A static eternal state of nothingness? — CorneliusCoburn

Potentiality is a five-dimensional existence. It’s four-dimensional aspect would appear as a static, eternal state of nothingness.

You’re acknowledging a distinction between knowing and believing on the one hand, but reducing it to a degree of uncertainty on the other. You’re revealing here an overarching structure of potentiality that collapses to value certainty above all - not unlike our lonely savage.

This takes us back to the main discussion here. The dominant, influential individual will always value certainty above all, and view any uncertainty that inevitably persists in his choice of actions as overwhelmingly negative. The life of our lonely savage is attractive to him: no one questions his decisions or points out conflicting, alternative or unsettling information. Ignorance is bliss. An individual’s social connections and collaboration increase the uncertainty of his autonomy, dominance and influence. He is more aware of the universe, but less certain of his individual position in relation to it.

FWIW, I see an alternative to the self as a dominant, influential individual to be the self as one possible manifestation of truth.

If we remove this culturally arbitrary distinction, we are on par with our lonely savage. If you doubt that, you might as well think that psychology can’t be practiced cross-culturally and theorize about cultural differences being more important than our common human race. — Congau

I agree that ignoring the distinction puts us on par with the lonely savage - but that doesn’t improve our understanding of truth - it only reduces it. I DO think that psychology can’t be practiced with the same accuracy cross-culturally, and that cultural differences should always be taken into account when making decisions globally for the human race.

Culture is not arbitrary - it’s the uncertainty that diminishes its perceived value in your perspective. The diversity of human culture and ideology reflects the perceived potential of humanity’s interaction with the universe. To exclude this information from how we interact with the world is to limit the accuracy of our predictions, including its uncertainty. You can’t attempt to reduce the potentiality and value structures of the human race to the certainty of a ‘common denominator’ and expect to make accurate predictions. This is the issue with morality, politics, religion, logic, language, etc. It’s similar to the problem faced when train travel made time zones necessary, instead of opting for one ‘common’ world time. And the relativity of time in a four-dimensional reality - except what we’re talking about is a fifth dimensional aspect of perceived value or potential.

yes

Nothingness (from our perspective) is potential existence. Something (ie. a particle) comes into existence from an interrelation of this potentiality.

Whether or not you consider potentiality to be ‘something’ that exists is a matter of conceptualisation. But potentiality is not an actual thing.

Surely the informational differences between the experiences relating an expression of ‘observing’ truth and one of ‘feeling’ truth matters more than their similarities?
— Possibility
We neither observe nor feel the truth. We observe something and feel something, and it may or may not be the truth (we may be hallucinating or just not seeing as clearly as we think).

I observe there is a computer on my table, and I feel it is there; what’s the difference? In certain contexts, one word is more appropriate than the other depending on what aspect I wish to stress, or I prefer one word for stylistic reasons, but essentially they are the same. “Observing” refers to the visual faculty while “feeling” could relate to any of the five sense, including the visual. — Congau

This is where our perspectives differ: in how we conceptualise the existence of truth.

For you, it seems, objective truth is an actuality. What is potential is not truth, and neither is possibility. Truth, for you, cannot include doubt or uncertainty in any way. Only when we have ignored, isolated or excluded all evidence of uncertainty, can we refer to whatever remains as ‘objective truth’, and then act on it - as one discrete system interacting with another. This is what I see as particle thinking. It is how an individual understands reality at the moment of interaction.

For me, objective truth is inclusive of all possibilities. Uncertainty is a result of the ignorance, isolation or exclusion of truth from our limited perspective, and so we reduce uncertainty (not just our awareness of it) at this level more effectively by increasing awareness, connection and collaboration with all possibilities. There is meaningful information (a difference that makes a difference) to be found in relating our own limited perspective (with all of its uncertainty) to the potential information of alternative experiences and perspectives (with all of their uncertainty). This is how we refine the perceived potential and value of uncertain beliefs, knowledge and predictions as an amorphous relational structure of experiential information - which then collapses (or decoheres) according to our unique structures of logic, language, reasoning, intention, will, etc into what you refer to as ‘objective truth’ for the purpose of interacting with material reality. This is what I refer to as potentiality wave thinking.

The way I see it, when we observe something, we cannot observe ‘the truth’, as you say, but the observable information is true when conceptualised in a certain way (ie. as a hallucination). Likewise, when we feel something, we cannot feel the truth, but what information is felt can be structured in relation to other information towards truth.

I observe that there is a computer on my table.
I feel that there is a computer on my table.

The similarity between these statements pertains to my belief: that there is a computer on my table. I understand that this is the only information in these statements that you may be interested in, and so long as you can be certain that my belief is true, then you don’t need any more information.

But the truth in each statement is dependent on the relative positions of the computer, the table and me - none of which you can be certain of from either of these statements alone - and so the difference between these statements also relates to the sensory and other information I’m using to construct my belief. If you are standing beside me, and my table is in another room, how does the potential truth in each of these statements change from, say, the two of us being in different rooms, or from the table being in your room, or from you being blind? How does the meaning of ‘observe’ and ‘feel’ change in relation to this information?

When we act on the information that we have, we don’t exclude as much uncertain information as we might think. We always predict reality to some extent when we act, and our prediction is very much altered by potential, uncertain and value-laden information - as much as it seems like we’re acting only on ‘objective truth’.

He would lack the words to describe each sentiment, but I fail to see why he, as a human being and subject to human psychology, would not go through the same process as any social and civilized man. He would carefully examine the tracks and reach a definite conclusion (he would feel sure, the way we feel when we say “I know”) or he would tilt in one direction (not sure, but probably a rabbit, we say “I believe”). — Congau

The way I see it, human psychology is in many ways a product of social and civilised man, not the other way around - in particular, our capacity to distinguish between the certainty of knowledge and the uncertainty of belief. The capacity alone has no effect until we exercise it through interaction with the world. For the ‘lonely savage’, that distinction can be made only in the moment of observation. The prediction error or realised uncertainty is noted as suffering, while the certainty is integrated or valued as truth. It is in recognising, observing or sharing expressions of suffering that social animals learn to anticipate uncertainty in predicted interactions, and begin to distinguish value or potential in relation to their observation of objects (and eventually in relation to events themselves).

