It looks like you're using an Ad Blocker.

Please white-list or disable AboveTopSecret.com in your ad-blocking tool.

Thank you.

 

Some features of ATS will be disabled while you continue to use an ad-blocker.

 

The Holographic Universe (Reality=Illusion)

page: 2
5
<< 1    3  4 >>

log in

join
share:

posted on Feb, 25 2009 @ 11:39 AM
link   
reply to post by InfaRedMan
 


the egg came first out of a lesser evolved chicken. simple there is no paradox if there was it would not exist. somthing that does not make logical sense does not exist.

give me an example of somthing that exists without the logical explanation of how it is there?
one love
5

edit my computer is a eggy fart!


[edit on 25-2-2009 by 5ive the light]



posted on Feb, 25 2009 @ 03:41 PM
link   
reply to post by 5ive the light
 


Ummm, the chicken and egg is a metaphor. No need to be silly! However your theory concerning this is completely incorrect. The egg did not come from a lesser evolved chicken at all. I fear you need to learn a bit more about history.

The egg came from the dinosaur. Certain breeds of Dinosaur (raptors etc) then evolved into birds that lay eggs just as their ancestors did.

Sorry to go off topic but I needed to address Mr 5ive the light.

IRM

 


Now back to the observer theory. Does the observer need to be sentient to be able to understand the complete lattice of reality it is about to create around itself? Or is this law only reserved for a special club of sentient beings?

I find a 'universal law' that may discriminate between sentience and non sentience to be irreconcilable. So the question is, does it?

IRM


[edit on 25/2/09 by InfaRedMan]



posted on Feb, 26 2009 @ 04:15 AM
link   
reply to post by InfaRedMan
 


well to address my leaned friend. . . . .psssshht lol sorry i can't talk like that its not my style but dinosaur. . .poof. . .chicken? no. as you say lets stay on topic. anything that can change "observes" it "records" a change in its surroudings and acts acordingly, the ONLY way it could happen, relitive to its own personal "experience", sentient or not.

hope that helps
5
edit:"""""" i thought id add some more


[edit on 26-2-2009 by 5ive the light]



posted on Feb, 27 2009 @ 06:41 AM
link   
reply to post by jester87
 

I know understanding physics is not a qualification for posting in this forum. Still, I hope you will forgive me for pointing out that the holographic principle, a consequence of certain theories of quantum gravity first noticed by Gerard t'Hooft and elaborated by the doyen of string theorists, Leonard Susskind, is something very different to the farrago presented by Talbot.


The principle states that the description of a volume of space should be thought of as encoded on a boundary to the region, preferably a light-like boundary like a gravitational horizon. For a black hole, the principle states that the description of all the objects which will ever fall in is entirely contained in surface fluctuations of the event horizon. In a larger and more speculative sense, the theory suggests that the entire universe can be seen as a two-dimensional information structure "painted" on the cosmological horizon, so that the three dimensions we observe are only an effective description at low energies.

In case you didn't get all of that, allow me to explain by means of a simple analogy.

Imagine a glass ball suspended in mid-air. Internally, it is transparent, but there is a complex pattern on its surface. The pattern is made up of opaque and transparent areas.

Shine a laser vertically through the ball from top to bottom. Obviously, the laser beam will enter the ball through the transparent areas on its upper hemisphere. The opaque areas will block it. So the light shining through the ball carries a projection of the pattern on its upper hemisphere through the glass.

Now shine another laser horizontally through the ball from left to right (as you look at it). This beam will carry a similar projection of the pattern on the ball's left hemisphere.

Where the two laser beams meet at right angles inside the ball, they may interfere with one another. That interference will create a holographic image inside the ball. If you draw the patterns on the surface correctly, you could produce any image you like inside the ball: a flute-playing Krishna, say, or a turnip.

The analogy is not exact, but that is what the holographic principle states: all the stuff happening inside the universe can be thought of as a holographic image of stuff happening on the 'surface' of it.

Observe, then, that the projector of this holographic image is not 'inside' the universe but on the boundary of it. So unless your brain is located roughly 78 billion light-years from its putative housing inside your skull, it is not the source of the holographic image we call the universe. The source is outside the universe.

Additionally, there seems to be some confusion here between a hologram and a holographic image.

A hologram is not the projected image you see. It is the little piece of specially-patterned film you stick in front of a laser projector to produce a holographic image. According to the holographic principle, the universe is not a hologram; it is a holographic projection. The hologram is on the surface of the universe.

So I'm afraid the holographic principle, or the holographic universe if you like that better, offers absolutely no support for the dubious proposition that reality is created by the mind.

