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My philosophy may be considered one of “Consciousness Monism,” in that I conceptualize our physics as being a conventional illusion for marking communications among otherwise non-physical perspectives of consciousness. That is, I think Physics may be more consistently and coherently modeled as being derivative of communications among perspectives of Consciousness than is the case when Physics is modeled as being coequal with, or superior to, Consciousness.
Still, I yield to a kind of Dualism, in that I conceptualize that (1) (mortal) consciousness is expressed from more than one perspective, and (2) perspectives that are in communication associate their signifying markers in respect of a shared system of algorithmic parameters, thus availing quantifiable communications (i.e., derivative appearances and experiences of “physicality”).
I believe our experience of universe is balanced (closed) in respect of a shared, controlling algorithm, but that our possible sequences, loops, choices, and states of mind in respect of such algorithm may well be infinite (unclosed). Example: Even were one precluded by one’s universe or master from writing any numbers apart from whole numbers from 1 to 10, the number of sequences and patterns through which one could loop such numbers would still be infinite --- so long as one were not constrained to avoid repetitions.
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Coin of (spiritual) Choice vs. (scientific) Chance ---
Emergent Leveraging of choices in respect of lower level randomness:
Perhaps, “God” may manage or resonate various parameter-levels of delegated degrees of freedom for synchronizing perspectives of consciousness. Perhaps, absent interest or assistance from its next higher level, parameters circumscribe each lower level so that it will avail less of, or a different kind of, freedom than is availed to its next higher level, and so on (“turtles all the way down”). Perhaps, each level functions in respect of an interconnecting, infinitely expanding spheroid of mathematical representation that is based on repeating patterns of one basic algorithm.
At most primitive levels, “Consciousness” may associate in respect of not much more than capacity for imaged representations of fundamental particles to “sense” in respect of each one’s excluding of all others from occupying its precise loci within a space-time as is then and there being represented in respect of Consciousness’ solving of algorithmic functions.
At most primitive levels, interactions among such mutual “sensings” and exclusions of such particle-representations may be synchronized and regulated in respect of a function for generating random collisions based on generating random numbers. Perhaps, higher levels of consciousness may not necessarily take much interest in such random expressions of primitive reaction or sensation, unless such random generations may be organized, directed, and leveraged to higher level functions and purposes.
For consciousness tied to any perspective bound to any one level, such perspective may, if self-conscious, view itself (“solve towards its existential algorithm”) as having degrees of freedom, while perspectives from other levels may subsume all activity in respect of such perspective as being completely random. That is, whether an event or choice is viewed as random versus willed, or in respect of inanimateness versus consciousness, may depend on level or point of analysis or reference.
Choice versus chance may depend on purpose and method of analysis, i.e., it may depend on which side of the coin of existence is being analyzed.
Thus, each higher level of consciousness may become somewhat removed from perceiving or empathizing with lower level expressions of free will. So, must Holistic God be enslaved to see through our eyes, or to care about that for which we care? May this depend to some extent upon whether we are conscious of selfhood or, perhaps, respectful of that which God happens to find interesting? What is God’s capacity to feel and reconcile empathy, and is such capacity somehow leveraged or delegated, mathematically? Is there a “Turing God”?
It may be enough that God has resonated means (aka, “Holy Ghost”) for us to come together in respect of God, to foster and leverage our own inter-empathies. Such coming together strengthens the empathetic effects of our focusing empathies and prayers, perhaps even affecting or altering our evolving traditions and paths in relation to the existentially defining algorithm with which each of us relates. Perhaps, each perspective of consciousness is already empowered, especially by joining forces, to focus and increase will-to-power in respect of nature’s defining algorithm (“ask and it shall be given”).
Perhaps, our consciousness is fulfilled in particular resonances, while God’s is fulfilled in holistic, synchronizing resonance. By limiting the algorithm with which God chooses to interact, our choices and actions cannot possibly occur except in respect of a higher synchronicity. Apart from Demi-urging resonance, God need not constantly exert higher conscious attention to synchronize all events. Rather, God’s interaction may consist simply in not availing choices outside parameters of layers and levels of a naturally synchronizing algorithm.
