Can we explain the mystery of existence?
I am raising this question partly because so many threads are based on the claim that no God exists. I realise that this is complex, but I do believe that it does lead to the question of why anything exists at all, which goes back to Spinoza. I am not sure that there any easy answers to the questions, but, aside from the question of whether or not there is a rational explanation for a God behind existence, I am left puzzling about the nature of existence. I don't know if anyone else wonders about this, or perhaps it has been tackled in previous threads, but I am wondering about the whole nature of existence, including sentient beings, like ourselves, and all forms of existence. How can we explain the existence and development of life at all?
Comments (306)
In an infinite duration anything that can happen, probably will.
Either some-thing or no-thing, has existed for an infinite duration. Even things that are ridiculously unlikely to occur in a finite duration are likely to occur in an infinite duration.
I agree that anything can happen, and life is full of the unexpected. I am sure that my question may be regarded as ridiculous, and may have been addressed in threads on why is there anything rather than nothing. However, I am really writing this thread because there are many threads on the front page of the forum against the existence of God. There have been ones looking at the anthropic principle, but as far as I can see, so much of what lies behind existence remains unexplained.
Interesting, but I am left wondering beyond this. We have the claims of Darwin about evolution, and we exist as individuals, in the real world, but I am not sure if this goes deep enough, in explaining why we exist at all.
What are the chances of the existence of duration - finite or infinite?
I suggest that one needs to be rather cautious about existence. One says that unicorns do not exist, and means that at no time and in no place has there ever been a unicorn. But when one speaks of the existence or non-existence of the universe, or of something beyond the universe, one is speaking of existence with another meaning - the existence of existence, or the existence of the dimensions of existence. I suspect that these things cannot be given a meaning as questions, let alone be meaningfully answered.
But, I believe that you are missing the question of what lies behind it all. Of course, we may have sickness, as well as health, but I pointing more to the basic questions of metaphysics and epistemology.
How is that claim true? That’s tim wood’s opinion put in the language of fact.
I am not really wondering about sickness. But, I do believe that so much lies behind the superficial, including causation. How would you explain the question of why human beings, and any form of life, exist at all?
When asking "why" questions, it is normally between human beings and their dispositions in their own daily lives, such as why have you ordered the book? Because I wanted to learn more about Logic. Why did you wake up earlier than usual this morning? Because I was hungry. ....etc etc, or their explanations to what has happened in the world, but the world must be where the replier had been in his / her life, experiencing the happenings, witnessing the situations etc. Why do you think the team lost the game? Because the players were suffering from fatigues, I guess ...etc etc.
But the OP's questions why human beings exist at all, and any forms of life exist, = this question is out of the boundary a living human being's experience, because no one right now has lived more than 100 years to have directly experienced the very beginning of life of humans or anything form of lives which could be millions of years ago.
Hence, answers will come from each person's imaginations, beliefs or the religious scripts or scientific theories, or some other philosophical systems he read.
I am sorry if you find my understanding of existence to be rather abstract, but I am coming from the position of being a living being, as I imagine that you are too. I also think that there are other lifeforms, and I would imagine that they have their own variable constructions of meanings. I am not intending to ask a ridiculous question, but I do wonder why we exist. Part of this comes down to the underlying ones about the existence of God, but, from my reading on this site, they are not clear at all. I am standing back from it all, and do have some anger, because I am not finding any worthwhile answers about the nature of existence, and purpose, at all.
I do agree that individuals' questions arise from their own personal lives and construction of meaning. I woke up earlier than usual on the last couple of days, and felt so miserable about how the majority on this site are focused on answering the questions of God's existence, on the basis of conventional reason. I see the nature of our existence, including the whys and the purpose as being much wider, but I am not sure that such discussion will be considered of much importance on this site at all.
Asking validity of the questions is not, to belittle the question, but to suggest expectancy of the limitation of the nature of the arguments and answers.
Okay, maybe I am stuck in my thinking, but I am not sure that many other people are not stuck equally in their own perspectives. The question may be why does one thing happen rather than anything else. Is there any divine providence? When I lost my keys a few days ago, I really wondered if I had reached a deadend, and was startled when I found them. I know that this may seem to be a trivial example. But, it does lead me to wonder about the superficial aspects of life, and any meaning beyond this. How much is psychology attuned to our own chosen perspectives, and where does this lie in terms of any more objective perspectives on chance, fate and any purpose behind our daily lives?
I do not answer any of the questions which I have raised purely in terms of theism and atheism. I think that people who wrote the Bible wrote from specific angles, with the best thinking that they could arrive at. I am certainly not wishing to come up with any easy solutions. It may be that the question which I am raising will be seen as not being relevant for philosophy. However, as far as I can see many of the philosophies need stripping. For a long time, arguments which stem from God have been seen as lacking. However, I would go a stage further, and say that many philosophies which deconstruct the religious philosophies may be inadequate too. The arguments against God look at reason, but they fail to grasp the intricacies of life, and how there is just so much that we are unable to explain.
Quoting tim wood
To not acknowledge that we "could do otherwise", even survival itself, is to be inauthentic. You would be arbitrarily using the justification of, "but this doesn't compute for survival". I'm assuming "blocks living" has something to do with survival, so if you want to clarify, then that is fine too. I just think anything survival or any X thing you think is "living" is some essentialist arbitrary tim wood opinion "writ large". And basically you are saying, "Do not question the enterprise itself, only follow the patterns set out for you". At least, you are saying something dangerously close.
I do agree that our life experiences is extremely restrictive, especially our lifespan, as well as the social contexts of our experiences. Our perspectives on human life are extremely restricted. But, I believe that many who look to the ideas of our times, including the ideas of thinking in science, also fail to recognize the narrow lens of focus. I am certainly not wishing to push aside the advances in thinking. But, on the other hand, I do think that it would be extremely restrictive if philosophy of our times becomes focused on specific arguments.
How do these lie in the context of history, comparative religion and thinking which goes beyond the specific focus of materialistic perspectives of Western philosophy? I am not wishing to offer any simplistic solutions, but open up the area of debate, beyond the ideas which are in fashion in the first half of the twentieth century. Do we presume that we have reached the ultimate knowledge?
Quite possibly, the same may apply to us, our world. It's explanatory history (why?), if I may call it that, maybe traceable back from how it is now to how it was and then on to even more remote causes (answers to why?) but at some point we'll hit a wall - that wall is known by many names one of them being God!. In Geometry God is a point; like how the point is undefined, God needs no further explanation; like points are the building blocks of all geometrical shapes - from simple lines to extremely complex geometries - God too is the very foundation of all there was, is, will be! :chin:
The question of whether we could hire a detective or not is interesting insofar as it raises the question of mysteries. Having spoken of philosophical mysteries on a previous thread, I think that the idea of mystery in philosophy is considered open to criticism. But, in attacking the idea of mystery, philosophers may be in the danger of refusing to see behind surfaces. How much is evident in daily reality, and how much is hidden, and goes much deeper. I certainly question any philosophies which are restricted to the superficial, because even on the basis of my own empirical observations, there is so much which lies beneath surfaces, facades and the exterior aspects of life.
Since 'explaining presupposes existence', to "explain existence" makes no sense (i.e. begs the question). As for the "development of life", neo-darwinian evolution and species-specific developmental biology suffice. And insofar as your query comes down to contemplating 'the nature of existence', Jack, I speculate that nature refers to the unbounded immanence – substance / being – of necessary non-necessary, or contingent, facts (i.e. existents, events ... universes) – modes / beings – because, if for no other reasons, conceptual negations of these predicates (e.g. "bounded immanence" or "transcendence" or "necessary facts") introduce antinomies or entail contradictions. Any considerations other than that which comes-to-be ... continues-to-be ... cease-to-be ... contingently, or gratuitously (i.e. without reason – since, again, reasoning (explaining) presupposes ... to be) are, to my mind, merely imaginary (e.g. "god/s", "souls", "unicorns", ... "geometric points").
The idea of "mystery" as it's being used isn't really found in philosophy. I remember hearing it every time I asked one too many questions in a religious setting. It's a tactic to baffle the inquiry. If you simply replace "mystery" with "we made this up and know it doesn't make sense", it works about the same.
I believe that immanence is important, because that was stressed in Gregory Bateson's, 'Ecology of Mind', even though he was an anthropologist, but has contributed to philosophy discourse.
But, I cannot accept that philosophy is able to overlook the developmental aspects of life and existence. That would be about stepping into the nature of the timeless aspects of existence, which may or not exist.
I am aware that certain ideas, especially the idea of the soul, are seen as problematic, but I don't think that enables the idea of existence to be written off. I think that I exist, and that you do too, but I am left wondering why, and whether there is any purpose behind our lives, beyond the meanings which we find for ourselves.
Quoting Cheshire
:up:
I remember sitting outside on a bench at about 5am, waiting for the cafe to open when I had lost my keys. It was Sunday morning, and I don't know if I would have been able to contact my landlord. I felt so alone in the universe. The owner of the cafe appeared startled to have someone waiting outside at 8am. I had prayed about finding my keys and felt like I was blessed by the hands of some divine power when the owner handed me the keys to my bedsit. But, of course, that is only my personal perspective on providence, luck and destiny, but I do see it as being interconnected with the question of any underlying power beyond us, on an individual level, and as part of causation and design behind our lives
I think that the idea of we made it up does raise the question of how we make things up, because I am not presuming that we are mere liars. I am asking about any underlying source from which all of this begins to take place.
You trace the idea of causes back to a 'wall', but what lies behind the wall? I am speaking about origins, but also what lies behind mind and matter. I am question veneers, causation, what lies behind the paradox of mind and matter, and I am not really looking for a textbook or Wikipedia explanation. I believe that it is so much more complex, but I do believe that it is the subject matter of philosophy, even though I know that many detest the idea of mystery.
How do we separate how we see it from 'how it is'? I am not sure that we are able to step outside of personal, or intersubjective reality, in order to see from a truly objective, or so-called correct viewpoint, beyond interpretation.
You ask me to 'stop wondering and just do it', but the question is what do we do other than wonder. I am about to go out to the shops, to buy some food, but I am not sure that wondering about the human condition is low on the scale of priorities. Even within relationships, the best moments can be about philosophical contemplation
I believe hyper rationality with the argument from authority and little Britain says the computers says the answer is 4.
The question is how much are we confabulating? Sometimes, even the most sophisticated philosophy arguments seem contrived. I am not trying to make a mockery of rationality. I do see it as being extremely important, but I just feel extremely aware of how uncertain we are, as Wittgenstein was, and how even our very existence is a bit of a puzzle.
(Plus the Why of Existence)
In our specific and particular path of History there are no what-ifs of it could have been otherwise, since the happening are already a fate accomplished, but this "particular path" hints at a larger scheme…
Existence has to be, given no alternative/opposite of nonexistence/Nothing. The Eternal Basis that then has to be can't just give rise only to our particular path because what has no Beginning, as Eternal, could not have been designed beforehand or outside of itself and thus cannot be something particular such as only the history of our universe; so, the Eternal Basis must then give rise to everything—every possible path. There can't be any special time, place, or arrangement.
In those other paths that go further to become similar to ours lies your 'otherwise'.
That's a nice way of putting it and has generally been my take. Some theists consider atheism/nihilism to be a black hole of dread and an invitation to the diabolical. I guess they don't trust people to establish new values and new ways of seeing without a supervisory deity or cosmic consciousness.
No.
I don't think we can explain existence at all. There are facts that lead up to our existence, but they could've turned out in a different manner and we would not be here.
and so the "why" to life is somewhere in daily life you just have to find it.
Finally,a person speaks from personal experience and good instincts. :up: Thank you!
Meaning is from within. Sometimes it becomes rocky due to trauma but meditation really helps to see clearly and give you answers from your soul.
This is fine except that theism is not at all necessarily "one static truth".
Before anything can exist at all, information has to be integrated. So in this universe things exist as self organizing things that integrate information. All things posses a modicum of this facility, the more complex the thing is, the more developed is its information integrating ability.
The most liberal forms of theism I know , post-Kierkegaaedian religion after religion , heretical Christianity etc, reduce dating to a desire for the good, which is certainty a far cry from fundamentalism , but I would argue there is still a static , unchanging element here , and that is the ‘good’ as something that remains what it is as a desire, a trajectory.
At first glance this would appear to defy entropy.
Just curious. How would you start your investigation of existence? What is it (or what are those things) that you would study/analyze in order to improve your understanding of existence?
I think that introspection is becoming a lost aspect of philosophy. Of course, the empirical investigation, including the scientific aspects of existence are important. But, I do believe that we should not ignore our own minds as part of the source for knowledge and reflection.
What defies entropy is the progressive self organization of the universe. This seems to be possible because far more space is created in the universe then entropy ( due to expansion ), such that the universe becomes progressively more ordered , rather then disordered.
The evolution of information in the universe - from its beginnings - creating structure from energy, and then that structure snowballing into more complex structure as material things, due to the integration of initially energetic information, is a great way to understand what consciousness is, and how it arises.
** To put it another way: the rate of space creation in the universe is greater then the rate of entropy creation, so as a percentage of the total space, entropy is decreasing. This permits "order", where order is created by self organization, which relies on information integration. https://www.informationphilosopher.com/introduction/information/entropy-expansion.gif
I think that I am staring into the sun, in the metaphorically sense, right now, unable to sleep, churning thoughts. But, of course, I am blind to my own mind in itself, only seeing my own little narrow set of images and thoughts. So,I am able to see the downside of introspection. But, I do believe that the mind does have an important role because we are able to think. It is probably important to cultivate a certain amount of mental training, and be able to cultivate a deeper sense of awareness. But, of course, the most we can arrive at is certain ideas about why we others, and various life forms exist. These ideas are our perceptions and perspective, and are only partial.
It's likely that I'm wrong about points and geometry but that doesn't invalidate the "point" I was making viz. deconstructing objects systematically can't be done indefinitely (infinite regress) - the process will have to terminate on a certain geometric object and whatever that happens to be, it'll be undefined.
What is the definition of a point?
Quoting tim wood
Sorry, I didn't get that.
I have to admit, that's actually a better answer than the one I had. I'll check out the website.
I only meant that the chain of explanations (answers to why? queries) has to terminate at some point. The usual way explanations proceed is the complex is rendered in terms of the simple [biology, for example, is explained in terms of chemistry & physics] but that implies the simpler things get, the less the need for an explanation. Ergo, the series of explanations will eventually lead back to the simplest, which for the reason stated above (bolded), will need no explanation. This simplest, whatever it is, in some circles known as God.
@180 Proof
Here's an interesting thought.
Physicalism: Mind -> Biology [Mind is explained by biology where "->" means "explaine by"]
If so,
Mind -> Biology -> Chemistry -> Physics -> Math -> Mind
This gums up the works:
Existence -> Physics -> Math -> Mind -> Biology -> Chemistry -> Physics :brow: :chin:
Can you feel your eyes?
Do you know the function of your eyes?
Did you know you had eyes before someone told you?
Now apply this to the mind.
The mind doesn't just think,it feels,in fact it's predominantly feelings then perceptions,then thinking.
You are ignoring and marginalising a huge part of human experience and knowledge.
The mind is ignored by science and much of philosophy.