That, by the way, is a philosophical argument - a very old one - having nothing whatsoever to do with holograms. It has more merit than Talbot's New Age monkeybabble, but there is no way to prove it. It is certainly not, as you imply, a self-evident truth. IRM has offered you one intelligent counterargument; there are many more. The debate between empiricism and rationalism has been declared a draw.



posted on Feb, 27 2009 @ 10:40 PM
link   
Listen to yourself... how can reality be an illusion? if reality was an illusion then it wouldn't be reality in the first place. reality is reality and an illusion is an illusion.



posted on Mar, 2 2009 @ 09:35 PM
link   
My main issue with this , what if it's part of the NWO plan to create a new religion. Think of it . If the forces of the NWO could convince people that reality is some kind of an illusion.. with aid of technologies like HAARP, the people would be powerless . One could create what ever reality for the masses. Frightening scenario.



posted on Mar, 2 2009 @ 09:44 PM
link   
reply to post by Astyanax
 


wow nice read , thnx



posted on Mar, 2 2009 @ 10:58 PM
link   



posted on Mar, 2 2009 @ 11:22 PM
link   
They just found a planetary "body" that is as big as Jupiter and yet it is so cold, 456 degrees Fahrenheit below zero, or only 40 degrees above absolute zero.

It is so cold, no light can escape from it, and the reason it has never been observed by any optical telescopes.

Could it be a giant cooling system for the holographic universe, ie the opposite of the Sun?

It very well could be, since Einstein's famous postulation that every force has an equal and opposite force.

I'm sure it will not be soon explained and yet another enigma in this vast expanse we call reality.

Mystery Heavenly Body Discovered



posted on Mar, 3 2009 @ 03:15 AM
link   
180 degrees east of the ballpark

Hi, TH3ON3. Your post illustrates the terrible dangers of uninformed guesswork and serves as a dire warning to us all.


Could it be a giant cooling system for the holographic universe, ie the opposite of the Sun?

You are confusing the universe with the solar system. The Sun is only one of billions of stars in our galaxy, and there are trillions of galaxies in the universe. It is much, much smaller in relation to the universe than a speck of dust is to Miami Beach.

Anyway, why do you think the universe needs a cooling system? Have you heard of the law of conservation of mass-energy?


It very well could be, since Einstein's famous postulation that every force has an equal and opposite force.

You mean Newton's Third Law of Motion.


I'm sure it will not be soon explained and yet another enigma in this vast expanse we call reality.

Some folk like enigmas so much they want them to stay enigmas for ever. Others like enigmas too, because by puzzling them out they can add to the treasury of human knowledge and understanding. I suspect these two kinds of folk will always be a disappointment to one another.

[edit on 3-3-2009 by Astyanax]



posted on Mar, 12 2009 @ 10:59 AM
link   
Idealism is very hard to stomach for most people today. Although, during the enlightenment it was the prevailing philosophy of the day. Why is it so abhorrent? Mostly because it denies our whole world, which come on, seems very real. Secondly, because it makes everything in our world seem to be a big lie - so what there was no Greeks, and Pyramids? Surely there is a word out there, independent of us, which we come and go.

Another thing which makes idealism very sour to the taste is its philosophical strengths. It does away with all the problems of mind and body, in a kind of cheap move, by reducing everything to the mind. It lacks the intellectual vigour of science which seeks to analyse reality and goes to such painstreaking efforts to do it. So idealism is perceived as quite lazy, and idealists are often accused of being world-deniers, hippies etc Many of the Buddhists and Hindus are idealists, and they are no more popular today because of it.

The only problem is, science cannot resolve the mind-body problem. It has tried very hard to do it but every attempt has failed. The irony is science is trying very hard to analyse the material world, but is increasingly finding out that it may not exist after all! Thus idealism creeps its ugly head again, and it has done so very forcefully in Quantum Physics. Interesnigly, the Quantum Physicists love the unpopular guys, the Hindus and Buddhists and constantly seek inspiration from them.

The collapse of the dualistic universe is somewhat seen as the defeat of Abrahmic religions. It is not just atheists that have vested interests in a dualistic universe, the Christians, Muslims and Jews do as well. The Eastern religions are OWNING them as they say in elite speak. So suppose we accept the conclusion of Quantum Physics, the universe is not matter, but potentiality, which becomes matter only when observed by a mind, does this mean there is no external world? If we look at Hindu teachings, particularly by the genius philosopher Adi Sankarcharya, who asserts the entire universe is just one absolute being, he also makes a clear distinction between the non-dual aspect of absolutem and the dual aspect, positing a theory of property dualism. It is not that the dual aspects(i.e. the material world) are unreal, only they are relatively lesser real compared to the non-dual aspect. Just like the speed of light is constant for all observers, the absolutem is a constant reality for all observers.

There is a paradox however in Sankara's non-dual model of reality. That paradox is how there can be any kind of dualism within it. Sankara, just evades this question, but it was problematic enough to lead equally brilliant thinkers like Ramunjacharya to revise that model and qualify it. The new theory is that the absolutism is consisting of infinite parts, and the particle and the whole share within each other.

