Experiment: Quantum particles can violate the mathematical pigeonhole principle

In my last sentence I meant “pan-whatever beliefs”. Sorry for the mistake. BTW, apparently StephenB did wrap up this discussion. BA and BA77 wrote powerful comments too. Well done! PA’s illusionary trucks were a little off topic, weren’t they? They didn’t add any valuable information to the discussion. :) jawa

Well, it seems like StephenB and PeterA had the last (wrapping) words in this discussion. Well done! Apparently at the end of the day all those pan-whatever believes lack serious explanatory power. jawa

StephenB @87:

I think it is a futile endeavor if you create your own private definitions of words. We can only debate a subject profitably by using terms the way everyone else understands and uses them. According to the dictionary, reality is “the world or the state of things as they actually exist, as opposed to an idealistic or notional idea of them.” and experience is the “practical contact with and observation of facts or events”. These two concepts are, by no means, identical. So I think a more accurate account of your philosophy would be this: *Your* experience = *your* reality. Since you acknowledge no reality outside of your experience, it follows that you experience only yourself.

Excellent! BTW, @86, the polar bear case is the reality, while Dr. Behe’s and his critics’ interpretations of such reality are theirs. The issue is whose interpretation is closer to describing reality more accurately? Obviously I think Dr. Behe’s description is the winner. But why? Because they’re based on the observed evidences and coherent logics. PeterA

SB: Everything turns on the truth and that should be the objective in any intellectual pursuit. WJM

I try to be completely honest in both my philosophical transactions here and in my internal, critical analysis.

Of course, I never suspected otherwise, and I am sorry that you may have interpreted my comments to mean that I question your sincerity in any way. I refer only to what I perceive to be your intellectual and moral priorities, which seem to elevate pragmatism over truth. SB: Tyranny “works” for the tyrant, but it doesn’t do much for those who are being oppressed by it.

That depends upon the nature of reality and existence – what it actually means to be in either of those situations, what the value is for those involved, the nature of what is actually going on.

If, as you seem to believe, the nature of reality and existence is more about perception (one’s model of reality) and less about truth (how things are in themselves), then tyranny is an efficient model for tyrants and an inefficient model for those being oppressed. In other words, there is no such thing as objective justice, only one’s perception of justice. How is that anything other than relativism?

In any event, you kind of jumped the shark here – it’s a long way from me believing and doing what works best for me to being a tyrant and oppressing others. I’d say it’s a shorter walk from believing in things as universal truths to tyranny than the walk from holding beliefs as personal opinions to tyranny. I’d say my beliefs are about as far from “tyranny” as a set of beliefs can get.

Your pragmatic model may leave no room for tyranny, but the tyrant, who embraces his own pragmatic model, will find that tyranny a very efficient means for realizing his goals, just as those whom he oppresses will find tyranny a very inefficient means for realizing their goals. I don’t understand how you resolve this difficulty without finally acknowledging that there is an objective moral law that supersedes everyone’s personal model.

Experience = reality, in my worldview, although I think you and I have very different ideas on what “reality” means and what it is. It may be a futile endeavor, in terms of getting ideas across and debating them, when the two parties have fundamentally different perspectives on what reality is and means.

I think it is a futile endeavor if you create your own private definitions of words. We can only debate a subject profitably by using terms the way everyone else understands and uses them. According to the dictionary, reality is “the world or the state of things as they actually exist, as opposed to an idealistic or notional idea of them.” and experience is the “practical contact with and observation of facts or events. These two concepts are, by no means, identical. So I think a more accurate account of your philosophy would be this: *Your* experience = *your* reality. Since you acknowledge no reality outside of your experience, it follows that you experience only yourself. StephenB

@85 Just look at the polar bear thread and note how highly educated scientists look at the same object from different perspectives and arrive at different conclusions. How come? PeterA

WJM @82: “How would you know that the supposed “external, physical world” is not synonymous with your experience of it?” Maybe our experience of the external physical world is always limited, partial? Generally a part is less than the total, isn’t it? Actually, even seeing all the parts, still we may miss the exact interrelations between them as well as different control levels associated with the overall functional complexity of the complex functionality, as it’s the case in cellular biology. Perhaps this is why scientists trying to build a cell from scratch are dealing with the Humpty Dumpty issue. Also could be bias, limited perspective, emotional condition, mental concentration, attention to details. Perhaps other factors too. PeterA

Interesting synchronicity --- just today I became aware of this book, coming out in April:

The Idea of the World: A Multi-Disciplinary Argument for the Mental Nature of Reality A rigorous case for the primacy of mind in nature, from philosophy to neuroscience, psychology and physics. The Idea of the World offers a grounded alternative to the frenzy of unrestrained abstractions and unexamined assumptions in philosophy and science today. This book examines what can be learned about the nature of reality based on conceptual parsimony, straightforward logic and empirical evidence from fields as diverse as physics and neuroscience. It compiles an overarching case for idealism - the notion that reality is essentially mental - from ten original articles the author has previously published in leading academic journals. The case begins with an exposition of the logical fallacies and internal contradictions of the reigning physicalist ontology and its popular alternatives, such as bottom-up panpsychism. It then advances a compelling formulation of idealism that elegantly makes sense of - and reconciles - classical and quantum worlds. The main objections to idealism are systematically refuted and empirical evidence is reviewed that corroborates the formulation presented here. The book closes with an analysis of the hidden psychological motivations behind mainstream physicalism and the implications of idealism for the way we relate to the world.

