Something Instead of Nothing

We are not moving at anywhere near the speed of light relative to each other. That video is not applicable to the discussion.

signals which transmit at the rate of electromagnetic radiations/signals. … However “speed of light” generally signifies speed of light in vacuum and the brain is no vacuum, therefore no the thinking is not faster than speed of light.

This is relevant to the idea that we can only outguess consequential ideas , relatively speaking.

I don’t pretend to fully grasp the science here but that hypothetical alien was described as either moving away or toward us at a “leisurely pace”. He pedals away from us and his now is our past. He pedals towards us and his now is our future.

The suggestion then being [if I understood Brian Greene] that the past, present and future all exist all the time.

But: How close or how far is what Greene thinks is true here from all that there is to know about spacetime going back to a complete understanding of existence itself?

Yeah, that alien is 10 billion light years away. What does his present have to do with our present, past or future? Nothing.

Sure, he can make some mathematical or computer model and now he thinks he sees a big picture - he has some sort of ‘scientific’ version of a God’s eye view of everything. He can see an alien and human, who are 10 billion light years apart, simultaneously. Let’s call it entertaining fun.

If we are talking about our actual situation, we are talking about people in close proximity, moving slowly relative to each other. The past, present and future is as we experience it. It is within grasp of our understanding.

You’re living life sequentially. It’s demonstrably true for everyone. Why deny it?

This is one of those ideas that ought to be phrased very carefully. What do we mean by “all the time”? Certainly, the future doesn’t exist in the past. But it does mean that the past and the future are “set” (so to speak). What Greene, Einstein, Minkowski and others along this line of thought are talking about is a higher atemporal context from which to talk about time as though it were a lower dimension akin to the 3 dimensions of space. We thus come to visualize it in a mental model. This mental model has time pictured as a spatial dimension, the effect being that it looks like it all exists “at the same time.” ← But the “time” in that phrase is just the time that passes in the atemporal context, which of course isn’t real. It only seems to exist because, in all thought experiments, it must.

Or, that existence in reference to time can only exist in the present, and since past time in this schema never meets the criteria of existence, nor the future, they do not exist in other then the present.

This is not merely a mind game, but a qualifier for setting the difference between time as existence, and non existence.

Non existential time becomes the mode of becoming the nothingness through which that becomes conscious of It’s self. It’s Being, or Dasein.

Let me be clearer gin.
Mind games are restricted to qualified existence present , without a necessary (logical) connection to the past, as some kind of necessity without which a present is inconceivable for all practical purposes. Game theory may have seeds of earlier archaic notions which may be traced to their sources , as most games have evolved into then higher realms of their significance.

However such re-flex (reflection) is only possible through filling in probable moves, as in chess, and connect it with such advanced games as prisoners play in confined-bounded space. (that’s why they are of in dilemma)

The Reflexivity in to the black and white moves of probable best moves are bounded as well in chess into that particular move"s possibility within the limiting context of that particular move. The movement itself changes the position of the moved piece in addition of changing the context within which the move is made.

Thinking in terms of all possible moves without considering the changing context that the movement creates, explodes the possible moves quantitavely approaching infinity as the game progresses.

The game is, to selimit that explosive quantifiable evolution into boundedness, in order, …to set up a schematized way to achieve systems which will lead toward a superior progression in the beast con front ation, (see the carefully spelled and disassociated meaning structure here)
The logic of confrontation is simplified literally as black against white, in actuality they are not negated in absolute opposition, but changing the timing isn’t He spatial arrangement which is consistent with the expected content with future contextual arrangements between pieces within their changing contextual relations.
Early on, this was not understood as exclusionary tactics ofnxhanfing boundaries, which is what future time is, but simply thought them as an exclusion of all possible moves from the right one. The right one delimited all non ideal moves as wrong.

This started the idea of terminating the past set up into then futire, eclipsing the nothingness of the idea of an existential present.

This re-flexion can be generalized as the evolving entrance into conscious manifestation of the reflective process .
The game really subsist in this very early methodology for gaining consciousness through play.

The child can be seen to play games in order. to. utilize and unknown past into a present future, by adapting established rules to the myriad possibilities that need to be schematized for further utilization.

The Mind game turns on existential requirements, that rest on what appears as the future foundation of adapting to future unknown requirements. Even the earliest games have this reflexive requirement , and the various mathematical scenarios merely substantiate the most formal elements of the game.

The theory in It’s self umderstands it not as a result of exclusion, but of co-operation through identification through correlation. There isn’t He bog difference between cooperation and an operation through its lack.

The beginning dynamics lacked the game through co operation, but saw it as an existential requirement to avoid conflict which would inhibit future possibilities.

