As far as I can tell, I can't make a decision not to be aware either. I can't just BECOME ROCK. I WILL continue to be aware against my wishes until I sleep. But also I don’t know if being aware is a “decision” either. — khaled

Where did this “no decisions are irretrievable” come from. I can sometimes feel like i dont want to think about something right now then become aware of it later. What makes a rock not the same way? — khaled

This is not against your wishes - it just seems that way. You are automatically aware of some information, but not others. The way I see it, you only need to become aware of how you subconsciously decide to be aware or not in order to change it if you wish. Take another look at the blindfold example I described in a previous post.

Thinking about something is not the same as being aware of it. That ‘something’ you don’t want to think about right now? You’ve likely already become aware of it (even if you’ve chosen not to be aware how the decision was made), but you’re choosing not to connect with that information at this point, for whatever reason. That doesn’t mean you can’t recognise (even subconsciously) that the raw information matters somehow, and later retrieve it from memory (or choose to be aware of the same information in a later experience) when it becomes more significant to connect and collaborate with the information.

I think what we call a rock, on the other hand, has a very limited connection between molecules, and these (both collectively and individually) have no memory as such, no sense of time. What a rock molecule ‘experiences’ is not in relation to time, but in relation only to the information in question. A molecule embodies the information it encounters, or it doesn’t. That’s it.

I think it's correct to say material things make us happy. Evolutionarily, it makes sense that having many resources would help an organism survive, and things that help an organism survive make an organism happy. Of course, holiday decorations aren't going to help you fight off wild animals or collect food, but they are certainly a sign of status. Even less intelligent animals collect objects for no other reason than to climb the social ladder. — TogetherTurtle

This is an interesting view. Less intelligent animals do it, so that’s what we should be aiming for? Is this what evolution has led us to?

I often wonder why we find value in pursuing such transient notions of ‘happiness’. Things that might help an organism survive make an organism ‘happy’ for such a short amount of time. In case you hadn’t noticed, ‘survival’ as a life goal is a rort. Like Sisyphus, it’s a fruitless exercise. ‘Nobody gets out alive!’

We’ve been working so hard to maximise our power, influence and control because we think it helps us to survive, but we’re never really successful at that in the end, are we? Even if you consider ‘survival’ value as either population or total mass of a species, we’re still outdone by the ants, of all creatures.

It’s time to recognise that we’ve been climbing a ladder that goes nowhere. We think the only things that matter to me are what is valuable to me, but that’s not quite correct. Because I can recognise that something matters to me because it’s valuable to someone who’s valuable to me, even if that something holds no value in itself for me.

Interesting discussion. I’d always thought of philosophy as a kind of bridge between science and theology in many ways. I guess it depends on where you stand.

I have to reveal something shocking: no decisions/choices are made in/by consciousness! It is too late in the brain process. What gets into consciousness are always the results/products of the neural processing that is already over and done with, at least for that instance, and that took time (300-500ms), plus there is also part of that time going into unifying the objects/qualia as well as stitching them to what was there previously (via short term memory) to achieve continuity. The objects in conscious are always a view of the past, and the brain is already on to building the next thought. — PoeticUniverse

Not so shocking - I’m aware of the research. It’s based on a decision to act in a predetermine way at a ‘chosen’ time. It makes sense that this type of decision doesn’t require conscious thought - what requires a conscious decision is to be aware of the details of the decision, which of course happens after the decision is made.

Objects in consciousness are pre-processed, yes. Once we recognise certain arrangements of sensory data, consciousness fills in the blanks from memory and moves on. If you’ve seen the visual sensory data images replicated, they look like fuzzy, non-descript shapes. New sensory information grabs our conscious attention as it makes its way through the three gates, and we have the capacity to consciously intervene (even with pre-processed information) to change whether or not we choose to be aware of, connect with and collaborate with that information.

I don’t know. My ability to decide to be aware of anything is extremely hampered a lot of the time. I think what I’m aware of at any given moment is due in large part to what is going on in my environment, my current emotional state (which doesn’t seem to me to be something I decide), and what I’m thinking about (which isn’t ALWAYS a choice and is usually due in large part to the current environment and current emotional state). Hence, I still think the will, which I think is the intention to decide or act, is only free when it is not coerced. — Noah Te Stroete

Hampered - yes. Constrained - not unless you allow it to be. The thing about human awareness is that most of it operates at a subconscious level. We can drive a car while only occasionally paying conscious attention to most of our actions. We can eat a sandwich while totally absorbed in a TV show. We’ve consciously predetermined these actions based on past experience. When you first learned to drive a car, you had to be consciously aware of how far down you pressed the pedal each time. Now you determine that pressure automatically based on bodily awareness that doesn’t need to be consciously attended to. The same with learning how to eat.

