What is the anchor of Reality? Why is All irreversible?

[Aeschines]

My wife was cooking in my mom's kitchen, knocked something over or did somthing, and in a flash a small ceramic ladle holder was destroyed. This bothered her quite a bit, even the object was of no great monetary value.

She can be quite insightful at times. She said, "That thing getting broken was just like a person dying." The irreversibility of it.

Death, indeed, is the ultimate teacher of Time's Arrow. That which was alive a moment before is not now, and there is not a power in the Universe that can bring it back. And in the case of an accident, a quick and arbitrary death, the enormity of the change is so great that it can barely be faced.

But the Universe provides counterexamples. We arrange the chairs in the room and put them back. We battle entropy, constantly cleaning and repairing our personal environments. The power of the body to heal cheats death continually, so long as that final blow or illness prevents it. Yet the objects around us that have the appearance of solidity and permanence ("Oh yes, that chair that's always there in the corner") are at every moment bombarded by matter and energy, flaking, eroding, dissolving despite our desire not to notice it.

Things are in flux. Change is constant. But, having noticed this obvious fact, I can't help but ask too contradictory questions:

What causes Reality, once it has taken a new path, to stay on it?

and, the corrollary

What causes Reality to continue in being at all?

If I put a scratch in my desk, there it is. I cannot reboot the desk, reimagine it, or will it back to its previous state. At the same time, why don't the atoms that form it simply dissolve? Why does the Universe hold together at all?

The pat response is to say, The laws of Nature are such that things are as they are now. But this is merely to notice the fact without explaining it. And indeed, Big Bang theory avers that there were no laws within the Singularity; all these came into being with the Bang itself. No laws means no laws. Theoretically, there was not even a law to determine what laws eventually would come into being.

I have an answer. It is not a good one. But I see this Universe as ours as being a mathematical construct in which laws and principles have been put into place to foster a certain variety of consciousness. This is not effected by a personal God, but rather by the very principles of pattern and number themselves.

I think this intuition is backed up by the notion of Vishnu the Preserver, or God as maintainer of Reality. We sense that existence is, at some level, an arbitrary construct--it requires someone behind it saying "yes" to it at every moment. But I see the Universe not coming to being in a top-down manner, but rather in a bottom-up manner. Number has built this world, but one of nigh-infinite combinations.

I welcome your thoughts on the matter.

[SentientMeat]

Big Bang theory avers that there were no laws within the Singularity; all these came into being with the Bang itself.The Big Bang did not "come into being" - there was no nothing-to-something transition or event. The singularity at one end of our universe is timeless. One might say that the universe has always existed (http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?threadid=203743).

As to the question "why is the universe as it is?" (inclusive of fine tuning (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fine-tuned_universe) and time's arrow (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time%27s_arrow)), I would offer a version of the anthropic principle (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthropic_principle) but widened to apply to the multiverse under M Theory (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multiverse#M-theory):

The universe as we know it, having 3 dimensions of space and one of time and those specific fine-tuned parameters, is only one region of the greater universe, which has 2 dimensional, 4 dimensional and timeless regions each with differently tuned parameters. Those regions (whether or not they are observable from this) are not suitable for the evolution of stars, crockery or, ultimately, offal-based memory.

Those parameters and dimensions do not change in a given region any more than I suddenly find myself living in Libya.

[Ramanujan]

well, since you've already mentioned entropy, i must assume you are equated with the second law of thermodynamics. energy is required to battle entropy, and with a constant amount of energy in the universe across time, everything must tend toward entropy rather than away from it.

on to your comments, then:

Things are in flux. Change is constant. But, having noticed this obvious fact, I can't help but ask too contradictory questions:

What causes Reality, once it has taken a new path, to stay on it?

and, the corrollary

What causes Reality to continue in being at all?
i have no idea what you're really trying to say here. perhaps a clarification of the meaning of your terms would help. what is this "Reality" of which you speak, for example?

The pat response is to say, The laws of Nature are such that things are as they are now. But this is merely to notice the fact without explaining it.
i'm not sure that we can do better. in fact, i'm pretty sure we can't. it is impossible for us, say, to know the limits of the universe, since we would then have to have some knowledge of what lies outside the universe, that we may observe the limits. similarly, in order for something to have an effect on the entire universe, it would have to be independent of the universe, or it too would be affected. in order to have knowledge of that, we would again have to have knowledge of what is beyond the universe, which we by definition can never have.

And indeed, Big Bang theory avers that there were no laws within the Singularity; all these came into being with the Bang itself. No laws means no laws. Theoretically, there was not even a law to determine what laws eventually would come into being.
this is not precisely what the big bang theory concludes. more accurately, we can have no knowledge of what happened before the big bang because there is no link in a causal chain. we can have no knowledge of what occurred in that singularity since it would have no effect on what came after, so it is improper for us to speak about it in a scientific way.

