Comments

  • Subjective Realism in a holographic universe
    there is only one possible realityCasKev

    Well this gets tricky, because it depends upon perspective. What each of us is creating and perceiving it's real - but different. The fabric that we are part of, the holographic universe, is continuously changing. So we can't speak in static terms or as though there is only one perspective.

    Wouldn't that mean the past is fixedCasKev

    Nothing is fixed. Even memory changes. Consider yourself memory (information) entwined in a constantly changing holographic waveforms. You are part of it and constantly creating within it.
  • How "free will is an illusion" does not contradict theology
    Do you not understand the theory of evolution? Roughly speaking:gurugeorge

    Sure I do. You think that writing paragraphs upon paragraphs about stuff hides the fact that there is still no theory of how Mind/Consciousness arises? You think replacing Mind with a Little Stick Man and calling it a Moist Robot solves the problem?

    Don't give me terms. Tell me the theory of how a Mind that eats Big Macs and enjoys it arises. And I don't care if it took 7 days or 7 billion years.

    Life is consciousness. That which does not have life is called a Robot. All Dennett does is stick Moist in front of Robot and he magically creates Consciousness/Mind. That you cannot understand this, is not my problem. Dennett depends upon a gullible readership to buy into the Miracle without asking HOW? When was the magical moment when that Bot became alive and why do we have an infinite magical moments after that. And why do bots like talking to each other about football?
  • Subjective Realism in a holographic universe
    So that is to say it occurs, but has no observable explanation as of yet?CasKev

    A holographic perspective accounts for this, since the holographic wave formation spreads in all all directions. A holographic image can be reconstructed from any piece of the hologram.

    Trust me. Bring yourself up to speed on the fundamental concepts and a very coherent view of nature will begin to emerge.
  • A Question about the Particle-Wave Duality in QM
    Yeah, I agree entropic gravity is a very interesting approach (even if I do not really understand it very well). In some sense it reminds the ideas of the later Bohm, IMO.boundless

    Ultimately all philosophical and scientific perspectives must merge because they are attempting to describe the same thing.

    There are two things that are interesting about the latest efforts to describe gravity using entropy (information):

    1) Yes, it follows some of Bohm's ideas that the universe can be considered holographic in nature. Notice it is a completely different conceptual view than space-time with major repercussions and allows for a new way of thinking of space and time, separately and distinct. I believe this will eventually merge with the Bergson/Stephen Robbins holographic view of the universe. In a way science and philosophy speech the problem differently, and in some ways the same, but ultimately the trajectory is toward a merge.

    2) It it's utilizing information as the fundamental concept of the universe. Information is nothing more than Bergson's Memory. Memory/information implies a Mind that understands and utilizes the information (it is impossible to escape this unless one adopts the "It just happens, by some Miracle" theory of how information is created and utilized. While tangential to the problem of consciousness, it is heading headlong into the problem and scientific understanding, but given the economic biases against Mind, it will take a long, long time to become acceptable in the scientific world. Still, this should not stop philosophers from moving ahead and developing theories around these concepts.
  • Subjective Realism in a holographic universe
    So the issue of quantum entanglement remains unexplained?CasKev

    Only in all other interpretations other that Bohmian. In Bohmian, it is a fundamental aspect. Bohmian Mechanics was Bell's inspiration.

    I cannot underscore enough how much Bohmian Mechanics leaves the other interpretations in the dust. For sure it is not the final say, but it is the best trajectory in terms of continued understanding of the nature of nature. One needs to understand Bohm, Sheldrake's morphic resonance, and Bergson's duree/time). And very important is Stephen Robbins' conceptualization of perception (based upon Bergson's) in a holographic universe. These pieces fit together to form a real universe that one can understand and use as a platform for deeper understanding of life. Of course, I'm always big on practicing the arts.
  • On Meditation
    As I said in my post I think for most authentic spiritual practices the idea is that one has to "surrender", to "let go", to "trust" etc. Paradoxically that "surrender" is correlated to (the highest) "victory" according to many religious traditions. The idea is that the "ego" shrinks to zero, so to speak, while the mind "joins" the infinite (in whatever form). The self-mastery has nothing to do with an egoistic drive. The self-mastery increases as "egoism" decreases.

