The Implications Of Generic Subjective Continuity

Discuss any topics related to metaphysics (the philosophical study of the principles of reality) or epistemology (the philosophical study of knowledge) in this forum.
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Atla
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Re: The Implications Of Generic Subjective Continuity

Post by Atla »

Felix wrote: May 11th, 2019, 5:36 pm Atla said [to Tamminen]: "Looks like you really believe then that separateness and non-separateness are equally real."

Let's get real (literally). We all believe this, otherwise we would not physically stick around here for long, we'd stop eating, sleeping, and eventually breathing. So to be consistent, you can not simply dismiss spaciotemporal reality as a perceptual illusion, you must account for it in your philosophy.
You too have mistaken non-separateness for oneness.
We must account for diversity, spaciotemporal reality in our philosophy, while realizing that non-separateness is fundamental, separateness isn't as "real". Western philosophy doesn't do that, that's why it's more or less a refuted dead end.
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Atla
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Re: The Implications Of Generic Subjective Continuity

Post by Atla »

BigBango wrote: May 11th, 2019, 5:50 pm Yes, I can agree with you on those last points. Sorry if I misinterpreted you. Don't you think Western Philosophy takes separateness to seriously and Eastern Mysticism takes connectedness to seriously? At least Whitehead rebuffed Aristotle's metaphysics, within which science still reasons, and instead pursued the idea of our connectedness as it relates to our separateness.
Yes, I think Western philosophy is pretty much a refuted dead end, because it takes separateness too seriously.
Non-separateness is fundamental, Eastern philosophy realizes that much, but then usually goes way overboard with it, which again leads to delusional nonsense about everything being literally one.
So finding the "third view", the non-separateness of all this "discreteness", is rather difficult.
I say black holes are rips in the world of connectedness because there is a central point in a black hole where Einstein's equations of relativity show a point of discontinuity in that his equations show simply a division by zero which is undefined in mathematics. I think there is a healthy disagreement in science between Hawking and others in that field. We will have to wait for more research.
Well to be honest I consider QM to be partially more fundamental than relativity, as some quantum effects simply ignore spacetime. Relativity is probably an umm.. more "vague" and "situational" approximation than QM is, so the idea of stuff being compressed into an infinitely small point may be wrong.
(But even if it's right, I still don't see how that is a rip.)
First of all, it may be true that everything that is visible came from the Big Bang. But, unfortunately the visible universe is only 10% of the mass of the universe. Don't forget dark matter and dark energy, the other 90% of the mass of the universe. I have a lot of theories about that other 90%, but that is another story.
Yeah me too. :)
But since the other 90% influences us too, I'd say they too are non-separable from our 10%.
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BigBango
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Re: The Implications Of Generic Subjective Continuity

Post by BigBango »

Atla wrote: May 11th, 2019, 11:41 pm Yes, I think Western philosophy is pretty much a refuted dead end, because it takes separateness too seriously.
Non-separateness is fundamental, Eastern philosophy realizes that much, but then usually goes way overboard with it, which again leads to delusional nonsense about everything being literally one.
So finding the "third view", the non-separateness of all this "discreteness", is rather difficult.
Yes yes. Also finding the separateness in all this connectedness.
BigBango wrote:I say black holes are rips in the world of connectedness because there is a central point in a black hole where Einstein's equations of relativity show a point of discontinuity in that his equations show simply a division by zero which is undefined in mathematics. I think there is a healthy disagreement in science between Hawking and others in that field. We will have to wait for more research.
Atla wrote:Well to be honest I consider QM to be partially more fundamental than relativity, as some quantum effects simply ignore spacetime. Relativity is probably an umm.. more "vague" and "situational" approximation than QM is, so the idea of stuff being compressed into an infinitely small point may be wrong.
(But even if it's right, I still don't see how that is a rip.)
Well here we disagree. I think Relativity is more fundamental than QM. If, in a black hole, information is lost then the extinction of that data is a loss of connectedness and that possibility is fundamental to my theory that the adventure in life is ultimately to avoid that kind of death. A culture, society and its ecological connections all depend on not falling into a black hole.
BigBango wrote:First of all, it may be true that everything that is visible came from the Big Bang. But, unfortunately the visible universe is only 10% of the mass of the universe. Don't forget dark matter and dark energy, the other 90% of the mass of the universe. I have a lot of theories about that other 90%, but that is another story.
Atla wrote:Yeah me too. :)
But since the other 90% influences us too, I'd say they too are non-separable from our 10%.
The only way science has admitted the connectedness of dark matter to us is their acknowledgement that their gravity affects the rotational speed of our galaxies. Other possible connections remain a mystery.
Atla
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Re: The Implications Of Generic Subjective Continuity

