1)The universe cannot be perpetually reducible. If it were, then it would take forever for any event to take place, since you would have to wait for the smallest particle or string or wave or whatever you want to call it to affect the larger scales of anything physical so that it may cause some kind of event. — AlienFromEarth

What if the events happen faster and faster the smaller the scale is?

4)This fundamental level of existence must therefore have some kind of shape. — AlienFromEarth

Why not multiple kinds of shapes? Why must there be one fundamental building block instead of multiple ones equally fundamental?

I mostly agree with your post. The cycle between psychedelic and non-psychedelic modes are characterized by an increase and decrease in people's conceptual, perceptual and emotional latent inhibition. Once the latent inhibition allows us to see the roughness/curviness of the edges of our concepts/percepts/emotions, the boundaries fall apart; panic and chaos ensues. We eventually find our solace and joy in acceptance of the destruction of the logical; we find calmness in realizing the paralogicality at the bottom of everything; the unattainability of what we once thought we had. With this decrease in latent inhibition, the conceptual realm takes the biggest hit, the perceptual realm the next biggest hit, and the emotional realm the smallest hit. Thus, a shift in prioritization from the conceptual towards the emotional happens; I believe love over power is a manifestation of this.

We make our return to the non-psychedelic mode only through conceptual compromise; a curvilinear approximation takes place, and the conceptual realm becomes ever more complex. I agree that yes, we are seeing the process happening with gender. Currently, a lot of those with radical views on gender have a stance devoid of logic, allowing the boundaries of definition to dissolve completely; your gender can be your current mood or your favorite Apache attack helicopter. We will all only return to rectilinearity once a compromise is done; gender goes from discrete binary property to a one-dimensional continuum, or maybe a multi-dimensional continuum (or perhaps that'll be the next development).

Fascinating stuff; this all happens to relate a recent Cubensis trip of mine, so I found your post highly interesting.

I think an immortal life would be meaningless, if we assume the person's memory is immortal.

What is the meaning of your life? Well, that depends on how you can describe it. A person who lied on the couch watching TV their whole life; their life would be summed up as so. There is not a lot of aesthetically pleasing content to unpack from that description, nor is there a lot of (good) impact, and thus, their life could be described as rather meaningless. A person who spent much of their time working on a cure for cancer however, would have a life whose description could be unpacked for ages. All of the lives prolonged, all of the lives created, all of the events and emotions permitted to come about, all because of the life-saving medicine they created. There is so much to unpack from this life; thus, it is meaningful.

If you life forever however, something strange happens. Look at the full breadth of your possible actions; there are diametrically opposed actions you could commit, but one (or both) of them are extremely unlikely. Across eternity however, the probability that you'll commit any one possible action goes to 1. So, in your infinite life, you'll be everything from a savior to a genocidal dictator, and at the limit at infinity, I suspect the interference of all your actions would be completely destructive. That is, the valence of your impact would be 0.

So, could your immortal life be meaningful when you'd know that all that you do will be undone by yourself? Well, maybe the breadth of all your possible actions isn't as big as I believe; maybe it is biased towards good, meaning your impact will be positive. Or, perhaps what you will do and have done is irrelevant; perhaps meaning only lies in the present?

It's a difficult topic, but I think my suspicion could be summed up like this:

A finite life has finite meaning, and thus a meaning. An infinite life has infinite meaning, and thus no meaning? To be everything is to be nothing? What is the meaning in to be or not to be when you will always choose both?

Anyway, why conflate psychological needs with the purpose of existence? Surely, existence came first; meaning and purpose were imposed only later. — Vera Mont

Great question and I will take my time to respond to it. I hope others are interested in taking a jab at it. It is veering away from self-help and into metaphysics however, so I will be more formal and careful in dealing with it; it is far from a resolved issue for me.

