Yes. "Holism" and "Emergence" are essential concepts in the thesis of Enformationism, which derives from the epistemological (what can we know?) challenges of Quantum Entanglement and Complex Systems in general. The Santa Fe Institute was founded specifically to study Complexity via holistic methods, instead of the traditional reductive methods of classical Science. :smile:The notion of emergent phenomena is closely related to holism. Am I correct? — Agent Smith
The insult is in your interpretation. FWIW, I never intend to offend. The wry remark was intended as an ironic all-too-true joke-poke, to be accepted with philosophical grace. Yet I anticipated that you might take the metaphor literally, just as you do with so many of my other "puerile" multi-value*1 tropes that affront your personal two-value worldview. BTW, if I intended to insult you, I wouldn't have to "camouflage" it. My personal worldview is fundamentally different from yours, so a implication in one "language" does not translate to the other. :joke:I perceived no language barrier between us, and I find such camouflaged insults, rather puerile. — universeness
Again, try not to show yourself, as we say in Scotland, as a 'nippy wee sweetie.'Unfortunately, for those with Black vs White mindsets — Gnomon
Whoa! That's an emphatic two-handed rejection. I described Deism simply as a "non-religious philosophical position". How does your quote differ, except for more words? It says nothing about Religion. So, I assume that you must interpret "supreme being" as a taboo religious concept. I don't. And many philosophers & scientists through history have held notions of a First Cause or "Supreme Being" while eschewing the revelations and creeds of religions. Who's doing the "usurping" here?Your description of deism is simply wrong. You have no ability to usurp a well entrenched label for your own purposes without first gaining massive popular support to do so. . . . .
"Deism . . . (derived from the Latin deus, meaning "god") is the philosophical position and rationalistic theology that generally rejects revelation as a source of divine knowledge, and asserts that empirical reason and observation of the natural world are exclusively logical, reliable, and sufficient to determine the existence of a Supreme Being as the creator of the universe". — universeness
I don't know. What do you think are your absolute values? True vs False? How do you know which is which? Whatever they are, they seem to be toward the opposite ends of my broader range of values. Which includes "maybe" or "I don't know". :joke: :cool:What personal 'two values' do you think constitute my worldview, that you claim you affront? — universeness
Insofar as Enformationism is synonymous / analogius to deism: if it walks like god-of-the-gaps and quacks like god-of-the-gaps and denies sound counter-arguments like god-of-the-gaps, then it must be, for all intents and purposes, god-of-the-gaps. :zip:I described Deism simply as a "non-religious philosophical position". — Gnomon
I described Deism simply as a "non-religious philosophical position". How does your quote differ, except for more words? It says nothing about Religion. — Gnomon
"Deism . . . (derived from the Latin deus, meaning "god") is the philosophical position and rationalistic theology that generally rejects revelation as a source of divine knowledge, and asserts that empirical reason and observation of the natural world are exclusively logical, reliable, and sufficient to determine the existence of a Supreme Being as the creator of the universe". — universeness
Oh, you are! There is no question about that. You also make many generalised claims, like the one quoted above. Give me an example of a non-theistic scientist or philosopher who proposed a supreme being with no theological component to it. Theology is the systematic study of the nature of the divine and, more broadly, of religious belief.many philosophers & scientists through history have held notions of a First Cause or "Supreme Being" while eschewing the revelations and creeds of religions. Who's doing the "usurping" here? — Gnomon
You obvious attempts to 'dilute' your theology to make the taste less bitter to rational thinkers, does border on the jocular. Which is probably much closer to the truth about why you make so much use of joke style emoticons.in my understanding of Deism, I would replace the word "to determine" with "to imply". — Gnomon
Sounds like "what's wrong" is simply that you don't like the philosophical implications of an Ultimate Cause or Supreme Being or Cosmic Programmer or Creator. — Gnomon
