectionalism - its too dumbed down and oversimplistic to be true. I don't mean 'dumbed' as a personal insult - I mean it from the standpoint that about the only matured science we have is physics, the absolute bottom of our world's complexities, and even that's twisting our best scientific and philosophic minds up. There's just no way one or two philosophic tools or models has us coveredWe've been believing things this simple, dogmatically, for thousands of years. If you're right - it'll probably the first time that the truths of the universe have ever opened themselves to a metaphysical speculation, full-stop, in recorded history.

Michael829 wrote:
.
I agree that we’re primary, but I suggest that that “principle-of-equivalence” that I described obtains too.

If we're really agreeing on almost everything but hung up on semantics I think we need to clarify what it is you're saying about tethering. At first you're that we're tethered to our subatomic particles, and then you're saying there's more but not giving any clear rules as to what that means.

Michael829 wrote:
.
{You said}
or that we'd diffuse into a sort of vague I AM-ness with no memory, basking in eternity, until we re-embody.
{unquote}
.
That’s sounds a lot like what I said. …except that, when we reach Timelessness, we don’t re-embody.
.
Reincarnation would be from an earlier stage of shutdown, in which we still have identity, and our subconscious life-inclinations and future-orientation.

As far as I've read of Buddhist philosophy nirvana and paranirvana aren't dissolution or selflessness. They are, however, places so alien in their function that all language used to try describing them breaks down.

Michael829 wrote:
But I could ask you: Why would you want to remember all the life-details, at the end of lives? Aren’t the life-details, such things as the fact that there was a life, identity, time, events, etc. irrelevant at the end of lives?

Really my interest in those questions goes like this:

1) If I hear someone speaking with certainty on what happens when we die (or at least certainty for if consciousness continues). I want to either know where they get that certainty, or, get them to admit at least to themselves that they're declaring something to be certain on what they believe to be a cogent explanation - which is two very different things.

2) If I had some databank of every life I ever lived? That would probably suck, it might inform my subconscious impulses to some degree, and yes - I am glad that I don't remember all my (hypothetical) past lives because I'm sure most of them were miserable. I'd also hate to see all of my future lives and I think most people, if they knew they had truly grueling trials ahead, would want to know - above all else - how they could give themselves a true atheist's funeral, whether by nuke or something else, which would run the chance of scrambling their substrate so intensely that they would be - as Dawkins or Dennett would suggest - gone for good at death. Otherwise there could also be a point where a person has hit such a degree of resignation to the universe that such vistas do open up and such people are ready to see it without looking for means to self-terminate.

All of that is hypothetical, I'd admit that I don't know for certain that people keep memory in any cohesive way or keep it in a self-conscious ready-to-access way with any consistency. My experiences do suggest that we're surrounded by a lot of critters, not far from the way Robert Bruce often describes it, which aren't embodied in the way we'd think of the term and our closest analogy to such embodiement might be an analogy of electromagnetic structure. Maybe that's the aether that Blavatsky et. al. talked about or the astral light that Eliphas Levi had so much to say about? Tough to say. That has a strong flavor of independence though, which makes me doubt that I'd be spending most of my conscious time after death tethered to my rotting body or my ashes.

I suppose also, if I had to remember everything, there'd probably be certain things I'd do differently - mostly for the sake of minimizing suffering at a different date.

Michael829 wrote:
No, even if the laws of physics were simpler than they are, physics would still be needed. Philosophy (such as metaphysics) isn’t intended as, and wouldn’t be, a substitute for science. They’re entirely different subjects, with entirely separate and different areas of applicability.

Do you have any examples of philosophic topics that would be permanently closed to scientific inquiry and refutation?

Michael829 wrote:
Well, giving up the notion of the universe’s objective existence and reality is very counter-intuitive, so much so that you don’t accept it.

I don't know who this 'you' is that you're referring to on that (unless your contact brackets to someone else were missing). We can call the universe a dream, we can call it a mirage, we can say that there's very little we feel comfortable about in detailing the outside world past the idea that there are relationships, or if we want to go Decarte on this we can suggest that the only thing we know is that we experience. None of that changes the consequences for falling off of a tall building, sticking a knife in an electric socket, or catching a bullet. Certain patterns hold together with such certainty that we know the consequences. That such things hold together so consistently is what the whole pragmatic label 'physical' means - ie. that the world we live in seems to hold together and barely changes in any noticeable way that we don't orchestrate through our own physical efforts (there might be something to the idea of talking to mass-mind and having things happen but again that's my emergentism and functionalism). The Secret is BS. Even the Seth of Jane Roberts, after talking about all kinds of crazy parallel universes, alternate universes of different structure, etc. insists that if you break the physical laws here, or anywhere else, the reprisal is immediate and summary regardless of what you believe.