I have an answer. It is not a good one. But I see this Universe as ours as being a mathematical construct in which laws and principles have been put into place to foster a certain variety of consciousness. This is not effected by a personal God, but rather by the very principles of pattern and number themselves.

I think this intuition is backed up by the notion of Vishnu the Preserver, or God as maintainer of Reality. We sense that existence is, at some level, an arbitrary construct--it requires someone behind it saying "yes" to it at every moment. But I see the Universe not coming to being in a top-down manner, but rather in a bottom-up manner. Number has built this world, but one of nigh-infinite combinations.

I welcome your thoughts on the matter.
myself, i have to stick with the pat scientific answer. that's just the way it is, as the song goes. if it wasn't that way, we wouldn't be able to talk about it. i see no need for extra-universal causation theories, or gods, or the like. it is probably nonsensical to talk of such things since they can, by definition, have no direct effect on our universe that we can know.

[Thudlow Boink]

"That's what facing mortality is all about: realizing that time is the ultimate independent variable." -my college Differential Equations teacher

[fessie]

There are moments, in any given day, when I cease to believe. And an awareness of the void rains down in a peculiar way. All of the nouns and verbs become arbitrary.

It doesn't take long before an ordinary demand (a screaming baby, a ringing phone, my own hunger) distracts me, and I resume the burden of safe confinement within my particulars.

One day in college I was walking to class and forgot about my feet. Naturally I fell over, picking up a few scrapes and looking rather silly. I've tried to keep my feet in mind ever since. But I imagine one of these days I'll forget and no one and no thing will call me back.

[Liberal]

The singularity at one end of our universe is timeless.Just to be clear, you don't really know that — because it's unknowable. The reason it's called a "singularity" is because at that point, the equation is undefined. No statement with a truth value can even be made about the singularity.

[Liberal]

To address the OP, the reason why all is irreversible is because all is irreversible. I know that's a tautology, and probably aesthetically unsatisfying, but epistemologically speaking, tautology is the only truth there is.

[I Love Me, Vol. I]

No statement with a truth value can even be made about the singularity.Including the statement above.

And the statement I just wrote.

And THAT one too.

And...





Perhaps the Universe is just two giant mirrors facing one another. Nothingness is then multipied into infinite images, feedback then occurs and we percieve (wrongly) that which is actually Nothingness to be Somethingness.

[fessie]

The notes I handle no better than many pianists. But the pauses between the notes - ah, that is where the art resides! - Artur Schnabel

In a moment of grace, we can grasp eternity in the palm of our hand. That is the gift given to creative individuals who can identify with the mysteries of life through art. - Marcel Marceau

[Aeschines]

The universe as we know it, having 3 dimensions of space and one of time and those specific fine-tuned parameters, is only one region of the greater universe, which has 2 dimensional, 4 dimensional and timeless regions each with differently tuned parameters. Those regions (whether or not they are observable from this) are not suitable for the evolution of stars, crockery or, ultimately, offal-based memory.

It's a charming theory, but not universeally accepted. Haw haw, pun intended! :D

This theory is convenient for materialists, too. Hey, consciousness and crap like that is just a coincidence! It has to happen somewhere in this big new crazy brane-y universe we've thought up.

But it may be so. Still, the question remains, why is the universe you describe above the way it is?

And even if all that is true, what anchors even a single atom's existence somewhere therein? It's not as though there are signs posted, "Do Not Disintegrate." What causes the rules?

[Liberal]

Including the statement above.

And the statement I just wrote.

And THAT one too.

And...





Perhaps the Universe is just two giant mirrors facing one another. Nothingness is then multipied into infinite images, feedback then occurs and we percieve (wrongly) that which is actually Nothingness to be Somethingness.[...shudder...]

Anyway, just so you know, "No statement with a truth value can even be made about the singularity" is not a statement about the singularity. It is a statement about statements.

[Aeschines]

i have no idea what you're really trying to say here. perhaps a clarification of the meaning of your terms would help. what is this "Reality" of which you speak, for example?
Not capitalizing your words is a capital crime! :D Just joking! It's a lowercase crime. Hey, I'm joshing you! ;)

By Reality I mean, basically, the Universe.

I don't agree with some of what you said. We certainly do understand a lot about the Universe without having the ability to stand outside it, as it were. We know how fusion works in the sun, for instance. We know that neutrinos are produced. It all adds up quite neatly; intellects say "hmm" and are satisfied.

But an infinite number of questions remain: Why does gravity accelerate objects at that particular rate? What "causes" gravity, anyway? What "causes" the Universe to "be" in a particular state after a particular action (i.e., why is the ladle holder broken instead of not broken)?