The game become structural only to further its applicability with increasing utility which requires more and more compatibility through resembling rather then contrasting identifiable use.

The game becomes a way to become conscious through evolving connections as a non conscious effort to discover the best way to exist and survive.

Post script: that is why the fact of knowledge being based on a learning experience cannot separate what has been learned in the past from what is learned now, with an eye to the future, thereby De-differentiating the learner from the learned, especially with conjectural hypothesis tied to the earliest modes of re-flection.

By “foundation” I mean we need to have an agreement about how we conduct ourselves that allows us to collaborate in a productive way.
We need shared definitions but also an agreement to adhere to the laws of logic and the value of reason, so as to remain coherent and retain the ability to communicate.
Also there’s an element of good will that we have to agree to… because our language isn’t precise and requires some interpretation
I will try to respond to the most charitable interpretation of you that I can think of… and I expect you to do the same

Assuming you can agree to all of that… we have a foundation on which we can build.

I realize you’re engaged in many other conversations and may not recall the context… You and I seem to have a disagreement about whether or not choice can exist in a deterministic universe.

That particular tautology was meant to explain how one might have a system like say “human brains” be capable of things that the atoms they are made up of are not capable of.

A real world example for us to examine would be the computer in front of me…
My computer is made up of atoms and it can run windows, go online, do math, load up ILP

How can atoms run windows, go online, do math or load up ILP?

Sure, maybe nothing. Again, that depends on two things:

1] the extent to which you understand Brian Greene’s assumptions about time in the video
2] the extent to which his assumptions in the video are or are not in sync with an understanding the “right answer”

Then we’re back to the gap between what you or I think we know about all of this here and now and all that there is to be known about it. By, say, God. Or by an entity in the universe able to actually grasp why there is something instead of nothing. And why this something and not another.

Actually, I’m inclined to agree. On the other hand, Brian Greene – en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brian_Greene – is likely to know considerably more about the science here than you and I. Though, sure, in “popularizing” this sort of thing for the masses, who knows just how far his own leaps of faith are.

In other words, if others want to grasp it, they will understand it as you do. Time than becoming just another rendition of Communism. Though to the best of my knowledge Communism is applicable only here on Earth while time itself is embedded throughout the entire…multiverse?

Sort of like saying, “We live our lives autonomously. It’s demonstrably true for everyone. Why deny it?”

Ever the objectivists aren’t you? :wink:

Again, I think the part some of us are most discomfitted by here, is the seeming fact that not only do we not have a comprehensive understanding of these relationships on the level of either the very, very big or the very, very small, but that we will almost surely go to grave no less ignorant.

We exist. But what does that mean? Ontologically? Teleologically? The part before we were born? The part after we die? The part from birth to death?

It’s all just this gigantic mystery that the human mind may well not even be capable of grasping at all.

And then the part where we fit speculation of this sort into the lives that we live from day to day. In the either/or world. In the is/ought world.

And yet in either world it still comes down [for all practical purposes] to closing the gap between what we think is true “in our head” and what we are able to demonstrate that all rational men and women are obligated to think is true in turn.

What else is there?

Only on this thread it gets all the more problematic. Why? Because we don’t seem to have the capacity to demonstrate that the thread itself either is or is not only as it ever could have been.

Call it, say, the “domino effect”.

Or, perhaps, including even the human brain, the “butterfly effect”?

Here you are again basing your argument on the general, abstract and scholastic.

The video has nothing to do with anything that we experience.

Why don’t you take it “out of the clouds”, or in this case “out of other galaxies”, and bring it “down to earth”.

Notice that when I try to keep the discussion “down to earth”, you go off into the abstract of hypothetical aliens 10 billion light years away.

So you’re saying that the sequence of time cannot be demonstrated to be true for everyone?

If that can’t be demonstrated, then what the fuck can be demonstrated???

As I noted above, with respect to such things as a complete understanding of spacetime, sure, we can go the route that Brian Greene as taken. We can become an actual theoretical physicist with the education and the background to discuss these things in a considerably more informed manner.

Or we can dabble in it as most of us here do. Simply trying our best to grasp the points that folks like Newton and Einstein and Hawking were making.

But the bottom line is that none of us were around when space and time came into existence. If in fact they have not always existed. And we can’t exactly go to youtube and watch videos of existence itself coming into existence.

And yet a week from now you will no doubt be here making the same [in my opinion] lame objection.

Exactly!! But then most of us haven’t experienced a landing on the Moon.

A retort about me again. It’s like you are human yo-yo. One post you are up making intelligent observation about something, then the next post you are down fulminating about one or another alleged defect of mine.