Sounds just a smidge like what I've been arguing. I'll have to check that out, see how much this guy is sharing my data stream. William J Murray

Human Reason trying to define something clearly beyond Human Reason is folly. Think about that. Let it sink in. Deep. Get to your Koan Moment. (This is not directed to anyone in particular but to everyone in general.) mike1962

StephenB said:

Everything turns on the truth and that should be the objective in any intellectual pursuit.

I try to be completely honest in both my philosophical transactions here and in my internal, critical analysis.

The “whatever works for me” philosophy is unjust, incoherent, and destructive.

Like any model, "what it looks like" depends on what framework one is looking at it from. Perspective is everything when it comes to judging the effectiveness, value or coherency of something.

Tyranny works for the tyrant, but it doesn’t do much for those who are being oppressed by it.

That depends upon the nature of reality and existence - what it actually means to be in either of those situations, what the value is for those involved, the nature of what is actually going on. In any event, you kind of jumped the shark here - it's a long way from me believing and doing what works best for me to being a tyrant and oppressing others. I'd say it's a shorter walk from believing in things as universal truths to tyranny than the walk from holding beliefs as personal opinions to tyranny. I'd say my beliefs are about as far from "tyranny" as a set of beliefs can get.

I think everything turns on this question: Can we know things as they are (realism) and do they exist as they are so that we can know them as they are (realism) – or are we reduced to attaching various names to our many experiences (nominalism). You seem to be advocating nominalism in that context. As a result, I think you are taking something that is important and real – experience – and elevating it to the level of metaphysics, which for me, is problematic for the many reasons that I have stated.

I'm not advocating nominalism in any context. Experience = reality, in my worldview, although I think you and I have very different ideas on what "reality" means and what it is. It may be a futile endeavor, in terms of getting ideas across and debating them, when the two parties have fundamentally different perspectives on what reality is and means.

The problem is that the external, physical world is not synonymous with our experience of it.

That's a pretty interesting claim to make. How would you know that the supposed "external, physical world" is not synonymous with your experience of it? William J Murray

StephenB, Spot-on. Absolute (objective) truth. PeterA

Peter A, @70, Everything turns on the truth and that should be the objective in any intellectual pursuit. The "whatever works for me" philosophy is unjust, incoherent, and destructive. Tyranny works for the tyrant, but it doesn't do much for those who are being oppressed by it. StephenB

StephenB, What do you think about the text quoted @75? Thanks. PeterA

WJM I feel the need to be brief.

You’re discounting my full experience, which includes (1) other people talking about apples and interacting with apples, and (2) my experience of dictionaries defining apples, and (3) my wealth of experience of interacting with others in my experience about how to best have good communication. Even if in your mind you are framing your experiences as if they come from the outside, from my perspective the only thing one can possibly ever talk about or reference is their experience, because they literally have nothing else to draw from or reference. Reading the dictionary is still in your experience. What other people do or say is still your experience. There’s no circumventing that existential fact except by psychologically disconnecting from that understanding of the nature of individuated consciousness.

I am not discounting your experience, but I think you are discounting your own experience by denying that you experienced the whatness of things. The question persists: When you say you are experiencing a thing or event, how do you know *what* you are experiencing. I would answer by saying that it is the essence of a thing, the dictionary definition of it, that you are experiencing. But you appear not to believe in essences, and without that information, you cannot reliably interpret your experience. You have experienced apples; but that experience, which begins with sense impressions of a particular apple, is translated by the mind into the experience of coming to know what an apple *is* (what all apples have in common). You are denying that the mind performs that function, but it does, in fact, do that. In other words, the process begins with the experience of sense and ends with the experience of knowledge. Dictionaries provide information about knowledge, that is, the whatness of things. It is impossible to provide an “experiential” definition of anything. Again, if you disagree with me, I invite you to provide an experiential definition of anything using your own words.

Can you talk to me about something – anything – that is outside of your physical, mental and spiritual experience? And, just so this doesn’t come off as a “gotcha” kind of question, remember that as soon as you think about something, you are having a mental experience.

Anything that you experience – let’s say another human being - exists outside of your mental experience. That is why you are able to have a mental experience of it. Otherwise, you would simply be experiencing yourself.

My interpretation of this conversation is this: you are primarily defending the external-realism perspective as useful or practical or reasonable, and criticizing my perspective as being detached from a what you hold to be a necessary grounding reality perspective. On the former, there’s no need to defend it; I agree that it is useful practical and reasonable. I am defending the external realism perspective because I believe that it is true.

On the latter, I think the conversation has gone off the rails a bit. I infer (perhaps improperly) from your questions that I’m making some kind of case that other people and other things are not “real”, and that the only thing that exists is my personal experience. I’m not making a case for solipsism – that’s an entirely non-pragmatic view. Nobody can even act as if solipsism is true, so it’s entirely non-functional.

I think everything turns on this question: Can we know things as they are (realism) and do they exist as they are so that we can know them as they are (realism) - or are we reduced to attaching various names to our many experiences (nominalism). You seem to be advocating nominalism in that context. As a result, I think you are taking something that is important and real – experience – and elevating it to the level of metaphysics, which for me, is problematic for the many reasons that I have stated.

Rather, my fundamental case (back to another thread) is that the idea of an external, physical universe independent of universal mind is (other than habit and ease of thought) entirely unnecessary and obstructive.

A thing can be “distinct from” rather than “independent of.” Also, we have not yet confronted the proper role of the universal mind. If one individual mind proposes Communism and another individual mind proposes Capitalism, how does the Universal mind achieve even a semblance of cohesiveness? What good is a universal mind that does not even acknowledge the law of non-contradiction, even as it suggests that all individual minds are cohesively connected to a universal mind.