I agree with your self-accusation, that YOUR first cause mind with intent, is YOUR emotional invention.How can we communicate if we don't share that emotional bias? Perhaps you prefer to assume that the evolving ever-changing physical universe is Self-Existent or Self-Created? Based on what evidence? — Gnomon
What utter nonsense!! YOU NEVER convict on circumstantial evidence, unless you live under corrupt authority and are yourself, corrupt.Note -- many crimes are solved solely on the basis of circumstantial evidence. Is that OK with you? In this case the crime is Creation. — Gnomon
I know!Sorry, that's just my weird sense of humor again. — Gnomon
Perhaps you should take a note of them, so I don't have to keep repeating them.I don't know. What do you think are your absolute values? True vs False? — Gnomon
Insofar as Enformationism synonymous / analogius to deism: if it walks like god-of-the-gaps and quacks like god-of-the-gaps and denies sound counter-arguments like god-of-the-gaps, then it must be, for all intents and purposes, god-of-the-gaps. — 180 Proof
Speaking of "cherry picking" you are selecting only the low-hanging fruit of religious meanings of "god", and ignoring the philosophical meanings. Do you think Spinoza used the word "god" in a religious sense? He is often identified as an early Deist, as well as a Pantheist/Pandeist. Some deists imagined God as the exogenous creator of the world, but others viewed God as immanent in the world. My personal Information-based understanding of "G*D" is BothAnd : PanEnDeism. In any case, most Deists were anti-religious. So their notion of "god" was equivalent to an abstract philosophical Principle.It's irrational to suggest someone else is cherry picking, when, in reading the above definition, you seem to have 'missed' the words 'god, theology and divine' and refuse to cognise their connection to theism and almost every practiced religion. You keep trying to grab at anything to try to hide behind. — universeness
In other words, god-of-the-gaps. — 180 Proof
Thanks, but my idiosyncratic god-model doesn't even fit the Fortuna pigeonhole. Did you notice the PS in my previous post? :cool:You know what, my money is on Gnomon's G*D/Enformer resembling Fortuna more than YHWH! — Agent Smith
Speaking of "cherry picking" you are selecting only the low-hanging fruit of religious meanings of "god", and ignoring the philosophical meanings. — Gnomon
As I have already stated. Spinoza lived in a time when theism had much more power than it has today. He directly suffered in his life, because of the backwards theism he was faced with.Do you think Spinoza used the word "god" in a religious sense? He is often identified as an early Deist, as well as a Pantheist/Pandeist. — Gnomon
You will NEVER get past your gap god deity (deism), by trying to dress it up as a fake 'abstract philosophical principle.' You would be as well to claim that pixies, orcs, unicorns and the flying spaghetti monster are also important abstract philosophical principles.In any case, most Deists were anti-religious. So their notion of "god" was equivalent to an abstract philosophical Principle. — Gnomon
Unfortunately. we are still using different vocabularies. And you won't find my terminology in a dictionary. Therefore, if you want to know what I mean by a word, all you have to do is ask me. — Gnomon
PS__You and ↪180 Proof have been trying to label me with a well-known woo-woo pigeon-hole that you can dismiss with a wave of the trite "god of the gaps" hand. But I don't even fit neatly into the amorphous Deism category. So, if you ask judgmentally, "are you now, or have you ever been, a Deist" I can truthfully answer : no. That's because my personal worldview is new & novel & unique. — Gnomon
FWIW, THIS IS WHAT GNOMON MEANS BY THE WORD "DEISM' — Gnomon
I originally posted on the Emergent thread because the general concepts of "emergence" and "information processing" are essential to my idiosyncratic personal worldview. I had no intention of discussing "gods" or "religions". But I did propose to engage in a philosophical dialogue, not a scientific debate. However, I was forced, by persistent skeptical challenges, to explain how I arrived at some of my opinions about "emergence" & "information", and the origins of those ongoing processes. Yet hypothetical postulations about Ultimate Emergence and Origins of Forms, led to unfounded accusations of religious motivations, instead of philosophical curiosity. Unfortunately, that refocus of the thread let us far off-topic.As carbon based lifeforms, we eventually 'emerged' . . . This got me thinking more about 'emergence.' To what extent do you think that human beings are 'information processors?' — universeness
If you think the answer is yes, then do you think that the following is emergent:
In the future we will
1. 'Network' our individual brain based knowledge.