That's where saying there's no objective universe seems meaningless, unless it's specifically intended as a delivery model to someone who really believes that everything around us is this dead unconscious stuff and that neurons make things that don't otherwise exist.

Michael829 wrote:
.
{You said}
and anytime you'd run into the truly counter-intuitive, reflexively by its nature, you'd have no reason to surmise it - rather any person, without knowing facts that are yet to be known, would pave right over the paradoxes with what seem to be perfectly sound and reasonable expectations. Expectations and actualities rarely quite map the way we think they would - hence, I think for good reason,
{unquote}
.
I don’t know what you mean by that.

Guesses made about the universe, based on today's knowledge, will almost always be wrong in one or two hundred years - usually sooner. It's like that because we discover things, regularly, that are game-changers. People say that reality is stranger than fiction, the main reason why it probably always will be is that it's not beholden to our imaginations. Philosophy, unfortunately, is. That doesn't mean its bad or weak, again, but it does mean that it's a very limited tool for inquiry and the best philosophy can usually do is good, clear, or solid philosophy tearing down bad or sloppy philosophy.

Michael829 wrote:
.
{You said}
I don't trust any theory advancing toward a TOE because they're almost always drastic overreaches.
{unquote}
.
I doubt that physicists will ever find the elusive theory of everything (physical) (TOE).

I meant that about philosophy but sure - both.

Michael829 wrote:
Sorry, Techstepgener8ion, but I don’t just do soundbites.
.
Forgive me for taking the time to reply to what you say.
.
If you don’t like that, then of course I won’t do it again. I promise.
.
(…but is it alright if I finish this reply?)

We're already into that pattern so we should probably finish the conversation - at least on this topic. It's not that I have anything strictly against wall-texts, it's just that over time I've come to learn that I actually learn more from being here, from other people, etc. when I interact with the larger environment and that usually happens in smaller snippets. When we speak in wall texts we get to live in our heads, almost entirely, and we don't get to see how we're interfacing with the practical - other than perhaps when such a post gets completely ignored or 'tl:dr'd unanimously.

Michael829 wrote:
.
I take the time to support what I say. I take the time to fully reply to people (but I refer you to what I just now said above).

I think I primarily changed my mode because I felt like I was throwing myself out there a lot but not learning nearly as much as I could by being more transactional.

Michael829 wrote:
.
If you prefer soundbites, then maybe you’d be happier with tv news.

Except that most of what we've been talking about here really has been filler and largely meaningless.

You could boil the conversation down to the explanations and examples, as I suggested further up, as to why seeing the universe the way you're recommending that we see it is the best, most logical, or most pragmatic way to see it. That would be an interesting conversation.


_________________
“Love takes off the masks that we fear we cannot live without and know we cannot live within. I use the word "love" here not merely in the personal sense but as a state of being, or a state of grace - not in the infantile American sense of being made happy but in the tough and universal sense of quest and daring and growth.” - James Baldwin


Michael829
Toucan
Toucan

Joined: 29 Aug 2017
Gender: Male
Posts: 256
Location: United States

15 Sep 2017, 1:47 pm

mikeman7918 wrote:
Michael829 wrote:
That expression in square brackets [size=(some number)], placed inside the square-bracketed quoting-expression at the top of the reply-writing screen?
.
If not, then where would I write the [size=(some number)], and what number did you use?
.
Of course, since I often reply via Word, I could just do the enlarging there. But my question above is relevant, because, writing a short reply, I often just reply at the forum without using Word. Also, of course the box-quote is easier than the { }.

I used size 150 if I recall. I believe it is based on percentages of normal size, so 100 is normal and the maximum size is 300.


I tried writing size=150 in the quote-brackets, after the word "quote". It didn't work. It isn't clear how or where it would be necessary to write "size=150".

Below, I tried that unsuccessful format. It would be better if I'd just continued using my { } method. But it wouldn't be feasible to go through and replace all the unsuccessful brackets.

I'll resume in my next post, unless I somehow find out how to size-adjust the bracket quote-boxes.

(I always use a box-quote to identify whom I'm replying to, and so that they'll be notified that they've been quoted.)


