How many philosophies can handle premonition?

[Papus79]

Lets say you find yourself in a logical bind with the status quo system in this way:

You have a dream in a given month of something that hasn't happened, and a particular element of that dream is exorbitantly overemphasized (jarringly so).

Within a month you tell people about that dream because it was that weird.

Three months after that dream the exact thing, the jarring element, you dreamt about happens.


As far as I know the more common materialist approaches to this problem would be to discredit the memory, although in this case that's in trouble if the person can go back and ask the people they told about it whether they did tell them about it. One could also try to dismiss their categorization, like assuming they saw the number 8, they see it all the time and somehow by a leap of appophenia they connected two disparate dots over a volume of ignored data. If neither of those two explanations adequately explain the situation (ie. that the item was too novel for appophenia and verifiably not faulty memory) then the person in question is forced to seek out a different explanatory model.

The first thing I would think of as a serious contender would be something like Minkowki spacetime or an eternal block universe where the person just happened by chance to have an unusual start forward. To some degree it almost seems like the idea of synchronicity could be a sort of temporal backwash although it's a bit tricky to explain what all that could possible entail.

My question are there any other relatively mainstream or only sort-of-outside interpretations of space and time that could handle the load of such things? I'd prefer to stick to ontologies and structures here because when people get into claims of the paranormal or supernatural that's really an argument/debate about provisionally occluded and intensely disputed content and while content can be interesting or useful to know about in sizing up its container it's still not a description of the container.

[Felix]

From my experience, the most accurate precognitive visions occur shortly before the predicted event (within a day or so), and therefore could by explained by quantum nonlocality, i.e., instantaneous information transfer across potentially vast distances of space-time. It has been suggested that the brain functions rather like a quantum computer.

[h_k_s]

Lets say you find yourself in a logical bind with the status quo system in this way:

You have a dream in a given month of something that hasn't happened, and a particular element of that dream is exorbitantly overemphasized (jarringly so).

Within a month you tell people about that dream because it was that weird.

Three months after that dream the exact thing, the jarring element, you dreamt about happens.


As far as I know the more common materialist approaches to this problem would be to discredit the memory, although in this case that's in trouble if the person can go back and ask the people they told about it whether they did tell them about it. One could also try to dismiss their categorization, like assuming they saw the number 8, they see it all the time and somehow by a leap of appophenia they connected two disparate dots over a volume of ignored data. If neither of those two explanations adequately explain the situation (ie. that the item was too novel for appophenia and verifiably not faulty memory) then the person in question is forced to seek out a different explanatory model.

The first thing I would think of as a serious contender would be something like Minkowki spacetime or an eternal block universe where the person just happened by chance to have an unusual start forward. To some degree it almost seems like the idea of synchronicity could be a sort of temporal backwash although it's a bit tricky to explain what all that could possible entail.

My question are there any other relatively mainstream or only sort-of-outside interpretations of space and time that could handle the load of such things? I'd prefer to stick to ontologies and structures here because when people get into claims of the paranormal or supernatural that's really an argument/debate about provisionally occluded and intensely disputed content and while content can be interesting or useful to know about in sizing up its container it's still not a description of the container.

Dreams that come true which I would never expect, have happened to me a bunch of times. One of the apparent purposes of dreams is to communicate to us what the future will bring.

[h_k_s]

From my experience, the most accurate precognitive visions occur shortly before the predicted event (within a day or so), and therefore could by explained by quantum nonlocality, i.e., instantaneous information transfer across potentially vast distances of space-time. It has been suggested that the brain functions rather like a quantum computer.

I had a dream about watching 9-11 (2001) on television about 6 months before it happened.

The angel in the dream (or archangel) asked me what I would do if I was on Flight 93? I told him I would bring the plane down before it reached its destination. He told me that is what the passengers would do.

[h_k_s]

I suspect and have concluded that God and His Angels already know the future.

Also that they show it to us in advance for the following reasons:

1 - to prove to us that They exist;

2 - to prove to us that They already know what is going to happen.