But you choose to be aware of your current emotional state or not, for instance, and then you can choose to revoke its capacity to influence decision-making processes when it looks like it could be getting out of hand. Fear is one emotion that tends to shut down awareness, connection and collaboration - but the more you choose to become aware of where this fear comes from and at what point it shuts down useful interactions (and why), the more you are able to consciously revoke its capacity to do this, and choose a different strategy.

So your decision-making processes can be coerced in certain directions when you’re not paying attention, but you only have to pay attention and become more aware of your options to free it up again.

Every animal, even a genetic clone (I imagine) would be subject to different circumstances, at various points in their existence, from others. Some of these might be quite random differences, like the position of a fish within a school, birth order or relative position in the womb, and each of these would impact even in the smallest way on how they relate in the same circumstances as another.

On a large scale, even groups of people are predictable, but individually they’re not at all.

Of course, the further down the evolutionary scale, the less experiences, so the less opportunities for variety in individual circumstances. Lifespan also affects variety of interactions with the world.

I'll have to take 'unconstrained' as indicating no coercion, since the will is constrained by its amount of information plus how good the information is. — PoeticUniverse

This is why I sought to look deeper into this idea of ‘will’ and get to the primary, initiating faculty behind all decisions and all acts - to see if there is an element that remains unconstrained by the amount or quality/accuracy of information.

Here’s what I found:

1. Regardless of what information you currently have or don’t have, your decision to simply be aware of presented information or not is fundamentally unconstrained. You can subconsciously suppress or even be coerced to disagree with the information or rationalise it away later based on your assessment of the information, but the fact that you CAN either accept or reject awareness in that initial moment, either by a direct conscious act or having previously surrendered that decision to subconscious processes, depends neither on the nature of the information, nor on any previous information you may or may not have. You can resume conscious control of that decision at any time, but once aware of information, you cannot then be unaware.

2. Once aware, your decision to connect with the information at any level is also made freely. This isn’t a question of how you connect with the information or for what purpose, but simply whether or not you connect with it at all. So, you could be aware of a noise, but choose not to connect this sound information received with any other information you may have that could tell you what it might be. You still don’t know what it is, so this decision is not constrained by or dependent on the amount or quality of the information.

3. If you had chosen to connect to the information, then you may determine that the noise wasn’t the cat but something/someone unexpected downstairs. You must then choose whether or not to collaborate with the information: to integrate it and enable it to determine your response, or dismiss it. Again, this yes/no choice is made freely, and exactly how you collaborate is irrelevant at this stage in the decision.

These three simple yes/no decisions constitute the ‘will’ - everything else depends on sensory data, time, memory, relevant information, values and belief systems, etc. Everything else to do with deciding and initiating action can be seen as determined by other factors.

If you describe the will as generally ‘what decides and initiates action’, then you risk equating it with thought, belief, logic, etc., which are all determined by circumstances. Looking back on your decisions you perceive the determining factors only, but not the gates that opened or closed to initiate these causal links and reject others.

well then I’m in trouble - I do that all the time! :yikes:

What is a bicycle computer? — Noah Te Stroete

Ha ha. I’m not sure, but I can speculate based on my understanding of what a bicycle is and what a computer is.

Saying individual people matter is a statement of human value. We are social animals and we like to hang around with each other. In general, I think there is a consensus among us humans that it is true. Consensus doesn't mean unanimous agreement. There are some who don't agree. — T Clark

What has value is related to, but not the same as, what matters. Saying that an ant is insignificant is not necessarily the same as saying the ant doesn’t matter.

So saying ‘individual people matter’ is not negating the fact that an individual is insignificant or has little value in relation to the cosmos. An individual has certain value in relation to humanity, but has a different perspective of value in relation to their family unit.

It all depends on how one relates.

Yes - and I think you have found that here with most respondents. They acknowledge your grief and that - despite their own value system which in some cases excludes a ten-week old foetus within the significance of ‘personhood’ - your relationship to this experience of personhood and loss has immense value to you, and therefore matters. But you can’t expect them to value it the same way that you do.

Meaning in relation to logic is precisely what I mean by constraining what matters within a particular system of significance. Even Cohen acknowledges that reasoning is not the only way people arrive at beliefs - he just dismisses other methods as illogical: as outside the value system of logic. That doesn’t mean they don’t matter in relation to how we interact with the world and each other as human beings.

1. we define free will as A;
2. we have A.
Therefore, we have free will. — Arne

There are others in this discussion who seem to think that ‘free will’ must be defined as a concept, but I disagree with this, and regret not making this clearer at the outset. I think you need to define ‘will’ and ‘free’ separately first and foremost, and then discuss whether or not the will IS free.

