How does this apply to the OP? — Philosophim

Got mixep up in threads! There was another one about the reality of time. A first cause for the big bang is the perfect clock, which the singularity constitutes. If the circumstances are right then entropic time comes to be. Entropic time has cause and effect. The perfect clock has no inherent cause or effect. It is time without direction. If all matter in our universe has accelerated away to infinity it causes the perfect clock, the perfect time, to become entropic, unidirectional. So, there is an infinite sequence of bangs. Each bang starts from the time symmetric singularity and is caused by the end of a previous one at infinity. Oops, wrong thread...

Okay okay... Seems that nonsense is a sensitive expression. Nonsense to me then.

Yes, but it feels like the easy way out. You in fact say: let's solve the problems humanity is causing by ending humanity all together.

if* the information content of the universe is finite, *then* the number of possible universes is countable — hypericin

Which is nonsense. Information content, like the often quoted Bekenstein information content of the observable universe, i.e, 10exp120, is no indication of its countability.

For example, "Ice" is a potential state of "Water", which does have slightly different physical properties. — Gnomon

Try to make a water sculpture. You will see the differences with ice are not that slightly. Ice and stone are more alike than ice and water.

Matter is what matter does. — god must be atheist

What matter does is different from what matter is.

A yes! I thought you wrote it. My fault! :smile:

Mentioned above that I never made such claim, but I'll also add that the loose use of 'information' is not much better than the use of 'qualia.' — ajar

Except that qualia are the conscious understanding of the nòn-material content of the two gauge-coupled massless Dirac fields constituting reality.

What about qualia associated with hallucinations? In the case of phantom limb pain, what information message is there? Is it a mistaken information message? What about the beauty of a sunset? — RogueAI

These experiences lack the physical part. The leg that stimulated the structured charge currents, is not there anymore, but all the processes following are still there. Even without the leg you can still feel pain in your toe. If you lay in the dark, then hold you arm near a lamp, switch the light on and off, your arm is shortly lit by light. If you withdraw your arm, it looks as if is still near the lamp. As if you pull your arm out of your own arm. Same for your leg that's not there. There will remain a kind of after image. An afterpain in the toe, proving that space is a conscious experience.

The end of our universe, at infinity, may cause a new bang at the singularity. At the singularity time is present in a sense that there is no begin point 0, which causes the difficulty. The paradox is that time was there but without direction.

If the mind can leave the body, yes. Some body once. But then the body has now fallen apart. Without charge the brain can't even develop, nor the body nor the world.

I don't think there is much traction between the concept of an attribute of a particle and the concept that the human mind is fully contained in the human brain.
You would require evidence which was telekinetic or telepathic etc to demonstrate that any aspect of the human mind can permeate outside of the human brain or body, not simplistic comparisons with subatomic particle attributes. — universeness

The point is, materialists think the mind is the effect of a huge collection of ordered particles interacting with the physical world. They think that matter is just matter. But physicists unknowingly introduced the notion of the conscious when introducing charge. It's that which produces force fields. If you think deeper about it, you will see they don't have an answer what it really is. String theory says it's a vibration of the string. What then makes it vibrate? One of the reasons string theory is non sense. It's exactly the non explainability of charge that makes the conscious inexplicable. Outside the mind we can see the material aspects of the brains of other people (veeeery limited though). Inside it you can feel it.

Dunno... Who's under it?

Charge is simply an attribute of some subatomic particles. A source or sink for electric fields. — universeness

Simply an attribute? Then what is it?

As I made pfirefry understand: the computer model doesn’t fly. So how can it be a model? The computer program, by means of computer language, lets, on the mega rythm of the computer clock, structured voltages appear which pull structured collections of 1s and 0s through the circuit wires. How can this be a model of the real thing?

Still, the complex whole is pushed along by a program, no matter how high the language. A true model is analogue, not digital and programmed as that what you make a model of is not programmed. If the object is not programmed, the model can't be either. A true model of an airplane is something flying free like an airplane. So a scale model or the model that "flies" on our neural substrate.

:smile:

You're welcome!