God’s “interaction” may consist in “a resonating not availing,” sort of like an “involved Deity,” or a “relaxed Theity.” The purpose of our efforts and choices may be to comfort God’s resonance. Each of our perspectives may be a holographic interpretation of consciousness of holistically resonating God. Through our holographic eyes, holistic God may dream a resonance.
In that resonance, each of us may feel fulfilled. Ommmmm.
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6 comments:
Cute: "Today, in my astronomy class, I encouraged an open discussion about What we can know about the universe and what we cannot know. It was kinda like asking what's inside a black hole. It didn't quite go in the direction I had hoped for. One student arrived at the conclusion that since it was all so complicated and there is no way for us to understand it, that is Proof of God.
I failed to see his reasoning and thank God the bell rang (actually no bell -just in their heads)."
I think "God" has too many bad connotations for too many relatives of "beheaded's".
A newer, softer, sort of "compassionate conservative" notion may be needed.
(Maybe try "unit of consciousness of exclusivity.")
I wonder whether some basic unit of consciousness may need to be integrated, if we are to proceed much further with our appreciation of physics.
For example, there is a principle of exclusivity (at least as to some particles). To me, it seems that any definable particle needs to associate some means for it to be defined as a separate (exclusive) particle.
Most phenomena can be modeled from more than one metaphor or perspective. I wonder whether one ought not try to assign math values to units for what is most basic? Might not two things be most basic, i.e.: (1) perspective and (2) math?
Suppose what accounts for perceptions or experiences of exclusivity among particles were modeled as a most fundamental unit of perspective ("consciousness of exclusivity"), acting in concert with a most basically conceived algorithm, which happens to define parameters for all such units which are engaged in sequences towards solving it?
IOW, substitute unit of exclusivity as the prime basis for assigning math values.
At first, common sense seems to suggest math cannot be its own terrain. But, given a fundamental unit of consciousness, I am not so sure.
"So let it be thought, so let it be done."
Oh well, back to the law.
Re: "A physics application of a Lagrangian point is a point between two bodies (such as the Sun and the Earth) where the gravity from each cancels the other. In effect, truly free of all gravitational tendencies. Would it be possible to reach a certain point where open mindedness was balanced by perspective and depth?"
Lagrangian Ass? Somewhere, there's a silly adage about an ass (or ox?) that starved to death when placed equidistant between two obvious sources of equally attractive food. Because, some may suppose, it would have no free will to make a choice. (Could a unit of quanta make a mid-point quantum choice or leap? No. Especially if consciousness is limited to expressing itself in respect of a formula that must never go unbalanced.)
But, methinks, If there is Conscious Will, it has influence, regardless of equidistance.
I suspect the commonplace principle of exclusion could be conceptualized as an example of conscious sensateness on a most basic, primitive level. IOW, consider exclusiveness as artefactual of perspectives of consciousness, instead of as artefactual of real physical-particles-in-themselves.
IOW, may it enhance communication to consider separate particles not as existing in themselves, but as being only perceived to exist separately, because some most fundamental unit of consciousness is thus inclined to imagine them, purely in respect of some mental sympathy for a shared algorithm? IOW, absent fundamental mind, would particles even exist, either in physics or in illusion?
This is usually thought to be unquantifiable speculation. But is it really either unquantifiable or un-model-able? I suspect considering a most fundamental level or unit of exclusivity may be modeled in quantifiable terms in ways that could correlate with, subsume, and maybe even improve existing mathematical models. If so, such a new model could be tested the same way as of old --- check for correlation with measurable and observed results. After all, a model need not be "the truth," so long as it is at least as accurate for modeling purposes as any other.
I doubt such a model would teach us how to bend forks with our minds. But some such model may enhance communication about how it is that mind observers do affect material results at the level of quantum collapses.