Preliminary Comment 1:
.
The reason why these posts are so long is that they discuss 3 topics:
.
1. Metaphysics
.
2. Reincarnation
.
3. Computer-Simulated Universe
.
I think it would greatly improve brevity and clarity to use separate posts for those separate topics.
.
***This post will be about the metaphysics issue.***
.
(Anyway, the other two topics depend on metaphysics, are about consequences of metaphysics, and couldn’t be discussed without it.)
.
Preliminary Comment 2:
.
Sometimes, to avoid burying it in the middle of a long post, I move one or more
.
comments or subtopic-replies to the beginning of a reply post.
.
…after which, I always reply inline to (almost) the entire post.
.
Metaphysics Reply to Mikeman:
.
[quote size=150]
…my problem is not that you take it seriously but that you believe it to be correct without observable evidence.
[/quote]
.
I firmly believe that the following statement is true, even though there’s no observational evidence for it:
.
If all slithytoves are jaberwockies, and if all jaberwokies are brilig, then all slithtoves are brilig.
.
…and I believe that without a shred of empirical evidence!
.
Likewise with proved mathematical theorems. If a mathematical theorem is proved, I believe it without any experimental evidence.
.
Scientific American once showed several interesting proofs of the Pythagorean Theorem. Having seen those proofs, I believe the Pythagorean Theorem, without actually taking a ruler and testing the theorem by measuring the sides of a right triangle.
.
But you don’t, because you’re an empiricist :)
.
Some number definitions:
.
Let 1 refer to the multiplicative identity element of the real numbers.
.
Let 2 mean 1 + 1
.
Let 3 mean 2 + 1
.
Let 4 mean 3 + 1
.
Based on those definitions, and the additive associative axiom of the real numbers, it can easily be proved that 2 + 2 = 4.
.
In other words, if the additive associative axiom of the real numbers (and of the rational numbers, and of the integers) is true, then 2 + 2 = 4.
.
I don’t know about you, because you’re very scientific, but I believe that if-then fact, due to its easy provability in terms of its premise, the additive associative axiom, and the definitions stated above.
.
…and I believe that without any experimental evidence!
.
Physical quantity-values, and hypothetical relations between them, called “physical laws” are “if” premises of some if-then facts.
.
Given, as an “if” premise, some of those quantity-values, and a hypothetical relation between them (a physical law), taken together as an “if “ premise, and given other “if “ premises called arithmetical and geometrical axioms, and with if-then facts called “mathematical theorems” that include those axioms among their “if “ premises,…
.
then certain others of the quantity-values related by that physical law have certain values.
.
And yes, I believe that, too, without “empirical evidence”.
.
And some of those if-thens can be true even if none of those things objectively exist or are real. They can be true even if all of the “if” premises are false. They can be true even if it’s all “made up” (to use your words).
.
I never said that the “if “ premises are true.
.
(I give a more specific example somewhere below in this reply)
.
I never said that the inter-referring logical system that is our possibility-world has any reality or existence outside of its own inter-referring context. Of course it’s real for you, because it’s the context of your life.
.
Now, as for the physicist’s job of finding out what physical laws obtain, of course that does require empirical, experimental, evidence. …and that’s an entirely different endeavor, and an entirely different topic (for a different sub-forum, like the one that discusses science).
.
As I’ve been saying all along, there are facts that don’t need observational evidence. There are facts that are inevitable. My metaphysics is about a system of such facts. …a complex inter-referring system of them.
.
…of which systems there are infinitely many.
.
That metaphysics is empirically consistent with experience, observation and experiment.
.
An unfalsifiable proposition? What metaphysics isn’t? Materialism, observationally indistinguishable from Skepticism, is likewise an unfalsifiable proposition.
.
There’s no empirical evidence that Materialism is true instead of Skepticism.
.
But Skepticism is more than unfalsifiable. It’s also inevitable…because the abstract logical facts on which it’s based are inevitable…as described above.
.
Are you willing to take a closer look at Materialism?
.
Materialism says that material “Stuff “ is objectively existent, and that this physical world exists objectively, as the fundamental, primary, existent. …and says, in fact, that it’s all that’s real or existent.
.
So, to start with, let’s admit that, thereby, Materialism posits a big brute fact
.
What’s that? You say that this physical world is an empirically-observed fact?
.
No one’s saying otherwise. But Materialism doesn’t just say that we live in a physical world, does it.
.
Materialism says that our physical world is objectively real, the fundamentally real, primary existent. …and, in fact, that it’s all of Reality.
.
Do you think that, too, is empirically verified? It isn’t.
.
You believe in a metaphysical claim that has no empirical support (or any other support). The difference is that, not only is Materialism not empirically-supported, but it isn’t supported in any other way either. It’s purely a faith-based belief.
.
If everything we observe can be explained by structural, logical relation, without any reference to objectively-real “Stuff”, then our observable physical universe needn’t be objectively real or existent, and neither must its contents.
.
So, your belief that this physical world is objectively existent, and that there’s objectively-existent “Stuff “, instead of just logical relation, is an unsupported belief. There’s no empirical evidence to support that belief.
.
In other words, the fact that we live in a physical world, doesn’t constitute empirical evidence for Materialism.
.