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BigBango wrote: May 12th, 2019, 1:39 am Well here we disagree. I think Relativity is more fundamental than QM. If, in a black hole, information is lost then the extinction of that data is a loss of connectedness and that possibility is fundamental to my theory that the adventure in life is ultimately to avoid that kind of death. A culture, society and its ecological connections all depend on not falling into a black hole.
Well, we already know experimentally that some quantum effects ignore spacetime.

On the other hand, the idea that data is lost in black holes is just speculation, personally I think it's perhaps the biggest blunder of 20th century physics.

For data to be lost, quantum fluctuation have to be genuinely random instead of apparently random. We sort of had to assume genuine randomness, because even if there is some sort of universal determinism behind the apparent randomness, there is no way for us to tell.

Personally I don't believe that the universe "plays dice", I think that's magical thinking, so I go with apparent randomness. Quantum fluctuations may be entangled with the rest of the unvierse, just like "ordinary" matter. That automatically resolves the information paradox.
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Atla
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Re: The Implications Of Generic Subjective Continuity

Post by Atla »

Atla wrote: May 12th, 2019, 1:54 am
BigBango wrote: May 12th, 2019, 1:39 am Well here we disagree. I think Relativity is more fundamental than QM. If, in a black hole, information is lost then the extinction of that data is a loss of connectedness and that possibility is fundamental to my theory that the adventure in life is ultimately to avoid that kind of death. A culture, society and its ecological connections all depend on not falling into a black hole.
Well, we already know experimentally that some quantum effects ignore spacetime.

On the other hand, the idea that data is lost in black holes is just speculation, personally I think it's perhaps the biggest blunder of 20th century physics.

For data to be lost, quantum fluctuation have to be genuinely random instead of apparently random. We sort of had to assume genuine randomness, because even if there is some sort of universal determinism behind the apparent randomness, there is no way for us to tell.

Personally I don't believe that the universe "plays dice", I think that's magical thinking, so I go with apparent randomness. Quantum fluctuations may be entangled with the rest of the unvierse, just like "ordinary" matter. That automatically resolves the information paradox.
So they may have tried to resolve the blunder with another blunder, the completely pseudoscientific idea that "information" is "encoded" on black hole event horizons. And from that came the third blunder, now they really wonder whether the universe is a hologram.
:D
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Felix
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Re: The Implications Of Generic Subjective Continuity

Post by Felix »

Big Bango: "A culture, society and its ecological connections all depend on not falling into a black hole."

I'll have to remember that when I go to vote in our next election....
"We do not see things as they are; we see things as we are." - Anaïs Nin
BigBango
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Re: The Implications Of Generic Subjective Continuity

Post by BigBango »

Atla wrote: May 12th, 2019, 2:25 am
Well, we already know experimentally that some quantum effects ignore spacetime.

On the other hand, the idea that data is lost in black holes is just speculation, personally I think it's perhaps the biggest blunder of 20th century physics.