However, this assumes consciousness can only be integrated with physics on a dualistic, co-equal level. Of course, if consciousness is entirely derivative and only epiphenomenal, then no such integration would be necessary to achieve a unifying model.
However, so far, I have not seen how any model can make complete and consistent sense merely by assuming consciousness and will are entirely derivative of that which we sense as "physics."
In any event, my mind play is less about finding "the real truth" than about finding the simplest, most complete, most consistent correlation with that which can be tested, discussed, and mathematically represented.
Re: "room in Physics to include an Uncertainty Factor"
Dave,
Your notion of uncertainty seems not necessarily different from my notion of fluxing exclusivity. A "unit of potential for perspective of exclusivity" would seem inherently to be a "unit of uncertainty." Such a unit could just as well be termed a "quantum of uncertainty of exclusivity."
Such a unit is inherently uncertain in its application because, depending on an observer's state of associated resonance of mind and locus, such a unit may: blend into mathematically fuzzy indeterminancy; manifest measurable effectuality as a particle; or continue to add its mathematical weight to whatever field or wave with which it may resonate.
Each unit is perceived in "physics" only in respect of a perspective of consciousness that just so happens to be associating or resonating with an algorithmic framework that is friendly to its resonance. The reason our physics is "shared in reality" is because our separate perspectives of consciousness both happen to associate or resonate to a common algorithmic framework.
The physics (waves, particles, space, time, quanta) is not real-in-itself. It is real only because it is derivative of a shared defining source, i.e., perspectives of consciousness which just happen to associate with a same algorithmic framework.
All we experience is math plus consciousness. Perceptions of vibrations and sequences of types of exclusivity for defining "things" are derivatives of consciousness working its way through various "solutions" of the same algorithm.
Depending on "where" one's perspective is in "solving" the algorithm, one's level of perspective proceeds from primitive reactiveness through sensation through consciousness through consciousness of self and others, etc. Whether it proceeds to holistic consciousness, I lack acumen to say.
Scientists seem to be missing a significant ingredient, which may be right under their noses. We tackle the math of uncertainty by leveraging our understanding of statistics, probabilities, and random number generators. But, a problem with uncertainty is that it is not entirely reducible to pure randomness. There is an element of "choice-chance" to factor, i.e., an element of participatory consciousness (which is not entirely reducible to "physics").
I think that element may be "lensed" by turning the examination to a different perspective. That is, instead of looking just to the "physical particles," look to their "units of exclusivity." That, I think, may lead to methods for quantifying or approaching "units of potential for perspectives of exclusivity" (i.e., consciousness). IOW, the Higgs may be a mathematical function, not a particle at all.
Re: Teleological appropriateness of conscious adoptions of traditions ---
some snippets that may be of interest
Quotes lifted from http://www.iscid.org/papers/Hasker_NonReductivism_103103.pdf:
What precisely is it that can’t be explained by physics? As we have seen, Chalmers’ answer is, “how physical processes in the brain give rise to subjective experience.” This answer is correct so far as it goes, but it is seriously incomplete. A more complete answer would be, “how physical processes in the brain give rise to subjective experience in such a way that subjective experience reliably corresponds to the way things really are in the world.” This, of course, is a special form of the problem of accounting for the rationality of the functioning of the conscious mind. Our minds aren’t anything like perfectly rational, to be sure, but they are rational to a significant degree, and it’s to this rationality that we owe whatever ability we have to grasp the truth about things – including, of course, the truth about the mind itself.
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… the account of evolution precludes the kind of role for awareness and cognition that is posited in the epistemological account. It does this by its last two sentences, which affirm the causal closure of the physical domain. Those sentences guarantee that the conscious state of the organism, as such, can have no influence whatever on the organism’s behavior and thus on its propensity to survive.
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It seems fairly clear what needs to be done here. We have to affirm, contrary to Chalmers and most contemporary philosophers of mind, that conscious experience is explanatorily relevant. If this is so, then consciousness is no longer invisible to evolutionary selection; conscious experiences that correspond appropriately to the external environment can indeed be selected for, and brain structure and consciousness can co-evolve in response to environmental pressures.