    This in fact contrary to our intuition. In fact we would expect that one who is "in control" is one who rules everything, or even imposes his will against others. But those who try to "impose" their will actually are those who actually lose (and are those who suffer the most).

    Sadly it is very difficult to surrender
    boundless

    I agree that meditation is a quieting of the will. In Daoist philosophy this would be called quieting of the Zhi (Daoism it's very specific in need regards to the nature of the human spirit). However, you don't surrender. There is no way to surrender. Surrender is a marketing term, that is unachievable (sort of like a carrot in front of the donkey). What happens is as the will (Zhi) it's quieted, some other aspect of the spirit (Shen) arises. It is a totally different feeling and provides greater insight into the nature of the human spirit. There is no big enlightenment moment. Just gradual understanding and increasing feeling.

    This is the big thing. Any goal, and attempt to moderate will, any effort to find the Yi, is counterproductive. It just happens when it happens. Normally it is suggested that one just bring their mind to the breath, which is fine, but even this "bringing" is use of will. It is all just quiet. My approach is Tai Chi which allows me to gradually sink into the state. One complete routine is usually about 27 min. At the end I feel the energy in my body as water flowing inside of me and moving me without will (Zhi). Something else is moving me.
  • Time: The Bergson-Einstein debate
    The problem is not definition, it is conceptualization. I cannot teach you how to conceptualize a problem. Unfortunately, there is no training for such a skill I'm any educational courses other that art. So you either have to train yourself through hard work or be at the mercy of others to tell you the answers for the rest of your life. I can only suggest that you try to conceptualize the problem in your mind. Forget about logic and anything else you have been taught. Conceptualize in the mind is the single most important skill one can have in anything they in life.
  • Time: The Bergson-Einstein debate
    The arrow is resting AT every instant but it is not resting BETWEEN instants.Magnus Anderson

    You are just START/STOP which is the nature of the Paradox and my very first question to you. Do you believe feel like your life is coming stopping and going? This is rhetorical. I don't need an answer.
  • Time: The Bergson-Einstein debate
    Memory of the possibilities. The mind perceives a history and possibilities blended together, such as picking up a utensil. It conceives of the possible virtual action in memory and then chooses which possibility to act upon, in memory. It's all blended together.
  • Time: The Bergson-Einstein debate
    I don't see how future possibilities could be memories. How could something which hasn't occurred yet exist as a memory? That makes no sense.Metaphysician Undercover

    It's possibilities. On this we stake action using will.

    While there are those who claim to be able to see in the future, and I accept the possibility (of a different sort), this is not the future I am talking about. I am only talking about what are memory is of possibilities that we act on. There is no future beyond these possibilities. Everything we experience is in memory.
  • Time: The Bergson-Einstein debate
    Of course there is a division, the past is substantially different from the future.Metaphysician Undercover

    The future possibilities manifests as memory just like all our thoughts. They are different in kind, but still all memory. As we take action, the new memory presses into the old and new possibilities arise - in memory.

    You really haven't explained how "learning", "experiment", "creating", "the future is possibilities" translates into "duration".Metaphysician Undercover

    It is the experience of life as felt in memory. When one meditates, one brings to bear one's mind on its own memory. There it is. Life. When one comes out of meditation, one begins to create new images in memory, learn from what it observed whole meditating, and then plots a new action to create something new, maybe dinner?

    But this is not necessary to life, it is just the human enterprise of applying rules.Metaphysician Undercover

    The human enterprise is creating those rules and experimenting with the results.
  • Time: The Bergson-Einstein debate
    You want me to tell you want you are experiencing?

