Note -- The Enformationism thesis does not claim that materialism is "false", but merely that it does not explain everything of interest to philosophers, including ideas about matter & mind. Ironically, enformed dumb matter seems to be capable of self-reference : Aboutness. — Gnomon
Yet Mr. Nice Guy can be somewhat indulgent toward such immature notions, as one would toward a juvenile's innocent babbling. Unlike another poster, he's not intentionally malicious, but his Matter-is-all vocabulary makes abstract (meta-physical) Platonic & Aristotelian concepts sound like literal non-sense. — Gnomon
For example, from a Matter-only standpoint, there is no such thing as Platonic Love, or love of any kind, for that matter. There is only corporal copulation. Hence, "Love" is an abstraction that idealizes the realistic rutting of animals. — Gnomon
But it also updates ancient Spiritualism/Idealism, with new concepts from Quantum & Information theory. Those older views were pragmatic in their local & temporal contexts, but now seem somewhat untenable in the current state of affairs, 2.5 millennia later. — Gnomon
You don't have to follow a particular religion to be a theist. Do you have a personal definition of that which YOU would label god or YOUR creator source, that had the INTENT to create lifeforms like humans?FWIW, Gnomon no longer practices the religion of his youth, or any religion for that matter. But, like Universeness, he can be tolerant toward those who are not "enlightened", including his own siblings. — Gnomon
My personal thesis is another of those adaptations, combining state-of-the-art Science with millennia of religious & philosophical exploration of the human condition, and building upon the foundation of Plato & Aristotle. — Gnomon
Enformationism does not posit a manipulating "supreme being", because Nature functions automatically, like an emergent computer program*4, without any divine intervention. And whether the implicit Programmer/Enformer is conscious, in the human manner, is an open question. — Gnomon
In any case, I can't agree with Uni's somber assessment, that "we reduce ourselves and leave ourselves with NOTHING", when we conclude that the world is more-than just "atoms in void"*5. It's also ideas-in-reasoning-minds and feelings-in-metaphorical-hearts. An immaterial idea is indeed "no thing", but whatever it is, it's what raises humans a step above the animals, by allowing them the individual & collective freedom to be intentional agents of their own destiny. :smile:
PS__I apologize in advance, if I have mis-represented Uni's philosophical worldview. — Gnomon
Note -- What does the "Void" think about? Do "Atoms" love each other, when they become entangled? There is no such thing as "Hot", merely the idea of a relationship between thermodynamic regimes that we apply that non-thing name to. — Gnomon
Great lineage! :smile:I am not a fan of referencing the ancients too much, but I prefer to follow the lineage from Democritus and the atomists towards folks like Carl Sagan and coming to rest near folks like Sean Carroll, Roger Penrose, Ed Witten, Alan Guth, Sabine Hossenfelder, et al. — universeness
Of course, who could really grasp such ideas? Most cannot really grasp them even today!) — Alkis Piskas
Certainly. This is what history, research and logic dictate.WE gained such ability, as a consequence of what evolution via natural selection can do over 10.3 billion years — universeness
If you insist on putting a label on my philosophical First Cause concept, try Deism*1. You may not distinguish between Deism and Theism, but I suspect that "most theists" would. To them, Deists are no better than Atheists. That's because the Deist world is completely natural, with no supernatural intervention. Yet, Deist philosophy infers the necessity for a Prime Mind to create (from scratch) a temporal physical world from which mental phenomena*2 can emerge via natural computation processes. The rational "need" for an original Mind is in the logical necessity for an explanation of the emergence of mental phenomena in a material world*3. I'm aware that Materialists see no difference between Physical and Mental phenomena, because their (blind in one eye) worldview blocks-out Metaphysical features of the world, by definition. Is that loud & proud enough for you? :smile: :joke:Are you a theist Gnomon and if so, why the subterfuge?
If you want and need a mind, beyond the big bang posit to be our creator then why not be loud, proud and heard about it?