That is, the absolutem is a pure consciousness, and that consciousness is a dynamic and constantly fluxuating field of thought. Each particle of that absolutem is a subject, observering the absolutem, not from outside or inside, but actively sharing in with the absolute and participating in creative events. From the frame of reference of the individual subject, it appears to be witnessing a subjective and objective reality, but from the frame of reference of the absolutem, it is witnessing itself. In other words the absolutem is the pure subject.

So what is matter? Matter in this model are thought-waves occuring within the universal field of the absolutem. They are not necessarily anybodies thoughts, they are the manifestations of univeral consciousness: a participation between the absolutem and the infinite subjects.

The final paradox to resolve is how can there be a whole made up of parts? It can be resolved by saying that the whole is not only made up of parts, it is made up out of parts and the whole. That is the whole and the parts are ontologically interdependent, and do not exist by themselves.


So we idealists really are not that bad in the end if we see it with Hindu eyes. All events in this universe are just quantum fluxuations in the universal mind field: space, time, matter and even cognition. By adopting this model we can rid of the exclusivism of science and the Abrahmic religions. To say this more elegantly: Science will never be able to get rid of consciousness and religion will never be able to get rid of matter.


[edit on 12-3-2009 by Indigo_Child]



posted on Mar, 12 2009 @ 10:56 PM
link   
reply to post by Indigo_Child
 

Mind and consciousness are most probably epiphenomena related to brain function. The mind-body problem is so much twaddle. Descartes, like all idealists, had it backwards: you don't exist because you think; if you think, it is because you exist and because you are a certain kind of organism. In fact, it's arguable whether you think at all, at least in the directed sense most people mean when they say 'thought'. Your actions and reactions are determined by your brain long before you become conscious of them, so any control that may seem to be exerted by this 'mind' is completely illusory.

[edit on 12-3-2009 by Astyanax]



posted on Mar, 13 2009 @ 05:51 PM
link   
reply to post by Astyanax
 


The theory of epiphenomenalism is indeed one theory on what and why consciousness is. Alas, it is not unproblematic. So far in the entire history of Psychology, Neruoscience, Cognitive Psychology, notbody has been able to prove that consciousness is an epiphenomena of the brain. This is why it is known as the hard problem of consciousness. It is really just the modern avatar of the Cartesian mind-body problem, but more nuanced. The problem is how can any kind of phenomenaological description take place in a purely physicalist system. Nobody has been able to show this. In fact there really is no logical reason to believe that it could ever be possible. Consciousness, unfortunately, cannot be reduced to matter or to any kind of linguistic framework. It is fundamentally mysterious and immaterial.

You point out that there is clear correlation between brain states and consciousness states. That is true, but you are commiting a causal fallacy by asserting that the brain states are the causes of these states of consciusness. There is no entailment between brain states and conscious states, there is only just an indication that brain states and conscious states have correlation. This is why it is called the soft problem of consciousness. To illustrate why there is no entailment, consider a live television set. It would be found that by manipulating the controls on the television set one can manipulate the output on the screen. You can turn the knobs up and down for instance and tune in and out. This does not mean that you are causing the output, the output as we know is being caused by televisions signals non-local to the television set.

There is no conflict between idealism and neuroscience. I can accept neuroscience, brain and consciousness correlations, and still maintain that consciousness is non-local to the body.


[edit on 13-3-2009 by Indigo_Child]



posted on Mar, 16 2009 @ 03:49 AM
link   

Originally posted by Indigo_Child
So far in the entire history of Psychology, Neruoscience, Cognitive Psychology, notbody has been able to prove that consciousness is an epiphenomena of the brain.

Hit somebody hard enough over the head and you will have proved to yourself that consciousness bears a causal relation to brain function.


The problem is how can any kind of phenomenaological description take place in a purely physicalist system. Nobody has been able to show this. In fact there really is no logical reason to believe that it could ever be possible.

We don't have to tie ourselves into philosophical knots. Nobody has been able to show the opposite either, and while there may be no logical reason why such a connection might exist, observation strongly suggests that it does.


Consciousness, unfortunately, cannot be reduced to matter or to any kind of linguistic framework. It is fundamentally mysterious and immaterial.

That, I think, is a problem for idealists, not naturalists.


You are commiting a causal fallacy by asserting that the brain states are the causes of these states of consciusness.

See above.


To illustrate why there is no entailment, consider a live television set. It would be found that by manipulating the controls on the television set one can manipulate the output on the screen. You can turn the knobs up and down for instance and tune in and out. This does not mean that you are causing the output, the output as we know is being caused by televisions signals non-local to the television set.

Precisely. And, moreover, signals from the past. But consciousness is just along for the ride, though as melatonin says it may be free to twiddle the knobs a bit and even see some kind of a result.