In fact, if a structure of logical relation can explain our observations and experiments, then what would it even mean for Materialism’s “Stuff “ to be objectively real? As I said, it would be completely superfluous, and the notion of is existence has no meaning.
.
And, for that matter, what would it mean for this universe to be objectively existent? All that we observe is that it’s existent in the context of our lives. That’s the only context in which we observe it to be existent. So what would it mean to say that it’s existent in some absolute “objective” sense? In what other context do you want to say that our universe is objectively existent?
.
…other than its existence in its own context and the context of our lives?
.
…as one of the hypothetical logical relational inter-referring systems that I spoke of.
.
So the notion of Materialism doesn’t even have meaning.
.
You might have heard the familiar philosophical question:
.
“Why is there something instead of nothing?
.
If physical reality consists only of a system of if-thens, then there’s nothing puzzling about why there’s something instead of nothing.
.
(But there’s no reason to believe that there is anything other than what a Materialist would call “nothing”)
.
This universe is a predictable consequence of Skepticism.
.
Skepticism predicts, from fundamental principles, the observation that there’s a universe.
.
Materialism doesn’t.
.
You said:
.
[quote size=150]
As I said before I am above and beyond all else an empiricist which means that every belief I have is subject to change if new information suggests that I'm wrong.
[/quote]
.
Then consider yourself to have been informed that there are inevitable abstract if-then facts about hypotheticals.
.
You’re crudely, sloppily, mis-applying science’s empiricism, like someone trying to clean up a water-spill with a lawn-rake.
.
[quote size=150]
I am a materialist because I believe that what I can see or otherwise measure exists
[/quote]
.
Certainly our physical universe exists in its own context, and in the context of our lives. You’re right to believe in its existence in that context, as do we all.
.
But, without any empirical evidence, or other reason, you believe in the objective, fundamental and exclusive existence of Materialism’s “Stuff “.
.
Without any empirical evidence, or other reason, you believe that this physical universe is objectively existent.
.
(…whatever that would even mean.)
.
You aren’t being a very good empiricist.
.
[quote size=150]
…and anything I can't see or otherwise measure by definition doesn't effect anything and therefore can safely be ignored.
[/quote]
.
Then ignore philosophy, and study physics.
.
Are you aware that this subforum is for philosophy (and religion & politics), and isn’t about physical science?
.
[quote size=150]
I don't believe that anything exists besides matter and energy
[/quote]
.
…except that you said this physical universe might be nothing other than a figment of someone’s computer-simulation. :) If it is, then this universe and its matter and energy don’t objectively exist, and something other than this universe’s matter and energy exists.
.
Your belief quoted above is a faith-based belief without any empirical support.
.
You continued:
.
[quote size=150]
…because I have no empirical reason to.
[/quote]
.
Given the axioms of geometry and arithmetic (as “if “ premises), the Pythagorean Theorem, and the fact that 2 + 2 = 4 are provable, and thoroughly verifiable without any experimental measurement.
.
Such conclusions are inevitable if-then facts.
.
But you won’t believe the Pythagorean Theorem unless you get a ruler and measure the sides of every right triangle.
.
Skepticism predicts our universe, from fundamental principles.
.
As I said, Materialism doesn’t.
.
You said:
.
[quote size=150]
, you could have all the explanatory power in the world but without predictive power a theory is worthless.
[/quote]
.
As I said, Skepticism predicts our physical universe, from fundamental principles.
.
But, as for predictions within this universe, most metaphysicses (including Materialism & Skepticism) are empirically indistinguishable from eachother. You’re confused about the difference between metaphysics and science.
.
All or most metaphysicses, given the existence of this universe, “predict” the same observations, and experimental results. (…otherwise they wouldn’t be proposed.) You can’t distinguish or adjudicate between metaphysicses by comparing their intra-universe physical predictions or doing physics experiments.
.
That’s why I said that, though Skepticism’s abstract facts are inevitable, there’s no empirical evidence that Materialism’s unparsimoniously-added “Stuff “, is objectively existent or real. …making it superfluous even if true.
.
Likewise, there’s no empirical evidence for Materialism’s belief that this physical universe has “objective” existence, whatever that would mean.
.
Yes, when an engineer designs a bridge, he doesn’t use metaphysics to predict how the bridge will react to the stresses on its materials.
.
So, stick with science. You can discuss it at the sub-forum that includes “Science” in is title.
.
[quote size=150]
Here's the problem: in the real world we never have premises that we can be 100% certain about.
[/quote]
.
Irrelevant. I didn’t say that the premises, the “if” clauses, are inevitably true. I said that there are inevitably-true if-then statements, about hypotheticals.
.
Instead of one world of “is”—infinitely-many worlds of “if”.
.
…and worlds of “if “ don’t need any empirical verification.
.
No one’s saying that they’re objectively existent.
.
[quote size=150]
We can only be certain about things we imagine, such as the definitions of words that make all dogs classified as animals. That is something we made up which is the only reason we can be so sure about it. When it comes to reality outside of our minds we don't have this luxury, it's impossible to be 100% sure about anything.
[/quote]
.
…as regards the details within our physical world. Of course.
.
