The Philosophy of the Self.

Re: truth

JLNobody wrote:

Rufio, take a stats class.

Well, I've taken several stats classes, and yet I can't make sense out your previous remark:

JLNobody wrote:

Rufio, I always had a similar intuition, namely that EACH time a coin is flipped it will or will not be heads. That it's always a fifty-fifty probability. But at least I know that that is wrong.

What is the "that" that's wrong?

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truth
Rufio, I hope you're not one of those students who professors refer to as "unteachable."

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rufio wrote:

"Schroedinger's cat is dead, unless it is alive, we don't know until we look to see."

I would expect that the cat knows whether it's alive or not though.

I was actually talking to someone about how statistics is mystical because objects and events don't exist as probabilities - they exist as certainties. An event may have a 30% chance of happening, in reality, either it doesn't happen (0% chance) or it does happen (100% chance). It doesn't happen 30% of the way, or 30% of all universes, or any of that crap. Quantum mechanics is just misapplied statistics.

"So, We have by logic proved the world to be illogical"

How?

well, we were talking about an observer independent of the cat and i as of yet concede that quantum particles might have at their level what we consider a self-awareness... how could we ever know?

in quantum mechanics, an event has to be observed for it to "exist," until then all there is can be described by wave functions of probabilites, but the mathematics of this prediction are based upon reason and logic garnered from the macro-universe.

we would not consider it true that in the macro-universe existence is predicated upon observations just as you said about the cat.

but the mathematics of the macro-universe predict that the micro-universe does not follow the same rules as does the macro-universe.

you call this a misapplication of statistics,

but either the mathematics of the macro-universe do predict in the micro-universe what we would think of as a macro-absurdity, or an entirely different way of reason and logic must be forthcoming from observations in the micro-universe.

since one could say that what i originally referred to as the macro-universe, was actually a meso-universe and that there is beyond this meso-universe a truer macro-universe, then fresco's and another poster's claim that the reason and logic of the meso-universe dont apply to philosophies based upon this higher macro-universe and could be valid.

this could be illustrated easily by looking at the Flartand analogy and add another dimension of reality which can be considered to be an artifact of consciousness ... and echoes in the macro-universe as what is referred by some religions as the soul.

which exists beyond the logic and reason of the meso-universe.

its why buddha said nothing about it since it is indescribable with the tools of the meso-universe.

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truth
Joe, from what I remember, and that's not much, the Bell-shaped curve reigns IN THE LONG RUN. Eventually the tails-heads flips will balance out to fifty-fifty. Does this not suggest some "force" in nature that "causes" the flips to end up such that EACH time is not fifty-fifty, but that the cumulative effect will be? I'm sticking my neck out here because I don't understand the theory behind it (nor do I care), but so long as it works....Be gentle.

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JL, I hope you're not like one of those professors that I think of as having a stick up their ass. I'm fine with learning the math, and my stats teacher doesn't try to make the claim that a coin can be both heads and tails up simultaneously or that statistics can prove certainty. We get along fine.

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truth
I'm glad to hear it.

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Joe,

All my remarks are tempered by an overview that reality is a "social construction". By this I mean that all "categories" are matters of social consensus transmitted via language. We see the world through the spectacles of our idiolect(s) and this includes the concept(s) of "self" and "morality".
We could see our cognitive interactions with the world as "languaging", and "choice" is access to different sets of spectacles.

In psychology, one possible definition of "intelligence" offered is "the capacity to delay a response". I suppose therefore that I am implying that intelligence does NOT apply in situations of high emotionality because non cognitive factors (adrenalin - flight and fight) swamp the ability to change spectacles (stand back and observe the self as an actor).

For extensive discussion of social reality see one of my earlier threads.

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Re: truth

JLNobody wrote:

Joe, from what I remember, and that's not much, the Bell-shaped curve reigns IN THE LONG RUN. Eventually the tails-heads flips will balance out to fifty-fifty.

You can only arrange coin-flip sequences along a bell curve: e.g. in a series of 100-flip sequences, we would expect that the results would fall along a bell-curved distribution, such that the 100-0 and 0-100 results would be at the ends and the 50-50 results would be at or near the mean, median, and mode point. You cannot, however, arrange individual coin flips along a bell curve, for the simple reason that there are only two possible results: heads or tails. And since you emphasized the result of EACH coin flip (where the odds are always 50-50), you couldn't have been referring to a bell curve type of distribution.

