Neurons

@paulhanke,

I would say they would also be describeable via the previous theory of everything since they are just a function of physical things and the passing of time.

1 Reply

@dominant monad,

dominant_monad wrote:

I would say they would also be describeable via the previous theory of everything since they are just a function of physical things and the passing of time.

... it sounds like we're heading straight for "ultimates" though ... what is the ultimate cause of this sentence I am writing? - the Big Bang; what is the ultimate description of consciousness? - the TOE ... are either of those answers practically useful? ... or is there more to "Everything" than just (to use an outdated analogy) billiard balls?

0 Replies

@paulhanke,

paulhanke;21583 wrote:

... so if the "Theory of Everything" is a phrase that has already been taken to describe just the unification of current theories regarding the fundamental action forces of nature, what phrase can we use to describe a theory that takes that into account plus the "emergent" action forces of nature that suddenly appear when you bring together large populations of "agents" under conditions of disequilibrium? ...

I suppose that would be "reality itself". The question is, if physics is able to reconcile and unify the basic known forces, if it is able to state a unified force / particle theory, one fully consistent with what is observed at Fermilab and CERN, and by the radiotelescopes and space probes, does that fulfill Laplace's dream of a block universe? Could we then know every possible future state of the universe given enough information and computing capacity? (Hypothetically, even if not practically.) If not, is the problem that there exist some further laws and patterns in the universe; or is it just noisy randomness, as per the Copenhagen quantum interpretation?

I don't pretend to know the answer. I do think it to be a legitimate question. Newtonian physics gave Laplace the notion of complete determinism; but Newton's ideas were actually too small, and were eclipsed by Einstein's relativity and by quantum dynamics. Deeper understandings of reality were realized, and yet we still discovered chaos, emergent phenomenon and other examples of large population / disequilibrium dynamics that don't appear to supervene simply to the collective behaviors of elementary particles acting according to already-known physical laws. New mathematical theories based on studies of large-scale dynamic system effects (chaotic attractors, emergent effects, etc.) seem to be shedding light on this particular "level of scale" of the universe (i.e, the level we are familiar with in our daily lives). But are these theories and equations strictly implied by and derivable from our present laws of basic physical interactions; and if not, would they be from the TOE?

My admittedly limited layman's understanding is that complexity / chaos concepts and math are not entirely tied to quantum chromodynamics and relativity. Will those concepts and math be fully consistent with, and strictly implied by, the TOE once it is realized, once the quantum and relativistic are reconciled? And as to quantum randomness - we're still not completely sure that it is fully random; hidden variables and orders are disfavored, but IIRC they have not been completely ruled out. My rough impression is that even if our physicists manage to finally state a consistency between gravity and the small-scale fields, forces and particles, there will still remain a good many vexing questions regarding the ultimate nature of reality. We may not simply be able to say "here are the formulas, everything else is noise". And even if we were able, some wise guy is bound to ask, "why is there noise?" We just never get comfortable with the notion "this is the end of human knowledge, ask no further questions".

So, the "theory of everything" may not really be a good way of describing what physicists currently seek with regard to field unification. For now, it's probably a good P.R. tool, good for fundraising and grant applications. But when they finally get there, I bet that the physicists will suggest that we forget that term (although I might not live long enough to collect on that bet, barring an unforeseen breakthrough in either physics or longevity medicine). They could then get back to work.

Jim G.

1 Reply

@eternalstudent2,

eternalstudent2 wrote:

My admittedly limited layman's understanding is that complexity / chaos concepts and math are not entirely tied to quantum chromodynamics and relativity.

... let's take that idea and run with it ... if complexity / chaos concepts are not tied to quantum / relativistic concepts, then we should expect to find examples of complexity / chaos that are grounded completely in the macro-world - that is, we should expect to find complex/chaotic systems whose fundamental agents are macro-world entities that are statistically uninfluenced by quantum/relativistic effects ... is the stock market a reasonable example? - a system that you can't consistently predict more than a few hours out and whose fundamental agents are individual investors? ... or maybe the hive-mind of an ant colony whose fundamental agents are individual ants? ... for the moment, let's assume that these are valid examples and that we have shown that yes, indeed, the mathematics and formulas of complexity / chaos are independent of quantum / relativity - does that mean that (from a complexity / chaos perspective) quantum / relativistic effects can be tossed in the "everything else is noise" bin?! Wink

2 Replies

@paulhanke,

Reality is dualistic and actuality is monistic?

And I'd say that if we could know every piece of information of the environment, know every bit of potential of the environment, the environment would be linear, thus we'd know the future.