You deny being a theist but then most of the points you make, would be attractive to most theists. — universeness
The "gap" you refer to is the mysterious emergence of Life & Mind from an inorganic beginning. How would you fill that void in Darwinian evolution? Any hypothetical conjecture must explain, not just the mechanical "how" of gradual emergence*1, but the logical "whence" the Potential for Life/Mind arising from a dimensionless non-living mathematical Singularity. Dispel that, if you dare! :joke: :smile:Yes, you have made this statement many times but your update, remains a god of the gaps posit and you have not been able to dispel that accusation so far, imo. — universeness
A much repeated slander that also makes no sense given that philosophical materialism itself is very much a metaphysical position (e.g. the Cārvāka (ancient India), Democritus, P. Gassendi, T. Hobbes, Baron d'Holbach, L. Feuerbach). "Materialists" merely differ from you (woo-of-the-gaps) immaterialists, Gnomon, with an alternative metaphysics, not a lack of one or "anti-metaphysics" as you claim (as if that too isn't a metaphysical position :roll:).I'maware[misinformed] that Materialists see no difference between Physical and Mental phenomena, because their (blind in one eye) worldview blocks-out Metaphysical features of the world — Gnomon
Thanks for the question. My definition of Creator/Programmer*1*2 was not revealed in books written by fallible humans, but in the Book of Nature, which shows signs of operating like a computer program*3. I have no knowledge of the Intention of the First Cause, but for human intention to emerge from running the program of evolution implies that the Programmer was capable of goal-directed behavior. So, the original reason for creation is beyond the reach of us self-directing symbolic personas, condemned to play the game without knowing why : Agnostic Avatars, with limited freewill & intention. :nerd:You don't have to follow a particular religion to be a theist. Do you have a personal definition of that which YOU would label god or YOUR creator source, that had the INTENT to create lifeforms like humans? — universeness
You claim that, as an anti-metaphyical materialist (???), you are able to experience Love. Bully for you. But what is the substance of that emotion? How do aggregations of atoms feel sentiments? The emerging Information theory*1 can suggest answers to those questions ; if Information (power to create novel forms) is more fundamental than insentient matter. How does a clump of matter experience anything? Could it be due to non-physical Life/Mind-forms?*2But you suggest that 'love' has a source outside of any physical lifeforms that materially or energetically exist in this universe. Do you suggest the same for 'morality?' Is your suggestion of a 'first cause,' a mind with intent that is capable of experiencing and expressing love and follows or imposes a moral code that it created? — universeness
I think you’re referencing a different sort of efficiency. Not even sure what you mean by that statement. Yes, fusion would be nice, and would likely solve the carbon issue since while still utilizing a limited resource instead of renewables, there’s an awful lot of the fuel available, at least for a while.A future cold fusion system will perhaps be the most 'efficient,' if we ever achieve it. — universeness
OK, this seems totally illogical. ER is limited by definition. You can’t make more, you can only attempt to waste less. OK, there are exceptions such as putting up solar collectors in high orbit, which is essentially a space-based death ray with a minor computer hack.ER (renewable energy) can rise to meet E if humans make it so.
This is a money issue, which you’ve dismissed. I’m not talking about money, I’m saying that ER has a cap.The fact that renewable energy is charged, in the world markets, at the same price per unit as 'the most expensively produced' energy is another example of the affect of the nefarious profit mongers.
Does it? Last I looked it still costs more. OK, hydro has always been pretty cheap, but not so much solar and wind. They’re based on expensive equipment which needs regular replacement. Part of this is subsidies, which need to be accounted for when comparing actual costs.Renewable costs much less to produce than fossil fuel based oil and gas
OK, you seem to be solving the goal of wanting excess population but first solving the problem of finding a place to put them. That’s different than having a problem of excess population and presumably trying to ‘save’ as many as possible.The justification seems obvious , in that, there is a lot more room in space than there is here on earth. — universeness
Agree, but how many of those declining population countries have negative trade deficits?Perhaps 'Countries with declining populations,' are an small indicator of the future of population control.