To clarify:

Will: the basic faculty by which one decides and initiates action.

Free: unconstrained.

It is in interpreting the definition of ‘will’ that I think the real dispute lies.

It remains, that nomatter the level of personhood a being has, it is still a person. — Mark Dennis

I recognised something just the other day, while following the discussion on meaning: that when we talking about something being meaningful, it’s not quite the same as having meaning. We have a tendency to constrain what matters within its particular significance, and call the relation ‘meaning’, but in truth it doesn’t really need to have significance or value for me in order to matter.

I have a feeling the same problem is occurring here. Regardless of whether or not the experience of your unborn child had any significance or value as a person to anyone else but you, it matters. But it’s not the same thing. Whether we call it personhood or not is a matter of semantics, but I recognise this is important in terms of ethics because we relate the way in which ‘personhood’ matters so closely to the way in which this ‘personhood’ is then valued - to its significance in relation to more familiar experiences such as loss, abortion, human rights laws and even a normal social conversation.

The reality is that we don’t need to attribute our own sense of value or significance to an experience that isn’t ours in order for it to matter, despite this being a natural reaction. It’s how we interact with your relationship to the experience that counts: ‘It matters to me because it has value for you’. Unfortunately, our language isn’t very effective at making this distinction clear enough at this point.

No. Concepts aren't potential anything, and they're not just energy. Nothing is just energy.

Concepts are particular brain states, in particular individuals. — Terrapin Station

So how do you explain a photon? Is it a concept or a physical process?

I’m just trying to get a sense of where you’re coming from, to see where I still have work to do.

I’m not too clear on what you mean by ‘brain states’ either, so you might need to explain that one to me as well. As I understand it, the theory of brain states (as patterns of synchronous neural firings on the electrical face of the brain?) is not entirely incompatible with this theory of potentiality. I don’t know enough about it to be sure, though.

Matter/energy is real and very tangible. The idea that any effect on it can come from something that's neither is ridiculous. Do you really believe concepts or experiences have a physical weight to them somehow? Please expand. — Razorback kitten

Not a physical weight. But our awareness of the existence of concepts and experiences (as relations between events and objects in time) nevertheless impacts on how we perceive and interact with these real events and tangible objects.

And when we recognise that these tangible objects are basically relations between energy events, and that we are basically an interrelated system of relations between energy events, then the idea that any effect can come from a relation between relations between relations between energy events isn’t so ridiculous after all...

You present a good argument. However, in the field of battle, an order may feel more like coercion than a choice. — Noah Te Stroete

I understand that. In the field of battle you are continually under threat, yet a threat from your CO feels different to a threat from bullets or bombing. As I mentioned before, in the discourse of war, everything is pared down to a basic fight for survival, and I get that it would be so much easier to not think and simply follow orders. But you still make the choice to step out of the driver’s seat.

When did we make it heroic to temporarily cease to be a human being and become the system? I cannot agree with this 20th century Hollywood ‘hero’ ideal of morally justifying a leave pass from civilised society in order to ‘right a wrong’. With the mental issues of returning soldiers, it should be painfully obvious that this ‘movie script’ expectation doesn’t reflect real experience.

Unfortunately, as in nearly all domains of human experience, there will be ignorance and the ignorant. Even many mathematicians are ignorant of constitutional law, for example. Are soldiers, who as a plurality seem to come from poor and underprivileged communities with underperforming educational systems, to be held to the same standard as the physician in ethical concerns? I’m not sure.

Furthermore, any American should feel gratitude to the all volunteer military for protecting our homeland. It is a great sacrifice. That said, soldiers are sent into questionable wars all the time. Politicians should be held to a higher ethical standard than the common GI.

These are my thoughts on the subject. — Noah Te Stroete

A mathematician may have been ignorant of constitutional law, but they continue to be ignorant only if they choose not to be aware once the information is presented.

I’m not talking about trust-laden ethical standards of physicians, though. I’m talking about the choice one makes to ‘protect our homeland’ by shooting dead a human being half a world away. I’m in no position to pass moral judgement myself - particularly against a soldier, whose situation is markedly different from my own. I haven’t, and would never, ask anyone to make that sacrifice for me - although I can at least appreciate the sentiment.

But don’t tell me they can’t be held responsible for an ‘immoral act’ because they were ‘just following orders’. They don’t need an education to realise that they are interacting with a human being - they choose to acknowledge or ignore that information, to connect that information to their actions and to pull the trigger. At the end of the day it is their personal value system making those decisions and no one else.