Is it? Does servitude really make you happier than cooperation? Can you compare the mood of a barn-raising to that of a chain-gang? I think a big-brained species needs several diverse sources of satisfaction. Group effort is only of these. Intimacy is another. Overcoming self-chosen challenge. Physical pleasure. The companionship of friends. Contact with nature. The appreciation of culture and creative endeavour. Acknowledgment and respect. — Vera Mont

This paragraph shows you have misunderstood me. By social servitude, I mean servitude for some social cause, which does not necessarily involve direct servitude of people. And, if it does involve servitude of people, one's servitude of those people would (ideally, of course) only extend as far as serving them would serve the cause. And completely willingly serving someone is cooperating with them; since you are willingly serving them, you have the same cause as them and you reckon that the cause is best served if the other person/people play(s) a more executive role.

Also, when you create meaning through servitude, then that is definitely a self-chosen challenge. You have to want it. You have to choose it.

Which is exactly what we need to do, if we are ever to stop slaughtering one another on the orders of our 'superiors'. As long as there is willing submission, there is enthusiastic domination. — Vera Mont

I agree that people with meaningful lives are more dangerous. Meaning is dangerous, and perhaps the world would be better off currently if our lives were a little less meaningful. It is a double-edged sword however; meaninglessness goes hand-in-hand with apathy and desensitivity, which leads to all kinds of depravity.

So, where is the optimal balance currently? And where will the optimal balance be in the future? Perhaps we are finally able to achieve a framework of absolute certainty (accompanied by good formulations of it), through which we are able to (relatively) peacefully resolve differences? That's my dream but I know it might be a bit optimistic.

Why does it have to be described in terms of data delivery? — Vera Mont

By describing it in these terms, we show just how fundamental and profound having a compass is. A compass (that is, serving some greater thing) changes how we receive, interpret and transmit data, meaning it is a transformation of your entire experience. It's not just some resource that we can tap into and that we need to fill up on; no, it is a state of mind; a transformation of thoughts, emotions and perceptions.

If we simply explain the need for proper social servitude as some need and desire that makes us happier, we would be underplaying the importance and profundity of fulfilling this need. If social servitude only makes you happy, it is replaceable by other sources of happiness. Meaning, as a resource, is not replaceable. Meaning is not happiness; meaning is the medium of happiness.

Told by 500 generations of prophets and philosophers that he is wanting, fallen short, fallen from a loftier position, and that the only way he can redeem himself is by dedicating his life to something greater than himself: a god, a liege lord, an empire, a noble cause, a brotherhood of warriors, monks or mobsters. His own little life is of no consequence: it is a conveyance merely, like a deed of sale or a summons, disposable once it's served purpose. — Vera Mont

That is one way power-hungry people capitalize on man's need for meaning, but it is not representative of a meaningful life. I am not claiming that was your standpoint, but I wanted to point it out.

A meaningful life does entail one is serving something greater than oneself, but that does not necessitate one is not serving oneself. By realizing one is one with the greater thing one serves, other- and self-servitude becomes one and the same; both in theory and in practice. By practicing servitude for the greater thing, one is serving oneself. By practicing servitude for oneself, one is serving the greater good. One gets meaning both from the hard work and from the breaks!

The value of serving oneself is not wholly dependent on the value of serving the greater thing, nor vice versa; the values are co-dependent.

We are next-to-nothing without each other; therein lies the meaning.

Don't expect society to give you a free ride. If you have an expensive medical procedure and can't pay, the rest of us have to pick up the tab one way or another. — jgill

I have health insurance, and even if I didn't, you'd probably not have to pay a dime, unless you happen to come from the same country as me.

I agree. I think a bit part of the appeal of running away is the escape from the social limitations, especially in that they restrict (to some degree) the evolution of the self. I don't think it leads to underdeveloped selves, but it removes more of the person's agency in guiding the evolution of the self.

So then the question becomes; are we usually better of with more or less external guidance over the evolution of our selves?

I think that would be good too. I am creating a foundation to come back to, yet I haven't committed to anything that needs maintenance, so I'm at the optimal place in my life to do something like this.

What do you think about the question however? Why do some people want to do this, and is it a better life?

My guess is that it is a better life, but not forever. I do wonder how long it takes before most people start demanding the other things of life that require them to settle down.

Why are most not suited for it, and to what degree are they not suited for it?