There is no conflict between idealism and neuroscience. I can accept neuroscience, brain and consciousness correlations, and still maintain that consciousness is non-local to the body.

Yes... Well, that's what I call a Mind of the Gaps, like the analogous God of the Gaps argument popular with the religious. But these gap are getting awfully narrow nowadays.



posted on Mar, 16 2009 @ 06:53 PM
link   
I hit back and lost my post. Very annoying. So this one is going to be more brief than the former one.


Hit somebody hard enough over the head and you will have proved to yourself that consciousness bears a causal relation to brain function.


You are commiting the causal fallacy again. All that would indicate is that their is a correlation between brain states and conscious states. This is not a problem for idealism which is why it is called the soft problem of consciousness. To conclude that hitting somebody hard on the head causes impairment in consciousness, therefore consciousness is in the head, would be like taking a hammer to a live radio, which causes impairment in the music and concluding the music was in the radio.
This is a naive form of causality. Another example: is like flicking a switch and observing a light coming on, and then concluding the light was manufactured by the switch. In actuality the light is non-local to the switch, the music is non-local to the radio, and in the same way consciousness could be non-local to the brain. Indeed, this is how many spiritual traditions describe consciousness.

The problem with naive causality is that the observer is only privvy to the empirical, they are not actually privvy to the process. The process could be a simple causal chain (hit brain, affect consciousness) or it could be a complex causal chain(hit brain, process stage 1, process stage 2, process stage 3 etc, affect consciousness) in fact logically the complexity of the causal chain could be extended ad-infinitum.


We don't have to tie ourselves into philosophical knots. Nobody has been able to show the opposite either, and while there may be no logical reason why such a connection might exist, observation strongly suggests that it does.


As soon as you make a truth claim it becomes a philosophical matter. Science does not make truth-claims because it deals with physics, not metaphysics. Its domain is strictly limited to the empirical. It can create models, but all models would be falsifiable, and no matter how much empirical data it gathers to support its model, it could never verify it. This kind of empirical logic is called induction in Philosophy. If we ascertain things on the basis of observation, then we should also conclude that the sun is an orb in the sky that sets and rises and the Earth is flat and static.

I have nothing against inductive logic by the way, but it is limited to only the premises it is based on. In a classical mechnical universe, all causes have absolute effects and can be predicted with certainity. However, in the QM universe, there is uncertainity over all effects. There exist today even more models each which have varying predicates. They can't all be true.

You claim that Idealism has not proven the opposite. I would assume the opposite being that consciousness is not an epiphenomena of the brain and the non-existence of a material world. Actually, the philosophical strengths of idealism, which is why it is so compelling, it doesn't need to disprove the existence of matter. In idealism matter, body, brain etc are just categories in the mind, like everything else. This is true, because all of experience consists of sensory data that occurs within the space of the mind. Thus there is no necessity for it to disprove the existence of matter.

For idealists analysing things in the world, including body and brain, is like analysing things in your dream. They don't have any independent existence in another world, they are are all occuring in the space of your mind.


That, I think, is a problem for idealists, not naturalists.


See above explanation again. Idealists do not even admit the existence of matter as a separate world, thus they have no reason to reduce matter to consciousness. For them matter is just another category in the mind. The reason why it is a problem for naturalists is because they insist consciousness is a material phenomena, but cannot account for any phenomenalogical state. Nor is there any kind of entailment in their logic that could ever allow phenomenalogical states. Thus consciousness for them will always remain a mysterious and immaterial thing.

The other problem naturalists face is the absence of access to conscious states. You cannot open up someones head and see their thoughts. All conscious experience is private. As naturalism is based on measuring empirical phenomena, and consciousness is non-measurable and non-empirical, they could never actually analyse consciousness and thus it will always remain out of their domain.


Precisely. And, moreover, signals from the past. But consciousness is just along for the ride, though as melatonin says it may be free to twiddle the knobs a bit and even see some kind of a result.


But again the results would just be correlations, no causal explanation is warrented. Here is another example, I seem to be giving them out constantly to you. If I click on a link in my internet browser, it causes me to be directed to another page. Does this mean that the page is in my computer? No, the page is non-local to my computer.

[QUOTE]Yes... Well, that's what I call a Mind of the Gaps, like the analogous God of the Gaps argument popular with the religious. But these gap are getting awfully narrow nowadays.

They are actually getting wider. The best shot the naturalists have had at the problem is the cybernetic hypothesis, this is the cutting edge of naturalists attempts at solving the problem, and still they have failed. They have developed some ingenious models like self-modelling systems to explain consciousness, and I must give credit where it is due, but still nothing. The repeated failures of the naturalists has actually brought idealism back into the picture. Most of the lumanaries of QM, for example, are idealists.

I do not mean to impose on you. But the chances are when you meet death, you will wake-up in another reality.