He knows what it means to imagine (not the word but the notion). He has dreams at night that he knows are not real, and sometimes he imagines being able to fly like a bird, knowing full well he could never do it. — Congau

Distinguishing pure imagination from experience is another level of awareness. Even a child often needs to be convinced that their dreams are not real experiences. I think you assume that your ‘lonely savage’ has a broader understanding of his own experiences than he could realistically acquire alone.

I agree that a lone human being can employ the scientific method to acquire certainty. What I’m saying is that without social interaction of some kind, any awareness of uncertainty would always be experienced as an external threat to his existence, not as useful information about the world. So when he carefully examines the tracks, he is aware of no option, no way to entertain doubt, or to feel in any way ‘not sure’.

There is no ‘common denominator’ of truth - conceptually, I think you’re heading in the entirely wrong direction. This seems like the the kind of careless reductionism that religious apologetics thrives on, and that philosophy and science have sought to prevent.
— Possibility
Philosophy and science are about the search for general laws. Unscientific observation is about particulars, whereas science strives to understand general similarities. Quantum physics is the ultimate reductionist understanding of nature and therefore, in a sense the most scientific of all sciences. — Congau

I agree that reducing, resampling or collapsing our understanding of reality is necessary to some extent for any level of interaction, including the scientific method, but reductionism is not how to understand reality. The reductionist approach to quantum physics struggles to settle on a satisfactory interpretation, because the results show that there is no common denominator of truth. It is the nature of the question that determines the answer, not reality itself. Which makes the metaphysical or theoretical approach to quantum physics (determining what questions to ask), and the application or useful interpretation of the answers, as crucial to new scientific discovery and advancement as the experiments themselves or any general laws. The reductionist mathematical calculations either work or don’t work in relation to specific questions. They don’t make sense of the world on their own.

In philosophy, metaphysics is the most philosophical branch asking the most reductionist question: What is being? (ignoring the distinctions between a vast range of beings). Reductionism is essential to all higher understanding since cutting away irrelevant differences is the only way to grasp the principle of anything. — Congau

What I was referring to was careless reductionism, which fails to take into account the subjective, limited position of who is asking the question and why it matters to them. The difference this information makes to what question is asked is important both to science and philosophy - especially at the quantum level. ‘What is being’ is a perfect example of a reductionist question that has contributed little to metaphysics or science of late, because it ignores who is asking the question and why it matters to them.

Reduction is essential to the sharing, predicting, testing and application of how we understand reality. But every time we reach for a higher understanding, we should aim to maximise awareness, connection and collaboration with diverse possibilities, perspectives and potential beyond our own. Ignoring diversity, excluding differences and other reductionist approaches can help to eliminate uncertainty, but the way I see it, this takes us further from objective truth, not closer to it.

The lonely savage might believe a rabbit has gnawed on a branch (not sure, it could also be a hare), and predict that his trap will catch the rabbit (he has logically placed it close to rabbit food). He imagines how he will go about catching the rabbit (but know it hasn’t been caught yet) and he recognizes a rabbit whenever he sees one (objective truth). — Congau

Sure, from our perspective, each of these is different, but to the ‘lonely savage’ there is no distinction between these thoughts and the notion of objective truth. What he predicts is what he imagines, and what he imagines is what he believes, and what he believes is never in dispute. He has no reason to doubt his predictions, beliefs or imagination while they remain in potentiality, or to question his recognising a rabbit whenever he sees a hare.

Thanks! I've been wondering, in a very Wittgensteinian way, what time adds to the concept of motion — Gregory

It adds a dimensional aspect of awareness.

theoretically we can obtain a more accurate view of truth
— Possibility

Not too sure what you are doing here. Is it that the more "perceived potential information of a subject" there is, the better our definition of "true"? — Banno

No. The ‘subject’ I’m referring to here is the person experiencing, not the ‘truth’ in question. I realise this might be confusing, so I wanted to clear that up, first off.

If all we’re looking for is a consensus on the information we already have - ie. that what I see looks like an oasis - then we can verify only that limited perception of what is true. Increasing the value of this specific piece of information cannot tell us objectively if what I see truly is an oasis, for instance. We cannot automatically assume that our visual information is ‘true’; but we also cannot assume that the visual information of humans in general is ‘true’, objectively speaking. We’ve learned - through the pain, humiliation and loss of prediction error - that we must structure objective truth with more than visual information.

It seems obvious that there is a difference between the truth information of what we believe looks like an oasis and the truth information of what is an oasis. But recognising the difference between the truth information of what we believe is an oasis and what is an oasis can be more difficult.

It is in the information which specifically differs from our own perspective that we obtain a more accurate view of truth.
— Possibility

Of what is true, ir of what "true" is? De dicto or de re? — Banno

What is true - but this is an important distinction. Truth is not the same as a statement of belief. A statement of belief is a reduction of truth information, relative not just to the potential information perceived, but also relative to how we structure it - our conceptual systems, including language, values and logic - formed according to our subjective experiences, the events of our lives and how we perceive, value and structure those, too. There is truth information in any statement of belief, but what information is true may not be what we believe it to be when we make it. The truth is not in the words themselves, but in how those words relate to our unique perspective of what is true. Like a blind man describing the elephant’s trunk.

SO you are saying something like that the more "perceived potential information of a subject" there is, the more true it is? — Banno

No, I’m saying that theoretically we can obtain a more accurate view of truth - that’s definitely not the same as saying ‘the information is more true’.

