Spiritualism vs. Materialism

[Nakosis]

And what caused consciousness?

Ciao

- viole

What caused matter?

How do you get something from nothing?

Maybe if we could answer this idealism and materialism would be more than philosophies.

 

[viole]

What caused matter?

A slight umbalance of anti matter.

How do you get something from nothing?

I actually woder if you can get nothing from something.

Do you think it is possible?

Maybe if we could answer this idealism and materialism would be more than philosophies.

True. But I have an advantage. I can create objective effects by hitting you on the head with a material hammer. Can you do the same with a spiritual one?

Ciao

- viole

 

[Nakosis]

That "wave-particle duality" notion I despise so much for how misleading it is has had one use for me: explaining realizations of Wheeler's delayed-choice thought experiment. In these actual experiments, we can prepare the system, let it "run", stop the experiment, and then decide after it is over whether we want to see wave-like results or particle-like results. More simply, we can decide the outcome of the experiment after it is over.

Sorry if this question seems a little dense, however I kind of assume that the results are dependent on whether you are making a instantaneous measurement or a measurement over a time period.

Measured over a period of time it takes on properties of a wave. Measured at a particular instance it takes on the properties of a particle.

 

[Nakosis]

A slight umbalance of anti matter.

What caused the imbalance? Cause and effect, we still have to trace it back to some first cause.

I actually woder if you can get nothing from something.
Do you think it is possible?

The scientific theories I've look at so far assume some "first cause". I've kind of left it that matter or consciousness has always existed. Apparently scientifically, we have to assume a cause.

True. But I have an advantage. I can create objective effects by hitting you on the head with a material hammer. Can you do the same with a spiritual one?

Ciao

- viole

I can also experience pain in a dream. A dream seems objective until we wake up.

Idealism, you are not real, there's no head, there's no hammer.

If I was aware it was a dream I might offer to let someone hit me in the head with a hammer. However just as when dreaming I lack the certainty so avoid the experience of pain whether "illusion" or not.

Still some of the choices I make while dreaming, I'm glad to wake realizing it was only a dream.

 

[Gambit]

Ok, take any mental event that ever appeared in your mind. For instance, your decision to have dinner in town, or to study chinese, whatever.

What caused it?

I believe that there are basically four causes at play here: the formal cause , the material cause, the efficient cause, and the final cause. (The formal cause and final cause are nonphysical causes.)

 

[Bunyip]

No, but I think I was wrong about that anyway.

Information, like the information get from looking at a computer screen. It is what your brain interprets. Information can be carried by anything, like light or radio wave. It takes intelligence to extract meaning from information though.

The brain provides information to the consciousness which is extracted from physical stimulus. Maybe a better term is meaning.

Is "meaning" physical?

I would think 'meaning' is clearly conceptual.

 

[LegionOnomaMoi]

Sorry if this question seems a little dense, however I kind of assume that the results are dependent on whether you are making a instantaneous measurement or a measurement over a time period.

Not dense at all but rather brilliant, as this is indeed (at least like or related to) one form of the experiment! They let the system "run" and can arbitrarily determine whether or not they detect "particles" or "waves". It's not my favorite design (it lacks a certain "wow" factor), but it is still important: the same system can, depending upon arbitrary decisions, behave as if they were two mutually exclusive "classical" systems.

 

[viole]

What caused the imbalance? Cause and effect, we still have to trace it back to some first cause.

Why? It could be very well be that this unbalance was a purely random fluctuation.

The scientific theories I've look at so far assume some "first cause". I've kind of left it that matter or consciousness has always existed. Apparently scientifically, we have to assume a cause.

I don't think so. Our models are perfectly OK wothout invoking any first cause.

Idealism, you are not real, there's no head, there's no hammer.

Do you know some willing idealist who would like to test that?

If I was aware it was a dream I might offer to let someone hit me in the head with a hammer. However just as when dreaming I lack the certainty so avoid the experience of pain whether "illusion" or not.

Still some of the choices I make while dreaming, I'm glad to wake realizing it was only a dream.

How do you know you are not currently in a dream?

Ciao

- viole

 

[Nakosis]

I would think 'meaning' is clearly conceptual.

So I was just thinking that materialism would have to allow for non-physical things like concepts. Just not finding where this is explained though.

If not everything is physical doesn't that defeat materialism? Dualism encompasses both. Even materialism has given way to physicalism.

 

[Nakosis]

Why? It could be very well be that this unbalance was a purely random fluctuation.

Yeah sure, that "could" work for consciousness too.

I don't think so. Our models are perfectly OK wothout invoking any first cause.

We can also presume one is not necessary for consciousness as well. Still kind of begs the question but what can you do based on a lack of information.

Do you know some willing idealist who would like to test that?

There was that monk who set himself on fire. However any such action done by another would not help you any. You yourself would have to self realize which supposedly can take many lifetimes or take the leap of faith yourself. Which would prove nothing to anyone but yourself. Even then may not help. Presumably you've died before, yet here you are still stuck in the illusion.

How do you know you are not currently in a dream?

Ciao

- viole

That's the problem. Usually you don't until after you wake up.

Even if you think your dreaming (in a dream) there remains a lack of certainty. An unwillingness to take the leap of faith.

I've had dreams so real I couldn't tell the difference in the dream, but some odd thing made me suspicious. I, still in the dream couldn't bring myself to do anything drastic to prove it. Survival instinct I suppose. Only after I woke up did I realize I had nothing to worry about.

 

[viole]

Yeah sure, that "could" work for consciousness too.



We can also presume one is not necessary for consciousness as well. Still kind of begs the question but what can you do based on a lack of information.