It is a passive philosophy — schopenhauer1

Actually, it's an active philosophy. In the sense it actively ends human existence.

My interest in philosophy comes from programming. When you program, you create small functional models of the real world — pfirefry

You don't create a model. You create a program operating on voltages and currents. Which is encoded in these currents and voltages also. A model plane is different from a programmed plane.

Yeah, I have to sign in firstly. A pity. In general, articles in SA are very informative. I made a collection once of all kinds of physics and brain articles. I could still read he teamed up with the military and that he was a cold father. Maybe he didn't bother because in some parallel world everything was okay... Luckily his grandson is something else. Eels, that band.
Conservation laws are not broken. It seems so indeed. Doesn’t split the world at every branch? Yes, but all is already present, but in superposition still.
All that QM interpretation stuff has one root: the Copenhagen interpretation. Had it been decided that pilot waves were real, there would have been less confusion and discussing about the wavefunction collapse, or about "the observer and his role". Hidden variables could even serve as that what space is made of. Historia or Fortuna (or MisFortuna...)decided differently.

So I (I guess you too?) am a fool according to Deutsch? Mr. Deutsch, show yourself!

but how do you live ethically in our shapeless foam of worlds, invisible to telescopes but throbbing close at the moment of every decision — Wayfarer

Great one! That many worlds picture... Regarding the MWI, Hugh Everett drank a bottle a day, smoked 3 packets, and ate junk food only. He thought that in one world he was alive for sure... His daughter killed herself to join him...

How can you be sure that charge is necessary for qualia? What data have you collected, even anecdotally, to show a relationship between brains and qualia ? I do not dispute the well known relationship between brains and reports of qualia. — ajar

How else can it be? Physicists put the basic stuff of consciousness unconsciously in matter when they introduced the concept of charge, without knowing exactly what it is. The two basic massless matter fields in nature are charged with electric and color-like charges, giving rise to mass by strongly interacting, thereby producing the quarks and leptons at the next level. No one actually knows what charge is, and thus it's a wonderful base for consciousness. Composites of charges in increasingly complex patterns give rise to increasingly complex forms of (un)consciousness. An atom is not conscious, of course not. Neither is a toilet. But they contain the raw matter. A materialist overlooks charge as the cause of consciousness. An electron and a proton have a kind of will, an unconscious will, to get together. When together, the result is neutral. If more complex structures of charge form, the consciousness develops. Molecules, proteins, cells, organisms, and even organisms with complex inner charged structures on neural networks, with the capability to resonate with virtual all physical structures in the universe (in the case of people. The human brain has the capacity to engrave 10exp(10exp10)-10exp(10exp35) pathways for parallel ion currents on the complex of neurons. The resonances can flow on their own. A bird that is seen can also be dreamt of or thought of. A pain in the foot is a different structure of charges in collective motion than a bird seen. A sound heard in the physical world is connected to charge currents in the auditory cortex. The brain forms the substrate for charge to form complex structures which take shape by interaction of the body with the physical world. The physical world projects itself on/into the brain. Physical structures are projected, and corresponding parallel brain currents run while strengthening synapse connections (by broadening them). This is memory engravement. Thus, the projected outside world corresponds to structured currents and the body runs or sits or goes to sleep. Like a massive charged particle has the will approach or move away from other charges, the body is full of delicately patterns of charges with a will and consciousness. There is a big difference though between a massive charge attracting another charge, and the massive, charged human body interacting with the physical world and other charged bodies. Charged particles influence each other directly. People have bodies in between to express.

The materialistic explanation leaves out the charge as an explanation. Consciousness becomes an illusion. Consider charge (color and electric) the basic feature and it becomes damned real. It can't be explained though as charge is unexplainable. What is it? We all know, cause we feel it. But at the same time it's a mystery. We should ask the muon.

So. Charge is a necessary for consciousness.