[edit on 16-3-2009 by Indigo_Child]



posted on Mar, 16 2009 @ 11:43 PM
link   

Originally posted by Indigo_Child
I hit back and lost my post. Very annoying. So this one is going to be more brief than the former one.

Considering how long this one is, that was probably for the best...



You are commiting the causal fallacy again...

...how many spiritual traditions describe consciousness.

A swift stroke of Occam's razor and all this hypothetical fat falls away. We have absolutely no reason to suppose consciousness is 'non-local to the brain' as you suggest.


The problem with naive causality is that the observer is only privvy to the empirical, they are not actually privvy to the process.

Could you give me an example of a process, then, to which an observer might be privy? Since, as you say, the very processes of his own thought are not accessible to him?


As soon as you make a truth claim it becomes a philosophical matter...

...flat and static.

I'm familiar with all this. It is irrelevant, except for purposes of philosophical argument. No rational person (rational in the psychiatric, not the philosophical sense) ever acts as if perceived reality isn't real. The human race votes with its feet for empiricism, even though most people like to think they're idealists. And science, despite the Popperish reservations you mention, operates just the same way in real life.


In a classical mechnical universe, all causes have absolute effects and can be predicted with certainity. However, in the QM universe, there is uncertainity over all effects.

You're taking quantum mechanics further than it actually goes. In the world of macroscopic effects, quantum randomness tends to get cancelled out, which is why we experience a world of definable causes and effects. The quantum world is in some sense real, not simply a conceptual aberration on which airy philosophical theories and New Age fantasies may be conceived at random. It has its limits, its realm or scope of action, and these must be understood and respected before you start playing philosophical football with the theory. Arguing from the quantum to the macroscopic is a meaningless exercise; the uncertainties that compel quarks trouble no quasars.

I'm afraid the rest of your post merely came across as special pleading for a somewhat outdated philosophy. The problem is letting go the Self, isn't it? Rather Buddhist, really, if you think about it like that. Accepting the nonexistence of God is hard enough - most people never manage it - but it's nothing, in terms of psychological conflict and disturbance, compared with accepting that the Self does not exist. So I shouldn't worry about idealism. It will survive for as long as people need help facing reality, which probably means it will survive for ever.



posted on Mar, 17 2009 @ 11:16 AM
link   

A swift stroke of Occam's razor and all this hypothetical fat falls away. We have absolutely no reason to suppose consciousness is 'non-local to the brain' as you suggest.


Occam's razor is problematic. If the simplest explanation is sufficient, then we we should be concluding that the Earth is flat, because it seems just so obvious. The problem is that actually there exists far more complex explanations for things. As I mentioned in contemporary physics there exists dozens of models to explain phenomena, and some of them are incredibly complex.

We do actually have a reason to believe that consciousnes is non-local to he body. The very fact that it an immateral phenomena, subjective and non-empirical, clearly shows that it is not matter. Hence it cannot be local to the body. Again in the same way the music being fundamentally a different substance from the substance which the radio is made of, leads one to conclude that the music is non-local to it.


Could you give me an example of a process, then, to which an observer might be privy? Since, as you say, the very processes of his own thought are not accessible to him?


The obsever is not privvy to any process. For example, the complex processes that take place in the act of perception, the observer is not aware of, because they take place before perception has taken place.

In science only models can exist which speculate on possible processes, but as none of this is empirically verifiable and none of it is can be proven. Thus Science cannot prove anything. It is not the job of science to prove anything anyway. If one thinks Science proves things, they don't understand the scientific method at all.


I'm familiar with all this. It is irrelevant, except for purposes of philosophical argument. No rational person (rational in the psychiatric, not the philosophical sense) ever acts as if perceived reality isn't real. The human race votes with its feet for empiricism, even though most people like to think they're idealists. And science, despite the Popperish reservations you mention, operates just the same way in real life.


It is certainly not irrelevant. If anybody makes a truth claim, its becomes a matter of philosophy. A scientist wothy of the title would not claim that they have proven anything. There were such postivist scientists in the past, which considered the scientific method as being the only way of establishing truth, but not surprisingly today there are hardly any about. Simply because positivism was demonstrated to be a dubious philosophy. Many naturalist movements have come and gone.

Another huge error commited by the positivists is the fallacy of psychologism. That is generalising hypothetical theories to the real world, when the real world does not behave as per our idealised laws. An example of this is ideal laws in classical physics, or generalising mathematics to the real world.


You're taking quantum mechanics further than it actually goes. In the world of macroscopic effects, quantum randomness tends to get cancelled out, which is why we experience a world of definable causes and effects. The quantum world is in some sense real, not simply a conceptual aberration on which airy philosophical theories and New Age fantasies may be conceived at random. It has its limits, its realm or scope of action, and these must be understood and respected before you start playing philosophical football with the theory. Arguing from the quantum to the macroscopic is a meaningless exercise; the uncertainties that compel quarks trouble no quasars.


