Hey! I'm with you on all of this stuff! The thing is values and value systems are entirely, completely 100% valid! I cannot stress this enough. And YES. We're hugely stifled because we objectify everything and essentially block the idea of value; of better/worse, right/wrong. We've stunted our subjective understandings for hundreds of years now! We've prioritized neutrality and science and we've lost touch with value-discernment to a huge degree.
We need to increase the focus on the subjective systems and build them back up to healthy levels themselves. We need to develop healthy ways of determining values. We cannot do this by minimizing science or objectivity or neutrality, though. We cannot do this by saying the neutral stuff does not count! We can only do this by building up the subjective values aspects!
We can also say that individual Responsibility and Accountability is of the most importance.
If in fact we are all heavily influenced by everything and everyone around us, from our past, present and future; then it is imperative that as individuals we exercise Responsibility and Accountability so that the ripples of influence and contribution are of a positive or productive nature. No?
Because as individuals, what we do and how we behave has a direct effect on the soil, water, air and other life forms (including other human beings) of our planet. The ripples are extensive and very influential.
Of course. Proponents of determinism (armchair and esoteric philosophers aside) are, more often than not, simply demonstrating their own free will in action. Their theories are tailored specifically towards absolution. They'd be better served by becoming Orthodox Catholics and finding the nearest confession booth.
The ultimate sanctuary of determinism is faith in the omnipresent. And one need only to look at the history of societies dominated by such faith to determine which leads to a healthy society and which leads to a society where the word "health" has no meaning.
Free will is not some inherent magic in humanity. It is simply the result of your biological consciousness. Your mind is constructed such that you may recognize yourself, the other, and the distinct differences and relationships between those things. Futhermore, your mind is constructed to choose by evaluating that which you know and that which you value. Choose wisely, because your faith in determinism cannot save you from the pain and misery that this world will pay into your account regardless of whether or not you believe you are accountable for your choices. Even in a pre-determined world, your psychotic tendencies will not bring you happiness. The free will to choose otherwise is your only hope.
If you are assuming that free will is merely a matter of the biological consciousness I'm guessing that it's safe to assume you do not have insights into farther reaching realms of understanding on the matter.
"The opposite of a fact is falsehood, but the opposite of one profound truth may very well be another profound truth." ~ Niels Bohr
I seems that you are not hearing what I am saying. Well, at the least, this post seems to be at such disconnect to what I'm saying, I'm not understanding what you are saying relative to my assertion that we are co-creators in our environement and are in possession of free will.
Angelica -- I'm not debating you here. I'm agreeing with you here and simply filling out the logic!
We can also say that individual Responsibility and Accountability is of the most importance.
If in fact we are all heavily influenced by everything and everyone around us, from our past, present and future; then it is imperative that as individuals we exercise Responsibility and Accountability so that the ripples of influence and contribution are of a positive or productive nature. No?
Yep. People are fully accountable for their each thought word and deed. And like with the law, ignorance of this is not ever an excuse.
Because as individuals, what we do and how we behave has a direct effect on the soil, water, air and other life forms (including other human beings) of our planet. The ripples are extensive and very influential.
I'm with you.
"The opposite of a fact is falsehood, but the opposite of one profound truth may very well be another profound truth." ~ Niels Bohr
If you are assuming that free will is merely a matter of the biological consciousness I'm guessing that it's safe to assume you do not have insights into farther reaching realms of understanding on the matter.
Humanity cannot escape its biology. You consciousness requires your mind which in turn requires your body which in turn requires the external "one-ness" you so often speak of.
To be linked to our bodies and to our environments is not a bad thing, nor does it disprove either individuality nor free will. Nothing is indivisible until one reaches the individual. And no living humanity is indivisible until one reaches a conscious individual.
I see where you're coming from on this, but the operative word in my question was "one". If determinism is in fact true, and what you say above is also in fact true, we have no choice in the matter -- we simply must leave it to evolution or any number of outside forces of which we have absolutely no control. None of the verbs you use above could apply to the individuals to whom your speaking.
Could you please explain what you are meaning here?
"The opposite of a fact is falsehood, but the opposite of one profound truth may very well be another profound truth." ~ Niels Bohr
Could you please explain what you are meaning here?
Your earlier post certered around the choices people make and the consciousness it requires. For people to "evolve" themselves, and for people to "embrace" certain concepts and realities, people have to be more than simply aware or in existence. They must choose to live by the precepts involved. And those choices would be superfluous at best or impossible at worst in a deterministic world.
Look, you can boil it down to the following. If everything is predetermined, the values you hold and the actions you make have no inherent meaning other than their existence. If I shoot you, or if I annihilate a species, or if I go into a self-induced coma, none of it matters. There's absolutely no purpose because nothing has an inherent value.
