That the will (brain) is free to operate seems to be all the 'free' that one can have.

Strawson is saying that we are not responsible for what we've become.

What we've become is our will.

An Eternal Basis has to be so,
For a lack of anything cannot sow,
Forcing there to be something permanent
And partless, from which composites can grow.

There can’t be other direction given,
To that which has no start; it’s undriven;
So, it’s as Everything possible,
Either as linear or exists all at once.

Consider quantum fields of waves atop
One another: a wave/field is continuous,
And so it qualifies as Fundamental;
Its quantized lumps are particles, then more.

The particles, etc., are temporary;
What’s Basic is coterminal with stuff,
But is not cosubstantial with the things;
Its information content is the same as Null.

Note that there is no other absolute:
Newton’s fixed space and time got the boot;
Particles as spigots of fields are mute;
Classical fields have no fundamental loot.

There are no ‘if nots’ for happened events—
That would be a fantasy world only meant
For simulations and playing mind games;
No use entertaining real replacements.

What the meaning to this play we’re befit,
From dirt to dust within the script that’s writ?
The wise in search have thrown themselves to waste;
Experience alone is the benefit.

(Still no overall purpose, just local ones.)

(Poem needs more work on it for more rhymes and to have all ten-syllable lines.)

The Permanent is all that there is,
Its transmutations a temporary fizz.
It can’t have direction, with no inputs,
So, it's super-posed, seeming a Wiz.

The theory presents a mechanistic account of consciousness. — Malcolm Lett

Yes, for the contents of consciousness are compositional, that is, the parts come together into a unified whole. Consciousness's value to us for survival, for it reveals the distinctions important to us. Consciousness is intrinsic; consciousness exists only for itself; physics only deals with extrinsic causes.

Intelligence is what does the doing; consciousness is for being, exclusive, causing nothing but in itself, as the brain results leading to their representations in consciousness are already done and finished.

The existence of the feedback path is the explanation for why we have awareness of our thoughts — Malcolm Lett

'Feedback' is the key to the 'hard problem'; the conscious state maintains itself seamlessly as a non reducible whole. It might be, too, or alternatively, that qualia are the brain's own privately developed/evolved language.

Summary:

'The Feeling of Life Itself'
(There is a book out)

Physics describes but extrinsic causes,
While consciousness exists just for itself,
As intrinsic, compositional,
Informational, whole, and exclusive,

Providing distinctions toward survival,
But causing nothing except in itself,
As in ne’er doing but only as being,
Leaving intelligence for the doing.

The posterior cortex holds the correlates,
For this is the only brain region that
Can’t be removed for one to still retain
Consciousness, it having feedback in it;

Thus, it forms an irreducible Whole,
And this Whole forms consciousness directly,
Which process is fundamental in nature,
Or's the brain’s private symbolic language.

The Whole can also be well spoken of
To communicate with others, as well as
Globally informing other brain states,
For the nonconscious knows not what’s been made.

The most 'Real' would what is permanent, say, quantum fields, if they are the eternal basis. The temporaries that fields form, such as particles, and more, from the particles, on up, etc., would be a lesser degree of 'real,' while they last.

My Energy video: https://vimeo.com/338098562

That is one way to imagine the hypothetical fundamental non-entity I call "G*D". — Gnomon

You might call it 'G-O-D', for 'Ground Of Determination', or just the latter, to avoid confusion.

Covariant Quantum Fields seem to be more than to 'imagine', since Quantum Field Theory (QFT) has a basis and gives us the Standard Model of particles.

It's like a continuous unbounded unlimited Field of Potential (BEING), within which particles (worlds) emerge -- as-if by magic -- and then disappear again, without diminishing the Power of the Field. — Gnomon

Yes, 'Potential' for particles—particles are like a kink in a rope; they can move along the rope. The 'Field' would be permanent, which I think is what you mean by 'BEING'.[/quote]

This is not a traditional anthro-morphic deity, but a philosophical hypothesis to explain how our natural world seemingly emerged, complete with laws & energy, from nothing --- nothing but infinite Potential. Nothing is more "fundamental" than Existence (BEING). — Gnomon

'God' the Person is not possible; systems have parts and so they cannot be First and Fundamental, for the parts would have to be more fundamental.