I’m not going to morally position a soldier’s actions, but many others will, rightly or wrongly. I’m saying that a soldier must be brave enough to hold themselves to account for the choices they make, and not hide behind authority. So I lean towards the German version of soldier’s rights and responsibilities as described by @WerMaat.

I think when we give soldiers, politicians, police, business owners, priests, etc permission to shirk responsibility for their actions and hide behind an illusion of authority from some higher or universal power, influence or control, then we invite them to act without regard for the ethical standards to which we hold everyone else accountable.

Now, if the morality and identity of a soldier is totally subjective, we would be the total arbiters of right and wrong (which shouldn't be a surprise). And that as an entirety, is every soldier entitled to respect of today's people, for attending war, despite of any immoral action they could've done? — SethRy

When we evaluate the morality of a soldier’s actions, we position them according to our own current perspective of value. However, when a soldier acts, he/she positions those acts according to his/her perspective of value at the time.

The situation of war is one in which a set or system of value that assumes power, influence or control based on its supposed universality is exposed as subjective, and therefore finite, fragile and/or false. It is as much a battle to resume the illusion of power, influence and control among its own ranks as it is a battle against an alternative set of values, people or places in the world.

Soldiers are recruited particularly from among those who have little to no awareness of, connection to or collaboration with alternative values, people or places outside of the threatened value system, and therefore are positioned to view everything they encounter outside the system as a fundamental threat to existence as they know it. The entire discourse of war for a soldier further intensifies this equation: survival of the system is of the utmost significance.

Once the war is over, all actions are morally positioned according to the prevailing value system, which resumes an illusion of universality or righteousness, and is given power, influence and control once again.

BUT here’s what I think we need to recognise: each of us have freely given power, influence and control to these value systems, including the soldiers. Whatever reasons they may use to justify their actions, they chose to collaborate with the willful destruction or suppression of a human perspective that was not their own. They chose to disconnect from a part of humanity. And they chose to be ignorant or dismissive of any and all alternatives to a course of action laid out for them. If you have the courage to risk your life for others, then surely you have the courage to be responsible for the choices only you can make in any interaction to be aware, to connect and to collaborate.

I respect any soldier’s decision to go to war, but they cannot then absolve themselves of responsibility for their actions in that war, regardless of the value system they subscribe to. Following orders is not an excuse to be ignorant. Sorry.

The best we can do is recognize others are different and try to learn from them. Not only does this lead to becoming better thinkers, it also leads to discovery, of ourselves and the world around us. — Noah Te Stroete

‘Regardless of its significance to me, it matters because of its significance to you’.

I think we struggle to understand and therefore discover the world at this level, and instead feel compelled to position all interactions in relation to our perspective of value - particularly moral value. And so everything must be positioned somewhere within our own value structure, otherwise it cannot be deemed to exist.

Until very recently, and in other discussions here, I struggled with what I considered to be a dual concept of ‘meaning’: that even though I cannot decipher the meaning of something, it is still meaningful. But I think recognising that elements of the world can matter without being significant to me is the key. I don’t have to evaluate every interaction with the world from my perspective in order to understand it exists in the world, just as I don’t have to touch something or to be there myself to understand that it’s real.

Can we recognise something we deem to be insignificant or worthless as something that matters in the world without then deriving some position of value for it?

I'm a physicalist, so on my view, concepts, subjective experience, etc. are physical processes. — Terrapin Station

So you would find it sufficient to explain concepts such as potential energy - a physical process, in your view - with an equation, as @leo has done above?

The idea is much simpler than that. We can't have motion, and we can't have forces transferred, etc., without having SOMETHING that is moving, something that is applying and receiving forces, etc. — Terrapin Station

So, when you say ‘SOMETHING’ here, do you mean it must always be a physical, tangible something applying or receiving forces, or could it be a conceptual, abstract or subjective experience of ‘something’ that interacts with a physical something and in doing so effects an applied force?

Why did the object accelerate during the fall? Well we don't know, that's just what we observe, and we model that through a law, talking about energy doesn't explain anything, saying that there was a potential stored in the object that got released during the fall and made the object accelerate is just one abstract way of looking at it, but if you choose to reify that potential as something concrete that really got converted or actualized during the fall, maths and physics won't tell you anything about that (so don't spend years studying maths and physics in the hope that you will find such an explanation in there). — leo

First of all, potential cannot be something concrete - I’m confident of that much, at least. It’s a concept: a 5D experience that has no evidence or location in spacetime, and yet has value in that it interacts with objects that are open or receptive to the experience in such a way as to effect a spacetime event. I’m not so much looking for an existing explanation in maths and physics anymore as gaining an understanding of the discourse so that I can explain this theory in a way that invites consideration rather than laughter or quizzical expressions.