But we can be completely sure about mathematical theorems—as if-then facts with “if “ premises--and various other logical facts, including if-then facts …and therefore about complicated systems of them, including one that is identical to our physical world.
.
It’s certain that there is such a logical-relational system.
.
Yes, the details of any complicated physical system can’t all be known with certainty.
.
Here’s a simple example:
.
“If “ Premise:
.
If there’s a 3-dimensional spatial continuum (and for any un-accelerated non-rotating coordinate system by which position in that continuum is defined or measured) and a time variable “t”. …and the variable “a” is defined as the time rate of change of a particle’s velocity vector, and velocity, v, is defined as the time rate of change of the particle's position vector...
.
…and if the physical quantities corresponding to a particle’s vector-velocity and mass, and a vector-force exerted on that mass, and the value of t , have certain specified initial values.
.
…and if the physical law “a = F/M” obtains, where “F” and “a” are vectors,
.
”Then” Conclusion:
.
When the variable “t” has a some greater value, the particle’s new velocity will have a certain specifiable vector value, determined by the abovementioned physical law and above-described physical quantity-values.
.
Its new velocity will be the vector sum:
.
Vi + (F/M) * (t – ti),
.
…where the “i”subscript means “initial”.
.
[end of example]
.
I believe that if-then statement without any experimental evidence!
.
Obviously a universe is more intricate than that. This is just a simplified example of one physical law.
.
That “if-then” statement is true, regardless of whether F=Ma really applies, and regardless of whether or not the particle, the force, or the space in which it moves really objectively exist.
.
And yes, that if-then statement would be true even if none of its “if “ premises are true.
.
Regarding the complicated hypothetical systems I refer to, I make no claim that they, or any of their hypothetical components have any existence, reality, or factualness outside that system’s own local inter-referring context. …but that local context is the context of our lives.
.
So, you’re mistaken if you say that I’m sure about the truth of the “if” premises.
.
What about the fact that Newton’s laws aren’t the last word? Alright, then it’s other physical laws instead, including, of course, some that we don’t know yet.
.
From our perspective, the perspective of our experience, it can be said that Newton’s laws are approximately accurate in certain specific domains. For these purposes, the relevant thing about our experience is that the things that we experience are mutually-consistent. The physical laws reported to us by physicists are tentatively accepted by them if their predictions agree with observation. So, our own personal physical observations, and the explanations and laws we hear from the physicists, are consistent, and that’s because the physicists write their laws with the goal of making them consistent with their observations.
.
You keep saying that I’m too sure that all this is real. No so. I make no claim that the premises are true, or that that logical-relational system has any objective reality, existence or factualness ouside of its own inter-referring context.
.
You said:
.
[quote size=150]
So you are saying that if-then statements make up all of reality?
[/quote]
.
Physical experience, observation and experiment are consistent with this physical world being only a system of inter-referring if-then facts. I emphasize that, as abstract facts about hypotheticals, those facts, and that system, aren’t in doubt, and are inevitable.
.
I can’t prove that Materialism’s “Stuff “ doesn’t objectively, fundamentally exist. But, if it does, it’s superfluous.
.
In fact, as I asked before, what would it even mean, for Materialism’s “Stuff “ to superfluously “exist”? It’s a meaningless notion.
.
Similarly, obviously our universe exists in the context of our lives, and in its own context. In what other context need this universe exist? In what other context do you think it exists?
.
(By “this universe”, I mean our Big-Bang Universe (BBU), and any physically-inter-related multiverse of which our BBU is a sub-universe.—In other words, everything that’s physically related to us and our surroundings.)
.
What would it even mean for our universe to exist in any other context? …for it to be objectively-existent, instead of only existent in its own context and in the context of our lives?
.
Materialism is a meaningless notion.
.
You said:
.
[quote size=150]
That proposition has one fatal flaw: where do they start? There must be a first if-then statement or set of if-then statements, but then what would be the [first]"if"?
[/quote]
.
There’d be a definite set of first “if”s, if physics is finite in its extent, with a limited, finite set of laws.
.
Immediately after the big-bang, there were physical variable values, and (unknown) physical laws.
.
The details of the physical laws and other facts immediately after the big bang aren’t known,.
.
Though physicists don’t seem to know about this for sure, some say that the sequence of physical laws and explanations is open-ended, infinite. …and that whatever physics is known at any future time won’t be explained, except by new physical laws and other physical facts, discovered later—and likewise needing as-yet undiscovered physical laws and facts for their explanation.
.
The more, the deeper, explanations, explanatory-levels, and laws that physicists discover, the more (tentatively) basic physical quantities and “if “s are found , with if-then statements about them. …in other words, quantities, their values, and laws relating those quantity-values.
.
You seem to want it to be fixed, and completely known. Physicists can’t deliver that …at least not yet, and (according to some) probably not ever.
.
It isn’t a fatal flaw, unless you reject physics because of it.
.
As I said, a mathematical theorem is an if-then statement whose “if” premise includes (but isn’t limited to) a set of axioms (arithmetical or geometrical)
.
You asked:
.
[quote size=150]

