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healyje
Trad climber
Portland, Oregon
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Moose - exactly. Hey, Lago - every take a photo of yourself or yourself in a group with a camera's timer? Friggin' amazing what you can accomplish having without sentient intervention - or, I suppose you could argue the photo wasn't taken until you qualed at the sight of it.
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Largo
Sport climber
The Big Wide Open Face
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Topic Author's Reply - Jun 2, 2015 - 06:08pm PT
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Moose and Healje, you duffers are the last hold outs for the staunch materialist POV. As if the Copenhagan Interpretation was offered as a "metaphor." And like I'm going to offer up Wheeler's old gold (from 2002) article without reading it. His ideas have since been adjusted.
Maybe this one can get through that thick skull. Note there is no mention of metaphor - and quit mixing them, Healje, trying to sound erudite (drowning, altar, rationality, etc.). Check out "On Writing Well" and hone in on "inflation" and "clutter." Then read the following and give up on your objective dream. It ain't there amigo.
http://seedmagazine.com/content/article/the_reality_tests/
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jstan
climber
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Jstan: . . . which does fit the data well, . . .
Tell me what you mean by this. It's a question of degree that leads to a belief, right?
(Tell me what you know without a doubt. It's a simple request, isn't it?)
Holy cow Where to begin.
1. No, there is no belief. There is working data generally based upon the parameter R^2 that estimates the portion of the measured data supported by the function fitted. If R^2 is small you may be fitting to something other than a function that is appropriate.
2. I don't accept anything without doubt. Listen to Feynman's lectures on plausibility..
3. When a person says their question is simple, you know either they are simple or you know they hope to frame their question deceitfully.
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healyje
Trad climber
Portland, Oregon
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Then read the following and give up on your objective dream. It ain't there amigo.
So you're posting up a 2008 reprint quoting from Anton - the very person I posted up on two pages previous - and who, in 2014, proposed retiring the scientific idea that "there is No Reality in the Quantum World". Amigo indeed...
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MikeL
Social climber
Seattle, WA
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Jstan: When a person says their question is simple, you know either they are simple or you know they hope to frame their question deceitfully.
I don’t do that. I have no need. You are being cynical. Again, there is no need.
If R^2 is not 1, then there are things in the observation that you have not specified. Your model is just that: a model. If you have doubt, then you don’t “know.” You believe.
Your consciousness, if you have it and if you are a being, is not something that can be doubted. All else can be.
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healyje
Trad climber
Portland, Oregon
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Or, to paraphrase the outcome of a recent experiment by Alessandro Fedrizzi, one of Anton's past students, "the wavefunction should directly correspond to [this] reality.
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jstan
climber
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Jstan: When a person says their question is simple, you know either they are simple or you know they hope to frame their question deceitfully.
I don’t do that. I have no need. You are being cynical. Again, there is no need.
If R^2 is not 1, then there are things in the observation that you have not specified. Your model is just that: a model. If you have doubt, then you don’t “know.” You believe.
Your consciousness, if you have it and if you are a being, is not something that can be doubted. All else can be.
I said "holy cow" last time. This is even further out.
You are certain of your consciousness. How do you know you are not schizoid?
Seems to me the rest needs no response.
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MikeL
Social climber
Seattle, WA
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Jstan:
As you wish. Technique and method are arguable, always.
No, there is no doubting that there is consciousness.
Do you?
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MikeL
Social climber
Seattle, WA
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What you know is your experience. The rest is, . . . pffftttttt!
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MH2
Boulder climber
Andy Cairns
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"Your consciousness, if you have it and if you are a being, is not something that can be doubted."
Why these qualifications? They seem to leave room for doubt regarding the nature of consciousness and the nature of being. Unless you are sure you know what those words refer to. If you are sure, can you explain to another so that they could also be sure?
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healyje
Trad climber
Portland, Oregon
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What you know is your experience. The rest is, . . . pffftttttt! Unverifiable experience. I get it that some folks wrestle with the very concept of facts and the notion of verification or proof.
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Largo
Sport climber
The Big Wide Open Face
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Topic Author's Reply - Jun 3, 2015 - 09:34am PT
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Why these qualifications? They seem to leave room for doubt regarding the nature of consciousness and the nature of being. Unless you are sure you know what those words refer to. If you are sure, can you explain to another so that they could also be sure?
MH2. This is nuanced work. And my sense of it is your assumptions are a little off.
In the experiential adventures, after some time simply observing, WHAT is being observed remains knowable only by way of its qualities, size, shape, color, heft, sound, etc. It seems fantastic that there is even something there at all. But you wonder what is there beyond appearances. So there is always some question about what we are seeing and experiencing, about it being as substantial as it seems or appears. But there is never any doubt about experiencing in the first place, because that experience is our direct reality. When people question whether their direct reality is "real" or not, they generally are not questioning that something is happening, rather that they might not be able to objectify it so they can look at it "out there." And if they can't, for some, this "proves" what we experience is open to debate.
The tricky part is that the experiencing and the content of experience are not selfsame. Like the stuff out there that we see and touch and smell and so forth, we know consciousness largely by the qualities of that content. Consciousness itself, the pure witnessing in and of itself, is not a "thing" we can isolate out with some stand-alone existence as we can the stuff that we wittness, such as can and cars and flying machines. Trying to tease out consciousness - even though we are sure that we are wittnessing - so "you (can) explain to another so that they could also be sure," is a little like trying to isolate out the "body" of a quark. A quark is simply a reducive electrical charge etc. There is no such "thing" as a quark WITH a charge. Like the phenomenon that have no physical extent, no dimensionality, no stuff, consciousness itself cannot be quantified or objectified as a thing. Even trying to describe it in the most general terms is a slippery affair.