Rovelli’s acknowledgement that physics currently makes more sense as a study of relations between 4D events rather than 3D things, and that time is not only finite and relative but possibly also granular is encouraging. It’s another step towards considering the concept of a five dimensional universe in which we interact with spacetime events in relation to value.

I genuinely feel for your loss. The immense value that these unborn children had for you and your fiancé is real, regardless of any evidence of being in time, and their impact on you in this respect reflects their personhood in your experience, despite what anyone else believes. So if they had died at the age of one, I would say that the loss you now feel would seem to be shared by others to the extent that they shared your experience of valuing that child’s personhood, their unique potential, and had opened themselves up to its impact upon their own. Then I guess the child’s value would at least appear more real, and you would perhaps feel less alone in your grief, so long as you had the courage to connect and work together in coming to terms with your loss, as I imagine you would now with your fiancé. But otherwise I would think the grief itself would be the same.

In the same respect, the value that you then attribute to future generations, regardless of your genetic connection to them, is a choice only you can make. If you value anything about the potential universe beyond your own finite physical existence, then you can work towards realising that potential in some way. You make the connection and attribute value to it. You open yourself up to being aware of and valuing the unique potential of others, to allowing their potential to collaborate with your own and enable you to contribute in greater, more meaningful ways. Genetics has nothing to do with it, in my opinion. It’s only an awareness that contributes to your perception of value, in the end.

In doing so, however, you also open yourself up to experiencing more pain and loss, because each of us only has a finite physical impact on the universe anyway, despite our efforts. I’m afriad I can’t sugar-coat that for you. You can attempt to disconnect from what you value, pretend to value less and try to minimise your impact on the universe in an effort to minimise suffering, but in my view that isn’t really living, is it? I think at some point we have to realise that pain, loss and vulnerability are part of life, humbly accept our share of it, and focus on what we can do together to share the load without adding to it. Because I think our unique potential to achieve anything is only increased by our connection and collaboration with others.

There's no reason to believe that it's something other than the "doing" you're referring to. But the incoherence of doing sans something doing isn't linguistic, it's ontological. — Terrapin Station

I think I get what you’re saying, but the way I see it, any state of being is finite in time. The doing refers to an event that loses its status as an entity once it’s measured. Energy measured is a difference in relational 3D information states over time, just as a photon measured becomes a moving particle. Even a life measured becomes a series of relational 3D information states over time. So yes, a doing or being that can’t be measured in relation to time doesn’t cohere.

When I talk about potentiality, I’m talking about what we experience or value without any evidence of it being. Like the potential we value when we interact with a young child, or when we experience love at first sight. When we value it, we are motivated to make arrangements which will enable that potential to be realised in time.

The concept of energy is problematic when we say that it causes things, or that it is what matter is made of. — leo

I agree with you on the problem of causation, and I haven’t mentioned casuality at this stage for that reason. It certainly doesn’t help to say that energy causes things.

As for what matter is made of, I agree that this is also problematic, and I did attempt to express that with my reply “I find I can best describe it as...” - but I see now that was way too subtle.

If I launch a ball upwards and it decelerates, why do I have to say that it decelerates because its kinetic energy is converted into potential energy, why can't I simply say that I observe it decelerates and I model that through the concept of gravitational acceleration, or through the mathematical concepts of kinetic and potential energy? Energy there appears simply as a concept, a tool of thought, a model of motion or of change, not a cause of motion or of change.

Then if we say that energy is what matter is made of, and we can't say what energy is, then what does it mean to say that matter is made of energy? If we say that energy is the ability to do work, what does it mean to say that matter is made of an ability? — leo

This is one part I’m still trying to find a way to explain: how this concept of energy, as ‘the capacity to do work’, shifts to and from potentially and actually doing work. But I don’t have the physics or math background to conceive or critique any formula for the connection.

The concept of ‘potential energy’, to me, refers to a connection between dimensions, which I see as closely related to awareness - to the yes/no questions of integrating information. Because all inanimate matter is fixed in terms of how it can or can’t receive information or interact, the relationship between potential and active energy states is largely predictable. In relation to energy events (eg. Chemical reactions, movement, etc), the yes/no answers have the potential to change relative to time. I see this ‘awareness’ of time occurring within an energy event as a connection to this fourth dimension.

In relation to living matter, the answers can be different relative to the perceived value of information changes from interacting events over time. This I see as a connection to a fifth dimension, one in which creatures are aware of experiences in relation to events, and it’s here that an awareness of potential energy originates. Potential energy points to our capacity to experience energy - to be aware of it and seek to quantify it - even when it isn’t actually doing work. We can’t measure it until it acts, but we can value it, recognise its potential and ‘set up’ inanimate matter predisposed to interact in a way that enables the doing of work.