Chaos is only a point of view I thought, subjective. However with randomness, I see the universe becomes more random as we reach the quantum side, thus more linear. (ex. entanglement, because particles acting the same way are not very chaotic, but at the same time they are in undefined states)

Maybe it is because we know less of the environment of the quantum side that it appears random. So, what causes us to understand less? Other dimension, perhaps M theory; even though I hate the theory.

I'd rather say that forces, causality; that which allows perception to seek order; are of less potential in the quantum side so the quantum side appears random. But this is only the case with gravity, the other forces have a stronger effect, I think, when we get to those little particles. lol.

Perhaps gravity is the only force that really can subjectively provide perception of order, rather than the other forces, because of its link to space time. We rely upon those for perception thus causality, and order is proportional to the influence of the force of gravity on the gauge of perception. (Being that of micro, macro).

I have to admit, its a pretty weak statement and I don't agree with my thoughts here. lol. Any ideas as to why?

2 Replies

@Holiday20310401,

Holiday20310401 wrote:

And I'd say that if we could know every piece of information of the environment, know every bit of potential of the environment, the environment would be linear, thus we'd know the future.

... it sounds like we mean different things when we talk about "linearity" ... when I use the word, I refer to mathematical linearity - that is, linear equations ... this is in contrast to nonlinear equations ... if a system's dynamics is best described by nonlinear equations, simply obtaining every piece of information you can about it and its environment will not all of a sudden make it best described by linear equations ... as well, the future of a deterministic nonlinear system can be predicted with perfect accuracy if you have perfect information - it's that "perfect" qualification that makes nonlinear systems seem random (whereas prediction error remains proportional to measurement error in linear systems, prediction error grows exponentially with respect to measurement error in nonlinear systems) ...

Holiday20310401 wrote:

Chaos is only a point of view I thought, subjective.

... deterministic chaos is a mathematical property of a certain class of dynamics ... there has been some question as to whether or not deterministic chaos is a mathematical monster akin to fractals and as such doesn't exist in a "pure" form in nature (is the coast of Great Britain a "pure" fractal? is turbulence "pure" deterministic chaos?) ... but even should it turn out to be the case that there is no such thing as "pure" deterministic chaos in nature, the mathematics of deterministic chaos may still provide an excellent model for the "near" deterministic chaos that does occur ...

1 Reply

@paulhanke,

paulhanke wrote:

when I use the word, I refer to mathematical linearity

Oops,

.

Sweet!!!! :a-ok: Some new terms. Very Happy

Ok I haven't studied non linear systems yet, can you give me an example, though being dualistic perhaps it would piece a profound thought object together if you gave me two? Laughing

Or one of each, lol.

Wait so a superposition of variables meaning, to me anyways offhand, that you can understand the system even if not all the variable are accounted for is existent in a linear system. This is because having one piece of the puzzle has correlations to the other pieces in that variables are related to the system rather congruently?

And in a non linear system, such patterns are not attainable because that would require linearity the way I defined it, Laughing

(our definitions merge); so all variables must be accounted for.

To be fair I'll look them up.

1 Reply

@Holiday20310401,

Holiday20310401 wrote:

Ok I haven't studied non linear systems yet, can you give me an example, though being dualistic perhaps it would piece a profound thought object together if you gave me two?

... the classic example is the Lorenz equations:

$http://upload.wikimedia.org/math/a/e/b/aeb53d5ef06eba4ab271069851413897.png$ $http://upload.wikimedia.org/math/7/4/f/74fe0bb652d9a426a1f601424c7c33b2.png$ $http://upload.wikimedia.org/math/a/1/9/a197663f502ba9703ca12b39669a69f7.png$ ... and rather than being two distinct examples, this is two examples in one - not only is this an example of a nonlinear system of equations, but this is also an example of a nonlinear system of equations that exhibit deterministic chaos! :a-ok:

... of course, we mustn't forget the obligatory Wikipedia reference: Lorenz attractor - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

1 Reply

@paulhanke,

Ah I understand now..... So is it possible to have a 4D linear system? (Spatially speaking).

1 Reply

@Holiday20310401,

Holiday20310401 wrote:

Ah I understand now..... So is it possible to have a 4D linear system? (Spatially speaking).

... in mathematics, anything is possible - the creative part is proving that certain mathematical statements bear some resemblance to the real world Wink

... so you could have a 40D linear system of equations - but is there anything in the real world that that system of equations would resemble? ...

1 Reply

@paulhanke,

Hmm.... the only problem is that... well... I think I'd better start a new thread for this in the logic section. But yes perhaps you are right.