Nearly every post made here has underlying value judgments. Ahnimus, for instance, is saying that things like pride and envy are "bad". Without the ability of choice in the matter, they can't possibly be "bad" because "bad" requires morality which in turn requires choice. You, for instance, are saying that humanity is lacking awareness of very important realities and, if they embraced those realities, it would be "good". Again, those value judgments require the concepts of free will and would be destroyed by any kind of deterministic outlook.
Humanity cannot escape its biology. You consciousness requires your mind which in turn requires your body which in turn requires the external "one-ness" you so often speak of.
I see it this way: *Just like we have atoms which are embraced by molecules, which are embraced by organisms.... we have my body, which is embraced by my mind, which is embraced by consciousness.... and so on, to deeper and deeper depths. Parts that are embraced by wholes. You are entirely correct, in that each transcended level is dependent on the "lower" level for existence. It is transcend-and-include for integration and wholeness. However, it seems that people sometimes preclude any higher transcendent realms when they attribute consciousness to the brain and biology, alone. I'm for the open systems, myself, not limiting them.
To be linked to our bodies and to our environments is not a bad thing, nor does it disprove either individuality nor free will. Nothing is indivisible until one reaches the individual. And no living humanity is indivisible until one reaches a conscious individual.
We obviously see this from different perspectives and I'm not sure I understand yours as yet. Are you saying then that we can't have a culture without an individual? Or we can't have a society without and individual? And therefore the individual is the root? I agree with this.
I have always agreed that the will of the person is of amazing importance. We've been at stages where we were fused to our environment. We progressed to discovering our individuality. And once we stablize our individuality and consciousness, we transcend to the deeper/higher levels of awareness. We integrate the old and move to an expanded awareness of the whole.
*some of this map is "borrowed" from Ken Wilber's "A Theory of Everything".
"The opposite of a fact is falsehood, but the opposite of one profound truth may very well be another profound truth." ~ Niels Bohr
Your earlier post certered around the choices people make and the consciousness it requires. For people to "evolve" themselves, and for people to "embrace" certain concepts and realities, people have to be more than simply aware or in existence. They must choose to live by the precepts involved. And those choices would be superfluous at best or impossible at worst in a deterministic world.
Look, you can boil it down to the following. If everything is predetermined, the values you hold and the actions you make have no inherent meaning other than their existence. If I shoot you, or if I annihilate a species, or if I go into a self-induced coma, none of it matters. There's absolutely no purpose because nothing has an inherent value.
Nearly every post made here has underlying value judgments. Ahnimus, for instance, is saying that things like pride and envy are "bad". Without the ability of choice in the matter, they can't possibly be "bad" because "bad" requires morality which in turn requires choice. You, for instance, are saying that humanity is lacking awareness of very important realities and, if they embraced those realities, it would be "good". Again, those value judgments require the concepts of free will and would be destroyed by any kind of deterministic outlook.
First of all, I'm not familiar with the basics of predeterminism as a concept. My ideas on free will are from what I've learned by opening to certain levels of awareness, in seeing the understandings there. Is determinism at all the same as predetermined or predestined? How so? How not so?
"The opposite of a fact is falsehood, but the opposite of one profound truth may very well be another profound truth." ~ Niels Bohr
I see it this way: *Just like we have atoms which are embraced by molecules, which are embraced by organisms.... we have my body, which is embraced by my mind, which is embraced by consciousness.... and so on, to deeper and deeper depths. Parts that are embraced by wholes. You are entirely correct, in that each transcended level is dependent on the "lower" level for existence. It is transcend-and-include for integration and wholeness. However, it seems that people sometimes preclude any higher transcendent realms when they attribute consciousness to the brain and biology, alone. I'm for the open systems, myself, not limiting them.
Cool.
We obviously see this from different perspectives and I'm not sure I understand yours as yet. Are you saying then that we can't have a culture without an individual?
Yes.
Or we can't have a society without and individual?
No, we cannot.
And therefore the individual is the root?
Yes. One can further divide into cells and atoms and molecules, but once one gets beyond the conscious individual, one is no longer discussing humanity.
I have always agreed that the will of the person is of amazing importance. We've been at stages where we were fused to our environment. We progressed to discovering our individuality. And once we stablize our individuality and consciousness, we transcend to the deeper/higher levels of awareness. We integrate the old and move to an expanded awareness of the whole.
*some of this map is "borrowed" from Ken Wilber's "A Theory of Everything".
First of all, I'm not familiar with the basics of predeterminism as a concept. My ideas on free will are from what I've learned by opening to certain levels of awareness, in seeing the understandings there. Is determinism at all the same as predetermined or predestined? How so? How not so?
Long answer no, short answer yes.
There are various schools of determinism, some of which that are even portrayed by their proponents as compatible with free will (though that is hotly debated).
Suffice to say that a true determinist believes that everything that happens has an external cause (external to individual control, that is). This means that your life would be predetermined. However, not all determinists subscribe to the complete predestination concept.