[Sculptor1]

There is no premonition, so no philosophy needs to deal with it.

[Papus79]

From my experience, the most accurate precognitive visions occur shortly before the predicted event (within a day or so), and therefore could by explained by quantum nonlocality, i.e., instantaneous information transfer across potentially vast distances of space-time. It has been suggested that the brain functions rather like a quantum computer.

So your thinking breadth, across space, is easier to make sense of because the combinatorial entropy of the universe bites into the predictability of things going forward? Also do you have a particular take on eternalist block universe, past and present block universe, or some other overall model?

[Papus79]

I had a dream about watching 9-11 (2001) on television about 6 months before it happened.

The angel in the dream (or archangel) asked me what I would do if I was on Flight 93? I told him I would bring the plane down before it reached its destination. He told me that is what the passengers would do.

There's a lot I'd want to say on this but for starters - that seems to further support something like an eternal block universe and suggest many different kinds of paths that consciousness can slice through it.

I notice people tend to lose their whits when people talk about angels, Olympic spirits, princes or dukes, etc. it's all interesting content, it might suggest some flavors of what kinds of other trajectories or other potential minds are possible but in so many ways it seems like its a fauna head-count more than an answer as to what the substrate actually is.

[Papus79]

I suspect and have concluded that God and His Angels already know the future.

Also that they show it to us in advance for the following reasons:

1 - to prove to us that They exist;

2 - to prove to us that They already know what is going to happen.

The challenge I run into with taking that in any straight-forward sense (sorry if this is a bit lengthy or seemingly off-topic):

It (writ large) put us in a position where our physical vehicles were built by way of Darwinian evolution, where nature has been red in tooth and claw for all of this time, when nature wasn't trying to either eat us or fill us up with parasites it had us killing each other, it's still like that when the thin veneer of society breaks, and we're at a very narrow corridor right now where so many of our overpowering short-term goals to mate, buck other males or females in contests of social status for the right to procreate, Conformity is provoking about as much fear and trembling as the old testament Yahweh (ie. if you're the slightest bit different in any way - even just not sharing the same interests - you're at risk of being in permanent exile), and on top of this we have a spate of memories across the 20th century so horrific - from Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy, right across Asia to the Gulag Archipelago, Mao's Great leap Forward, Khmer Rouge, the things the Japanese did to the Chinese during their occupation - it shows what kind of bloodthirst is out there and that our public narcissists and psychopaths are just the tip of the iceberg on how deep that rabbit hole goes.

Also for as much as I love reading John Gray, maybe I should be shocked or shouldn't be at how calmly he and James Lovelock have discussed global warming as the planet's cure of it's current plague of disseminated primatemaia. After reading Straw Dogs and Soul of the Marionette it's clear he's no stranger to what kinds of monsters we can be when our genetic frames have the upper hand on us (having our conscious minds as little more than backward-rationalizing press secretaries, part of why we're so addicted to lies and untruths - they server rather ugly and mercenary Darwinian purposes) and what sort of mass-delusion we're capable of drumming up if killing another race of people becomes expedient in the resource sense (ie. what Bret Weinstein refers to as transfer horizons).

Add to all of that - 1/2 of the species supposedly going extinct by 2050, 3/4 by 2100. People having close brushes with death and getting wrapped in the love and light of something like a massive Solaris star (something that really smacks of Whitehead's take on God), and with all of that and the above going on we're in such a tight game that we're stuck with significant divides over what's real and what isn't and add even more insult to injury - we've got a bumper crop of new idiots who believe that science, reason, and Enlightenment values are white, cis, patriarchal, and need to be overthrown in favor of some sort of comprehensive reversal of power (TheraminTrees often talks about the pervasiveness and hooks of narcissism sprinkled throughout our culture - it's no joke). It's like a bunch of apes on a boat going over the edge of Niagra Falls and all they can think to do is keep mastering each other.