There was that monk who set himself on fire. However any such action done by another would not help you any. You yourself would have to self realize which supposedly can take many lifetimes or take the leap of faith yourself. Which would prove nothing to anyone but yourself. Even then may not help. Presumably you've died before, yet here you are still stuck in the illusion.



That's the problem. Usually you don't until after you wake up.

Even if you think your dreaming (in a dream) there remains a lack of certainty. An unwillingness to take the leap of faith.

I've had dreams so real I couldn't tell the difference in the dream, but some odd thing made me suspicious. I, still in the dream couldn't bring myself to do anything drastic to prove it. Survival instinct I suppose. Only after I woke up did I realize I had nothing to worry about.

Well, the fact that you know that you woke up seems to indicate that you can discern, post-hoc at least, that what you experienced was not objective and the being awake is. Otherwise, your stopping of worrying would not be a relief motivated by the fact that reality is much better than the dream, but just by the feeling of a better, yet still possibly imaginary, state of affairs.

In other words: why did you stop worrying? If your life (when you are awaken) were miserable, would you stop worrying as well when you start dreaming of a much better state of affairs?

Ciao

- viole

 

[Nakosis]

Well, the fact that you know that you woke up seems to indicate that you can discern, post-hoc at least, that what you experienced was not objective and the being awake is. Otherwise, your stopping of worrying would not be a relief motivated by the fact that reality is much better than the dream, but just by the feeling of a better, yet still possibly imaginary, state of affairs.

In other words: why did you stop worrying? If your life (when you are awaken) were miserable, would you stop worrying as well when you start dreaming of a much better state of affairs?

Ciao

- viole

Better is relative. It is more about trying to understand the nature of existence and consciousness. Just natural curiosity about what is possible, what can be experienced. For me anyway.

Some feel they need to escape to something better. I'm fine with this life. In no hurry to experience death, it will happen when it happens. If it is just a dream I'm in no hurry to wake from it. Just want to see how far I can push the envelope.

Yes it's a relief sometimes to realize there no consequences in a dream, still that doesn't mean I didn't enjoy the experience. If you know there are no consequences it all becomes much less dramatic.

 

[Gambit]

I think the wiki mentions that the definition of "simultaneous" with regard to the occurrence of two events has to be determined relative to a frame of reference. With regard to the part you quoted, I think the question might be a misunderstanding, but I'm at least moderately fuzzy. An effect is defined relative to a cause, and in order for B to be caused by A there must be a timelike interval between them, and the existence of a timelike interval between them is not, to the best of my knowledge, a question that is relative to the frame of reference of some arbitrary observer.

If simultaneity is relative (which it is according to special relativity), then it would seem to follow that causality is relative also. In fact, if simultaneity is relative, then it would seem to follow that all events exist in an eternal "now." (I believe they call this the "block universe.")

"I see the Past, Present and Future existing all at once, before me." - William Blake

"And the end and the beginning were always there before the beginning and after the end. And now is always now." - T.S. Eliot

Note that this is with regard to special relativity, since I was trying to make only the limited point that thinking about MWI in terms of a real phase space (rather than as a newly created universe at each event) not implying a lack of causality in and of itself. Special relativity is somewhat straightforward with regard to causality, but there are problems in general relativity caused by curved spacetime and issues with locality that are problematic for causality in QM, and other issues. Most of which I only vaguely know about.

Is the "unviersal wave function" evolving in time? Or, is it a description, so to speak, of a "block multiverse" (an infinite set of infinite universes) comprising all events?

 

[Gambit]

Special relativity requires us to relinquish the notion of simultaneity, or the idea that there is ever any time "now" except as defined according to some reference frame.

Right. My "now" is not your "now."

Classical causality simplistically reduces to the requirements of an interaction in some local region of space and time....However, once you remove simultaneity it becomes impossible to determine the order of events except as they occur relative to some reference frame.

Okay.

There is no way to say what "now" is, except from one's reference frame. As causes precede effects in the "classical" model, they require a linear progression: x causes y effect, y causes z effect, etc. However, this assumes we have some reason for saying that some cause preceded an effect, but as the order of events is relative to the observer this isn't necessarily true. Currently, at least as long as we don't get into general relativity, only particular causes and effects can be confused here. Because the speed of light provides (supposedly) a boundary on the speed information can travel, locally everything is bounded in what it can "cause" or what "effects" it can be influenced by via its light-cone. Globally, the "now" of you in a space-ship lightyears away from me might be described by coordinates that make us experience the same "now", but small movements in different directions can cause you to shift hundreds of years into the future relative to my "now" or hundreds of years into the past.

What's the bottom line? Is cause relative to the reference frame of the observer?

 

[LegionOnomaMoi]

Right. My "now" is not your "now."

Yes. But we are not space-like separated for this to even be measurable (nor is one of us or are both of us going fast enough relative to one another in a way necessary for this to be measurable).

What's the bottom line? Is cause relative to the reference frame of the observer?

In so far as "cause" relates to a sequence of linear events and causes must precede effects, then yes it can be.

 

[Gambit]

In so far as "cause" relates to a sequence of linear events and causes must precede effects, then yes it can be.

So, "yes"...cause is relative to the reference frame of the observer?

 

[lovemuffin]

See I told you I had no idea what I was talking about.

 

[LegionOnomaMoi]

So, "yes"...cause is relative to the reference frame of the observer?

What was wrong with my last answer?

 

[LegionOnomaMoi]

If simultaneity is relative

It doesn't exist.

 

[Gambit]

What was wrong with my last answer?

It wasn't entirely straightforward. Is cause relative to the reference frame of the observer? Yes or no? (There is no need to qualify.)