Nor was a lack of anything an option; thus, having something is mandatory.

The 'Field' seems to be kind of like 'energy'.

PS__Don't you think this concept of BEING has poetic potential? :cool: — Gnomon

Heaven’s Great Wheel e’er whirls its energy,
It having to turn and return, to be,
Transmuting, as ne’er still—eternally,
Into life’s temporary pattern trees.

Eterne’s transitions doom forms’ permanence;
But the time required for their constructance
Restrains for a while the shapes’ destructance;
Thus they can slowly traverse life’s distance.

My 'Discussion of Being' video

There's a gap — Malcolm Lett

Summary of the book
'The Feeling of Life Itself'

Physics describes but extrinsic causes,
While consciousness exists just for itself,
As intrinsic, compositional,
Informational, whole, and exclusive,

Providing distinctions toward survival,
But causing nothing except in itself,
As in ne’er doing but only as being,
Leaving intelligence for the doing.

The posterior cortex holds the correlates,
For this is the only brain region that
Can’t be removed for one to still retain
Consciousness, it having feedback in it;

Thus, it forms an irreducible Whole,
And this Whole forms consciousness directly,
Which process is fundamental in nature,
(Or the brain’s private symbolic language).

How does one understand the whole without understanding the parts? The very definition of a whole is that it's made up of parts. — TheMadFool

As in the proposed case of covariant quantum fields, the Fundamental can't have any parts, and so needs to be such as a 'wave' or a 'field', being simple and continuous. Of course, the notion of a 'God' person/system is as far off in the wrong direction as it could be.

If God created us then who create god?
Why does God has the chance of being God?
Why does Evil exist?
And a lot more... — philosopher004

As @TheMadFool mentions, the Fundamental has to be the simplest. Look for higher beings in the future, not the past, as all evolves toward more complexity. Complexity First is the most backward error that can be made. This Golden Template, that life has to come from Higher Life, namely 'God', fails after but one usage.

It can be shown that what 'IS' has to be so, since non-existence isn't an option, so there's no more asking about 'Why is there something rather than 'Nothing', for 'Nothing' cannot even be meant.

Currently, we suspect that quantum fields are what 'IS' permanent. Such as particles and higher are temporary, being quantized 'knots' of excitations in quantum fields. Thus, quantum fields are coterminal with the knots but not consubstantial, in the sense that the knots are not permanent. See Parmenidies.

Myth’s performance is now over its tasks;
The artists have taken off their masks.
The illusion is fading; it couldn’t last;
The science behind is appearing fast.

Preachers who persist in teaching about 'God' as if He were true are intellectually dishonest.

What is going on? — Benj96

The old Newton Absolute of an inert where/space went away. All is field, thought Einstein.

A good guess seems to be that fields themselves, and only them, form the substratum formerly known as space in which all plays out.

These would not be classical fields but covariant quantum fields, as Rovelli points out, that are what's being headed to as the final unveiling of reality's totality.

What has fallen by the wayside, in order:

1. Newton's separate, absolute space and time as backgrounds/containers, whose only quantity is volume, with particles in space moving through time—is gone. (Replaced by Einstein's spacetime.)

2. Faraday's and Maxwell's fields and particles as coming from spigots of particles—is gone, too. (Replaced by particles manifesting from fields, along with spacetime and other fields becoming covariant.)

3. Classical fields/particles—is gone (since no continuum, due to quantum discreteness). (Replaced by spacetime and quantum fields in quantum mechanics.)

