The information, like TV signals) are out there in the holographic universe. — Rich
Since the apple does not appear "red" if we close our eyes, then its colour is not a "property" of the apple itself, but of our perception of it — boundless
Even if we accept "mathematical realism" we can think about different "levels" of reality: the other branches exist potentially, and not actually. I concur that this solution appears inelegant, mathematically. — boundless
Also the idea that "what is mathematical is actually existing" presupposes that (1) our world is no different from a mathematical structure (2) that the mathematics we "use" is a perfect representation of the "actual existing". — boundless
There are several other reasons for my not acceptance of MWI. But in this discussion are quite useless, so I do not write them (unless one is VERY curious and VERY patient to read them, of course ;) ). — boundless
consciousness plays a role in actualising the potential through the process of observation. — Wayfarer
But even if we accept that "mathematics is a reality", this is very far from saying that "whetever is mathematical is actually existence". At best mathematics describes a potentiality! — boundless
The surface is mind/memory (information) unfolding as duration. Our minds translate the waves of information into a projection that feels like space. We are wondering through and observing information waves as space. — Rich
So the surface is the boundary between past and future? This boundary is the medium upon which the hologram exists? — Metaphysician Undercover
"it does not matter whether the observer is an apparatus or a human being; but the registration" — Heisenberg
"Was the wave function waiting to jump for thousands of millions of years until a single-celled living creature appeared? — Pseudonym
"Everyone knows that the earth, and a fortiori the universe, existed for a long time before there were any living beings, and therefore any perceiving subjects. But according to Kant ... that is impossible.'
Schopenhauer's defence of Kant on this score was... [that] the objector has not understood to the very bottom the Kantian demonstration that time is one of the forms of our sensibility. The earth, say, as it was before there was life, is a field of empirical enquiry in which we have come to know a great deal; its reality is no more being denied than is the reality of perceived objects in the same room.
The point is, the whole of the empirical world in space and time is the creation of our understanding, which apprehends all the objects of empirical knowledge within it as being in some part of that space and at some part of that time: and this is as true of the earth before there was life as it is of the pen I am now holding a few inches in front of my face and seeing slightly out of focus as it moves across the paper.
This, incidentally, illustrates a difficulty in the way of understanding which transcendental idealism has permanently to contend with: the assumptions of 'the inborn realism which arises from the original disposition of the intellect' enter unawares into the way in which the statements of transcendental idealism are understood.
Such realistic assumptions so pervade our normal use of concepts that the claims of transcendental idealism disclose their own non-absurdity only after difficult consideration, whereas criticisms of them at first appear cogent which on examination are seen to rest on confusion. We have to raise almost impossibly deep levels of presupposition in our own thinking and imagination to the level of self-consciousness before we are able to achieve a critical awareness of all our realistic assumptions, and thus achieve an understanding of transcendental idealism which is untainted by them.
generally "mathematical consistency = actuality" is a very questionable tenet, even if in fact mathematics does a wonderful job to describe regularities in nature. But again I find this line of thought somewhat reductionistic: I cannot, simply, agree that our "existence" is described perfectly by mathematics.What about ethics, values, aesthetics etc? In fact I prefer Plato's view that if mathematical "ideas" exist then also the ethical, aesthetical "ideas", for example, exist. — boundless
Precisely. — Rich
OK, but that requires that the boundary between past and future is a real medium — Metaphysician Undercover
It is difficult which it eludes common imagination. Actually. I think those who see it for what it is are called delusional and put in mental institutions. So one must be careful. :)that's quite difficult to conceive of. — Metaphysician Undercover
but matter is not substantial without form. — Metaphysician Undercover
And the forms of matter are already assumed to be what exists as a hologram. — Metaphysician Undercover
Now we need another form, to account for the real existence of the boundary, — Metaphysician Undercover
this would be the soul. — Metaphysician Undercover
we have three distinct substances — Metaphysician Undercover
Observe who you are. You are memory. — Rich
Not as a hologram but rather a wave pattern within the hologram. — Rich
It's the same with differences in creative activity, will, and memory. So the trick is to figure out how it can be all the same with differences. Bergson gives ideas as do I.