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@paulhanke,

paulhanke wrote:

... let's take that idea and run with it ... if complexity / chaos concepts are not tied to quantum / relativistic concepts, then we should expect to find examples of complexity / chaos that are grounded completely in the macro-world - that is, we should expect to find complex/chaotic systems whose fundamental agents are macro-world entities that are statistically uninfluenced by quantum/relativistic effects ... is the stock market a reasonable example? - a system that you can't consistently predict more than a few hours out and whose fundamental agents are individual investors? ... or maybe the hive-mind of an ant colony whose fundamental agents are individual ants? ... for the moment, let's assume that these are valid examples and that we have shown that yes, indeed, the mathematics and formulas of complexity / chaos are independent of quantum / relativity - does that mean that (from a complexity / chaos perspective) quantum / relativistic effects can be tossed in the "everything else is noise" bin?!

PaulH,

I don't think it's the case that a complex/chaotic macro system like the stock market or a bee hive or the body's immune system (or Ned Block's Chinese nation; perhaps they all WERE having a macro-thought) is ungrounded in quantum / relativistic effects. Drop a bee hive and it accelerates towards the earth at 32.2 ft/sec/sec. The warp of gravity still rules. Put it in the gas chamber with Schrodenger's cat and the bees, along with their hive intelligence, are now in something like a quantum superposition (perhaps). If the rate of gravity acceleration were different or if quantum events were different, the dynamics of these systems would be different. So the quantum / relativistic effects may be more than something in the "noise bin" of a complex system.

The complex system's behavior is partly determined by elemental gravity physics and quantum physics, and yet it also appears to be determined by relationships unique to the complex, recursive dynamic system, relationships that are not strictly reducible to gravity and quantum physics as we now know them. I've read that our quantum laws and relativity laws may actually be emergent phenomenon in themselves, along with time, space and mass (the latter emerging from Higgs field boson interactions). Some thinkers speculate that these laws still do not touch the bedrock of reality, that there are even more fundamental physics from which these emerge.

We can perhaps conceptualize a chain of emergence: chemistry emerging from quantum physics, earthly and celestial mechanics emerging from relativity / gravity laws, geology and biology emerging from these, humanity emerging from these, sociology and psychology co-emerging from the animal realm. At each level, something has 'self-organized', something has taken the better innovations that randomness allowed, breaking the deadening symmetry of stuff like crystal structures and yet retaining enough of their structure to allow reproduction, as with clay. Somehow these arrangements retained the innovation as to allow new characteristics and new integrations (akin to natural selection? Natural selection being a huge example of chaos-driven, self-organizing emergence?).

We might judge some of these "new, irreducible characteristics" to be subjective, based on our needs and what we want to see. If true, that might say something about the fundamental role of consciousness, and not just imply that 'we're just seeing things'. But I'll leave the dualism axe aside for now. The math and systems people appear to have identified objective characteristics, or at least some candidate metrics for future research regarding system emergent behavior (just as they have done amazing stuff with chaotic processes, which are really just the other side of the coin from emergent phenomenon, e.g. fractal relationships, period doubling, attractors, etc.). They seem to be discussing potential elements and metrics for emergence such as organization, connectivity, independence and diversity, as well as the threshold conditions for emergent behavior to appear. I hardly understand the mathematic formalisms, but I've read of some interesting paradigms regarding "order ranking" based on shape interactions, shape interactions with a time dimension, and shape, time and heritable instructions (presence of information retention / reproduction mechanisms). A lot of people seem to think that this goes well beyond supervenience to quantum laws and/or relativity laws.

The following is a SWAG, but I would posit that emergent relationships and effects have something to do with the 'information state' of the complex system, the level of entropy and information-meaningfulness of that entropy, the 'logical depth' of the system (assuming that I roughly understand that concept). I'm wondering if information will turn out to be a "state space dimension" that helps us realize the difference between galaxies, quarks, and mid-level / highly complex things like life forms. Galaxies, down to the level of suns and planets and asteroids, don't need much information (relative to their size and mass) to specify their internal dynamics; so much is repetitive. Ditto for quarks, baryons, and their strange, wave-like relationships in the micro world. But even a bacterium needs a whole lot of information to specify its dynamics and relationships.

Perhaps information-density at some threshold changes the rules (or better put, will ultimately require a more flexible and complex "theory of absolutely everything" that will account and adjust for the information dimension). Perhaps those seemingly unique rules that our mathematicians are now studying regarding chaos and emergence patterns in abstract state-spaces are ultimately driven by there being such an information dimension, with certain systems having an information richness that brings these seemingly unique rules into play. There does appear to be progress in objectifying the notion of information.