Exponential growth will always overpopulate a species no matter how fast they colonize new systems. That’s kind of simple geometry. I had done a topic on what it would be like with a planet of infinite resources/land/area. Each location has limited resources, but there’s always the frontier. Answer: Not exponential population growth. Linear at best, which is in the long run the same number of descendants per capita as no growth.BUT, as we slooooooowly become an extraterrestial species, we will have less need to worry about population control and have more need to encourage reproduction.
Fair enough. I’m trying to figure out what can actually help us on Earth that is best imported from off-planet sources. Certainly building material for stuff being built in space, but how does that help the planet other than to relieve them of the efforts needed to bring that material up from the surface?Eventually this will mean extra resources can be brought TO Earth FROM space.
They did export stuff back too, and yes, building materials was probably top of the list. Still, the pioneers landed in an environment for which they were already evolved, and an alarming percentage of them still died within a year or two.It's no different than it was when compared to pioneering humans on the move. They had to bring their supplies with them until they could establish a supply chain wherever they ended up.
If you have excess population, many are going to die anyway, especially under the ‘share all the world’ socialism where the most resources go to those needing it most. Not to ding that strategy, but some kind of ‘cut your losses’ mechanism needs to be in place to prevent that sort of thing from happening.Less savage solutions are possible. You are just being a bit impatient and lazy minded. :grin:
I suspect your brother and sister-in-law would smack you on the head for typing the above quote.
Heck no, for the same reason I don’t think it would be better if all intelligent life populating the galaxy were left in the one form we know.Do you think it would have been better if evolution left all lifeforms as fish or water creatures? — universeness
With pioneer missions to other worlds, scouting missions may not be an option. Coming back certainly isn’t, but a ship full of colonists would be heading to unknown conditions without the scout. By the time a robot gets there and reports back, its senders stand a fair chance of not being around to hear the answer. The trips take an obscene amount of time, all the movies notwithstanding that treat interstellar travel like a bicycle ride to the corner thrift store.The first missions are scouting and pathfinder missions.
I proposed a better one. Screw democracy. Find somebody competent.There is no perfect system, just improvements on current ones.
anyone who is capable of getting themselves made President should on no account be allowed to do the job. — Doug Adams
Joke aside, it’s been done, just not with humans because of moral issues. They’re trying to grow parts without feelings because feelings make everybody uncomfortable.I will send you one of my skin cells and you can deliver my clone to me when you have finished creating it! :joke: — universeness
They are changing that, but the wrong way. They now have schools teaching bigotry for instance, which used to be illegal. Brain wipe em young to be on your side.We simply can't accept that 'the typical voter isn't very informed these days.' We have to do what we can to help change that.
I don’t remember suggesting too many ideas on that. What, line some up and shoot them? No, probably not that, but something closer to how the Netherlands does it comes to mind. My grandmother was murdered there by the system. Murder by my country’s standards anyway.But not your ideas on how to deal with excess population. — universeness
There are those that simply want a handout, and are effectively nobody. There are whole cultures that encourage this attitude.By negotiation, based on the questions 'who are you?' and 'what do you want?'
What is this? Sounds like a school. What if the benevolent entity communicates something other than what the parents of the newborn want communicated?I would establish a benevolent communication system with every new born from cradle to grave.
Don’t personally know the mindset. They watch TV I think. I don’t very much, and it pisses a lot of acquaintances that I cannot join discussion of the latest twist in some reality show or something.Most layabouts get very bored quite often.
That would not be a layabout then, right?Perhaps they would want to use their mind and body in ways that they would enjoy and would help the society/community they live in.
All the cynicism above aside, I agree with this. Make the people and their children part of a whole, part of the culture. It works because I see it. Trick is to break the pattern of them identifying with the group encouraging the opposite. It perhaps means destroying cultural identity. It seems to work best in places with little of that, but then what do I know? I don’t live in those places.Communication, support, respect, cooperation, justice, etc etc must become foundational when it comes to how people are supported.