So tell me, if reality is based on logic then what are its axioms?
[/quote]
.
The hypotheticals, the “if “ premises, at whatever most-basic, undermost, explanatory-level the physicists have good theories about, are physical quantities, their values, and the physical laws that relate those quantity-values. …at that (currently) most basic explanatory-level.
.
…and of course the complete-ordered-field axioms of the real number-system with respect to its two binary operations. …and the axioms of geometry (though the nature of this universe’s large-scale geometry isn’t known yet).
.
(I should add that there’s a different, maybe briefer, set of axioms, from which the real-number axioms can be derived. So evidently the choice of axioms can be arbitrary.)
.
[quote size=150]
Well, I admit that you can be sure about things that have been made up
[/quote]
.
Not quite sure what you mean by “made up”, in reference to inevitable abstract if-then facts.
.
[quote size=150]
…but I will modify my comment. The only way to be 100% sure about anything about reality outside of our made up definitions and hypothetical worlds is the Dunning-Kruger effect.
[/quote]
.
Who, other than you, says that there’s any physical reality outside of hypothetical possibility-worlds?
.
In fact (…though I shouldn’t have to say it again) I don’t claim that the hypothetical universe-system that I propose has any reality, existence or factualness outside of its own local inter-referring context.
.
Does the Dunning-Kruger arrogance effect explain why you’re so sure of Materialism, without any empirical evidence , and why you just keep repeating the same already-answered dogma? …and why you’re so sure of your inappropriate blanket-misapplication of scientific empiricism to philosophy?
.
You need to stop the assertions for long enough to give fresh consideration to what you’re saying—unless you’re 100% sure that you want to keep on demonstrating the Dunning-Kruger effect.
.
Michael829