And what then of randomness? Emergence requires it for the creation of order; chaos assumes that it 'emerges', if you will, in certain state-transitions according to some high-order descriptive patterns. Does it break in from the quantum world, or is big-system randomness something different? Even if not related, is there something amidst the quantum randomness and weirdness that we observe which actually allows higher order effects in high-information density / "meaningful entropy" states (while still maintaining a random dimension in the micro world)? Something akin to hidden variables, something to do with non-local effects and phase entanglements? If so, then perhaps there is supervenience, but to patterns in the quantum dance that we presently do not see?

Yikes, I've tried to let the mind run, but is seems to have tripped. It's popping out too many questions, not enough answers! :brickwall: Enough for this evening, time to cool the neurons, calm down the mental state-space. We don't need another 'What the Bleep' here! Surprised

Regards for now,

Jim G.

1 Reply

@Holiday20310401,

H20310401,

Some thoughts, if I may.

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Reality is dualistic and actuality is monistic?

Works for me! Assuming "Reality" to be epistemic, what we can perceive and know; and "Actuality" to be ontological, the ultimate grounding. I.e., the dualism / monism paradox of J. Habermas.

Habermasian Reflections: Epistemic dualism vs. Ontological monism

The Language Game of Responsible Agency and the Problem of Free Will: How can epistemic dualism be reconciled with ontological monism? - Philosophical Explorations: An International Journal for the Philosophy of Mind and Action

Quote:

And I'd say that if we could know every piece of information of the environment, know every bit of potential of the environment, the environment would be linear, thus we'd know the future.

Quote:

Chaos is only a point of view I thought, subjective.

If chaos implies randomness, then there are some objective measures, e.g. perfect lack of correlation in a number series, or amount of information needed to describe random outcomes being non-compressible.

However with randomness, I see the universe becomes more random as we reach the quantum side, thus more linear. (ex. entanglement, because particles acting the same way are not very chaotic, but at the same time they are in undefined states)

Perhaps there's some difference between unknowability, as required by Heisenberg, and randomness, which appears to drive much of what we can know about a quantum thing (or more precisely, about our observations of a quantum thing). We can't challenge the unknowable (e.g. the Heisenberg pairings such as location and momentum); but as to randomness, arguably there could still be more pattern mixed in with the noise than we have detected to date, as per the late, great David Bohm and his hidden variable ideas; although some randomness would always remain. As you imply, phase entanglements, although relatively weak, may conceivably impart some order amidst sets of quantum particles that have interacted and remain within some proximity range.

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Maybe it is because we know less of the environment of the quantum side that it appears random.

Yes, again consistent with Heisenberg. But, what we do know (from our observations, our sample of interactions with particles) seems to have elements of strong temporal non-correlation (its state jumps around a lot), and lack of correlation with anything near-by (its state can't be fully explained by the other particle state-observations made near it). I.e., even what we are allowed to know despite Heisenberg's principle still has randomness. Maybe not as much as we think, maybe we aren't able yet to detect all possible relationships; but some pure residual randomness seems thinkable.

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So, what causes us to understand less?

If anyone could satisfactorily explain Heisenberg uncertainty at the deepest ontological level, they'd sell a lot of books! :Glasses:

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Other dimension, perhaps M theory; even though I hate the theory.

Well, those extra dimensions are hard to swallow, admittedly. But as science has taken our "reality" closer to "actuality" over the past few centuries, it always seems to get weirder and weirder. It's an interesting question as to whether the extra M theory dimensions modifies Heisenberg uncertainty or not. My quick review of Wikipedia indicates that string theory grounds itself in strings and not points just because definitive points would violate uncertainty; IIUC, strings have an inherent tension akin to a stretched rubber band, which fights against whatever is enlarging it; conceptually, strings "want" to shrink all the way back to a point. But uncertainty keeps them stretched out into a band made of probability cloud. Neat! :cool: Without the uncertainty, everything goes zero-D!!! Since the extra dimensions of M theory supposedly just go around in tiny circles, we arguably can't explain away inherent uncertainty as the result of unperceived but effective dimensions (think about the 3D being interacting with the 2D plane world in Flatland). These dimensions wouldn't seem to offer an alternate route from point A to point B, or a way to hide part of a hyper-body from our universe. So the fuzziness and jumpiness and uncertainty of quantum particles arguably isn't because they're ducking into hyper-spaces then coming back to our space, or keeping parts of themselves hidden outside of our space.

String theory - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

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Perhaps gravity is the only force that really can subjectively provide perception of order, rather than the other forces, because of its link to space time.