@Joshs I like your theory, though we may disagree as to what degree one might exercise this freedom, at least in the bureaucratic, legal and occupational domains of life. In the social domain however, this freedom is far larger, and I have exercised it myself. Though, in the vein of what @Vera Mont says, this theory doesn't change the fact that the next day, I've got to go to a soulless job. Nor does it change the fact that I am surrounded by people who I am almost as lonely with than not.

This video explains one kind of travelling; one that appeals to me and would be the one I'd employ. Just the opening segment gives one a very good idea.

Definitely relevant, but not an answer. Could you elaborate?

I would say that there must be a base reality for my consciousness to exist within, due to me having not been conscious at one point (unborn) and therefore incapable of creating any reality for myself, (...) — vanzhandz

You seem to have forgotten about forgetting. What if your consciousness has existed forever as base reality, yet simply forgotten most of its existence?

Here's a way to conceptualize the density of things in an infinite volume, granted that the things in-question are evenly distributed:

$\displaystyle D = \lim_{V \rightarrow \infty} \frac NV$

Where V is the volume you are looking at, and N is the number of the things in-question within that volume. As this limit grows, it will (over large enough growth) approach D, since the even distribution entails that you will likely increase the accuracy of your density measurement with each sample expansion; as you continue doing so indefinitely, you will eventually increase the accuracy.

Why would they need their own page? They could just pick any page for themselves, being solipsist(s) and all.

Yeah that's it. But the move isn't just to assert that the scandal is resolved "because we are finite," but to show how the foundational model in information theory generates this problem by having a Cartesian Homunculus hidden in plane sight. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Given your post (which I have read in its entirety now), I assume you mean the issue with the Homunculus is that the information that reaches us never reaches a destination. Instead, it is processed bit by bit (pun intended), thus delocalizing the information's meaning across the computation; both the structure and the process (that is, it is delocalized both in space and time).

If I understand correctly, you think that the lack of unity in the destination means that the original information is never fully reconstructed, which is why we do not wind up with that original information; instead, we wind up with information derived from it, that is tied up into a model of reality (the information we bring to the table), and typically not fully put together as single entity anyways.

Although the lack of a destination would be able to explain the "appearance" of a paradox in the Scandal of Deduction, it is not necessary, nor the most pertinent fact. Everything is explainable by the fact that computation is needed to expand information (for lowly creatures like us), which thus explains why we can add information to our minds by manipulating information that already contained (formally) the information we added.

An analogy can be used. Let's say you have two objects present with you in a room. After an action that does not involve anything or -one leaving or entering the room, a new object becomes apparent to you. How? Well of course! The second object was contained within the first object, meaning the first object obscured the second. The action you performed was taking the second object out of the first object, thus revealing a new object. It is new to you, but not new to the room.

You are the computer and the room is the formal system; the first object is a (list of) premise(s) and the second object a theorem. The theorem already existed within the Platonic form of the formal system, but only after the computation did the theorem become apparent to you.

Computation generates new information in the sense that it reveals the information you had "access" to but did not previously apprehend. Whether or not one can call that new information is just a matter of semantics; whether one should is a matter of practicality. I think we should, because practically speaking, deduction is a way to gain new information.

I didn't read your entire post because I found it overly complicated. If you tell me my response shows a lack of understanding of the essence of your stance, then I will read the entirety of your post.

All the information in a formal system finds its most reduced informational form in its axioms and inference rules, just like 122122122... finds its most reduced informational form in repeat(122). So, in this sense, you do not gain any information when you derive things in a formal system; the only thing you do is expand the information, like repeat(122) = repeat(122122).

But this is all talking about the information inherent in some Platonic form of a formal system. It doesn't matter. Our minds are limited, we are not capable of taking information in its most reduced form and immediately seeing all of its expanded forms. Thus, we learn things when we expand information; which means we do derive new information from deduction. The new information finds its place in our minds, not in the Platonic realm, but who gives a damn?

The Scandal of Deduction is, although true, no scandal at all.

Having to use scare quotes on that context vitiates whatever comes next. — Wayfarer

No, because what I wrote next only agrees with the quotation marks. Turing machines might not reason the way we do; thus, whatever their equivalent is, I call it "reason".