So, what would be the problem if we took the entire category of experience we currently label “the external, physical, consensual world” and recategorized it as a subset form of mental experience?

The problem is that the external, physical world is not synonymous with our experience of it.

StephenB

StephenB @76 said:

Of course, I am talking about the dictionary definition. I say that an apple is “a round fruit of a tree of the rose family, which typically has thin red or green skin and crisp flesh.” You say that an apple is your “experience” of an apple. Everyone knows what I mean, but nobody knows what you mean. That is because I am talking about apples, and you are talking about yourself.

You're discounting my full experience, which includes (1) other people talking about apples and interacting with apples, and (2) my experience of dictionaries defining apples, and (3) my wealth of experience of interacting with others in my experience about how to best have good communication. Even if in your mind you are framing your experiences as if they come from the outside, from my perspective the only thing one can possibly ever talk about or reference is their experience, because they literally have nothing else to draw from or reference. Reading the dictionary is still in your experience. What other people do or say is still your experience. There's no circumventing that existential fact except by psychologically disconnecting from that understanding of the nature of individuated consciousness. I said:

We cannot say that our description of the “whatness” of a truck definitively has anything at all to do with whatever is outside of our experience, because we have no access to anything beyond our experience. Ever. At all.

To which you replied

I don’t think it is reasonable to believe that, much less, to state it as an incontestable fact.

Can you talk to me about something - anything - that is outside of your physical, mental and spiritual experience? And, just so this doesn't come off as a "gotcha" kind of question, remember that as soon as you think about something, you are having a mental experience.

Human beings also have a *whatness,* a nature, a form, an identity. Are you also saying that I don’t exist outside your experience and that you don’t have any access to me? How do you explain our interaction?

Countless things exist outside of my conscious experience - remember, my view is that everything that can exist, exists. I certainly don't have "everything" in my conscious experience. However, my only conscious access to anything that exists is through my experience of it in some way or another - what we call physical, mental or spiritual (which in my view would all actually be different categories of mental experience). I can also have related experiences such as other people talking about that thing, looking a maps, reading material, dictionaries (which is, essentially, still a form of other people talking about stuff), but that is still my experience of something - other people saying stuff. However, all of that experience is acquired, filtered, processed and interpreted according to my own internal structures, capacities, ideas, biases, and cognition program. I can only communicate with other people and understand them to the degree that our psyches (to bundle all that up in one word) are synchronous. What I know of them can only be a product of my experience - I literally have nothing else to go on or to work with. My interpretation of this conversation is this: you are primarily defending the external-realism perspective as useful or practical or reasonable, and criticizing my perspective as being detached from a what you hold to be a necessary grounding reality perspective. On the former, there's no need to defend it; I agree that it is useful practical and reasonable. On the latter, I think the conversation has gone off the rails a bit. I infer (perhaps improperly) from your questions that I'm making some kind of case that other people and other things are not "real", and that the only thing that exists is my personal experience. I'm not making a case for solipsism - that's an entirely non-pragmatic view. Nobody can even act as if solipsism is true, so it's entirely non-functional. Rather, my fundamental case (back to another thread) is that the idea of an external, physical universe independent of universal mind is (other than habit and ease of thought) entirely unnecessary and obstructive. We know mind (if I don't use a personal pronoun, I'm talking about universal mind) houses universal absolutes, which is as real as it gets. We also know individual minds can produce what one would consider very unreal things - such as imagining a dancing and singing teapot. Our minds can house very realistic 3D environments in dreams; and they can house very realistic individual and group experiences that we experience as completely real in the form of spiritual experiences and delusions. In common terminology, there seems to be no limit to what the mind can experience. So, what would be the problem if we took the entire category of experience we currently label "the external, physical, consensual world" and recategorized it as a subset form of mental experience? We already have mutual, consensual mental experience in the form of certain abstract universals, so it's not like mind cannot house transpersonal reality. The very means by which we evaluate "real" from "not real", the way we judge and sort our experiences into "real" an "not "real", the way we reason and apply critical thought is all entirely mental. We can apply those same mental tools to our consensual physical experience whether we conceptualize that experience as external and independent of mind, or as an experiential subset of mind. It doesn't decrease the "realness" of it one bit. It doesn't decrease the mutuality of it one bit. It doesn't make it less testable, less explorable, or less verifiable by others one bit. It doesn't make the experience delusional or solipsistic in nature. In other words, you've lost absolutely nothing but the habit of thinking about it and related things a certain way. However, what have we gained? IMO, in addition to just getting rid of an ultimately useless metaphysical construct, it provides for a seamless understanding of quantum effects. It provides for a seamless understanding of how abstract and idealistic principles and forms are instantiated in the physical world. It accounts for how certain experiences occur. It provides a seamless mind-brain "connection". It provides a seamless method of how what we call the spiritual or the mental interacts with and affects the physical world. It explains every non-normative experience. Placebo effect - explained. Etc. It provides a good model for understanding how information appears to be the root of our physical world. It explains the reason why our universe is designed for intelligent existence, observation and investigation. It explains the necessary instantiated synchronicity of comprehensibility between the observed and the observer. I mean, what does this model NOT provide a better framework for understanding? IOW, unlike science, it actually provides an explanation, not just a description, of what we observe and why we observe it. William J Murray

WJM

When we talk about definitions, what definition are we talking about? From which dictionary? I assume you’re aware that different dictionaries carry different definitions for the same term.