Now, you know what I think motivates this, right? :wink:

Note to others:

By all means come to your own conclusions about this sort of thing.

No, I’m suggesting that until we have a complete understanding of the relationship between spacetime and the existence of existence itself there will be conflicting theoretical conjectures about how mere mortals here on planet Earth ought to understand it. Let alone demonstrate to others that how they think they understand it is how all rational men and women are obligated to understand it.

Many, many, many things it would seem. I think it can be demonstrated that you and I exist. That ILP exists. That this thread on ILP exists. That Don Trump is president of the United States. That the Vatican exists. That Bush 41 just died. That an understanding of the laws of physics have allowed us to think up and to create lots and lots of amazing technologies.

That is, assuming all of this is not just part of some sim world, or demonic dream, or an entirely solipsistic creation. Or that we don’t actually reside in one or another matrix. Or that all of it was only ever as it could have been given the laws of matter.

I might be here pointing out that you keep asking people to bring their arguments “down to earth” and then you go off into the clouds whenever you think you can score a point with it.

Nobody experienced anything even remotely prior to 1959. Then a large number of people experienced it in a variety of ways.

If you recognized what you do in these posts, then that would be progress.

Your point can be summed up as “You can’t demonstrate anything.”

Bullshit. You can’t even demonstrate the sequence of time. There is no past, present and future. It’s all the fucking same. That means :
I always existed. IPL always existed. The Vatican always existed.
Trump was president. Trump is president. Trump will be president.
Bush 41 isn’t even born yet. Bush 41 is alive. Bush 41 is dying right now. Bush 41 was/is/will-be always dead.

Do you get how stupid your position is??

Who can talk to a person who says there is a ‘present’ in one post and denies a ‘present’ in the next?

Insanity. #-o

Okay, how do we come to a shared understanding of the definition and the meaning of “human autonomy” such that through this consensus we are able to determine if in fact we have it?

Is it more logical or rational that we should have it or that we should not?

In other words, given that language is a tool that the human species has acquired in order to facilitate communication, what are the limitations imposed on it? When do we reach the point where reason appears to give way to sheer speculation?

Exactly. So, what it often comes down to in exchanges like this is the part where some are so certain of the precision of their language/argument/communication skills that they completely lose patience with those you don’t eventually come around to their way of thinking.

Now, me, I am more than willing to sustain “good will” in any particular exchange. In part becasue I recognize that, in regard to questions this big, there is almost no chance that what I think I know is in fact what is entirely true.

In fact, from my experience, it is generally the objectivists and their ilk that tend to slide effortlessly into ad homs and huffing and puffing.

Charitable? I don’t know how that connotes with you but with me it seems to be right around the corner from magnanimous. You patiently try to explain how you think about something but it is not sinking in. So you’ll be all that more patient.

And, sure, with some things that’s more or less understandable. After all, some things [relationships] can in fact be demonstrated as either this or that.

But questions revolving are human autonomy? around the is/ought world? around an understanding of existence itself?

How far can logic or rationality penetrate here?

In other words, how are the interactions of the atomic and sub-atomic particles in the computer the same or different from the interactions of atomic and sub-atomic particles in the brain?

Well, the choices made by the computer seem to be entirely dependent on the computer program that has been installed in it. But when we Google something and it pops up on the screen the computer itself is not conscious of making this happen. It’s not like the computer can decide to bring up something not googled instead.

Now, with the human brain we have matter that is able to think that it is freely making the choice to google dog instead of cat. But if we live in a metaphysically determined universe what does that really mean? If I choose to Google dog instead of cat but I was never really able to google cat instead of dog, there’s still a choice.

But, come on…

That’s a good question… personally I tend to think of definitions as utility driven. There is a reason we think something deserves a name or even to be spoken of.
Human or otherwise, “autonomy” generally means freedom, independence…
When speaking of humans, I assume we’re talking about the fact that we cannot predict human behavior entirely by looking at the outside forces they come into contact with.
There is an internal process that takes place, unique to everyone, that determines how we respond to the outside forces… an independence from the outside forces if you will.

If I were to kick you, your response would not be the same as every other human’s… it might not even be the same as your own, if I kicked you a second time.
It’s that “freedom” (as compared to a rock’s freedom) to respond to outside forces that I think we want to talk about.

How would you approach this definitions?

I’m sure I don’t know… but seeing as how logic and rationality mark the end of our ability to comprehend, I would say it’s more a question of resilience than anything else.

It’s easy to say that which we don’t yet know is “unknowable” or that we which we don’t yet understand is “incomprehensible”, that saves us the trouble of having to make any effort…
But that is a self fulfilling prophecy.