IIRC, gravity is the force with the lowest amount of effect and yet the highest degree of spatial range of the fab four forces (or three, given the merger between electromagnetism and the weak nuclear force). It is the thing that warps spacetime; although, IIRC, the other forces warp space a little for short intervals and distances, but obviously do not cause grand celestial effects like planets orbiting suns, multiple suns orbiting each other, billions of suns swirling along in the arms of the galaxies, etc. And then there is the black hole, where all bets are off, at the core anyway.

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We rely upon those for perception thus causality, and order is proportional to the influence of the force of gravity on the gauge of perception. (Being that of micro, macro).

Hmmmm, well . . . we're pretty dependent upon electromagnetic forces for perception (photons, light), and to order atoms into molecules. And the strong force keeps our atoms organized. But gravity does seem to orchestrate the grand cosmic show (along with dark energy), and obviously helps to keep the bigger things in order for us on this planet. We can adopt to extremely low-gravity situations, as in a space station; we can impose order there through crafty use of light, magnetism, and molecular forces. But life as we know it seems to require a planetary situation with gravity as a primary organizing force.

Quote:

I have to admit, its a pretty weak statement and I don't agree with my thoughts here.

Well, agree or not, when I myself think about randomness and uncertainty and their place in the dynamics of our universe, I start to sense that without them, the substances and properties that led to life and to consciousness would not have happened. Something about their tension with the energies that tend things towards order and equilibrium (especially gravity but including electrical charges, magnetism and nuclear forces) gave us a reality with lots of potential. (Sorry for the hyper-intentionalist description here, hard to avoid). And perhaps even "free will", or better said, a will determined (on its better days) by the purest cause of sentient being.

Regards,

Jim G.

1 Reply

@eternalstudent2,

"If you knew the starting condition and had a limitless computer, you could do the simulation before the reality actually occurred, and know the numbers, however random they are relative to each other."

Ah but I don't think it matters. See, if actuality is monistic can it change? Do we need a mind and perception in order for there to be change and conditions? I think so, therefore, the starting condition is the same throughout all of actuality; if you were to display actuality as being in sequence to time, which I doubt.

When time becomes a factor, presented when there is consciousness, then relation is possible.

I have a theory about this. Maybe in actuality in order for time to be of its "monistic essence" it does not flow, but is in instances, and no instance is direct correlation to another. So we can say that it is purely random, yet also, completely linear because all instances imply any other instances exactly, intrinsically when reality gets involved.

And with reality, we have perception, so time can flow. It is what it is, but not actually 'flowing'. Flow is a product of potential, and in a durative sense it would be causality that is the potential, to me anyways.

Edit: I'm glad we both agree with linear being random:a-ok:, people usually don't see that.

Edit 2.0: Detailed response when I'm more awake:a-ok: I'm kinda deep in:a-thought:thought for other stuff right now:lol:

1 Reply

@eternalstudent2,

eternalstudent2 wrote:

I don't think it's the case that a complex/chaotic macro system like the stock market or a bee hive or the body's immune system (or Ned Block's Chinese nation; perhaps they all WERE having a macro-thought) is ungrounded in quantum / relativistic effects.

I wouldn't think to suggest they weren't ... for anything that exists in this universe there has to be an ultimate ground - and that ultimate ground is what it is ... but does that simple fact of nature necessarily imply that the ultimate ground of our universe is the only possible ultimate ground for macro systems like the stock market, etc.? ... or are alternative ultimate groundings possible? ... and if so, does it make sense to refer back to the ultimate ground of our universe when studying higher levels of emergence? ... or do we only need to refer back to the relative ground that immediately precedes the level of emergence we are interested in?

eternalstudent2 wrote:

But even a bacterium needs a whole lot of information to specify its dynamics and relationships.

Q: where does all that information reside? Does a bacterium's genome fully describe a full-grown bacterium? No. Does a bacterium's genome fully describe the development of a bacterium? No. Does a bacterium's genome fully describe the dynamics of a bacterium? No. Much (most?) of this information is scattered about the bacterium's environment and the contingent history of its interaction with that environment. Does that mean that the "information dimension" of a bacterium is liberally spread throughout space and time? ... significantly overlapping with the information dimensions of other entities? ... and what does that say about the information density of the universe?

eternalstudent2 wrote:

And what then of randomness? Emergence requires it for the creation of order; chaos assumes that it 'emerges', if you will, in certain state-transitions according to some high-order descriptive patterns. Does it break in from the quantum world, or is big-system randomness something different?

Does big-system randomness even exist? ... is it possible that "patterns in the quantum dance that we presently do not see" will turn out to collapse quantum "randomness" into determinism (akin to the "randomness" in the flip of a coin)?

eternalstudent2 wrote:

Yikes, I've tried to let the mind run, but is seems to have tripped. It's popping out too many questions, not enough answers!