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We will have a species of emergent causation, in which there are causal principles at work in situations involving consciousness which are different from those operative in simpler physical situations. The universal sway of the fundamental physical laws no longer obtains.
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Conscious experience, on the other hand, is riddled through and through with teleology. It’s just a fact that we often decide to do things because we think the consequences of doing them will accord with our desires. So if we attribute the emergent causality, which in many instances is clearly teleological, to the physical configuration alone, we are attributing to it behavior quite different from that produced by all the other physical configurations we know about. At the same time, we are ignoring the teleological character of conscious experience, which seems on the face of it to provide by far the most plausible explanation for goal-directed behavior.
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I reply that we do indeed have such evidence, as shown by the following argument:
1. Human beings are rational to a significant (though highly imperfect) degree.
2. If human beings are rational, there is an explanation for the fact that human beings are
rational.
3. There is an explanation for the fact that human beings are rational.
4. If conscious experience is explanatorily irrelevant, there is no explanation for the fact that human beings are rational. (Argued for above.)
5. Conscious experience is explanatorily relevant.
6. If the physical realm is causally closed, conscious experience is explanatorily irrelevant.
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… what we have now seen to be required by the rationality of human thought – namely, that a conscious state, the entertaining of an idea, has effects on the physical state of the brain.
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… that because of the impingement of new fundamental forces – in this case, mental forces – things go differently in the physical brain than they would otherwise have gone.
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… The minimal form of “interference” would be for the mind to control indeterministic quantum events that are then “amplified” to produce large-scale results. This would still mean, however, that physical principles are violated; in this case, the principle that states that quantum events are truly random and are not controlled by a hidden causality. And it requires that there be in the brain some mechanism by which, not on rare occasions but as a regular occurrence, random or quasi-random quantum events are amplified so as to produce macroscopic results.
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… causal closure fails because we have assumed, first, that human beings are to a significant degree rational, and second, that this fact requires an explanation.
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Searle does not raise the question pursued in the first part of this essay, namely, How is it even possible for the system of conscious rational decision making to evolve, given that it makes no physical difference and is thus invisible to evolutionary selection?
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… situation is ripe for the emergence of a competing hypothesis, which takes the form of “system causation with consciousness and indeterminacy.”
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What we have to suppose, if we believe that our conscious experience of freedom is not a complete illusion, is that the whole system moves forward toward the decision making, and toward the implementing of the decision in actual actions; that the conscious rationality at the top level is realized all the way down, and that means that the whole system moves in a way that is causal, but not based on causally sufficient conditions.
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Searle himself would be the first to admit that his non-reductivism is a work still in progress.
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Darwin enabled modern secular culture to heave a great collective sigh of relief, by apparently providing a way to eliminate purpose, meaning, and design as fundamental features of the world. Instead they become epiphenomena, generated incidentally by a process that can be entirely explained by the operation of the nonteleological laws of physics on the material of which we and our environments are all composed.
Nagel himself, even though he shares in the “cosmic authority problem,” strenuously resists this facile appeal to Darwinism.
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Even without God, the idea of a natural sympathy between the deepest truths of nature and the deepest layers of the human mind, which can be exploited to allow gradual development of a truer and truer conception of reality, makes us more at home in the universe than is secularly comfortable.
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… “if one asks, ‘Why is the natural order such as to make the appearance of rational beings likely?’ it is very difficult to imagine any answer to the question that is not teleological”.
" the very instant that we focus on an object or idea, we lose objectivity. Everything outside of that focus becomes blurred".
I had not thought to put it in those terms! But, once stated, the idea does sort of hit between the eyes.
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My Blur For The Day:
Possible corollary: To dis-engross from one idea, a perspective must immediately engross with another. Put another way, aside from "entanglement towards solving an algorithm,” Consciousness has no existential perspective.