Of course, I am talking about the dictionary definition. I say that an apple is “a round fruit of a tree of the rose family, which typically has thin red or green skin and crisp flesh.” You say that an apple is your “experience” of an apple. Everyone knows what I mean, but nobody knows what you mean. That is because I am talking about apples, and you are talking about yourself.

What or whom decides the final “whatness” about a truck, or anything a particular term

It is decided by *what* the thing is – its nature, its form, its identity. That is why almost everyone would agree with the dictionary definition of a giraffe – “a large African mammal with a very long neck and forelegs, having a coat patterned with brown patches separated by lighter lines." That explanation explains *what* a giraffe *is* in a basic sense. An extended definition could provide yet more information about how a giraffe acts, what it eats, and how it lives. What is your “experiential" definition of a giraffe?” I am quite serious about this. Please write down your definition now (without using the dictionary definition, of course), and explain why yours is the better offering.

We cannot say that our description of the “whatness” of a truck definitively has anything at all to do with whatever is outside of our experience, because we have no access to anything beyond our experience. Ever. At all.

I don't think it is reasonable to believe that, much less, to state it as an incontestable fact. Human beings also have a *whatness,* a nature, a form, an identity. Are you also saying that I don’t exist outside your experience and that you don’t have any access to me? How do you explain our interaction?

All we can do is theorize or assume that we are accessing something outside of our experience, and hypothesize that it has some kind of innate “whatness” to it.

That is a very good assumption to make. StephenB

@70: “Pragmatically, it doesn’t matter if my worldview is true or not, or universally applicable or not, as long as it works in my life.” Hmm... PeterA

WJM states:

"(2) Under Murrayism, it is literally impossible for me to convince you of anything not supported by your psyche, regardless of argument or evidence presented."

LOL, so goodbye empirical science altogether.,, Not very practical at all! Especially since you yourself conceded that empirical science itself is one of the main areas where Christianity has shown itself to be uniquely practical or productive among all the other worldviews available in the world. Moreover, your statement, "Under Murrayism, it is literally impossible for me to convince you of anything not supported by your psyche, regardless of argument or evidence presented.", in reality, confirms my contention that your worldview is in fact 'self-delusional wish fulfillment', rather than confirming anything remotely resembling a truly pragmatic and/or practical worldview as you falsely imagine that it does, bornagain77

BA77 @71 said

If you have any actual empirical evidence, rather than just your own imagination, present it.

(1) What would be the purpose in my doing that, given I've already stated that I have no desire to try to convince anyone to adopt my view? (2) Under Murrayism, it is literally impossible for me to convince you of anything not supported by your psyche, regardless of argument or evidence presented. So, why bother? You will always see, feel, and hear exactly what is correspondingly complimentary and contrasting to your psyche. I have no say in it regardless of what I write here. William J Murray

StephenB @67, While I was working on my reply to BA77, the last visible post in the thread was #68. Before I posted my reply, I was on the porch wondering who brought "truck" into the conversation and when. I really didn't want to have to slog through the thread to find out. When I came in and posted my comment, post #69 appeared. Most people would consider that a cool coincidence; that kind of thing happens to me constantly in both minor and major ways. It's a small example of the kind of things that have happened to me in my life, so much so that at the age of 31 or 32 I decided to see if I could create a working model that incorporated these experiences. BTW, "truck" is a deeply meaningful subject for me, for personal reasons. However, to respond to your post, if all I had in my experience of a truck was precisely what you mentioned, I doubt if I could even carry on a meaningful conversation with someone about a truck because it would be so vague a concept. I probably wouldn't be able to differentiate a truck from an El Camino. I've had conversations with people where we didn't have enough similar experience of a thing to be able to even talk about it coherently. I remember one conversation where someone asked me to check out their new car. I walked outside and it was a truck. Turns out that in their experience, "car" was synonymous with "ride", as in "check out my new ride", and "truck" referred to something like a semi or a dump truck or garbage truck. Meaningful communication is difficult precisely because of experiential and conceptual variances between people. You refer to what a "truck" is in itself; but there is simply no way to get past the fact that "what a thing is in itself" is a concept in one's mind based on their experience (all experience is mental) and their experiences of other people including that term in reference to something being consensually experienced. Whether or not an exterior, material truck exists outside of the minds of everyone involved doesn't change this fact. I would assume that if you are going to buy a truck, you would be buying what your collection of experiences inform you about what a "truck" is. My experiences would be entirely irrelevant in terms of what you were looking for. To be able to communicate effectively, we need to have similar definitions and a similar experiential base or communication will be highly problematic or even impossible, if by "communication" we mean actually understanding what each other is talking about and understanding the ideas they are articulating. And that is precisely why so much communication breaks down, or why people who think they are engaging in it can have two diametrically opposed ideas about what the conversation is about, or what was said, what each other means, etc. It's a big reason why acrimony develops - calling each other liars and cowards and idiots, arguing about the meaning of what someone said and refusing clarification or correction. People are operating from different experiential frameworks and what I say gets interpreted into their framework as meaning something I certainly did not intend, and then that other person insisting that I am being disingenuous when I clarify or attempt to correct their erroneous inference/interpretation. When we talk about definitions, what definition are we talking about? From which dictionary? I assume you're aware that different dictionaries carry different definitions for the same term. What or whom decides the final "whatness" about a truck, or anything a particular term may reference? We cannot say that our description of the "whatness" of a truck definitively has anything at all to do with whatever is outside of our experience, because we have no access to anything beyond our experience. Ever. At all. All we can do is theorize or assume that we are accessing something outside of our experience, and hypothesize that it has some kind of innate "whatness" to it. So what if it does? So what if a truck with truck "whatness" exists outside of your experience? The only way we can possibly communicate meaningfully is if we share a enough of a corresponding experiential, interpretive and cognitive base (and a dedication to charitable interpretation and a willingness to be have mistaken inferences and interpretations corrected) that it can allow/produce meaningful exchanges of ideas and criticisms. So, you might say we both need to agree on the external "whatness" of what an externally-existent truck is to have a meaningful conversation about it; I would say that regardless of the supposed "whatness" of a supposed external truck, our successful communication still requires a certain degree of experiential correlation, whether or not our experiential agreement accurately describes the external "whatness" of the truck (should it actually exist). This goes back to my original point I made in another thread some time ago: we cannot know the "whatness" of something outside of our experience because "outside of experience" means you've never experienced that thing. We can only describe whatness in terms of something within our mental experience, regardless of whether or not that experience is tied to something outside of our mental experience. William J Murray

