The mystical Copenhagen Interpretation

Take it or leave it.

Hahaha!
If I take it, does it come with desert? Yoghurt would be fine, as it is the most 'cultured' thing that I know!
*__-

Errmm..
Sorry..
Was it you who recently said to me "Our conversations shall be legendary"?
...
Is this what you meant?

Soooo... how about that reverse causality stuff, guys ? can you cause history to be this way or that, by looking at it in one way over another, after the event ?


The universe in your head - Cosmic Log - msnbc.com

push the "sample" button, or "drowse" button as we call it

Understand hyperbole?
All in the eye of the beholder, I guess.
That was certainly the way that I felt then, but you'd have to give me something to work with, though.

Nothing wrong with a bit of levity at times to lighten the atmosphere, it tends to get a bit 'thick' at times.

Okay?

The Copenhagen Interpretation is a very stupid one.:eek:

What an interesting post in that I find myself unable to respond to such a post other than saying what an interesting post...
...just leaves me speechless...
I guess that you win!
Carpe' diem!
*__-

Relevant to this discussion might might be the Feynman-Wheeler Absorber Theory. And no, I'm not capable of explaining it. It appears to be incoherent to me. Worth a look though.

If you're still around , Bones-O, could you comment on the idea that if we can explain the results of the two-slits experiment then we have explained QM? Or is there more to worry about?

I guess i have to say that the mystics of the Copenhagen Interpretation is not necessarily something we have to read into it.
Some people say that this mystical interpretation has nothing to do with what the quantum scientists said.
I cannot really repeat this argument however, i guess i would need a deeper insight to do so.

Same evidence, different Perspectives.
They have their reasoning and justifications as does (almost) everyone else.
Different features of Reality.
I find it exciting that the once apparently disparate disciplines of mysticism and 'science' (alchemy once) are at long last converging! Both seaks 'truth' and as Truth is one, all roads seem to lead to Rome!
There are many Perspactives that are capable of seeing the convergence (similar Perspectives). Actually, for every Perspective that sees such a convergence, there is an equal and opposite Perspective.
And vice versa.

“Genuinely successful theories interconnect information from previously disparate areas of experience,”

I am still missing a conviencing explanation of how modern science and mystic ideas correlate.
Some people like to take a statement of a physicist and search the bible for metaphors that seem to somehow express the same thing, meaning you can read into that sentence from the bible what the statement of that physicist was, if you tolerate a lot of unpreciseness.
These connections have been made on more or less sophisticated levels already. Fritjof Capra for example, who i find to be a highly respectable intellectual person, also made connections between quantum physicists' statements and statements made by (e.g.) buddhist monchs (see 'The Tao of Physics'). What he obviously didn't recognize was that he also was a victim of what is called selective perception (Selective perception - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia) - a term that explains how each person's subjective perspective creates blind spots. Or actually it seems like with selective perception we don't have just a blind spot, but actually we only have a small visible spot, while the rest is invisible to us.
This is not something that happens to uneducated people. We all have it. A very simple example would be how somebody has the feeling that it always starts raining when he leaves the house. He simply doesn't register other peoples' experience of leaving the house and it starts raining. He thinks it just happens to him.
At this point i have to point my finger especially to the selective perception that appears when looking at something in retrospective.
Retrospective allows selective perception at all levels.
This happens e.g. when people read a horoscope. They forget about ninety percent of what they read, but when an event occurs that corresponds with the horoscope they will say:
"That's what my horoscope said!" The fitting point is what reaches our perception, the rest of it is (not a blind spot but actually) blind landscapes.
I know this feeling of science is close to what once would have been called magic.
But the parallels that i have seen turned out to be selective perception. If we look at the huge amount of assumptions made by alchemists and quantum physicists (to stay close to your example), and if we really try to connect any alchemist assumption with a quantum theory idea by drawing a clear arrow for each connection, we have to admit that the number of arrows is quite tiny.
For example think of the 'philosopher's stone'. This was one of the major issues of alchemy. It was supposed to have the properties of the sun, which is manifest in the properties of gold, and to find it would also cause (or demand) the alchemist himself to reach a higher level of consciousness. Finding it would mean twice: Reach a higher stage of consciousness and being able to create gold.
That's something nice to dream about, but do we have anything correlating in modern science?
No.
I'm sure you will be able to find some spots where parallels DO exist. But it will be tiny spots in a huge landscape.
I don't even want to go into further details about the research of alchemists who tried to create so called homunculi using special mixtures including human sperm, haha...
A hand full of similarities will not make old and new science merge.