    People I talk too tell me their day really dragged, their vacation when by to quickly, life is too short, they feel asleep and woke up and had no sense of time, dreams are like floating images. I know when I was unconscious, I felt no time though I knew that time was disrupted because my memories were disrupted. Everyone seems to be experiencing life differently. Sometimes passing too fast, sometimes too slow. That's life.
  • Time: The Bergson-Einstein debate
    What we feel is the division between past and future.Metaphysician Undercover

    Yes, we feel ourselves, our memory pressing into the present. The future is possibilities that we are moving towards. This is the experience of life in duration. There are no divisions anywhere.

    We have memories of the past, and we anticipate the future. We do not feel duration.Metaphysician Undercover

    This is duration the time of life. The duration in which mind evolves by learning, experiment, and creating. The future is a virtual action of possible movement, of new creation. Duration is c the v experience of life.

    The "rules", and this talk of "duration", produce a big illusion, making us think that duration is something real.Metaphysician Undercover

    If duration is an illusion, then life is an Illusion, which brings us to Hindu Maya or Deterministic illusions of mind. Not my cup of tea. For me, everything is real, exactly as we experience it. Mirages, dreams, thoughts, unconscious states, day dreaming, sleep walking, Everything. There are differences in similarities and similarities in differences. Solving the clues leads to a deeper understanding of life. Calling something an illusion just ends the search since there are no boundaries to illusions.
  • Time: The Bergson-Einstein debate
    this saying anything more or distinct from "we each experience different events"? If so, what?Banno

    Tell me.
  • Time: The Bergson-Einstein debate
    u use the rules of English, no problemBanno

    I thought v you might call it the "Laws of English". Anyway, language is formed by consensus, so you keep making my point - and it keeps changing.

    you argue against the very physics that you are obligated by reality to follow.Banno

    So now I'm arguing against physics?

    Really nice bantering with you.
  • Time: The Bergson-Einstein debate
    There is very little evidence to support this.Banno

    Nice bantering with you.
  • Time: The Bergson-Einstein debate
    So you will doubt without reason.Banno

    I understand. That is what I do.
  • Time: The Bergson-Einstein debate
    the table is 1000mm give or take 3 mm wide.Banno

    Based upon what? Some consensus arrived at by a group of observers? Suppose the rulers are recalled?

    If one wants to understand how "facts" are created and the problems with them, one only has to observe the process by which they are created. Observation is always the key factor because that is what the human mind does, observe and then create.
  • Time: The Bergson-Einstein debate



    Science doesn't give insights. People do, like Bohm, Bell, De broglie, and Einstein's wife, Mileva Marić Einstein, who did a substantial part of the work (maybe more) which she was never credited with (other than the Nobel Prize money).

    https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/guest-blog/the-forgotten-life-of-einsteins-first-wife/
  • How "free will is an illusion" does not contradict theology
    How does a computer or a robot "decide" which move to make next in a game of chess?gurugeorge

    So we are c programmed electronics. Do you observe electronics in humans?
    It's clear that computers can be programmed to make decisions in a very real sensegurugeorge

    Yes, they can be programmed. They don't make decisions. The humans make all the decisions and then symbolically program the computers. Who or what is programming humans? Gos is an obvious candidate. Where it's that programmed stored? Have you observed it? Has anyone observed this program? If so where?

    decision-making machinery has gradually evolved over very long periods of time (via differential selection and reproduction) in living creatures, only it's not made of silicon but of neurons, fat, hormones, etc. Hence, "moist robot."gurugeorge

    So it just happened over a long period of time? Any theory other than this?