Okay, I'm starting to get that determinism is based on the causal/ material realms. I obviously can't get behind that as I believe we are always in the moment and the past and the future are mere projections or theoretical viewpoints stemming from the only moment there is: the Eternal Now. The past and future are part of the comprehensive view of the now. Granted, causal is valid within it's own context and we certainly experience it and therefore it's real. But it does not cover what is beyond causal. The Eternal Now. Being. Isness.
"The opposite of a fact is falsehood, but the opposite of one profound truth may very well be another profound truth." ~ Niels Bohr
Granted, causal is valid within it's own context and we certainly experience it and therefore it's real.
To what extent? Ahnimus said he was a Hard Determinist, and believes we are simply machines in a complex system. My views couldn't be more different since I'm a rational individual who is capable of making choices.
"I'll use the magic word - let's just shut the fuck up, please." EV, 04/13/08
To what extent? Ahnimus said he was a Hard Determinist, and believes we are simply machines in a complex system. My views couldn't be more different since I'm a rational individual who is capable of making choices.
It's real in terms that rational individuals notice and experience cause and effect happening all the time. For me to identify with being machine-like would be identifying with old levels of consciousness that not only have I personally evolved beyond (and yet still include), but the majority of humanity is currently evolving beyond (and hopefully also integrating). The purely mechanistic view was knocked out of predominant favour awhile back. And our philosophies and vast consciousness expansion of the past 100 years has dramatically reflected this growth. It's thrilling and exciting. I do believe that in each moment, there are untold amounts of intelligence/information existent, and all contribute to the whole. I do not see this as linear and causative. What I do see is that when science came into favour a few hundred years ago, we went overboard and while there was great benefit, the cost was that we began to allow all our awareness to revolve falsely around the paradigm of cause and effect. What we've trained ourselves to see is different than being open to REALLY see! Now, as we begin to see what is really going on, we'll see how it's so so so so much deeper than the purely linear!
I'm a little confused with Ahnimus, though, because what I read of chaos theory which he seems to believe in, sounds more like what I'm talking about--how situations are packed with information, not linearly, but just as is. Unless I'm misunderstanding chaos.
"The opposite of a fact is falsehood, but the opposite of one profound truth may very well be another profound truth." ~ Niels Bohr
The opposite to determinism is indeterminism, the opposite to order is disorder. Either way, even in a state of total uncertainty, our free-will or conscious is a product of that uncertainty and in that case is totally unpredictable. So, if free-will and a person's will-power is merely the result of uncertainty, then their will is also uncertain and to say that one has any control over that uncertainty, well that's just ridiculous.
The basic principle is that our thoughts and actions are the product of our knowledge, so by knowing this, we can act to achieve greater knowledge, without knowledge as the basis of our thoughts, we should all be perfect. Like Einstein said, I do not see how one can have free-will, but not will what he wants.
All this takes to be proven is personal reflection. Think of a mistake, any mistake you've ever made and ask yourself why the mistake was made. The result will be a lack of information or lack of understanding dependent on information, even if that information comes in the form of conscious awareness, it is still information that alters your opinion and therefor consciousness is dependent on information and therefor determined. Because every event is infinitely based on the events prior, the state of the universe at this exact moment depends totally on the past.
And remember, a mistake is only a mistake if one does not learn from it. By learning from it, our future choices are being determined. Free-will is an illusion of this dynamical system, regardless of how uncertain it seems.
I necessarily have the passion for writing this, and you have the passion for condemning me; both of us are equally fools, equally the toys of destiny. Your nature is to do harm, mine is to love truth, and to make it public in spite of you. - Voltaire
The opposite to determinism is indeterminism, the opposite to order is disorder. Either way, even in a state of total uncertainty, our free-will or conscious is a product of that uncertainty and in that case is totally unpredictable. So, if free-will and a person's will-power is merely the result of uncertainty, then their will is also uncertain and to say that one has any control over that uncertainty, well that's just ridiculous.
You have much control over uncertainty. Your posts here display that. You are uncertain of the concepts at hand, but you've chosen to represent that you are.
The basic principle is that our thoughts and actions are the product of our knowledge, so by knowing this, we can act to achieve greater knowledge, without knowledge as the basis of our thoughts, we should all be perfect. Like Einstein said, I do not see how one can have free-will, but not will what he wants.
Free will is not magic. Free will is the process of self-determination, not environmental-determination. If I were able to will you out of existence with my free-will, you would not have free-will, would you? The very fact that I cannot will you out of existence, or will myself a bigger house, proves the limits on implementation of will, not the will itself. I may have the will to fly, but my environment will not let my body do so until I construct an airplane.
All this takes to be proven is personal reflection. Think of a mistake, any mistake you've ever made and ask yourself why the mistake was made. The result will be a lack of information or lack of understanding dependent on information, even if that information comes in the form of conscious awareness, it is still information that alters your opinion and therefor consciousness is dependent on information and therefor determined. Because every event is infinitely based on the events prior, the state of the universe at this exact moment depends totally on the past.