WJM, you are playing VERY loose with the definition of what is truly considered to be pragmatic and practical by most ordinary people. If you have any actual empirical evidence, rather than just your own imagination, present it. I can guarantee you that whatever evidence exists that you think supports, exclusively, your 'Murrayism' worldview, also supports Christianity which you have already conceded to be the most pragmatic worldview:

I agree that for successful, long-term cohesive society in this world, no other worldview (Christianity) has (historically, so far) shown to be anywhere near as practical or productive. - WJM

i.e. You need to differentiate, empirically, your worldview from Christianity to 'pragmatically' demonstrate it is indeed MORE practically useful, indeed that it is MORE superior to Christianity, as you apparently falsely believe, instead of your 'Murrayism" being basically just self-delusional wish fulfillment, as I hold it to be. bornagain77

Bornagain77 @65:

Well, seeing as you have not presented any ‘practical’ empirical evidence whatsoever that your worldview is actually true, just what makes you think, from a pragmatic perspective, that your worldview is anything other than a figment of your imagination?

Why would I present any empirical evidence, when I'm not trying to persuade anyone to accept it? As I said, my only goal here is to have the logic challenged and for the model to be rationally criticized. Pragmatically, it doesn't matter if my worldview is true or not, or universally applicable or not, as long as it works in my life. People imagine false things all the time that make them feel good for a little while, but in the long run, it is really just self delusion that ends up harming them in the end. That is to say, you may imagine that “Murrayism” “is personally effective and pragmatically applicable in my life”, but since I myself can ‘pragmatically’ see no connection whatsoever to the real world then I am, for purely practical reasons, forced to conclude that your worldview is based on unrestrained imagination instead of any real pragmatic concerns. Well, to be fair, you didn't ask what my pragmatic concerns were that led me to develop this perspective, nor did you ask what pragmatic concerns have been solved since I started using my model. Nor did you ask what techniques are used, what my experimentation looked like, or why it is that I think that applying the techniques that are used in the model had the desired effect. You also didn't ask if I had a verification process, if others were involved, if anyone else is doing any research on this model, etc., if they had produced any similar results, etc. So, it is interesting that without any of that information whatsoever, you have concluded that it is all in my imagination. William J Murray

The trucks were first mentioned @44. :) PeterA

I wonder how far the discussion between WJM and StephenB can go. But I’m glad at least they’re referring to the trucks. :) PeterA

WJM,

First, I want to thank you for doing your best to apply the principle of charity to that stream of consciousness mess I left you to read – I was just really excited to get some thoughts down.

Excellent! Emerson once described a friend as someone with whom you may think out loud. I don’t think of you as an adversary, but as a friend. I am glad that you feel free to push the envelope and express unusual ideas. I hope that you will grant me the privilege of challenging some of those ideas if they do not resonate with me. In keeping with that point, it is obvious to me that I must probe much more deeply into the meaning and implications of some of the words we are using. I don’t think we can achieve a meeting of the minds about the relationship between quantum dynamics and everyday events unless we agree that we can know things as they are and use common terms to identify them. I feel the need to be both specific and concrete. So here we go. I define a truck as a large heavy motor vehicle used for transporting things, which is another way of characterizing it for what it is, not how it affects me. When I use the word “truck,” everyone knows what I am talking about, and they also know what I am not talking about. Defining things as they are, I can make claims that are either true or false. When I say, for example, that I bought a truck, everyone knows that I didn’t buy a car, or a dog, or a statue, all of which have their own identities and are defined that way. That is because definitions are supposed to have boundaries; they not only include identities, they also rule out identities. In large part, logic is based on identities. Example: Trucks are heavy; this vehicle is a truck; therefore, this vehicle is heavy. That syllogism works only because, according to the laws of identity and non-contradiction, a truck’s identity is what it is and is not something else. That is what the laws of logic do; they rule out what is false or impossible, so that what is left must be the truth. This is something to think about because we not only disagree about the meaning of “truck,” we even disagree about the meaning of “definition.” If I understand you correctly, you think definitions should describe our experiences of or with a thing, rather than reflect its identity, form, or *whatness*. Unfortunately that doesn’t provide much information because I have no idea which experiences you are referring to, so your definition of a truck is too vague to have any meaning for me. Even if I tried to apply your formula, I would never know which of your experiences (or all of them?) are definitive. I even wonder how you could know. If, for example, you refer to two experiences – let’s say you once rode in a trailer and once changed a tire – does that obviate the need to include any other, or all other, experiences with trucks? Where are the boundaries? From my side, if I go out and buy a truck, am I, by your account, really buying a truck, or am I simply buying your experiences with trucks? From your side, can you even know which of your experiences are about trucks without smuggling in my definition? If, as I understand it, you deny the existence of extra-mental reality, do you also, as it would seem, deny the existence of trucks (as I and everyone else define them)? StephenB