That's why it can't explain anything profound.
Verbal gymnastics is not profound,at all.
:sweat: You lost me.
I'm not saying anything that hasn't been assumed in the way we "explain" stuff. A certain thing/phenomenon is deemed explained if it's reduced to something simpler. Thus, the simple explains the complex. Staying on course implies that once we arrive at the simplest, there's no need for further explanation. Right?
Food for thought:
1. Something OR Nothing
2. If Something then explanation needed(why is there something rather than nothing? @Jack Cummins Naughty! Very Naughty!)
3. If Nothing then explanation not needed (there's literally nothing to explain)
The question: Can the origins of Something be traced back ultimately to Nothing?
[quote=Parmenides]Ex Nihilo Nihil Fit[/quote]
[quote=Theophilus Of Antioch]Creatio Ex Nihilo[/quote]
??nyat?
Chaos (Cosmogony)
:chin:
Quoting TheMadFool
Information integration = consciousness
In a universe that has structure, consciousness is fundamental. Or put another way, in a universe that has structure, information integration is fundamental .
I think you would agree that in order to have any sort of structure, you have to integrate information to create it – you have to relate one thing to another to create structure. No?
If so, it follows that consciousness was present at the most fundamental level, since structure was plainly created.
There has always been something and nothing. (Democritus)
Quoting Pop
No. The degree (density) of "information integration" manifest as "consciousness", however, is emergent (e.g. multicellular organisms) and not itself "fundamental" (e.g. single cell organisms).
Yes.
No. (See Noether's theorem, dissipative structures, etc)
Intentional agency (aka "consciousness") is an emergent complex structure irreducible to less complex structures ... or to simple (almost) structure-less structures. (See cellular automata, Conway's "Game of Life", Wolfram's computational irreducibility, etc.)
:up: Nothing doesn't need an explanation and it's as simple as simple can get (?) i.e. Nothing is/has to be the simplest. Ergo, I posit that the explanatory chain (sequence of answers to why? questions) will terminate on Nothing. In fact that's what Jack Cummins' query boils down to.
Quoting Pop
I'm going to second that because what's a brain? Information storage cum processing device. With respect to the former function, there really is no difference between it and the universe itself (the non-conscious part) being a storage device of sorts. As for the latter, do you think the universe is processing information?
Are we not part of the universe?
:point:
[i]
The Twelve Men of Gotham (England)
On a certain day there were twelve men of Gotham that went to fish, and some stood on dry land; and in going home one said to the other, "We have ventured wonderfully in wading. I pray God that none of us come home and be drowned."
"Nay, marry," said one to the other, "let us see that; for there did twelve of us come out." Then they counted themselves, and every one counted eleven.
Said one to the other, "There is one of us drowned." They went back to the brook where they had been fishing, and sought up and down for him that was wanting, making great lamentation. A courtier, coming by, asked what it was they sought for, and why they were sorrowful.
"Oh," said they, "this day we went to fish in the brook; twelve of us came out together, and one is drowned."
Said the courtier, "Count how many there be of you."
One of them said, "Eleven," and he did not count himself.
"Well," said the courtier, "what will you give me, and I will find the twelfth man?"
"Sir," said they, "all the money we have got."
"Give me the money," said the courtier, and began with the first, and gave him a stroke over the shoulders with his whip, which made him groan, saying, "Here is one," and so served them all, and they all groaned at the matter. When he came to the last, he paid him well, saying, "Here is the twelfth man."
"God's blessing on your heart," said they, "for thus finding our dear brother!"[/i]
:up: :smile:
Your reply is interesting, and it is the case of existence vs nothing. Aside from the question of why is there something rather than nothing, I think that we can also ask whether there will ever be nothing? In other words, will the universe, and beyond, cease to exist at all in some remote, distant age.
You also hinted at the idea of where our existence lies in a larger frame of reference. I think it here we get into the limits of knowledge. Existence seems to be composed of linear and cycles aspects. But, it is hard to see whether the larger framework is actually linear or cyclical. What this does raise is the issue of whether life is something taking place once on earth and a birth and death of the universe is repeated. Of course, Nietzsche's and some others spoke of the idea of eternal recurrence. Nietzsche's own idea of this altered at times, ranging from a literal to a symbolic interpretation.
However, going beyond the notion of eternal recurrence itself we can ask about our place in the cosmos. If there are no lifeforms similar to us in the universe, we can still wonder if there have ever been some in a past age, or whether there will be in some distant future galaxy.
No. If you agree that consciousness is a state of integrated information, then you don't know that the higher forms of it are not, at their most basic level, functioning identically to the lower level forms of it.
You are comparing the highest form of consciousness with the lowest, and concluding that they are not equal. They are not equal, but in fact, human consciousness at its base level functions identically to all other consciousness. At base level, information is integrated - that is all that is necessary. In this universe information is integrated fundamentally. Nothing would exist otherwise.
Consciousness had to evolve and the lowest form of information integration is still present in all forms of consciousness. As the foundation of consciousness, it has to be preserved.
For instance, the minimum information that a mind can integrate is to relate one thing to another ( metaphysics ). Agreed? Without this base function, there can be no consciousness. But this base level of functioning, of relating one thing to another, is ubiquitous in the universe! Such as when we relate a quantum field to an excitation, or a string to its vibration, or a wave to its particle of energy. Structure begins in the relationship of one thing to another. Note, for it to become structure, the information has to be integrated. Structure = integrated information. Matter = integrated information. And integrated information = consciousness - this is what IIT aims to prove with PHI.
Quoting 180 Proof
Computational automata may not be reducible, but cellular automata certainly is - have you heard of the RNA world? In the real world things are caused, so there is a causal chain for everything's existence. Every step relies upon the integration of information. It is a nonsense to state a cell only becomes functional after it is fully evolved - this is in effect what you are saying!
** Do you agree that in order to have structure you need to integrate information?
If you are saying consciousness arises only at a certain density of information, then you would have a definition of consciousness to that effect, that can be tested, and a line in the sand of where in evolution this occurs? If not, then it is only a vague notion that you are expressing.
In The End the Cosmos will be so spread out that any given photon will not be able to 'see' another one!
I just happen to have a great description of this in one of my greatest illustrated poetic productions:
After the Stars Have Gone—The Final, Silent Dark
A glance into the far flung future of the expansion of the universe.
PDF:
https://theomarkhayyamclubofamerica.files.wordpress.com/2021/06/atshg-8.5x11-jpg-longer-150-dpi.pdf
Yes, and I think for certain, for the Cosmos is so extravagant in its amount of stuff that here and there the right condition will obtain.
The Impossible Recipe
Explaining the Cosmos is as easy as pie:
It’s an endless extravagance beyond the sky,
Which shows that matter’s very readily made—
Underlying energy raising the shades.
[i]This All sounds rather like an ultimate free lunch,
For the basis is already made, with no punch,
It ever being around, as is, never a ‘was’—
Everywhere, in great abundance quite unheard of.[/i]
There’s even more of it than can be imagined—
Of lavish big spenders, there in amounts unbounded:
Bubbles of universes within pockets more,
Across all the times and spaces beyond our shore!
What is the birthing source of this tremendous weight?
There is nothing from which to make the causeless cake!
Its nature is undirected, uncooked, unbaked?
There can’t be a choice to that ne’er born and awaked!
[i]There can’t be turtles on turtles all the way down;
The buck has to stop somewhere in this town.[/i]
‘Nothing’ is unproductive—can’t even be meant;
All ever needed is, with nothing on it spent!
[i]Yes, none from nothing, yet something is here, true;
But, really, you can’t have your cake and Edith, too![/i]
And yet I’ve still all of my wedding cake, I do—
It’s just changed form; what ever IS can never go.
[i]Since there’s no point at which to impart direction
The essence would have no limited, specific,
Certain, designed, created, crafted, thought out meaning![/i]
Thus the Great IS is anything and everything!
[i]This All is as useless as Babel’s Library
Of all possible books in all variety![/i]
Yes, and even in our own small aisle we see
Any and every manner of diversity.
[i]The information content of Everything
Would be the same as that of Nothing![/i]
Zero. The bake’s ingredients vary widely,
And so express themselves accordingly.
What’s Everything, detailed? Length, width, depth, 4D—
Your world-line; 5th, all your probable futures;
6th, jump to any; 7th, all Big Bang starts to ends;
8th, all universes’ lines; 9th, jump to any;
10th, the IS of all possible realities.
Your elucidation is quite a piece of cake!
Yo, it exceeds, as well, and so it takes the cake.
Everything ever must be, because ‘nothing’ can’t?
Yes, it’s that existence has no opposite, Kant!
[i]So, we’re here at the mouth of the horn of plenty,
For a free breakfast, lunch, and a dinner party;
Yet many starving are fed up with being unfed.[/i]
Alas, for now I have to say, Let Them Eat Cake!
Not sure if history or religions can offer us meaningful answers for the questions for the obvious reasons. No, I don't presume that we have reached anywhere at all. In fact, I would like to ask you, why do you presume that there must be reasons on the existence of the universe, the sentient beings and all forms of existence. Is there any grounds or justifications for believing why the reasons must exist? Could they exist, just because they do, and always have been existing without any reasons at all?
I do not agree. Structure = integrat[ed] information of prior dissipative structures (i.e. environment). Noether's theorem + computational automata + Wolfram's principle of irreducible complexity demonstrate FOR MY TWO BIT(coin)S that structure (broken symmetries —> dissipative processes) are emergent. In other words, increasing entropy is equivalent to integrat[ing] information – the process of reducing the potential for a system to change or do work.
Like material phases (dissipating threshold-states): plasma —> gas —> liquid —> solid. "Consciousness" is an edge case emerging along the gradient, or phase, transition (see chaos theory) at 'liquid —> solid'. If this were not so, then IIT scientists would be finding measurable "consciousness" literally everywhere – in plasmas, gases, liquids & solids as well as at their phase-transitions –and functional adaptive systems like RNA would not be confined only to biological systems. It amounts to a compositional fallacy to assert without warrant that "consciousness is a fundamental property" – woo-of-the-gaps – as e.g. panpsychicist and gaia theorists do.
A necessary condition, I suspect, but, given the degree of adaptive complexity, not the (only) sufficient condition (e.g. climate forecasting models – for an exponentially less complex chaotic system). Hypothetical models can be "tested" (falsified, not verified), which we do not have for "consciousness"; but definitions, Pop, can only be stipulated and used, as you suggest I've done, for the sake of discussion .
Yeah, that's because we are doing philosophy, not (pseudo) science, so speculative conceptual clarity is the goal and not stopgap fiat, scientistic, constructs. To my way of thinking, "consciousness" as a still under-determined concept is like the heap from the sorites paradox.
Quoting Jack Cummins
Red herring, mate. One doesn't have to come anywhere near the infinite in order to sufficiently understand the countable number line. In other words, we're probably nowhere near the 'totality of knowledge' but the more knowledge we acquire is more any new knowledge, to be knowledge, has to be consistent with and account for as it extends further into – translating into already known terms even as it changes them – the unknown. We know enough, I think, to not only understand the scale of the unknown but have a good sense of just how improbable it becomes as we learn more that the unknown contains a significant break (or breaks) from the archive of our most precise and efficacious forms knowledge. Possible? Yes. Probable? Acceleratingly improbable. Speculate, of course, to your heart's content for kicks at the roulette table – after all, it's your money / time to donate to the House – or discipline your use of reason and play the odds leveraging the (most abductive forms of) knowledge at your disposal ...
Do you agree that consciousness is integrated information?
That things emerge is still a function of integrated information. Emergence is a function of self organization. In the process of self organization a dominant structure arises. It is an isomorphic phenomena- similar no matter the stuff being organized - why is that? ( strong anthropic principle ) - the reason for self organization - the same reason things emerge at the fundamental level. The form of what is self organizing differs, but in the end the group of elements integrate to a structure of some sort - of course it is an evolving structure.
The most fundamental particle is a wavicle of sorts. It possesses energy and information in the form of frequency and amplitude, charge, polarity, etc. This wavicle interacts with another wavicle, and they self organize in the interaction - the frequency and amplitude ( information ) of the two wavicles modulate to form a third wavicle. This third wavicle in its form of frequency and modulation is an integration of the "information" of the first two wavicles.
Information has been integrated and memorized to a symbol.
This is what consciousness does, it integrates information, and memorizes it to a symbol.
This is what human consciousness still does. Information arrives to us via frequencies and vibrations, and consciousness works with that and translates it to anthropocentric symbology.
Quoting 180 Proof
That is the aim.
Quoting 180 Proof
A solution is possible from an "information" perspective, where "consciousness is information integration for the purpose of self organization."
I'm saying structure is information integrated by the environment full of other dissipative structures (i.e. an entropy gradient).
It could be. Or it could be more than just that.
I agree with this - it relates back to the metaphysical need to relate one thing to another.
Quoting 180 Proof
Certainly it is more than that. Once you can integrate information in a self organizing manner, there is no end to what is possible.
I was thinking about "WHY" question again, and it seem to me that "WHY" only exists in human mind. Once we are looking outside world, there is no "WHY" at all. So, when you ask "why" questions, it can only be answered from one's direct experience about something, or one's own feelings and motives.
So when why question is asked for the universe and other lives existence, the answers will have to come from only from one's mind, which is either reasoning, imagination, or experience. Once we go out the boundaries of our reasoning, all the explanations and questions disappear. The universe keeps working as it has been for billions of years in silence, and live come and go living their own times without any reasons and explanations.
In the case of the question, if you seek the answers from science, history or religion, then the answers would be based on the First cause, or the Big Bang theory or Creation Theory by God, or Evolution Theories, but I would imagine these are not the type of answers that you wanted to hear or accept as the right answers for the question.
But it does not mean that we have reached the ultimate answers or knowledge, because thoughts always start in the middle and ends in the middle. When Kant has finished his CPR, he thought he had reached the ultimate knowledge and solved all the problems in Philosophy and Religion. But he was wrong. There came the Neo Kantian schools, Hegel and German Idealism, then Phenomenology. It all seems just a part of the process.
Why does a fish have scales, why do birds fly?
These are questions of function (how), not questions of existence (why).
But point taken. :up:
I do agree with your point in one of your posts that it is only the human being who asks why. I am sure trees cannot stop and wonder why they exist. It is probably a difference between being and thinking. But, we could also ask why have we developed the consciousness with which to ask why? What is going on here on an evolutionary scale, and where are we going with this?
Now our consciousness is getting even richer and more diverse with not only interaction of language and mind, but also scientific developments and globalisation. The consciousness keeps expanding due to not only the global communications, but also the space crafts landing on the Moon and Mars, and looking into the other galaxies.
This development has provided a great deal of information and knowledge about the material world, but at the same time, it also increased more mysteries on the origin of the universe and life. Because sciences and religions still have not given us the answers to these origins beyond doubt. Our consciousness will keep on going seeking for these answers I guess.
I definitely believe that language is a key factor in consciousness and how we began to ask questions about why. There is a whole tension between the way in which we make discoveries in science, but many questions remain. There is been a view that many of the metaphysical questions should not be the centre of philosophy, but even though I think that is hard to come up with clear answers, it is probably inevitable that human beings will continue to speculate about existence and other aspects of metaphysics.