We don't need no stinkin' answers! - this is a philosophy forum!!! Wink

1 Reply

@paulhanke,

PaulH,

These are truly questions on the outer limits of what the mind can do (or what my mind can do, anyway). There appears to be reason to postulate an ultimate reality that unifies and subsumes events and relationships on all levels of scale; and to believe that the unification theme of this reality has to do with a "beefed-up" concept of information. Our physical sciences are increasingly coming to appreciate the notion of 'super information' (e.g., through under-development concepts of the "computing universe", the "digital universe", etc.). Humankind may come to understand, abstract and empirically describe this bedrock reality, and perhaps see it as another dimension, just as time was acknowledged after Einstein to be as much a dimension as the big 3 space dimensions. We may come to appreciate the ontological significance of 'super information' sometime in the future -- perhaps generations or even centuries into the future. That's my SWAG.

As to whether randomness ultimately exists -- wow, another question that's probably left to future generations. If it IS irreducible, then we will be left with a dualistic universe, something like the old Zoroastrian view of a universe of competing and blending influences from opposite, ultimate poles of good and evil. Except, it will be a universe of order and anti-order, information and anti-information (i.e. true indeterminate randomness). As to whether and how conscious subjectivity would make sense in a web of ultimate universal order eternally clashing with the forces of infinite chaos -- again, we're out on the limits of thinking. Or at least the limits of my own thinking ability! :perplexed: It makes me dizzy, like when reading the Upanishads.

Still, this 'out to the edge' discussion has been quite interesting, and will be useful in pondering the more "limited" philosophical questions such as human freedom, the meaning of life, and so on. I.e., limited but still unanswerable -- as you imply, this is philosophy, after all! :cool: Regards,

Jim G.

paulhanke wrote:

I wouldn't think to suggest they weren't ... for anything that exists in this universe there has to be an ultimate ground - and that ultimate ground is what it is ... but does that simple fact of nature necessarily imply that the ultimate ground of our universe is the only possible ultimate ground for macro systems like the stock market, etc.? ... or are alternative ultimate groundings possible? ... and if so, does it make sense to refer back to the ultimate ground of our universe when studying higher levels of emergence? ... or do we only need to refer back to the relative ground that immediately precedes the level of emergence we are interested in?

Q: where does all that information reside? Does a bacterium's genome fully describe a full-grown bacterium? No. Does a bacterium's genome fully describe the development of a bacterium? No. Does a bacterium's genome fully describe the dynamics of a bacterium? No. Much (most?) of this information is scattered about the bacterium's environment and the contingent history of its interaction with that environment. Does that mean that the "information dimension" of a bacterium is liberally spread throughout space and time? ... significantly overlapping with the information dimensions of other entities? ... and what does that say about the information density of the universe?

Does big-system randomness even exist? ... is it possible that "patterns in the quantum dance that we presently do not see" will turn out to collapse quantum "randomness" into determinism (akin to the "randomness" in the flip of a coin)?

We don't need no stinkin' answers! - this is a philosophy forum!!!

0 Replies

@Holiday20310401,

H20310401,

Just for fun, I've made some very raw, extremely speculative, off-the-top-of-my-head, bordering-on-who-knows-what replies to your thoughts. If interested, here they are:

Holiday20310401 wrote:

See, if actuality is monistic can it change?

Well, as I asked in my latest reply to PaulH, is randomness an ultimate reality? if so, monistic reality is toast -- but read on, maybe not . . . From a personal, quasi-spiritual perspective, I'd like to believe that the universe is ultimately monistic, that randomness is ultimately deterministic even if temporally uncorrelated; just an illusion to an imperfect consciousness. But what if randomnesss and order are universally essential, opposite poles, like the Zoroastrian eternal opposites of good and evil? Let me imagine them spinning off flows which meet and mix and interact. Eventually these flows blend. And perhaps these blends lose all movement and energy once completely blended. The universe would thus be ultimately headed for heat death and stillness (the recent discovery of dark energy being another hint that this is where it's all heading).

Unless -- unless consciousness somehow flourishes, somehow survives, and somehow inspires the use of orderly analytical processes to come up with a universe "game changer", along the lines of Frank Tipler's plan in "Physics of Immortality". OK, Tipler's plan per se won't work if the current dark energy expansion scenario precludes a "big crunch". But what if some other cosmic shortcut is discovered some day that allows some huge energy and information harnessing, thousands of years from now, as Tipler imagines in Physics of Im. ? Consciousness then makes a fundamental difference to actuality. The dualism that was going to become a monism of nothingness becomes a monism of somethingness and being, thanks to consciousness as an ontological game-changer.

