Posted on 07/05/2003 4:20:08 PM PDT by betty boop
(It's that time of day/night, again.)
Let's take a giant leap.
Yes, and we will ultimately be judged for choices the we make, the actions we take,...and for what we create. And maybe consciousness is present in everything created...by God and by man...the common denominator. If we were created in the image and likeness of a God, then we, too, are creators...to a lesser extent...and the products of our creations are what we are held responsible for and on we are judged in the end. It is a basis for holding us accountable and for sending us to a heaven or a hell or more lifetimes, or whatever.
The studies of consciousness and quantum science seem to be approaching the giant leap of declaring man as creators of his world (using the abilities given by God). If we are using Gods gift to create our world, that would explain it's many problems and imperfections. If God created it directly, it would be perfect in every way. The flaws are man made, not God made, and it's part of the "learning" process; the "trial" and "tribulation" process. Or maybe not.
Good night.
Up here at the macro level, common sense tells us that a thing is unique and it is in only one place at a time. But in the quantum world a thing is both a particle and a wave and it's in more than one place at once - at least until it is "observed."
The term "superposition" describes the condition where a range of states are true all at once in the quantum world. In Schrodinger's scenario, the cat status is a "superposition" - it is both alive and dead - but when you look, the cat is either alive or dead.
The example I drew earlier is even more extreme, where if you measure the particle's partners both here and on Jupiter at the same time - a paradox exists because the measurement itself instantaneously determines the partner as well. So both statements can't be true. This example was raised in one of Penrose's books.
IMHO, to understand the quantum world it is helpful to lay aside one's concept of physical "reality" --- the same approach is helpful in understanding space/time and higher dimensions.
Just my two cents...
Yes, if reality is everything that exists, and God exists, then God is part of reality. If God created reality, since God is part of reality, God must have created Himself. If God created reality but is not part of reality, He cannot be something that exists, since reality includes everything that does exist.
The theist's solution is to redefine reality as everything that exists, except God. It does not occur to them if God exists outside reality, it makes God both "unreal," and "non-existent". If only they would come right out and say so.
Of course, all this depends on words having meanings that don't conveniently change to fit one's argument, something that does not seem to bother theists or mystics of any stripe.
Hank
Yes indeed.
Ethical theory requires idealisations like free, sentient, rational, equivalent agents whose behavior is uncaused.... The world, as seen by science, does not really have uncaused events.... Moral reasoning assumes the existence of things that science tells us are unreal.
I cannot see how this statement can be valid. For it falsifies human experience and human nature, which is something that has been observed and recorded for millennia by now. It is a failure to observe real facts about man, such as: Man is a living creature, an organic unity that is more than the sum total of his “material” parts and their activity; he is capable of intelligent self-direction,
It's odd that materialists never turn the gun on themselves. Under a materialist rubric, everything must be the result of the interaction of blind, unintelligent material forces. If man's thought is ultimately reducible to matter in motion, then, in essence, rationality would be no different from irrationality, or anything else for that matter. And if Steve Pinker is a man, then his thought, his theory, must be reduced to matter in motion. And his theory that materialism is true would be no different from the assertion that materialism is false. Yet we know from the Law of Noncontradiction that both assertions cannot be true.
C'mon fellas. If you're going to reduce everything to matter in motion, can you do us the favor of being rigorous about it?
RE Post #43; cudos on an excellent post! and the really beautiful thing you've illuminated is not a conclusion but a beginning; a source!
BTW bb--you're tremendous.
I am not math-proficient but have read a lot about quantum mechanics, enough to know that from the human and macroscopic perspectives it is intensely weird in its implications. But to the extent that I must rely on others for the math, my necessarily deficient understanding must also rely on those whose intelligence, honesty and authority I trust based, I suppose, on context, consistency, their ability to explain and the examples they provide.
Penrose is excellent but his math is exceedingly tedious which, I surmise, is to allow other mathematicians to contest it. This enhances his credibility. I also like Walker. He focuses on the right issue, which is the mechanics of the continuous resolution of infinite probabilities into one hard reality, a deep and true mystery, a paradox, from our perspective. And he breaks ground with his facts and speculations as to how brain function employs quantum mechanics to yield consciousness.
That very few if any really understand quantum mechanics is thus to be expected. It doesn't square at all with our daily reality and something quite mysterious is going on, especially if one tries to impose Materialistic suppositions upon it.
