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WBraun
climber
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May 31, 2015 - 07:18pm PT
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The past appears in the form of karma in the present.
Thus Mike L is correct there is only now which is the absolute complete manifestation of Time ....
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Largo
Sport climber
The Big Wide Open Face
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Topic Author's Reply - May 31, 2015 - 07:31pm PT
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Very interesting developments on this thread. I had to go to the Telluride Film Festival then a teaching thing in Jackson Hole and somewhere I got malaria - or it felt like it. Better now but not enough energy to buckle down. Look forward to it.
JL
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jstan
climber
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May 31, 2015 - 08:04pm PT
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JL
Since malaria is carried by nothing in the air you may want to quarantine yourself.
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MH2
Boulder climber
Andy Cairns
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May 31, 2015 - 08:12pm PT
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Mike L is correct there is only now which is the absolute complete manifestation of Time ....
And don't forget jgill:
One can argue about whether time passes in discrete infinitesimal units or continuously, but it might make no difference at all since we may "live" in an instant.
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jgill
Boulder climber
The high prairie of southern Colorado
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May 31, 2015 - 10:21pm PT
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For there to be time, there needs to be something (an event?) which is not now. What could that possibly be? (MikeL)
I like this.
And thanks PSP for the posted article.
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MikeL
Social climber
Seattle, WA
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My wife can be a rather demanding listener and manager in her field (IT). She asks questions, and she expects answers by golly. If the conversation begins to meander (as most do casually), she’ll interject, ask what the meandering has to do with the issue exposed by her question, and get the conversation back to develop an answer. (She can be like a pit bull.)
As a teacher, I’m interested in answers and questions.
There would seem to be a direct connection between a question and an answer as one moves downstream, from question to answer, but not not so much in the other direction—from answer to question. Making a statement (as though it is “an answer to something”) of almost any sort seems to imply an infinite wealth of questions, whereas we tend to think there are (or should be) one answer to any question. There should be a single “right answer” to any question.
1. Why would we tend to think there are single answers to questions, but not vice versa? Why don’t we tend to think there are as many answers as there are questions when we talk?
If we were to take that view, the world (reality) would appear to be open-ended, unresolvable, unified, “empty of substance,” and spontaneous—as though every moment (can’t help but use that time-based term) presents infinite possibilities.
2. We tend to be focused on answers. We are not so very focused on questions. We don’t spend the same energy developing and clarifying questions as we do answers. Answers seem to come from questions, but where do questions come from?
As I look closely, I don’t see (in any casual sense) any logical or necessarily reasoned development of questions. Questions seem somewhat random as they arise in mind. There is not a bank of prioritized questions in life that I’m aware of, and there doesn’t seem like there are tried-and-true sequences of questions in most disciplines, either. Our infinite curiosities seem to be fueling the generation of questions.
The mind seems predisposed to work this way—from a random set of questions, narrowing to answers. Thinking by its very nature is not only narrow (it does not include other means of knowing—emotions, narratives / stories, instincts), but narrowing.
What a different experience (and the world) would be if—rather than narrowing down—we would broaden up what we think IS.
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Largo
Sport climber
The Big Wide Open Face
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Topic Author's Reply - Jun 1, 2015 - 11:03am PT
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Per TGT's link:
"The bizarre nature of reality as laid out by quantum theory has survived another test, with scientists performing a famous experiment and proving that reality does not exist until it is measured."
Note the "measured" and "observed" are interchangable in this regards, which would seem to square with the old Copenhagan interpretation of QM.
Final conclusion: "At the quantum level, reality does not exist if you are not looking at it," said Andrew Truscott from the ANU Research School of Physics and Engineering.
The implications are pretty staggering. Einstein used to laugh at the idea that, if he wasn't looking at the moon, it wasn't there. Now we're being told that reality is "observer created." One wonders what this means in terms of there being a "real (physical) world" that exists totally separate from sentient observation? What's more, Chalmer's has pointed out that "real" historical events such as the Big Bang and biological evolution occurred before human consciousness existed, so if consciousness is the lynchpin for physical reality and its processes, what "observer" was causing wave collapse before the "birth" of any and all observers? But this assumes that the "past" is a kind of linear road spooling off behind us and perhaps that is not so.
But I don't expect people to give up their mind-independent reality model anytime soon, and who can blame them. What I do expect is for people to scramble to explain away the idea - now supposedly proven - "that reality does not exist until it is measured/observed." There's no way that will not be lashed at from all sides.
JL
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Largo
Sport climber
The Big Wide Open Face
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Topic Author's Reply - Jun 1, 2015 - 01:42pm PT
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Secondly, the role of the observer in the double path experiment is debatable. After all it is not an observer's eye that "creates" reality. It is a screen, or CCD, or other detector that creates that reality. There is, of course, an unanswerable question what happens if nobody ever looks at the results.