No God but one unified mind and all if the little minds. — Rich
I don't agree. I am much more than memory. I think, I anticipate, and I act, none of these things can be directly attributed to memory. So memory is only one of my many attributes. — Metaphysician Undercover
Those wave patterns of the universe are not necessarily within the hologram, they would exist even if the mind wasn't making the hologram. — Metaphysician Undercover
If each mind creates its own hologram, — Metaphysician Undercover
Yes, there is also will and the ability to imagine a future possibility which is definitely an aspect of existence, but if you observe what is defining you as you, it is the memory of what was passing into a different what was. This duration of memory defines your existence. — Rich
No, they are all weaving within the same hologram. Each wave in the ocean is creating but also part of the whole. There is no differentiation. It's all One as the Dao suggests. — Rich
That's not what the Robbins video described though. It described each person's mind as creating a hologram from the brain wave patterns interfering with the wave patterns of the rest of the universe, so the hologram is the world as it is, being experienced within the mind. That's what supports his claim of direct realism. — Metaphysician Undercover
So each individual has one's own hologram — Metaphysician Undercover
I wonder why all the wave patterns are such as they are, what causes them to be the patterns that they are? — Metaphysician Undercover
We still need to assume God don't we? — Metaphysician Undercover
What Robbins described was the brain creating a holographic image via a reconstructive wave pattern. The singular universal hologram can create as many images as there are reconstructive waves passing through it. — Rich
No individual is continuosly creating holographic images from the holographic universe. The holidays universe is all the wave patterns, the individual creates images that perceives as the outside v objects and inner memory. — Rich
Within the brain, there is an agent, which creates its own wave patterns — Metaphysician Undercover
interacting with the other wave patterns such that the person perceives the world. — Metaphysician Undercover
In the case of the universal hologram what would what would create the waves to interact with the other waves? — Metaphysician Undercover
The video clearly shows the individual's brain creating a holographic image. — Metaphysician Undercover
Thus, consciousness is needed to make physical reality meaningful. — Wayfarer
This is because science naturally assume a realist attitude; but that is precisely what is at issue in this whole topic. It is the reason that the particle-wave duality and so on are large, unsolved problems in philosophy of science, as I understand it. — Wayfarer
The alternative which I was trying to lead our discussion toward earlier, is to assume that the tinted glass cannot be avoided. This is to deny the reality of the non-dimensional point at the present, and to deny the soul its immaterial view point, as impossible, unreal. That is the result of your objection earlier, which is a standard materialist objection to dualism, that such a point would disallow the possibility of interaction between the soul and the physical world. All of this lead me to the long digression concerning the nature of "matter". — Metaphysician Undercover
So we assume that the soul is fundamentally united with matter, and cannot be separated the immaterial perspective is impossible. We assume that the glass through which the world is observed is tinted, and this cannot be avoided, the tinting of the glass cannot be removed to give us a clear perspective. Therefore we must determine the nature of the tinting and account for this. Now we're back to where we began the discussion, with a slightly different perspective. The soul "interacts" with the world, and this means that it is a cause and an effect. An observation cannot be pure because we cannot adequately distinguish cause from effect, and this is the tinting of the glass. So we must determine the nature of the tinting. The soul interacts with the world through the concept of "matter" (in modern physics, "energy"). Matter is the potential for change. — Metaphysician Undercover
The illusion, which results in a failure to properly account for the tinting, is in the assumption that matter or energy is something physical rather than something conceptual. If the soul is fundamentally united with matter, or energy, denying the possibility of a clear perspective, then matter or energy is conceptual, of the soul. The soul observes the world through this concept (tinted glass), and when it is not diligent it perceives this matter, or energy, to be a property of the thing being observed, rather than as the concept (tinted glass) through which the world is being observed. The fundamental point being, that "matter" is a concept introduced to allow us to understand the nature of change in the world. There is nothing to prove that "matter" refers to anything real, independent of the mind (what Berkeley demonstrated). Aristotle simply assumed "matter" as a necessary assumption in order to make change intelligible. So it is something we assume "about the world", but it is fundamentally conceptual, therefor not really "of the world" — Metaphysician Undercover
Light is fundamental to the concept of energy, and the concept of energy relates light to matter and mass. As described above, the tinting of the glass is this concept, we interact with the physical reality through this concept. The extent to which this concept misrepresents itself, is the extent to which the tinted glass is a problem. — Metaphysician Undercover
What I suggest is that physicists are at position #2. The concept of matter, energy and mass, is the tint. The physicists know that they are looking at the world through this tint, but they do not actually know the tint, and how it affects the observations. — Metaphysician Undercover
The appropriate metaphysical procedure is to recognize that we must determine precisely how the glass is tinted, before we can produce any accurate descriptions. However, the commonly practised metaphysics is to claim #3, that the physicists already know exactly what the tint is, they know what the concept of energy, mass and matter, "adds" to the observations, and therefore accurate descriptions are being produced. Adopting this metaphysical perspective amounts to, in reality, #1, that they are looking through a tint which they do not know is there, because they have assumed that all the tinting has been accounted for within the concept. This is why I say that if the concept represents itself, or is represented as, accounting for the tint, when it really doesn't, then there is a problem. — Metaphysician Undercover
Yeah, if we cannot avoid all "tints", then we cannot have the "pure perspective", of course. So, our perspective will be always "conditioned" by some tint or an other. And even more importalntly all our observation cannot be "perfect" since our observations play a causal role.