For data to be lost, quantum fluctuation have to be genuinely random instead of apparently random. We sort of had to assume genuine randomness, because even if there is some sort of universal determinism behind the apparent randomness, there is no way for us to tell.
Good point. You are getting to the fundamental flaw in QM. The randomness in QM is purely theoretical rather than based on the uncertainty of hidden variables. Bohm realized this and developed his own theory of QM based on an acknowledgement of hidden variables. Unfortunately Bohm's theory is deterministic.
Atla wrote:Personally I don't believe that the universe "plays dice", I think that's magical thinking, so I go with apparent randomness. Quantum fluctuations may be entangled with the rest of the unvierse, just like "ordinary" matter. That automatically resolves the information paradox.
The thesis that the universe does not play dice was Einstein's assertion and he lost that argument to Bohr.
Atla wrote:So they may have tried to resolve the blunder with another blunder, the completely pseudoscientific idea that "information" is "encoded" on black hole event horizons. And from that came the third blunder, now they really wonder whether the universe is a hologram.
:D
Yes Atla I am familiar with that theory. Welcome to the matrix.

The reason that is false is that it is based on a QM interpretation of reality. The equations of QM are irrevocably entangled by the relationship of the matter of the instruments to the matter the instruments are observing. This entanglement confounds the wave form of the matter in the instruments with the wave form of the matter being observed. Thus we cannot know both the position of the observed particles and the momentum of the observed particle. That is the uncertainty principle.
Atla
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Re: The Implications Of Generic Subjective Continuity

Post by Atla »

BigBango wrote: May 12th, 2019, 3:11 am The thesis that the universe does not play dice was Einstein's assertion and he lost that argument to Bohr.
I think they were both partially right and wrong. I think the world appears as genuinely random to us, so we can only make probabilistic predictions.
But if we had perfect knowledge about the entire universe, we could predict everything with certainty, even quantum fluctuations.
Yes Atla I am familiar with that theory. Welcome to the matrix.

The reason that is false is that it is based on a QM interpretation of reality. The equations of QM are irrevocably entangled by the relationship of the matter of the instruments to the matter the instruments are observing. This entanglement confounds the wave form of the matter in the instruments with the wave form of the matter being observed. Thus we cannot know both the position of the observed particles and the momentum of the observed particle. That is the uncertainty principle.
We can't get around the uncertainty principle, but that's not what I was talking about.
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Tamminen
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Re: The Implications Of Generic Subjective Continuity

Post by Tamminen »

Felix wrote: May 11th, 2019, 5:36 pm The Idealist conception I was referring to is that of the Universe being the vision of the One Eternal Self, which the small temporal self takes to be concrete.
I think the Universe is, not a vision of the eternal subject, but the instrument of the eternal subject for its concrete existence, as I have written elsewhere.
Felix wrote: May 11th, 2019, 5:36 pm What is concrete and naturalistic about positing that there is a distinct individual self that transcends death? What is the nature of this self and in what way(s) is it distinct from your human personality?
The subject is the absolute. It is being itself. It is me and you and everybody, and even every single ant and mosquito is the subject as it manifests itself as an individual subject. So the word 'I' has a double denotation: (1) an empirical, individual subject, e.g. Tamminen and (2) the absolute, eternal subject. In everyday talk we usually are not aware which denotation is in question. An individual subject is defined and connected by memory and personal subjective continuity, and the absolute subject is connected by generic subjective continuity, which makes it the one and only being, something that all being is connected to. So in terms of separateness and non-separateness, an individual subject is a case of separateness and the absolute subject is what unifies all this separateness. We can say that non-separateness is the true essence of all this separateness, but I would not call our separate existence an illusion. Perhaps we use words in different ways.

I see no mysticism in this. In this sense it is a naturalistic metaphysical theory.
BigBango
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Re: The Implications Of Generic Subjective Continuity

Post by BigBango »

Felix wrote: May 12th, 2019, 2:35 am Big Bango: "A culture, society and its ecological connections all depend on not falling into a black hole."