4. Spacetime—is gone (now emergent). (To be replaced by covariant quantum fields in quantum gravity.)

Fields in general are granular, indeterminate, and relational. The particles manifesting exist as themselves only during interactions; they are not persistent things. Their spectrum is discrete, such as that electrons can only have certain orbitals (from this the periodic tables can be constructed). Gravitational field quanta are different; they are not in spacetime but they are spacetime.

There are no infinities (Einstein's curved spacetime is finite but boundless; Planck size / granularity /digital limit makes the size scale absolute, plus it eliminates classical, analog continuums of endless divisibility. No more Zeno paradoxes.)

No things are permanent; there's no fundamental lego type of building blocks that can build anything. (Called constitutionalism?)

There is no original space and time. In Quantum Gravity theory, 'time' would amount to a counting of beats but there is no universal clock; 'space' quanta serve as 'space' themselves; no Newton type 'space' is required.

Timeless existence must support change but the only type of change we know of is within time. This is the issue I am roadblocked on. — Devans99

We note that things change, of course, but this implies some kind of thingness about things. Well, perhaps that apparently worthless sentence is a clue.

Let me try harder. We think that some semblance of an object continues on to now from before, as if there is a form behind substance. Maybe a clue to extrinsic/intrinsic.

I'll try more. It's still that no fixed object is identical with itself over time, so, well, it's not really a fixed object, or it would still be the same, so, maybe, um, the object goes away and gets replaced with object that has progressed a bit. Enfoldment/infoldment?

In conclusion, I seem to have kept time as it appears to us, but have gotten rid of true motion.

Timelessness is a mighty puzzle - it maybe unsolvable. — Devans99

The Timeless cannot be any one state in particular because there is no input point to what never began, so, it is everything, and we go on to note that it doesn't remain as anything particular even for an instant, but continually transmutes, according to what we call the laws of nature, in a topological type way—remaining as itself at heart.

Or, still as mostly above, but we traverse through everything, on our world line path already carved out, since we had a particular start.

We’ve approached the Mystery, and have found
That Beginnings can’t be, so what goes round
Must be all things, for there’s no point to impart
A design; so drink—to naught more we’re bound!

dipolar God — 3017amen

Good and Evil sprang from Wrong and Right,
When from naught twin Genii split day and night.
Oh, fear not that black’s might can vanquish white;
Darkest night can’t e’en quench the smallest light!

Except that they were really the same Guy.

The idea of superposition - that one thing could sort of be in two places at the same time - does not sit well with me. I prefer to think as matter as a spread out wave of energy that collapses to a very small wave when we measure it. Something being in two places at the same time - no way is that possible is my gut reaction. — Devans99

Yet, the timeless needs be everything, which thus has to be all-at-once and ever, such as in a superposition.

Gee, well, something exists!! LOL — 3017amen

We can see Nature and that it Rules. It sent a plague of locusts in Africa that blotted out the sun, 100 degrees F in Siberia, a killer virus, and even Trump…

If you want an Invisible Person to rule, He needs to conform to exactly what Nature does, which doesn't really add anything to Nature's natural goings on.

what would it take for us to be accurately perceiving the present moment? — Bartricks

It would have to be instant; no perceiving; no figuring out; no processing at all.

I am not following you. Presentism is, as I understand it (and I am not at all sure I do), the view that only those things that have presentness actually exist. So it is not really a view about time, as such, but a view about existence. — Bartricks

Presentism is the temporal mode of time, there is only now; the future is not yet and the past is gone. All is generated anew, as the new now from the previous now, which goes away. It's not clear how thick or thin the now is. This clashes with Einstein's relativity.

Anyway, can you explain how the view that only present things exist would show that our perceptions of the present are accurate and not systematically mistaken? — Bartricks

Assuming presentism, our perceptions as to what is present are brain memories stitched together in consciousness, but the real events have already perished. It's like watching a tape-delayed TV show; it's not really live, although it's close.