What does this recognition look like? Get a name on a poster or the nightly news? I mean, I do see it in some countries. In India, apparently your status is based on how many people you have under you. The recognition is an org-chart. You can be a brilliant contributor but don’t have any underlings, and you’d be pretty much a disappointment to your folks. I’ve seen this.A person who works to help their community (or even their universe) should be recognised
It would become like little-league then. I guess that works. No more sports section in the newspaper except perhaps a page about how the local teams did against each other. My paper here actually devotes a decent percentage of its space to that. Not all national standings and such.Take the money out of sports and it will become the healthy endeavour and fun competitive entertainment it should have always been.
The best candidate right now, is the 'bit'. — universeness
I agree with A-P here, but we actually have no proof of it one way or another.But the physical universe is analogue, not digital. — Alkis Piskas
All of which do a limited reproduction of the actual movie or scene.Consider how music is physically stored on a CD or the images stored on a DVD. — universeness
It would take an infinite number of bits to describe a quark. Just its position in space (if there is such a meaningful thing, which there isn’t) would need infinite bits, even if done only as accurately as the nearest meter.Let's say I could represent an 'up quark,' by the binary rep:
10010000110110001101101110000110011100000011.
An identifier that say ‘up quark’ would suffice for 1, 2 and 4 since these are the same for all up quarks. The spin is a property of this quark, and per the vast majority of quantum interpretations, it doesn’t have one except when it is measured, and then only along one axis, so the actual spin can only be expressed relative to that one axis. A single bit will do then. Items 1-4 can probably be done in under 10 bits. The wavefunction of the quark would require, well, infinite bits.If I explain the above binary representation of an up quark as representing:
1. An unique identifier for an 'up quark.'
2. The charge on a up-quark. (relating to accepted units)
3. The spin or angular momentum.
4. Mass (accepted units)
Question seems to come down to where the purpose emerges from the matter. I’d probably favor a view that purpose is relative to a material process, not to matter, and not to an arrangement of matter.Matter has no purpose, i.e. intention or desire. This is an attribute of life, even if its purpose is reduced down an urge to survive.
— Alkis Piskas
Brain matter in humans contain and demonstrably manifest, human intent and purpose.
Well that can't be true since digital is just a subset of analog, so an analog system confining itself to those states can appear digital.A digital system can appear from a distance as analog, but analog never appears digital at any scale. — punos
Interesting assertion. It violates the principle of relativity for one thing since it would be a distinction if a thing is changing voxels or not. Such a statement is assertion of a preferred frame, the one in which these locations are fixed. How slow does something have to move to change one pixel every minute? How does it have any momentum/velocity at all if it stays in the same place for a minute, and then suddenly changes. That's a violation of momentum conservation at the fine level. How fast does it have to go to change locations more frequently than one unit of time?The nature of reality appears to me to be digital. Like 180 Proof mentioned, The Planck volume is no different than a pixel (voxel) on a screen, and it's quanta determines if that pixel or voxel is on or off.
