That there are unknowns on the frontiers of scientific research, especially when those flaws are known and researched by those researchers, is not just normal science functioning, it's close to being analytically true. — fdrake

Yes, in this case, we have replaced a theory (Newton's) which required an unknown planet, with a theory (GR) that requires a 95% universe. I have no problem with unknowns, as long as one represents it properly. Not only are the puzzling nature of a 95% unknown universe being investigating but so also is the theory that requires it (not a bad idea in my view). GR is actually not that sacrosanct especially since it isn't part of quantum theory. The nature of gravity of course is relevant to any science or ontology. Again, I believe the current target direction of quantum physicists, that gravitates around quantum entanglement will be very fruitful and ultimately space-time will be a relic of physics as was the fate of particles.

I don't poop science, I poop invisibility and illusions, the type magicians are involved with.

Are you asking me what I think of space-time as an ontology? I think it is invisible like the rest of the universe it created.

. Neither the existence dark matter nor dark energy are errors in physical theories, they are prediction — fdrake

Until they are actually observed or measured, they are just plugins to rescue a theory, just as Vulcan was created to save Newton's theory. What happened was that the invisible planet of Vulcan was replaced by a 95% invisible universe. For the most part, in the history of science, plugins have usually indicated a completely new theory is necessary. Illusions even more so. In the case of General Relativity, very little is lost, which is why completely new approaches are being investigated, one's that do not rely on GR's ontology. What will be preserved in any approach is "gravity" whatever its ontology may be. I suspect it will involve quantum entanglement as opposed to geometrical spacetime.

All I did was point out one of the consequences if the truth of General Relativity, which is that 95% if the universe becomes invisible. As noted in the article, there are other problematic issues which may mean that General Relativity may need to be replaced (along with its ontology), but that aside, for the time being we do have to reconcile science with all of these invisible and unmeasurable forces that actually seem to be growing in size with new observations. Invisibility and illusions don't seem to me to be science.

then the nature of the person who actually put together those brush strokes, those characters, that dialogue etc becomes irrelevant. — Pseudonym

This is actually what materialism/determinism amounts to but it is the first time I've actually heard someone describe himself/herself as irrelevant. Yes, if someone takes your position, humans, and what they say and do, of all persuasions, become irrelevant in all respects.

One consequence of The Theory of General Relativity being true is that 95% of our universe is invisible dark matter, and dark energy. In my view, a rather novel idea to preserve General Relativity. Is dark energy and dark matter considered physical and within the providence of science?

https://science.nasa.gov/astrophysics/focus-areas/what-is-dark-energy

Really, worshipping science, is nonsense. But I realize that worshipping is part of the human psyche. As far as I can tell, it is most likely to appear when one has little faith in oneself. It is why I suggest that one practices belief in one's own ability to navigate life. Otherwise one must cede this ability to some outside force. To me, science worship snacks of religious evangelism.

You're going to breathe, your heart will pump blood round your body, your feels will continue to divide and grow, — Pseudonym

You think one needs science to know we are breathing and we have a heart that is pumping, and that we are growing and dying?

Beyond the firm predictions, science can make some really tight predictions about the scope of your actions. You will not fly, you won't suddenly speak Japanese if you don't already know it. — Pseudonym

Science cannot make any predictions on any of this (in fact there are people who start speaking in foreign dialects out it no where). What they can do is guess like the rest of us do. I'll guess that I'll eat breakfast this morning - but maybe not.

Science barely figures into the untold number of events that one experiences in life. Yesterday I played three hours of pool. Do you know how people learn to play pool? By feel.

Yes, we don't make the world into what we want it to be, we accept the world as it transpires to be. — Pseudonym

Really? It seems to be quite the opposite in the case of science. Tell me, can science predict what I am going to do today? That's the only thing meaningful to me - my life. Can science predict what I am going to experience today, besides the sun I mean? Not to trivialize science, but for all its bluster, it really ignores everything meaningful in order to give itself enormous self-importance. At the end of the day (literally) science really explains and understands almost nothing yet pretends that it does.