Turing machines are material. If they can "reason" without some immaterial force, why can't we?

I'm not saying our reasoning is identical (see Penrose), but what is it about our reasoning that is different in a way that matters in this context? Intention? Well, a Turing machine also seemingly intends to arrive at a conclusion too. There are material forces in it that pushes out a calculation, and maybe that too is true for us?

Yet, we feel that intention. And that's really the actual challenge of materialism; The Hard Problem of Consciousness; why/how do we experience things in a completely material universe?

I'm just not seeing the utility of the distinction. — Pantagruel

In this comment, it seemed like you thought the distinction wasn't there, due to the fact that nothing is at rest. After I explained that it does not matter, you seem to have now moved on to saying there is no utility in the distinction; however, it being a useless distinction does not follow from the restlessness of all things, just like it not being a real distinction does not.

The utility of the distinction lies in pointing out conflations one might have in regards to spatial/temporal extension. The distinction of object- and motion-temporal-extension is very important for consciousness, since the latter is pretty trivial, but the former could be extremely important for epistemology, if ever figured out.

The distinction between the spatial equivalents is important for our ability to draw the aforementioned analogy, and that ability comes at no cost, since the concept makes complete sense despite the restlessness of all things (as I've explained). There may be other such concrete utilities in making the distinction.

So, if you are going to disagree, please explain how the distinction is illusory/useless with all this in mind.

To the extent that nothing is every truly at rest, the distinction between OSE and MSE breaks down. — Pantagruel

I would say the restlessness of all things does not matter. In any quantum/instant of time, every object stands still, yet it still has OSE. Unless you propose that its OSE arises from the fact that it will have a new position in the next instant/quantum of time, then you must agree the restlessness of everything is immaterial to the distinction between OSE and MSE.

I see what you mean, but I think you would be passing on higher-quality (but perhaps less) knowledge if you switched to my strategy, which involves explaining things logically (with supplements of intuitive explanations). Whenever someone doesn't understand me, I simply expand on the explanation, removing ambiguities.

And that's really what I mean about explaining things logically; remove ambiguities. (Re)define words, use simple words, make up words if you have to, so long as they are either well-defined by you, or well-defined by the relevant people. I say relevant people, because in certain contexts, the words are not well-defined for some audiences, but for others, they are (like terms from quantum mechanics for example).

If you find yourself lacking precise definitions for the words you are using, then you likely do not possess a good verbal understanding of the thing you are talking about, which means you likely do not possess a good understanding of it at all. Some things lend themselves better to non-verbal understanding, of course, but still, if you are not good at explaining something, you probably do not understand it very well.

Everything in the universe has a "temporal dimension" in the sense that all things change — Gnomon

Yes, agreed. But that is merely motion-temporal-extension (MSE). The question is, does consciousness have object-temporal-extension (OSE). In the above comment, I explained the difference. Here I will add another point to differentiate them:

If an object has MSE, then it can move from one (set) of point(s) on the temporal axis to another (set) of point(s). But if an object has OSE, then the object itself extends across multiple points on the temporal axis. The object's butt is in the past and its face in the future, all without moving, just like how a chair is extended through space without moving.

If consciousness has no OSE, then it is merely a point moving down the time axis. If consciousness has OSE, then it is a set of points co-moving down the time axis.

@Pantagruel You might want to see this comment too, as I am expanding on the above explanation :)

I'm not so clear on your concept of object versus motion temporal extension. — Pantagruel

Let's forget about time as a dimension, in order to simplify things to the more comprehensible spatial dimension.

Let's say I have a chair; if I throw it across the room, it has a spatial extension. Why? Because it is moving through space; that's motion-spatial-extension (MSE).

Let's say the chair stands perfectly still however. Does it no longer have a spatial extension? Of course it does! But it isn't moving through space, the object itself extends into space. Thus, it has object-spatial-extension (OSE).

Now, at first, it might seem that OSE is perhaps a special case of MSE. That is not true; one does not imply the other. Take for example a zeroth-dimensional point moving through space (which is what particles are to some physicists). That zeroth-dimensional point, as an object, does not have any axis of which its form can extend into space, and thus, it has no OSE. Nevertheless, it moves through space, and thus has MSE.