What does Planck say? I thought it was a limit of meaningful measurability, not a metaphysical digital ontology.So you dispute Planck's quanta? — 180 Proof
IMO, dao = entropy. (YMMV) — 180 Proof
I'm sure I've pointed out to you what's wrong with that interpretation. The dao is an analogue for what western philosophers term "dialectical monism". Like entropy (i.e. disorder-order) consisting of complementarities, not "opposites".I thought the Tao was a dualistic entity consisting of two opposites. — Agent Smith
I'm sure I've pointed out to you what's wrong with that interpretation. The dao is an exampke of what western philosophers term "dialectical monism". Like entropy (i.e. disorder-order) — 180 Proof
Complementary properties are definitely not "mutually cancelling", Smith. Read the wiki article I linked. Are mind/body ... male/female (organisms) ... particle/wave (photons), ... "mutually cancelling"? :chin:instead of two entities, one with two mutually cancelling properties, — Agent Smith
We're only talking past each other. Let's not ... :confused: — 180 Proof
Definition of "analogue": Relating to or using signals or information represented by a continuously variable physical quantity such as spatial position, voltage, etc.I agree with A-P here, but we actually have no proof of it one way or another. — noAxioms
Hello Gnomon the deist.If you insist on putting a label on my philosophical First Cause concept, try Deism — Gnomon
Deist philosophy infers the necessity for a Prime Mind to create (from scratch) a temporal physical world from which mental phenomena — Gnomon
It's not loud or proud but it's at least more honest and less camouflaged. Deism is woo woo imo.I'm aware that Materialists see no difference between Physical and Mental phenomena, because their (blind in one eye) worldview blocks-out Metaphysical features of the world, by definition. Is that loud & proud enough for you? — Gnomon
Of course there is intention in physics. The intention is to discover new knowledge about the workings and structure of the universe and to constantly confirm via testing, that which we think we already know.There is no intention in Physics, so the cause of future-directed Intention in human affairs must derive from a Meta-Physical source — Gnomon
4. Metaphysics is the branch of philosophy that studies the fundamental nature of reality; the first principles of being, identity and change, space and time, . . . It includes questions about the nature of consciousness and the relationship between mind and matter, between substance and attribute, and between potentiality and actuality. — Gnomon
The "gap" you refer to is the mysterious emergence of Life & Mind from an inorganic beginning. How would you fill that void in Darwinian evolution? Any hypothetical conjecture must explain, not just the mechanical "how" of gradual emergence*1, but the logical "whence" the Potential for Life/Mind arising from a dimensionless non-living mathematical Singularity. Dispel that, if you dare! — Gnomon
So based on this 'I don't know,' admission regarding the origin story of the universe or answering the hard problem of consciousness, your musings has landed firmly on the 'deism' posit as the one you give highest credence to. That's fine Gnomon. I respect your choice, but I am surprised and disappointed that a seeker of truth would find any contentment in such a bland posit as deism.Thanks for the question. My definition of Creator/Programmer*1*2 was not revealed in books written by fallible humans, but in the Book of Nature, which shows signs of operating like a computer program*3. I have no knowledge of the Intention of the First Cause, but for human intention to emerge from running the program of evolution implies that the Programmer was capable of goal-directed behavior. So, the original reason for creation is beyond the reach of us self-directing symbolic personas, condemned to play the game without knowing why : Agnostic Avatars, with limited freewill & intention. — Gnomon
Tegmark is serious, but you have to possess a sense of humor to present such aethereal notions to materialist scientists. — Gnomon
It's really quite simple. Love is a human label and it's manifestations and consequences are demonstrated everyday by lifeforms such as humans. So, the substance of that emotion is within lifeforms such as humans, WE are atomic aggregations, WE are a clump of matter and WE demonstrate love, so it is therefore irrefutable that love is a phenomena which comes from physical and not non-physical life/mind-forms!You claim that, as an anti-metaphyical materialist (???), you are able to experience Love. Bully for you. But what is the substance of that emotion? How do aggregations of atoms feel sentiments? The emerging Information theory*1 can suggest answers to those questions ; if Information (power to create novel forms) is more fundamental than insentient matter. How does a clump of matter experience anything? Could it be due to non-physical Life/Mind-forms? — Gnomon
:up:Morality emerges from the meaningful relationships between people. — Gnomon
Everything is reduceable to quantum fundamentals but that does not mean, in any way, that the fundamentals have the same attributes and functionality of their potential combinatorials!But, like Love, "meaning" cannot be reduced to atoms-in-void, can it? — Gnomon
Yet, an intentional First Cause could explain, as a hypothesis, how such immaterial abstractions could arise from a "big bang" in the void : personal significance, mutual respect, trust, interest, positive regard. The implication of a pre-bang Creator concept is that all things, and relationships, can be traced back (reduced) to the mind of the Originator*3. Otherwise, how did the ability-to-feel get programmed into the thermodynamic chain of evolutionary causation? — Gnomon
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