2. Connect our brain based knowledge, directly, to all electronically stored information and be able to search it at will, in a similar style (or better) to a google search.
3. Act as a single connected intellect and as separate intellects. — universeness
I originally posted on the Emergent thread because the general concepts of "emergence" and "information processing" are essential to my idiosyncratic personal worldview. I had no intention of discussing "gods" or "religions". — Gnomon
But your philosophical dialogue contains a god posit, so the need for a rational scientific analysis, becomes obvious. I am surprised you found the sequence of events surprising!I had no intention of discussing "gods" or "religions". But I did propose to engage in a philosophical dialogue, not a scientific debate. — Gnomon
Yeah, your viewpoints will be scrutinised on a public forum. Does that shock you? Or do you know that fine well? And you are merely playing your victim card again.However, I was forced, by persistent skeptical challenges, to explain how I arrived at some of my opinions about "emergence" & "information", and the origins of those ongoing processes. — Gnomon
Yet hypothetical postulations about Ultimate Emergence and Origins of Forms, led to unfounded accusations of religious motivations, instead of philosophical curiosity. Unfortunately, that refocus of the thread let us far off-topic. — Gnomon
I am broadly concordant with @180 Proof's viewpoints of the origin story of our universe, but I think you are inflating your own importance, when you suggest we are both conspiring against you, using some cunning plan, we have concocted between us. You sound rather paranoid and ridiculous, when you post such suggestions.↪180 Proof and ↪universeness teamed-up to quash any non-empirical answers to the OP questions. — Gnomon
Not only, but also. If you have any such serious concerns, then I suggest you raise such with the TPF moderators.they seem to think this forum is a place for only empirical/physical (scientific) answers, and not for theoretical/metaphysical (philosophical) guesses. — Gnomon
If you have a problem, maybe you can hire this A-team to help you with your attempts to empirically demonstrate the facts, regarding your various dalliances with theism (that for some strange reason, you try to deny.)Yet the A-team demanded empirically verifiable closed-system answers only : Demonstrate or Calculate! — Gnomon
Skeptiscism is no way self-defeating, on the contrary, it is essential to prevent the nefarious from gaining authority, wealth and status. In what ways is positing a mind with intent 'pragmatic?' It is absolute speculation, based on nothing more than mundane human intuition. The universe does not necessarily work the way folks who intuit, as you do, need it to! OR as I or @180 Proof may propose it may work.it is self defeating, because it denies the possibility of theoretical knowledge or pragmatic belief*3. It closes the door to Epistemology. That's why Bayesian Probability was developed, to provide a means to make uncertain information useful. — Gnomon
We are still trying to find answers to questions, first asked way, way before Socrates.Which is why we are still arguing open-ended Socratic questions to this day, 2500 years later. — Gnomon
Statistical solutions, like Open Questions, are indefinite & elliptical, hence extend beyond space-time to include Infinity & Eternity. For example, what are the odds that our universe is self-existent, and did not emerge from any prior causal system? Did the Real world emerge from timeless statistical Potential, or from an infinite regression of Actual turtle-worlds? Did space-time-matter-energy begin with a bang, or is it eternally recycling? Did homo sapiens emerge from random evolution as an incidental accident -- is that a fact or conjecture? How did humans learn to process abstract information, such as mathematics, unless the potential for that talent was inherent in the information-processing system of Evolution? This is just a sample of open-ended questions that philosophers engage with, but have no hope for empirical resolution. I certainly don't have the final answers, do you? — Gnomon
Regarding 1 and 2
I have no idea what humans will manage to do or not, but I'm not sure if the idea of emergence is quite the right idea to capture such developments. There are several concepts of emergence, but taking it as the idea that complex systems instantiate properties that were not present before that system existed, then arguably what you suggest does not constitute emergence. — bert1
I was more referring to a future networking that may allow thought exchange, that we might label 'telepathy,' in the sense of transmitting thought and 'empathic' in the sense of transmitting emotion."People's brains have always been linked together through communication"
"the invention of printing"
"the internet" — bert1
Speed of access and information storage capacity have massively increased, and is continuing.What novel property do we see now that we didn't when, say, the printing press was invented? — bert1
Yes, as far as the vast improvement in general information retrieval speed, process speed and storage capacity. But if you combine this, with the advances in biological and quantum computing and the increasing ability to directly attach biotech, directly to the human brain (such as Neuralink etc) then the advance becomes more than just 'degree,' it becomes new functionality, not possible before. Such as the guy Neil Harbisson, who many consider the first true cyborg, as he 'hears' colour.Isn't the difference just one of degree? — bert1