JLNobody wrote:

Does this not suggest some "force" in nature that "causes" the flips to end up such that EACH time is not fifty-fifty, but that the cumulative effect will be? I'm sticking my neck out here because I don't understand the theory behind it (nor do I care), but so long as it works....Be gentle.

I know of no "force" behind chance and probability, except the force of mathematics and perhaps, as in the case of flipping coins, the force of gravity.

I've had my disagreements in the past with rufio, but her comments are not totally off-base (especially on this thread), and they merit more consideration than a curt dismissal. And I can say, speaking for myself, that if I were presumptuous enough to suggest that someone take a class before discussing a subject, I'd make sure that I didn't need a refresher course in that subject myself.

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rufio wrote:

JL, I hope you're not like one of those professors that I think of as having a stick up their ass. I'm fine with learning the math, and my stats teacher doesn't try to make the claim that a coin can be both heads and tails up simultaneously or that statistics can prove certainty. We get along fine.

that really is the point in quantum mechanics, viz., that until an object is observed it is like the coin still in the air and it can be either heads or tails and exists in a potential stasis between these two states but until it lands, it is neither.

schoedinger's cat of course would always land on its feet.

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fresco wrote:

All my remarks are tempered by an overview that reality is a "social construction". By this I mean that all "categories" are matters of social consensus transmitted via language. We see the world through the spectacles of our idiolect(s) and this includes the concept(s) of "self" and "morality".
We could see our cognitive interactions with the world as "languaging", and "choice" is access to different sets of spectacles.

fresco, I thought I understood you, but now you've totally lost me. We can say that reality is a social construction, but how does that get us to "shared intelligences?" Certainly we may, as members of a society, "think along the same lines," but that's a far cry from asserting that we are, in some sense, "assimilated intelligences."

As such, I don't see how the notion of a socially constructed reality is a barrier to traditional morality based on unique selves. We may have a socially constructed notion of "good," but that doesn't mean that each person isn't individually responsible for doing good.

fresco wrote:

In psychology, one possible definition of "intelligence" offered is "the capacity to delay a response". I suppose therefore that I am implying that intelligence does NOT apply in situations of high emotionality because non cognitive factors (adrenalin - flight and fight) swamp the ability to change spectacles (stand back and observe the self as an actor).

Perhaps this temporary lack of "intelligence" can affect our notions of "desert" (i.e. whether someone's action deserves praise or blame). But how does this affect our notion of moral responsibility for actions (i.e. whether someone is culpable for what that person does)?

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Joe,

I don't think I've used the phrase "shared intelligence". I use the Borg analogy merely to underscore a notion that "I" and "My Group" may be inseparable under certain circumstances.

As for "culpabilty" and "responsibility" these are categories like others subject to consensus. The courtroom scenario is the very essence of attempts at consensus influence, with phrases like "crime passionel" and "while the balance of the mind was disturbed" being offered as attempts to move category membership. Similarly "adverse childhood experiences" are offered as mitigating circumstances for non-standard behaviour.
The point is that the litigation process requires a "category" in for subsequent action to be taken.
In "real life" such categorization remains arbitrary because subsequent action is optional.

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BTW

In the discussion of probability above there seems to be some confusion about the term "event".
The observer decides the "event window" which could either be a single toss or a sequence of tosses of a coin. Each type of "event" has a theoretical expected "probability" which in the case of a coin is 0.5 for either side, but for the multiple event the experimental result may differ. The bell shaped curve for the multiple tosses is generated as a second order theoretical distribution of the "chances of obtaining on chance" a particular result for the multiple event, and is used in hypothesis testing for rejecting "the null hypothesis (that the coin is "fair" i.e that the "event" is "random"). (Apologies to those who know all this).

I raise this issue both as a point of information and as a backcloth to the definition of "categories" in a social reality model, because it draws attention to the fact that different observers specify different "event windows", and have different "confidence levels" in assigning the membership boundaries of their categories.

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truth
Joe, your defense of Rufio is justified. I do hope he remembers what he is learning in stat classes forty years from now. I don't, apparently. But do comment on your phrase "the force of mathematics."

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fresco wrote:

I don't think I've used the phrase "shared intelligence".