Your posts are extremely interesting, and I do think that some of it really does come back to the idea of the question of whether there is any underlying purpose. I am aware that there have been a couple of threads on this idea. I believe that you had some discussion in them. I think that your own interest in the idea of self organisation is extremely interesting, but I am a little unclear about your view on this.
I believe that we have a whole tradition in philosophy, stemming from Plato, which placed humanity grasping for inherent forms. But, I wonder in a perspective of self organising existence and consciousness, would these be ruled out, because the basis of creation is not based on an abstract 'out there'. I also wonder if there are any underlying archetypes, because Jung's idea of archetypes seems connected to Plato's ideas on forms, but more firmly based in nature. I am not presuming that you have any interest in Jung though, and I think that his writings are ambiguous as to whether archetypes are based on some kind of transcendental reality or as aspects arising within nature.
I just read one of your posts, and I agree that apart from asking why we need to appreciate and be grateful. Gratefull Dead are an excellent band, but I do going into psychedelic mystery and appreciate, which may be a convoluted tangent.
Perhaps, we need, rather than asking so many impossible questions, to develop a philosophy of gratefulness, and it would not need to be restricted to philosophies which see this in terms of being grateful and thankful to God. It may be about appreciating the numinous, and be simply a philosophy of awe and the wondrous aspects of existence.
If I may offer some ("modern") candidates —
• Spinozism (of course!)
• Absurdism (re: P.W. Zapffe, A. Camus, C. Rosset, R. Brassier)
• Jazzism^ (re: A. Murray's Stomping The Blues or Murray Talks Music ... *H. Carruth's Sitting In ...)
– reflective stances on life/living which insist on beauty and love, integrity and gratitude in spite of the ineluctable failures, heartbreaks & catastrophes. Nietzschean "Ja-sagen!" (amor fati). Separately and together this trinity manifests the ancient the "Tetrapharmakos" in these compostmodern times so that I am never a stranger to, or exiled from, the numinous ...
[quote=Anthem (1992)][i]Ring the bells that still can ring
Forget your perfect offering
There is a crack, a crack in everything
That’s how the light gets in.[/i][/quote]
^I just noticed this coinage of mine is already in use, but I'll stick with it until something better strikes me.
* A late friend, father of one of my oldest friends, also a mentor whom I still miss dearly.
There is so much misinformation on entropy. So much focus on it when in fact natural systems are dissipative systems:
"It is now generally recognized that in many important fields of research a state of true thermodynamic equilibrium is only attained in exceptional conditions. Experiments with radioactive tracers, for example, have shown that the nucleic acids contained in living cells continuously exchange matter with their surroundings. It is also well known that the steady flow of energy which originates in the sun and the stars prevents the atmosphere of the earth or stars from reaching a state of thermodynamic equilibrium.
Obviously then, the majority of the phenomena studied in biology, meteorology, astrophysics and other subjects are irreversible processes which take place outside the equilibrium state.
These few examples may serve to illustrate the urgent need for an extension of the methods of thermodynamics so as to include irreversible processes." - Ilya Prigogine -Introduction to Thermodynamics of Irreversible Processes, 1955,
Natural systems are dissipative ( open ) systems - they dissipate entropy. And entropy in the universe is decreasing as a percentage of total space. So the universe is becoming more ordered. https://www.informationphilosopher.com/introduction/information/entropy-expansion.gif Or at least the pockets of the universe that we have information of, are becoming more ordered ( are in a phase of order ). Order arises due to the "Self Organization" that creates it. What is self organizing is the information. I have found that by focusing on the history and evolution of the "self organization of information", that an understanding of consciousness can be found. Consciousness is Information integration for the purpose of Self organization - it has an evolutionary history. People ( and all things ) are really a bundle of information accumulated over a lifetime. Their bodies are articulated by information, and all they are juggling in mind is information. So the history of a person, is really a history of information accumulation and integration, as is the history of anything. And, the interesting thing is, information is self ordering - It can not fit together any old way. It insists on being integrated - this is why we exist. If information did not insist on being integrated nothing would exist. But due to the strong anthropic principle the laws of the universe combine such that information integrates, and due to this we are able to ask the question why we exist.
"Purposes" are intentions and, as far as I can discern, it does not make sense to say "purpose" "underlies" anything. My (thread) purpose.
Energy is a beauty and a brilliance,
Flashing up in its destructance,
For everything isn’t here to stay its “best”;
It’s merely here to die in its sublimeness.
Like slow fires making their brands, it breeds,
Yet ever consumes and moves on, as more it feeds,
Then spreads forth anew, this unpurposed dispersion,
An inexorable emergence with little reversion,
Ever becoming of its glorious excursions,
Bearing the change that patient time restrains,
While feasting upon the glorious decayed remains
In its progressive march through losses for gains.
…
https://austintorney.files.wordpress.com/2021/07/atlb-8.5x11-jpg-300-dpi.pdf
If one begins from a framework of neo-Darwinian empirical causality , then purpose, intention and chance-randomness are co-determinative. Intention , by this thinking , is derivative of random
chance. It seems that enactivism may shift that thinking a bit, giving the self-organizing system a normative unity that is perpetually oriented toward purposes. I don’t know that this implies an endless regress though. Certainly the Nietzschean Husserlian and Heideggerian notions of intentionality don’t see change and randomness as the other side of the binary, since they are not beginning from objective causation Nor are they starting from a metaphysical ‘ purpose’. Rather, a radical interaction between subjectivity and objectify leads to a thinking which is neither of a chance-intention binary nor of metaphysically foundational purpose.
Quoting Joshs
:up: I think there is a determinism with a slight element of randomness. It is enactivist. In the enactive interrelationship of subject and object the slight randomness causes emergence / creativity
** For the most part our actions are determined ( determined by the information that composes us ), but in any moment of consciousness a multiplicity of causal information intersects, with some randomness, such that the unforeseen arises..
On 'Good Fortune', 'Luck', etc.:
https://austintorney.files.wordpress.com/2021/07/moh-8.5x11-jpg-300-dpi.pdf
That does sound like Varela:
“ It is perhaps is best to start with the notion of a state or phase space : a domain of variables or
measurements which attempts to completely specify a given process. Such specification is a law
or a rule, and these system are therefore deterministic, in contrast to a random dynamical
systems. The sequence of subsequent states evolving according to the dynamical rule describes a
trajectory in state space. In the case of continuous time, the system is defined as a flow.”
Can there be an explanation that does not admit further inquiry, even in principle?
If not, then we may just find ourselves on some indefinite path of exploration.
Hence the diallelus: The Problem of the Criterion (IEP), Regress argument (Wikipedia).
Either way, artificial stop-gaps aren't it. Back to work it is, I guess.
There are questions to which the only honest response is (presently): "Don't know." And that makes for a fair amount of dishonesty out there.
There comes a point in which there is no prior explanation for somethings being. What does that logically entail? There is something that has no reason for being, and thus anything could actually be. Now there may be stepping stones of reasons for why we are, but at the end of this road the answer will necessarily be, "It just is."
Quoting Philosophim
Is something coming from nothing any more absurd than something existing forever?
Your point still stands though. Whether something or nothing gave rise to everything else, it has no cause, no explanation or reason for being.
Again, I don't see how this addresses my concern that you are just saying (more subtly), don't question existence itself. That is to say, the enterprise of existing (aka continuing doing what we are doing as humans).
My point earlier with the "throwness" mixed with the idea of "micro-decisions" is that existence is not "for us", as we did not create this world, but inhabit it. HOWEVER, we are the only animal that can in most respects, "do otherwise". We can sublimate our curiosity on why we have to do anything by saying, "BUT this questioning makes us miss out!", but I don't see that as a real reason not to question. Rather, it is being authentically a human- someone that can wonder about these things, and perhaps judge the whole enterprise of being thrown into the world as sub-optimal. One can then try to sublimate and forget as you say as to not experience dread, or stay on the thin line and see the questioning through.
Not that absurd, since one has to be correct.
The Universe seems to have a zero-sum balance but for the tiny quantum uncertainty, so, 'Nothing' is always up to something, making 'it' not an extant Nothing.
Something existing forever, having no antecedent/precursor, needs to be unmakable and unbreakable, being only of itself, and thus it has no parts. Systems need not apply. Quantum fields suffice for now.
I remember having a debate with @fishfry over whether a quantum field can be an ultimate explanation. I argued it is as good of an ultimate explanation as any.
Looking at the complexity of their posts on other threads, I'm lucky I didn't embarrass myself.
I embarrass myself all the time around here. Thanks for the kind words.
Better, since also QFT works…
'From Nothing' reduces to 'Something Forever' because a spontaneous production of something from nowhere, no place, and no when, etc. requires a capability—and that is something, not a nothing.
So now what do we do about it? What are the implications, if any?
It has a variety of sources. Determinism with a slight element of randomness comes from Neile Theise, Informational understanding is from all over the place.
Quoting Joshs
Yes, for me it starts in a phase of order. A thermodynamic / energy state that causes things to self organize, as apposed to very high energy state where this would be impossible, where chaos would prevail.
Theories need a unifying concept, for you it is time, for some it is entropy :grimace: , I'm thinking information may do it for me.
Perhaps not, but this fact itself is part of the answer to the question. No? Or do we just stop enquiring?
That is very solipsistic of Max. I can just imagine him getting the Planck length down to 10^-40 odd, and saying - I've had my fill of this! :lol:
My point is, and as others have intimated, saying we "don't know" becomes an epistemic stance, which further understanding is built upon. So you don't get to sit this one out - whether you have a stance of understanding, or a stance of no understanding, you still have an understanding.
I'm with @Philosophim ( but not the god part :smile: ). There has to be a first cause. I think the anthropic principle is water tight. I think those who say there can be no understanding would, at least, have to find fault with the anthropic principle, for their argument to be logical.
What say you naysayers? Can you find fault with the anthropic principle? :smile:
As far as I can tell, it's merely a woo-of-the-gaps ex post facto self-flattering rationalization for violating the mediocrity principle (à la teleology (causal finalism), cosmic (metaphysical) PSR). :nerd:
Personally I believe ours would be a bubble universe caused in a larger big bang that created many universes, but this is immaterial to the topic at hand.
Except that the "laws of physics" only refer to the invariant structures of our physical models which are strongly correlated with observations of regularities of the universe but are not "caused" by, or properties of, the universe. Only our physical models are "anthropic" because they are man-made to suit human purposes (limitations).
Ha, Ha That's a good point. Laws of physics are mind dependent, so only relate to the observable universe. So we are really saying that the anthropic principle applies to a phase state of the observable universe - a pocket of order. I would accept that. :grimace:
Ha, Ha. Do you have territory without maps? For an idealist the maps are the territory.
Check the pre-hominid fossil record.
No doubt. On this basis – conflation of epistemology with ontology (i.e. fallacious reifications e.g. platobic forms) – idealism only concerns the imaginary and not the factual, and is thus useless except for idle speculations and religious (e.g. woo-of-the gaps) apologetics.
What with, If not a map?
Quoting 180 Proof
- an idealist argument - I love it! :smile:
Either Or Poem
‘God’s’ image reflects the mottled colors
Painted by human artists upon the air
Where the wormed apple was before the fall
That rotted away truth’s tree of knowledge.
Or
The Eternal has to be everything,
Superimposed, not a certain pathing;
It can’t have inputs, with no beginning;
So, what chose the song our universe sings?
The Permanent is all that there is,
It’s transmutations the temporary fizz.
It can’t have direction, with no inputs,
So, it multi verses, seeming as a Wiz.
The Eternal is as a multiverse,
Potentially, with no information,
As in Bable’s Library of all books,
Being as useless as Nothing’s zero.
The universes might all spring forth, somehow,
Most inert or not going far enough,
With some reaching life after a long time,
Such as ours, precarious as it is.
Or
Forecasting the Cosmos
The Programmer sets the if-then switches,
Like eight-way 3D Rubic Cube intercepts,
After having set the quarks and leptons,
And coding stars to generate atoms.
Then more precise tweaks, to dark energy,
To umpteen decimal places so rare,
And the forming of the DNA code
To blend life’s ingredients, stirring slow.
Darn, the n-body problem is so tough,
For unforeseen side-effects e’er arise,
Among branches of the would-be life-tree,
A zillion variables overlapping.
Damn!
…
Extinctions swept away many a kind;
Chromosomes fused, leaving the chimps behind;
DNA remembered the survivors;
‘Good fortune’ smiled on the Sapiens mind.
Unintelligently programmed, many climbs
Had to be of the off-the-shelf reach’s grimes,
As dickering Rube Goldberg ‘inventions’,
Our nervous systems ruled by ancient times.
Finally, after some fourteen billion years,
Proto-man and then homo Sapiens
Arrived, after seven million more years
Of tinkering with monkey chromosomes.
But yet something worked; here we are!
Oh Man! What a piece of work—the mind;
What noble deeds done and undone in kind.
What coding updates programmed all upon—
In the layers of brains the mind is made upon.
What is this sapiens mammal animal?
Still made from slime but of a higher call!
However all of the answers will be made of information, and they will all come from a self organizing system, that relies upon the anthropic principle for its existence. Within such an overview some answers have already arisen, and more may yet arise. We cannot know for sure, until we try and either fail or succeed.
You got me there! :chin:
Yes, but we seekers shall not tire of exploration…
[i]Why do we wander around in the dark,
In the middle of the night like this?[/i]
Well, if I knew the answer to that one,
I would have been home hours ago.
Do we not tire, e’er walking, looking, lame?
At first, we did, yes, but then beauty came—
The grand moment of wings grown; lifting, new.
The rhythm flies us—our music plays through.
Such we are stirred, so touched by the starlight,
That it seems we’ll ne’er be the same again.
[i]Do we sense the euphony of the spheres?
Can we fathom the theory of everything?[/I]
Of we philosophers…
The Seekers Gather in the Forum Tavern
In this lost haunt on the Orion arm
Of the galaxy, safe from the core’s harm,
We philosophers meet in the forum,
The sleuth-hounds unweaving the Cosmic yarn.
We search for the Start of the Universe,
The End, the Before, the After, the Kinds,
The Measures, and All That Lies Between:
The Music of the Spheres’ Magnificat.
Quantum fluctuations e’er wave their sea,
So that Nothing can never come to be.
Here we must walk the Plank mysterious
To the min of Max into the abyss.
We’re the flesh to the backbones of the stars,
Those ghosts of the suns that no longer are—
They having transformed their energy’s ways
To base atoms, plus more—supernovae.
Heaven’s stars spread the primeval dust eterne;
Time’s deep seas to evolve the species in turn.
From time, death, and dust we at last became,
And to this, thus, and that we must return.
Time and stardust made us Earth’s living guest,
For quick death sifted the rest from the best.
Those, our birthright, wrote our epitaph, too:
RIP; time expired, death came, dust was left.
Death, evolution’s lone selector,
Stalked the sillier from the wise of yore,
Preserved the more useful from the useless,
And favored the pointed o’er the pointless.
…
From a drop of water one could infer
The existence of Niagara Falls
And even the great Atlantic Ocean.
Sherlock, even as a baby just born
In a dark cave could infer the universe
From a grain of sand between his toes.
