• Is it our duty as members of society to confine ourselves to its standards?
    I guess one had to ask which society and which standard, especially since they are both in a constant state of flux.
  • Is climate change man-made?
    Changes in climate are due to many, many factors. One of the major factors is probably the enormous amount of crap that we release in the air (after all everyone needs to make a trip to the Amazon in order to save it) and pour into the ground. The overall impact of such pollution is hard to say but it is reasonable to suspect that this amount of junk isn't healthy for life.
  • The ship of Theseus paradox
    For accuracy and full and open disclosure, the ship that Theseus sailed was constantly changing as he sailed it, though the changes were minor and for the most part the shop remained intact. However, there have been catastrophic changes that now make the original ship a somewhat moot point. But do not despair. Most of the original parts of the ship have been saved and a new ship has been built, using these parts as best as we could muster, understanding full well that there had to be some differences.. If such a re-creation is satisfactory, you may now call this the rebuilt ship of Theseus.

    Not a one word answer, but a reasonably clear understanding of what transpired over a period of time. I guess paradoxes may be created when one attempts to tell a story that elapsed over time in one sentence. But really there is no such requirement since time changes everything, some more so than others.
  • 'Panpsychism is crazy, but it’s also most probably true'
    For me, these are all good questions. Questions that I contemplate now and then as I accrue more experiences about the nature of nature.
  • 'Panpsychism is crazy, but it’s also most probably true'
    I would say it is the line between that which experiences evolution via duration (life) and that which doesn't is a very interesting area for inquiry. I personally feel there is a continuum there since life literally relies on the other.
  • 'Panpsychism is crazy, but it’s also most probably true'
    Good enough. Then we may have some evidence that non-living life forms evolve based upon experiences. That would make viruses the missing link between living and non-living forms that evolve.
  • 'Panpsychism is crazy, but it’s also most probably true'
    The nature of volition is unclear. If a bacteria or virus evolves there is most probably some impulse somewhere that is creating that change. The nature of volition that sits between viruses and humans may simply be a matter of degrees of freedom which are a function of the whole body including the microbes that occupy the human body and participate in any human activity. What is missing from the puzzle is to what degree a virus may be aware of what happening to itand is able to attempt some action based upon this awareness. I guess at an extremely rudimentary level it may have some awareness, enough to continue to evolve.
  • 'Panpsychism is crazy, but it’s also most probably true'
    If experience is a process to creating habit, then it is quite possible every living form has experiences, since every life form seems to evolve based upon experiences, even the lowly virus.

    Now, if experience also involves self-awareness, then the jury is out. What we can say is that humans have self-awareness as a general rule, some more than others. Beyond that it is simply a guess probably based upon some brain bias of some sort.

    As for me, the brain doed not equate to consciousnesses or experiences. Consciousness equates to consciousness and the brain seems to be doing all kinds of stuff as is most of the body, as it reacts to experiences of consciousness. My view is that the whole body is conscious - what is normally called body or muscle memory.
  • Continuity and Mathematics
    Defining space or duration (which is all that matters when talking about the nature of nature) by the infinite of anything is simply a contortionist attempt to give life to symbols. There is no cutting space into parts and there is no cutting duration into parts. It is simply that simple. If you can do such, you have arrows stopping and going for infinity but going no where, and you have Achilles helplessly moving his heart out but unable to get off the starting line. And if I may, by using the same symbolic replacement of nature by numbers you get time travel (heaven help us).