Actually classical physics is a widely rejected physical model today. Its predicates are false. The idea of a universe existing of individual entities, whose behaviour can be predicted by ideal laws, was killed very quickly. The discovery of force fields and electromagnetism threw a spanner in the works of the universe existing of particles on which forces act. Then came General Relativity which finished the job, and also was a better predicter of macrocosmic events. It introduced the concepts of relativistic frames of reference, the continuum of space-time, and the notion of gravity bending light. Then came Quantum Mechanics, which was able to show that at a fundamental level matter does not at all behave in a precitable manner, in fact most of the universe is empty space, and electrons simutaneously exist in all possible states. i.e., it can be everywhere.

Again none of these models are conclusive, but they improve upon the previous paradigms by explaining the inconsistencies in them. The fundamental paradox, which you pointed out, is that there seems to exist a solid world. However, in actual fact, the world is not solid at all, it is mostly empty space or void. It only appears to be solid when it is observed by the mind. One could just dismiss QM as just an elaborate theory, but unfortunately, empirical evidence clearly shows QM works, and without QM we would not have computers.

The next stage is accouting for the physical paradox of an uncertain and chaotic universe, but which appears to be certain and coherent. This is where M-theory comes in, and it is the cutting edge of physics today. There is still no empirical evidence for it, but the mathematical models are impeccable. The proposed attempt at creating a mini-black hole may give M-theory the much needed empirical evidence.


I'm afraid the rest of your post merely came across as special pleading for a somewhat outdated philosophy. The problem is letting go the Self, isn't it? Rather Buddhist, really, if you think about it like that. Accepting the nonexistence of God is hard enough - most people never manage it - but it's nothing, in terms of psychological conflict and disturbance, compared with accepting that the Self does not exist. So I shouldn't worry about idealism. It will survive for as long as people need help facing reality, which probably means it will survive for ever.


I am not really pleading, merely pointing out the fallacies in your arguments. It does not matter to me what you believe in the end, it is your choice what you believe in. I think the problem comes when you start imposing your belief on others by declaring it as a fact. It is really patronizing to tell someone that the reason they believe something is just because they're insecure and in denial, and it really is no different to religious fundamentalism. An attitude like that will invariably lead to conflict.

The problem is not with your beliefs, the problem is that you are making a truth claim and unfortunately it does not hold when subject to logical analysis . Perhaps you are finding that hard to accept, thus doing exactly what you are accusing idealists of doing: denying facts. In this case those facts are the the flaws in the model you subscribe to. Unfortunately, pretending they are not there, are not going to make them magically disappear. Naturalist philosophers are still working at the hard problem of consciousness up to today, and until they cannot come up with an explanation, consciousness is going to remain a mystery and idealism is going to continue unchallenged.

Personally, idealism is the best explanation for the world that exists today and it is immune from all criiticsms. Hence, I firmly believe that when I meet death, I will wake up in another reality, and the same for everybody else.

[edit on 17-3-2009 by Indigo_Child]



posted on Mar, 18 2009 @ 02:52 AM
link   

Originally posted by Indigo_Child
Occam's razor is problematic. If the simplest explanation is sufficient, then we we should be concluding that the Earth is flat, because it seems just so obvious.

The conclusion that Earth is flat is a perfectly acceptable one so long as it squares with observation. When it ceases to do so, then we require a new hypothesis. Occam's Razor remains as keen as ever.


As I mentioned in contemporary physics there exists dozens of models to explain phenomena, and some of them are incredibly complex.

None of them are in conflict with the principle that entities should not be multiplied unnecessarily.


We do actually have a reason to believe that consciousnes is non-local to he body. The very fact that it an immateral phenomena, subjective and non-empirical, clearly shows that it is not matter. Hence it cannot be local to the body.

Are you suggesting that locality is an attribute of matter only? Why should it be? Are space and substance one and the same thing?

Besides, why is my putatively nonlocal essence unable to receive sensory inputs from any other location than the eyes, ears, tastebuds, etc., of my body? Why, if it is nonlocally extended, does consciousness only receive stimuli from a local source?


Again in the same way the music being fundamentally a different substance from the substance which the radio is made of, leads one to conclude that the music is non-local to it.

Then what would be the position with, say, an mp3 player?

Besides, are you so sure the music is non-local? You're a physics expert, aren't you? At least, you talk like one. All right, then, explain to me how music is non-local.

Take your time.


The obsever is not privvy to any process.

I am so pleased you agree with me. It means your contention that


The problem with naive causality is that the observer is only privvy to the empirical, they are not actually privvy to the process.

turns out to be a problem with all causality, or else no problem at all. As anyone but a tremulous idealist can see, it is no problem at all.