This one is troublesome for one who "knows, loves, and relates", for a system of mind and an emotional system would have parts (that would have to be more fundamental). — PoeticUniverse

I had a feeling I would lose people here. As I said, I’m still finding ways to explain how everything is connected in my head. The idea of ‘love’ (agape) in relation to potentiality has nothing to do with emotion, and we cannot claim sufficient understanding of consciousness to be sure that a ‘system of mind’ that ‘knows’ (is aware of anything) from outside of time would even have parts, given that potentiality has no discernible form in spacetime.

Potentiality relating to itself is the essence of this idea of ‘interaction of potentiality’. This capacity of inter-relatability is absolute but far from fully actualised - actuality requiring interaction occurring in spacetime, which necessitates all the ‘parts’ to be aware, connected and collaborating. As Rovelli says: “A physical system manifests itself only by interaction with another.”

So I agree that in our search for a higher being we must look to the future, rather than the past. With no discernible form in spacetime, I don’t see potentiality as being at all.

Yeah, I don't buy it. Also I can't see any paradigm shift in this direction. It's just fancy spiritualism. — Razorback kitten

I don’t subscribe to spiritualism, and I’m not sure where you read that here. Perhaps it was the G-word that prompted you to close your mind all of a sudden? You won’t see much of anything that way, let alone any paradigm shift. Too bad.

The fact is that if there is meaning there then it is, in principle at least, decipherable.Of course it could be deciphered more or less correctly or incorrectly, but that possibility does not exist in the case of the meaningless marks; we would simply be making a mistake if we tried to decipher it. — Janus

The thing about your perception of ‘deciphering’, though, is that it implies one ‘correct’ meaning, which is unlikely to be the case. If it were about cracking a code, then there would only be one ‘correct’ translation of any biblical text, for instance.

In the case of ‘meaningless’ marks, it would indeed be a mistake to assume they correspond to a written language, but I don’t think any marks are meaningless. They could be patterns that mark the tablet for a particular use, as belonging to a certain family, tribe or social strata, or they could be the random, idle patterns of a skilled artisan’s blade on a bench. They are still meaningful. Forming a relationship with both the sign/symbol and what is significant that most closely resembles that of the original interaction is still what is required in this case, so the process of ‘deciphering’, as you put it, is still important.

What influence would considering matter as potential have on the future?

You said this way of thinking allows the gaps in our understanding to dissolve away (for you). So how? — Razorback kitten

I will clarify, first of all, that I’m talking about matter as energy, which is a manifestation of the interaction of potentiality. When we say ‘matter as potential’, the tendency is to still see potentiality as a physical ‘object’ or event, which it isn’t. Personally, I find it easier to think of potentiality as a concept. I hope that makes sense, for now.

As for dissolving gaps, I’ll try to explain the first big paradigm shift for me, because it relates closely to what I mean by concept: the question of ‘God’. This was a big one for me because I was raised Catholic. And I apologise to anyone who feels this derails the thread.

I realised that Aristotle’s (and later Aquinas’) understanding of God as ‘pure actuality’ was not based solely on reason, but on a bias towards substance: that something is more valuable than nothing. He saw matter as a passive receptacle, a receptive substratum of form - effectively nothing in itself. But this ‘nothing’ is what the universe must have started with, if we recognise what physics is now telling us.

Rovelli: “For a long time, we have tried to understand the world in terms of some primary substance. Perhaps physics, more than any other discipline, has pursued this primary substance. But the more we have studied it, the less the world seems comprehensible in terms of something that is. It seems to be a lot more intelligible in terms of relations between events.”

So it seemed to me that Aristotle has effectively convinced us to overlook the possibility that the concept we call ‘God’ IS potentiality. This shift in thinking turns much of religion on its head, but what I saw was what I understood about ‘God’ more than anything else I was taught: that God is love. And if you’ve ever genuinely understood what it is to love someone, then you’d understand that love in action IS realising potential. It became very clear to me that ‘God’ was not some supreme being with all power, influence and control, but was instead this concept we call potentiality, the underlying source of all being, which (following David Bentley Hart’s properties of God):

- is not temporal;
- is not composite or ‘dissoluble into parts on which it is dependent’;
- is not ‘a being among beings’ or ‘dependent upon some larger sphere of actuality’;
- is omnipresent, omnipotent and omniscient;
- is logically necessary; and
- is personal: ‘knows, loves and relates’ to us all.