Thanks, wjm. As best I can tell you have what seems to me to be a mystical approach whereby we (our minds) can actually influence the world around us (I know you don’t see it that way), and a true many worlds approach. I appreciate that you aren’t trying to convince anyone, and I appreciate the goal of having a forum for articulating your thoughts (I like that, also), but, despite the fact that there are some ways that I agree with what you say, from a different perspective, your basic view is so far removed from mine that there isn’t much more I can say. Thanks for offering your thoughts. hazel

WJM states:

I agree that for successful, long-term cohesive society in this world, no other worldview (Christianity) has (historically, so far) shown to be anywhere near as practical or productive.

Thus it meets your criteria of being metaphysically practical and/or pragmatic. WJM then states:

Well, to be fair, I’m not arguing against theism. As far as Christianity is concerned, just because a model works really well in many areas doesn’t mean (1) it’s the best model for all uses, or (2) it cannot be incorporated into a broader model that preserves its effectiveness. In my model, the entire Christian cosmology certainly exists and is experienced by billions of people; it’s just not the **only** grand cosmological structure that exist. I have no desire to pry citizens of that world from it; I’m happy they have found what the need and want, what satisfies them and makes them whole.

Well to be fair with your very own criteria of pragmatism, you have yet to practically, i.e. to pragmatically, demonstrate any other worldview, i.e. 'model', is better for all uses, much less have you practically and/or pragmatically demonstrated whether your 'broader' model is anything other than being a figment of your imagination. ,, Needless to say, that is NOT being very practical. WJM then states:

I think I’ve been pretty clear that I only care if my model is personally effective and pragmatically applicable in my life. What works for others, or for a majority of others, or what would be required for a successful society of a large number of people would only be relevant if it works for me.

Well, seeing as you have not presented any 'practical' empirical evidence whatsoever that your worldview is actually true, just what makes you think, from a pragmatic perspective, that your worldview is anything other than a figment of your imagination? People imagine false things all the time that make them feel good for a little while, but in the long run, it is really just self delusion that ends up harming them in the end. That is to say, you may imagine that "Murrayism" "is personally effective and pragmatically applicable in my life", but since I myself can 'pragmatically' see no connection whatsoever to the real world then I am, for purely practical reasons, forced to conclude that your worldview is based on unrestrained imagination instead of any real pragmatic concerns. WJM then states:

That might be an interesting thought experiment – a whole society built upon this model (i.e. Murrayism). What would that look like? Total anarchy? I guess it depends on which cosmological framework you begin with. Something to ponder.

You just basically admitted that you got nothing to show us that your worldview is applicable to the real world, i.e. that it is 'broadly practical'! Again, that is NOT very pragmatic nor practical of you. Instead of you claiming that you are a 'metaphysical pragmatist' perhaps you should instead claim that you are a 'metaphysical I believe whatever make me feel good'. Darwinists fall into much the same 'metaphysical camp' or believing whatever makes them feel good whether it is actually true or not. Or as you said, "I only care if my model is personally effective and pragmatically applicable in my life.",, I certainly can apply that very statement that you used and apply it to stubborn Darwinists who resolutely refuse to concede that their worldview is false!, i.e. they only care that Darwinism is 'personally effective and pragmatically applicable in their lives'.

2 Corinthians 10:5 Casting down imaginations, and every high thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ;

bornagain77

Bornagain @59 said:

Might I be so bold as to point out to WJM the fact that Christianity, since it has given us the ‘miracle’ of modern science itself, has proven itself to, by far, the most pragmatic, practical, worldview?

I agree that for successful, long-term cohesive society in this world, no other worldview has (historically, so far) shown to be anywhere near as practical or productive.

And as Professor Koons points out in the following article, “Far from undermining the credibility of theism, the remarkable success of science in modern times is a remarkable confirmation of the truth of theism.

Well, to be fair, I'm not arguing against theism. As far as Christianity is concerned, just because a model works really well in many areas doesn't mean (1) it's the best model for all uses, or (2) it cannot be incorporated into a broader model that preserves its effectiveness. In my model, the entire Christian cosmology certainly exists and is experienced by billions of people; it's just not the **only** grand cosmological structure that exist. I have no desire to pry citizens of that world from it; I'm happy they have found what the need and want, what satisfies them and makes them whole.

Thus from WJMs criteria of being a ‘metaphysical pragmatist’ who is open to adopting “a more pragmatic option”, might I suggest that Christianity fulfills WJMs criteria of being proven to be far more practical, i.e. pragmatic, than any other worldview that has thus far been conceived of in world history.

I think I've been pretty clear that I only care if my model is personally effective and pragmatically applicable in my life. What works for others, or for a majority of others, or what would be required for a successful society of a large number of people would only be relevant if it works for me.

WJM might object that his branch of “Murrayism” might be more practical for the world sometime in the future if his worldview were somehow given a chance.

That might be an interesting thought experiment - a whole society built upon this model. What would that look like? Total anarchy? I guess it depends on which cosmological framework you begin with. Something to ponder. William J Murray

Hazel said @58:

But what I don’t understand is why he thinks his model is better than having a model that there is actually a external, material reality. How does that cripple us in ways his model would empower us. What better results about anything would result if I, or people in general, adopted wjm’s model. William, can you explain more about the pragmatic benefits of your model?