If you see what looks like an oasis, and everyone else around you also says that what they see looks like an oasis, then you can confidently assert that... what you see looks like an oasis. It is in the information which specifically differs from our own perspective that we obtain a more accurate view of truth.

All modern civilizations of these days lives same, thinks same, searching for same...
But this reality is not our reality. This reality is a created reality. Getting rid of culture effects on mind can be helpfull for thinking revolutionary ideas. I want to talk about this topic. I am wondering your opinions. — handalf

Simply trying to get rid of or isolate ourselves from the immersive effects of culture on the mind is not going to be productive, as @unenlightened suggested. Ignorance, isolation or exclusion is not the way to intelligence. Rather, it’s self-destructive.

But increasing awareness of the various effects of culture on the structural development of the mind - both positive and negative - I think is a good start. There’s not much point in simply throwing out elements that may weaken the overall structure - it makes more sense to understand and develop the ideal cultural environment that will enable the mind to best align with reality, and then adjust for it.

SO your claim is now that knowledge relies on consensus, but that consensus does not imply knowledge?

You are not claiming that consensus implies truth, then. Good.

So, how does consensus relate to truth? — Banno

Consensus increases the perceived potential information of a subject, enabling them to theoretically approach a more accurate or objective view of truth than the one subject’s sensory experiences alone. But this additional information is relative to unfamiliar perspectives, and so is less certain. The more information we obtain about these different perspectives in relation to our own, the more accurate our resulting view of truth.

To use a recent example, the more clearly the blind men can ‘map’ each of their relative positions and experiences using additional information (asking questions, etc), the more accurately they can piece together a view of the elephant. But at this stage they have only increased perceived potential information: they’re better placed to make sound predictions and hypotheses, but not yet to claim this view of truth as knowledge or fact.

So, if something comes from nothing, there must have been an action. I don't know if this means there must have been an agent (personal or impersonal), but it doesn't seem to me that nothingness can have infinite power. There is an infinite distance between something and nothing, so an infinite power is needed. I am going back to my quasi-materialist paradigm however. In my thought, there is no "origin". It never existed. There is simply the first motions, the second, third, and on until now. There was nothing before the first motion (or pull or material force). The idea of time itself, then, needs to be thrown out for my position to stand.

What do you think is needed in order to prove the reality of time — Gregory

An understanding of this reality, for starters. Read Carlo Rovelli’s ‘The Order of Time’. He effectively dismantles and then restructures our notion of time, and I think goes some way towards supporting your position.

But consider, too, that ‘nothingness’ IS infinite potentiality prior to any action...

"Incorrigible= not able to be corrected or reformed. That applies here. This is not an arbitrary assumption we pull out of thin air. No one has to be talked into it. Perhaps you've talked yourself out of it, but the only basis seems to be that it's possibly wrong. Possibility is not a defeater of belief. If you treat it as such, then you can have no beliefs other than analytic trurhs. — Relativist

No, not a defeater of belief, just of certainty. I’m okay with that, fwiw. Possibility leaves the door open for correction and reformation. Just because it’s comforting or easy to swallow, doesn’t make it absolute. I recognise existence as a dynamic state of inequilibrium - that I lean towards change and you towards stability, is just part of the dance...

A foggy day's digital picture relies on the eye's inherent limitations to pull off its analog illusion. The eye, unable to make out the discrete pixel data sees the fog as a continuum viz. shades of white. Basically, it's the discrete digital mimicking the continuous analog. What this reveals is that our eyes have a fixed resolution capacity - any difference equal to or smaller than that and we can't tell things apart . Vague concepts are exactly like that - there are certain differences that our senses/minds can't resolve as distinct from each other. Entire chunks of, say, height data elicit the same brain state (here tallness). So, for someone, heights of 6 ft, 6.4 ft and 7ft, all, correspond to the same discrete brain state (tall). — TheMadFool

The surprising thing about a sorites puzzle, or indeed any discussion of vagueness, is you don't need any analog. Analog is sufficient but not necessary for vagueness. You only require a digitally defined series (of discrete but plausibly imperceptibly different values, like your heights to 3 d.p.) and two or three vague adjectives like tall, medium and short. — bongo fury

There is no connection being made here between a digital mind and a digital brain as yet - only between the mind and ‘brain states’ as a concept of mental events. Whether employing a digital or analog perspective of ‘vagueness’, our understanding fails in the ‘conversion process’ between mind and brain. From a digital perspective of mind, there is no continuity - only discrete values and concepts - and so the brain appears relatively analog in nature.

From a digital or quantum perspective of the brain, however (if we assume the granular nature of time proposed by QFT), then the discrete nature of ‘brain states’ in relation to the ‘vague concepts’ to which they correspond is surprisingly similar to particle-wave duality. I may be completely ignorant of problems with this, but isn’t it possible then to look at ‘brain states’ in the same way that we look at photons?

Someone who lived totally isolated would be excluded from sharing, blind people are excluded from seeing and infants are excluded from logical deductions, but some facts enter the minds of all three groups, which means they have access to some truth and as such it resembles any possible approach to truth. — Congau

Blind people learn to distinguish, value and therefore trust alternative sources of sensory information more highly than sighted people. Infants quickly learn to value and therefore trust consistently positive sources of information, but they do initially make no distinction between potential information (including predictions or imagination) and ‘objective truth’. Someone who lives totally isolated has no way of relating the potential information they perceive in relation to alternative perspectives, so they, too, would make no distinction between their beliefs, predictions or imagination and ‘objective truth’.

There are facts out there and when they enter our mind, we may call it seeing, perceiving, understanding, learning, observing, experiencing, sensing, feeling, grasping, getting, catching, sharing and any number of words we may feel adequately captures what is going on in any particular instance, but the common denominator is still about something “entering the mind”. — Congau

But we haven’t been able to capture what is going on, have we? We have no objective understanding about what it means for information to ‘enter’ whatever the mind is. There is no ‘common denominator’ of truth - conceptually, I think you’re heading in the entirely wrong direction. This seems like the the kind of careless reductionism that religious apologetics thrives on, and that philosophy and science have sought to prevent.