Yes but what difference does it make? It's just a more complicated way of pushing the buck. I could say space is the only thing which exists because without it, nothing could. Or energy, time... — Razorback kitten

I understand potentiality to be ‘the capacity to develop, achieve and succeed that is not yet realised’. This is what we access whenever we interact with the universe, and that it is only when we are aware of potential that we can realise it.

So it’s not quite the same as saying that nothing could exist without space, for instance.

Well we can obviously address different senses of 'meaning', without having to be concerned over whether we have covered every possible sense of the term. — Janus

Of course you can, but you will have limited your understanding of the term in the process, and you cannot then ‘talk about meaning’ objectively, (in relation to the praxis of living, for instance) from this position.

So, it would be in keeping with common usage to say in the latter case that the tablet has meaning, even though it may presently have no determinate meaning for us, because we have not deciphered it. — Janus

I agree with you here only in some respects. I think that meaning is an aspect of the universe that potentially exists as a relationship between everything, regardless of whether or not anything is aware, connects or integrates that information.

But the tablet in question (or any inscribed mark) does not have a specific inherent meaning as separate from its relationship to both the observer and what is significant to that observer. In ‘deciphering’ the tablet as a text, an observer must attempt to form a relationship with both the signs/symbols and what is significant that most closely resembles that of the original cultural agreement. They then attempt to reflect that relationship in their translation/meaning by referring to a different relationship with different signs/symbols and what is significant to the observer. It is an inexact process that at best reflects meaning, but does not find it in the tablet as such.

The tablet, undecipherable, still has a relationship with the observer, albeit in relation to a slightly different significance: the awareness of a cultural experience that exists in our collective past. And as such, regardless of whether the marks were random or inscribed to convey anything, it is meaningful.

So, it would be in keeping with common usage to say in the latter case that the tablet has meaning, even though it may presently have no determinate meaning for us, because we have not deciphered it. — Janus

We're just back to what does "mean" mean. — T Clark

In my view, we can talk about meaning in the same way that we can talk about algebra: as variables in relation to each other. But these variables are themselves algebraic equations, with their own variables that are algebraic equations. That’s enough to do anyone’s head in, and it’s probably why alcontali’s writing is so complicated.

Meaning is about as complicated as it gets for us, and any attempt to simplify it ends up having the same capacity of a photograph in portraying a full concert experience. But that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t show the photographs anyway, with a ‘you had to be there’ disclaimer.

Paintings are not insignificant, or unimportant, they just don't mean anything. — T Clark

They do mean something, but the ‘something’ isn’t fixed. That something is always going to be different for a different observer, and will also change in relation to the value structure they employ in interacting with the painting.

This is what I’m trying to say - meaning is a dimensional aspect of how we interact with the universe. One far broader than space, time and value.

We can’t satisfactorily define ‘time’, for instance, unless we examine it from a theoretical position in which time is irrelevant. Any attempt to define time in relation to a universe of objects, to position time within a time-dependent discourse, is fractured at best - like your definitions for ‘meaning’ listed above. Time is relative to the living, and meaning is relative to the observer. It points to the difficulty of clearly positioning meaning within meaning. Like trying to locate a photon without measuring it.

This is why @creativesoul’s definition of meaning is an expression of the relationship of the observer to a value structure.

I’ve been looking for some time now, to no avail. At best, I’ve been able to observe a convergence towards it - from Aristotle’s misguided dismissal of potential as ‘nothing’, through to Carlo Rovelli’s perspective of the universe in physics as ‘interrelated events’. Almost every area of philosophical, theoretical physics and theological speculation appears to point to it, like the gravitational field points to dark matter.

All the current gaps and contradictions in our understanding - the origin of the universe, quantum mechanics, abiogenesis, consciousness, the question of ‘God’ - all seem to dissolve for me in light of the interaction of potentiality as the underlying ‘substance’ of the universe, the fundamental ground of all being. But that’s a lot of ground to cover.

I get the sense that we’re all teetering on the edge of a colossal paradigm shift. This is why I’m here: to find ways to support the theory and familiarise myself with the most suitable discourse, without sounding crazy. In my own research on this, I’ve realised that there are far too many more intelligent and knowledgeable people and teams out there who are a hair’s breadth away from discovering this in their own fields of research for me think my philosophical ramblings can achieve anything except perhaps to nudge them over the lip, or point out connections or collaborations they maybe hadn’t considered yet.

I still believe everything is made out of just empty space. However contradictory it is.

New question. Is empty space the same as nothing?

Empty is the same as nothing in most senses but space implies a size, a dimension. Or maybe the question is wrong. — Razorback kitten

Empty space cannot be truly empty, just as nothing is not a complete lack of existence, if we’re talking about what IS if no ‘thing’ can be said to exist without it.