Your comments on science are accepted by mosts scientists in theory, but everyone understands that these reservations make no practical difference. When and if they ever do, you may be sure that the person to notice and point it out will be a scientist, not a philosopher.

Finally, we come to your 'physics':


Actually classical physics is a widely rejected physical model today. Its predicates are false.

By classical physics I assume you mean such things as Newtonian mechanics, classical electromagnetism and electrodynamics, thermodynamics, etc. Can you explain, please, in what sense these have been rejected, in what sense their predicates proven false? Had you noticed that they are still taught in schools, that they form the basis of nearly all our technology, and that our civilization would collapse without them?

'Classical physics' is not 'a widely rejected model'. It works wonderfully well within its natural ambit, producing results so dependable we happily entrust our lives - millions upon millions of our lives - to them.


The idea of a universe existing of individual entities, whose behaviour can be predicted by ideal laws, was killed very quickly. The discovery of force fields and electromagnetism threw a spanner in the works of the universe existing of particles on which forces act. Then came General Relativity which finished the job, and also was a better predicter of macrocosmic events. It introduced the concepts of relativistic frames of reference, the continuum of space-time, and the notion of gravity bending light. Then came Quantum Mechanics, which was able to show that at a fundamental level matter does not at all behave in a precitable manner, in fact most of the universe is empty space, and electrons simutaneously exist in all possible states. i.e., it can be everywhere.

Wah! Cargo bird man him feller big big magic!

Nobody in theoretical physics regards these (or any of those other theories whose names you bandy as blithely as a Nobel physics laureate) as accurate and comprehensive descriptions of reality. It is recognized that Nature gives you a different set of answers depending on which questions you ask her, and how. Reality looks different when viewed in different parts of the electromagnetic spectrum; how much more different must she look when interrogated with gravitational sensors or high-energy particles? You seem to think there must either be one ultimate set on answers which can be called 'true', or else there is no material truth at all. I suppose that's typical of an idealist.

And yes, idealism is impossible to disprove, just like string theory*. The impossibility of falsifying any of the 10^500 string theories that theoretically exist is one reason why a lot of thoughtful physicists reject string theory. The fact that idealism, too, is an unfalsifiable position is, likewise, good grounds for rejecting it.

Which quantum mechanics pioneers were idealists, by the way? Could you provide a list, with sources? Thanks.

 
*Or 'M-theory'; gosh, you really are up with the latest physics jargon, aren't you?



posted on Mar, 18 2009 @ 04:43 AM
link   
[QUOTE]The conclusion that Earth is flat is a perfectly acceptable one so long as it squares with observation. When it ceases to do so, then we require a new hypothesis. Occam's Razor remains as keen as ever.[/QUOTE]

Actually it is not perfectly acceptable because it is wrong

All this reveals is a fundamental flaw in our methods of gaining knowledge. So making any positive claims based on a scientific method is not tenable.

All you could possibly say is: Based on such and such model, and such and such evidence, that there is a relation between such and such.

[QUOTE]None of them are in conflict with the principle that entities should not be multiplied unnecessarily.[/QUOTE]

That is a subjective call actually. I could say that all attempts to naturalise consciousness is multiplying entities unnecessarily, because there is no reason to believe that such a reduction is possible. I generally agree with the principle of parsimony, but determining what kind of multiplication is "unnecessary" is relative.

[QUOTE]Are you suggesting that locality is an attribute of matter only? Why should it be? Are space and substance one and the same thing?[/QUOTE]

Yes. All the material world is extended, measurable, empirical and occuring within space and time. Whereas mind is not extended, not measurable and not empirical and not occuring within space and time(hence not local) Indeed, space and time are categories of apperception which are in the mind itself. There is no such thing as a space-time which dependent of an observer. All space-time is relative to the observer.

[QUOTE]Besides, why is my putatively nonlocal essence unable to receive sensory inputs from any other location than the eyes, ears, tastebuds, etc., of my body? Why, if it is nonlocally extended, does consciousness only receive stimuli from a local source?[/QUOTE]

For the same reason that music playing in a radio, can only be affected by the controls on the radio it is playing on, but is still non-local to it. Likewise, while consciousness is non-local to the body, it can only be affected by the body it is in. Hence why all experiences are private for different subjects.

However, in the idealism I believe in, Hindu idealism which admits of an absolute subject or pure consciousness which pervades through all individual subjects, it is possible to access anothers private experiences.


Again in the same way the music being fundamentally a different substance from the substance which the radio is made of, leads one to conclude that the music is non-local to it.

Then what would be the position with, say, an mp3 player?

[QUOTE]Besides, are you so sure the music is non-local? You're a physics expert, aren't you? At least, you talk like one. All right, then, explain to me how music is non-local.