“I love this detective school, Sherlock.”
“Elementary, my dear Watson, elementary.”
“This class of opium is great, too!”
“High school, Watson.”
I agree that the idea of a 'spontaneous production of something from nowhere' is interesting with regard to how anything ever came into existence at all. We could ask did matter exist always or did some underlying invisible force bring it into being? I think that this also applies to the whole process of creation and destruction as aspects of existence, even though they are not necessarily unrelated to matter. I know that, as @180 Proof, has pointed out, purpose is a human construct related to intention, I am not sure that this overrides the process of creation and destruction itself, although, of course, it is our interpretation which names them in that way.
Thus, it ought to be still happening everywhere all the time. Hope not near me, but I'll keep an eye out!
You may not be producing something out of nowhere, but I think that you truly understand the process of creativity, as demonstrated in the illustrations, which you gave links to in the thread about thinking about the Bible from a philosophical point of view And, for anyone else reading this, I recommend looking at these illustrations, on page 14 of that specific thread, because they are superb.
Stop? Heck no. :) We don't need omniscience to know something. And curiosity is also a thing.
reality is eternal and infinite
life doesnt exist only reality exists
solved
Quoting Joshs
Quoting Jack Cummins
Quoting jorndoe
Quoting 180 Proof
Have you ever considered whether information is the fundamental stuff? That everything is a system in the process of accumulating and integrating information?
Energy ( electromagnetism ) is currently the fundamental stuff, we know of it via information we have about it. We don't know its ingredients, but when we do find out, we will know of them via their information. Information is the constituent factor. If a first cause was found, we would know about it via its information. So "information" is a fundamental stuff - it will be a factor at rock bottom, though it can not exist on its own - must exist as the description of something ( the form giving co-element of something ). This is necessarily so from a mind dependent perspective ( idealist ), but works equally well from a realist perspective.
It is information that is evolving, in a non linear and emergent process, creating existence.
The Rock Bottom Flow of Information
(It will move or else you can click on it to get it to move.)
That's like saying "signals without noise" are fundamental (or even that noise is only emergent from / dependent upon signals) which is completely inconsistent with e.g. entropy. A glance at the starry night sky, for instance, also shows what's (more) fundamental than "information".
Quoting 180 Proof
Quoting Pop
https://www.informationphilosopher.com/introduction/information/entropy-expansion.gif
Noise is signals.
Information is the fundamental stuff - For all intents and purposes it is our bedrock of reality.
Only "a nothing" can provide "no" information. Everything else provides information of its nature - we know it's nature through the "information" we have of it.
cool! :up:
Okay. :rofl: Have a good one.
Noise is information
Wikipedia:
Types of noise
Signal processing noise can be classified by its statistical properties (sometimes called the "color" of the noise) and by how it modifies the intended signal:
Additive noise, gets added to the intended signal
White noise
Additive white Gaussian noise
Black noise
Gaussian noise
Pink noise or flicker noise, with 1/f power spectrum
Brownian noise, with 1/f2 power spectrum
Contaminated Gaussian noise, whose PDF is a linear mixture of Gaussian PDFs
Power-law noise
Cauchy noise
Multiplicative noise, multiplies or modulates the intended signal
Quantization error, due to conversion from continuous to discrete values
Poisson noise, typical of signals that are rates of discrete events
Shot noise, e.g. caused by static electricity discharge
Transient noise, a short pulse followed by decaying oscillations
Burst noise, powerful but only during short intervals
Phase noise, random time shifts in a signal
Anton Zeilinger, in a famous statement concluded, "Randomness is the bedrock of reality", after proving it in his state of the art laboratory to a degree of 3-sigma or more.
I concluded it on the cheap by noting that the bedrock can't have any inputs to it, although I still hesitate to admit 'random'… because what is it that makes a Geiger counter not beep in between its 'random' beeps? …
I once visited the Library of Babel to see if it had any information. It contains every possible book. This entire forum was in there, too.
PDF: https://theomarkhayyamclubofamerica.files.wordpress.com/2021/07/vault-8.5x11-jpg-150-dpi.pdf
Video:
Quantum Information and RandomnessJohannes Kofler and Anton Zeilinger
Abstract:
"In this regard, in 1999, one of us (A.Z.) has put forward an idea which connects the concept of information with the notion of elementary systems. For the subsequent line of thought, we first have to make ourselves awareof the fact that our description of the physical world is represented by propositions, i.e. by logical statements about it. These propositions concern classical measurement results. Therefore, the measurement results must be irreducible primitives of any interpretation. And second, that we have knowledge or information about an object only through observations, i.e. by interrogating nature through yes-no questions. It does not make any sense to talk about reality without the INFORMATION about it."
My bold and Caps. It is very simple. Consciousness only processes information. Nothing else. For this reason alone, information has to be the fundamental stuff - of course it is a co-element, not existing on its own
… In the Library of the Cosmos
Writing the Prosaic Cosmos
Capability Information is the energy/gravity
that papers the covariant quantum fields
that ink the particles of the standard model
that stroke the alphabet letters of the atoms
that word the dictionary molecules
that phrase the biotype DNA cells
that verb the subjects
that sentence the creatures
that paragraph the species
that story the ongoing tree of life
that books the literature of the unified-verse
that libraries the Cosmos.
Programming the Universe:
(Shows some pictures I took while on vacation in our developing Universe—
or else I had the best telescope and microscope.)
I do agree that energy can probably be seen as the underlying aspect behind existence, and it is likely that it is evolving. And, indeed, this works for a realist or idealist perspective of mind.
(Seeking the Ultimate Information of the Library of Everything)
The Poetic Universe
It appears to us that the world consists
Of parts continuing on from a moment ago,
And thus retain their identity in time;
Yet, matter likely only appears secondarily
As a congealed potentiality gestalt.
The sun is not the same sun as it was
A trillionth of a second ago that does.
To us a semblance of the ‘sun’ remains.
There are no objects that are identical
With themselves over time, and so perhaps
The temporal sequence remains open.
Nature is then no longer seen as clockwork,
But only as a ‘possibility gestalt’,
The whole world occurring anew each moment.
The deeper reality from which the world arises,
Acts as a unity as an indivisible ‘potentiality’,
Which can perhaps realize itself in many ways,
It not being a strict sum of the partial states.
We are both essence and form, as poems versed,
Ever unveiling this life’s deeper thirsts,
As new riches, from strokes, letters, phonemes,
Words, phrases, and sentences—uni versed.
We have rhythm, reason, rhyme, meter, sense,
Metric, melody, and beauty’s true pense,
Revealed through life’s participation,
From the latent whence into us hence.
Informationally derived meanings
Unify in non-reductive gleanings,
In a relational reality,
Through the semantical life happenings.
Syntactical information exchange,
Without breaking of the holistic range,
Reveals the epic whole of nature’s poetics,
Within her requisite of ongoing change.
Thus there’s form before gloried substance,
Relationality before the chance
Of material impressions rising,
Traced in our world from the gestalt’s dance.
All lives in the multi–dimensional spaces
Of basic superpositional traces
Of Possibility, as like the whirl’s
Probable clouds of distributed paces.
What remains unchanged over time are All’s
Properties that find expression, as laws,
Of the conservation of energy,
Momentum, and electric charge—unpaused.
The weave of ‘it from bits’ as the strokes writes
The letters of the elemental bytes—
The alphabet of the standard model,
Forming the words as the atoms whose mights
Merge to form molecules, as phrases,
Onto proteins and cells, as sentences,
Up to paragraphs of organisms,
And unto the stories of the species.
In this concordance of literature,
We are the Cosmos’ book of adventure,
As a uni-verse of sentient poems,
Being both the contained and the container.
A poem is a truth fleshed in living words,
Which by showing unapprehended proof
Lifts the veil to reveal hidden beauty:
It’s life’s image drawn in eternal truth.
I am very impressed by the poetry and images you have been putting on the thread. I especially like the picture 'Seeking the Ultimate Information of the Library of Everything' because the endless piles of books on desks and all over the floor is how I end up. In the room I lived in until last year, I ended up not having a floor, and only a path to get to my bed. I am trying to not get my current one in the same state. But, the picture you have created cheers me up, in seeing the issue as being connected to the quest for the ultimate information about existence and everything.
Poems are renderings of the soul’s spirit,
The highest power of language and wit.
The reader then translates back to spirit;
If the soul responds, then a poem you’ve writ!
(All Done Searching for the Answer to Everything)
Remember that GIFs move if you click on them.
Energy ( electromagnatism ) is the fundamental stuff of physics. We have knowledge of it through the information we have of it. So really it is "energy and information" that is fundamental. Energy and information is equal to matter ( E=mc2 ). Physics has traditionally tried to understand the world in terms of matter in motion, but an alternative way to understand it ( more relevant to philosophy ) is as energy and it's information. In this view, as energy interacts it creates more information, and subsequently everything there is, is due to this, and becomes a process of energy interacting and accumulating and integrating information. So, everything becomes a system that is in the process of accumulating and integrating information, including us. The only difference between these self organizing systems is the complexity of information they are composed of ( can memorize ), and manipulate and integrate.
In this energetic paradigm, everything is made of energy and is composed of the information it has accumulated. Does this make sense to you?
Now, for the origins of Mind/Light? I may be able to perceive such a thing, but it will require a completely different understanding and perspective of the nature of nature.
This must be the first scientific poem I have ever seen. Artistically its an interesting idea.
I think you've got the gist of it. We may quibble over a few details, but not many.
What is it learning , creating, and changing? Is it information?
It is the nature of Mind/Memory. It is what transpires and takes shape.
I agree. What I was trying to get at is that mind only deals with information. What it is learning, creating, and changing is information. No?
Mind has Memory (information), but it also is imbued with a creative impetus. Information, without a creative impetus cannot change.
:up: That would be emotion / feeling driving the integration of information, thereby creating a self organizing system.
It would be more than emotions/or feelings. It is Creative. Emotions and feelings are derivative of the creative impetus.
Onward and similar… 'To the Quantum Depths of the Poetic Universe':
From quantum non-locality and entanglement, we know that information is more primary than distance, and that things don’t have to have the appearance of being near each other to be related or to cause an effect.
Everything connected to everything would seem to be a ‘perception’ as far as one could be had by that network. The all-at-once connections, as like in a hologram, would seem to provide for for the direction of what goes on in the overall information process. I am thinking like a yogi and a guru, the entire cosmos situated within me.
Quantum non-locality seems to imply that every region of space is in instant and constant contact with every other, perhaps even in time as well, and so the holistic universe is governed by the property of the solitary whole; so that could be the underlying guidance principle. An individual particle might ‘know’ something about what to do, acting according to all the others.
Thus both our consciousness and the holistic universe, each having a singular nature, is the clue. Maybe they are of the same basis of fundamental consciousness, but separate as two manifestations, each controlling a different realm, such as internal and external, our internal consciousness giving us ‘future’, and the external consciousness granting ‘future’ to the universe. I don't know which has the tougher job.
Lee Smolin has it that qualia are intrinsic, as fundamental, and Chalmers has it that information is fundamental and can express itself in two ways, in consciousness and in matter.
Quantum entanglement suggests that each particle has the entire 3-D or 4-D map of the universe, the information ever updated, the universe being as a single entity. While this may not be consciousness at the level we have, it may help the universe accomplish something of the movements of particles and fields in their energy, mass, and momentum, in some global way that goes forward overall. This may not seem to be saying a whole lot, in depth, but since the quantum realm is beneath everything then one would surmise that it must have all to do with everything that goes on.
It is still that the apparent atoms and molecules make the happenings, via physical-chemical reactions; however, this observation cannot be equated to an 'explanation', for we must wonder what underlies the chemical mattering and reacting that seems to have a unity of direction to it.
…
more:
PDF: https://theomarkhayyamclubofamerica.files.wordpress.com/2021/06/quantpoe-8.5x11-jpg-150-dpi.pdf
I think so. At the heart of every "self" is a universal. That universal would have to be something like the anthropic principle - the combined laws of the universe, or put another way - the cause of integrated information in the universe.
Quoting PoeticUniverse
Yes, information creates physical structure and mental structure, but for a monist they are identical, where mental structure is neuroplasticity.
Quoting PoeticUniverse
Yes I think so. It looks like a self organizing system. But there is only so much we can conclude, from so little information. I try to keep my speculation fairly local, to things that I can reasonable cross verify.
Quoting PoeticUniverse
A system understood as energy and information self organizing in relation to other systems made of the same stuff doing the same thing, and thus accumulating information in the process, where the accumulated information creates the form of the system, is how I have come to understand it. It is the only understanding that I am aware of that captures everything.
What creates the emotion / feelings, requires a theory of emotion. I agree with you, I suspect it is something like what I wrote to creative universe. What do you suspect?
Something like 'All of life’s entities embrace one another, including cells, organisms, species, and biotope' could add to the scientific aspect.
Emotions are way of sharing and experiencing, just like the other senses. For some reason, people tend to differentiate them into different categories. Probably because some types of experiencing are more directly tied to a physical nervous systems.
Could be, I would have said interact - things arise from interactions with other things. Interrelational evolution is the only game in town, as far as I can see.
We don't have a universally accepted theory of emotions. What they are has been interpreted in various ways. I see them as a force like quality that we feel - this feeling provides impetus to self organize. In my understanding consciousness = self organization.
Organizing is an aspect of the Mind's intention to create. Organization itself is insufficient to explain creative evolution. All aspects of the Mind, including emotions, are imbued in the creative effort.
I think you need to tidy this up a little. Before you can have an intention, you have to organize information.
First there is crude experimentation and then information (Memory) is slowly corrected. Similar to a baby playing with some toy blocks.
The thing that is integrated is information. This leads to an experiment being performed, this creates more information that is integrated, which leads to more experiments, and so on.
To "begin" it is only necessary to create movement (an impetus) and observe the results of the movement. Information (Memory) is then collected. There is no information until there is the first movement and observation (of itself).
Yes, but where can that possibly come from other than integrated information?
The first information is provided by sense data .
Quoting MondoR
This is incorrect. You need a cause for the first movement, and the only one at your disposal is integrated information.
There is no cause. It all begins with Mind moving urged on by a creative impetus. It observes its movements and begins to create. There is no information until the first observation and collection of memory.
No, because something existing forever still reduces down to no explanation for why it exists forever. But you seem to understand this. Basically if existence was infinite vs finite, we would still seek an answer for why it was infinite vs. finite. But if there is nothing prior to the finite or infinite, the answer remains, "It just is."
I think that you raise an important point about the nature of existence, the temporary and existence as being "forever'. This is where the nature of time comes into play, as well as the way in which our existence is dependent on categories, especially time and space. It does appear to me that existence is dependent on such categories of observations, and probably only makes sense in material terms. But, I am sure that some people may conceive of existence in other ways, but this is probably a metaphysics which is developed in abstract ways, and I think that it would be open to the most critical forms of philosophical scrutiny.