You can see that there are two worlds described by the wave function. — Andrew M

Bohmian mechanics avoids this entirely by positing a real quantum potential and wave perturbation. MWI exists to preserve determinism, as does Relativity, with the embarrassing consequences that 95 % of our very own universe has become invisible and an uncountable number of new universes are created with every observation. It would be interesting to know exactly how much invisibility has now been created by modern scientific explanations, all done with a straight face as if there was a difference from this and mysticism.

What interpretations would you suggest should be preferred to MWI for that reason? Note that MWI requires the least number of postulates of any interpretation and is also a local theory (so is naturally compatible with SR). — Andrew M

It just seems like whenever materialist/determinist theories are in trouble, science makes up invisible matter, invisible energy, and now who knows how many invisible universes (has anyone actually calculated the number of invisible universes that have been created?). Is invisible, unmeasurable, unknowable stuff the new paradigm of science? If so, does that make room for God?

Really? Read again. i never questioned the measurements. I never questioned the evidence. But you realize of course that science is going in a completely new direction, so science is itself questioning Relativity at both the micro and macro level, but that is a different story.

The thing is this, the OP is based upon a paper that questions Relativity's ontology which in turn is based you Bergson's Duration and Simultaneity which also questioned Relativity's ontology. So , the OP is all about questioning Relativity's ontology. I am merely agreeing.

Insofar as it's shitting on relativity, — fdrake

Don't take it personally. Relativity shits on itself and clearly is on the way out as quantum information theories replace it and along with it, its weird ontology. No harm though. It just means the end of time travel. Relativity wasn't all that much to begin with other than it help create a pop hero for science.

it makes perfect sense that science would be built around the measurement of public and non-controversial entities. — foo

Are you saying this is theoretical or do you believe that this is what science is actually doing?

Yes, free will but constrained by nature, both inner and outer. — TheMadFool

It's not free will, it is simply Will, the ability for the mind to create an impulse of movement in a particular direction. I can't believe this notion of free will is discussed at all. Don't people just observe their own actions and what they can and cannot do? I can look around, decide if I'm going to the living room or the kitchen and after I make that choice, create movement in that direction.

My general feeling is that all philosophers should just shut they're books already and observe themselves and the rest of nature. They'll be better off if they do.

Of course if the axioms it is all based on turn out to be wrong, the whole thing comes crashing down, but what use is that knowledge if there's nothing more useful to replace it with? — Pseudonym

Theoretically it should come crashing down, in practice scientists just make up new universes or make our current universe 95% invisible. What ever happened to the Mind? Now it is neurons located in the brain that do the thinking? Or is it the neurons in the gut? Sometimes it is genes and often it is that ubiquitous Evolution and Laws of physics that forces our actions. Which is it? And what is it that has feelings? Or is it the frequently used scientific phrase Illusion (as opposed to Dark Matter/Energy).

When there is lots at stake, science just fabricates new stories, and like all professions there is a code of silence and anyone who breaks that code is quickly labeled a mystic, eccentric, or aberration if the carefully codified system of acceptable and unacceptable words.

There's a reason why we make rules of logic, and adhere to them. That's so we don't get confused by simple issues, as you have. — Metaphysician Undercover

Rules of logic were designed so someone can rule. I feel no such constraint. I use every faculty and tool available to me.

I find it extremely doubtful that throwing away the fundamental rules of logic because they don't support what you happen to believe, is conducive to understanding. — Metaphysician Undercover

Sometimes it is time to move on.

Because I view it logically, and you view it illogically? — Metaphysician Undercover

Your logic has become an obstruction that limits you. I don't have such an obstruction. I'm only interested in understanding by whatever means available.

It's either a duck or a rabbit. — Metaphysician Undercover

It's actually both at the same time and the same place.

We could say that on one level it's a duck, and on another level it's a rabbit, but we cannot say that on the same level it is a rabbit and a duck, because that is to make one object into two objects, and that's contradictory. — Metaphysician Undercover

Clearly they are both at the same level. What changes is the perception of mind as it superimposes the form on memory.

The Pinterest continuous line drawing in my post's link illustrates how a never-ending number of forms are created out of unity.

waves will always be the property of the ocean and not objects themselves — Metaphysician Undercover

Only because that is the way you view it. I see them all as objects as real forms.