And remember, a mistake is only a mistake if one does not learn from it. By learning from it, our future choices are being determined. Free-will is an illusion of this dynamical system, regardless of how uncertain it seems.
Free will is a "dynamical system". You're trying to ascribe free-will with magical qualities and, in doing so, saying that therefore it cannot exist. It's like me deciding that you are a unicorn and therefore, believing you do not exist.
The opposite to determinism is indeterminism, the opposite to order is disorder. Either way, even in a state of total uncertainty, our free-will or conscious is a product of that uncertainty and in that case is totally unpredictable. So, if free-will and a person's will-power is merely the result of uncertainty, then their will is also uncertain and to say that one has any control over that uncertainty, well that's just ridiculous.
The basic principle is that our thoughts and actions are the product of our knowledge, so by knowing this, we can act to achieve greater knowledge, without knowledge as the basis of our thoughts, we should all be perfect. Like Einstein said, I do not see how one can have free-will, but not will what he wants.
All this takes to be proven is personal reflection. Think of a mistake, any mistake you've ever made and ask yourself why the mistake was made. The result will be a lack of information or lack of understanding dependent on information, even if that information comes in the form of conscious awareness, it is still information that alters your opinion and therefor consciousness is dependent on information and therefor determined. Because every event is infinitely based on the events prior, the state of the universe at this exact moment depends totally on the past.
And remember, a mistake is only a mistake if one does not learn from it. By learning from it, our future choices are being determined. Free-will is an illusion of this dynamical system, regardless of how uncertain it seems.
We've trained ourselves to tap into the linear nature of life predominantly for hundreds of years, at the expense of understanding the actual and whole nature surrounding us. We constantly distort, delete and generalize all information based on how our brains are wired. We can trust the basic applications of what we've accomplished, including that we're horribly imbalanced people, with much technological advance. Besides that, we've created exactly what we wanted to create. We can't say that we see the truth, but rather that we see the truth that we want to see. We see exactly what we've decided we will see: linearity. Times, they are a changing. We overlooked one big thing in these few hundred years. We forgot that while being objective in our observations, well, we tuned out the vast array of our subjectivity and how we've coloured everything we see with our personal prejudice without realizing it. Once we begin look inside and see where personal bias has coloured our vision, then we will be able to START uncovering what is real.
"The opposite of a fact is falsehood, but the opposite of one profound truth may very well be another profound truth." ~ Niels Bohr
I'm a little confused with Ahnimus, though, because what I read of chaos theory which he seems to believe in, sounds more like what I'm talking about--how situations are packed with information, not linearly, but just as is. Unless I'm misunderstanding chaos.
Chaos Theory, Well, I'll use wikipedia's definition:
In mathematics and physics, chaos theory describes the behavior of certain nonlinear dynamical systems that under certain conditions exhibit a phenomenon known as chaos. Among the characteristics of chaotic systems, described below, is the sensitivity to initial conditions (popularly referred to as the butterfly effect). As a result of this sensitivity, the behavior of systems that exhibit chaos appears to be random, exhibiting an exponential error dispersion, even though the system is deterministic in the sense that it is well defined and contains no random parameters. Examples of such systems include the atmosphere, the solar system, plate tectonics, turbulent fluids, economics, population growth and the vast variety of dissipative structures.
Chaos in this sense is also an illusion, because a chaotic mechanism is deterministic, but the illusion of chaos comes in small changes to the initial configuration. Such as firing a fixed gun, you can fix a gun to something solid and have it automatically fire, but a tiny particle in the chamber can throw off the trajectory of the bullet. It's highly improbable that every bullet will hit the exact same spot in space/time. That's a chaotic mechanism.
Physicists and Cosmologists like Steven Hawkings and Albert Einstein realize(d) that in order for us to exist as we do today, the initial configuration of the universe had to be very specific.
Just like, in order for me to have this opinion now depends solely on micro- and macro-informational changes to my psyche. The fact that I don't will these thoughts, is evidence that I have no free-will. For a person to have free-will they must be able to choose their thoughts, which they can not. A person can not will the answer to a complex mathematical algorithm, they must first have the knowledge of how that system works and then the answer comes to them from within the complex system of the human brain.
I necessarily have the passion for writing this, and you have the passion for condemning me; both of us are equally fools, equally the toys of destiny. Your nature is to do harm, mine is to love truth, and to make it public in spite of you. - Voltaire
We've trained ourselves to tap into the linear nature of life predominantly for hundreds of years, at the expense of understanding the actual and whole nature surrounding us. We constantly distort, delete and generalize all information based on how our brains are wired. We can trust the basic applications of what we've accomplished, including that we're horribly imbalanced people, with much technological advance. Besides that, we've created exactly what we wanted to create. We can't say that we see the truth, but rather that we see the truth that we want to see. We see exactly what we've decided we will see: linearity. Times, they are a changing. We overlooked one big thing in these few hundred years. We forgot that while being objective in our observations, well, we tuned out the vast array of our subjectivity and how we've coloured everything we see with our personal prejudice without realizing it. Once we begin look inside and see where personal bias has coloured our vision, then we will be able to START uncovering what is real.