So, in this view "the pure observation" seems nothing more than an useful abstraction, like, say, a "free particle". The problem is, however, that if there is not a "total pure point of view", then it is impossible to the "soul" to know "how things really are". — boundless
Is not better to say that "the extent to which "reality", is the extent to which the tinted glass is a problem"? If we rephrase in this wa the sentence then I agree. The problem, in any case, is that if we cannot avoid the "tints", then such a problem will never be solved. — boundless
I'm not convinced of the conclusion that if it is impossible to avoid the tint, then it is impossible to know how things really are. I think it just means that we have to take a detour in our proceedings, and work on determining the nature of the tinting. This is why we have numerous different senses to compare, we have logic, and we have philosophy. These are the tools for assessing the tint. — Metaphysician Undercover
Now assume that we've created a concept of time, duration, the flow of time, by looking across the emergence of the big objects. When the big objects are fully emerged from the plane of the present, this marks the moment when time has gone from future to past. So the non-dimensional plane, which is "the present", which we have created artificially, has been produced by looking across the moment when the big objects are fully emerged into the past. Now we look at the tiny objects, and these tiny objects must make a plane of "the present" as well. They emerge from the future slightly before the big objects, so we can create a separate plane of "the present" by looking across their emergence There are two planes of the present, and the breadth of the present is the entire area between. BY establishing a relationship between the one plane and the other, we can determine the passage of time at the present. — Metaphysician Undercover
In the analogy, the tiny objects pop out from the future to the past, first. This seems intuitive, but it's not necessarily the case. To really understand the way things exist at the present, we need to look at the way we act in the world, and interact with it. There are some things, with large mass and inertia, which appear to be fully determined. And, we find possibility in small things, and this allows us to make changes which are actually very small in relation to the vast universe. If we assume that change only occurs at the present, then the large things must come out first, determined with mass and inertia, and by the time that the tiny human brain is out, and apprehends what is going on, it has no capacity to alter what has already come out into the past. So the human brain exercises the capacity of free choice only over the tiny things, because the big things are already in the past. This is consistent with the Neo-Platonist's principle of emanation, or procession. The One, which represents the unity of the universe is first, then the Soul, then the Mind.
...
In the past, we have produced a system for time measurement based on the motions of the earth and sun, so this is pretty much in the middle of the breadth of the present. Now we have produced atomic clocks measuring duration with tiny objects, so this would be (presumably) measuring time duration at the past side of the present. But we have established no real principles to determine the breadth between these two. How much behind the present, which is determined by the motions of the earth and sun, is the present which is determined by the atomic clocks? Both these clocks can keep time in a synchronized, accurate way, but according to the theory above, they represent parallel "presents", with time, breadth between them. — Metaphysician Undercover
This is the tinted glass problem in a nutshell. The tint is the concept, "matter", which is the means by which we make the changing of the physical world intelligible in relation to the assumed static, eternal "soul". We look through the tint, and we know that it's a tint because it's a source of error, and we have figured out that it's there. Therefore we must conclude that there is a part of reality independent from us, which is unintelligible to us, because of the tint. It is the inversion of the tint, what the tint negates, which is unintelligible. Whatever we assume as matter, the concept of matter, then the deficiencies of this assumption, is what remains unintelligible to us. What is not assumed, but ought to be assumed creates the unintelligibility caused by the assumption "matter". So we have to approach the concept of "matter" in a kind of trial and error way, we produce a concept, like Aristotle did, and see if it works. The success was limited, and the concept was replaced by a more comprehensive assumption, "energy". Now we have to assess this assumption for successes and failures. It's a matter of assessing failures which are the result of improperly representing the tint, on and on, until we figure out the tint and represent it properly. — Metaphysician Undercover
Note that the apple also doesn't appear solid if I'm not looking at or touching it. Yet it doesn't follow that it's not solid. Properties of things are identified in experience, but are real independent of experience. That's the nature of language abstraction.