_________________
Michael829


Last edited by Michael829 on 15 Sep 2017, 4:25 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Michael829
Toucan
Toucan

Joined: 29 Aug 2017
Gender: Male
Posts: 256
Location: United States

15 Sep 2017, 4:10 pm

I edited my post (the one that replies to mikeman) to add the definition of velocity as the time rate of change of the particle's position vector, and to specify that the particle's position is defined in a 3D coordinate-system in the 3D spatial continuum specified in the premise.

Additionally, regarding the F = Ma example, the "then" conclusion should specify that the conclusion is true regardless of what un-accelerated non-rotating coordinate-system is used. ...because of course this is Newtonian mechanics.

Michael829


_________________
Michael829


Michael829
Toucan
Toucan

Joined: 29 Aug 2017
Gender: Male
Posts: 256
Location: United States

16 Sep 2017, 8:40 pm

mikeman7918 wrote:

Quote:
Anyway, if the past-life-memory belief is falsified by a lack of verified reports, that says nothing about reincarnation proposals that don’t predict memory of past-lives.
.
So I don’t think that there’s a falsification-basis for drawing probability-conclusions about reincarnation.


OK, then we have a different dilemma. Either an unmeasurable form of reincarnation happens that leaves no trace and is physically impossible to measure in any way, or there is another darn good reason who it can't be measured which is that it doesn't happen. Two models which predict the same thing...


Right. Both the evidence (lack of provable past-life reports) and what I'd expect, are in agreement about people not having memory of a past-life.

That being so, then obviously reincarnation can't be verified or falsified.

(I used the box-quote to identify whom I'm replying to, and now I'll return to my preferred { } format, because it doesn't reduce the text-size.)

{You said}

..., but one is unnecessarily complex and the other one is simple.
{unquote}

The Principle of Parsimony is relevant for merit-comparison of metaphysicses. ...proposals about what really is. Reincarnation isn't a metaphysics. It's a possible phenomenon that could be implied by some metaphysicses and not by others.

If you want to apply the Principle of Parsimony, you can start by throwing-out Materialism, with its brute-fact.

Reincarnation is ruled-out by Materialism. Reincarnation is implied by Skepticism.

So, if you want to argue about reincarnation, then you'd need to argue about metaphysics. ...a topic on which I've already answered you.

What makes reincarnation "complicated" for you is that it's something added that isn't already present in Materialism. No argument there. The default, natural, presumption for a Materialist is the "Not" answer.

Again, I'm not arguing to advocate belief in reincarnation. I'm just answering some "anti-" arguments, merely for the sake some arguments.


{You said}

Call me crazy, but I think physics is complex enough as is and if it can be made simpler without taking away from it's predictive power and usefulness in the slightest

{unquote}

Hello? This isn't about physics, and doesn't make physics more or less complicated, or affect physics's predictive-power.

{I'd said}

Now, for the usual “skeptical” debunker, Materialism, Exclusive-Materialism, is the default dogma, and therefore the non-existence of reincarnation is the default position.
{unquote}

{You said}
Something that should be noted is that the only reason I am arguing against reincarnation is because you are arguing for it
{unquote}

I commented about it in relation to my metaphysics, and then began answering arguments about it. But it hasn't been my intention to argue for or advocate belief on that matter.

{You said}

Sure, I do lean towards one side on many things but it's always the model that is the most falsifiable and the simplest.
{unquote}

No, you don't. I've told why Materialism is unparsimonious, not free of unnecessary unsupported added assumption.

I'm not going to debate religion with you, and I've already answered you about the matter of possibility-worlds, and so I'm skipping much of what you said.


{You said}

I am confused. So are you saying that just because you are alive in one instant and that you care about the future it means that it can't end in the next instant?

{unquote}

I'm saying that it would be better if you didn't reply to what you obviously haven't read.

{I'd said}

In fact, there’s no experience, observation or experiment that isn’t consistent with that.
{unquote}

{You replied}

That's a bug, not a feature. A model that can explain literally anything is unfalsifiable
{unquote}

Incorrect. Not being contradicted by experience, observation or experiment isn't a fault of a "bug" :)

Yes, there's no experiment that can determine whether Materialism's "Stuff" is objectively, fundamentally existent. There's no experiment that can determine whether our universe is objectively existent, or existent in some context other than its own.

Materialism is an unfalsifiable proposition.

As I've already explained, at least most of the metaphysicses that are proposed are experimentally indistinguishable, and don't contradict observation and experiment, because otherwise they wouldn't be proposed.

So it's really silly to single out one metaphysics as "unfalsifiable" :D

But Skepticism isn't just unfalsifiable. It's also inevitable, because the abstract logical if-thens on which it's based are inevitable and not in doubt.

Sure, you could ask whether Materialism's "Stuff" superfluously objectively exists too. That "Stuff", and the (meaningless) notion that our phyisical universe is objectively existent, or existent in some (??) context other than its own, are both unfalsifiable propositions--and they're without any support or reason to believe them. ...aside from being without meaning.