So, what about our consciousness? Well, I think it is safe to say our consciousness moves through time; it has motion-temporal-extension (MTE). But does the "form" of consciousness; the "geometry"; the "shape"; does it have temporal extension? Does consciousness have object-temporal-extension (OTE)?

If it does, it would mean that some of our "memories" are actually the past contained within the manifold of consciousness, and thus, are as real and direct as other percepts. This would mean such memories are not representational, and thus not subject to the skepticism regarding any potential representational corruption.

Interesting. I will have to read up on them. Do you believe in their views on this matter?

I see. But for us others, could you expand on how the fact that our phenomenal reality is supposedly caused by/represents a physical reality in the past is relevant to Art's musings about only experiencing the phenomenal present, where phenomenal present is he only sensible reading of present, since no-one is experiencing anything non-phenomenal by definition.

Yes, I agree they are complicating factors but your original comment did not make their relevance to Art's post clear. Perhaps we just have a different opinion on what's relevant enough to warrant mentioning in this thread.

'Where you live' is in your brain's model of reality, which is generated in part based on the light that hit your retina (on the order of 100 milliseconds) earlier. — wonderer1

Where you live is, in part, your perception of that light right now.

Please define your use of legitimate here.

Could you point to any sources?

I know Thomas Reid held a direct realist notion of memory. To him, every memory was the apprehension of the actual past. But you are talking about views in which both realist (retentional) memories and representative (presented) memories exist? That makes sense, but how do these view-holders determine which memories are retentional and which are presented?

The objective past, for me, is embedded within the objective present and, insofar as it consisted of cyclical events or processes, is ongoing. — Pantagruel

Are you saying the past is immanent in the present through influence, or are you saying the past and present actually co-occur? If the latter, you are stepping into dangerous grounds, because you are saying that different moments of time co-occur, implying a meta-time for those temporally-distanced moments to co-occur in. I assume it was the former, but I am just making sure.

I think there are a variety of neuro-cognitive mechanisms for memory that are viable explanations, — Pantagruel

How could one explain the object-temporal-extension (OTE) of consciousness via neurocognitive mechanism? If consciousness has OTE, then this is a property far more fundamental than that which can be dealt with at the neurocognitive level, I believe. Conversely, I believe the consciousness' awareness of its motion-temporal-extension (MTE) is within the (partial, of course) explanatory capacity of the neurocognitive level.

Possibly knowledge of the causes of things can give some form of memory, as deducing the state of the past from the present. — Pantagruel

This is how most of memory works. It is reconstructive; generating episodic memories from kernels of preserved, episode-incurrent data and from episode-relevant data regarding the world. So, even if the kernels do not tell you whether the past actually featured a car flying, your reconstruction of the memory will not feature any cars flying, because your model of the world says that is impossible/improbable.

The debate about what masculinity/femininity is, and what real men/women are, is often confused by people talking past each other.

Some derive masculinity/femininity from their view of how men/women are typically perceived, and some derive masculinity/femininity from how they think men/women should be. Both of these profiles are of course impacted by each other, but they are different nonetheless. From here on out, I will just talk about masculinity/men, since that is what your post is about, but my comment is general enough to apply to both men and women.

As for the former; before answering what is more or less masculine, one must first define what is typical of men. The most typical man would be a man who has the quantities of every trait in him that is average for men, in the eyes of the average human, right? No, that model does not take into account the synergies between the traits. Although x might be the average aggressivity of a man and although y is the most average happiness of a man, the most average combination of those two values may not be (x,y), since all these traits are not independent. So, not only is this practically very hard to quantify, it is even hard to quantify in principle.

Furthermore, who said the most average man would be regarded as the most typical man? Our perception of typicality is not a perfect representation of actual typicality.

Now, on top of the already complexity of defining what is perceived as typical for men, how does one derive what is the most manly from that? If most people perceive men as typically more disagreeable than most people, would that which we perceive as the manliest man be perceived as being as disagreeable as humanly possible? That which the perceived typical man has more/less of, the perceived manliest man has the most/least of? I do not buy that at all.