But, you are saying that your personal bias, or coloured vision is determined by something else, which is correct. If our will was not dependent on other factors, then all of our wills should be the same. I hope you aren't proposing that the will of a neonate is the same as an adult. We have studied child cognitive development and it is solely dependent on environmental and biological factors, it is the basis of psychological treatment. If will was as subjective and variant as is proposed by classical thought, then we could never treat psychological disorder. The truth is since the beginning of science, we have known that our fate is predetermined, but it's been denied by the existence of belief systems contradictory to it. Heissenberg's uncertainty principle has given fuel to indeterminism, but physicists know what is wrong with the uncertainty principle, which I mentioned, uncertainty is still order and Schrödinger proved Heissenberg was observing incorrectly.
The entire universe is dependent on order, from the atom (Quantum Mechanics) to the atmosphere, no matter how chaotic or uncertain it seems.
I necessarily have the passion for writing this, and you have the passion for condemning me; both of us are equally fools, equally the toys of destiny. Your nature is to do harm, mine is to love truth, and to make it public in spite of you. - Voltaire
But, you are saying that your personal bias, or coloured vision is determined by something else, which is correct. If our will was not dependent on other factors, then all of our wills should be the same. I hope you aren't proposing that the will of a neonate is the same as an adult. We have studied child cognitive development and it is solely dependent on environmental and biological factors, it is the basis of psychological treatment. If will was as subjective and variant as is proposed by classical thought, then we could never treat psychological disorder. The truth is since the beginning of science, we have known that our fate is predetermined, but it's been denied by the existence of belief systems contradictory to it. Heissenberg's uncertainty principle has given fuel to indeterminism, but physicists know what is wrong with the uncertainty principle, which I mentioned, uncertainty is still order and Schrödinger proved Heissenberg was observing incorrectly.
The entire universe is dependent on order, from the atom (Quantum Mechanics) to the atmosphere, no matter how chaotic or uncertain it seems.
I'm saying predetermination is entirely real. What I'm ALSO saying is that when we begin to open to the other aspects of perception that we've been ignoring, when we begin to integrate other types of intelligence, and evolve to higher levels of personal awareness, the predetermination is acknowledged as part of a very spectacular full picture, all occurring right now, where the past and the future ONLY exist in theory. Within that context, predetermination looks very, very different!
"The opposite of a fact is falsehood, but the opposite of one profound truth may very well be another profound truth." ~ Niels Bohr
I'm saying predetermination is entirely real. What I'm ALSO saying is that when we begin to open to the other aspects of perception that we've been ignoring, when we begin to integrate other types of intelligence, and evolve to higher levels of personal awareness, the predetermination is acknowledged as part of a very spectacular full picture, all occurring right now, where the past and the future ONLY exist in theory. Within that context, predetermination looks very, very different!
I see, but it's still determinism. You have the spans of consciousness or awareness that you do because of information you've processed, books that you've read, or experiences you've had and because of that, your awareness is determined.
I necessarily have the passion for writing this, and you have the passion for condemning me; both of us are equally fools, equally the toys of destiny. Your nature is to do harm, mine is to love truth, and to make it public in spite of you. - Voltaire
I see, but it's still determinism. You have the spans of consciousness or awareness that you do because of information you've processed, books that you've read, or experiences you've had and because of that, your awareness is determined.
It's wayyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy beyond determinism. When we realize we only exist in the moment, we recognize there is not cause and there is not effect. I don't expect people looking at the cause and effect level to understand beyond the cause and effect level, though.
"The opposite of a fact is falsehood, but the opposite of one profound truth may very well be another profound truth." ~ Niels Bohr
It's wayyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy beyond determinism. When we realize we only exist in the moment, we recognize there is not cause and there is not effect. I don't expect people looking at the cause and effect level to understand beyond the cause and effect level, though.
Causality is the basis of reality. How it goes beyond determinism is foreign to the greatest of minds. If you have some insight, then that is insight not provided to these other minds, and that determines the difference.
In any case, when we have variation their is another influence. Will is variant, consciousness is variant, morality is variant. They are all deterministic - chaotic mechanisms.
I necessarily have the passion for writing this, and you have the passion for condemning me; both of us are equally fools, equally the toys of destiny. Your nature is to do harm, mine is to love truth, and to make it public in spite of you. - Voltaire
Also, if you are going beyond determinism, or beyond causality, it's what Einstein called Übercausalität, German for Supercausality. But... it's still causality and still determinism.