    As I said, the key difficulty is simply about the subjective aspect of consciousness - the objective view is unproblematic, either for science or for religion.gurugeorge

    Exactly, the only problem it's how life as we experienced it developed. How we make robots is not a problem. The reason that it is not a problem for religion is that God takes care of all of the questions and He took only 8 days. Science on the other hand relies on "it just happened (the technical word is evolved) over a long period of time". So, the only difference is that science says that the Miracle took a little longer? And based upon this mundane tale, I'm supposed to believe I'm a Moist Robot? A comic book character? Couldn't I be Superman?
  • Time: The Bergson-Einstein debate
    You think nobody has realised this before? If you actually study the Greeks, you would see that they were utterly dedicated to understanding the question of 'how do we know what anything actually is?' The Parmenides, which is the beginning of the Western metaphysical tradition, and then the subsequent dialectic of being and becoming that developed out of that, over centuries, really went into these questions in great depth. You're simply assuming the role of a Protagoras (although he was a pro!)Wayfarer

    Right. There is a whole history. So it isn't Rich's ideas, is it? You are actually disagreeing with Pros! (Always seeking the high ground).
  • Time: The Bergson-Einstein debate
    Facts are facts, a speeding ticket or the boiling point of water or the atomic weight of lead are what they are.Wayfarer

    Water boils. That's an observation. At what temperature? Oh, let's get together and make up some approximate measurement made by some device (which changes). That is what you don't understand. Approximations and consensus observations are not facts. Sometimes people agree, most often not. One cannot separate the observer from the system. Not philosophy, not technically. It is a thoroughly lost cause.
  • Time: The Bergson-Einstein debate
    And reality is what happens despite your beliefs and desires.Banno

    Right. My personal experience of life which goes on whether or not I have a clock.
  • Time: The Bergson-Einstein debate
    I have and image of Rich in court, objecting to his speeding fine:
    I will not pay my fine, your honour; for you see, there are no laws. And further, 3:45 on the 3rd January is an instant; my car could not have traveled any distance at that instant; and was therefore stationary, and certainly not doing 100 in an 80 zone!
    Banno

    As I said, people make up Laws and change Laws. Nothing sacrosanct about them - except the Laws of God, of course. You see, Laws are handy but they don't solve any philosophical problem.
  • Time: The Bergson-Einstein debate
    The unfolding of our experiences happens within time as set out by physicist.Banno

    What time does the physicist set out. A clock? Something that moves in space. Would I not still experience duration whether or not I measure the some rhythms of a clock?

    Duration is what we experience as the passage of like. During this duration events occur. So humans became curious (or for economic reasons) where events happen at the same time. As it turns out, as the simultaneity oof events on clocks became more difficult to determine, the limits were found. But where or not technology is able to keep track of time, the time of life as internally experienced, as felt, continues. This is what Bergson referred to as real time. Science is only concerned with trying to measure simultaneity of events. Totally different issue and had nothing to do with the evolution of life.

    Now if this were true, and we do experience time differently, how could this be discussed?Banno

    Easily,. "That play seemed to drag". "Funny, time seems to fly for me." "I thought that would never end". "That vacation went by so fast". 'It seems just as if happened yesterday". But more importantly than communicating the feeling of duration, is the experiencing of duration. How does duration change between awake, day dreaming, dreaming, asleep without dreaming, waking up? There is a qualitative feeling that is personal and defines ones life.
  • Time: The Bergson-Einstein debate
    is there a philosophy — a "metaphysics" — that goes beyond what the math and the data support? And, if such background metaphysics exist, could it be wrong even if the theory itself is right in terms of experiments and data?Wayfarer

    That's the problem.
  • Time: The Bergson-Einstein debate
    SO it seems your rejection of laws (rules?) is selective.Banno

    No. There are no Laws and I don't make them up for convenience or to gain the gravitas high ground.

    You don't understand the problem, that's the problem which is why we keep revisiting it.
  • Time: The Bergson-Einstein debate
    So that's a... Law?Banno

    No Laws here. I consider the concept silly, especially the way it is thrown around to achieve some ground of superiority. Law of Attraction is a nice one. Works well because people like Laws.
  • Time: The Bergson-Einstein debate
    Pulling out a Law on me. Nice. It seems like that is very fashionable when someone wants to quickly take the high ground. I have to remember this trick.

    There is no LAW. Just a mathematical symbolic tool that works ok in approximately solving certain types of problems. All created by our Creative Minds.
  • How "free will is an illusion" does not contradict theology
    the problem of subjective consciousnessgurugeorge

    Thus the problem is Life. Yep, exactly what he is replacing with his little stick man.