This is an interesting sentence to me. I believe that future science will demand more capabilities of thinking in synthesist ways.


I have been wondering if i need to object to this part of your philosophy.
I haven't because it is very similar to my personal philosophy. However we will certainly come to a point where the difference is to relevant.
The similarity first of all seems to me, that i also respect the point of view that every perspective has its own reality.
From my point of view there is no perspective that can be called ultimately wrong.
Every perspective origins from reality and as such has its right to be existent as such.
So every schizophrenic person's description of paranoid ideas has to be considered a splinter that reflects a particular part of reality.
Everyone of us is nothing but a splinter of glass reflecting a particular part of reality.
The difference between your philosophy and mine is certainly that yours is based on the assumption of an ultimate truth.
Which i totally reject.
I certainly DO believe that there is a material world around us.
But i do not see any evidence of the existence of truth.
Truth is a concept created by humans. The 'world of things' (which would be Immanuel Kants philosophical pendant to the scientific 'material world') does not have space for anything like truth.
The final ultimate truth that i have found is that there is no ultimate truth.
The word 'truth' will always contain components that are based on conventions:
One convention is that truth is what we agree on.
Another (scientific) convention is that truth is what is functional in a particular context (even if we don't understand it).
Which means truth would be what works for all of us.
Science tries to find rules that work for all of us, however Einstein found out, that in the contrary anything we perceive is based on the viewers perspecticve. Thus nothing WE perceive (works for all of us) can be ultimately true.
Any perception we have is bound to be based on a particular perspective.
And apart from perceptions there could be recognitions that are not based on perspective, but those are so general that they are not functional to describe the environment of a living individual which is so complex that a general physical formula looses its applicability.
So it's bound to loose its functionality which is the primary scientific criteria.
The functionality of 'true' assumptions persists only in a particular constellation which is valid only for the particular frame of reference.
There is as many frames of reference as there are living creatures. At least.
So there can be as many truths as living creatures. And actually much more.
You certainly see why i had the feeling that i don't have to object to your point of view.
However it's obvious where the difference is:
You say "All roads seem to lead to Rome". From my perspective however there is no Rome.

The oneness of the universe, and the 'matrix' of Consciousness, are two areas that millennial mysticism and quantum (and classical) physics converge. Physics, no matter how close they look, cannot find any definitive point where one thing ends and another begins. Oneness 101.
And the only evidence is that what is, is in 'mind', there is no 'out there', out there. [Berkeley and QM Copenhagen interpretation.
There are the two major areas of intersection.
Even science is using terms such as 'scientific enlightenment'!



Rays of light in the vast darkness...



Nothing to do with what I have been saying.



"For every Perspective, there is an equal and opposite Perspective!" - Book of Fudd
Even if youPerspective is completely opposite to what I see, they are both valid 'realities', in context.


The 'ultimate 'reality', the 'complete Reality is the Complete Universe. Do you not think that there is the Universe in completeness? Do you think that it is somehow 'lacking'? or overabundant? Imbalanced? Nah, there seems to be a 'complete Universe, all existence inclusive. I don't know why you'd reject such a thing, but that is certainly youPerspective's prerogative, to see things as you do.. actually, you have no choice but to see things as you must.


That would have to be a 'belief' as there is no evidence in support...


I'm not talking of 'truth', which belongs in theological waters, unless you equate 'truth' with 'reality', in which case the Universe/existence as it is, is Truth. Otherwise, I'm talking of 'Reality/existence/the Universe'.


Again, is this a straw-man? I am not talking about 'Truth', so, let it go.