JL
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BLUEBLOCR
Social climber
joshua tree
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notion of verification or proof.
Do we gain proof from witnessing other peoples experience? Watching Norm on This Ol'house hang a door, could you go hang a door? Probably. Maybe not efficiently though. But certainly just witnessing adds to own experience if we seemingly put ourself in Norm's shoes. If we were to watch with neglect we would prolly miss the finer points. The AirForce uses extensive simulation of pilot training on the ground long before they hand over the keys to a F-35. So there's certainly proofs and truths in "pretending".
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healyje
Trad climber
Portland, Oregon
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Lago would have you believe El Cap only exists when you yourself are personally climbing it (and then probably only the part you are making contact with) - it doesn't represent an objective reality in between goes and when no one is climbing it.
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MH2
Boulder climber
Andy Cairns
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But you wonder what is there beyond appearances.
You may wonder that, but can you convince me that there is anything beyond appearances?
Of course this is nuanced work, if we agree that humans are capable of nuance, but there is a lot of thumb-fingered philosophizing being done here.
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jgill
Boulder climber
The high prairie of southern Colorado
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This is nuanced work
Like the phenomenon that have no physical extent, no dimensionality, no stuff . . .
Dr. Stannard has given a reply to your "no physical extent" fascination. Those virtual particles are primarily mathematical entities, and string theory has expanded the consciousness of physicists - whether it can ever be proven or not. It has also brought forth results from pure mathematics (which I am too old and feeble-minded to explain).
How about looking into string theory in your metaphysical investigations to see where meditative no-thing might fit? The no physical extent has played out, perhaps. Like Hilbert spaces.
I still think field theory might be the way to go.
Believe it or not, my comments are not intended to be entirely sarcastic. You and your Prodigies have made things interesting around here.
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MikeL
Social climber
Seattle, WA
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MH2: Why these qualifications?
I don’t know other than what appears from “Jstan” here.
I can’t explain my own consciousness, much less another’s, MH2.
I don’t know most anything. Talking is fine; and questions seem to provide insight and further indication of all that I do not know.
Does it somehow bother you that I don’t know? Since when is not knowing a call for derision?
One more time. I’m not saying that things don’t exist. It appears to be an error in seeing “things.” When I use reason, available evidence, observations, then I am more and more unsure that there are “things” or “objects.” Seeing “objects” is a narrowing act that looks like fiat to me. Every time I attempt to say definitively and accurately and completely what a thing is, I can’t do it. Nor have I seen anyone else do it. There always seems to be something left out.
So to my limited mind, “objects” seem empty. They are like boxes with nothing in them.
None of this *should be* difficult to understand (even if you don’t agree). I say that because we can’t put our fingers on anything definitively, completely, or accurately. We can’t account in any final way for anything other than consciousness existing (look at it right now). There is no bottom or top that can be found in any thing. Yet there are all these manifestations apparent. You don’t have to be a physicist, a mathematician, an engineer, or a biologist to see any of this.
What can be seen plainly? Experience. Consciousness. They are the same.
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Largo
Sport climber
The Big Wide Open Face
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Topic Author's Reply - Jun 3, 2015 - 02:27pm PT
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Jgill, when you say that Dr,. Stannard provided an explanation for my no-physical extent fascination, you once again ascribe to me some kind of authorship to the idea of no-thing, no dimensionality, no physical extent, as though these were my findings and beliefs. In fact these terms and ideas were lifted straight from science - which we can safely say had the fascination with it long before I asked, "If a quark has no stuff to it, what the hell IS it? What are we calling a quark?"
Note how people barked and those behind the curve continue to bark that a quark simply must be some thing. Now John says, yes, it IS a thing - namely, a math equation. But what the equation refers to is, at best, only an electrical charge. There is no stuff. Meaning, particles as we know them are either composed of math equations, or no-thing at all but energy.
Per string theory, I'm far behind the curve on this one. I do know that some of the young Turks balk at the idea of a graviton, a quantum mechanical particle that carries gravitational force. But I need to ask them about this and read up.
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healyje
Trad climber
Portland, Oregon
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Exactly. At some point it I think it's more a matter of density than mass.
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jstan
climber
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Jgill, when you say that Dr,. Stannard provided an explanation for my no-physical extent fascination, you once again ascribe to me some kind of authorship to the idea of no-thing, no dimensionality, no physical extent, as though these were my findings and beliefs. In fact these terms and ideas were lifted straight from science - which we can safely say had the fascination with it long before I asked, "If a quark has no stuff to it, what the hell IS it? What are we calling a quark?"
Largo:
When reading your stuff it is often difficult to understand the jumbled descriptions of your thoughts. Personal thoughts that are also combined with your erroneous understanding of science and entirely absent both attribution and substantiation.
That said I am not going to let you fuzz over your claim that John attributed authorship to yourself. He attributed to you a fascination. Nothing more. Now this may sound like a minor point....to you. But it is an example of the confusion that causes your texts to be largely useless as a basis for productive discussion.
I tried to write a straightforward and simple description of the nuts and bolts used in science. How it is done. What it means. And more importantly what it does not mean. If you read it a couple more times, putting aside your self-interest, and then reread equally carefully your synopsis of that material, you should be able to grasp that of which I speak.
I think it was M/L who spoke of not knowing. Let me ask. If we could choose to live in either a world we understand completely or in one we did not understand completely, which would we find more interesting?
In a world we all understand completely, none of the questions we deal with in these threads
would exist.
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