In the non-temporal mode of time, eternalism, there is no time, for this mode is timeless. It's like Einstein's Block universe. All the events are pre-canned; the future and the past exist ever. Somehow, we pass though it, giving us our apparent now.

In the growing block mode of time, the past is kept and ever remains but the future is not yet.

I don't see how the view I have expressed is 'presentism'. — Bartricks

I'm just saying that I've treated the presentist mode of time, so far, and so the only hope lies in the eternalist mode, wherein every event/path of Everything is all at once, with no becoming, but just us somehow proceeding along world lines, although this is difficult for us to tell apart from presentism.

And so on. — Bartricks

That's the presentist outlook; now, if we are to get around that, we need to consider the eternalize. viewpoint, wherein already complete events are simple presented…

Of course, we only experience what's already past. Merely, light finite speed takes care of that by itself. Then there is the 300-500 millisecond delay required for the brain to make something out of what's happening. However, one goals continue across these gaps. Still, all in all, what consciousness thinks it is deciding right then and there has already been decided, which is bad news for hopeful free willers.

'What IS', even if it's just capability/possibility needs to be timeless and eternal, as 'ever', for it is mandatory, as the default, given that there is no alternative for there not to be anything at all.

Necessarily, due to no beginning or outside to it, it must be every path of events since there is no design point for it to be just one particular path of events. This is akin to the Block Universe.

'What IS', then, can never be still, and is seen not to be, for it continuously transmutes at every instant, nor can it stop because it can never go away. It is powerless over not being.

Not being still makes for all but it to be temporary; its being itself is necessity and thus all that is permanent.

Given that is does what it does, it will ever do that, meaning that it ever turns and returns in its transmutations guided by its laws of nature.

It is not holy, it just is, as like some topological structure that can always be taken back to itself at any point, although ever having to proceed through its transitions.

We, although appearing to progress in a presentist mode of time must somehow be passing through the 'IS', or, probably, we are it. The mind rememberers what has been passed through and thus we seem to be progressing in a presentism mode.

We have often asked why some space exists,
Why it permits the countless to briefly persist
On Mother Earth, nourished under Father Sky—
All of those finite sparks that light and die.

Behind the Veil, being that which e’er thrives,
The Eternal ‘IS’ has ever been alive,
For that which hath no onset cannot die,
Nor a point from which to impart its Why.

Some time it needed to variate Everything for,
And now knows how these bubbles to pour,
Of existence, in some ‘meant’ universe,
Those that wrote your poem and mine, every verse.

So, as thus thou lives on yester’s credit line,
In nowhere’s midst, now in this life of thine,
For of its bowl our cup of brew was mixed
Into the state of being that’s called ‘mine’.

Yet worry you that this Cosmos is the last,
That the likes of us will become the past,
Space wondering whither whence we went
After the last of us her life has spent?

The Eternal Saki has formed trillions of baubles
Like ours, for e’er—the comings and passings
Of which it ever emits to immerse
In those universal bubbles blown and burst.

So fear not that a debit close your
Account and mine, knowing the like no more;
The Eternal Source from its pot has pour’d
Zillions of bubbles like ours, and will pour.

When You and I behind the cloak are past,
But the long while the next universe shall last,
Which of one’s approach and departure it grasps
As might the sea’s self heed a pebble cast.

Eternalism, Presentism, and … more?

By this do you mean ‘becoming’ as a linear event and so of time? — Brett

Yes, and in opposition to 'being'/'is'.

It appears that what 'is' has no alternative, else there wouldn't be anything; so, it's not just that 'is' is possible but that it's mandatory, given no opposite, and so it needs be all at once, and needs be everything but not anything in particular, since it can't have a design point. Nor can it go away; it is permanent.

Its transmutations according to the laws of nature are temporary and so fleeting that not anything particular remains even for an instant; however, certain semblences seem to continue on as if from a moment ago—these are long events, such as trees, rocks, protons, and us.