You predicate properties of the waves. If you insist that your object (logical subject) is both the ocean and the waves, the you have contradiction. — Metaphysician Undercover

No, just a different way of viewing things. A good example is this:



Here is how a single unitary line creates forms:

https://www.pinterest.com/pin/535295105679649688/

I think what Tesla meant is not that each is not responsible for out actions but everything we do comes from the outside environment. For example, you can continue sit in the chair, or get up and turn the tv on or go outside for a walk. It's your choice but outside forces make those choices happen — Robertwills

The concept of God has been around for eons, and there are certainly no laws of chemistry or physics that have anything to do with human behavior.

Therefore it is logically impossible that an object, and its parts coexist, at the same time, as objects. — Metaphysician Undercover

This is as far from an issue of logic as it comes. It is a matter of whether one can conceive of a unity of forms which in themselves contain forms. The answer is obviously yes. We have waves within an ocean, mountains arising from the beach, a sky arising from the mountains, etc. It is all a unity as is our body yet we can still perceive forms within these forms.

How does the mind create all if this. Just try doing contour drawing where forms are created by continuous waving lines without ever picking the pen off a sheet of paper. The critical concept is that there is no emptiness anywhere in the universe. Everything is connected. Duality sinks into unity as does everything else. However. unity does have fundamental characteristics or else it could not get things rolling along.

information being fundamental fit — CasKev

Precisely, it is Memory. That which the Mind remembers. Information is not information unless there is a Mind to interpret it and use it. Using implies that there is some movement in a chosen direction. To simply have information implies a static, dormant universe.

As opposed to you simple minded generalizations on your post? Totally disingenuous. Flagrant biases masquerading as some neutral umpire just doing his job. What a crock of nonsense.

it simply does not concern itself with them — Janus

No, it vigorously opposes them and invents its own mythology as place holders, the so-called Laws of Physics being the most obvious. Survival of the fittest being another. And then the totally fabricated Invisible Dark Energy and Dark Matter Universe. The latest I've run across is The Thermodynamic Imperative. The what?

And everyday experiences of inherited and innate characteristics and skills are not strong evidence? What alternative theory is there? That it just happens?

Maybe, but it sure isn't clear that that's the case. — Sam26

Yes, it is never clear. All we have are our observations, some clues, and we try to put together the pieces into some image (ontology) of nature. These are not proofs, they are only clues.

: Let's assume that consciousness does survive bodily existence, — Sam26

Consciousness that includes memory. Memory that is interwoven into the fabric of the universe that persists through so cycles of life so that consciousness can forever perceive it in new forms. It is not a program, but rather life in the form of memory, creative impulse, and will.

Also, what are you reading now as far as Philosophy is concerned? And where is a good place to start reading random philosophers? — MountainDwarf

My approach is to inquire into questions and not philosophers. This type of inquiry creates a very zig-zag path through many diverse aspects of life, such as physics, arts, history, psychology, less known philosophers as well as often neglected Eastern philosophies etc. but at the end, you will have walked the walk and know from experience.

Here is evidence of the persistence if memory through duration? Skills developed over multiple life times.

How can it be? Relativity says that simultaneity is observer dependent and the law of noncontradiction depends on simultaneity. — TheMadFool

Agreed. Relativity states there is no preferred frame of reference but there is!

Suppose two electric switches are thrown simultaneously and poor Ted becomes toast. That is real! Whatever another observer saw, the preferred frame of reference is the one where the event took place in real time (duration).

Relativity is nothing more than a way to transforms equations. It is not an ontology. Science created an ontology with no basis to do so. They made the equations real and experience an illusion. Creating an ontology around Relativity creates a mysterious universe of time travel, twins aging differently, and other strange contradictions.

Glad to see others challenging the orthodoxy of mindless education.