--
Isn't this the Sacrexd Cow of materialists - that objective reality is stand-alone, existing outside/independent of subjectivity? Like I said, I fully expect people to lash at the new findings from all angles (the findings are not bonifide, they are "debatable."). Moose was simply the first to start the lashing. Who can blame him?
JL
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Largo
Sport climber
The Big Wide Open Face
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Topic Author's Reply - Jun 1, 2015 - 02:39pm PT
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Moose, I am undeclared on this one. The observer-created universe runs into a stumbling block in my own life per the experiential adventures.
A famous zen koan asks: What is the reality of the moving flag? The "answer" is that our mind moves the flag, that there is no stand-alone flag out there waving in the wind.
I've been able to hold that realizatioin in my cross hairs for brief moments, only to watch it slip away. So it has never stabalized as a felt truth. And when such a slippery topic is not realized at depth - and I haven't done so - it seems too fantastic to belive that physical reality is not independent of mind. The rational part of me finds it impossible that the moon is only "out there" when I am looking at it.
JL
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jgill
Boulder climber
The high prairie of southern Colorado
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OK, for those of you who - like JL - enjoy analogues, metaphors, similes, etc. describing parts of objective/subjective reality, here is a wildly inappropriate parody of Max Tegmark’s notion of a Mathematical Universe:
Suppose we consider the plane (Euclidean or complex) to be a lifepath 2-D space, and we have a “person”, call him Max, making his way from his beginning to his end. Graphically, this is represented as a contour starting at a green point (birth) and ending at a red point (death). Underlying this path is a kind of lifeforce field directing his progress. Max thinks he has free will, but he may be mistaken since all in his “life” is purely mechanistic, although complicated and non-predictable to him. This last feature is due to the fact that, if Max could “look up” into 3-D, he would see the mathematical formula in the matrix that is his destiny. But, being a 2-D person he doesn’t even know that “possibility” might exist. Even if he could look up and into the mathematical matrix that supports the universe, he would see this equation:
Exp(tz)+z-it^2 = 0
Where, if he were bright enough, he would recognize that his lifepath is z=z(t) , with t ranging from zero (green dot) to 1 (red dot). However, he then could not interpret z(t) explicitly, even if he were mathematically astute. Furthermore, Max cannot “see” the lifeforce field in which he is embedded, much like we cannot “see” some of the physical fields in Physics, and this LFF actually generates the contour which is his lifepath.
We can see this field, however, being god-like creatures completely indescribable to Max and his kin.
When Max begins his journey the underlying time-dependent vector field can be seen pushing him to the “right”, indicated by a black arrow (vector). As time progresses up to 1 lifetime his path is increasingly turned “upward’’ as indicated by vectors changing colors to light green at the end.
And thus Max’s life is over.
Note that time, although numerically configured, is highly relative to Max, as his perception of its passage could be anywhere from instant to infinite. From our positions as gods we see that all “happens” in the blink of an eye, or doesn’t even “happen”. It simply is.
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Ward Trotter
Trad climber
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JGill:
Is this "parody" your own invention?
In a review of Tegmark's book Our Mathematical Universe the physicist Brian Greene noted that Tegmark confronts the deepest questions at the interface of physics and philosophy,namely, why is mathematics so spectacularly successful at describing the cosmos?
Of course, my fanciful answer would be that the universe is a matrix-like computer simulation, strung on stringy lattices.LOL
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simulation_hypothesis#Simulated_individual_in_simulated_reality
If the universe,or universes, are indeed simulations, then of course the $64,ooo question is by whom and how much is this whole thing costing?
One thing we do know about the simulators is that, much like yourself, they pretty much got their math under their belts.
In fact I have a theory that the simulators are at this very moment crowd-sourcing math data from throughout the cosmos---unbeknownst to all the rest of us.
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jgill
Boulder climber
The high prairie of southern Colorado
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Is this "parody" your own invention?
Yes. I've been exploring implicit functions, writing computer programs that illustrate some of the ideas. In old age my alternative to carving wooden ducks (which is too dangerous!)
There would seem to be a direct connection between a question and an answer as one moves downstream, from question to answer, but not not so much in the other direction—from answer to question
Sometimes in mathematics we prove an interesting isolated theorem, then look for a place where it might be of value. I.e., looking for the question.
Reverse engineering of sorts.
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MH2
Boulder climber
Andy Cairns
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Jgill, now I can see how free will can be compatible with the existence of a god that knows my future.
You'll be back in the Catholic church in no time.
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Largo
Sport climber
The Big Wide Open Face
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Topic Author's Reply - Jun 1, 2015 - 08:20pm PT
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Moose, when you postulate that everything might be an illusion, how do you differentiate between illusion and physical matter? put differently, what would make some thing or phenomenon "real" to you?
JL
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jgill
Boulder climber
The high prairie of southern Colorado
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what would make some thing or phenomenon "real" to you?