I necessarily have the passion for writing this, and you have the passion for condemning me; both of us are equally fools, equally the toys of destiny. Your nature is to do harm, mine is to love truth, and to make it public in spite of you. - Voltaire
In special relativity the energy-momentum relation, which relates the energy of an object (E) with its momentum (p), and mass (m), where c is the speed of light: E2 = p2c2 + m2c4, has a dual energy solution:
±E = \sqrt{p^2c^2+m^2c^4}
one positive + E, which moves forward in time (causality), and one negative − E, which moves backward in time (retrocausality).
This equation describes events as the result of causes which propagate from the past to the future (causality) and causes which propagate backwards in time from the future to the past (retrocausality)/attractors. Einstein used the term Übercausalität (supercausality) to refer to this new model of dual causation.
I necessarily have the passion for writing this, and you have the passion for condemning me; both of us are equally fools, equally the toys of destiny. Your nature is to do harm, mine is to love truth, and to make it public in spite of you. - Voltaire
I necessarily have the passion for writing this, and you have the passion for condemning me; both of us are equally fools, equally the toys of destiny. Your nature is to do harm, mine is to love truth, and to make it public in spite of you. - Voltaire
In special relativity the energy-momentum relation, which relates the energy of an object (E) with its momentum (p), and mass (m), where c is the speed of light: E2 = p2c2 + m2c4, has a dual energy solution:
±E = \sqrt{p^2c^2+m^2c^4}
one positive + E, which moves forward in time (causality), and one negative − E, which moves backward in time (retrocausality).
This equation describes events as the result of causes which propagate from the past to the future (causality) and causes which propagate backwards in time from the future to the past (retrocausality)/attractors. Einstein used the term Übercausalität (supercausality) to refer to this new model of dual causation.
Yea, I'm aware of Chris King's bifurcation theory. Unfortunately it's false and that entire paper paves the road to determinism.
"To understand how the subjective aspect arises requires both a radical investigation down to the foundations of
physics and an understanding of how subjective awareness, as opposed to mere computational capacity, may
have become elaborated by Darwinian natural selection. We thus have to find reasons why subjectivity itself,
rather than computation alone, is of pivotal importance in organismic survival. The answer lies in its capacity
to anticipate situations crucial to survival. For this to be possible, the foundations of physics must contain a
principle of space-time anticipation not covered by any mechanism of computation alone, or subjectivity would
become superfluous and would have never been selected for in evolution. This paper sets out to demonstrate
how quantum transactions universal to all quantum phenomena my fulfil this pivotal role."
Yes, we must search for Causality Chris, because not everything is Causal, that is a direct contradiction of logic. No, the subjective mind is not a predictor, the objective computational mind is a predictor, that is the point.
His bifurcation theory isn't taking into account the true complexity of space/time. As Angelica said "living in the now" now only exists as a concept, becuase now now, was now two seconds ago, or 2 milliseconds ago, or 2 nanoseconds ago, now is never now in that it is now independent of the now 2 nanoseconds ago or the now 2 nanoseconds from now. Time exists as a whole and the measurement of time is a concept we created to measure it, the clock on the wall does not define time. Einstein's theory of relativity actually proves this and Chris King is looking at the clock and measuring time and trying to make sense of it, which he can not.
I necessarily have the passion for writing this, and you have the passion for condemning me; both of us are equally fools, equally the toys of destiny. Your nature is to do harm, mine is to love truth, and to make it public in spite of you. - Voltaire
Let's put it this way, if Chris King was right the universe would be in a constant frozen state and there would be no time.
I necessarily have the passion for writing this, and you have the passion for condemning me; both of us are equally fools, equally the toys of destiny. Your nature is to do harm, mine is to love truth, and to make it public in spite of you. - Voltaire
Comments
We can also say that individual Responsibility and Accountability is of the most importance.
If in fact we are all heavily influenced by everything and everyone around us, from our past, present and future; then it is imperative that as individuals we exercise Responsibility and Accountability so that the ripples of influence and contribution are of a positive or productive nature. No?
Because as individuals, what we do and how we behave has a direct effect on the soil, water, air and other life forms (including other human beings) of our planet. The ripples are extensive and very influential.
http://www.myspace.com/illuminatta
Rhinocerous Surprise '08!!!
Angelica -- I'm not debating you here. I'm agreeing with you here and simply filling out the logic!
I'm with you.
http://www.myspace.com/illuminatta
Rhinocerous Surprise '08!!!
http://www.myspace.com/illuminatta
Rhinocerous Surprise '08!!!
Humanity cannot escape its biology. You consciousness requires your mind which in turn requires your body which in turn requires the external "one-ness" you so often speak of.
To be linked to our bodies and to our environments is not a bad thing, nor does it disprove either individuality nor free will. Nothing is indivisible until one reaches the individual. And no living humanity is indivisible until one reaches a conscious individual.
http://www.myspace.com/illuminatta
Rhinocerous Surprise '08!!!