I'll have to remember that when I go to vote in our next election....
I would then assume you are not a racist.
Tamminen
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Re: The Implications Of Generic Subjective Continuity

Post by Tamminen »

Tamminen:
Generic subjective continuity in a nutshell:

I have experience A. Then I have experience B that consists of the memory of A. Then I have experience C that has no reference to A or B. A and B make an individual subject that consists of personal subjective continuity. A, B and C are all part of generic subjective continuity, and from the perspective of C the individual AB is dead.
So, paradoxically, what unites all individual subjects is - death.
BigBango
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Re: The Implications Of Generic Subjective Continuity

Post by BigBango »

Tamminen wrote: May 12th, 2019, 3:19 am The subject is the absolute. It is being itself. It is me and you and everybody, and even every single ant and mosquito is the subject as it manifests itself as an individual subject. So the word 'I' has a double denotation: (1) an empirical, individual subject, e.g. Tamminen and (2) the absolute, eternal subject. In everyday talk we usually are not aware which denotation is in question. An individual subject is defined and connected by memory and personal subjective continuity, and the absolute subject is connected by generic subjective continuity, which makes it the one and only being, something that all being is connected to. So in terms of separateness and non-separateness, an individual subject is a case of separateness and the absolute subject is what unifies all this separateness. We can say that non-separateness is the true essence of all this separateness, but I would not call our separate existence an illusion. Perhaps we use words in different ways.

I see no mysticism in this. In this sense it is a naturalistic metaphysical theory.
Tamminen, that is a very eloquent summary of Whitehead's thesis and I agree with you 100%. Given those instinctual truths can you illuminate the relation between the individual subject and the absolute eternal subject. Does the absolute eternal subject unleash a set of archetypes that determine how an individual subject will feel about its actions. Are there higher realizations of the absolute eternal being that affects the way it relates to individual subjects?
Tamminen
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Re: The Implications Of Generic Subjective Continuity

Post by Tamminen »

BigBango wrote: May 12th, 2019, 4:32 am
Tamminen wrote: May 12th, 2019, 3:19 am The subject is the absolute. It is being itself. It is me and you and everybody, and even every single ant and mosquito is the subject as it manifests itself as an individual subject. So the word 'I' has a double denotation: (1) an empirical, individual subject, e.g. Tamminen and (2) the absolute, eternal subject. In everyday talk we usually are not aware which denotation is in question. An individual subject is defined and connected by memory and personal subjective continuity, and the absolute subject is connected by generic subjective continuity, which makes it the one and only being, something that all being is connected to. So in terms of separateness and non-separateness, an individual subject is a case of separateness and the absolute subject is what unifies all this separateness. We can say that non-separateness is the true essence of all this separateness, but I would not call our separate existence an illusion. Perhaps we use words in different ways.

I see no mysticism in this. In this sense it is a naturalistic metaphysical theory.
Tamminen, that is a very eloquent summary of Whitehead's thesis and I agree with you 100%. Given those instinctual truths can you illuminate the relation between the individual subject and the absolute eternal subject. Does the absolute eternal subject unleash a set of archetypes that determine how an individual subject will feel about its actions. Are there higher realizations of the absolute eternal being that affects the way it relates to individual subjects?
This is pure speculation, but I think this is how it goes:

I have to exist, because my nonexistence is self-contradictory. That I necessarily exist, is the meaning of the terms 'absolute subject', 'eternal subject', 'the subject' and 'eternal present' that I use as synonyms. It is absolute because it is the only real mode of being and all being is somehow connected to it. It is eternal because the end of my existence is self-contradictory. It is present because everything real and meaningful takes place here and now.

Although the being of the subject has no end, it must have had a beginning, for reasons I have presented elsewhere. It is possible that this necessity is reflected on the cosmological level as the singularity we know as the Big Bang.

That I necessarily exist and my nonexistence is self-contradictory means that the subject is causa sui, its essence explains its existence. We do not need to ask why we are here.