Take your time.[/QUOTE]

I have qualified my statement by saying that the music is non-local to the radio just for the purpose of anaology. I am not saying music itself is non-local. Everything we experience is local and temporal, because it occurs within space and time. As the Hindus describe it: All of empirical reality is just space, time and causation. The subject itself is non-local and non-temporal because it is outside of space, time and causation. It is transcedental.

[QUOTE]turns out to be a problem with all causality, or else no problem at all. As anyone but a tremulous idealist can see, it is no problem at all.

Your comments on science are accepted by mosts scientists in theory, but everyone understands that these reservations make no practical difference. When and if they ever do, you may be sure that the person to notice and point it out will be a scientist, not a philosopher.[/QUOTE]

It is only a problem if you make truths claims on causality. Most scientists, worthy of the title, will qualify their claims by saying it is their theory that such and such works in a particular way. As soon as they start talking in the language of absolutes, that when they stop being scientists.

[QUOTE]By classical physics I assume you mean such things as Newtonian mechanics, classical electromagnetism and electrodynamics, thermodynamics, etc. Can you explain, please, in what sense these have been rejected, in what sense their predicates proven false? Had you noticed that they are still taught in schools, that they form the basis of nearly all our technology, and that our civilization would collapse without them?[/QUOTE]

I knew you were going to bring up the point of them still being taught today. They are still taught because they are practical, and not because they are right. There is a difference between what you learn in high school and what is happening at the cutting edge of physics. In cutting edge of physics classical physics is an obsolete paradigm. It's plain wrong. We know today that objects do not only behave as particles, but also as waves and the wave function is only collapsed when observed. We know that energy and matter are equivalent and we also know that what appears to be solid is in a constant flux of mass and energy interchange. And we also know that the position of an electron never remains in the same position and nor does it obey ideal laws of motion. We also know that what we call substance is actually just mostly void.

New theories in Zero Point Physics is now showing that not only is there a constant state of mass and energy interchange, but all substances are in a constant flux of coming in and out of existence. In other words no substance at given moment is the same substance as the one in the previous moment. Hence the very notion of "substance" and "matter" is becoming obsolete. Soon to be replaced, I predict, with string theory which will show that physical universe is nothing more than intertwined dimensions. Basically the universe is very strange today. It is light years away from the classical version of the univese.


Nobody in theoretical physics regards these (or any of those other theories whose names you bandy as blithely as a Nobel physics laureate) as accurate and comprehensive descriptions of reality. It is recognized that Nature gives you a different set of answers depending on which questions you ask her, and how. Reality looks different when viewed in different parts of the electromagnetic spectrum; how much more different must she look when interrogated with gravitational sensors or high-energy particles? You seem to think there must either be one ultimate set on answers which can be called 'true', or else there is no material truth at all. I suppose that's typical of an idealist.


The reason I entered in a discussion on the models in physics was merely to illustrate the contrasting models that exist in Physics, merely to point out the inadeancy of science in giving us the "truth" Also to illustrate just how central the observer is to the world. They cannot be separated.

[QUOTE]And yes, idealism is impossible to disprove, just like string theory*. The impossibility of falsifying any of the 10^500 string theories that theoretically exist is one reason why a lot of thoughtful physicists reject string theory. The fact that idealism, too, is an unfalsifiable position is, likewise, good grounds for rejecting it.[/QUOTE]

And there are equally many thoughtful physicists who accept String theory. Again a subjective call. As for idealism, who says it is unfalsifiable, it can be falsified by naturalists reducing consciousness to matter, but as long as that does not happen, Idealism is the best explanation for the world and everything it says checks out: reality really does occur in the space of the mind i.e. it is virtual reality. In fact cutting edge naturalists say all conscious reality is virtual reality as well. What is actually happening on a physical level in reality is nothing like what one perceives. One perceives substance, but physically there is no substance, just energy in constant flux.... and even that isn't true. It's actually a flux between being and not being. The only thing that is fundamental is consciousness and it is within this consciousness that all possible worlds appear. In other words all of reality is just consciousness assuming diverse forms.

There really is no reason to believe this world is anymore real than your dreams, in fact again both are just different levels of consciousness(waking, dreaming) and as consciousness is outside of space and time, it means it is eternal. Thus your being is eternal as well.

[QUOTE]Which quantum mechanics pioneers were idealists, by the way? Could you provide a list, with sources? [/QUOTE]

Yep. bear with me.

[edit on 18-3-2009 by Indigo_Child]

[edit on 18-3-2009 by Indigo_Child]



posted on Mar, 19 2009 @ 05:15 AM
link   
reply to post by Indigo_Child
 

So, now you've admitted that an idealist cannot possibly know anything worth knowing or act in any effective way, have you any comments to make on the holographic universe concept from an idealist point of view?

Since consciousness is immaterial and nonlocal, can this concept have any meaning at all to an idealist?

Does it support idealism?



new topics

top topics



 
5
<< 1    3  4 >>

log in

join