First, I'm not saying anyone else should adopt my model. If you've read my posts to StephenB, I think I've covered this fairly well. IF your experiential context (what you interact with as the world around you) is synchronistically correlational (precisely so) with your psyche, then what and who appears around you, their qualities and characteristics, how you react to them and see them, everything, can all be influenced by managing your own internal psyche, and without changing the psyche (either consciously or not), your situation cannot fundamentally change in any meaningful respect (keeping in mind that "psyche" is usually primarily subconscious and also includes both the conscious and unconscious aspects of our identity-matrix).

I don’t understand what this could mean. It sounds like a “many worlds” philosophy. Is there another Hazel in some other quantum branch that is almost just like me, or many (a very large number) Hazels, and likewise wjm’s? Stephen points out that such psyches being actual, rather than potential, brings up problems of instantiated infinities.

I've found that most people don't really follow through what the concept of "infinite" would actually mean and react thusly: "THAT is just too big to be reasonable." Infinite is infinite. Existence is either infinite or it is not; yes, that means infinite universes, dimensions, versions of everything, etc. There is no problem - there is plenty of room in the infinite for all of this to fully exist. It might boggle the imagination, but that doesn't mean it's not a perfectly valid implication of what "infinite" means. As far as the question - are there infinite WJMs? Well, what do you mean by that? There are certainly trillions of "versions" of me located at every instant of time from, let's say, birth to death. Am I the same WJM that exists 20 years ago in the subset of timeline experience I call "memory" or what you might refer to as "the" past? No. I look similar, some of my thoughts are similar, etc., but I'm certainly not the same guy. Like a photon in an experiment, there is a range of versions of me that are accessible to observers around me, so to speak.

Taken to what I think is a logical conclusion (but I doubt my understanding is correct), this implies that there are not only an infinite number of slightly different branches of this universe since it’s beginning, but perhaps an infinite number of universe of which this universe is just one branch. I really don’t think this is what wjm means, but I don’t know know what he does mean.

What we refer to as the physical universe, and all of its variations, is like one grain of sand in the Sahara compared to all that exists, IMO. William J Murray

To continue with StephenB's post:

I would also suggest that there is a big difference between having the capacity to be anything at all (potential) and being everything all the time (actual).

The interesting question here is, can a potential for X coherently be said to exist if X is never actualized? So, if in the whole of what exists through all axes (had to look up the plural of axis) including time, if X is never realized, it cannot be said that there ever was a potential for X - because X is unrealizable. By definition, that means there is no potential for X.

For my part, a things existence (both its origins and its continuation) depends totally on the creator’s actions, which would include the action of creating a wave field if things were designed that way. The take home message, though would be this: A thing is comprehensible only if it was designed to be comprehended (ontology) and only if we were designed to comprehend it (epistemology). One without the other is useless. I don’t understand how a wave field could integrate those two spheres.

The wave field generates synchronous comprehensibility between the collapsed wave potential and the psyche through which observation occurs because what is collapsed is in correlation with the psyche.

Is the universal mind at peace even though the individual minds may be at war with one another? Or is the universal mind at home with millions of contradictory formulations conceived by individual minds with no reference to objective truth? If so, of what use is the universal mind?

I don't even know how to approach a concept how universal mind "feels", if that is even a possibility. My view is that "feelings" are only accessible at the level of the individual. As far as usefulness, it is all-providing. The observational loci within each psyche has unlimited (within the confines of logical structures necessary for identity) free will (not to be confused with conscious free action). I don't know how anything can be MORE useful than that. William J Murray

StephenB @57, First, I want to thank you for doing your best to apply the principle of charity to that stream of consciousness mess I left you to read - I was just really excited to get some thoughts down.

If I understand you correctly, you are defining a truck by your experience of it, or how “useful” the definition may be to you. For me, this would be problematic since I don’t know how we could we discuss trucks if I define one as a large heavy motor vehicle used for transporting things and you define it as something that may kill you if you step in front of it? I don’t understand why the nature of your experience has anything to do with the whatness of a truck.

This may be so fundamental a difference in our perspective that it might not be able to be bridged. I gather that for you, the "whatness" of what you experience as a truck is an independent quality (or set of qualities); for me, the "whatness" is about my experience. So, in one experience it may be best to consider my truck experience as "something to get out of the way of"; in another it would be best to consider it "something that can get me from point A to B with some cargo in the bed." I can maximize the usefulness of my truck experience using different perspectives at different times because I am not tied to any external truck reality that defines its "whatness" in my experience.

I think that the assumption of an extra-mental reality is the most useful model precisely because it seems to correspond to reality.

I'm not sure how you are using the term "reality" here. It seems to me that we are actually debating or discussing the nature of reality, so to say that your model "better conforms to reality" seems to me to be out of order. Perhaps you mean, "better conforms to common experience"?

It provides information about what is possible and what is impossible. Example: The music is played before we hear it. The process begins with the former event followed by our experience. We cannot reverse the process, extend our ear, and expect it to generate the music, but we can go somewhere where music is being played and luxuriate in it.

I can enjoy music any time I want without any external music playing simply by imagining it. I can also invent entirely new music this way. Can you tell me where all musical compositions began?

So it is with the truck. First, it runs over the poor victim, and then he dies (or wishes he had). Knowing this, we don’t get in the way of a moving truck– very useful. With these examples, the physical event precedes the mental event.