And Skepticism, unlike Materialism, doesn't need or make any assumptions, and doesn't posit a brute-fact.


{You said}

... and incapable of making any useful predictions.
{unquote}

As I've said before, Skepticism predicts our physical universe from fundamental principles.

Materialism just posits it as a brute-fact.

{You said}

[referring to reincarnation]

Well, I still say that assuming additional stuff without it adding to your predictive power is a waste of time.
{unquote}

I won't ask what you were wanting reincarnation to predict :)

...but do me a favor, and don't explain it.

I'm not advocating about reincarnation, or promoting a belief about it.

I've just been answering some of your arguments, merely for the purpose of evaluating those arguments themselves.

Michael829


_________________
Michael829


Michael829
Toucan
Toucan

Joined: 29 Aug 2017
Gender: Male
Posts: 256
Location: United States

16 Sep 2017, 9:20 pm

mikeman7918 wrote:

I am confused. So are you saying that just because you are alive in one instant and that you care about the future it means that it can't end in the next instant?





Let me repeat, for you, what I already said:

As I said, I'm talking about a time when you don't know that you were previously in a life, but you have your subsconscious drives, feelings, inclinations, habits, etc., and they include an orientation toward the future.

Now, you were in that life, the one that you've just finished, because you're someone about who there's a life-experience possibility-story.

...and that's still so, at that time when you don't remember that you've just finished a life.

Therefore, there is still a life-experience story about you. ...not the same one, because you're not exactly the same person, with all the same subconscious influences, that you were at the beginning of the finished life.

Because there's a life-experience story about you, then you're in a life-experience story...because there's one that begins just like the state you're in at the stage that I'm speaking of for someone with the subconscious inclinations and attributes that you have.

You might say that it sounds most implausible that a dying person can be in a life-story that's starting. ...when that person is physically in a body of a life that's finished.

But remember that I also claim that your previous life was, itself, only a story anyway. ...and therefore has no more status or reality than new story that you're in, the one that's starting.

One is as real as the other, since they're both just possibility-stories. And one of them matches the you that you now are, in terms of your subconscious inclinations, feelings, etc.

That transition would seem rather sci-fi, except that you don't experience a transition. You don't know that there was a life before.

Quite unverifiable, sure.

But implied by the parsimonious metaphyisics, a metaphysics that holds up under discussion a lot better than Materialism does, and a metaphysics which, I've argued, is inevitable. (for reasons that I've already discussed).

And its unverifiability removes the implausibility. There's no time when you say, "Hey, that transition was too fantastic!"

Unverifiable and unfalsifiable, but, as I said, implied by the parsimonious metaphysics.

I'm not saying you should believe anything. Just clarifying what I'm referring to, and how it's implied by that metaphysics.

Michael829


_________________
Michael829


techstepgenr8tion
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 6 Feb 2005
Age: 44
Gender: Male
Posts: 24,150
Location: 28th Path of Tzaddi

17 Sep 2017, 4:45 am

I'm actually going to take a momentary step back try to inject something that I just posted somewhere else:

Quote:
I'll throw this out there as it hit me, I'm not sure whether on dumb luck or whatever else, but I think it could be a useful way of honing in on the consciousness problem:

consciousness (here defined) - a set of probability fields, each with its own contingent requirements, whose value alignments overlap to achieve outcomes deemed optimal by the parent set.


systemic consciousness - a self-aware system's sum total collection of means necessary for its own survival

consciousness as a unit in the universe - a single probability field.


It would probably take a fair amount of further inspection to see if that lines up appropriately with the current state of of the art in neurology but I think, at least when considering consciousness reflecting back on itself, this might be about as good a description as any and it seems to tie together goal-orientation (suffering vs. reward) with systemic balance.


I made a subtle tweak to my definition of consciousness from my other post 'whose value alignments overlap to achieve outcomes deemed optimal by the overlapping set in common'.

I think I may have put that matter to rest now at least for my own satisfaction although binding between sets gets interesting. Not sure how well all of it translates but I think in principle it's correct.


_________________
“Love takes off the masks that we fear we cannot live without and know we cannot live within. I use the word "love" here not merely in the personal sense but as a state of being, or a state of grace - not in the infantile American sense of being made happy but in the tough and universal sense of quest and daring and growth.” - James Baldwin