Btw, the Sun does not rise or set, it is the Earth that turns — universeness

As a physicist, I have to jump in here. One can just as well say that the universe, the Sun, the stars, the Moon, the galaxy, etc. rotate around the Earth. I thought it laughable too, but after thinking it through, this is what relativity tells. Acceleration is absolute, but the relation with surrounding is relative. A person accelerated in empty space, can say he finds himself at rest in a g-field, or is accelerated in empty space. Same for rotation. You can consider the Earth at rest in a suitable g-field, in which the Sun, the Moon, and all stars rotate around you. You might think they would rotate faster than light, but this doesn't hold, on closer inspection.

Finally, you can also look at the subject on a purely logical basis:
If time really existed, it would be infinite. That is, indefinite and undefinable. That is, it can't exist, at least not for us. So, the statement "time exists" leads to its negation! :smile: — Alkis Piskas

Time is infinite. An irreversible process is time. It has a past, present, and future. It's the clock time that is unreal. Entropic time is real. Only at the big bang the clock time is real. The state is the perfect clock. Only kicked into entropic time when all matter has irreversibly accelerated away from each other to infinity.

If it were not for the technology we have developed fewer people would live to old age and that would be terrible because young people do not have the perspective that is gained with age. We would not be able to feed the world as well as we are doing. We have so much to be thankful for, and I think being thankful or throwing stones, is more about our attitude than anything else. — Athena

I could put the negatives on the list as well. The climate change is one of them. Every form of life has drawbacks and advantages. Science is no exception. The positives and negatives might be seen sooner or later. Vaccince are great. At the same time, had the plane not been invented, cars, subways, ett. there would not have been a global outbreak. The negatives influence everybody though. There is no escape, and not a place in the world is free of its influence. Apart of the + and -, science by force imposes itself on the people, and only when one has money you can buy your way out.

I'm not throwing stones at science per se. Thanks to the story I learned at university I have my own story about creation. Democracy and science started in ancient Greece and philosophers like Plato (with Popper as a "modern" day representative and the Pope a successor Xenophanes), were rediscovered in the Enlightenment (in the blood red light of the atrocities of religion a warm light indeed!), and after they replaced God to impose themselves on humanity, the world got in worse shape than it ever was, and pointing out that people nowadays excell in longevity doesn't change that fact (in the "third" world, people don't grow that old though). I throw stones not at the way as such, nor at the position it puts itself in (the best, which most forms of life think being), but at science forcing itself on the world. By means produced by it. If it advocates, propagates, and practices the way of artificial life, is one thing and up to the people. But turning people into it's obedient slaves is another.

The philosophy forum:

"A vibrant community of people who rarely agree with each other but who all love philosophy"

Did that Dirty Harry say that? I thought it was a philosopher! Damn! He's right though. Opinions are like the cigars we smoke and the whiskies we drink. We all like a brand. Are opinions like brands? In a way yes.

It might be unavoidable that mankind brings on the chaos that destroys life on the planet, or that one human consciousness consumes all human consciousness, making what has happened to the aboriginal people of the world just part of the inevitable change of life. — Athena

Just part of the inevitable change of life? You mean the inevitable "progress" as part of a lifestyle that has done more harm to humanity than any other form has done and that even claims about itself that it is a lifeform lifted above other forms, as you write yourself. Now every form of life thinks it's the best, but imposing it by force is something completely different. Claiming that beating people in submission in favor of The Way, and that it's only natural this had to happen, that it had to be that way, is not any different from turning people into submission in the name of God. Again, this is no attack against science (I'm one myself!), only a defense of people who want to base living on a different story.

It is written in your linked article:

"arXiv is a free distribution service and an open-access archive for 2,004,641 scholarly articles in the fields of physics, mathematics, computer science, quantitative biology, quantitative finance, statistics, electrical engineering and systems science, and economics"

In the light of 250 new articles per day, an astoundingly accurate number. It wouldn't surprise me if the growth shows exponential growth, like almost all growth dictated by the growth imperative advocated by Science, at the same time making the metaphysical assumption that the reality which knowledge is about can never be reached. The epistemology, implied by the methodology of Karl Popper. A methodology most scientists would opt for, would they have been asked. In this methodology, a metaphysical reality of the unreachable is a necessary and sufficient to consolidate the imperative of knowledge growth and hypothesizes even that the search and growth will never end, turning scientists into nervous and restless creatures, never satisfied with the status quo.

