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jgill
Boulder climber
The high prairie of southern Colorado
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Oct 18, 2016 - 03:47pm PT
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"Steve Patterson is a freelance philosopher…who doesn't have a PhD (or even an undergraduate degree in philosophy). Spending his time . . ."
From the WWW.
But there is a possibility he's on the right track here. There are a number of interpretations of QM (they have been described here before).
Don't take this poorly, but anyone can come up with arguments and theories . . . . Theories are cheap by the dozen
You're speaking loosely here, right? In the sciences and math coming up with "theories" (or theorems) can be a difficult and exacting process, not for the faint of heart.
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cintune
climber
The Model Home
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Oct 18, 2016 - 04:39pm PT
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Now where did that goal post go? It was here a minute ago....
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jgill
Boulder climber
The high prairie of southern Colorado
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Oct 19, 2016 - 02:51pm PT
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^^^ it vanished into the obscurity of reality, having no distinguishable form and a minute (geologically measured) span of existence. Form is emptiness and emptiness is form. Believe it.
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MikeL
Social climber
Southern Arizona
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Oct 19, 2016 - 09:54pm PT
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MH2:
Right and wrong are barely in my lexicon these days. I don’t know how to use the words properly.
Here in this thread we talk about a great many things, and I think if you read closely you’d see that DMT has a different idea about those things than you do than I do than Largo does than Jgill does than Go-B does than Cintune does than HFCS does, . . . and so forth.
What’s your account of that?
One person is right and the rest are wrong? Everyone is wrong? Everyone is right? No one is right (which could be different than everyone is wrong)? Everyone is right and wrong? No one is right and wrong?
Not this or that.
Not this and that.
Neither not this nor not not that.
It seems to me that you can describe anything in any way you want to, and so can anyone else. It seems to me that in fact, you do, and everyone else does, too.
There are a couple of issues that have tended to bother me about descriptions
(1) Things *are* being described by folks, but the relationships among the descriptions of those things are loose. Nothing really integrates the descriptions of things. Sure, there are narratives, but it’s like a picture puzzle where none of the pieces fit neatly. There appears to be a fragmentation; either that, or there is just one thing where everything simply appears—just like in a dream. In a dream, nothing is really there. It just looks like it.
I can’t say how often every single day I sense that what I’m specifically referring to and talking about with other people are different than what they are specifically referring to and talking about. We appear to agree, but no conversation ever quite comes together; discussions never converge point of singularity (just like with DMT, Largo, me, Jgill, you, etc.).
(ii) Hey, . . . but, what about maths? Maths present the appearance of convergence through consensual definitions about discrete metrics. I mean, a “1” is a “1” across the planet, isn’t it?
Is It? it seems to me that any instantiation of any number leaves a being wanting, because folks cannot come to a final determination about any instantiation (thing). (“1”!? One . . . what? Find one *thing.* To do so requires that there is one thing that exists permanently and independently.) There is something rather “practical” that’s missing in numbers—or that there is something particularly illusional (theoretical?) about numbers.
(iii) I’ve gotten the sense that believing is seeing. When folks provide descriptions, what they are reporting are their beliefs (their minds).
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MH2
Boulder climber
Andy Cairns
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Oct 20, 2016 - 08:25am PT
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We appear to agree, but no conversation ever quite comes together; discussions never converge point of singularity
Point of singularity? Go back 13 billion years or so if that is what you are looking for.
Yes, the universe is a big place, there is lots of stuff in it, our brains with their 10 billion neurons do a fine job of keeping us alive in it, but they are not good at achieving perfect certainty, even for one brain on its own, and it is much harder get two brains to agree completely. And thank goodness for that.
The disagreements we have are what keep us using our brains. If we were living 20,000 years ago we would be making life-or-death decisions hunting, gathering, avoiding dangers, and having and caring for children. We would need to make those decisions with less-than-perfect knowledge about what was going to happen in the next moment, days, and years.
Now, we sit in a safe place entering text to communicate to people we don't know well. But we still make choices based on guesswork.
You should perhaps look more deeply into math. That field has a deserved reputation for certainty, but the fact that people all over the world can agree on the correctness of important theorems comes at the expense of resting the foundations in the real world. You might find that interesting. Mathematicians can be quite sure about relations among mathematical objects, without any need to define those objects outside of their relations to each other.
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Largo
Sport climber
The Big Wide Open Face
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Topic Author's Reply - Oct 20, 2016 - 09:53am PT
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Mathematicians can be quite sure about relations among mathematical objects, without any need to define those objects outside of their relations to each other.
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Interesting use of words - "without any need to define those objects outside of their relations to each other." One might suppose that this implies that they CAN define those objects otherwise, if the "need" arose. Try and do so some time. Show your work.
And as mentioned, these vaunted objects are simply not there in the way our senses and minds tell us they are. You might look into the whole business of impermanence. It will reshuffle your beliefs on the hegemony of "real" objects, and the imagined hierarchy of stand-alone, independent objects "out there." Especially the belief that any phenomenon - be it objects or mind - stands independent of any other phenomenon.