The way I understand it, there are no objective facts ‘out there’ that ‘enter’ the mind at a spatio-temporal location. All of this metaphorical description makes us feel like we’re talking about actual things, phenomena we only lack sufficient tools to measure, but they’re just words that most readily bring us a sense of comfort or protection, not truth.

Surely the informational differences between the experiences relating an expression of ‘observing’ truth and one of ‘feeling’ truth matters more than their similarities? When we reduce them both to ‘facts entering the mind’, we lose so much information about what truth is and what it means. How do we then get that information back?

The process of understanding objective truth, in my view, involves challenging the mind first to include and relate all possibilities - everything we have seen and felt and observed and learned and experienced and perceived, etc. - into a six-dimensional relationship structure with what possibilities we can unpack from the expressions of others, relative to everything they may have seen and felt and observed and experienced, etc. from their unique perspective. A six-dimensional relationship structure is inclusive of fictional, irrational and illogical information - all meaningful possibility, all interrelated in some way. This is how I approach an understanding of objective truth.

Our most accurate expression of this understanding is then a consciously creative decoherence of this possibility into the potentiality of language and then collapse into words, being careful to remain inclusive of its recognisable (shared) six-dimensional aspects of meaningful possibility, in the same way that an artist carefully renders a scene in two-dimensional space to convey recognisable information about three-dimensional objects.


I am enjoying this discussion, Congau, but I realise we’ve strayed way off the topic of this thread, and I’m conscious of another thread on objective truth which may be more pertinent to what you and I are discussing here.

Objective truth or objective reality may exist, that is, there may exist truths that are true regardless of perspective or bias, but is it possible for a perceiver to be provably objective about truth? It's one thing to try to be objective, but another to be provably so. Does perception require some assumption? — Cidat

Truths that are true regardless of perspective or bias exist in possibility - they may be perceived, or expressed as a perception. An understanding of objective truth may even be shared or reiterated by other perceivers, thereby increasing the potentiality of shared meaning. But any attempt to prove or define an objective truth is limited by the perspective or bias of this potentiality: including the language, values, logic and subjective experiences of contributors. So long as an alternative perspective exists that cannot be accounted for in shared meaning, the objectivity of a truth remains unproven. You cannot claim objectivity by ignoring, isolating or excluding information related to that truth which is illogical, irrational, improbable, immoral or even fictional.

I regard it as an innate, incorrigible believe that is unanalyzable in terms of a priori principles. In short: it a basic belief, a foundation for every other belief. The "certainty" is nothing more than the incorrigibility. — Relativist

I recognise that at some point we feel compelled to draw a line to protect the integrity of the system. Something must be incorrigible, but that something is not necessarily ‘I’. There is enough potential information available to doubt one’s own incorrigibility, and yet we tend to exclude this information in a Cartesian-style retreat from the uncertainty of subjective experience. Descartes misunderstood: we don’t increase certainty by excluding doubtful information.

That ‘I’ exist is not a certainty, but is relative to an event of limited duration and fragile relational structures.

No one was being informed at the time of the bog bang. There is no ontological connection to our epistemic inferences about the big bang. — Relativist

I didn’t say anyone was. But our epistemic inferences about this event can only be made as a relational structure of potential information relative to actual observations and measurements. Something was actually ‘informed’ for a potential event five seconds after the Big Bang to exist. Prior to the Big Bang, however, is another story.

Of course, and that’s how I, and I suppose most people, define the expression “possessing the truth” and I wonder why you would feel compelled to define it differently. — Congau

It’s not so much that I’m compelled to define the expression differently. But as an ingredient of truth, possessibility is misleading, wouldn’t you agree? Consider two statements by different people:

“I see that the earth is round.”
“I see that the earth is flat.”

Both statements point to a truth about the earth, but neither of these statements alone constitutes a ‘possession’ of truth. Whitehead talks about the problem of ‘concreisance’ - when we use language to make a concept appear more concrete than it is. We may ‘know’ that the earth is round, but we cannot ‘see’ this truth with our own eyes unless we leave the earth’s atmosphere. So to say that we ‘see’ the roundness of the earth is misleading for those who lack the potential information this level of understanding requires.

Regardless of what anyone believes, the bible (in particular John’s gospel) uses three distinct Greek words that have each been translated into the English verb ‘to see’, even though they ‘have’, or rather point to, different meanings. The distinction the author makes relates to how we ‘see’ truth in the world. At one level, we observe truth (material reality) directly with our eyes. At another, we perceive a potential truth (fact), and maximise our awareness of that potential with ‘knowledge’ from the direct observation or measurement of sources whose past capacity for observing/measuring truth (material reality) appears consistent enough to be ‘trusted’. At a third level, we can understand possible truth (meaning) even in what we ‘know’ is not factual. We maximise our awareness of this level of truth by relating our perception of its potential (what we believe) to the expressed perceptions (or beliefs) of others in terms of how each potential/value and observation/measurement is structured in relation to each other.

Truth as material reality is relative to the observer/measuring device; truth as fact or knowledge is relative to subjective experience; and truth as meaning exists as a possibility beyond our own subjective experience - it can only be approached, pointed to, or shared in how we relate to the subjective experiences of others.

This all seems rather unnecessary for those already ‘see’ the truth, but as philosophers, I think we have a responsibility to scaffold our truth structures clearly, so that the scientific method can still be employed (however inconclusively) even at this level of uncertainty.

1. If the brain is digital then each perception and each thought corresponds to a specific combination of off/on neurons which I will call brain state. Let's now take a concept known for its vagueness to wit height. A dwarf evokes a brain state and a giant, as of necessity, must elicit a different brain state for they're two different perceptions and also different thoughts; different perceptions, different brain states and different thoughts, different brain states.