The lovers of knowledge perceive that when philosophy first takes possession of their soul it is entirely fastened and welded to the body and is compelled to regard realities through the body as through prison bars, not with its own unhindered vision (Phaedo 82d-e).

Doesn't this imply the homunculus behind the bodily prison bars? Isn't the noun then searching behind bars too?

Same happened to the Nachtwacht:

"On 6 April 1990, an escaped psychiatric patient sprayed acid onto the painting with a concealed pump bottle. Security guards intervened, stopping the man and quickly spraying water onto the canvas. Ultimately, the acid only penetrated the varnish layer of the painting, and it was fully restored."

Now why did he do that?

The painting, by the way, was stored for years "in the cellar". Van Rijn's work didn't satisfy the watchers. The place where it was stored is even visited by tourists! "Here stood the Nachtwacht".

One real problem I see with this is that it wouldn't be scientific; — john27

Why would that be a problem?

Time is a material process. An irreversible physical process, entropic time. It can be compared with a reversible periodical process, the clock time. The clock time is imaginary though. A periodical process, as implied in physical formula and relativity, doesn't actually exist. At the big bang the situation was kind of reversed. Only a perfect clock existed, but there was no entropic time yet.

This just implies you have a low opinion of yourself as you are included in the group you describe, which I hope is not true — universeness

Opinions are just farts puffed into funky existence from assholes. We all puff them once in a while. The gods don't care a second about what we think about them...

Religion then is merely a tool that the tyrant may misuse to his advantage.
But if we are to say that this makes religion a bad thing, then we must curse science as well - as it gave the tyrant a much greater set of tools than religion ever did. — Hermeticus

Very true. Without these tools Science would never have been able to establish itself as the dominant worldview. Just like God, it's a story told. And just as people once felt, and still feel, the urge to convert other by force, so does Science, and actually does force people to comply to its imperatives. Science and politics form an unholy combination.

Not me! My problem is that humans seem to care about non-existent gods. — universeness

Hoho, Scotsman! How do you know they don't exist?
Measured by scientific standards the don't. But scientific standards are not the only ones. No matter how hard it tries to establish itself as the universal standard. This is the same attitude as the attitude some religious friends seem to have.

The most notorious example that might have implemented this "tool" would have been Sigmund Freuds' Oedipus complex, Although I have zero proof that he reached that conclusion through self reflection. — john27

How does an Oediipus complex relate to a community? Does this vision imply a community in which it's normal, or not, to make love with the mother?

Self reflection would more mean independent reflection than ego reflection in this case. The question is rather whether we can use an individuals assessment to find out how a group feels. — john27

Ah! That you think for yourself? I'm not sure you can know how it feels in the group without being in them.

Somehow, this beats the juggling theorem:

I think the will is associated with charge. If a magnet pulls a piece of metal it seems there is a will in the magnet and the piece to be together. Just as in people. People are a lot more complicated though. If only we were protons and electrons... :smile:

and it's hard to gauge a priori whether it's published by cranks. — ajar

These statements are cranky:

The brains physical activity deals with information structures.

• The qualia of our inner conscious world are information messages.

• Structures represent messages.

The brain doesn't deal with structures. Qualia are not information messages, whatever you mean with that. Structures don't represent messages. They can be messages though.

Well it's such a mystery I have no idea what it's connected to. Is charge about cooking or sport? — Tom Storm

Charge is the content of matter. Electric charge (and more deeper color charges, giving massless fields mass) is contained in in all processes. Structured in the brain, in atoms, proteins, cells, organs, etc. Without it there is no change, no interaction. It's a fundamental will, an unconscious will. It's described in physical theories without them saying what it actually is. Known for it's effects, unknown in nature.

Exactly! A mystery!

All the mystery will have gone and at the same time be infinite if we consider charge the magic stuff in nature. Nature is charged, that's a scientific fact. Charge is a mystery. That's a scientific fact. Thus the conscious is a mysterious scientific fact for scientists don't know the nature of charge.