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MikeL
Social climber
Southern Arizona
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Oct 20, 2016 - 11:25am PT
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MH2: That field [of mathematics] has a deserved reputation for certainty, but the fact that people all over the world can agree on the correctness of important theorems comes at the expense of resting the foundations in the real world.
A remarkable declaration. I understand you to claim:
(i) People all over the world agree about important theorems in mathematics. If that’s so, then what are people researching and writing about in the field? (I mean there *are* peer reviewed journals, aren’t there?) I assume that there are many important theorems in mathematics.
Would you include axioms as theorems?
(ii) Practicality and empirical verification / validation are subordinate to the existence of theories. Would you be so inclined to hold that position for theories / narratives beyond mathematics? (If so, welcome my brother. If not, why not?)
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PSP also PP
Trad climber
Berkeley
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Oct 20, 2016 - 01:16pm PT
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Here is an interesting conversation between Sam Harris and J Goldstein ;Sam's Meditation teacher and co-founder of Insight meditation movement in the USA. Both are really good communicators and a good perspective on buddhist style meditation. Especially helpful in pointing out that meditation's goal is not to achieve some special state.
https://soundcloud.com/samharrisorg/joseph-goldstein
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cintune
climber
The Model Home
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Oct 20, 2016 - 04:44pm PT
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"Die Glasperle gehört zu den ältesten Schmuckstücken der Menschheit."
No permanence is ours; we are a wave
That flows to fit whatever form it finds:
Through night or day, cathedral or cavern,
We pass forever, craving form that binds.
― Hermann Hesse, The Glass Bead Game
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Largo
Sport climber
The Big Wide Open Face
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Topic Author's Reply - Oct 20, 2016 - 05:43pm PT
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Excellent conversation you posted PSP. Slippery ground.
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MH2
Boulder climber
Andy Cairns
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Oct 20, 2016 - 07:44pm PT
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Many of us may have learned a bit about plane geometry: points, lines, angles. With a pencil you can illustrate points, lines, and angles and get an intuitive idea of what they are and how they relate.
There is much scope in mathematics for intuition, and also for imagination, and appreciation for beauty. However, mathematicians have found no rock-solid way to define what points and lines are.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Line_(geometry)#Definitions_versus_descriptions
The absence of a definition for mathematical points and lines does not change the truth of Euclid’s theorems and it doesn’t prevent new discoveries.
Here is one description of what is needed to do mathematics.
There is no necessary connection to the so-called real world, but such connections are possible.
from The Mathematical Experience
Philip J. Davis and Reuben Hersh
If you aren't a mathematician, maybe an anthropologist would understand:
Thus in the case of the Nggwun ritual of the Mambila of Somié [Zeitlyn and Fischer 2002], we cannot know what or how the Mambila perceive Nggwun, but we are certain they do perceive it as it is their ritual after all.
Classification, Symbolic Representation and Ritual: Information vs. meaning in cultural processes
Michael Fischer
University of Kent at Canterbury
citation:
Ritual, ideation and performance: A Case Study of Multimedia in Anthropological Research - the Mambila Nggwun Ritual
Michael Fischer and D. Zeitlyn
Proceedings of the 2002 European Meetings for Cybernetics and Systems Research, Vienna, 2002.
http://intersci.ss.uci.edu/%7Edrwhite/EMCSR02papers/Fischer_EMCSR.pdf
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jgill
Boulder climber
The high prairie of southern Colorado
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Oct 20, 2016 - 07:59pm PT
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. . .the fact that people all over the world can agree on the correctness of important theorems . . . (MH2)
A remarkable declaration. I understand you to claim:(i) People all over the world agree about important theorems in mathematics. If that’s so, then what are people researching and writing about in the field? (I mean there *are* peer reviewed journals, aren’t there?) I assume that there are many important theorems in mathematics. Would you include axioms as theorems? (MikeL)
Well, I don't think I can let this slip by without a comment. Andy is speaking of the agreement among mathematicians that the stated proofs of theorems are "correct". Mathematics has in fact a huge "social component" in that mathematicians verify that no logical flaws exist in a purported proof and that what is presented in this regard actually "proves" the statement of the theorem in the sense that hypothesis leads to conclusion.
Indeed, there are many important theorems in math. And, no, an axiom is not a theorem (freshman math). I think your reply must be of a humorous nature.
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MikeL
Social climber
Southern Arizona
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Oct 21, 2016 - 07:00am PT
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Jgill:
It is my understanding that any math theorem rests upon an axiom(s). Yet axioms are not proven themselves. They are assumed. They seem imminently reasonable and intuitive, but they stand or are accepted without tests or logical arguments. That to me, at least theoretically, seems untenable when a community seems so oriented and reliant upon logic as the basis for a field of study. So, it seems to me that the foundation is not logical, but all that rests upon it is somehow privileged because it is logical.