I think that the nature of information is extremely interesting, but one aspect of this which I have been aware of related to it during to it the idea of noise, as discussed in a recent book by Daniel Kahneman et al, called, 'Noise'. I have only read about it and looked at the book casually in a bookshop, but it does indicate that our understanding of life is within a background of general noise, often as a form of hindrance. So, I believe that we need to acknowledge this, as a basis for trying to gain the clearest and best possible understandings, including metaphysical and scientific knowledge. In other words, how do we filter and sort the most accurate information available for our understanding?
Good question. I think that intelligence might be the key to the answer. Living beings distinguish themselves from inanimate objects through the fact that they possess intelligence, and humans distinguish themselves from other living beings through possessing a higher intelligence than others.
The existence of a hierarchy of intelligences from the most rudimentary to the most advanced not only raises the possibility that there are intelligences that are higher than ours, but also that the universe is designed to either create intelligence or to manifest intelligence, in other words the universe and what we call life may have an intelligent cause.
I think that, as intelligent beings, our first and foremost belief should be in intelligence, that is, in that within us that defines us as intelligent beings. However, because, as stated above, there is a possibility if not probability that the universe has an intelligent cause, it stands to reason for us as intelligences to try to find out what that cause is. This is what scientific research already does in its own way and there is no reason why we shouldn’t do our own research into intelligence, i.e., into who or what we are.
Intelligence goes hand in hand with knowledge or information. Restricting knowledge or information would amount to restricting intelligence, i.e., restricting ourselves, which would be contrary to what we are as intelligent beings. Therefore, there should be no limit to acquiring knowledge or expanding our intelligence and this is why there should be no limit to philosophical inquiry into metaphysical realities or the ultimate cause of all things.
Being “too curious” may well be a symptom of psychological disorder or lead to one. And there is no doubt that certain conditions involve excessive curiosity, trying to see or read meaning into everything, etc. But this is exactly why we are equipped with reason. Reason is our safety cord that keeps us attached to reality so that we don’t lose our way on our intellectual and spiritual journeys and that prevents us from ending up somewhere from where there is no return to reality, or where we don't want to be.
Therefore, intelligence should be subject to no restrictions other than itself in the form of reason, which is also the filter through which we assess information and determine which direction the expansion of our intelligence should take.
Hypostatization extraordinaire?
Isnt organization anticipative? And if so, doesn’t that make it intentionally oriented?
Therex are mathematical definitions of information , like Shannon’s. Is that what you have in mind in your use of the word?
There is lots of noise, but when we focus on one aspect of it, it becomes a signal. Then, when we refocus to another aspect of it, the original signal becomes noise.
All noise is a potential signal. The spectrum of light is very broad, but normally we focus on a narrow range of it.
Quoting jorndoe
This is a very broad accusation. I think for it to be meaningful, you would have to provide an example, and then we could work through the details.
Quoting Joshs
Self organization, as you would be aware, is complicated - it achieves a number of functions. It allows a self to navigate the world, and in the process creates a self. Consciousness is anticipative, but how can one anticipate anything without a body of integrated information? Before any sort of intention can form, a body of integrated information must exist. After all, it is this body of integrated information that interacts with external information.
A self is information about the way information has organized itself. :smile: Initially DNA data would provide a body of information, and then senses stream in environmental information, the body of information integrates the sense data and out of this forms an intention ( constructivist style ). In the big picture, what is happening is that information is accumulating information onto itself, and growing in the process.
Shannon information theory is very focused and restricted to communicated information in technological / industrial settings. He says so himself in a quote that I can not find. :grimace: I use the term in it's broadest possible sense. Inform - to give form to a substance. Hence the patterns of a substance is information. Hence everything is information. There are pros and cons to this. The Zeilinger paper below acknowledges the primacy of information.
Quantum Information and Randomness Johannes Kofler and Anton Zeilinger
The print in this experimental post composed of jpgs came out fuzzy.
Here it is in a PDF:https://austintorn.files.wordpress.com/2021/07/times-blast-8.5x11-300-dpi.pdf
Another great poem, and picture. I thank you for making the thread so lively and decorative.
The problem with the understanding lies in the conceptualization of Time. Time or rather Duration is the instantiation of Memory, not a space/time block. Basically, we confuse clock time with them real Duration of life. There is no beginning of end, just Change. You can never understand the nature of Nature (Life) by using logic or science.
You are thrashing around in information because you are probably trying to be scientific. Information is a byproduct of Mind. Creativity is its essence.
The Final Answer to Everything
Wild theories?
Nobody Nowhere, at first, shows that Absolutes cannot be, and then this presentation morphs into Gavin Giorbran’s showing of the confluence of grouping order versus symmetry order.
PDF: https://austintorn.files.wordpress.com/2021/07/finalanswer-11x8.5-150-dpi.pdf
So, the relationship of one symbol to another is the minimum condition of consciousness ( start ), but there would seem to be no maximum condition of consciousness ( finish ) , that I can conceive at least. So IT looks like a process of accumulating information. It starts with the relationship of one thing to another and then continues to evolve, seemingly without end.
I have found some degree of understanding by treating all information as a single substance creating all structure, physical and mental - like Chalmers. This provides a simple picture of an energetic paradigm where information and energy ( electromagnetism ) cause structure. The structure builds for a time and then collapses, only to start rebuilding again, whilst living structure has found a way to continue the information, through life, for now at least. Whilst the most complex living structure has found ways preserve their information (aspects of themselves) through the things that they make. Which you are doing. :up:
I think your animated work is the strongest. How long did the "Vault of Everything" take to make?
Well, some of it was a long time ago, in the cruder days of video, but it probably took a month.
Quoting Pop
What if the characters in book images could come alive and move and talk…?
I told someone looking at an illustrated book that this could be done, asking her to focus more closely.
She said, "they're not moving."
I picked up the book and moved it back and forth through the air.
"See, they're moving now."
"Ha-ha, but they're not talking."
"Put your ear really close to the page and you will hear them."
"I think I heard something."
In his new book, 'Helgoland…', about Quantum Theory, Carlo Rovelli notes that All is Relational, that no entity exists independently of anything else, so that there are no intrinsic properties at all, but only 'properties' in relation to something else, which is essentially what Nagarjuna means by 'emptiness' in Buddhism.
Everything is 'quantum entangled' with everything, the 'things' more properly described as interactions and events.
Further, there are no fundamental substances, absolutes, no outside of Everything or bird's-eye view, no eternal basis, no 'God', etc. that is, there is no foundation of any kind to what goes on. 'Impermanance' goes all the way through…
This realization of Impermanence', 'No Absolutes' and 'Emptiness' is 'Nirvana'.
The quest is ended.
If the quest is ended - What now? :lol:
Now we can make art with some certainty?
Make love not philosophy! :lol:
I think that is very sensible. But I find there are still things I don't quite understand, and would like to resolve further. Once this ball starts rolling it is difficult to stop.
I thought you might say: "we can be certain there is no certainty!" :lol:
Look deeper into the evident zero-sum balance of the Universe/Cosmos?
Yet here we are, and if zero sum turns out to be true, we still have some time to fill :smile: And what better way to do it than to describe our existence?
I am good at doing nothing and thinking about nothing…
‘ZERO’ KEEPS REARING ITS HEAD
So called ‘empty’ space is vital,
For that’s where there’s the recital
That forms and plays the tunes of reality—
This grand cosmic symphony,
As existence fluctuates with the non,
Those causeless waverings of undulation.
It was once thought that the shove
Of this total energy was of
The order of 10**120 orders of
Magnitude above.
Well if that were so near
then we couldn’t even be here;
It was the worst calculation
In all of scientification;
So we weighed the universe,
Summing all of its constituent verses.
The universe weighs nothing at all!
This too since we found that
Our universal space was B flat—
Not just via the 60 degree angles of a small triangle,
And not only by using stars,
Nor rays that went from here to Mars
To Venus and back,
But all the way back to a degree of the CMBR,
Which represented 100,000 light years,
For which we measured the curvature:
The rays didn’t converge or diverge.
The ultimate of this geometry
Is that being flat is the beautiful symmetry
That leads to yet another beauty: zero.
The ever returning, conquering hero.
…
There was no place special in time
Nor properties of reason and rhyme.
Our beloved quantum fluctuations
Left their imprint all over creation—
The signature of their emanations
Written in the CMBR’s variations—
A magnifying glass upon their revelations,
As well as in the capitals of matter congregations
Of galaxies, nebulae, and other condensations.
What underwrote this glorious expansion
From such a humble state to a big time mansion?
It’s called inflation.
Perhaps there are many such bubbles blown—
All but one of these pocket universes unknown.
Where did all this energy come from
To amount to this astronomical sum?
It comes from the gravitational field.
Our universe did not begin with this yield
Already stored in the gravitational field;
But, rather, the gravitational field can supply
The energy because its energy found
Can become negative without bound.
As more and more positive energy materializes
The forms of ever growing region sizes,
Filled with a high energy scalar field, arise,
As more and more negative energy materializes
In the form of expanding regions wielded
That are filled with a gravitational field.
There is nothing known that can place a border
On the amount of inflation that can occur
While the total energy remains exactly zero…
Why does this ‘zero’ ever become the hero?
In yogic logic, as you might be aware, the aim is to be a nobody. And one of the pleasures of life is to think about nothing.
Everything is something to a somebody, but everything is nothing to a nobody.
'Eternal' not coming from anything…
Seems the same as saying it's ‘from nothing’.
The way I understand nothing, is that it provides no information. So I couldn't say whether it is eternal, or otherwise.
The above statement relates to identity and attachment, rather then the great eternal - whatever that may be.
Is Existence a zero-balance tree
Of opposites?: matter and its anti,
The weak vs. strong force, charge polarity—
All from ‘nothing’, to form reality?
The universe weighs nothing at all: zero,
Plus it is electrically neutral.
The positive kinetic energy of ‘stuff’
Cancels the negative potential energy of gravity.
This would also describe a pulsating universe. Like a heart beat?
Some kind of rhythm/balance sustaining…
Our existence, necessarily, is finite,
Centered between the Largest and the
The smallest, mid-point perched, as between the
The extremes of dispersion/compaction.
(The exact middle of the large and small is about the size of a piece of dust.)
I think the big bang is well established by E=mc2, but otherwise there is so little reliable and cross verifiable information. We may be in a Desitter universe, an infinite loop universe, a bubble amongst many bubbles. A multiverse. All these explanations would fit the data on hand.
This is one of the absolutes that is out of reach to us, imo.
Quoting PoeticUniverse
This depends on what we identify with.
I think that we are often left with 'ignorance' and, perhaps, even Wittgenstein's notion of 'uncertainty' glosses over this, or frames the problem with some philosophical glamour or eloquence. I have just been reading various replies in the thread, including the idea of whether the 'big bang' really happened, and, it throws me right back to where I started, with the problemaric nature of the mysterious nature of existence.
I think that the idea of the big bang makes sense and can probably be seen as the most coherent concept of how life in the universe took place, but, even then, it does seem that so much of the whys of evolution remain unanswered.
An interesting link, and I keep an open mind. I certainly don't wish to come to any premature conclusions. I come with a view to having any ideas which I am accustomed to being thrashed, and questioned.
Investigating the zero-sum balance some more…
To comprehend the Cosmos, one must, hence,
Find the why and how of its existence,
For, incomplete answers will never dress—
Invariably wrong, by incompleteness.
Forever Stuff could not have been always,
For then there is no reason for its plays,
Its total amount, and its certain stance:
Stuff had to be created, in balance.
No thing can be eternal, never made,
As there’s no reason for the forms’ cascade;
Yet, there is ‘no-thing’ source to make it from;
So, the default ‘lawless’ is where it’s done.
The no-place of no laws is the first cause,
Requiring nothing but the same ‘because’.
Forever and always anything goes,
This being the final answer to the TOEs.
…
The tale of their making is ever told;
They’re not unbreakable/unmakeable;
They are ‘sum-thing’—zero-sum formable.
Existents ever back to ‘no-thing’ trace,
Such as this universe, now in a race,
Even accelerating, from ‘no-thing’,
From the fuel that can never stop giving.
The null balance continues, remains, then,
As the reason things can’t be so frozen
That they don’t react, nor so fleeting
That all remains as chaos everlasting.
Confirmation abounds: as space and time,
Charge polarity, matter and its anti,
Kinetic/potential—stuff/gravity,
Smallest and largest, and reason and rhyme.
As per the explosive Big Bang Theory,
Our own ‘verse appeared, nearly instantly,
Going from not there to here, inflating—
A low probability happening.
As for ‘no-thing’, we knew it all along,
Philosophically, logically—as strong,
And now, factly—the triad that we love,
For there’s ‘no-thing’ to make anything of.
What meaning, then, of every- from ‘no-thing’?
Well, there was no option, no deciding—
Information’s content’s in the same row,
For both ‘no-thing’ and everything: zero.
…
The nonexistence of Nothing must then be
Neutral and symmetrical, totally,
While existence within nonexistence
Must be polar—as asymmetrical.
Matter/anti are each half of ‘at large’,
Being polar and opposite in charge,
While photons represent all of the cosmos,
Being neutral, as both plus and minus.
Why three space dimensions, plus one of time?
There must be three dimensions because
The singularity/nothingness demands
Existential closure—to nonexistence…
Which demands the compositional parity
Of positive and negative, as charge,
Which in turn demands that space be cubic:
Dimensionality inevitable!
The three space dimensions are compositional,
So the nullification of existence
At totality must be carried out
Via electric charge polarity,
An aspect of time, along with motion.
It could be that boundless 3D space bounds
A 4D finite hypervolume hypercube.
This arrangement is all extent (distance),
But, inside, one distance converts to time,
By the speed of light, as spacetime distance.
Hypervolume (distance^4) =
c(distance/time) * spacetime(distance^3 * time)
So, time is but internal to spacetime,
Being just a difference of space(s).
So, there is no time, then, externally,
And, internally, everything happens,
In the boundless ‘eternity’ within,
Happening over and over again,
?As well as many times, too, everywhere,
In the boundless ‘infinity’ within.
The Cosmos contains its own history,
As well as its own ‘infinite’ spacetime.
Everything and every-time, both boundless,
Doth go round and round, perpetually.
Eternal causes cannot happen,
And so these must be equation-replaced:
The zero-sum balance that provides for the
Conservation laws ultimately precise.
That's All, folks!
You have created further great poems. I particularly like your reflections on time,
'..there is no time, then, externally
And, internally everything happens,
In the boundless 'eternity' within.'
I think that the way eternity is inner experience rather than an simply as an outer aspect of existence can become overlooked easily.
Quoting Jack Cummins
We are gearing up here to look at another zero-sum theory, that of Roger Ellman …
— No Source —
We are now really pretty sure that there
Was literally nothing to make anything of,
And yet there is something here, on this day,
So we do know that there must be a way.
— Logic / Science—
Logic does continue to guide us on,
But, to be complete, we’ll in the middle meet,
As also starting from the end of science—
Which confirmations must match the logic.
— Two is the Limit For Matter —
There are only two stable matter particles
In free space—the electron(-) and the proton(+),
As ever charged, although oppositely,
Along with their anti-particles, of course.
— Of Only Two Ways—
Therefore, as for electrons and protons,
There are only the two ways to make them,
As well as the two and only two ways
To make positrons and anti-protons.
— The Unstable Neutral Matter Particle—
Neutrons are not stable in free space,
For they decay, within a few minutes,
Into an electron and proton pair,
So neutrons are not as stable things.