3. Act as a single connected intellect and as separate intellects.
— universeness
Regarding 3
This might be a case of emergence, depending on what you mean. It's conceivable it's already happening I guess. Are you suggesting the barriers that individual people dissolve, such that we become one person, with pooled experiences and thoughts? — bert1
There as always been enough food to feed everyone on the planet, every day. It's the distribution system that's flawed. — universeness
Globally, it has been estimated that 26,082 tonnes of food, goes to waste every single day. — universeness
Like many other intensive farms, soy farms not only harm the environment but also have numerous social impacts, especially on rural communities. While soybean production can boost economic growth, it can also increase income inequality and affect human health via water pollution and occupational hazards.Jan 25, 2022
Soy Farms: Is Soy Farming Bad for the Environment? | FFAC — FFAC
And you remain consistent with the optimism. I’m sure somebody will fix it. Just somebody else, and please not while I’m around.At least you are consistent in your imagery of pessimism and dystopia for future humans. — universeness
There are those that might be capable of it, but they are not the ones in a position to do anything about it. Certainly not by the process you suggest for assigning these positions. Not one of them would be electable. You need a pessimist for one thing. Nobody is going to take evasive action if they refuse to see the train coming.Are you sure NOBODY wants to ensure the well-being, thriving and progression of our species, towards becoming as benevolent a presence in the universe as is possible?
OK, they got rid of the aristocracy, just as the French did. It was better than before, but it was never communist except in name. Maybe briefly at first, but people needed to eat and keep warm.There are definite similarities, between my politics, and the intentions of the hero masses of Russia and China, that got rid of the vile monarchy, aristocracy, plutocracy that ruled those country's so badly.
Yea, I don’t know enough about how all that worked. My knowledge of the transition to that gangster state is pretty poor. Don’t know how it all kind of worked before then, or how the rest of the world dealt with such a state.'The Plan,' as formed in Russia to create a fair, money free, socioeconomic system in Russia, was a brilliant system, that worked very well for the Russian people, when it was first introduced. Russia's decline into the totalitarian gangster state, it is now, started when the truly evil Stalin took power.
Hence my interest in designing a better system, even if only on paper. But my expertise makes me a naive contributor at best. They tried to do it in the USA, but clearly mistakes were made.An utterly crucial lesson, we have all, yet to fully understand and learn how to successfully prevent from happening again.
Admittedly, people are readily willing to shell out tens of thousands of dollars to garner an imagined approval from complete strangers. I wonder how much I fool myself into thinking I’m not impressed by it.There are very serious social consequences. People will still want to know answers to questions such as 'so what do you do?'
They’re forced to? They’re able bodied and educatable. That path isn’t forced. Taught maybe.The difference between then and now, is that they will have truly CHOSEN to live their life like that, rather than be forced to, as the majority who are experiencing life like that today, are forced to.
I vote. I hadn’t any plans to go into politics and rise to the levels where such things are decided.Well noticed! don't you think you should work with those who are trying to remove such consequences of the capitalist money trick?
OK. Suppose somebody is a very talented and popular artist. She creates works that are far more in demand than there is supply. So it goes onto the barter market and she gets wealthy with whatever the medium of exchange is. In the mean time, to the state she’s a non-contributor since none of her work contributes to the well-being of the whole. At best her side ‘income’ at least pays for the better art supplies since the state isn’t going to find need there if her work is on the non-contributor status just like all the other authors, artists and hobbyists, the ones whose work is noticed by a handful of people at best.I have no problem with the 'black market' you describe in the quote above.
If someone wants, say, an old/vintage car collection, that they do up, and show to others and drive around, then, the 'barter' system you describe, sounds good to me.