I would rather go down swinging, even against an insurmountable foe… at least my defeat will not be for lack of trying.

Well that brings us right back to defining “choice”…

When you are playing chess against the computer and the program responds to you and attempts to outmaneuver you… is it making choices?
Let’s assume we’re in a non-deterministic universe… would the answer change?
What would it take for something to be a choice?

See if you ask me for the definition of “choice” I would say it is “selecting between two or more options”
So to me the answer is clear… the rules of chess give the computer a multitude of options and it’s programing selects between them… the program is choosing moves.

But if that is not your answer I have to assume that you have a different definition of “choice”

And I might be here explaining yet again the distinctions I make between those things able to be brought down to earth [like exploring conflicting goods on this side of the grave] and those things which are clearly less amenable to that [like grappling with life after death or the existence of existence itself].

The video speculates about a reality that [as of now] is beyond Greene’s capacity to demonstrate other than within an intellectual contraption based on his own theoretical understanding of and assumptions about spacetime.

On the other hand, the videos of actual astronauts landing on the actual moon allow us to experience it “vicariously”, sure. But that’s not quite the same as being the astronauts themselves. And then there are those who still insist the whole experience was “faked” by the U.S. government. Now, we either have access to demonstrations “down on Earth” that convince us the landings did in fact occur, or we don’t. But what actual demonstrations are available that would allow us to determine definitively if Greene’s conjectures would in fact occur?

In other words, If I concurred with your own assessment of what I do in these posts. Trust me: I get that part.

Until we have a complete understanding of existence itself, any demonstration about anything in the interim would seem to be necessarily problematic.

You tell me: How could this not be the case?

It would be like the residents of Flatland somehow acquiring evidence of the third dimension. What then about the parameters of their “reality”?

Or if somehow we on Earth were able to acquire evidence that we did indeed live in a Matrix or in a Sim world. What then about the parameters of our “reality”?

All we can do [in the interim] is, in our day to day interactions, continue to make attempts to close the gaps between what we think we know is true “in our heads” and what we are able to demonstrate is true objectively for all of us.

But the “objective truth” here will always be predicated on what is still to be known about the ontological nature of existence itself.

And then [re God or Nature] the extent to which there is also a teleological component here.

Thus:

Look, I’m the first to admit that, intuitively, Greene’s conjecture seem to be completely absurd.

But what do I know about spacetime next to him? What do you know?

Just as intuitively I am still convinced that [up to a point] I choose my own behaviors. Only night after night in dreams I’m convinced I am choosing them then too.

All I can do here is to keep pointing out that your petulant reactions allow me to convey a conjecture of my own: That you seem more intent on pinning me to the mat because my own frame of mind is construed [psychologically] by you to be a threat to your own precious I linked somehow to your own precious objective morality linked to your own precious rendition of God linked to your own precious belief in autonomy.

But how ridiculous is that, right?

That sounds like you can say anything you want about ‘life after death’ and it’s automatically right/reasonable/justified. Pick whatever word that you want to use.

Bringing it down to earth would involve exploring interactions with the dead. Sure, some people claim to have done it. Others claim that has never been done. A investigation would require a detailed examination of the claims.

There also is a “down to earth” examination of existence.

It’s not all pie in the sky.

It seems that there are fairly obvious obstacles to progress, which could be removed. If you don’t remove them, then you will keep going around in circles.

For example, if you focused on one issue for a while, instead of jumping around, then you may reach some useful conclusions about that one issue.

Well, you’re never going to understand everything. You have to accept the limitations of human understanding.
But it doesn’t mean that humans can’t understand some things sufficiently for some purpose.

That seems to be one of the differences between you and other people who are not bothered by these issues. They’re not looking for the one optimum solution which has bridges “the gap”.

In the ancient world, there was an objective truth about the shape of the earth, the rotation of the celestial bodies, etc.
New information came to light and a different objective truth was established.
There will be other discoveries and the objective truth may change again.

That doesn’t bother me. I still call it the “objective truth” because it’s the best established truth that we have.

Seems to bug the hell out of you.

How about completely irrelevant?

What use is it in anyone’s life?

So you trust him more than you trust your own experience? Why should you and conversely why shouldn’t you?

How applicable is anything he says about spacetime to your life?

What difference would it make to you or someone else, if he was right? If he was wrong? IOW what are the consequences of believing him?

What I’m doing here, with you, is experimenting to see if I can shift you in some way.

You claim that you want to be shifted, but how to go about doing it? That remains unclear. Often it feels like zero steps forward. Sometimes it’s irritating. Sometimes I’m irritated by external stuff - nothing to do with you or philosophy or this site.