— The Energy of the One Way—
There’s but one stable energy particle
In free space—the photon, uncharged, as neutral,
It having no anti-particle at all.
So, there’s only one way to make pure energy.
— To the Primal Base —
The base existent can’t be composite,
And certainly not fancy or complex,
For then the parts would precede. It has to
Be a simple continuous function!
— The Needle in the Haystack —
What underlies the perfect symmetry
For the electron, proton, and photon?
They and all in existence are of waves!
Waves are ubiquitous in the universe.
— Good Looking Logic —
There has to be a primal wave of ‘something,’
Opposed by a wave of ‘anti-something’,
These ‘sum-things’ canceling to nothing,
As with their derivatives and sub-waves.
— The Low Probability Event? —
These primal waves ever jiggle about,
They as their wave envelopes and sub-waves.
In some rare ‘moment’ they begin to build,
Forming a giant neutron—it’s the Cosmic Egg.
— No Infinite Density! —
10^85 waves and envelopes build up,
With 10^85 anti-waves and anti-envelopes,
And then the two cosine functions cut off,
Having reached a bandwidth limitation.
— The Birth of the Universe —
The whole shebang of the cosmic egg ‘bangs’,
It being near as large as the cosmos will be,
Although 10^9 annihilations still occur,
Leaving 2x10^76 particles as the Universe.
— All That Unfolds —
All that follows, unto today and beyond,
Is the continual unfolding of
That one big effect of the one big event
Of the beginning of our universe.
— Determinism —
Yes, all is as the ongoing continuation
Of the one and only effect, making
What we think of local cause and effect
To be but of artificial boundaries.
— The Particles —
Wave oscillations are the realest existents,
With but such as mass-energy-charge effects
Being secondary, which are still real,
Since from the realest, but not primary.
— Now We Get it! —
The electrons/positrons are the wave envelopes,
The protons/anti-protons are the waves,
And a photon is of both opposing waves,
Being 180 degrees out of phase.
— Wave Properties —
Wave length makes for mass and its extension,
While the wave frequency makes for energy,
And the wave amplitude makes for charge.
The wave is both the ‘what’ and its effects.
— The Impossible Particles —
No wonder there can be no
Stable neutral matter particles
And no stable charged energy particle;
There are no ways to make them.
— The Golden Braid —
The universe was a change in form,
But the primal essence carries on,
In the wave oscillations of the
Electron, proton, and the photon.
— The End of the Line —
Well, if the waves are the primal ‘what’,
Then the waves cannot come from another ‘what’,
But only from like math of an equation,
For that is all that is left, with nothing.
— Eternity’s Waiting Room —
The potential eternity of nothing
Could not complete, without a happenstance,
But there was also the potential
Of near infinite opportunity.
I am still reading this thread and my other one, but not paying full attention because my mum had a fall and had to go into hospital. However, I am glad that the the thread is still going because I think that the mystery of consciousness should not be dismissed too quickly.
Change the brain and consciousness changes too.
Take drugs and the emotions change as well.
Damage the brain and the mind’s damaged too.
Consciousness emerges only from the brain.
Consciousness is ever a brain process,
One which can be halted, never-the-less,
By anesthesia, poison/drugs,
A blow to the head, a faint, or by sleep.
In identifying consciousness,
We often confuse what is floating in
The stream of consciousness with the water itself;
Thus we note not the sea in which we ‘see’.
The brain interprets reality, and puts
A face on the waves of sound, light, color, touch,
And a sense on molecules’ smell and taste.
Consciousness is the brain’s perception of itself.
Consciousness mediates thoughts versus outcomes,
And is distributed all over the body,
From the nerve spindles to the spine to the brain—
A way to actionize without moving.
Conscious Awareness, which can but witness,
Is a safe haven from which to observe
The drama of our lives playing in our minds,
Granting us a sobering distance from it.
Being is to doing as ground is to figure
As subject is to object, as essence is to existence,
As Awareness-Consciousness is to mind-brain,
As the ultimate simplicity is to the composite.
I can never share a mind directly,
For there is no access; we are alone.
Mind melding works only for the Vulcans.
This loneliness leads us to company.
The unbearable solitude of consciousness
Is relieved by literature, social clubs,
Movies, caring, friendships, discussion, writing,
And other sharing acts, but, mostly, by love.
Quoting PoeticUniverse
I haven't found cosmology or physics to be very fruitful when it comes to this sort of understanding. The Big Bang seems plausible, but the CMB has problems, and a closed universe needs a boundary, as per John Wheeler - how thick is its boundary? What is the boundary of a boundary? ( infinite regress ).
My interest is consciousness ( more of a fixation then an interest ). I try to understand it from various paradigms, but mostly through a logical analysis. I have found I can reduce consciousness to three components - energy, information, and the thing causing them to self organize. The thing causing them to self organize is characterized by the anthropic principle. Assuming determinism ( with a slight element of randomness ), in order to ask the question why we exist, we require a causal universe that creates a being capable of asking the question. This is an unassailable logical loop that is applicable to every moment of consciousness, and applicable to all structure in the universe. This loop is relevant for all events / points in the universe - what is required is a universe that integrates information - ours does and we are a product of this function. In a sense, we are an expression of the universe.
We developed brains that can take in the holistic overall view (in parallel mode) while also being able to linearly recognize the fine details and the relationships between objects. As such, so goes the universe, since we are formed in its image. So then this gives us a clue to the nature of the universe.
Seeing that the brain is divided into two hemispheres, each with their own characteristic mode of thought, which can communicate with each other, means that we are looking very deeply
Into the way that reality itself is constructed.
In other words worth repeating, we are indeed the universe come to life, made in its image—of multiplicity within unity, this scheme reflected in the holistic brain hemisphere operating in a parallel mode and joined to the other hemisphere operating in a sequential detail mode.
One hemisphere is floodlight of attention illuminating the whole scene at once, but connected to the other brain hemisphere which is a spotlight of attention moving linearly through the scene, they often alternating their cyclic reign, as the yin in the yang and the yang in the yin, making for a rounded life.
Yes. The clue is that information integrates on its own And deep down, we identify with / as the thing that integrates the information. But when we look around, we see that information integration is not a thing unique to ourselves. Everything integrates information, because information integrates on its own ( in this universe ).
What we identify with most deeply is the thing that integrates the information?
"God" is more anxiety than entity.
Existence is gratuitous, not mysterious.
Quoting Pop
I agree. I usually take 20 minutes. :razz:
Consciousness is
Intrinsic—my own, as independent;
Compositional—structured with many phenomenological distinctions;
Informational—particular and specific;
Integrated/Whole—unified and irreducible;
Exclusive—definite content, no more no less.
Subjective Features:
Referral—the ‘projection’ of neural states with no perceiving of neural firings/states.
Mental Unity—experienced as a unified field, whereas sources are all over the brain.
Qualia—the subjectively experienced felt qualities of sensory consciousness, the most perplexing gap between subjective experience and the brain.
Continuous—seamless stitching of ongoing changing contents.
Mental causation?—How can consciousness—an intangible, unobservable, and fully subjective entity—cause material neurons to direct behaviors that change the world?
Physics describes but the extrinsic causes,
While consciousness exists just for itself,
As the intrinsic, compositional,
Informational, whole, and exclusive—
As the distinctions toward survival,
Though causing nothing except in itself,
As in ne’er doing but only as being,
Leaving intelligence for the doing.
The posterior cortex holds correlates,
For this is the only brain region that
Can’t be removed for one to still retain
Consciousness, it having feedback in it;
Thusly, it forms an irreducible Whole,
And this Whole forms consciousness directly,
A process fundamental in nature,
Or’s the brain’s private symbolic language.
The Whole can also be well spoken of
To communicate with others, as well as
Globally informing other brain states,
So nonconscious parts can use what’s been made.
Consciousness is that annoying time between naps.
All this is true. It can be understood as a body of information, that integrates more information onto itself, along its path. But can not integrate it willy nilly, it must fit onto established information. This is necessary firstly to form understanding ( constructivism ), and then to create an integrated state of information ( consciousness ). New information has to integrate with old - it only fits a certain way (Neuroplasticity ).
That information integrates on its own is a bit of a mind bender initially.
Subconscious trains of thoughts via for attention, and among these alternatives the brain constructs scenarios of consequences and then collapses them into the best result.
Something like that. I don't know the details absolutely. ** I think of it as the object of perception being in superposition of an entangled body of memorized information, where integration causes understanding.
Subconscious trains of thought vie for attention,
Dueling choirs competing for first place
Toward actions in the will’s ’I’—to produce
Future, for this is the main task of thought.
Who you are is your repertoire—your brain;
What you are now is the mind’s ‘eye’ of it,
Which ‘I’ e’er but obtains from who you are.
Aye, aye: the self generates what ‘I’ witness.
Could be. I think we each have our own historical information which we use to understand things with, and we do it in our own style / way. But that we integrate information, is a given in this universe. And at the deepest depth, what we identify with is this universal.
Does this universal exist intrinsically to everyThing? Or does this universal exist in the background ubiquitously, such that everything within it self organizes by integrating information?
In considering this question, I have concluded that the situations posed are effectively equal.
Since we are the Cosmos…
Think not that I am existent as ‘I’,
Or talk the talk and walk the walk of ‘I’,
For all’s of the ‘IS’; the Cosmos is I;
Where then, and what, who, and whence is this ‘I’?
(What should I do? No can do; the Cosmos does you.)
Hurry up and pull your fingers out!!
I don't know if you have chosen the title of your link to an earlier aspect of this thread intentionally .' Be Here Now' is an album by Oasis.I think that it rocks with the mysteries of existence, with retro comparisons to The Beatles and John Lennon. Perhaps the big questions cannot be answered by philosophy alone and the creative artists contribute in this together, alongside the philosophers.
Now Here; No Where:
PDF: https://theomarkhayyamclubofamerica.files.wordpress.com/2021/06/nhnwredo-11x8.5-jpg-150-dpi.pdf
Video:
The strands of the quantum fields’ types of waves
That weave the warp, weft, and woof of our ‘verse
Into being’s fabric of living braids?
More zero-sum null physics…
PDF: https://austintorn.files.wordpress.com/2021/07/looking-for-the-needle-in-the-haystack-8.75x11.25-300-dpi.pdf
(Prelude to Ellman)
PDF: https://austintorn.files.wordpress.com/2021/07/everything-solved-ellman-8.75x11.25-300-dpi.pdf
(Ellman)
Thanks for all your fantastic contributions. I downloaded your documents and will read them properly today. I am still reading your own book on the Bible. I was also very impressed by your poem on the mystery of existence.
The Hubble trained on night’s darkest pinpoint
For eleven days, collecting flashpoints;
“Foolish,” some claimed, “a resource waste so weird.”
Over ten thousand galaxies appeared!
They gyrate, spinning their charms, twirling
In the universal dance of stunning motion,
The polarity sometimes reversed,
Whirling, their bottoms up and tops down.
And then there are Eden’s many colors,
In this flower garden filled with flavors,
Such as red bottom beauties, blue tops,
And magenta undulations unstopped.
The Near Decline of Physics Due to its Undressed Terms:
PDF: https://austintorn.files.wordpress.com/2021/07/dot-8.5x11-jpg-300-dpi.pdf
I like your art on physics and your images of so many ladies probably point to the importance of the feminine principle as an essential aspect of existence.
Also, in the post previous to that, in which you speak of the reality within a grain of sand, you refer to William Blake. I think that he is such an important thinker and he created so much of a philosophy, in his thoughts about innocence and experience, and especially in 'The Marriage of Heaven and Hell.'
But, I do think that poetry, e is such an important aspect of thought. While I was a student I got to know a fairly well known poet in England, called U A Fanthorpe. Unfortunately, she is not living now, but I met her in the context that I was doing illustrations for a college magazine. At the time, I was struggling with the philosophy of Kant, and through knowing this poet, I became aware of the limits of reason, and how the arts, and poesis, are extremely important aspect in the scheme of human knowledge.
Start from God, and you’ll find there’s no real mystery.
Start from nothing, and you’ll end up with nothing.
Either way, you take a leap of faith.
More important than existence, is our innate knowledge of it. How do we determine that something exists, and something doesn’t. Existence occurs through the mixture of will, and the control of natural forces. Nature sure isn’t going to produce a pocket watch. Common sense alone will tell you that. An intelligent agent can bring into existence a pocket watch. It can bring forth millions of pocket watches.
Lay all the components (head start), I have a feeling a fully working pocket watch will not become existent. And that’s if they even remain in the same place. Simple obvious logic, but a good place to start on your quest. Sometimes I think atheists don’t want to know about God. Especially looking at some of the comments on here.
The intelligent Agent is as a Super Watch, so all the more …
It’s an endless extravagance beyond the sky,
Which shows that matter’s very readily made—
Underlying energy raising the shades.
Quanta Magazine:
https://www.quantamagazine.org/do-neutrinos-explain-matter-antimatter-asymmetry-20160728/
Comes the emergence of growth and complexity.
Ruby looks up, as if through the ceiling and up to the stars, remarking, “I’ve come such a long way to be here, with you, but our possibility was there in the beginning, although it was spread out all over.
“The Planck era at 1E-43 seconds was the first hint of us, as a cyclical compactfication or a vacuum fluctuation eruption in an indefinite realm that’s as close to Nothing as can be, but it can’t be a Nothing as such, since that would be a definite, whereas the vacuum as the basic quantum something must be fuzzy, uncaused, and undirected, matching that which we often note in the quantum realm. Apparently, motion can’t cease, for energy cannot be destroyed.”
“Ruby, I’ll knock Stillness off of the list of what can be, as being a kind of a cousin of ‘Nothing’, which we’ve already banished, along with ultimate Beginnings and Ends, plus Infinity, because it can’t be capped and so it cannot be had all at once or ever, since one can always add to it; it never completes, and that is more toward its meaning, not a meaning that it is a number or an amount. I’ll add ‘random’ as probably requiring a fundamental level or the quantum level, and as dubious otherwise, as it’s mostly evened out at the macroscopic level.”
“So, Austin, to learn the Secrets of what IS and ever WAS, we must brave the crypt and ghost of cause, as the causeless. The so-called quantum foam seems to be ever and always, remaining even now, and it still has pairs of virtual particles quick appearing and then annihilating and disappearing, as a kind of ‘noise’, during which events time still passes without any useful change overall, as the noise may not often produce something that lasts a bit or more.”
“Indeed, I answer, “The virtuals are ‘somethings’, or ‘sum-things’, as one might call them as of possibility or potential, but have not yet as a true, meaningful existence until they become part of an information process and thus are able persist in their effects and go forward somewhat or greatly. This state has always been, and must be, so jot: that this All is ever here to be, since nothing cannot. We philosophers love to fathom the cryptic, where perhaps only the shade of substance slept with arithmetic, although the descriptions in physics are very amenable to math.
“There is a basic lightness of elemental being because anything more would have to be of parts, and thus beyond the fundamental arts. Bits of information need to be separated to operate, maybe, perhaps manifesting by ‘creating’ a Planck sized piece of space. Maybe we experience their separation as space. The bits can have relative relationships, which is a must, there being nothing outside or before the All, such as absolute rulers or clocks. Time evolves as relations form, all of them having to be relative. Mass, energy, and information have been shown to be equivalent.”