Everyone can take their basic means of survival for granted. As long as that is available to EVERYONE with no conditions attached, and such rights CANNOT BE REMOVED by any new authority, then I think we can accomodate the majority of the wishes of those who prioritise 'independent expressions of personal freedom,' and also allow, 'entrepreneurial aspiration.'
Irrelevant. So does communication between the two of us, whether on this forum or in person. There’s probably at least half a dozon translations/format-conversions done between any such communication, and this is without a machine bothering to parse it to the point of understanding. The ‘make a photon’ instruction might be a single hole in a paper tape. That’s how say one note might be conveyed to a player piano.I think we are probably imagining the same thing. Obviously, your instruction above would be in an HLL or high level language that would require translation before execution. — universeness
OK, you are envisioning binary machine instructions. I wasn’t since such an instruction processing unit is optional just like it is with the piano which works just fine without one. Nothing wrong with doing it via machine instructions.The 'machine code' level is the language code we are discussing here , not your 'emit a positron' language (I doubt 'please' will be needed).
Ah, a sort of 3D printer for food. Is that so unimaginable?Employing a source of photons to produce a photon or positron is not my challenge. It's producing a tech that can create a Tbone stake by manipulating the proposed digital level fundamental of the universe.
As I said, that is impossible (energy conservation violation), and Star Trek never suggested such a capability, despite their complete willingness to discard physics when it suits their purpose.A Tbone steak, produced, from that which is traditionally described, as the vacuum of space.
I don’t think there is any such thing. It’s a nice image for some purposes is all.A wave of light is an electomagnetic analogue waveform of continuous peaks and troughs that traverses the vacuum of space at a fixed speed.
You can’t zoom into it. Light ‘packets’ unmeasured are undetectable. Light measured is no longer light. This isn’t true of something classical like a water wave, which may lose its wave nature if you zoom in, but there’s still something classical into which one can zoom.If you could zoom right into it, I would expect to find that it is made up of discrete packets of energy/field excitations which might be vibrating strings or undulations etc
The law is 'You SHALL NOT add your speed, to the speed of light!' — universeness
Not true. You just have to use relativistic addition just like adding velocities of anything under Einstein’s theory.
It seems that in other sites that you cite, the term ‘non-relativistic’ refers to pre-Einstein views like Newtonian physics. — noAxioms
Nice reference, but this is a pop video by Carl whose audience is the naive layman. This does not stand up to physics. He implies that light is some sort of exception, that if you are on a bicycle going 20 km/hr relative to the road and throw a rock forward at 20 km/hr relative to the bicycle, that the rock would be going at 40 km/hr relative to the road. Well it’s close to that due to the speed being so insanely low, but it assumes Newtonian relativity, as does pretty much the entire video, understandable due to the layman audience.[Carl Sagan clip on ‘Thou Shalt Not Add My Speed to the Speed of Light’ — universeness
Since I have no formal training in Philosophy, it has taken me a while to realize that you and are arguing from a Logical Positivism position, which says that there are no “open questions”, hence nothing for philosophers to contribute. Which explains why our vocabularies don't align. Ironically, the Vienna Circle argued themselves out of a job, since they claimed that empirical methods should replace the rational methods of traditional philosophy. That attitude makes the set of philosophical (open) questions empty. For example, Steven Hawking asserted that “philosophy is dead”. In which case this forum – including Uni & 180 -- is a major contributor to global warming : producing nothing but hot air. Hawking went on to say “Philosophy has not kept up with modern developments in science, particularly physics”. Based on that prejudice, he dismissed one Open Question : “did the universe need a creator?” I don't think he was dissembling, but he seems to be unaware of professional physicists (e.g. Paul Davies ; Santa Fe Institute), who do consider that to be a valid question, especially in the light of open-ended Quantum Physics.You will NEVER get past your gap god deity (deism), by trying to dress it up as a fake 'abstract philosophical principle.' You would be as well to claim that pixies, orcs, unicorns and the flying spaghetti monster are also important abstract philosophical principles. — universeness
That is not at all what we learn from history. Starvation was common and it brought civilizations down. — Athena