Your earlier post certered around the choices people make and the consciousness it requires. For people to "evolve" themselves, and for people to "embrace" certain concepts and realities, people have to be more than simply aware or in existence. They must choose to live by the precepts involved. And those choices would be superfluous at best or impossible at worst in a deterministic world.
Look, you can boil it down to the following. If everything is predetermined, the values you hold and the actions you make have no inherent meaning other than their existence. If I shoot you, or if I annihilate a species, or if I go into a self-induced coma, none of it matters. There's absolutely no purpose because nothing has an inherent value.
Nearly every post made here has underlying value judgments. Ahnimus, for instance, is saying that things like pride and envy are "bad". Without the ability of choice in the matter, they can't possibly be "bad" because "bad" requires morality which in turn requires choice. You, for instance, are saying that humanity is lacking awareness of very important realities and, if they embraced those realities, it would be "good". Again, those value judgments require the concepts of free will and would be destroyed by any kind of deterministic outlook.
We obviously see this from different perspectives and I'm not sure I understand yours as yet. Are you saying then that we can't have a culture without an individual? Or we can't have a society without and individual? And therefore the individual is the root? I agree with this.
I have always agreed that the will of the person is of amazing importance. We've been at stages where we were fused to our environment. We progressed to discovering our individuality. And once we stablize our individuality and consciousness, we transcend to the deeper/higher levels of awareness. We integrate the old and move to an expanded awareness of the whole.
*some of this map is "borrowed" from Ken Wilber's "A Theory of Everything".
http://www.myspace.com/illuminatta
Rhinocerous Surprise '08!!!
http://www.myspace.com/illuminatta
Rhinocerous Surprise '08!!!
Cool.
Yes.
No, we cannot.
Yes. One can further divide into cells and atoms and molecules, but once one gets beyond the conscious individual, one is no longer discussing humanity.
Cool, again.
Long answer no, short answer yes.
There are various schools of determinism, some of which that are even portrayed by their proponents as compatible with free will (though that is hotly debated).
Suffice to say that a true determinist believes that everything that happens has an external cause (external to individual control, that is). This means that your life would be predetermined. However, not all determinists subscribe to the complete predestination concept.
This would be a good place to start:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Determinism
http://www.myspace.com/illuminatta
Rhinocerous Surprise '08!!!
To what extent? Ahnimus said he was a Hard Determinist, and believes we are simply machines in a complex system. My views couldn't be more different since I'm a rational individual who is capable of making choices.
I'm a little confused with Ahnimus, though, because what I read of chaos theory which he seems to believe in, sounds more like what I'm talking about--how situations are packed with information, not linearly, but just as is. Unless I'm misunderstanding chaos.
http://www.myspace.com/illuminatta
Rhinocerous Surprise '08!!!
The opposite to determinism is indeterminism, the opposite to order is disorder. Either way, even in a state of total uncertainty, our free-will or conscious is a product of that uncertainty and in that case is totally unpredictable. So, if free-will and a person's will-power is merely the result of uncertainty, then their will is also uncertain and to say that one has any control over that uncertainty, well that's just ridiculous.
The basic principle is that our thoughts and actions are the product of our knowledge, so by knowing this, we can act to achieve greater knowledge, without knowledge as the basis of our thoughts, we should all be perfect. Like Einstein said, I do not see how one can have free-will, but not will what he wants.
All this takes to be proven is personal reflection. Think of a mistake, any mistake you've ever made and ask yourself why the mistake was made. The result will be a lack of information or lack of understanding dependent on information, even if that information comes in the form of conscious awareness, it is still information that alters your opinion and therefor consciousness is dependent on information and therefor determined. Because every event is infinitely based on the events prior, the state of the universe at this exact moment depends totally on the past.
And remember, a mistake is only a mistake if one does not learn from it. By learning from it, our future choices are being determined. Free-will is an illusion of this dynamical system, regardless of how uncertain it seems.
You have much control over uncertainty. Your posts here display that. You are uncertain of the concepts at hand, but you've chosen to represent that you are.
Free will is not magic. Free will is the process of self-determination, not environmental-determination. If I were able to will you out of existence with my free-will, you would not have free-will, would you? The very fact that I cannot will you out of existence, or will myself a bigger house, proves the limits on implementation of will, not the will itself. I may have the will to fly, but my environment will not let my body do so until I construct an airplane.
Free will is a "dynamical system". You're trying to ascribe free-will with magical qualities and, in doing so, saying that therefore it cannot exist. It's like me deciding that you are a unicorn and therefore, believing you do not exist.
http://www.myspace.com/illuminatta
Rhinocerous Surprise '08!!!
Chaos Theory, Well, I'll use wikipedia's definition:
In mathematics and physics, chaos theory describes the behavior of certain nonlinear dynamical systems that under certain conditions exhibit a phenomenon known as chaos. Among the characteristics of chaotic systems, described below, is the sensitivity to initial conditions (popularly referred to as the butterfly effect). As a result of this sensitivity, the behavior of systems that exhibit chaos appears to be random, exhibiting an exponential error dispersion, even though the system is deterministic in the sense that it is well defined and contains no random parameters. Examples of such systems include the atmosphere, the solar system, plate tectonics, turbulent fluids, economics, population growth and the vast variety of dissipative structures.