Events may be subjectively conceptualized as if they become emergent from among five possible avenues: (1) being pushed by an indifferent force along a predetermined path; (2) being consciously chosen; (3) being purely random; (4) being pulled towards a teleological, predetermined (or predetermining) purpose; or (5) being in respect of some combination.
It may be doubted that any one of such methods can be proven to be “the true fact,” as opposed to being merely a model with which to relate perspective.
In respect of (1), it seems all possibilities may already exist (objectively), as a fuzzy blur of possibilities, but not necessarily as measurably likely eventualities. (All numbers presently exist, but not all combinations of numbers will necessarily be produced, selected, chosen, randomly generated, pursued, or independently factored in respect of recognized patterns.)
In respect of (2), (subjective) choice is confined within availed degrees of freedom, yet may often be byproduct of rationalization of chance.
In respect of (3), not even natural selection is purely random, because “what is most fit” evolves in respect not of pure randomness, but in respect of already existent context.
In respect of (4), it may be conceptualized that what most fundamentally evolves is an accumulating set or system of Information. In other words, survival of the fittest may pertain more fundamentally to “survival of the fittest information” than to survival of the fittest species of life (i.e., if life-body-brain-consciousness were considered as merely part of a system for storing information).
At any one time and place, the “fittest information” may be that information that is most adapted to preserving and replicating itself. In a way, the most primitive, objective (indifferent) Information becomes not altogether unlike a transient marker for a most primitive form of subjective (empathetically caring) consciousness. In other words, objective information would seem to be a marker for its subjective application.
Thus, an entire series of big bang universes may be part of an immense system for preserving, replicating, and expanding information. But, Who, What, or For What Purpose is such information In-Form-Ing?
If “The Purpose” consists in the continuous subjective appreciation of an objective expression, preservation, replication, mutating, changing, or accumulation of information, then is not such purpose teleologic, i.e., like a “subjective, pulling-along purpose,” rather than merely an “objective, pushing-along force”?
As you wrote, " the very instant that we focus on an object or idea, we lose objectivity. Everything outside of that focus becomes blurred". Perhaps: Subjectively uncertain?
Rationally, I doubt subjectivity will ever be completely objectified. Morally, I doubt humanity should surrender its subjective choice-making to any merely objective formula.
Dave,
During my daily shower, I got to contemplating Mark Twain (“For every durable piece of nonsense, there is an irrational frame of reference in which it is consistent”).
So, I looked up some wiki’isms at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Measurement_problem and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schrodinger_cat.....
A thought occurs that physicists may be failing to make a serious effort to integrate a role for conscious observers (i.e., “perspectives of consciousness,” or “sensors of collapsed uncertainties”). Perhaps they fail because they imagine no measurable or scientific way to proceed.
But, what if the meaning of “conscious observers” were understood to relate not just to perspectives of intellection, but also to capacities to sense, detect, and effect exclusions among patterns (i.e., that which we merely assume to be marked only by inanimate, “unconscious,” purely physical reactiveness)?
Suppose it is not material physics that is “entangled,” but perspectives of consciousness (which happen to be entangled in sharing a same algorithm for how they mark their relations)?
Suppose that which we take to be superimposed in a mix of indeterminacy is not potential states of “physical matter,” but potential choices to be synchronized among “perspectives of consciousness”?
If that which holistically synchronizes has capacity to collapse choices based on feedback summed from among particular perspectives, then not every possibility needs to be chosen or made to exist “in some world.”
IOW, the body of Schrodinger’s cat would not be required to exist in innumerable states spread among a multiverse of possibilities. This is because a body of physics has no independent existence apart from signifying for a state of synchronization among perspectives of consciousness.
IOW, insofar as the consciousness of the cat were entangled with the consciousness of its owner, there would be only one combined state, i.e, the owner would either be happy (cat alive and conscious) or sad (cat dead).
Issues:
(1) Does any test rule out such an approach?
(2) Could such an approach leverage means of quantifiable formulation (as by “lensing” among “primitive units of exclusion”)?
What would Mark Twain say?
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