I really don’t have my own “precious” “something”. I have my own working “something” - a working morality, a working God, a working “I”, etc.

I’m not convinced that I’m as attached to it as you think.

But this just takes us back to connecting the dots between the definition that you give to the words that encompass this speculation and the extent to which it can be demonstrated that the “internal process” itself involves some level of independence from the laws of matter.

It may well be unique to everyone but if everyone embodies it mechanically in a wholly determined universe, the uniqueness itself would seem to become only that “psychological freedom” that the compatibilists cling to as a “choice” in a world where we end up choosing only that which we could never not choose.

But what does it mean here to put “freedom” in these things: “_______”? How is expressing it this way different from expressing it as “It’s that freedom to respond to outside forces that separates us from rocks”?

Okay, but all we can do in the interim is to react to those who provide us with arguments that either tug us closer to autonomy or further away from it.

Or to bring our own experiences into the discussion and speculate as to what extent we are able to convince ourselves that we are choosing freely to do this rather than that.

But that doesn’t make the gap between utilizing human logic and/or excercising rational discourse from day to day and all that encompasses an understanding of them re the existence of existence itself go away.

We just don’t know what possible limitations there are here. And whether, encompassed in that, “I” is at least in part on its own in figuring it all out.

And I’m sure any number of foes will go down swinging in turn. But that still doesn’t seem to settle whether victory or defeat here was ever really within your capacity autonomously to bring about.

Or: That brings us back to grappling with the extent to which the definition that we choose was ever really embodied in some measure of human autonomy. And then the extent to which, in bringing that definition out into the world of human interactions, we are able to demonstrate how this definition works “for all practical purposes”.

Yes, but those hypothetical aliens in a hypotheically autonomous part of the universe, might argue that, given that earth is in a wholly determined region of the universe, both choices were only ever as they could have been. But the computer “mind” [to the best of my knowledge] is not able to think “I made that choice but could have made a different one.”

The human mind thinks that psychologically but in fact it was never really able to make any other choice. Never really able to think any other way. Not in a metaphysically determined part of the universe.

Again, in an autonomous world, the human mind chooses one move over another and, based on its capacity to excel at chess, eventually wins or loses the match. It is then able to freely react to that emotionally. For the computer though, none of this would seem to be relevant.

But then we get closer and closer to entities like the Terminator. We clearly see him choosing among options, but before the choice is made we see this computer schematics pop up on the screen. He is merely programed to choose. But: He is programed to choose by machines that were programed by flesh and blood human beings.

Or consider all of the levels of “reality” in the Matrix?

How than is a choice finally pinned down given all the possible permutations of variables?

Yeah, that makes sense. But: Has Nature or one or another God programed “life on earth” to select among options in much the same way? Only with humans, historical and cultural and interpersonal memes play a much greater role in the selection process. Though, in the end, no less mechanically.

My own understanding of choice [in an autonomus universe] revolves around the extent to which what we choose to think, feel, say, or do is able to be defended as that which all rational men and women are obligated to think, feel, say and do in turn.

In the either/or world.

In the is/ought world, what we think, feel, say and do seems rooted more in the manner in which I have come to understand identity, value judgments and politcal power at the existential juncture embedded in any particuar context.

And therefore, the basic conflict is not between the conflict of values, although they do spin off the primal struggle between the autonomous and the either/or understanding of Being and Nothingness.

Notice , Sartre doesent say Being or Nothingness, for a reason, perhaps , for that reason.

Look, I’m the first to admit that, intuitively, Greene’s conjecture seem to be completely absurd.

Why?

TAG ARCHIVES: BRIAN GREENE
Brian Greene is an American theoretical physicist and string theorist.

Multiverse thinking: though magical doesn’t exclude God’s existence – it proves it

Let’s examine this for a spell… let’s assume nature/god/our parents have programmed us in a similar way to the computer.
Let’s bring this down to earth as you often request…
What difference would it make in our daily interactions?
How would this change anything in our daily lives or even our experience of life?
If all I am is a machine… well then that is what I am… so what?

I can’t parse that sentence… rationality is a method of thinking to my knowledge, it does not prescribe any specific motivation.
How could anyone be obligated to “feel” any which way about anything by rationality?
The ought of obligation comes from deeper motivations… but you eventually reach bedrock

For example: I want to, but also know I shouldn’t, eat a giant bag a candy… because while I care about my immediate pleasure, I care more about my health… as such I am rationally obligated to not eat the giant bag of candy.
Why should I care about my health? Because I enjoy living… Why should I enjoy living?
It seems to be in my nature to… I just do… we’ve hit bedrock.