    It one is truly interested in understanding nature, one has only to ask is there any experience of any sort in their life on this earth that gives them any reason to adopt a position that space or time can partitioned (and what in heaven's name is left in between??), and that mathematics in any symbolic form can possibly ever model nature that all experiences have shown is an indivisible whole? This is the only question that needs to be addressed insofar as the OP is concerned. After that, what every other symbol ever created (a car?) means. As one might guess, the meaning of each symbol lies in the beholder. And such disagreements create discussion, but gets us no closer to understanding the meaning of duration and space.
  • Continuity and Mathematics
    Believe it or not, there are other philosophers who are like me. But most are more likely to believe they can understand nature by manipulating different symbols on paper. Different strokes for different folks.
  • Continuity and Mathematics
    It's been extremely successful. Don't watch someone dance. Dance! There is no substitution for direct experience, observation, and increased awareness.
  • Continuity and Mathematics
    That this discussion had become so convoluted and opaque is just further evidence of what a mess mathematics makes of nature.

    There are no numbers in nature. Numbers are symbols that we share with each other for some practical applications. All of mathematics for that matter is a bunch of highly limited symbols, which are forever changing, depending the application. It is simply a tool. Nothing more. And certainly should never be used or recognized as anything more that that.

    If someone wishes to understand nature, as a philosopher might (but not necessarily), one needs to observe nature directly and experience it directly via music, art, sports, etc. Direct experience is what is required not a constrained set of incomplete and inadequate symbols.

    I think I'll never see,
    A poem as lovely as a tree.

    This is philosophy of nature.
  • What makes us conscious?
    Well of course, material can affect mental and mental can effect material, as stress often does. It's a continuum. But Consciousness came first. Matter is merely a product of consciousness evolution. That was what OP was asking.
  • What makes us conscious?
    They work exactly as advertised. They stimulate. Lots of things can stimulate.
  • What makes us conscious?
    No claim was changed. I was simply answering your question. Matter can definitely kill physical life forms and physicians do it all the time with their scientific derived knowledge. Consciousness does try to repair the damage being thrust upon it but sometimes it is simply overwhelmed. Over time it may learn how to build resistance of it had the opportunity. Consciousness is always learning. Consciousness itself may persist as memory patterns in a holographic fabric of the universe. Evidence of this would be what is called instincts, inherited traits, natural inborn skills, etc. However, the persistence of memory is another question entirely.
  • Continuity and Mathematics
    Example of discrete: 1 min., 2, min., 3, min .... into the impossible infinite.

    Example of continuous: duration (time) as it is actually experienced by consciousness.

    Example of discrete: 1 ft., 2, ft, 3 ft etc.

    Example of continuous: space as we actually experience it as memory.
  • What makes us conscious?
    you can say it is the theory of Bergson, Bohm, Daoism, Heraclitus, Paganism, or any philosophical thought that understands consciousness was at the beginning. Where mainstream religion went awry was first externalizing consciousness and then turning it into a business. Business and philosophy don't mix.
  • What makes us conscious?
    That is what happens when quantum energy turns into matter.
  • Continuity and Mathematics
    We recognize that the two are different, but we're just going to overlook that fact, and say that they are the same, because the difference is so small.Metaphysician Undercover

    This is called infatuation with winning an argument vs. truly interested in understanding nature. Translation: The difference is small but big enough for me to admit that I will lose the argument, so let's ignore it.
  • What makes us conscious?
    Oh, yes. matter can definitely deaden or kill consciousness (physicians do this all the time when they prescribe opioids) , but it takes consciousness to know this. Let's not equate having life from killing it deadening life. They move in opposite directions.
  • What makes us conscious?
    Because conscious is creative send intelligent and can create matter. Where does matter get the intelligence? From God?
  • Why are people so convinced there is nothing after death?
    It dissolves back into the universal fabric, possibly as memory.
  • What would you say about this quote
    It's nice, but it applies to everything. It is another way of saying that the universe is constantly evolving into the universe.
  • What makes us conscious?
    If you reverse your question, you have your answer:

    Conscious makes us.