"Shared intelligence," no. "Shared consciousness," yes:

joefromchicago in post 434751 wrote:

But your Borg analogy has me thinking that we may have a tertium quid here: unique individuals with some sort of shared consciousness. Is that what you're suggesting?

fresco, responding in post 434875, wrote:

Yes I am suggesting precisely that.

Now, fresco, I'm not playing a game of "gotcha" here, but I think I was entitled to interpret your affirmative answer as an indication that you accept some sort of notion of "shared consciousness." If you want to take the opportunity to explain your previous remarks, then I'm willing to listen.

fresco wrote:

I use the Borg analogy merely to underscore a notion that "I" and "My Group" may be inseparable under certain circumstances.

"Inseparable" in terms of "consciousness" or in some other type of fashion?

fresco wrote:

As for "culpabilty" and "responsibility" these are categories like others subject to consensus. The courtroom scenario is the very essence of attempts at consensus influence, with phrases like "crime passionel" and "while the balance of the mind was disturbed" being offered as attempts to move category membership. Similarly "adverse childhood experiences" are offered as mitigating circumstances for non-standard behaviour. The point is that the litigation process requires a "category" in for subsequent action to be taken.
In "real life" such categorization remains arbitrary because subsequent action is optional.

And all this is affected by the notion of "self" in what way?

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Re: truth

JLNobody wrote:

Joe, your defense of Rufio is justified. I do hope he remembers what he is learning in stat classes forty years from now. I don't, apparently. But do comment on your phrase "the force of mathematics."

The "force of mathematics" is, I suppose, similar to the "force of logic" -- a purely metaphorical type of "force," as opposed to a physical force such as gravity.

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truth
Joe, regarding Fresco's notion of "shared consciousness"--there has been much discussion in the philosophy of social science literature. As I recall, one of the main oppositions was between subjectivity as the locus of meaning (namely that all meanings are located in individuals) and inter-subjectivity (that all meanings are shared, that they exist not IN people but BETWEEN people, and that the mechanism of sharing is language). Many of the conceptions of "culture" stress the inter-subjective aspect, but this is not completely agreed upon, particularly among psychological anthropologists. As I recall, there the emphasis has been on the problem of how observed individual variations within a society are masked or glossed over by the illusion of agreement (e.g., AFC Wallace's "equivalency structures"--ways in which people can act together "as if" they completely shared meanings). I feel that this is correct, that the only basis for meaning is the conditioned neurology of INDIVIDUALS. This cultural conditioning is the attempt to create "shared consciousness." But socialization/enculturation is not perfect; there is always some degree of individual uniqueness. Nevertheless, the differences between individuals within a cultural system are always SIGNIFICANTLY smaller than those between individuals of different cultural systems.
Also, Joe,can the "force of (human) logic" have any bearing on how the physical world operates? This closely resembles the "correspondence theory of truth", does it not? The notion that logical statements about the external (extra-human) world, MUST represent (correspond to) the structure of that world. I have never understood why mathematicians assume that mathematics is the language of nature. Being mathematically illerate, I just assume that they have their reasons that I do not understand.

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Joe and JLN

Thanks for that exposition JLN which is much more detailed than my own response mught have been on "shared consciousness". THE significant issue is that "problems of meaning" are essentially "a discussion" i.e. social. The individual does not wander round querying his own use of words !

The notion of "self" with respect to "culpability" is perhaps best viewed from its "committee nature" than from the social/individual dimension proposed at the start of this thread. i.e. We are not merely "two" selves, but "numerous", each with differing and possibly conflicting needs. As Gurdjieff said, we spend our lives fulfilling the promises of "others"...the illusion of unity being fostered by a common name. Gurdjieff also propposed that such selves operated mechanically in a state of "waking sleep" and we really had "no control". According to this, there would be no such thing as "guilt". A transcendent or enlightened "Self" (capital S) which saw all this would transcend the "illusion of choice" and would by definition be of a "moral disposition".

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truth
Oops! I pulled another reversal in my last post. I meant to say that differences between individuals within a cultural system are always significantly SMALLER than those between individuals of different cultural systems.

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I think we understand that JL, Smile

and of course it might not be true, except in a generalized sort of way.

"shared consciousness"

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truth
Maybe so, Twyvel, but I don't think my "something else" can necessarily be described as material.

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