Holiday20310401 wrote:

Do we need a mind and perception in order for there to be change and conditions? I think so . . .

OK, maybe mind and consciousness are a kind of "hyper-information", a higher-order form of information; just as energy is inherent to the higher order form of motion, i.e. acceleration, then consciousness is inherent to / equal to a higher-order form of information and the potential of true fundamental "change" w/in the universe? (i.e., humans have the power to make a fundamental difference, however difficult it is for them to use this power due to the ongoing clash of order and randomness in which they "swim" and struggle? sturm und drung? I.e., if we dream big like Tipler, on changing the ultimate outcome of the universe?)

Holiday20310401 wrote:

therefore, the starting condition is the same throughout all of actuality; if you were to display actuality as being in sequence to time, which I doubt.

Actuality might be in-sequence / "in-synch" with information flow, with time being a side-effect of that flow (i.e., a lower-order form of time, a form of time w/o conscious awareness of it). "Information" and "time" are thus used here in a first-order / lower-order sense; as such, plenty can happen in the universe w/o mind and consciousness, according to the underlying movement and flow and patterns of information (regular, lower-order information). I.e., galaxies and suns and planets can form, trees can evolve and grow and fall in forests, comets can crash into oceans, all w/o conscious perception and time as we know it (but with the lower order form of time, that allows orderly process in space). But for there to be change to this flow, i.e. acceleration or deceleration -- that is inherent to mind and consciousness and conscious-time.

Holiday20310401 wrote:

When time becomes a factor, presented when there is consciousness, then relation is possible. I have a theory about this. Maybe in actuality in order for time to be of its "monistic essence" it does not flow, but is in instances,

Hmmmm, another form of quantumization? I have read about quantum time. But as to the "mental time", the "second derivative time" that I hypothesize -- perhaps that escapes quantumization as the realm of consciousness seems smooth, non-quantum (?!?!?)

Holiday20310401 wrote:

and no instance is direct correlation to another. So we can say that it is purely random, yet also, completely linear because all instances imply any other instances exactly, intrinsically

Something akin to fractal scale relationships? And holography, where all points have something of the essence of the whole?

Holiday20310401 wrote:

when reality gets involved. And with reality, we have perception, so time can flow.

Hyper-Time, as in my higher order version of time? I.e., conscious/mental time, time that has the potential of "true change" (a trans-Obama form of change;)), ontological change which is exclusively a potential of consciousness; change to occur perhaps not today, perhaps not at all moments of all consciousness, maybe not for millenniums; but "in the fullness of time", as one of the religions puts it.

Holiday20310401 wrote:

It is what it is, but not actually 'flowing'. Flow is a product of potential,

I've used the term 'flow' above, but not in the ontological sense which I think you mean here. I would poist that you mean FLOW as an aspect of "the ontological game changer". I.e., "potential" as ultimately needing consciousness, consciousness being the only thing that can be an ontological "game changer". So relative to my earlier use of the word "flow", this would be a "hyper-flow", akin to a second-derivative type of flow.

Holiday20310401 wrote:

and in a durative sense it would be causality that is the potential, to me anyways.

Again, my comments here are raw mental effluent. But who knows, perhaps some of it can eventually be refined. And even if not, it's still interesting to let the mind wander where it may, from time to time.

Regards,

Jim G.

1 Reply

@eternalstudent2,

eternalstudent2 wrote:

H20310401,

Just for fun, I've made some very raw, extremely speculative, off-the-top-of-my-head, bordering-on-who-knows-what replies to your thoughts. If interested, here they are:

Excellent, true philosophy.

eternalstudent2 wrote:

But what if randomnesss and order are universally essential, opposite poles

And what if they are the same thing? Linearity is randomness; insanity.

eternalstudent2 wrote:

Consciousness then makes a fundamental difference to actuality. The dualism that was going to become a monism of nothingness becomes a monism of somethingness and being, thanks to consciousness as an ontological game-changer.

The problem here is that we must assume there is to be some sort of dimension that we could label as 'fundamental' (but that sounds a lot like potentiality which I don't believe exists without the consciousness either). And in actuality, there is nothing. Reality depends on consciousness and consciousness perceives causality; also existent in the reality. But actuality is acausal, so what step must be taken to imply or create cause?

How about the need for balance. Balance can be self oriented, but only through temporal being; thus ruling out actuality not being in balance.

Only when reality comes into the picture does it seem like a form of balance is trying to occur, perhaps symmetry, which in itself requires perception.

So what can come out of actuality? It is nothing, but in that, everything is able to come out of it. Even though actuality would be absolute, linear, nothing, blah blah blah... we can say that one part of it implies another part of it. Therefore absolute order. But also, pure randomness in that if infinite, there is no defining point to work with.