    It is very obvious. All just have to reverse the materialist notion of life and you arrive quickly at the obvious answer to your question - if you can entertain the notion that consciousness creates matter which is far more likely than matter created consciousness.
  • Continuity and Mathematics
    This is what happens when one falls in love.
  • Continuity and Mathematics
    Thank you for articulating all the reasons that mathematics and science are useless in understanding the nature of nature. The desire "to predict" the totally unpredictable undermines the while process. However, there is nothing one can do or say to those desire this desire advice all else. Such is personality.
  • Continuity and Mathematics
    To me it still looks like manipulation of discrete to approximate continuous. I don't see how mathematics can get around this. It is fundamental all about manipulating units as is any language.
  • Continuity and Mathematics
    I do not see a way that mathematics, which relies totally on manipulation of discrete, can describe in any form, continuity.

    If course we must rely on symbolism to communicate, since mind to mind communication is not available, but before such communication is performed, one must first probe nature directly and then admit in any use of metaphors that the metaphors are incomplete.

    The Dao that is named is not the Dao.

    Pretty good though from the ancients.
  • Continuity and Mathematics
    There is simply no way around it. No matter how many individual notes one might string together it will never replicate it come close to describing the sound of a symphony. No matter how many words one strings together (as the modernist novelists attempted to do), it still never describe the sense of duration. No matter how many numbers one pulls together, in any manner one tries, it will never be able to describe the nature of complete and full continuity. Continuity does not live in discreteness, and unfortunately philosophy, for the most part, had chosen, discrete symbolism to describe what is a continuous flow, and the two can never meet.

    The only way to understand nature is to fully and completely remove symbolism from the investigation. One must explore music, light, motion, thought, consciousness, dreams, sound, etc. directly. One must use consciousness to directly explore itself and penetrate it deeply.

    Admittedly, without telepathic communication available to us, for discussion purposes we must resort to symbolic metaphors that in some way describe the continuous flow (I use the ocean and the symphony as my metaphors) always avoiding any addition of symbols that might allow for discreteness. Much of your arguments fully depend on creating discrete, which may be practical under many circumstance. But when discussing the nature of nature, discrete symbolism is more than impractical, it unleashes all kinds of paradoxes which are sure fire red flags that another mode of analysis is required.
  • Why are people so convinced there is nothing after death?
    It would be a stretch to say that most people don't believe in life after death. It is probably more accurate to say most atheists and agnostics do not believe in life after death.

    The reason for this is probably lack of memory of previous lives. We believe in our persistence in this life because we have memory of the past. Memory gives us the concrete sense of life. This gets a little murkier when one is in the state of sleeping where memory still exists, but if a completely different sort. Some of it attaches to current life but other parts of which have no concrete connection.

    However, it gets even more detached when one seeks memory of prior lives, yet done telltale evidence does persist in the form of inherited traits, inborn skills, natural talents, etc. Why isn't there the concrete memory of multiple lives as there is of one? Some claim they have such concrete memories though they are dismissed by others. Some may say that all memories eventually dissipate, only to be reawaken by some connection during a single life or many.

    One can say that understanding memory provides a portal to understanding life (lives). It appears to be some sort of energy pattern mapped into a holographic field that; we have access to via reference signals that our bodies generate but I am quite sure this is the tip of the iceberg.
  • Continuity and Mathematics
    Agreed. Peirce, as does many others, attempts to apply mathematics (discrete symbolism) to a continuity and predictability arrives at a statement that does not describe nature.
  • Continuity and Mathematics
    I am surprised that you would say this, considering that we started the thread with your comments to the effect that discrete mathematics cannot properly represent the continuity of nature. Precision is a matter of measurement, and measurement is a matter of discrete mathematics; but the continuous is indeterminate.aletheist

    But measurements are imprecise and cannot ever be precise which is exactly the point of this thread. It is impossible to stop anything (continuity and continues flow are embedded in nature)in order to retrieve precise measurements. Measurements are always approximations and it is why measurements specifically and mathematics in general (because of its discrete nature) are very poor tools for understanding nature. Straying from this understanding ultimately will always render a poor understanding of nature, the worse one of which by far is turning humans into number machines.