Tallness is a vague term - it applies not to a specific height but to a range of possible values height can assume. Suppose there's a person who considers someone tall if that person's height is between 6 ft and 8 ft. That means heights of 6.1 ft, 6.5 ft, 7 ft are all tall for this person. What is to be noted here is that each of these heights are distinct perceptions and should evoke distinct brain states and each of these brain states should be different thoughts but this isn't the case: all of the heights 6.1 ft, 6.5 ft and 7 ft are matched to not different but the same brain state, the same thought, the thought tall. This shouldn't be possible if each brain state is a different thought, no? In other words, a digital brain with thoughts being discrete brain states shouldn't be able to generate/handle vague concepts because if it could do that it implies different brain states are not different but the same thought. — TheMadFool

I don’t think it’s that simple. Tallness is a relative term - it applies not just to a specific height, or even a range of possible values height can assume. It also includes other relative information to which a height value can be attributed.

I think ‘tall’ if I need to tilt my head back to make eye contact or see the top, or if a child’s height seems out of proportion to their age in my experience, or if someone or something stands noticeably above those around them. I also think ‘tall’ when my 16yr old stands beside me while I’m not wearing heels - even though she would argue that she’s short in relation to her classmates.

But while they refer to the same concept, they are not the same thought or perception and not the same brain state. A particular brain state relates to a perception or thought, but isn’t equal to it. Tallness as a vague concept is a pattern of on/off neurons common to a range of different perceptions, different thoughts. Lisa Feldman Barrett’s book ‘How Emotions Are Made’ gives a better explanation than I can offer of the vagueness of conceptual structures from a neuroscience perspective.

2. Imagine a digital and an analog voltmeter (measures voltage). The analog voltmeter has a dial and is able to read any continuous voltage but the digital voltmeter reads only discrete values such as 0, 1, 2, and so on. Now, the digital voltmeter's measuring involves rounding off voltages and so anything less than 0.5 volts it reads as 0 and anything between 0.5 and 1.5 volts it reads as 1 volt and anything between 1.5 volts and 2.5 volts it reads as 2 volts and so on. The digital voltmeter assigns a range of continuous voltages to a discrete reading that it can display. This is vagueness. This seems to suggest that vagueness is an aspect of digital systems and so, the brain, understood as functioning in discrete brain states (digitally), should generate vague concepts.

1 & 2 seem to contradict each other. Comments... — TheMadFool

I’ve not seen a digital voltmeter that rounds off voltages as you describe, but that’s not to say they don’t exist. Most that I’ve seen give much more accurate information (to several decimal places) than analog versions (which rely on the naked eye), and also employ a variety of system structures to improve resolution and reduce error in converting the analog signal to a digital value.

You make a point that the ‘continuous’ signal of an analog system implies the existence of missing information between these digital values. The discrete nature of space at a quantum level, however, suggests that an analog signal is not as ‘continuous’ as it appears...

I'm certain I exist, and I'm aware of my existence. — Relativist

What is it that you refer to as ‘I’? What information are you basing that ‘certainty’ on? And how are you certain of that information?

What makes you think there was awareness 5 seconds after the big bang? — Relativist

Because we can trace evidence of informing interaction back as far as the Big Bang. This is not conscious awareness, but it is a basic (one-dimensional) level of awareness, nonetheless.

Please explain what you mean by a "creative impetus." What are it's identifiable characteristics? — Relativist

It doesn’t really have any - it’s a formula for existential possibility.

We can be certain only that ‘something’ exists, and that ‘something’ is aware of existence. All other information or intelligence attempts to build on this basic certainty, as what matters. Now consider ‘increase awareness, connection and collaboration’ as a basic, open-ended formula for existence. Beginning with ‘nothing’ but this relation of existential possibility to a formula - no space or time, no information, no intelligence and no external ‘creator’ - this is all that is required for the eventual existence and awareness of our universe as it is.

If I remember my human physiology classes, the language of neurons, the cells that make up the brain, is an action potential which follows the all or none law i.e. either the neuron is firing or it isn't. This basic signalling architecture (on/off) suggests the brain is like a computer, digital.

However, the mind has created what is probably a huge cache of vague concepts a couple of which I mentioned upstream.

My questions are:

1. Given the brain has a digital structure (on/off neurons) how is it that it generates vague concepts?

2. Does the existence of vague concepts imply that the analog mind is not the same as the digital brain i.e. is the mind not the brain? — TheMadFool

Consider this basic digital signalling structure as one dimensional information: a manifest relation between potential.

Now consider two-dimensional information - a sequence of digital information, except integrated into the system: two different types of neurons firing (or not firing) simultaneously manifest more complex action potential than a single neuron.

A computer can’t apply the information it receives to itself. A program can, but it can still only manifest one-dimensional information. It is only ever aware of the result: the action, not the potential.

In this way, the brain is and is not like a computer. Matter is integrated information: an efficient interrelation of analog and digital system structures. The difference between brain/organism and mind is a difference between four and five-dimensional information systems. So, looking at the brain as digital, the mind appears analog; looking at the mind as digital, the brain appears analog.

Just as digital information can produce the appearance of a continuum, so, too, can integrated information. Matter has gradually integrated all the complexity of information processing into its own manifest structure. At the level of mind, the system is aware of its own variable potential for action in relation to potential information. - hence the vagueness.

Because there can only be an objective if an intelligence is behind it. I'm open to this possibility, but the case mist be made. The FTA purports to make such a case, but obviously if it depends on the assumption of an intelligence the argument is circular. — Relativist

I agree that an objective may imply a prior intelligence, but an underlying creative impetus does not - and neither does it imply ‘luck’, despite the unlikely arrangement of conditions. This is the point I’d like to make.

if my current belief about the shape of the Earth is correct, I now possess the truth. — Congau

You do know that’s just an expression, don’t you?