“So, then, where the causeless reigns supreme, the spark nursed by embers is the first that the universe remembers, as it fires toward the other members in a processing way. The opposite twins are as virtual pairs that rule the causing call, these positives and negatives constituting most of the All.”
“Yes, I’ve often thought of the many opposite states appearing in nature, such as matter and antimatter, left and right, up and down, the polarity of charge, on/off, and many more, as a near zero-sum equation.”
Ruby Yacht readies to continues her Cosmic description, renaming it ‘The History of All History of Our Universe—From the First Instant Unto the Last.”
“The Great Wheel of our universe proceeds very quickly at first. At 1E-36 seconds, in a GUT transition in a hell of a short time, the strong force separates from the electro–weak force, the strong force eventually providing for stability and the weak force for changeability, another great balance. Inflation begins, maybe, as a slow rolling scalar field generates negative pressure, causing an exponential expansion of spacetime. The doubling is of a vacuum energy density of 1E73 tons/cm^3. Quantum fluctuations lock in nearly scale invariant 1E-5 variation in energy density. Here the enigma of the ever immortal is undone and unloosed through its portal.”
“Or at least inflation is proposed, for nothing else makes sense yet. The galaxies would seem to be the quantum fluctuations writ large across the night sky.”
Ruby continues, we alternating, “At 1E-34 seconds, inflation quickly ends, the decay of the scalar inflaton field causing reheating. Is this the ‘let there be light moment’? No, photons don’t exist yet, but other massless vector quanta like left and right weak and B-L particles may exist. Things are not well known about this era. You and I are still but a twinkling in the cosmic eye.”
“What is here now was there in the beginning.”
“At1E-34 to 1E-8 seconds, in the quark era, there is the quark gluon plasma, and then quarks and perhaps super particles dominate matter content. At 1E-17 to 1E-15 seconds, SUSY breaking occurs when proposed super partners acquire mass with the LSP expected to have a mass of about 10 Tev. In induced gravity models, this is where mass energy first generates the induced gravity field; gravity is born, and we are grounded.”
“At 1E-10 seconds, there comes the electroweak transition, when the electroweak force, under the action of the Higgs mechanism, breaks symmetry. The photon is born. Standard model particles acquire mass.”
“Yeah! The photons guide us, as illumination beside us, while the mind whirls round and round, as the ear draws forth the sound, as the eye sees the light, and of the dark the fright. Fear not the proof—it’s the beauty of the truth.”
“At 1E-5 seconds, quark confinement comes about when the QCD vacuum becomes superconducting to color magnetic current. Quarks and gluons become confined.”
“Ah, the quarks can never exist independently again.”
“At 1E-5 to 1 E-4 seconds, in the hadron era, protons, neutrons, and pions, etc., form. Now our future atoms are on the horizon.”
“What a long road our parts travelled.”
“At 1E -4 seconds, hadron annihilation occurs during a brief period of proton/anti proton and neutron/anti neutron annihilation. A slight favoring of matter over anti matter, possibly locked in by CP violation at reheating allows some very few excess protons and neutrons to survive, with ten billion photons for every matter particle now, which tells us how many annihilations there were, as 10*9, along with how much more there initially was.”
“It’s still a humongous amount of stuff, albeit gone from 2x10*85 particles down to 2x10*76.”
“At 1E-4 to 10 seconds, in the next era, leptons are the dominant energy density, such as electrons. We are up to about one second after the Big Bang now, at neutrino decoupling, when mass energy falls low enough to free neutrinos, creating the neutrino cosmic background.”
“We’ve many hints from the Cosmic Microwave Background, too.”
“At 10 seconds, electrons and positrons annihilate, leaving a tiny fraction of electrons remaining. At this point the total number of electrons equals the total number of protons. This is a beautiful symmetry.”
“Protons are of positive charge, while electrons are negative.”
“From 10 seconds to 57 thousand years is the radiation era, in which photons created from the annihilation of matter and anti-matter dominate the energy density of universe. Light has been let; We will shine.”
“Of course, our shining turns out to be another very slow part, later, in bio evolution, taking four billion years.”
“At 1-5 minutes, nucleosynthesis begins, as fusion of protons creates helium, deuterium and trace amounts of lithium. A few of our basics are there. Hydrogen is already present, it being so simple.”
“From the simple, composites and complexities form, as we ever note, through and through.”
“At 57,000 years, there is matter/radiation equality. The radiation density (photon and neutrino) and matter density (dark and atomic) are equal. This is because radiation density falls more quickly due to the stretching of the relativistic particles’ wavelengths. Dark matter clumps into structures. Atomic matter begins oscillation due to the battle between gravity and photon pressure generating acoustic oscillations. The first sounds of the new universe come forth as the ‘word’.”
“Gravity ever pulls back toward the past but the electromagnetic waves ever pull ahead, toward the future.”
“At 380,000 years, there is recombination, when the temperature falls low enough to allow atoms to form; photons decouple. The true CMB is born, locking in its structure—the story of the earliest times in the universe.”
“The radiation by now has been shifted into the microwave portion of the e/m spectrum.”
“For 5 to 200 million years, there is a dark age, as the photons fall into the infra red energy range. The universe goes dark. The atomic gas continues to fall toward the dark matter clumps, which grow more pronounced. Near to 100 million years, the densest clumps halt their expansion and begin collapsing. By 200 million years, the first mini halos form and within these the atomic cloud cools and collapses to make the very first stars whose light brings to an end the dark era. We are totally the hopes of further stars yet to become. By the way, I forgot that inflation could have been so fast that some virtual particles couldn’t recombine, thus becoming real.”
“It’s auspicious and of good fortune in the meadows of Heaven.”
“At 200 million years, there are the first stars, which are very massive and short lived, but emit some lower atomic elements since this doesn’t require extra energy. They die in violent supernova explosions filling the cosmos with the higher atomic elements that needed energy to be added, building dust for new stars and the planets of solar systems, and the elements for life.”
“The later generation stars are much more metal rich, this needed for solar system life to form.”
“At 200 to 800 million years, there is the epoch of ionization, in which the radiation from the stars and possibly the first quasars, ionizes much of the remaining neutral hydrogen and helium. A thin mist returns and partly obscures the CMB, but future Low Frequency Radio Telescopes may be able to see the epoch of ionization.”
“We’re getting through the first billion years.”
“At 1 to 2 billion years, there become infant galaxies, as star groups merge. There are frequent collisions of galaxies, high star birth rates, and high supernova rates. Heavy element production changes the pattern of star formation, making them lower mass, less luminous and longer lived, like the second generation stars of today. The stage is set for the emergence of life; the cosmos will soon have eyes to see and minds to think, like ours.”
“Um, your ‘soon’ takes another 10 billion years.”
“At 2 to 3 billion years, there is a star birth and quasar peak. In the dense environment of frequent galaxy collisions, the star birth rate reaches it maximum, as does the forming and feeding of supermassive black holes, as horrible darkling beasts. Abandon hope all ye who enter there.”
“Four to five billion years gone, and just as much to go to achieve the very early life of bacteria, who, by the way, took two billion years to make Earth’s atmosphere, by exuding oxygen as a waste product, as it was poisonous to them. Slow indeed.”
“At 6 billion years, there are the first very rich galaxy clusters, since enough time has elapsed for the densest regions to stop expanding and form these clusters. At 7 billion years, there is decelerated acceleration. The effects of dark energy kick in. The universe once again begins to accelerate its expansion rate, but gentler. Gravity has lost the battle.
“At 8 billion years, the first modern spiral galaxies form, although some elliptical galaxies form in the first billion years, but classic spiral galaxies aren’t seen until at about 5 billion years. Let’s skip over the next three billion years. That should be enough time for us to have dinner.”
“Yeah, nothing is near instant but for the Big Bang.”
I run my hand through Ruby's hair.
Ruby continues her description of All History, three billion years later.
“At 9 billion years, there is matter and dark energy equality, since the falling density of matter, both dark and atomic, become equal to that of dark energy. At 9.1 billion years, our sun and Earth form. We are inherent therein. Our solar system forms in the outer disk of the Milky Way, far out on a spiral arm, there further from harm. The stage is set for the emergence of humankind in the Cosmos—for you and I to meet and love. All this from stabilizations forming, onward and upward, in emergence, taking on a life of their own, and so on.”
“We’re going to fall in love?”
“Yes, probably.”
“Great!”
“At 13.7 billion years, we have the present time. Human civilization perhaps reaches its peak and perhaps begins heading into decline and eventual extinction due to over population, resource depletion, and environmental destruction, which generates conflict as human nation states fight for the ever dwindling resources. Hopefully, humankind is not typical and intelligent life solves the problem of balancing intelligent life needs with available resources by developing communitarian economic social structures. There have already been six near extinctions, some obliterating 95% of the species present at the time.”
“The religious were troubled by ‘God’ creating life and then then doing away with most of it, time after time, but it gave us mammals an opening. A nervous shrew looked out of the forest on day: the dinosaurs and most species were gone, the big beasts having seemed invincible for hundreds of millions of years. The shrew jumped up and down, celebrating, and thinking, if it could: ‘Hurray, now I can evolve.’ Of course, biological evolution shows to be as numbingly slow of a process as was cosmic evolution!”
“The Young Earthers claim that the Earth is only about 4000 years old, to save face, I suppose.”
“By the way, Austin, I think all of this is dynamic in time. There probably cannot be a Block Universe because it’s infinite into the future, and, because it’s a complexity. As First, it can’t have a definite blueprint, especially as composite and complex, plus we would not need brains to redundantly figure things out, if all was already set to follow a world line, as in a movie already made of still frames passing by, in this frozen Block Universe idea. We shall see. Lee Smolin is looking into presentism.”
You have just written a great little short story on the theme of this thread, and I hope that others see it!
Quoting Jack Cummins
I certainly don't have the answer or even an answer to this question! I have a question instead: Since this question exists since "ever" and still remains unanswered --letting aside, mythology and unproved metaphysical and theological views-- at least not answered to a common satisfaction for most people, shouldn't it be logical to say that either 1) there is no answer to it or 2) it cannot be answered by humans? The first case can be extended to mean that there is no reason/purpose for life. The second case can be extended to mean that there is or must/should be a reason//purpose for the existence but the human mind cannot solve the mystery.
Mysteries act as a very strong magnet to the human mind. The bigger the mystery, the stronger the magnet. That's why we can't get rid of this kind of questions.
But let's pause for a while and ask ourselves: Aren't we even near to the answer or at least getting closer to it? How long more should we wait before realizing that we are chasing phantoms?
Therefore: Shouldn't we at some point accept the fact and admit that we cannot solve the mystery, give up, and move on, creating other useful and fruitful questions?
I have to admit that I am inclined to look at mysteries and even wrote a whole thread several months ago about philosophical mysteries and whether they can be solved. In some ways, I think that it some may give up and conclude there are no possible answers. Nevertheless, I think that, even then, we can create our own sense of meaning and purpose. But, generally, I believe that human beings are inclined to ask questions, and have done so ever since the dawn of human civilisation.
As far as the mystery of human existence is concerned, while it is not possible to answer definitely, I don't know how much of the discussion you have read. But, given the nature of it not being possible to come up with definitive answers, I think that some people have come up with some excellent attempts to answer this question during the last couple of weeks in this thread.
THE FOREVER FIELDS OF REALITY
AND THE END OF ‘ZERO'
Michael Faraday introduced
One of the most radical ideas in science.
They thought that he had,
For once, gone too far.
Particles were secondary excitations,
Being mere spigots in which the fields lumped.
The real stuff of reality was the forces flowing,
The particles being only the source.
The burden of reality had shifted,
For the space between particles became primary.
Particles were only the intersection
Of field forces that wove the universe.
Forces create stresses in space,
A superhighway of how to get from here to there.
An electron wiggles in the sun,
Tweaking the E/M field;
The ripples travel for 8 minutes
Then tickle an electron in your eye.
You see the light; light is a tweak.
Physics has never been the same since.
The field concept became real,
The idea being the same as the thing,
Fudging forever the difference
Between something and nothing;
Yet fields are made of something real,
For they have energy.
Einstein called the fields that be
“A change in the concept of reality…
The most profound and fruitful one
That has come to physics since Newton.”
Matter then is simply a place where
Some of the field happens to be concentrated.
Matter travels like a wave in a rope,
But the rope itself does not travel.
The field is not so much
Something in space,
But more as being space.
This is why all particles of a type are identical;
For they are each manifestations
Of their fields everywhere the same.
A field takes on a life of its own,
Even when the event that created it is gone.
The traveling kinks continue;
They propagate endlessly.
Where the vacuum is free of matter
It is not free of field, but filled with it.
Energy and mass are the same stuff,
But it takes a whole lot
Of energy to make mass.
Field is thus the bridge
Between matter and empty space.
Fields can’t go away,
As they’re part of the
Structure of the vacuum;
When in their quietest possible state
They are the vacuum.
This is about as close to nothing
As anything ever gets.
Forces act on things,
While matter is acted upon;
You can walk through a field,
But you cannot walk through a wall.
Kinks in fields can pile atop one another;
Kinks in matter hold each other at arm’s length.
Yet somehow, beneath it all they are kindred spirits.
Faraday made fields real;
Quantum Mechanics made them basic—
And lumpy—the currency of QM.
Everything melts via uncertainty,
As when we try to measure a quantum property.
But this too means that no quantum property
Can ever be zero, for zero is a precise amount,
That is, it is that motion can never cease.
Try to pin down an electron,
Such as putting it in a box,
And it increasingly moves about, ever faster.
Is it heads or tails while it is still spinning?
Well it is just a fuzzy ‘both’ yet neither.
In a way, QM eliminated
The very idea of zero
From the physical world,
As ‘nothing’ never sleeps,
But is ever up to something.
Interesting poem, and we could also ask what is nothing? Is it a complete absence, because as you point out,' ''nothing' never sleeps'. So, maybe, the idea of the void is important because it appears to be nothing, but it not mere absence, but a point from which something new will arise, as rebirth.
Quoting Jack Cummins
I agree with that. It is worth listening to people's opinion on the subject, anyway. E.g. one may come up with an answer that it is up to use to create a purpose for/in life ... Besides, mine was one of them! :)
Quoting Jack Cummins
To be honest I didn't read much of the thread ... I have read so much already on the subject that I lost my appetite! Nevertheless, you are very right and thank you for bringing this up. I will certainly read more comments/replies in your thread. They might whet my appetite! :)
SHADES OF THE OTHERWORLD?
[i]Could there be more to this world—
Those of the undrawn shades unfurled?
Is there a universe alongside this bright zone,
A parallel, twilight world overlapping our own?
Are there shadow beings all about us,
That we can only perceive as blankness?[/i]
They’d be made of but the dark matter,
Yet lively with their own kind of chatter,
These shades flowing right on through us—
We the lighted plus to their dark minus.
These pale shadows of our attendants,
Are not as us of light’s extent,
But are as black clouds of a coal sack;
Nay, they’re not even dark or black,
But are of an invisible bivouac.