    But that's not the same thing as mind in the sense of the controller of an organism's actions.gurugeorge

    Then what is making the decisions? The bot? How did that happen?

    Anything that's to do with physical doings of the body - which is to say, speaking, acting, etc., is explainable as the brain tugging on various stringsgurugeorge

    Ok. So now it is no longer the Moist Bot, it is the Brain? Which is it and how did it all happen. What is the theory behind this miraculous event? You start off with a BIG BANG. Then what? Did it just happen? Was there a miracle that just keeps happening. How is it that this Moist Bit was revealed to Dennett and not to me? Where is the theory of how it all a happened? Or am I just suppose the believe Prophet Dennet because the Laws of Nature spoke to him and not to me?
  • Time: The Bergson-Einstein debate
    How does this issue keep recurring?Banno

    Since you don't understand the issue and why integral calculus has nothing to do with it, I guess we will be plagued by this issue forever. Maybe if you have it have it done thought, instead of just repeating what some teacher in college was paid to teach you, we might not have to revisit this issue. Or do you think Bergson didn't understand integral calculus? Or maybe you think you understand it better? Which is it?
  • Is Universal Perfection realistically possible?
    What has that to do with your original dreamy point?TimeLine

    The Mind may discover something new and thus the concept will change. Everything changes. It's only a "violation" if something is fixed.

    https://phys.org/news/2016-10-quantum-violate-law-thermodynamics.html

    Change is always a safe bet.
  • On Meditation
    I meditate now and then. My wife all the time, though not with the expectations she use to have when practicing Zen. It quites the mind and allows it (one) too perceive and learn something new. Everyone is different. Probably oversold for marketing purposes, but certainly an interesting health and philosophical practice. Observation of oneself can lead to interesting new insights.
  • Time: The Bergson-Einstein debate
    How something can be at rest all the time and moving? Hmm. I'll try it out later today and see if I can teleport myself somehow.
  • Time: The Bergson-Einstein debate
    There can be any number of moments within a second.Magnus Anderson

    I realize this. I asking the precise number. Scientifically speaking of course.
  • Time: The Bergson-Einstein debate
    If an object is at rest at every point in time, it does not follow that it is not moving.Magnus Anderson

    Well apparently you are fine with this so nothing is going to convince you otherwise. For me, it is strange and doesn't coincide with every day experience.
  • Subjective Realism in a holographic universe
    No. Only in the context of the Copenhagen Intepretation. Delayed Choice is immediately resolved by the introduction of the quantum potential. Quite eloquently in fact, which is why the Bohm' Model should be the only change one to be considered. The former issue with quantum potential is that it acts instantaneously at a distance. But this is a non-issue nowadays because of experimental support for non-local action at school distance.

    Bohm's model is very nice and resolves all of the spookiness of the Copenhagen Interpretation. The quantum potential can be viewed as the fabric of the holographic universe, which is the trajectory of current quantum theory, which will surely replace General Relativity (which is an ontological mess)

    Possibility if you Google delayed choices, quantum potential you will find a thorough description of how Bohm's model makes it a non-issue.
  • Time: The Bergson-Einstein debate
    But moments are durationless by definition.Magnus Anderson

    If a moment is without duration, exactly how many moments does it take to make one second? The stuff that the clock is measuring. That science it's measuring.
  • Subjective Realism in a holographic universe
    I've never done drugs. I just observe and put together an ontology based upon clues I pick up and put together.
  • Time: The Bergson-Einstein debate
    But I don't agreMagnus Anderson

    Well then you have an expected paradox. It is an outgrowth of your ontology which brings us right back to my first question, if you think you are moments then do you feel each moment starting and stopping.

    If you understand the paradox, then you understand why moments and spatiality yields it. As soon as I understood Bergson's perspective, I immediately gave up on spacial time. I'm very flexible. I have no agenda. Not wedded to any philosophy or science. Just looking to better understand nature.