One can perhaps bite the bullet and say, actual masculinity does not perfectly align with perceived masculinity, but that doesn't fix the problem of quantifying masculinity. Some might try to get around the quantification issues by reducing it to some small number of independent factors that they purport are correlated with all the traits of masculinity (kind of like what psychometricians did with g and intelligence), but this would only worsen the disconnect between their supposed "masculinity" and perceived masculinity.

And yeah, then there's the discussion of what men ought to be, which is another doozie.

Personally, I leave it as this; I perceive people as more or less masculine and feminine, and I have intuitions about what men and women should be. These perceptions are mine and can be drastically different from other people's (especially those of different cultures). As for my deontic intuitions; I do not force them on anyone, nor do I place any weight on them. As a man, I do not find it morally important to behave as how my intuitions happen to tell me a man ought to behave; I do find it morally important to behave as how my intuitions tell me people should behave, however. I believe they're both instinctual, but at least the latter is less arbitrary.

Personally, I am exploring the idea that, while objects may have a temporal position, consciousness actually has a temporal "size." Objects are three dimensional and moving through or in time, as it were. But consciousness actually exists in the past, present and future, has actual temporal dimension. — Pantagruel

I have been exploring this as well. As you can see in my bio, I am (and have been) trying to epistemically bridge the chasm of time, and if the above quote is true, it would help a ton with the pain in the ass that memory skepticism poses.

First, an important point of possible confusion. Consciousness can have "temporal extension" in two distinct ways. Consciousness can have a motion-temporal-extension and an object-temporal-extension. Most assume the former, but I interpreted your comment as pertaining to the latter, meaning consciousness itself extends into time, without any movement necessary (like a still-standing chair extending into the three spatial dimensions). In this reply, I am interested in the latter. Some might say the former necessitates the latter, but at least mathematically, that is not true. N-dimensional manifolds can be embedded into M-dimensional spaces, where M > N. So, does consciousness have a temporal dimension, or does it merely move through time?

Is the present (as a "percept") actually a duration? Looking at a river, one might think/feel so. But I am able to bring doubt to this. What would it even mean?

Does it mean that we experience multiple instants of time simultaneously? Well, if that's the case, it cannot be in the sense of squeezing durations into instants, for that would not correspond to my experiential reality. Instead, if we experience multiple instants simultaneously, we take the past x units of time with us in the experiential, spacious box that is the present, and this allows us to actually engage in temporally extended experiences. But is it the only way?

Does remembering, even in its most basic form, imply an actual experience of the past? Could it be that the present feels like a duration only because we bring with us representations of the past that we apprehend simultaneously as we do the present instant? I mean, if one is already postulating the ability of simultaneous apprehension of distinct percepts, there is no explanatory need to postulate a temporal extension of consciousness. However, if our experience of the past is merely through representations of the past, as opposed to an actual, direct apprehension of the recent past, then we incur the question of memory skepticism.

Do you have any more thoughts on this?

I am not familiar with the book you mention. However, if you think potentiality is a cause, then randomness does not imply any uncaused event.

Then we have things like the Four Color theorem which required a computer to evaluate a huge number of cases to "prove". — jgill

Are you implying the Four Color theorem is an example not within the scope of too lengthy for humans to go through? An exhaustive proof where the cases tried are too numerous is just a special case of a theorem with too many steps for a human to go through.

I don't see how there are any issues of incomprehensibility that are not ultimately an issue of length, unless these super-intelligences somehow have access to data that is inaccessible to us (though, that would be an empirical barrier, not a logical one).

Depends on what you call uncaused. Is the potential for something a cause?

In an idealistic reality, isn't everything a dream? A creation of one super-mind, or a collection of minds? Are there random events in dreams? How would that work? — RogueAI

I have some thoughts on random versus determined events that are a bit too tied up in my theory to be laid out here.

But I can respond to your comment with another question: how is physicalism any more welcoming of randomness than idealism?

How are there any random events in an idealistic reality? — RogueAI

How is randomness incompatible with an idealistic reality?