Him falling from the top of a cliff unroped. Reality would set in at point of impact. But this is a bit simplistic. As is your question.
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jstan
climber
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what would make some thing or phenomenon "real" to you?
In pursuit of reality some go so far as to not finish their knot.
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limpingcrab
Trad climber
the middle of CA
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Which philosopher was it that didn't believe anything was real so he quit eating because food wasn't real? You can guess how that turned out
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Ward Trotter
Trad climber
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The only figure in relatively recent times that fits the above description might have been the mathematician/philosopher Kurt Godel who suffered from dementia in his declining years and developed a morbid fear of being poisoned. He would eat only food prepared by his wife. When his wife was hospitalized for many months, she could not prepare his meals, so he therefore consequently died of starvation, his weight plunging to only 65 lbs. at the time of his death.
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Largo
Sport climber
The Big Wide Open Face
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Topic Author's Reply - Jun 1, 2015 - 09:40pm PT
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It's curious how over the course of several years the materialists keep reminding me that since I had bones showing how could I doubt that my accident was "real." Have I ever denied it? My guess is that should you ask these same people (under a polygraph) what they considered real their answer would be "some thing we can measure." And that lest one shuts up and gets to calculating, we are, perforce, chasing the unreal, wu, and fill in the blank.
But in light of the new experiment in Australia and other similar positions, we still must wonder what if any part the observer plays in reality. There is much that is counterintuitive in these inquiries.
And need I point out that no one answered my questions directed at Moose.
What do you think makes some thing real to you?
JL
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healyje
Trad climber
Portland, Oregon
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Edge.org:
To arrive at the edge of the world's knowledge, seek out the most complex and sophisticated minds, put them in a room together, and have them ask each other the questions they are asking themselves.
2014 - What scientific idea is ready for retirement?
One answer:
Anton Zeilinger
Physicist, University of Vienna; Scientific Director, Institute of Quantum Optics and Quantum Information; President, Austrian Academy of Sciences; Author, Dance of the Photons: From Einstein to Quantum Teleportation
There is No Reality in the Quantum World
The idea to be abandoned is the idea that there is no reality in the quantum world. The idea probably came about because of two reasons. On the one hand, because of the fact that one cannot always ascribe a precise value to a physical property, and on the other hand, because within the wide spectrum of interpretations of quantum mechanics some suggest that the quantum state does not describe an external reality, but rather that the properties only come about in the mind of the observer and therefore that consciousness plays a crucial role.
Let us consider for a second the famous double-slit experiment. Such experiments or their equivalents have to date not only been performed with single photons or any other kind of single particles, like neutrons, protons, electrons etc., but even with very large macromolecules, such as buckyballs and even larger. Specifically we do the experiment with buckyballs—the C-60 or C-70 molecules. You have two slits and under the right experimental conditions, you observe a distribution of the buckyballs behind the slits which has maxima and minima, the interference pattern. This is due to interference of the probability waves passing through both slits. But, following Einstein in his famous debate with Niels Bohr, we might ask if we do the experiment with individual particles, individual buckballs one by one: Through which slit does an individual buckyball molecule pass? Would it not be natural to assume that every particle has to pass either slit? Quantum physics tells us that this is not a meaningful question. We cannot assign a well-defined position to the particle unless we actually perform an experiment which allows us to find out where it is. So, before we do the measurement, the position of the buckyball—and therefore the slit it passes through—is a concept devoid of any meaning.
Suppose we now measure the position of the particle. Then we get an answer and know where it is. It is either near one slit or near the other slit. In that case, position is certainly an element of reality, and we can clearly say that quantum physics describes this reality. What is interesting is that having precise knowledge of one feature, namely the position, another kind of knowledge, namely the one encoded in the interference pattern, is not well-defined anymore.
Where could consciousness come in here? Quantum mechanics tells us that the particle, before any observation, is in a superposition of passing through one slit and of passing through the other slit. If we now have two detectors, one each behind each slit, then either detector will register the particle. But quantum mechanics tells us that the measurement apparatus becomes entangled with the position observable of the particle, and thus itself does not have well-defined classical features, at least in principle. This, following the Hungarian-American Nobel prize winner Eugene Wigner, is a chain which can be followed until an observer registers the result. So if we would adopt that reasoning, it is the consciousness which would make reality happen.
But you don't have to go so far. It is enough to assume that quantum mechanics just describes probabilities of possible measurement results. Then making an observation turns potentiality into actuality and, in our case, the position of the particle becomes a quantity one can talk reasonably about. But, whether it has a well-defined position or not, the buckyball very well exists. It is real in the double-slit experiment, even when it is impossible to assign its position a well-defined value.
And then there are folks like Ellis who think time is real and exists as sort of a wavefront of continuous quantum collapse which demarcs and defines the transition from an uncertain future to a certain past - no 'observers' necessary.
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