If we give to "existence" its etymological meaning, then what "exists" is "what" arises or what is "created". Whereas "reality" is a much more general concepts, for example even "dreams" are a "reality", in some sense. The "Absolute" of many philosophies instead simply "is", since it does not "arise". The same in some sense can be said to "truths" IMO, like mathematical ones (albeit there is also an element of contingency in mathematics: the language used etc). — boundless

Agreed. It is all real. It all exists. It all persists. The difference is how or whom can perceive it. Is it within a personal domain or a shared domain? Who knows how much is out there that cannot be perceived because we are not tuned into it, though possibly others or other life forms are? Everything is forms in the fabric of the universe, but as with a hologragram, the right reconstructive wave must be there to illuminate it. Creating distinctions where there are none merely creates confusion where there is none.

IMO. The same can be said for Dark Matter and Dark Energy. Especially for "Dark Matter" we see that if GR is right at cosmological scales, then we have to admit its existence. — boundless

This is the whole point. It highlights in bold the enormous bias of science. The intention of science is to clearly externalize space and most especially time (duration) so science built a whole ontology around so-called space-Time without any call to do so. And when it falls apart science literally, out of thin air, science creates an invisible universe composed of dark matter and dark energy.

Physicists do not use the world "Mind" because it is not a concept that can be treated quantitatively — boundless

Have you ever seen the Laws of Physics quantified, or Evolution, it Thermodynamic Imperative quantified? These are all placeholders and substitutes for Mind, a word that is verboten because science does not want to admit to it. Scientists have free minds seeking the truth but we don't. We are deterministic robots while they are seekers of truths (like Dennett) and this are are immune to illusions and are able to see through the illusions to help us along. This sleight of hand actually works!

"laws of physics" is a meta-physical concept, not a physical one in my view! — boundless

Yes, but materialist science uses the term all the time. They never use the word Mind. This is not an accident. The allowable nomenclature is clear.

You think time and space separates. Not me. I said so.

Whatever. Enjoy the thread.

Nothing. We've agreed that they are not yours.

So if the Buddha is not ‘a supreme archetype’, then I’m not sure what is. But I didn’t want to push that line of argument. — Wayfarer

Buddha, apparently suggested that this should not be, which is possibly why he wrote nothing down. But, people being people need someone to worship and went ahead and did it any way. With that said, the basic philosophy of Buddha (for what it's worth since he's didn't write anything down) are the Four Noble Truths and the Eight Fold Path, which is just a plain good insight and advice. Beyond this, you just get your normal every day groups of people seeking Enlightenment and pretty much ignoring the sound advice of Buddha. Go figure. BTW, universalism and nominalism its just one of those add-ons which one can gets for free for joining one of the Buddhist sects.

You know nothing about me personally, so the work is already done. — Noble Dust

It would be difficult to know anyone who has separated their words from themselves.

Hence, the continued effort of a philosopher to refine his definition.
Mill and Wittgenstein must be one of the most prolific when it comes to defining concepts. — Caldwell

It's hopeless, but it is a way to pass life.

Definitions without agreement on some concrete ontology are just floating phrases waiting for an argument. I have come to understand that most of academic philosophy centers around arguments. I am in a different space. My primary interest is understanding the nature of nature and the nature of Life. Among all the philosophical arguments, I do pick up a nice new idea now and then but never within the such discussions as definitions. All there is are bullets flying in space.

Just as soon as I figure out how to separate your posts from you.

So, what's the status on this? Have we gotten clear on Bergson yet? — Caldwell

Bergson, had a very clear point of view. The title of his major work, "Creative Evolution" declares this point of view. However, he was a visionary who was able to intuit the nature of nature as no other, actually suggesting aspects of quantum physics and holography, several decades in advance.

Great philosophers can imagine what it must be by observing patterns of what is. One must be able to see through his eyes to understand all that he wrote. I try must best. But the grand theme is clear, over only had to read the titles of his major works. Stephen Robbins does a spectacular job of narrating Bergson's theory of perception in a photographic (holographic) universe.

So, that is art.

But what are the criteria for a succesful definition? When is a definition of X correct or adequete? — PossibleAaran

Since defining a concept is essentially a consensus development process, one can never consider it correct as though there was some absolute agreement. At best, there is an agreed upon symbolic representation that can be utilized by a group to communicate with each other for some practical purpose. However, even within this group, if inquired for more details and precision, there will arise vast differences in understanding or description.