    I made this point earlier; the contextuality of actuality entails that it is not necessarily true that this object from one point of view, or at one place and time, is identical to this object from another point of view, or at another place and time. Perhaps we can agree that it is more precise (in your sense) to recognize the imprecision (in my sense) of reality.aletheist

    Agreed. In any discussion of nature one should recognize continuous flow and change, which brings us back to the OP. Discrete and nature are like oil and order - so don't try to mix them up.
  • Continuity and Mathematics
    The very act of distinguishing one thing from other things already involves neglecting differences that do not make a difference. Why do we pick out this chair or that table or this book or that door as individual objects, rather than always and only referencing them at a molecular, atomic, or even quantum level? Because the difference between one particle and those adjacent to it within the object is irrelevant to our purpose in picking out that object as a single object. You do this all the time, but it comes so naturally that you do not realize it. No one is capable of paying attention to every single difference among phenomena, because there are far too many of them to do so - even just within your field of vision during the passing of one second.aletheist

    For the purpose of understanding the nature of nature, we need precision otherwise we miss the boat.

    It is alright to say that a book, for practical purposes, has the same identity before and later. But it is more precise to say that the book has changed and continuously changes so that it is never is the same in duration. After all, we are trying to understand nature and not simply make arguments.
  • Do these 2 studies show evidence that we live in a simulation or a hologram?
    A holographic universe is an idea, and one can see how entanglement might dovetail this idea. Bergson actually conceived of this image, via intuition, many decades before holography was discovered. Others, like Bohm, had similar ideas. But it is just a concept.
  • Zeno's paradox
    on
    I suppose this means that there can be no beginning point of a wave. Such a beginning would be a discrete occurrence.Metaphysician Undercover

    One way to view the wave would be consciousness expanding over time (duration). The beginning and ending being consciousness itself.
  • Do these 2 studies show evidence that we live in a simulation or a hologram?
    I don't believe that the Aspect experiments (which have been duplicated many times since on a much larger scale) prove anything, however quantum entanglement does provide supporting evidence for a wave/holographic model of the universe in which the brain doesn't store anything, instead what it does is create a reference beam for observing what is real "out there". Stephen Robbins out together a series of videos presenting this POV in the context of Bergson's model:

    Bergson's Holographic Universe
  • Zeno's paradox
    Can you describe the "Ocean Wave"? In your model, is there a wave which initiates from a point, like when you drop a pebble in water, or is there just perturbations in existing waves? If there is such a wave, which initiates from a point, what would cause this wave?Metaphysician Undercover

    We can use Bohm's own image of quantum potential and the Implicate Order.

    BohmQP.jpg

    Bohm himself suggested that one can consider consciousness being embedded within these movements creating the impulse for the movements. Another way to put it would be that all of these impulses are consciousness in action, or consciousness manifesting. Those spikes in the quantum potential would be what is modeled as particles. As you can see, with this model there is no discreteness.
  • Zeno's paradox
    [duplicate]
  • Zeno's paradox
    So assume that I am sitting, nice and still, meditating. I decide that it's time to get up. So I suddenly stand up and walk away. How does my memory suddenly cause the waves which are necessary to move my body? The cause is not some surrounding waves, or non-local activity, because it comes from right within my mind. A particular, separate, and independent wave must be created right at this very locale, and this wave spreads outward into the surrounding area as I get up and walk awayMetaphysician Undercover

    In my model, which dovetails Bergson's, the impulse is the Elan Vital which is embedded, or at once literally the wave. The impulse can be considered a creative desire to learn, and it manifests partially as Will, partially as Creative Intuition, and partially as Memory. In Chinese metaphysics the counterparts would be the Dao, Yin/Yang, and Qi. Heraclitus called it the Logos. The image that would analogue this would be the Ocean Wave with Gravity embedded within it to create movement. However, in this case, since we are discussing life and the Elan Vital, the movement can be directed to satisfy a desire to create and learn.