Chaos in this sense is also an illusion, because a chaotic mechanism is deterministic, but the illusion of chaos comes in small changes to the initial configuration. Such as firing a fixed gun, you can fix a gun to something solid and have it automatically fire, but a tiny particle in the chamber can throw off the trajectory of the bullet. It's highly improbable that every bullet will hit the exact same spot in space/time. That's a chaotic mechanism.
Physicists and Cosmologists like Steven Hawkings and Albert Einstein realize(d) that in order for us to exist as we do today, the initial configuration of the universe had to be very specific.
Just like, in order for me to have this opinion now depends solely on micro- and macro-informational changes to my psyche. The fact that I don't will these thoughts, is evidence that I have no free-will. For a person to have free-will they must be able to choose their thoughts, which they can not. A person can not will the answer to a complex mathematical algorithm, they must first have the knowledge of how that system works and then the answer comes to them from within the complex system of the human brain.
But, you are saying that your personal bias, or coloured vision is determined by something else, which is correct. If our will was not dependent on other factors, then all of our wills should be the same. I hope you aren't proposing that the will of a neonate is the same as an adult. We have studied child cognitive development and it is solely dependent on environmental and biological factors, it is the basis of psychological treatment. If will was as subjective and variant as is proposed by classical thought, then we could never treat psychological disorder. The truth is since the beginning of science, we have known that our fate is predetermined, but it's been denied by the existence of belief systems contradictory to it. Heissenberg's uncertainty principle has given fuel to indeterminism, but physicists know what is wrong with the uncertainty principle, which I mentioned, uncertainty is still order and Schrödinger proved Heissenberg was observing incorrectly.
The entire universe is dependent on order, from the atom (Quantum Mechanics) to the atmosphere, no matter how chaotic or uncertain it seems.
http://www.myspace.com/illuminatta
Rhinocerous Surprise '08!!!
I see, but it's still determinism. You have the spans of consciousness or awareness that you do because of information you've processed, books that you've read, or experiences you've had and because of that, your awareness is determined.
http://www.myspace.com/illuminatta
Rhinocerous Surprise '08!!!
Causality is the basis of reality. How it goes beyond determinism is foreign to the greatest of minds. If you have some insight, then that is insight not provided to these other minds, and that determines the difference.
In any case, when we have variation their is another influence. Will is variant, consciousness is variant, morality is variant. They are all deterministic - chaotic mechanisms.
In special relativity the energy-momentum relation, which relates the energy of an object (E) with its momentum (p), and mass (m), where c is the speed of light: E2 = p2c2 + m2c4, has a dual energy solution:
±E = \sqrt{p^2c^2+m^2c^4}
one positive + E, which moves forward in time (causality), and one negative − E, which moves backward in time (retrocausality).
This equation describes events as the result of causes which propagate from the past to the future (causality) and causes which propagate backwards in time from the future to the past (retrocausality)/attractors. Einstein used the term Übercausalität (supercausality) to refer to this new model of dual causation.
Nature or Nurture, they are both causes.
http://www.math.auckland.ac.nz/~king/Preprints/pdf/CKbrainpaper.pdf
Yea, I'm aware of Chris King's bifurcation theory. Unfortunately it's false and that entire paper paves the road to determinism.
"To understand how the subjective aspect arises requires both a radical investigation down to the foundations of
physics and an understanding of how subjective awareness, as opposed to mere computational capacity, may
have become elaborated by Darwinian natural selection. We thus have to find reasons why subjectivity itself,
rather than computation alone, is of pivotal importance in organismic survival. The answer lies in its capacity
to anticipate situations crucial to survival. For this to be possible, the foundations of physics must contain a
principle of space-time anticipation not covered by any mechanism of computation alone, or subjectivity would
become superfluous and would have never been selected for in evolution. This paper sets out to demonstrate
how quantum transactions universal to all quantum phenomena my fulfil this pivotal role."
Yes, we must search for Causality Chris, because not everything is Causal, that is a direct contradiction of logic. No, the subjective mind is not a predictor, the objective computational mind is a predictor, that is the point.
His bifurcation theory isn't taking into account the true complexity of space/time. As Angelica said "living in the now" now only exists as a concept, becuase now now, was now two seconds ago, or 2 milliseconds ago, or 2 nanoseconds ago, now is never now in that it is now independent of the now 2 nanoseconds ago or the now 2 nanoseconds from now. Time exists as a whole and the measurement of time is a concept we created to measure it, the clock on the wall does not define time. Einstein's theory of relativity actually proves this and Chris King is looking at the clock and measuring time and trying to make sense of it, which he can not.