???
Secondly, math has a peculiarity to it that boggles this weak mind of mine. I, too, know a little bit about the nature of logic due to my undergraduate degree in philosophy and continued interest from there forward into my graduate studies in business where I tried to continue to apply it. When someone tells me that a purported proof has no logical flaws and that what is presented actually proves the statement of the theorem in the sense that hypothesis leads to conclusion, I feel compelled to respond with petitio principii. In other words, the math constitutes a tautology: the conclusion was smuggled into the hypothesis. There was no real hypothesis to begin with.
Be well.
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MH2
Boulder climber
Andy Cairns
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Oct 21, 2016 - 08:46am PT
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axioms are not proven themselves. They are assumed. They seem imminently reasonable and intuitive, but they stand or are accepted without tests or logical arguments.
If you find a way to test/prove axioms, please let us know.
If not, then just view the creation of mathematics as analogous to the making of stone soup.
Thanks to John Gill for the clarification.
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WBraun
climber
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Oct 21, 2016 - 10:04am PT
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Johnson invests $100 million in Kernel to unlock the power of the human brain.
Typical of brainwashed gross materialists.
They'll spend all this money on something that's been done since day one that costs no money at all and is freely available to anyone ......
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Largo
Sport climber
The Big Wide Open Face
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Topic Author's Reply - Oct 21, 2016 - 01:02pm PT
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Mathmatics, as commonly understood is the the systematic treatment of magnitude, relationships between figures and forms, and relations between quantities expressed symbolically. Or basically, the mathmatical aspects of some thing or phenomenon.
A tricky part of all this is that the descriptors of some thing - quantitative or otherwise - are often believed to be definitive statements about what some thing IS. The ball is red. The sky is blue. The band is loud. The sphere has a of volume of V12. The density of the shoe rubber is 10 durometer. The plane moves X fast.
Implied in this, at least to our common sense, is the idea that there is some "it," be it a ball or a honey bee or a quark, that HAS these properties and values, some basic immutable, non-contingent stuff that HAS magnitude, form, rest mass, velocity, spin, color, size and shape, etc.
The most common take on this is that what constitutes the "it," is matter. But when folks look closely at matter itself, they find that the building blocks are always in flux and have no mass or substructure.
That leaves us to conclude that there is no stand alone thing or stuff that has magnitude, relations, or form at all, that all the stuff out there has no center, no immutable mortar that is really "there" as stand alone stuff.
That's the objective side of things. On the subjective side of things we encounter much the same pattern - or lack thereof.
We find, on close introspection, that the self is just as evanescent, provisional and mutable as the stuff of apparent solid objects. We have no stand alone center. There is no Cartesian theater where a separate observer witnesses the stuff of experience. There is only the flood of experience itself, which happens spontaneously and unbidden and always right now. People believing in a machine-model of "mind" are left with a mechanism that has no parts - not an easy concept to wrangle down.
This take opens us up to fantastic philosophical questions like: What are we actually measuring? Who is experiencing this and that. Who am I and what is THAT, really?
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cintune
climber
The Model Home
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Oct 21, 2016 - 01:07pm PT
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Thoreau: "The question is not what you look at, but what you see."
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jgill
Boulder climber
The high prairie of southern Colorado
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Oct 21, 2016 - 10:12pm PT
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We find, on close introspection, that the self is just as evanescent, provisional and mutable as the stuff of apparent solid objects
I think you are correct on the nature of the "self", but not on the nature of solid objects. Your attempts to draw parallels with math or physics is not convincing, and shows your lack of depth in these subjects. Maybe try another tack.
So, it seems to me that the foundation is not logical, but all that rests upon it is somehow privileged because it is logical
Historically, much of "all that rests upon it" came before the foundations were formulated in the last two centuries. For instance, the notion of a sequence (or series) converging to a value was batted around among leading mathematicians - with bizarre results - before Cauchy developed a sensible definition. This led to questions about divergent series like the harmonic series (∑ 1/n) and whether they could be said, in some reasonable way, to have a value. These investigations led to "summation" processes that would always give the correct answer for a traditionally convergent series, but would additionally provide "sums" for other series. I believe physicists use these ideas, as Dr Ed might tell us were he not on sabbatical.
These deliberations occurred prior to concerted efforts to formalize mathematics through devices like the Peano Axioms. (One of my first courses as a math grad student in 1962 involved developing arithmetic and higher functions through these axioms - it was an eye-opener).
In a sense you are correct saying that the conclusion of a theorem is somehow "contained" in the hypothesis. The fun is unraveling the mystery.
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MH2
Boulder climber
Andy Cairns
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Oct 22, 2016 - 09:40am PT
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We find, on close introspection, that the self is just as evanescent, provisional and mutable as the stuff of apparent solid objects.
Nice to see that some things don't change.
A tricky part of all this is that the descriptors of some thing - quantitative or otherwise - are often believed to be definitive statements about what some thing IS.
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