If our fate already exists out there, waiting for us, then does everything exist at once? And if so does that mean no time? — Brett

Yes, it seems that everything exists at once, as all possible paths/events, in no time, as eternal, which we can logically find out since what has no beginning cannot have any input; thus, everything, Maning all possible particulars/events.

Why, then, do we experience 'becoming'? Somehow, we are traveling through the Everything Block along some particular path.

I say logically nothing can not exist by itself like black can not exist without white. I’m saying nothing and everything is one thing with two sides. — Zelebg

Am still for an idea something like yours above.

An eternal everything that can't come from anything seems rather similar to amounting from/to nothing.

It really means superposition of everything is equal to nothing, not identical and not because it is actually nothing, but because it is effectively nothing. — Zelebg

Given no point for Everything to have any input, since it can't have a beginning, it must be everything in a superposition because it cannot be anything particular.

Indeed, as it somehow plays out to us, it doesn't remain as anything particular even for an instant.

Effectively, the information content of Everything in superposition and Nothing are both zero.

This is an argument that we will experience identical lives over and over again.
— Devans99

Eternal Return - Friedrich Nietzsche — Gus Lamarch

The One-Way Dead-End and/or The Eternal Return:

https://vimeo.com/373249099

https://vimeo.com/363983799

https://vimeo.com/363983918

https://vimeo.com/363985189

The above are the last I'll be putting here. See below for continuation:

more

Understanding that grand scheme was seen as the aim of philosophy (before it became regarded as a separate discipline to science.) — Wayfarer

The sages who have compassed sea and land,
The secret to search out, and understand—
My mind misgives me if they ever solve
The scheme on which this universe is planned.

— Omarian thought

Clues:

Parts:

What 'IS', as the Fundamental, cannot have parts, for then the parts would be more fundamental; thus, mind, as well as any system or composite compound is out.

Something like a wave is simple and has no parts. Science has thrown out the higher prospective fundamentals on down to a near final and much lower prospect, that of quantum fields.

Timelessness and the Block:

Something Eternal and permanent is implied due to no available source such as 'Nothing', and thus it simply ever 'IS', known as timeless 'being', instead of 'becoming' in time.

Science suggests this as a block universe.

Completeness:

The 'IS' block doesn't change; it is already ever complete, so it must contain all events/particulars.

Philosophy/logic suggests that what has no beginning can't have any input, leaving it to be all possible events/particulars there all at once.

Observation of daily life shows that change is ubiquitous, for not anything remains the same even for an instant; there is a constant sequence/transition/transmutation of particulars coming and then going away in a flash, in a way that appears to be sensible to natural laws.

Either the block gets traversed or it is presented to us.

Realness:

There is something to be said for a non-real implementation virtual kind of presentation scheme to be taken as real when the difference makes no difference. For example, the message of hearing music is so, whether from real live band implementation/messenger or from a recorded device implementation/messenger.

What is the message of the Universe? How does everything happening have any information content beyond what a lack of anything would have?

the eternal 'IS' — PoeticUniverse

The solution apparent is that what 'IS' is every particular, every path, and every event all at once and ever, that presentation then necessarily having to range through all the particulars, according to basic laws.

Since what 'IS' is All, not anything is apart from it, and so we are in/of its particulars flashing by, as those are what it is composed of.

baffled by it — Wayfarer

Only the eternal 'IS' is real and lasting, called 'ungenerated and deathless' by Parmenidies, to say that it is permanent, it due to no opposite or alternate such as not-anything or 'Nothing', which is to further say that the 'IS' is all there is and that the 'IS' has no option not to be and that it must be.

Some might want to have a secondary degree of realness to what appears to us as temporary, since it has to bee of thee real 'IS', the temporary which ever changes and must go away, it never being able to remain as anything particular even for an instant, so it seems; but, strictly speaking, what is temporary is not really real like the 'IS'.