If I am right about the Earth being round, anyone who thinks it is flat, has an entirely false belief.
What good does it do to make sophist twists and turns and suggest that from certain viewpoints the Earth may be validly called flat? In their experience, which is difference to mine, it appears flat. What (on earth!) would I achieve by sharing their experience? — Congau

Not an entirely false belief - in their experience of the Earth, it does actually appear flat. You can’t deny that, because it’s part of your experience, too. It is only when we can explain how their belief is structured in relation to our own that we can show how the illusion is formed and where the errors are. This is why the ‘flat earth society’ still exists - because simply telling people their belief is ‘false’ is not enough, and only encourages their ignorance.

Most philosophers probably keep their fundamental beliefs throughout their career. What is bound to change is their grasp of it. X was believed to be true from the very beginning, but in the course of doing philosophy a fuller explanation of why X is true was achieved. — Congau

Well, that’s not been my understanding. Many philosophers’ writings show evidence of development in beliefs throughout their career, resulting in a necessary distinction between ‘early’ and ‘late’ philosophies that we can often struggle to reconcile. I will concede that it’s not a prerequisite, but it seems to me to be a characteristic of long-published philosophical careers.

You seem to be claiming there was an objective to "increase awareness, connection, and collaberation." Why think that? — Relativist

Not so much an objective as an impetus, but why not think that? There is a tendency to misconstrue creativity as motivation to design or produce something purposeful. But that’s only an external justification for the creative process itself, because without this justification it looks just like random trial-and-error, or luck. Any creative worth his salt would attest that it isn’t randomness, regardless of whether or not anything ‘purposeful’ comes from the process at the time.

Our history is not one of balance and I don't think that past was a desirable one. However, it is possible our consciousness will change so much we could speak of a New Age when consciousness is so changed, people can not relate to people of the past. — Athena

Be careful what you wish for. I think if that happened, if we could not relate to people of the past, then we’d risk repeating errors. For instance, if we cannot relate to how a people could support the rise to power of a leader so narrowly determined to restore a sense of dominance, autonomy and influence as to institutionalise racism and xenophobia and start an international war, then we risk making the same error, don’t we?

Ok, let me offer an interpretation of what you are saying that would make it sound more palatable to me:
Suppose you possessed the truth about a certain phenomenon. You had a very strong belief that you were right, but of course you didn’t know it. None of us knows anything, but in this case your belief happened to be true. Still, your belief, though true, would not be perfect and every time you learned about other people’s false belief on the subject and interacted with them, you would expand your understanding of it and get a firmer grasp of the truth.
Just hitting upon the truth has little value for a philosopher if the belief rests on a weak foundation and by “sharing meaning” you can strengthen it.
Do you accept my interpretation? — Congau

I don’t think truth is something you can possess or grasp, it’s more something you approach, point to or share in. You can integrate a potential expression of truth in how you conceptualise reality, and in doing so point to that truth for others, but any actual expression of this belief is only one manifestation of a perceived potential of more objective truth. The truth of your belief is relative to the language or value structure of the expression, and how you conceptualise reality.

I don’t believe it’s a philosopher’s task to grasp or possess truth itself, but rather to understand and then show others more accurate ways to truth. There are multiple ways to approach the same truth. Some are more accurate than others. Every time you enable your belief to interact with the belief of others - with the aim of approaching a shared meaning - what you strengthen is your awareness of the structural relations by which each of your beliefs can lead away from or closer to truth.

At this level of uncertainty, I don’t find it helpful to assert that an entire belief is false, but we can show where certain structural relations fail in our experience, and see where our own fail when applied to the experiences of others. If our aim is to strengthen the structural relations of our own belief, then the interaction will only serve to limit our access to the truth, regardless of how close we may be. We must be prepared to deconstruct our own beliefs in relation to others if our aim is a more accurate approach to truth.

It doesn’t really matter what a philosopher believes. What matters is the truth itself. The expressed beliefs of a philosopher are bound to change in the course of doing philosophy. If they don’t, then he’s probably stopped doing philosophy, and is doing religion instead.

Proponents of the modern fine tuning argument accept that life in this universe is fully explainable. What they argue is that life-permitting universes should not be expected. This is because there are fundamental constants in the laws of physics (like the cosmological constant, the mass of the Higgs boson, the gravitational constant...) that appear to be "fine-tuned" for life: had any of these constants differed by even a small amount, such things as chemistry would not be possible (there would not exist atoms that could form chemical bonds). They argue that these constants are finely tuned to allow life.

As I just mentioned to Sophisticat, this assumes life was a target - a design objective. — Relativist

There is no reason to assume that life as we know it was the specific target. The creative process itself is open-ended, and not so much an application of power and influence from ‘above’ towards a specific design objective, but rather an interaction aimed at whatever increases awareness, connection and collaboration overall. It’s initially an unselfish and undirected process, exploring possibility and potential within material limitations.

Apathy is a lack of interest, whereas being overly patient demonstrates a lack or suspension of judgement regarding an anticipated action or outcome. How long should a teacher wait for a student to answer a question? — jgill

How long is a piece of string? You’re implying that judgement is necessary in every situation in which an outcome or action is predicted, and that only time, and not energy or attention, is a relevant factor.

Some questions do not require answers, do not have answers, or may take a lifetime to answer. The patience of the teacher is not dependent on how long they wait before passing judgement, but on the interaction of time, energy and attention they commit towards the student being able to answer the question.

A teacher who doesn’t wait long for an answer is not necessarily impatient. They might be apathetic. Likewise, a teacher who waits years for an answer is not necessarily apathetic. They might be annoyingly impatient about it.

Patience is a commitment to the process - finding an optimal balance of time, energy and attention.