Order cannot be implied by actuality's own sense, since it is not anything of its entirety. But say we broke it up, a piece of it is still underlyingly implient to any other piece of actuality but no longer in the picture of the entirety of the actuality thus a piece of randomness seeking the whole order. A piece of actuality is still bound to actuality and is actuality by intrinsics and is still like a piece of nothing, but now that it is defined, because its finite, it will automatically have the potential, thus cause, and perception.

So a piece of actuality is reality in that actuality only implies itself through its own entirety.

I mean, perhaps there are sequences that are random from this actuality to make a reality, in that picking out a piece of actuality is completely random in that no cause can be ascertained for it. If a piece of it implies any other then all pieces must be the same potential. Until the piece is chosen does the piece become of potential, and in that, perspective. And since the piece in its own entirety is absolute but a random piece of actuality, it is not the entirety of actuality and absolute only intrinsically to actuality, and therefore a little off from actuality in its potential, in that potential is now given to the piece(reality).

A rule can be made from this. Potential is not defined through intrinsics. Very Happy

eternalstudent2 wrote:

OK, maybe mind and consciousness are a kind of "hyper-information", a higher-order form of information

Makes sense, we could label information as cause/potential. hyper-effect Laughing

eternalstudent2 wrote:

I've used the term 'flow' above, but not in the ontological sense which I think you mean here. I would poist that you mean FLOW as an aspect of "the ontological game changer". I.e., "potential" as ultimately needing consciousness

I'll keep that in mind and yes you're understanding it right. And yes I think by saying a system has potential means the system would automatically allow for consciousness.

0 Replies

@Holiday20310401,

Holiday20310401 wrote:

How do neurons behave that constitute for intuition, logic, emotion, etc.?

I'm not looking for the correct answer, just rational speculation

I which to shed my views here, but each case must be dealt with individually and each case require that we all have a clear meaning of each term. So I will focus on emotions for now.

In a recent post, I have had the following response from hermes.

Hermes wrote:

The Potentialities-for-Being that constitute our possible choices seem real in their Being, and as each possibility seems real we believe that our ability to choose is as real, but in fact it is not. (Sorry to start using the jargon, but that is how I justify it... there are definitions of this stuff on my site).

I have also restated the law that 'for action there is an equal and opposite reaction'. Instead, the better expression would be 'for reaction there is an equal and opposite reaction'.

Therefore, emotions as defined by 'The Online Free Dictionary by Farlex' states:

"In psychology, emotion is considered a response to stimuli that involves characteristic physiological changes-such as increase in pulse rate, rise in body temperature, greater or less activity of certain glands, change in rate of breathing-and tends in itself to motivate the individual toward further activity. Early psychological studies of emotion tried to determine whether a certain emotion arose before the action, simultaneously with it, or as a response to automatic physiological processes. In the 1960s, the Schachter-Singer theory pointed out that cognitive processes, not just physiological reactions, played a significant role in determining emotions. Robert Plutchik developed (1980) a theory showing eight primary human emotions: joy, acceptance, fear, submission, sadness, disgust, anger, and anticipation, and argued that all human emotions can be derived from these. Psychologists Sylvan Tomkins (1963) and Paul Ekman (1982) have contended that "basic" emotions can be quantified because all humans employ the same facial muscles when expressing a particular emotion. Studies done by Ekman suggest that muscular feedback from a facial expression characteristic of a certain emotion results in the experience of that emotion."

A correlation of the definition and the concept of cause and effect, suggest that 'emotion' is just a word we attach to explain the reaction to the combination of external and internal stimuli of neurons in the brain, and the awareness that brain matter has constitute for the way we feel during each emotional state.

On the other hand, a computer can be programmed to simulate the brain's activities. The simulation will also produce identical states of emotions to that of the human brain. However, the difference will be that the computer simulation is a program and would not posses feeling because a program is not material, and therefore, not aware of its reactions; while the human brain follows its program faithfully and is aware of it.

All hopes for a computer to have true emotions - as we defined - is not loss. Scientist may one day design a computer with a physical - as we define - program.

Sorry to sound so long winded, but it is necessary at times for some people to grasp your concepts, and sometimes they still do not.

Hope that spark some imagination.

1 Reply

@Sir Neuron,

Food for Thought

What is the difference in consciousness between man and computer? We usuallly associate consciousness and behaviour. Bear in mind, consciousness does not effect behaviour; orderly chaotic neurons do. Consciousness is only the observer. Because a computer functions differently and compose of different materials and design, Alone that does not suggest consciousness.

Is there consciousness in all matter?

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