I agree with you. I think we have other non dualistic ways of
understanding. But I also think I went to far in saying that these
could simulate the whole natural system as it is. Obviously, any such
model would be a simulation and most if not all such simulations would
be reductionist models of one sort or another. We might get better
simulations and have an improved understanding, but my base assumption
is that we can never grasp or know all there is to know about a natural
system as it is. To do that, we would need to be that system, which of
course is not possible in most cases. The obvious exception is that we
can be our selves. But I doubt that we can ever know all there is to
know about ourselves. In fact, in many ways it is even harder to learn
most things about ourselves.
An
> objective model can't fully comprehend the system it models, unless its
> elements operate on the same principles, in which case it is no longer
> solely empirical.
>
Well said.
> >We cannot articulate these kinds of understandings because our language
> >is out of sync with them.
>
> being necessarily based on separated concepts.
>
> >Yet I am still convinced that we have some
> >rather ill defined and vastly under utilized understanding capabilities.
> >
> >As John suggests, they probably use some of the same strange quantum
> >features we have so much trouble making good models of. But the key to
> >me seems more likely to be in the notion of how these physical quantum
> >effects interact with the non physical data. The best I can do so far
> >is to say that the data or information is the same as these and other
> >macro physical effects and yet seems to differ from it at the same
> >time. The main reason these difference are so confusing is that they
> >are all non physical.
> >
>
> Even though I promised to be quiet about this for a while (so I can get
> some other work done), I couldn't help thinking about it more. Here's
> another approach I came up with from asking "what is thinking?"
>
> As you know, the idea of "physical" vs. "non-physical" data bothers me
> because it seems that both are necessary to have data.
Why does it bother you that data is at once both non physical and can
make physical differences? Silly question, because it doesn't make
sense in the ways we usually think of physical and non physical as
mutually exclusive qualities. But the assumption is that physical and
non physical qualities may not be mutually exclusive qualities. Use a
little fuzzy logic here. Put these two notions on an xy 2D chart. Now
for the fun of it imagine that there is a range of physical qualities
and a range of non physical qualities that when they meet contain both
physical and non physical qualities. The zone where this happens is our
overlap zone where physical and non physical data exists.
Is it possible to
> equate data with "awareness of physical states."
I think awareness is an experience. As such it is non physical. But
this does not stop it from riding all the physical aspects and systems.
These systems help us manage and use the data. The purposes for which
we use the data are its functions.
In this way, we can
> hypothesize that quantum events are themselves data if they are in fact
> created by observation (self or interaction).
I think we might create quantum events in our heads as we process the
data that our sensory system takes in. But it seems likely that our
sensory system itself also turns light data for example into another
form that we can manage more effeciently.
In the apparently
> "non-physical" thoughts we experience, is it possible that we are creating
> similar "data" when we think?
As Don might say, I think that thinking is a different function from
awareness. And I think it serves a different purpose. Yet, thinking is
also a non physical experience.
However, thinking and awareness are inner experiences. We have lots of
other inner experiences such as where our muscles are and what emotional
states we might be going through. We can think about these inner
experiences and be aware of them.
Then there are all the experiences we have with data that is coming from
outside our physical bounds. Still, these outer experiences are just
non physical experiences. That is not to say that any or all of these
experiences do not have a deep connection to physical structures and
processes.
Once a state has been determined, it is
> "physical." Before then it is undefined "potential."
I don't look at it quite this way, even though the potential aspect of
experience must necessarily preceed an experience. I think if we think
of a neuronal exchange of enzymes we can see that the enzyme must be
released, have certain characteristics and have a receptor to attach to
to convey data. All those physical properties must exist for the data
to convey some part of a larger meaning. But the meaning itself that
gets conveyed is semantic, context dependent and largely non physical.
Our thoughts, though
> they seem purely non-physical, thus require the recording of these events.
Again, I think our thoughts are just a form of inner experience. One of
the interesting things about our thoughts though is that they are
paritially volitional. We can change and manage them in a variety of
ways to help us anticipate all kinds of contingincies. Then these
thoughts become a part of a whole range of experiences.
Our thoughts are a special type of experience that we use to achieve our
purposes. But we can use our thoughts to think about those same
purposes and alter them in some ways. This self referencing quality is
one of the things that makes us very different from most if not all of
the other life forma we know about.
Thus, we can at least to a modest extent manage the function of our
selves. We can change our own function without external causes. This
functional management and control is a complex system that I think is as
different from life as life is from non living things.