It really makes me think - if there is a universal mind, its every bit as genuinely terrifying as it is seductive but I have to admit as well - there's some good likelihood that it is there and It's having a blast with this. Thinking about Its claims of a 'perfect plan' give me vertigo when I think not only what all has happened to life across history but what's even happening now in so many places.

It might be true but it's really difficult to be glib about.

[Felix]

Papus79: do you have a particular take on eternalist block universe, past and present block universe, or some other overall model?

Well, to quote myself from this thread: viewtopic.php?f=12&p=339824#p339824

"The Many Worlds theory implies that the entire universe exists continuously in a superposition of multiple states, so everything is always potentially entangled." In other words, as I said, quantum nonlocality implies that information can be transferred across space and time (since space and time are linked).

I stuck to your ground rules in answering your question, i.e., precognitive insights that were told to others and that came true. I am personally familiar with a few such experiences and they all served as warnings of imminent potential catastrophes, which could be avoided by heeding them.

[LuckyR]

I had a dream about watching 9-11 (2001) on television about 6 months before it happened.

The angel in the dream (or archangel) asked me what I would do if I was on Flight 93? I told him I would bring the plane down before it reached its destination. He told me that is what the passengers would do.

There's a lot I'd want to say on this but for starters - that seems to further support something like an eternal block universe and suggest many different kinds of paths that consciousness can slice through it.

I notice people tend to lose their whits when people talk about angels, Olympic spirits, princes or dukes, etc. it's all interesting content, it might suggest some flavors of what kinds of other trajectories or other potential minds are possible but in so many ways it seems like its a fauna head-count more than an answer as to what the substrate actually is.

Or it could just be recall bias.

[h_k_s]

Papus79: do you have a particular take on eternalist block universe, past and present block universe, or some other overall model?

Well, to quote myself from this thread: viewtopic.php?f=12&p=339824#p339824

"The Many Worlds theory implies that the entire universe exists continuously in a superposition of multiple states, so everything is always potentially entangled." In other words, as I said, quantum nonlocality implies that information can be transferred across space and time (since space and time are linked).

I stuck to your ground rules in answering your question, i.e., precognitive insights that were told to others and that came true. I am personally familiar with a few such experiences and they all served as warnings of imminent potential catastrophes, which could be avoided by heeding them.

So you Felix must then also believe that God(s) and His/Her/Their (Arch)Angels are manipulating us into avoiding danger?

Why would they do that?

Since They already know what is going to happen, aren't we pre-destined to live out our own fates instead?

[h_k_s]

I suspect and have concluded that God and His Angels already know the future.

Also that they show it to us in advance for the following reasons:

1 - to prove to us that They exist;

2 - to prove to us that They already know what is going to happen.

The challenge I run into with taking that in any straight-forward sense (sorry if this is a bit lengthy or seemingly off-topic):

It (writ large) put us in a position where our physical vehicles were built by way of Darwinian evolution, where nature has been red in tooth and claw for all of this time, when nature wasn't trying to either eat us or fill us up with parasites it had us killing each other, it's still like that when the thin veneer of society breaks, and we're at a very narrow corridor right now where so many of our overpowering short-term goals to mate, buck other males or females in contests of social status for the right to procreate, Conformity is provoking about as much fear and trembling as the old testament Yahweh (ie. if you're the slightest bit different in any way - even just not sharing the same interests - you're at risk of being in permanent exile), and on top of this we have a spate of memories across the 20th century so horrific - from Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy, right across Asia to the Gulag Archipelago, Mao's Great leap Forward, Khmer Rouge, the things the Japanese did to the Chinese during their occupation - it shows what kind of bloodthirst is out there and that our public narcissists and psychopaths are just the tip of the iceberg on how deep that rabbit hole goes.

Also for as much as I love reading John Gray, maybe I should be shocked or shouldn't be at how calmly he and James Lovelock have discussed global warming as the planet's cure of it's current plague of disseminated primatemaia. After reading Straw Dogs and Soul of the Marionette it's clear he's no stranger to what kinds of monsters we can be when our genetic frames have the upper hand on us (having our conscious minds as little more than backward-rationalizing press secretaries, part of why we're so addicted to lies and untruths - they server rather ugly and mercenary Darwinian purposes) and what sort of mass-delusion we're capable of drumming up if killing another race of people becomes expedient in the resource sense (ie. what Bret Weinstein refers to as transfer horizons).