Well, except when mental events precede physical events, like in the case of every single thing humans have ever constructed or invented or created. We also have evidence of retro-causation in quantum experimentation - where the mental observation chooses the prior path of a photon or electron, literally back through millions of years in the case of starlight.

In other contexts, the order is reversed and the mental event precedes the physical event, as in the case of Intelligent Design. I could provide numerous other examples where this reverse order of events happens, (suggesting a circumstance where we cease being an effect and start being a cause), but the broader point is that it is extremely useful to know the truth about when we can change reality and when we must conform to it.

I see you covered my prior point. I agree that it is extremely useful that to know how much of what we experience we can affect and how, which is why I no longer believe in an exterior physical reality and that I am operating in universal mind. I've spent almost the last 30 years personally experimenting with this perspective, refining it, critically analyzing it, generating variant models to explore and test. The results have been astoundingly beneficial, effective and transformative - but I'm not here to testify about any of that, I'm here solely to examine other criticisms. I'm just saying that if I never experienced any practical use beyond what the "external physical world" model provides, I would have given it up long ago.

I don’t understand why a false model, perceived as useful, would provide any long-lasting benefits.

Lots of models in the past that were wrong were still quite useful and provided many long-lasting benefits. Even if one's model is that Apollo pulls the sun through the sky on a tight schedule, you can still use a sundial to tell time and that can be quite useful and provide long-lasting benefits. Often (if not always) the model is generated from repeating experience; the model might even make some very useful and accurate predictions, only to find out the model is wrong. A new model, that incorporates the same experiential commodities and more that the old model couldn't cover, is invented.

If it’s really true, for example, that men and women are different then it is exceedingly harmful to propagate mental models of reality that reject the complementary of the sexes. Even if that model might work for or be useful to a transgender, it would be harmful to the common good. Truth doesn’t deceive us, but it allows us to know when we have been deceived (if we want to know).

I would say that the "harm" an exterior-world paradigm might be generating can only be evaluated through a proper and thorough examination of alternatives, perhaps accompanied by experimentation. The "harm" may more take the form of closing access to a vast potential.

For me, God is God and he transcends the creation that he designed. Obviously the creator cannot also be his creation. He is the first cause of every other cause or movement just as the engine of a train is the first cause of a moving caboose. That seems very simple and true to me. What seems unbelievably complex (and false) is the “all is one” philosophy that might lead some to think that the engine could also be the caboose.

I don't see that logic as sustainable. If nothing existed but God in what we call the beginning, and God is infinite, or if God is the ground of all things which exist, then nothing exists but God. There's nothing else that exists to make anything out of, or anywhere else to put it. If we say God created "something else" or "a different place" we're violating basic logic - not even God can create a 4-sided triangle and God can't create something out of nothing because "nothing" doesn't exist - it never has and it never will. That only leaves one "substance" and one 'place" for anything to be or to be made of : God. As far as the objection that the creator cannot itself be his creation, I agree, because in my view God didn't create anything; all that exists (including all potentials, all time, space, dimensions, experiences) is what God eternally is. IOW, this is what God is, always has been, and always will be - so to speak, what we experience as "time" being just another dimensional axis in the infinity of God.

If we are searching for a useful paradigm, couldn’t we just say that God has no limitations, but in an act of loving generosity, decided to create a purposeful universe in which is creatures could purposefully pursue their eternal destiny? Couldn’t we just say that the Creator, who is eternal and exists outside of time, created time and space and endowed his creatures with the capacity to design and manufacture trucks?

I'm not saying that isn't a useful paradigm. There are many useful paradigms. Generally speaking, paradigms are generated because they usefully model various aspects of experience. I'm not here to talk other people out of their useful paradigms, I'm here to explore my own via criticism. I've found other paradigms useful in my life; I've never experienced anything near as useful or productive as my current perspective. It fully incorporates every useful aspect of the "external physical world" paradigm as a subset of experiential potentials, but opens the doors wide open to other experiential subsets, many of which are cross-sectional with the external physical world subset.

Can’t we just say that there is [a] a thinking self (who he is) and [b] the object of his thought (what he is thinking about). Some people refer to it as the subject/object model.I find that paradigm much easier to understand and apply. I also think that it is consistent with the real world. Why do we need a “whole” to carry out that transaction?

It may provide a more useful paradigm, depending on how you are fully characterizing the self/object perspective. If there is an underlying, fundamental, correlating union between the self and the object (that union can be characterized as the self/object experience), then the experience is far more than just a self apprehending an external object as-is; the perceived existence and nature of the object is intimately and necessarily relational to the self (individuated psyche). One way of saying that is that the "object" is a synchronous collapse of potential in direct correlation to the psyche. If this model is applicable, then our psyche, what we think, how we perceive things, our will, our subconscious, etc., is important in terms of usefulness. To get a better idea of how this model might be very useful, let's expand "subject/object" to "subject/context". Any identity "A" can only exist in a supporting context that provides both complimentary and contrasting elements. If one's context is synchronous via an underlying unity with the identity (psyche), then this makes management of your psyche extremely important and useful. If the context is synchronous with psyche, then all of one's efforts to generate meaningful change in one's context without addressing his or her own psyche is basically wasted effort. I have to attend to other things right now, but I will pick this back up when I can give it my undivided attention. I think I've addressed some of what others have asked, but I will get to Hazel's and BA77's posts in due order and time. Thanks to everyone for their challenges, criticisms and time. William J Murray