So, in normal usage, there is nothing wrong with saying that the apple appears green but is actually red (e.g., because of background lighting or filter glasses). Or that the apple in the dark, sealed box is red. Whereas it would be wrong to say that it appears red when no-one is looking, or when there is no light, since "appears" refers to perceptual experience, not the object. — Andrew M
Yes, the problem is that that distinction doesn't arise in the mathematics - each relative state is treated equivalently. So why make such a distinction? As I suggested in another post, it seems like taking a heliocentric model and packaging it as geocentric. — Andrew M
Feel free to write them - I'd be interested. — Andrew M
Even Everett viewed mathematical model as a fiction of the mind. It is a strange ontology that views symbols (mathematical, linguistical, or otherwise) created by the mind more real than the mind that creates them (for practical purposes). — Rich
Of course I agree. The problem lies with the interpretation of mathematics as describing the 'primary attributes' e.g. mass, velocity, and so on, and relegating the domain of the qualitative to the subjective realm of mind. This manifests as the attitude that science is the sole custodian of fact and that qualitative and ethical judgements, whilst they may or not have merit, are regardless a private matter. It is another facet of the modern 'mind-body' problem. (The subject of a classic text, E A Burtt, The Metaphysical Foundations of Modern Science.) — Wayfarer
OK, but that requires that the boundary between past and future is a real medium, a substance,as the holographic film or plate, and that's quite difficult to conceive of. I can conceive of "matter" as that which exists at the present, but matter is not substantial without form. — Metaphysician Undercover
Regarding mathematics, I think that a part of it is "real" and another of it is "conventional". But I still cannot see where there is the distinction... — boundless
Some time ago, I actually considered an idea similar to this. I was wondering how "big" is the present. And in fact I arrived that if the "present" has some "thickness" change would be impossible. But interestingly, here you are giving an interesting perspective on this, i.e. that it is possible to accept both a "thick" present and change. — boundless
The reasoning is in fact, sound. The possibility of being more "presents" as the "scale" of observation varies is something that I have never encountered in physics (and in philosophy for that matter). But again, nothing tells us that there is only a "present". In fact, the tendency to hyper-semplify sometimes had its side-effects: for example the Newtonian "absolute" space is certainly simpler than SR, but it is not really effective. — boundless
Here I see two possibilities, BTW:
1) We at best can have a "partial knowledge" of the tint. In this case our "trial and error" procedure allows us to know partially the "tint" by the "inside", so to speak. We can think that the "tint" actually has two "parts". One part is changeable by us: we can in fact use whatever concept we like and "test" it. However a part of the tint is completely "hidden", it is "a priori" in all our observations. We cannot "remove" it, so to speak. In this case we can never have the possibility to "see things as they are", but we can have a "partial knowledge". This IMO is quite a rational perspective.
2) On the other hand we can accept that we can "trascend", so to speak, all tinting. In this case the "tint" can be modified by our trials until we arrive to a "perfect" untinted perspective. Note that this is possible only if no "part" of the tint is "a priori", since in that case we could not even imagine "reality as it is". If there is no "a priori" part of the tint, then in fact we can infer how the untinted perspective is by studying the "behavior" of the results of our trials and errors. — boundless
What exactly is matter? Ultimately it is just quantum stuff of some sort. Matter feels solid. Matter is perceived of as solid. But we know it is empty. It is something we call energy. It is energy tightened into a ball as one might imagine vapor tightening into a snowball. — Rich
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