That’s why I don’t quite understand your use of the word “shared” in “shared meaning”. A perspective may be interesting even if it’s not shared by anyone. Fictional characters who have been raised by wolves or monkeys for example, offer an intriguing viewpoint and do feel free to come up with any tale of your own. We absolutely shouldn’t let our mind stiffen to the degree that we can only imagine our own narrow perspective. — Congau

Sorry - by ‘shared’, I don’t mean agreed upon in all aspects. A perspective that is shared - as in expressed, discussed, articulated - exists. A fictional character that remains only in your imagination may have an intriguing viewpoint, but its meaning comes from being shared - from allowing that viewpoint to interact with another. A shared meaning is one which is related between two or more people, whether they agree only on its existence or on some aspects but not others.

But our “open-mindedness” should not be expanded to a point where we think we see multiple truths, and that’s where I think modern popular philosophy has gone astray. — Congau

I agree that the idea of asserting ‘multiple truths’ is unhelpful, but I think our ‘open-mindedness’ should always be expanded beyond the belief that we ‘know the truth’, at least. My perspective of ‘truth’ is always relative to yours, and the extent to which they differ offers more information to both of us about a more ‘objective’ and therefore more accurate view of truth than the one we each have.

Unfortunately, our institutions are not in agreement with what you said. In the 60'tys we began training teachers to be impersonal. Government controlled agencies are firm about people being "professional" and enforce emotional distancing and even encourage using drugs to manage emotions. Drugs and being a social worker go together. The drugs help people by "professional". — Athena

From my own experiences in the (private) education sector, the majority of teachers today are anything but impersonal. Certainly there are regulations and codes of conduct in place to protect all parties (increasing since the 70s here) that make it seem from the outside as if teaching has lost that personal touch, but the greatest strength of a teacher is still their capacity to develop relationships with their students despite the limitations. I think you may need to take your focus off what has been lost in relation to the past.

I’m not familiar with the advocation of drug use to manage emotions at a government institutional level. My personal experience is of Australia, though, and drug use is very much portrayed here as a strictly personal and leisure activity, not a therapeutic or professional one - even in social work. I am, however, conscious of the cultural promotion of legal and prescription drug use specifically to manage emotions in the US, so it wouldn’t surprise me.

Autocratic industry is a hierarchy of authority and separates management from labor. A person can be fired for fraternizing with the wrong people.

At the lower levels of labor, life can be brutal. Social status and self-esteem here, depends on being tough enough to handle abuse and on being abusive. It is learning to hold your tongue and be subordinate, and then going home and demanding instant compliance with demands. — Athena

Any organisation that reaches a certain size becomes aware of the uncertainty of human potential, and the increasing inability to please everyone. How managers minimises that uncertainty is by excluding emotional intelligence from their decision-making process, and establishing a concrete relational structure or institution. This ‘scientific’ approach then becomes a ‘best practice’ model for smaller organisations and companies who are focused on growth.

Including emotional intelligence in the decision-making process involves accepting a higher level of uncertainty and unpredictability than most management styles are comfortable with. But effective growth is about identifying and focusing on an underlying impetus more than an overarching structure. Again, it isn’t about the autonomy, independence and identity of a concrete, actual institution or individual, but about working together to maximise the potential of the organisation as an ongoing relational structure. But banks and investors need certainty, and so do people with families to support and bills to pay...

I think that maximising awareness, connection and collaboration is not an achievable end-goal in actuality. And to be honest, I’m not arguing that maximising autonomy, independence and identity is necessarily a BAD thing - but it’s not an achievable end-goal, either. Whether we label this difference as masculine-feminine or not, it’s not a definable dichotomy as such, but an interaction of relative potentialities. I think it is in the imbalance and in challenging each other with a dynamic state of inequilibrium that we give meaning to our thoughts, words and actions, our lives and our existence. This is how the universe has developed thus far, from atomic, chemical and molecular relations to the origin of life, evolution, consciousness and imagination...

I think someone once used the analogy that just because I'm enjoying a meal, doesn't mean I have to be sad when I am finished. However, if I went to an event and enjoyed it, only to have had my memory of the past week wiped, I would argue that there was no purpose in going to said event. If I knew that this memory wipe was approaching, I wouldn't bother doing anything that week, as I wouldn't recall it. — JacobPhilosophy

If I knew this memory wipe was approaching, I would enjoy the event and find a way to express that enjoyment in a lasting way: whether that’s in a diary, or sharing my experience with someone for whom my experience matters. Your life is not about its meaning for you, in the end. You’ll be dead, after all. I think that enjoyment, once shared, has the potential to come back around to us in some form or another through our relationships with others. But then I’m a glass-half-full kinda thinker.

For a light-hearted look at this topic, watch ‘50 First Dates’. It’s surprisingly thoughtful.

So, now I am stuck wondering about where patience fits in the mean doctrine. Obviously, patience is the mean, and impatience is the deficiency, but what would you call the excess of patience? Is it lazy or forgetfulness, no that doesn't seem to correlate correctly. Since I cannot have a discussion with my professors or peers, I am here seeking a consensus on "what is the excess of patience?" — Lecimetiere

Patience is a virtuous response to an interaction between an imagined (possible) reality we expect, prefer or desire and the actual reality we observe. Patience recognises that realising the difference involves an allocation of time, energy and attention, regardless of where, how or when this is allocated, and by whom or what.

In terms of the mean doctrine, I would say that the two vices in opposition are:
- ‘impatience’: one interacts only with the imagined reality; and
- ‘apathy’: one interacts only with the actual, observed reality.

Both vices are such to the extent that one ignores, isolates and excludes the difference or potentiality that exists as a relational structure between the two realities, which would enable what is imagined to be realised.

So I would argue that patience is still something you can practice because nature ‘forces’ you to wait. It is in how you wait (particularly how you interact with nature in its allocation of time, energy and attention) that your patience is demonstrated.