That's not really a good description. The measurement on one of a pair of entangled particles tells you what a measurement on the other pair would give. It does not force that measurement to be made. The tricky part is that this is true for all measurements.
Yes.
Thank you so much, Consort, for your beautiful reply!
LOL, Aquinasfan!!! The most striking thing about these people (e.g., Pinker, Dawkins, Lewontin, et al.) is they always exempt themselves from their own dicta, which only apply to you and me. It really is laughable!
Thanks for your astute observations!
"Shortly before her seventeenth birthday, Rosalyn Tureck was playing the Bach fugue in A minor from Book 1 of the Well-Tempered Clavier when she lost all awareness of her own existence. As she came to, she recalls, she saw Bach’s music revealed in a completely new light, with a new structure that required the development of a novel piano technique. Over the next two days she worked out this technique on four lines of the fugue and then played it at her lesson. Her teacher told her it was marvelous, but impossible, it couldn’t be done.
“All I knew,” says Tureck, “was that I had gone through a small door into an immense living, green universe, and the impossibility for me lay in returning through that door to the world I had known.”
Tureck went on to become a renowned concert artist, the first woman to conduct the New York Philharmonic Orchestra and author of several books, including one...that links the structure of Bach’s music to two physical theories.
It has been said that Einstein’s relativity theory was “induced” in similar vein. As I recall, it was he who said as much....
Ramanujan said that his theorems--many of which defied 'accepted methods' and proofs but were nevertheless beautiful and true--came to him in dreams in which a Hindu Goddess [I forget which one] revealed them to him.
As you may have gathered, I am (mostly) a determinist who is struggling in the grasp of these issues because I would like to believe I have free will. I am not prepared to deny either outcome; I would much prefer the opposite to the one I am tending toward.
Also you may have seen me note that I have been reading widely in Buddhism. (This resulted from a suggestion from my M.D. that I try meditation rather than medication!).
"Rosalyn Tureck was playing the Bach fugue in A minor from Book 1 of the Well-Tempered Clavier when she lost all awareness of her own existence. As she came to, she recalls, she saw Bach’s music revealed in a completely new light"
This strikes a chord (sorry) with me. I can neither play music nor read it (a real sorrow for me). Listening to music--particularly that of Bach [and Mike Oldfield, sorry again], I often "lose awareness of my own existence". It is as close as I come to "meditation". One might say that Tureck achieved enlightenment through Bach. (It is also evident that there are deeper--and still deeper--layers in Bach than are apparent on the surface).
For me the music of Bach seems "impossible" because I cannot fathom how a mere human soul can contain such music. It seems that it transcends humanity; that mere flesh is stuff too weak to hold it. It is as if a god were to arrive, open its mouth and begin to sing. (I have a longish tounge-in-cheek tale about that but it is peripheral and I will not post it here).
((Some great man was asked what single body of work he would offer to intelligent E.T.'s to represent humanity. "The complete works of Johann Sebastian Bach...but that would be bragging," was his reply.))
Buddhism demands that we 'just see' which sounds easy but is immensely hard. Some people can do it immediately, for others--like me--it is a life-long struggle. But, you see, 'struggle' will never get you there.
Oldfield once said, "You must play each note as if you mean it", and I think Bach would agree. Mike was disparaging other musicians who just go through the motions.
Both Bach and Oldfield--I have decided--have learned how to 'hook into' the alpha rhythm of the brain. The music is hypnotic in a sense.
--Boris, lost in the rain
Like most things in science, QM attempted to explain what was seen. While God's universe is too much for mere mortals to understand, we can still chip off the little chunks we can handle and create technology. I'm not giving my computer back.
Thank you both for your comments. I'm still working on yours when I find a moment... here... and there, A-G.
As to the above, why can't something so very itsy bitsy be neither, actually, but inherently somewhat like both? And why should that bother us macro-functioners and macro-observers? Granted, it may give us a clue to what "is" is, but there seems to be a-lot of "statistical noise" being generated about it.
Quanta Rights! They have the right to be what they are and not what they're not, despite what anyone has to say.
I suppose I should confess up front that I'm not one of the folks who understands all of QM. I tend to follow Einstein and he was unable to effectively make his case.
As far as the math goes, all advanced math is tedious. It's the results it gives that are interesting.
I congratulate you on your efforts to cope with QM without the math background. It's hard enough with the math background. Good luck.
The point Penrose made was that if such measurements were made simultaneously, there would exist a paradox.
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