The 'world of things' is an unsupported fantasy, a 'belief', a 'meme', a naive realism philosophy which has been refuted. Perhaps thats why there is no space in the fantasy for anything like 'truth' OTHER than the 'truth' of your perceptions and thoughts and concepts of the 'world of things' in that specific context.


What would make you say such a thing? It fails on so many levels.
You first say that "The 'world of things' [your world] does not have space for anything like truth.", yet in the next sentence you declare that you have found some 'final ultimate truth'? The very paradox of your statement dismisses it as trivial and disingenuous.


Yep, all Perspectives are unique.


Yep.


A Conscious Perspective is necessary to perceive the Universe. If there is Conscious Perspective capable from that which appears as 'non-living' (and 'life' is found everywhere that we look!) then I have no quarrel with this statement either.


So, in reality, both Perspectives are 'true'/features of the complete Reality/Universe, depending on context; "all roads lead to Rome", and 'there is no Rome.
Context/Perspective!
Peace

The final ultimate truth that i have found is that there is no ultimate truth.

I guess you did not really take into consideration that i could have used this paradox purposely.
You even believe i didn't recognize it.
:nonooo:

A) I don't believe anything.
B) I certainly suspected your deliberate posting of such, for some reason... rather obvious, considering your previous postings
C) Your 'purpose', though, remains unknown. Humor? Irony? Semantic games? Seems trivial and unnecessary to me.
Especially in light of our 'relevent' discussion.
I'm willing to just let it go, unless you have some sort of relevent and meaningful, thoughtful point that you are attempting to make with such a (silly) comment...

This is a great post and thanks for it. I encourage you to keep exploring this topic and working out ways to express it. The very first line is a great aphorism in its own right.

Some other references you might find useful:

Science and Mysticism: A Comparative Study of Western Natural Science, Theravada Buddhism, and Advaita Vedanta: Richard H. Jones.

Wholeness and the Implicate Order: David Bohm

Plus the writings of Krishnamurti.

Keep at it.

You haven't really expressed who this confirmation is adressed to.
But since you told me in a different message to continue the idea, let me say thank you.
I am curious where our different philosophies might lead us to.
I'm not really a person who commits to eastern spirituality, however i do see something like enlightenment in it.
Once in a while you will catch me posting quotes from Fritjof Capra's 'Tao of Physics', which also refers to David Bohm and probably has a similar intention as Richard H. Jones' book, right? (It's from the 70's)
Talking about Krishnamurti - you probably refer to Jiddu Krishnamurti?
It may strike you odd, but there is (was) an enlightened guy called U.G. Krishnamurti who actually has impressed me deeply. Most people - especially spiritual ones - consider him a freak.
I am fascinated by this guy, can't help it.

Looking forward to reading you...

I met U.G. in Sydney in the 1980's. I must say I didn't really take to him. His entire roadshow seemed to me to be based on the fact that he, too, was called Krishnamurti, and that 'Jiddu Krishnamurti is a hypocrite'. He also said the Buddha was fascist. He was deliberately confrontational, in a very soft-spoken way. That was his style. I felt he was very much on a bandwagon. I met Sheldrake too - I liked him a great deal more, a very charming and erudite individual.

I went through a stage from 1979 till the early 90's of reading Jiddu Krishnamurti all the time.There are some books of his that I still think are very good - First and Last Freedom, Krishnamurti's Notebook and the Awakening of Intelligence. After a while, however, I started to think you could read these books all your life, and nothing would ever come from it, although they left a deep impression on me at the time and I think they are well worth reading, which is why I mentioned them.

I am not from a scientific background. I am very much a sixties person, who had life-altering experiences under mind-altering substances, then got married and had to work out some career in the absence of any success as 'brilliant electric guitarist'. But I continued to read all of the counter-cultural philosophers - Alan Watts, Ramana Maharishi, Krishnamurti, and so on. I came to Western philosophy in an attempt to understand where 'spiritual realisation' fitted into Western Culture. I discovered that, on the whole, it doesn't, although as I have read more I find traces of it everywhere - 'footprints of the ox', to borrow an image from Zen. (Plotinus is the exception, I have discovered the marvellous books of Pierre Hadot on this topic and am reading them. I also have a lot of regard for Thomism.)