I would like to develop a previous point: Life cannot be both worth living and acceptable in ending. One of these premeses has to be false, either life is not worth living (and therefore there is no reason not to end it) or death is inherently bad (and therefore should be feared). This presents an interesting dilemma as neither outcome is particularly desirable in my opinion: either fear death or kill yourself. — JacobPhilosophy

This is a rather simplified view of life and death. Life has a complex structure of value and potential that is both positive and negative, but it is also limited - that’s not a contradiction. It is the way that you structure and then collapse this potential information that results in a reduction to ‘either fear death or kill yourself’. Every action we take is a result of collapsing this potential information in relation to interacting, ever-changing and limited events, but I think we need to always remember that the potential information itself is irreducible. There is much more to life as a potentiality than whether or not to evade death.

how we as humans construct reality is relative
— Possibility
We don’t construct reality. Reality is. Our interpretation of it is of course relative to our perspective, but some perspectives are more likely to yield a more accurate interpretation than others. The perspective of the bird is probably more realistic than that of the frog (metaphorically speaking) and a philosopher should rather imitate the former. — Congau

That’s probably a poor choice of term on my part - we do conceptualise reality, though. My point is that if you’re going for maximum realism, then the aim of the philosopher is to conceptualise a structure of relations between the perspectives of the bird and the frog (metaphorically speaking), rather than subscribe to one and exclude the other.

The meaning of a hammer is a tool for driving nails. A few people perceive it as a weapon and then there is this one weirdo who uses it as the handle of his toothbrush. What would you make of that? How would that information in anyway be meaningful? — Congau

Understanding how a hammer can be used as the handle of a toothbrush and a weapon as much as for driving nails increases the possibilities of the hammer’s meaning. If you ignore this broader sense of meaning, and only see a hammer as a tool for driving nails, then you’ll be unprepared for situations where it may be used as a weapon, either by you or against you. Or you may make assumptions about the presence of a hammer in some guy’s bathroom that has you labelling him a ‘weirdo’ and running for the police. This is prediction error.

Or do you prefer to pursue the meaning of philosophically higher concepts? Then, what is the meaning of God? You look at the meaning for most people, for a few people and just for a handful, and then what? Maybe the concept should mean something that no one has ever understood? What do you get from this universal comparison of perspective other than a useful exercise for eliminating false views and find the one that’s closest to what you can subscribe to? — Congau

As for the possibilities of the meaning of God, understanding what conceptual relations contribute to your meaning of ‘God’, and why someone responds so negatively to references to ‘God’, enables you to still interact with them in the same conceptual space - ie. still talk about what you call ‘God’ - without necessarily using the term itself.

What do you need this sharing for? It’s a step away from objectivity, isn’t it? — Congau

It’s a step away from certainty, sure, but not objectivity. If your aim is objectivity, then your view must include an understanding of how and why alternative views are false, inaccurate, limited or misguided in relation to this one you subscribe to - not just ignored, isolated or excluded as such.

The arrangement of ducks is a physical thing to the extent we are discussing the ducks' location. Location in space and time is part of what it means to be physical. The white pawns on a chess board are in the starting position a2, b2, c2... h2 (if you're familiar with chess notation). The row is located at a2 through h2. Their location in space and their relationship to one another strikes me as a physical attribute no different from other physical attributes. The duck similarly is a duck because its molecules are ordered in such a way as to make it a duck. The duck, according to you, is a thing and it's in the lake, despite the fact that the duck is nothing more than an arrangement of molecules. But I ask: how do you draw a distinction between ducks and rows in terms of the former being a thing and the other being an arrangement? Under analysis, it appears that if rows are simply non-thing/arrangements, then ducks would be that as well, considering the word "duck" simply describes how certain molecules are arranged in relation to other ones.

A phenomenological state, on the other hand, is an actual perception of something that is separate from the duck and it's separate from the brain. It's not just a row inside the brain, but if it is, show me where it is. Why can you point to rows and ducks but not phenomenological states if they are just different examples of the same thing? — Hanover

The way I see it, a duck is more than an arrangement of molecules: it’s an arrangement of temporal relations between molecular, chemical and atomic relations. A ‘row of ducks’ is an arrangement of value/potential relations between temporal arrangements. When we point to a row of ducks, we’re pointing to a physical manifestation of these value/potential relations, or a collapse of potential information. And when we physically move three ducks into a row, the value/potential we perceive in our own temporal arrangement relates to the value/potential we perceive in these three temporal arrangements to manifest an event which results in an observable row.

Only a woman living in a hyper civilized super protected society built off environmental domination over millions of years could say that domination is pointless. You are both a pessimist and a nihilist. Spoiled brat. — BraydenS

No, I’m a realist. What you fail to see is that the majority of our achievements have come from awareness, connection and collaboration, not from so-called domination. It is this focus on the illusion of domination that is destroying the environment, not ‘protecting’ society.

You seem to look at "connection" from a religious standpoint. You negate the entire evolutionary process where those who fail to dominate their environment die off and are incapable of understanding why such "gentle", "kind" feelings to others remained. They didnt just fucking appear one day and everyone said "yay! Let's be nice to eachother yay!" They were tools that your ancestors used to survive, that then got carried into their offspring. That "connection" that you are talking about was used by the physically unfit to get help from others and survive. Your whole philosophy of value, that is to say, is built on TAKING, and not GIVING. The ethics of the parasite. — BraydenS

As I’ve said, it comes down to perception. Kindness and gentleness were not tools our ancestors discovered out of the blue and thought ‘ooh, this will help us survive’. Our ancestors recognised and exercised this capacity for reasons other than (and often counter to) survival, and were ultimately more likely to survive because of it. The difference is subtle, but important. The result is the same. There is no teleology in the evolutionary process.

Curiosity, wonder, creativity and critical thinking were not initially survival traits, either. They increased our awareness, connection and collaboration with the world, and that was what ultimately increased our chances of survival. Nothing to do with domination, I’m afraid. You see it as taking rather than giving, because you seem to believe one can only maximise their own value/potential by ignoring, isolating or excluding the relative potential/value of others. But all that does is limit your own potential.