So I have to exist, and I have to exist concretely, so that I get the content of my existence from somewhere. I have to be in relation to something, some concrete objects. The totality of these objects is the world or the Universe or the concrete reality we live in. The concrete existence of objects is realized as the material world, so that the objects are material, my relationship with them is material, and also I must be material to exist in this relationship. This means that the world so to speak splits in two levels of being: the material relationship of my body to other objects and my immediate relationship with the world as an experiencing subject: I must exist as mind and body. But they both express the same relationship.

Now we may ask why the world is such as it is. My necessary existence is causa sui and needs no explaining, but how about the world with its objects? My answer is that the essence of the world is subjectivity, so that what we see as material objects are really instruments of individual subjects in their relationship with each other, and the world is really a community of subjects. But because there is originally only one absolute and eternal subject, all those individual subjects of the world must be manifestations or realizations of this one and only subject. And because of all this, what I meet in the world in the form of others is really myself. And this must not be taken metaphorically. I have a double relationship with my other manifestations: (1) a temporal relationship, through subjective time, by generic subjective continuity, and (2) a spatiotemporal relationship in the community of subjects. The correspondence between these relationships is unknown and I suppose it can never be understood, because we are fundamentally inside of what happens in the Universe as a totality, being part of it. Generic subjective continuity suggests strict determinism, and I think we are not allowed to break that.

Individual subjects can be seen as some kind of projects or monads, connected by memory or what can also be called personal subjective continuity, whereas the one and only absolute subject is an endless chain of experiences that take place here and now, connected by generic subjective continuity beyond death towards the future, and having been there before birth, since the first experience.

So what does the subject want? What is its motive and goal? Is it just being, or understanding of being? And is understanding an essential part of being? Is some kind of transparency of being the ultimate meaning of being? And finally: if there is any truth in all these speculations, why is the truth of being not obvious to everybody? Why is it concealed from us? Just asking. And then the problem of suffering of course.

I think I have not answered your question, but never mind, I will answer it some day.
Tamminen
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Re: The Implications Of Generic Subjective Continuity

Post by Tamminen »

BigBango wrote: May 12th, 2019, 4:32 am Given those instinctual truths can you illuminate the relation between the individual subject and the absolute eternal subject. Does the absolute eternal subject unleash a set of archetypes that determine how an individual subject will feel about its actions. Are there higher realizations of the absolute eternal being that affects the way it relates to individual subjects?
You seem to think that the absolute subject is somehow distinct from individual subjects so that it can determine their behavior from its own nature, "from distance" so to speak. But I think the subject has only the realizations of all the individual subjects in the world: it is the totality of them. It is true that they may act as a totality that is more than the "arithmetic sum" of all the individual subjects, but I think there is no other sense in saying that the subject is something else than the totality of individual subjects. The community of individual subjects is the structure where the subject can concretely realize its existence.
Atla
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Re: The Implications Of Generic Subjective Continuity

Post by Atla »

Tamminen wrote: May 11th, 2019, 2:03 pm
Atla wrote: May 11th, 2019, 1:35 pm Above all I mean entanglement, which even ignores spacetime. It directly shows that at least some particles are intrinsically linked no matter the distance.

But yes, we can also add the "observer"-dependent reality you mentioned. And we can also add the Einsteinian relativity.
Well, we can also add just the fact in general that no actual "separation", "rip" or whatever has ever been observed anywhere in the known universe.

After I realized non-separateness, looks like my brain/mind even went through a transformation and now I naturally see the world as sort of continuous, unlike before. I had to re-adopt separateness to be a normally functioning person in this world. So maybe separateness, "thing"-ifying, isn't even so fundamentally intrinsic to how we percieve the world.
I forgot to mention that I can agree on what you say here, but that does not change anything of what I said about subjective time and the dual character of separateness and non-separateness.
What I wrote thoroughly refutes your worldview, so I don't think we agree.
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