Add to all of that - 1/2 of the species supposedly going extinct by 2050, 3/4 by 2100. People having close brushes with death and getting wrapped in the love and light of something like a massive Solaris star (something that really smacks of Whitehead's take on God), and with all of that and the above going on we're in such a tight game that we're stuck with significant divides over what's real and what isn't and add even more insult to injury - we've got a bumper crop of new idiots who believe that science, reason, and Enlightenment values are white, cis, patriarchal, and need to be overthrown in favor of some sort of comprehensive reversal of power (TheraminTrees often talks about the pervasiveness and hooks of narcissism sprinkled throughout our culture - it's no joke). It's like a bunch of apes on a boat going over the edge of Niagra Falls and all they can think to do is keep mastering each other.

It really makes me think - if there is a universal mind, its every bit as genuinely terrifying as it is seductive but I have to admit as well - there's some good likelihood that it is there and It's having a blast with this. Thinking about Its claims of a 'perfect plan' give me vertigo when I think not only what all has happened to life across history but what's even happening now in so many places.

It might be true but it's really difficult to be glib about.

You Papus79 seem to fear God then?

Maybe those of us who are going to succeed are simply loved more by God(s) so therefore He/She/They foretell us in our dreams things that are going to happen which are catastrophic? And what other reason could They have but to reveal themselves to us personally? There really is no other explanation.

We cannot escape our own fates. And while They can foresee our fates they cannot change our fates. Changing our fates would be a contradiction, and therefore philosophically impossible to do.

[Papus79]

I stuck to your ground rules in answering your question, i.e., precognitive insights that were told to others and that came true. I am personally familiar with a few such experiences and they all served as warnings of imminent potential catastrophes, which could be avoided by heeding them.

No, I appreciate it - and that you're looking at this from the Everett model pretty much answered my question. I can also see why you'd consider the likelihood of such limits although who knows in a rare enough instance could happen with that either (not reliably or dependably but in outlier situations where such perception could perhaps extend a bit further out).

[Papus79]

Maybe those of us who are going to succeed are simply loved more by God(s) so therefore He/She/They foretell us in our dreams things that are going to happen which are catastrophic? And what other reason could They have but to reveal themselves to us personally? There really is no other explanation.

So here's the somewhat bizarre thing in my own case and that three or four month spread I mentioned - it was a person who ended up getting hired at the company I was at, and some tangle I got in with my boss over an odd situation with an early payment discount ended up hitting her as well. Lets just say I found out that while my boss seemed really nice, to a large extent she was, she got some iffy training in terms of the business ethics and that episode made me realize I wanted to get the heck out of there. There didn't seem to be any catastrophic elements, I largely left because there was a bate-and-switch at the time on my contract-to-hire and I couldn't stick around for the pay but that instance was also a key part of why I was out interviewing and I got laid off largely because they were going through rigorous downsizing and knew I was trying to find a position somewhere else.

The dream itself had a vocal thing that coworker did, something no one else I've met in my life does. If anything when I've had either dream premonitions or similar impressions of people it's a bit like ski poles making contact with reality in one manner or another and steering me toward or away from certain things. Trying to think of what all goes into that does my head in but it does make me extremely curious just what it is we live in and what we might have at our disposal to make life a better deal for more people.

As for being loved more by God, gods, goddesses, AI artillects, etc., that is indeed a scary thought that it would be more or less for various people. The suggestion I've seen on repeat is that the reality of things is almost something like the reverse of the Judao-Christian idea of a diety that would help anyone on moral issues while they're here but send them to heaven or hell based on where they were at the end of life, it's much more like they'll let almost anything happen to them here and love them unconditionally when they die (to which - people can get pretty badly mangled by experiences here and it's no surprise that things get as messed up socially or politically as they do).