This was the context in which I discovered Frithjof Capra when his book was first published in about 1981. At the time I felt that this was a real turning point - actually that was the title of his next book, I recall - but in the years since, not much has been heard of it. I am an ardent and lifelong opponent of scientific materialism and the Science Rules attitude of a lot of western technocrats. Most of what goes on in Western intellectual circles can basically be understood as a backlash against the dogmatic religious attitudes that the then intelligensia had pushed on everyone for centuries. This is why this modern atheism is actually an inverted form of religiosity and why it is clung to with such vehemence.

To me, man is an end in himself and contains within his own being everything that is required. He does not need to be augmented scientifically or build an atomic particle accelerator to discover the ultimate nature of reality. It is something within his own being, if only he is able to free himself from cultural conditioning and deep-seated selfishness. Now I am feeling that with the discoveries of quantum mechanics, the idea that reality is 'perfectly objective' and that the natural realm is all there is and is independent of our perception of it, is crumbling. Actually it is over. I think science actually stopped supporting materialism in the first part of the 20th century. It is just that very few people have caught up with the implications yet. Most of your scientific materialists actually have an attitude which is Victorian, in my view.

Anyway, enough ranting. This is why I liked your post. The first line is a beauty.

We have to notice that the universe and mind, are intrinsically linked by time.

The mind is locked into time flowing in one direction, and we cannot conceptualize of a universe that is not observed from a perspective in time.

If we try and conceive of a timeless universe, - a universe where time does not flow, but exists much the same as the other dimensions, we still cannot escape the notion that our mind has cultivated such an idea by learning ideas temporally.

Our timeless universe would also be linear and strictly deterministic, and it would negate any idea of a free will that can make decisions which impact on the future - something totally contrary to lived experience.

In QM we see that the mind plays the role of collapsing the wave-like superposition of probabilities into an actual particle-like tangible reality. The key it uses to do this with is time.

The collapse of the superposition into a real position reveals the indeterminate nature of the universe - and it also reveals the way in which mind constructs the universe of its choosing - albeit not entirely - just partially - but at least to some degree.

We often talk of the 5 human senses - but our sense of time is not included - a fatal error, I reckon.

But we can see that there are at least 5 senses of time.

i) objective time
ii) subjective time (how time sometimes feels slower, other times faster)
iii) our imaginative capacity to predict future events with limited accuracy,
iv) we also construct events that follow their own time-lines in our thoughts - like a writer fabricating a story - going over his timeline conceptually - forward and backward
v) in dreams our sense of time is just too weird to even try and explain

well perhaps the point about mystical experience is that through it, the seer utterly transcends the normal consciousness of linear time ticking over moment-by-moment, and enters into the timeless realm of the 'eternal now'. Thought itself is time, and to go beyond thought is to go beyond time also. This is the meditative state known as Samadhi. There is a contributor who writes about that topic frequently on this forum.

Hi Poseidon,

I am currently locked into trying to understand the nature of dreams. A period of no time which occurs every evening in my life. I am awake. Poof! I am asleep. In sleep, I am dreaming (I think). My dreams do not seem to have any time or space associated with them. There are images. Fantastical ones at that. But no time.

And then ... poof! I am awake. The time that past on my clock says 6 hours, but if feels like nothing. Yet, I know that something happened. And this is all done with the same mind (I think) that is awake for the rest of the hours in the day. The same mind doing experiencing totally different states of being. Time seems to flow in one direction when awake but no direction when I am asleep.



Yes. But I would add that since time is entangled with space, which appears to be entangled with mind, then it would appear that the mind is using time/space to create whatever it wishes to create - while awake or while asleep.



My take is that an individual mind (as opposed the a universal mind) does not itself collapse the wave, but creates a relationship with all other minds that are perceiving the event, and the collapse would be a consensus. This addresses the issue of why things do not happen exactly as I would wish it to happen. The reason is because other minds have a say in the matter also. Maybe the observed has a mind of its own and a say in the matter also.



Yes. I feel that any description of the universe must take into account this experience that affects all humans. How does it happen and why is the experience so different.

Rich