> The aware part of thinking is where we directly experience the creative
> event.
I think we can experience creative events withoug being aware of them.
We are mostly no aware of the creative processes that we participate in.
But yes we can also have the experience of being aware of a creative
experience too.
If, as I propose, experience is always a sense of the whole, our
> thoughts are perhaps focusing on different levels or groupings of states
> (data) and being "aware" of their wholism.
Why doea an experience need to be a sense of the whole? There are many
components of experience. I'm not sure we need to experience a whole in
order to classify it as an experience. I guess I just think of an as
experience as what ever it is.
The apparent fragmentation of
> this awareness (I can be aware of any range of things from a silly highly
> specialized problem to the cosmic purpose of humanity or beyond) depends on
> the collection of physical data we are capable or choose to be aware of.
I think you are correct about an awareness experience. It can be
automatic of volitional. And it probably depends on a lot of things
including our history of experiences and the multiple contexts that all
experiences take place in. Still they are not completely space/time
dependant nor are they fully explained by the physics or the bioligy of
the person in which they occur. So as Don would say, our experiences
are not derivable from the physics or the biology of the context within
which they occur. These are functional non physical things/events.
> Only if we could be simultaneously aware of all the data in the physical
> world would our thoughts correspond to the ultimate conscioiusness.
I must add that consciousness to me is a massive confusion of logical
types. If you replace it with experience then I would say that "if we
could be simultaneouly aware of all the data in the physical world, our
thoughts might correspond to the ultimate experience."
But in
> direct experience, every experience of wholism is a reminder of this state.
I think all experience is direct experience. But I do not take the
pantheastic like view that the whole is in all the parts. Differences
are differences. Just because at the quantum level we can't seperate
data from energy, matter, space or time does not mean that all
differences and quantum phenomena are identical.
> Hence we seek beauty, art, understanding, power, meaning, etc. We become
> inspired by the ultimate and try to apply it to the mundane (i.e., what we
> are aware OF, vs. the experience of awareness).
We use our free will to help direct our awareness. So I think this is a
good point. We can use our free will to focus our awareness in much the
same way we can focus and direct our thoughts.
This view preserves my
> objection to "data" in the undefined quantum goo and allows for a potential
> equivalence between the presumed "non-physical" quantum realm and the
> apparent "non-physical" thought realm.
I've not responded to your earlier post but I look at these realms
somewhat differently as you might infer from what I've written above.
My simplist model of these realms is the physical realm which includes
both the quantum and the macro physical universe. The realm of life is
not other than these physical realms but at the same time it is more
than they are. Don would say that this is a complex system.
Then the realm of thought comes through these physical realms and yet it
is more than they are. I say that the thought realm is mostly non
physical because the meaning and semantic qualities of thought are its
main function. This is not unlike the way the purpose of life is
embedded in its replicative and interactive functions.
The "information" is pure awareness,
> but when combined with a data field, it becomes awareness OF something --
> i.e., more limited but still reminiscent of reality.
Again, I have a much narrower definition of awareness. In some ways it
can be considered a function of the realm of thought, but there are many
animals that are aware that don't think. And just because we are aware
of something doesn't mean we are thinking about it or that we
understand. I think that understanding is also a type of experience.
But I think it is different from awareness, thought and all the other
kinds of inner and outer experiences we have.
> >> > so they
> >> > are clearly connected. Is macro derivable from quantum? Yes, but with an
> >> > uncertainty relationship that is quantifiable. Hence the derivation is
> not
> >> > deterministic but probabalistic and context dependent.
> >>
> >> and quantum is derivable from macroscopic...Einstein knew this...as Peusner
> > has
> >> shown. This is also an idea Priggogine develops.
> >
> >I would say that the quantum and macro differences are also qualitative.
> >But that is perhaps just another way of saying that these differences
> >are probabilistic and context dependent. Again, I am a bit confused
> >about the relational aspects of the modeling derivations. If the models
> >are derivable perhaps the natural system is not a complex system. Yet
> >I think that is. So perhaps when I say that are the samd and differ at
> >the same time, this is just another way of saying that the models are at
> >once both derivable and non derivable. So what we may have is a fuzzy
> >notion of derivability instead of an either or test of derivability. ?
> >This is a question for you Don.
> >
>
> I do not believe QM is derivable from classical laws. Perhpas Don could
> clarify his meaning here.