Apparently, any transient state of the 'IS' is returnable to any other state of the 'IS', as like being 'topological', in a rough way of analogy, granting somehow that the 'IS' must ever remain as itself and kind of still to be said as unchanging at heart.

The transitions, or transmutations, of the 'IS' have to happen, for some unknown reason, these apparently guided by what we can only so far call the laws of nature.

Such, then, does the Great Wheel of the 'IS' have to turn and return, it being helpless/powerless over not doing so.

Also, from First Principles of philosophy, on would think that the eternal 'IS', having no input, needs be not anything in particular, which is in agreement here, and thus, I would seem, a kind of everything, at its level, whatever that means for it.

it was not an infinitely small point of infinite energy? — DanielP

'Infinity' is a sign of a formula breaking down, such as Einstein's; however, he is saved because particles are not points but have extension, this being like the 'quantum' in quantum mechanics; thus there can be no infinite density, no singularity,, plus 'infinite' is impossible, as it is not an amount, nor can it be reached, this getting more to the heart of the definition of 'infinite', which is more that it never ends…

If God created Man & Woman for distinct roles in the world, then where do LGBTQ humans fit into the scheme of things? — Gnomon

All fetuses begin as female, and then, if it is supposed to become male, the body needs to be masculinized, as well as the brain. If something goes wrong with one or the other process or both or partially then you can imagine all the resultant special genders of LGBTQ. 'God'/Bible gets shown up again, as always.

Why would we need a god to exist? — Athen Goh

https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/6817/an-estimate-for-no-god/p1

The God of Irreducible Complexity
(Imaginary Interview)

“Hello, Austino; it’s time for more perplexity,
For I am now the God of Irreducible Complexity.”

“That you are, being the unmade All,
And so it shall become your downfall.”

“Eh? I’m never to be at all?”

“Your believers have given You some fine new clothes:
But Intelligent Design is falsely based, God knows,
On Irreducible Complexity—
So I still recognize You as the God of ID.”

“That I am is what I really am now.”

“Well, Darwin said long ago that his theory
Would break down if Irreducible Complexity
Were shown to be true, and yet
No proposal has ever stood up to the analysis.”

“Still, here I am, Mr. A, alive merely by possibility,
Myself indeed quite complex, even irreducibly,

“For “I am the be all and end all—the Prime Maker,
And so I keep tabs on every form and splinter
Of the Universe, planning its every constituent
That I designed. So then, simple I am NOT.

“Yes, man, I am an extremely complicated System,
Yet I have no parts, for then My parts that stemmed
Would be even more fundamental than Me!”

“Yes, ‘God’, if You existed you would surely be
Very very very complex, irreducibly so…”

“…So…”

“…So, by the Creationist Theory, such as it must be,
You cannot be explained except by a larger ID.”

“I’m falling…”

“…Into the hole that they dug for you.”

'God' hasn't been established; so, all talk of 'is' or 'is not' can only amount to idle chatter, or worse, such as claiming is or is not as if it were true.

And we can say that observable universe was one at a point in time before the Big Bang, when it was a small point of infinitely dense energy. — DanielP

Infinitely dense energy never bangs or rebounds or does anything but keep on accepting more density if more energy comes along.

The Big Bang, if it comes from compression, would bang precisely because there cannot be infinite density.

Let’s say All – the universe and everything known and unknown outs there - is infinite – aka limitless, unbounded. — DanielP

'Boundless' is better to say, for an infinite extent cannot be extant; it cannot be capped and thus it can't have any being as 'infinite'.

a free-flowing infinite web that is part of the infinite web of the universe.

Whens

Life’s a web, of whos, whys, whats, and hows,
Stretched as time between eternal boughs.
Gossamer threads bear the beads that glisten,
Each moment a sequence of instant nows.

'God' is dubious:

https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/6817/an-estimate-for-no-god/p1