The way I see it, what exists is potentiality, because without it, nothing CAN exist. Does that make sense?

What's any energy, regardless of perspective, made of? — Razorback kitten

I find I can best describe it as the interaction of potentiality.

Last week a friend and I visited the Institute of Contemporary Art in Boston. We got in an interesting discussion with one of the guides there. I said, although I'm not certain it's true, that paintings and other visual arts don't mean anything because only words have meaning. She and my friend disagreed. — T Clark

An interesting discussion. The way I see it, it’s not that paintings and other visual arts don’t mean anything - it’s that any meaning attributed to them is relative to the observer’s limited position within the various structures of the universe in which we interact.

We have made use of meaning in the world by containing it within certain value structures: in discourse, logic, numbers, language, etc. This is how we understand what meaning is. In the same way, we have made practical use of subjective, value-laden experiences by understanding them as contained within certain 4D event structures such as evolution, life, and of 4D events such as a person by containing it within a 3D object. This is how we try to make sense of and interact with the universe.

So a straight-forward photograph is a 2D container for 3D objects that refer to 4D events with 5D experiences, and we can follow the logic of containment and relate to the structure of meaning in it.

But most artworks these days don’t follow this: they can invite us to find meaning in objects or events without referring to a particular experience, or even in shapes or colours that don’t refer to specific objects. They challenge us to recognise meaning outside of these standard structures: to realise that our understanding of the universe that is confined within these structures is only a very limited aspect of how we are capable of interacting with the universe.

So when you say that ‘paintings and visual arts don’t mean anything because only words have meaning’, in my opinion you are trying to contain the meaning of all your experiences to a particular value structure that you believe to be universal (ie. words) - and so anything that cannot be contained within words is declared ‘meaningless’.

Once I argued EXACTLY THE OPPOSITE to a manager of a store when I wanted to return an item, and I suspect he was a Philosophy major, because he conceded all his prior objectoins to giving me a refund, and did issue me a refund after I presented him with this:

"in front of me there are many different kinds of bicycle computers. I take home one. I choose the one that I can afford, can use, and has all the features that I want, or the maximum features that I want. There are seventeen different kinds of bicycle computers on the shelf in your store, and in my previous trip I chose the precise one that was the ONLY ONE POSSIBLE under the constraints of what reasons went into my selection."

Here, the constraints were minimizing the price, maximizing the features, and thus finding the ideal.

I believe that similar constraints are always present whenever we are finding ourselves in a position to make a choice. — god must be atheist

I’ve been trying to point out from the start (rather poorly, it appears) that the way we tend to define free will as ‘the capacity to make a choice’ is not necessarily synonymous with ‘the [unconstrained] faculty by which one decides and initiates action’. I’ve suggested a description of the will as three specific ‘gates’ that either allow or disallow the path of causal chains.

All you demonstrated here was that you regretted the decision you made to purchase the item (which was sufficient for the store manager’s purpose), not that your will was/was not free. You could have chosen to leave the store without a purchase, aware that there were other stores and other avenues to a more suitable bicycle computer, but for whatever reason you didn’t. Those reasons were not enforced on you, rather in my view they were a collaboration of connected awareness that effectively closed out any information you freely chose not to collaborate with, connect with or be aware of.

I guess one observation that’s fascinated me when discussions of free will and determinism arise is that there are those who look forward and see the myriad opportunities or choices available, and those who look back and see unbroken causal chains that preclude the possibility of choice. The way I see it, they’re both pointing to an element of truth. So I’ve been looking for a bridge theory in my own understanding of how differences in perspective come about: one that recognises BOTH the subjective experience of unbounded potentiality AND the actuality of seamless causal chains.

Possibility, we argued about the free will in past posts. You finally appealed to authority, saying you agree with Descartes and subscribe to his "proof" of free will. — god must be atheist

Really? I’m sorry, but I don’t recall that discussion, and if I HAD ever ‘subscribed’ to Descartes’ proof of free will, then I’ve since unsubscribed, so I wonder why you even bring it up - or ‘god’ for that matter. I will acknowledge that I am rarely of the same opinion as I was in previous discussions, such has been the progress of my awareness over the last few years, but I’m curious when and where that discussion took place. As I have mentioned to you before, if you paraphrase or interpret what was said, I will ask for direct quotes or sources.

If you want to dispute what I’ve said in THIS discussion, then make your argument. But there’s not much point in bringing past discussions into it. What I’ve written here in relation to free will, I have only been fully aware of quite recently, to be honest - let alone able to articulate with anything resembling clarity. I am learning as I go.