Dark matter and its shadows traverse
The bulk of our missing-mass universe.
The shades of evening draw us on—
We must look to the past, upon the first eon.
Two distinct families of matter
Were created in the Big Freeze batter,
Just those two that did then so accrue
When they were frozen out of the primordial stew
As the fetal universe was cooling,
When the heartiest gruel was stewing.
The normal universe and the shadow universe
Can interpenetrate, neither averse
(Or even “adverse” to rhyme the verse)
Nor to coerce; they just cannot interact,
As they have no contract.
If the shadow universe was richly sown
It could have evolved along with our own.
Shadow planets could form
Around shadow stars as norms
And become populated with swarms
Of those shadow beings lukewarm.
[i]They would be invisible specters, unseen phantoms,
Unobserved presences, indiscernible apparitions,
Imperceptible wraiths, unnoticed spirits, magic places,
Inconspicuous spooks, and hidden traces…[/i]
But first we must ask what makes a universe,
Such as ours, the one in which we immerse.
It is the forces that count for everything,
Matter being but a secondary singing,
For atoms exert forces through space,
Especially of the electromagnetic race;
So then, it is forces that disburse
The currency of a rich universe.
This is why we don’t fall through a chair—
That mostly empty space of thin air
When we decide to sit down there.
Space is a kind of a large-scale limitation
Of an underlying discrete network of connections.
Atoms would not even know at all
That their companions existed, with no call,
Without the push or pull of the forces’ thrall,
For then they themselves would be as pall
As some ghosts passing through a wall.
The four forces hold our world together
In its diversity of shape, structure, form, and color.
Some forms of our matter don’t feel
All of the four forces as real:
Neutrons have no electric charge
And so they don’t care, Marge,
About that e/m force at large.
Suppose some form of matter didn’t feel
Any of the four forces that became real?
Dark Matter doesn’t appear to discourse,
Not having the resource of its own special forces
To bind it together; no packhorses.
All it can feel is the force of gravity,
And perhaps the weak force’s changeability—
Which is for decay and not stability;
In fact, both forces are weak, a pravity.
You cannot hold a person-size lump
Of matter together with just gravity’s slump;
So then, no interesting lumps can form
In the dark universe, not even unicorns.
Even making a star or a planet
Is difficult with just gravity alone working on it,
For the electromagnetic force is crucial
To slowing any of the material
Down enough to hold it in one place;
So then, there can be no shadow race…
[i]…No veiled hints, obscured suggestions,
Unknown impressions, out of sight suspicions,
Nor any supposed tinges, shimmering glimmers,
Resembling semblances, or ghostly whispers.[/i]
What has no light is but a dark shade,
With no creatures therein made.
So dark matter is not a source for being,
Although it’s a large matter to us unseeing.
And yet is it we who are the outsiders,
Our luminous bubbles of foam the riders,
The stars, planets, and us the striders—
On the vast ocean of dark matters much wider.
We humans as from the matter that’s bright
Seem to be an afterword of the Cosmic scheme:
Not dark mats, we glow-surf on waves of light,
A tiny minority in the grand regime.
We were an afterthought, with no forethought,
Although perhaps made possible, nonetheless,
By the dark matter—since it was oblivious
To much of the great primeval blast,
It forming filaments that could last,
Attracting our regular matter
That was everywhere splattered,
Into the pearls of the galaxies
Strung along like cosmic necklaces.
Far from being the Magnificat,
We are more insignificant
Than we ever imagined,
For whatever is our measly count,
Compared to dark matter and dark energy,
We’re quite the rarity.
PDF: https://austintorn.files.wordpress.com/2021/07/dm-8.5x11-jpg-300-dpi.pdf
Myself when young did eagerly frequent
Doctor and Saint, and heard great Argument
About it and about: but evermore
Came out by the same Door as in I went.
— Omar Khayyam
Your poem tried to create a confusion in me. But I din't let it do so! :)
[i]Memory’s ideas recall the last heard tone,
Sensation savors what is presently known,
Imagination anticipates coming sounds;
The delight is such that none could produce alone.[/I]
Time for a Summer Party with a concert in the park starring the Spheres…
THE MUSIC OF THE SPHERES—MOONLIGHT SONATA
The music of the night was in the breeze,
A prelude borne by the airy musicians
Of the trees: the evening calls of the birds
That opened for the cosmic symphony.
The Music of the Spheres played in the park
That night—flung down by our Father, the Sky,
Through the soft night, to our Mother, the Earth,
Then to us, their audience and progeny.
The planets joined in a concert to the
Merrie Monthe of Maie, arrayed as follows:
There was Venusia, the Bringer of Peace,
Singing side by side with warring Marsius.
Flitting about was the wingéd Mercuria,
The speedy messenger who conducted
The orchestra, melting all of us who
Were touched by her wand of burning desire.
And mighty Zeus, was there, full to the brim
With the jollity of the fat man’s belly.
By Jove, came Saturnus, so very gray
With age, lumbering into the party.
Thence sat Urania—the magician, and
The old sea captain—King Nep, the mystic,
But not Pluto; he was downsized, no more
One of the harmonics—an underworld!
Jupiter’s music was round and robust,
While Saturn’s boomed with sounds of grandeur
And the old venerable melodies;
But Mercury soon picked up the pace.
Next flowed the serene love songs of Venus,
Followed inexorably by Martial marches.
Now was the time for Urania’s magic—
She played musical jokes and surprises.
At last, their music came to mesh as one,
And our wanderers of the night floated
Away on the haunting, mystical strains
Of King Nep’s tune, into the May Flower moon.
Now we’re touched, so touched by the night's lights,
Afraid that we’ll ne’er be the same again.
[i]Can you sense the euphony of the spheres?
Can you fathom the theory of everything?[/i]
PDF: https://austintorn.files.wordpress.com/2021/07/moonlight-sonata-8.5x11-jpg-300-dpi.pdf
I like your 'music of the spheres played in the park'. Summer is the time of music festivals and it feels so miserable that Glastonbury and other music festivals are on hold. I prefer the smaller festivals, but how I would love to be at one this summer. I would love to be leaning back on the grass, with faint traces of cannabis drifting through the air, listening to some obscure band, while contemplating the mystery of existence.
The more the universe seems comprehensible, the more it also seems pointless.
If there is no point in the universe that we discover by the methods of science, there is a point that we can give the universe by the way we live, by loving each other, by discovering things about nature, by creating works of art. And that — in a way, although we are not the stars in a cosmic drama, if the only drama we're starring in is one that we are making up as we go along, it is not entirely ignoble that faced with this unloving, impersonal universe we make a little island of warmth and love and science and art for ourselves. That's not an entirely despicable role for us to play.[/quote]
(Emphasis is mine.)
I think that the words which you emphasize show how the mystery of existence is linked to the question of whe is the meaning of life. Of course, the main link is the human part in trying to figure out a role in the grander scheme of everything and trying to create a sense of importance.
Plus even too hot in some places to go out…
Nevertheless, the Earth and the moon will be joining us and the planets at the music festival and singing and telling everyone about their worldly love as actually kind of twin planets…
Then Parmenides will make an appearance, he the great one who shocked the Philosophic World way, way back with his One of Necessity. (in case you want to look him up.)
RIP Weinberg.
And lo, a masterpiece is performed at the music concert, surprising Jack and all:
I think that you probably go to rather different music events to me, but it probably goes back to what music we were brought up with as children. I was raised on pop and rock. When I get to know people, at first they sometimes imagine that I would like classical music and are surprised to find that I am mostly into alternative rock. But, I guess that we are all inspired in different ways.
Generally, I gravitate the alternative side of creativity and towards creative bohemians, and have some empathy with the description by Keroac, in, 'On the Road', as he says that, the
'people that interest me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones that never yawn or say a commonplace thing..but burn, burn, burn like roman candles in the night.' The reason for this preference is because I think that it captures more of the essence of the mysterious side of life.
Up next on stage,
‘Calm Beauty’ by Michel Montecrossa
(Sung from these Omar Khayyam Rubaiyat quatrains,
with some slight changes)
When You and I behind the Veil are past,
Oh, but the long, long while the World shall last,
Which of our Coming and Departure heeds
As much as Ocean of a pebble-cast.
(insignificance)
One Moment in Annihilation’s Waste,
One moment, of the Well of Life to taste—
The Stars are setting, and the Caravan
Draws to the dawn of Nothing—Oh, make haste!
(live!)
Would you that spangle of Existence spend
About The Secret—quick about it, Friend!
A Hair perhaps divides the False from True—
And upon what, prithee, may life depend?
A Hair perhaps divides the False and True;
Yes; and a single Alif were the clue—
Could you but find it—to the Treasure-house,
And peradventure to The Master too;
(the shape of the ‘alif’ arabic letter looks like a hair, plus it represents the Beginning or Allah)
Whose secret Presence through Creation’s veins
Running Quicksilver-like eludes your pains;
Taking all shapes from Máh to Máhi and
They change and perish all—but He remains;
(Echoes of Parmenides)
And fear not lest Existence closing your
Account, and mine, should know the like no more;
The Eternal Saki from that Bowl has pour’d
Millions of Bubbles like us, and will pour.
(cyclic universe or multiverse)
(The Hubble Deep Field—click)
[b]Rhyme Without Reason
In No Space and No Time[/b]
Fields form and exhaust reality;
They are continuous; there is no Space!
Reality maintains itself in place—
It’s the net of objects interacting.
Copernicus’ revolution is complete;
An external entity isn’t required
To hold the universe. God’s not needed,
Nor a background of Space and Time.
There isn’t a ‘now’ all over the place.
The relational nature of GR
Extends to Time as well—the ‘flow’ of time
Is not an ultimate aspect of reality.
All’s Relational: no entity
Exists independently of anything;
There are no intrinsic properties,
Just ‘properties’ in relation to what’s else.
All interactions and events are
Quantum entangled with everything;
Impermanence goes all the way through—
What Nagarjuna means by Emptiness.
The fields are not from anything: causeless!
Or ‘not from anything’ is of lawless
‘Nothing’, which can’t form to remain.
There’s no reason, then, to the ‘mystery’.
This realization of Impermanence,
No Absolutes, and Emptiness
Is Nirvana.
I agree that sentience is important, and I am not sure that there is any absolute 'reality' behind the way we construct our own meanings, but I do believe that it is an ongoing area of philosophy debate. In saying this, I am aware that it raises and questions the ideas of Kant and Plato in a really big way. I am not saying that I think that they had all the answers, but I still believe that some of their ideas about categories, such as Plato's forms, are still useful for trying to explain some 'mysterious' underlying aspects of reality and existence.
Omar Khayyam, through Edward FitzGerald great transmogrification from the Arabic, has it:
[b]For in and out, above, about, below,
‘Tis nothing but a Magic Shadow-show,
Play’d in a Box whose Candle is the Sun,
Round which we Phantom Figures come and go.[/b]
To which I added, in my 'Extended Rubaiyat':
We are phenomena’s projected face,
Well-painted from noumena’s unseen base;
It’s as a lamp lights up a paper shade,
We figures revolving around in space.
Our being blocks the view of the Ultimate,
Nor to gaze at it can we our selves acquit.
E'en the wise can’t step beyond their nature—
All mothers’ sons stand helpless before it.
We are magic lanterns shining here;
Our spirits are the lights in there.
From what bright star came the gleam in your eyes?
From what distant sun came your smile, light-wise?
Come, light your lantern and mine with good cheer;
We’re magic lamps; our spirits dance in here.
Our beginnings and ends are of nowhere,
So, let’s radiate, since for now we’re here!
Our minds and senses interpret and dispense
The base reality into the colors and sensations
Of the phenomenal world from the noumenal;
We may become either rainbows or ugly stains!
Mind, like Shelley’s prism of many-colored glass,
Strains the white radiance of Eternity
Into our being—until death tramples us—
And then back we must go—to stardust.
The music festival ended a while ago, but Jack is still there as the only one left, he lying on the grass on a blanket with a pillow under his head and savoring the atmosphere and the highs brought forth by the concert and its audience smoking pot…
He hears some voices in the sky from beyond the Earth’s atmosphere. This is not yet the promised Worldly Love Story, but it’s a prelude to it…
Good and Evil sprang from Wrong and Right,
When from naught twin Genii split day and night.
“Oh, fear not that black’s might can vanquish white;
Darkest night can’t e’en quench the smallest light!”
“I’m the darkest,” boasts the Shadow to the Night.
“No,” gloats Midnight, “compared to me you’re bright.”
“You floodlights!” crows Starless Space, “Stop your fight.
The darkest plight is the lack of Love’s delight!”
Reason moons to Passion, with logic cool,
“Quench thy inner fire, lest it burn us, fool.”
Blazes Venus, “I know What I feel, not Why;
‘Tis better you take heed of me—I Rule!”
Reality is eternal, omnipresent, infinite, and beyond the mind.
You can't explain it, you can only be it.
I think that you are right to say that reality is 'beyond the mind', because even though we can only know about it through our minds, and what others describe, it is so much larger than our own experiences. That is probably the benefit of communicating with others, because it gives so much more understanding of reality than one's own subjective experience, and this is involved in the exploration of our existence, including scientific models and descriptions.
The mind is nothing but a map of the territory. Creating a map of something unknown does not make it known. It merely copies it so we can use it.
Like our shades dance the walls of Plato’s cave,
We’re 3D shadows of 4D’s enclave…
It’s like a lamp lights up a paper shade—
We are as figures thereupon portrayed.
We are magic lanterns shining here;
Our spirits are the lights in there.
We’re the One’s Candled Magic Shadow-show,
In which we Phantom Figures come and go.
I guess this principle depends in the philosophical point of view you are considering in. According to Cartesian logic, existence depends a lot of “being” which is connected to awareness. This is why Descartes wrote his famous theory and phrase: “cogito ergo sum”
Yes but what is the 'I Am'? That depends on how you use the words 'existence' and 'being'. Sometimes they are interchangeable. I am using 'existence' to mean that which is, eternally; the positive thereness of what is on the most primordial level. Being, in my vocabulary, means what is alive and conscious. Created, sentient beings. Existence becomes being in the way a lump of bronze becomes a statue of an eagle, a horse etc. The bronze is just there, the horse or eagle emerge into being.
In addition to that, there's no possible way of determining whether it's abstract or mundane.
The chemicals that make up the brain also cannot explicitly be trusted to relate a 100% detailed and accurate version of reality or events.
So, no, there's no hope whatsoever of this place being fully understood, ever, period. But we should describe what we can.
Hopefully, it is not simply a matter of ignorance is bliss. Understanding may be about looking at everything in detail, and when I started this thread about a month ago, I was certainly not suggesting that we should only see mysteries as opposed to looking for critical analysis of the many complex aspects of philosophy.
Grateful for existing … however just because we cannot answer the question from our limited perspective does not mean there is no reason for us existing within this flesh and bone and worldly desires and spiritual desires too.
Therefore, not only is it logically necessary that something exists, it is also logically necessary that all possible worlds exist.
Open up a brain and look inside it? Do you see any accurate reality in there? haha
Good question, there's essentially no way of telling. The brain both could and may not see itself accurately.
Obviously, it's impossible to tell by using your brain to look at it.