>
> >
> >> > Bohr sought a 1:1
> >> > "correspondance" between classical and quantum theory but had to
> settle for
> >> > the derivability of classical from quantum, i.e., "consistency." If
> >> > classical theory were not derivable from quantum, quantum would have been
> >> > rejected. A big debate exists over the ontology of quantum indeterminism,
> >> > not whether it exists or the fact that it is quantifiable. The debate is
> >> > over whether uncertainty is an epistemological issue (our ability to know
> >> > what causes quantum events) or a fundamental uncertainty in the structure
> >> > of the 4-dimensional universe. The difference is metaphysical, but the
> >> > debate can delay acceptance of quantum uncertainty as an operational fact
> >> > in other disciplines.
> >> >
> >> > My suggestion about data is to accept the separation between subject and
> >> > object in the macro world (which we earlier agreed was relative to ones
> >> > perspective) and that data are what connects subject and object (again in
> >> > the macro world).
> >>
> >> We have already shown where this division is artificial and destructive.
> It
> >> needs
> >> to be severely reconstructed.
> >
> >I agree Don. I follow and agree with John up to the subject/object
> >division. In fact, I think this division is a major contributor to what
> >I call our human blind spot.
> >
>
> Well, I'd like to agree too but want to be clear about what we're agreeing
> to. Perhaps I can modify my statement (if it wasn't clear originally) to
> say that I see the subject/object dualism as a part of the problem of
> perspective, sensory data, and theory, not a quality of nature itself. I
> agree that nature is whole, but our view (including but not limited to
> science) is what is fragmented. This seems compatible with the idea of a
> "blind spot," or in Biblical reference "seeing through a glass darkly." I
> don't see how anyone can deny the subject/object division in theory and
> models - that seems to be the streight-jacket we are stuck with, which is
> why I say the model can't duplicate reality. Does anyone know of a model
> that does not make this distinction or a view that says one is even
> possible?? The reason I labeled the distinction as between micro and macro
> is because we were discussing data, which again I think must involve
> perception, hence the subject/object "blind spot."
I agree generally. Our blind spot, as I use the rather imperfect
metaphor, is in our understanding or our models. It is also important
to note that the worst thing about this blind spot is that it keeps us
from seeing just how blind we are. So the blind spot is both inner and
outer. Hence, there might be a bit of confusion about the
subject/object distinction. This artifice is mainly a useful construct
that we use every day to deal with the physical world. To the extent
that we also use it for non physical models, it can cause unnecessary
confusion and conflicts.
> >>
> >> yes. and we only have access to these things through measurement if we
> hold to
> >> traditional science......this is why it is so important to redefine
> knowledge
> > in
> >> the scientific context. The post positivists, constructivists, and
> others did
> >> this long ago.
> >
> >Don, in your view are we adding anything new and better what scientific
> >knowledge is? I guess I ask this because there seem to be so many
> >scientists who insist on sticking to the traditional interpretation. Do
> >you see things as changing with all deliberate speed?
> >
> >
>
> I'd like to comment on this. I think I agree with Don, but the statement is
> vague about what the redefinition was, and it is not as though the matter
> is settled once and for all. As you saw, I am somewhat critical of a purly
> instrumentalist result of that redefinition, because in ecology and
> evolution it tends to be used as an excuse to not embrace the full
> implications of uncertainty. If, on the other hand, the implications of
> uncertainty were accounted for in these fields, I think it would indeed
> lead to recognizing something new in scientific knowledge -- the direct
> experience of organisms, including ourselves, and the idea of experience
> itself as a fundamental part of nature. On the methodological side, I
> believe there are things we can learn about nature (and have learned) from
> a careful and rigorous practice of inner experiential awareness (as in
> Easern meditation, Zen, etc.), and that, again with caution and care, some
> of this knowledge can be applied to other species and other aspects of
> reality in addition to human experience.
Aren't these all human experiences?
That would seem to be a major
> change in science. It is a change that scientific and religious
> traditionalists fight vehemently for very good historical reasons, but the
> time may have come for that to change.
Good point, I agree. It is time for both scientists and all religious
people of good will to take off the shackles that have bound them for so
long. I think what we are talking about will give them the conceptual
means to do just that.
The question, I think, is if we can
> do a better job of combining these two sources of knowledge in the future.
> I see the need for this cited often, but less said on how to accomplish it.
Here! Here! I'm glad you raised this issue. It is not our main focus,
but this, in my opinion, is one of the main benefits of whatever it is
we are doing. What are we doing?
Norm