That's why we all need to work together as a single species to deal with those imbalances in supply and demand. For me Athena, the answers lie in a global organisation such as the UN. That is a construct that is still very much in it's infancy. The foundational concept of united nations is the direction we all need to focus on.Not all countries can meet their population's needs because they do not have enough agricultural land and water everywhere is becoming a serious problem. — Athena
Well, we have to start somewhere! So where you are and where I am and where everyone is, seems to be the only place we can start from. I know that's an almost pointless sentence Athena BUT, I go to Steven Pinker again, 'we can make things better, because we have demonstrated in the past that we already have.' You help people whenever you can, despite any 'shortfalls,' you are experiencing yourself, so, QED.I think the United Nations' statement is distorted by its mission. — Athena
About that economic and social problem, many farmers in India have killed themselves when they lost their plots to the intensive farmers. We can see in the US how corporate farmers have taken out small farmers. We can see the income disparity and the Native American fight for their environment with big corporations that threaten their land and water. We are not respecting limits and that is not a good thing but a path to destruction. — Athena
Oh, I so hope some of the fixing happens whilst you are around. I want to see you forced to put a half full sticker on your half empty approach to life and living. :halo:And you remain consistent with the optimism. I’m sure somebody will fix it. Just somebody else, and please not while I’m around. — noAxioms
People love to see trains coming. They bring stuff and take stuff and offer travel. It's just a bad idea to stand in front of a moving one, and it's necessary, to stop the nefarious, from deliberately fixing people in front of moving trains with no escape method. Don't focus on cure, focus on prevention.Nobody is going to take evasive action if they refuse to see the train coming. — noAxioms
I agree that the Russian or Chinese system that replaced their monarchies were never socialist/communist AT THE TOP. But many of the systems established by initiatives like the 'Gosplan' in Russia were indeed socialist and were successful for a while, and did feed people, kept them warm and treated them fairly, but the 'rot' and corruption at the top, soon filtered down. The Russian 'plan' worked fairly well for about 50 years.K, they got rid of the aristocracy, just as the French did. It was better than before, but it was never communist except in name. Maybe briefly at first, but people needed to eat and keep warm. — noAxioms
From wiki:Yea, I don’t know enough about how all that worked. — noAxioms
Time to get rid of any privately owned/shareholder based company, which has such global reach then.but global companies will just outsource their production to regions with rules that allow it. Rules being different from here to there messes it all up. There is no global authority. — noAxioms
Not in the 'immediate' way you suggest but slowly and surely and only based on their democratic consent, YES!What would such an authority do? Hand first world minimal living standards to even the most primitive places on the planet? — noAxioms
The rewards involved in helping others, can be as much of an ego boost, as someone telling you what what an amazing artist, singer, writer, scientist, capitalist, warrior, devil, angel, worshiper, athlete or tiddlywinker you are. All people seek the approval of others, no matter how much anyone might deny it, imo.Admittedly, people are readily willing to shell out tens of thousands of dollars to garner an imagined approval from complete strangers. I wonder how much I fool myself into thinking I’m not impressed by it. — noAxioms
The difference between then and now, is that they will have truly CHOSEN to live their life like that, rather than be forced to, as the majority who are experiencing life like that today, are forced to.
They’re forced to? They’re able bodied and educatable. That path isn’t forced. Taught maybe. — noAxioms
Good, I am glad you vote, I hope you vote for those who are closest to secular humanism, based on the best of a bad bunch approach, if that's all that's on your local menu, and if it is all that's on offer, then perhaps you do need to get involved yourself.I vote. I hadn’t any plans to go into politics and rise to the levels where such things are decided. — noAxioms
OK. Suppose somebody is a very talented and popular artist. She creates works that are far more in demand than there is supply. So it goes onto the barter market and she gets wealthy with whatever the medium of exchange is. In the mean time, to the state she’s a non-contributor since none of her work contributes to the well-being of the whole. At best her side ‘income’ at least pays for the better art supplies since the state isn’t going to find need there if her work is on the non-contributor status just like all the other authors, artists and hobbyists, the ones whose work is noticed by a handful of people at best. — noAxioms
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