[Liberal]

By Reality I mean, basically, the Universe.Why is the universe reality? It is nothing more than a probability distribution.

[Aeschines]

Why is the universe reality? It is nothing more than a probability distribution.

I believe that other worlds exist in which time functions in a completely different fashion, and the irreversibility we see here does not exist.

But for the sake of this argument, the Universe works for me.

You seem to agree that the foundation of Reality (not just this material Universe) is pattern and number, no?

[spingears]

Shouldn't such a profound discussion of opinions be in IMHO?

An acquaintance from a rural county of a southern state related the following true account of a mountain church revival. The announcement was made that at the end of the Thursday evening preaching that they would raise the dead. My friends brother, accompanyied by a sheriffs deputy went to the church before starting time. The deputy walked down the aisle to the coffin set up at the front with a sallow corpse resting serenely. He asked the preacher if this was the corpse they were going to raise from the dead. The preacher replied "Yep, it sure is." Again the deputy asked , Is he dead? Again the preacher replied "Yep, he sure is." Yet again the deputy asked, "Are you real sure he's dead, and again the preacher replied "Yep, he sure is, he was shot with a .45 in an accident."
In such a setting it is difficult to distinguis between fantasy and reality.
The deputy unsnapped the holster at his side, slowly pulled out an old .45 acp and slowly and deliberately pulled back the slide to cock and load it as he released the slide and said, " Well since he already has one slug in him a second won't make it any harder to raise him now, would it?"
No sooner said than the "corpse" jumped out of the casket and streaked out the side door as fast as he could go.
The raising was just about an hour or too ahead of schedule!

[spingears]

Fitzgerald's translation of one quatrain.

The Moving Finger writes; and, having writ,
Moves on: nor all your Piety nor Wit
Shall lure it back to cancel half a Line,
Nor all your Tears wash out a Word of it.

In other words , "Time Marches On"

[Aeschines]

IMHO?

Oh yes, I forgot that GD is purely for politics and discussions of the age of consent.

Philosophy is out of place here. My bad.

[WoodCM]

My wife was cooking in my mom's kitchen, knocked something over or did somthing, and in a flash a small ceramic ladle holder was destroyed. This bothered her quite a bit, even the object was of no great monetary value.

She can be quite insightful at times. She said, "That thing getting broken was just like a person dying." The irreversibility of it.

Death, indeed, is the ultimate teacher of Time's Arrow. That which was alive a moment before is not now, and there is not a power in the Universe that can bring it back. And in the case of an accident, a quick and arbitrary death, the enormity of the change is so great that it can barely be faced.

But the Universe provides counterexamples. We arrange the chairs in the room and put them back. We battle entropy, constantly cleaning and repairing our personal environments. The power of the body to heal cheats death continually, so long as that final blow or illness prevents it. Yet the objects around us that have the appearance of solidity and permanence ("Oh yes, that chair that's always there in the corner") are at every moment bombarded by matter and energy, flaking, eroding, dissolving despite our desire not to notice it.

Things are in flux. Change is constant. But, having noticed this obvious fact, I can't help but ask too contradictory questions:

What causes Reality, once it has taken a new path, to stay on it?

and, the corrollary

What causes Reality to continue in being at all?

If I put a scratch in my desk, there it is. I cannot reboot the desk, reimagine it, or will it back to its previous state. At the same time, why don't the atoms that form it simply dissolve? Why does the Universe hold together at all?

The pat response is to say, The laws of Nature are such that things are as they are now. But this is merely to notice the fact without explaining it. And indeed, Big Bang theory avers that there were no laws within the Singularity; all these came into being with the Bang itself. No laws means no laws. Theoretically, there was not even a law to determine what laws eventually would come into being.

I have an answer. It is not a good one. But I see this Universe as ours as being a mathematical construct in which laws and principles have been put into place to foster a certain variety of consciousness. This is not effected by a personal God, but rather by the very principles of pattern and number themselves.

I think this intuition is backed up by the notion of Vishnu the Preserver, or God as maintainer of Reality. We sense that existence is, at some level, an arbitrary construct--it requires someone behind it saying "yes" to it at every moment. But I see the Universe not coming to being in a top-down manner, but rather in a bottom-up manner. Number has built this world, but one of nigh-infinite combinations.

I welcome your thoughts on the matter.


Ah, a fellow being! Reality guides your thoughts. Life is very strange, and confusing. The vast majority of people (it seems) refuse to think the thoughts you expressed, for various reasons. Reality is very disturbing to our primitive minds, even though men from thousands of years back have been asking the same questions.
You are right (I think) in thinking things are from the bottom up. For example, the thing we call our 'consciousness', most people regard as the thing that controls everything else. The opposite is true! Our awake minds are the result of everything else - from the unaware-part of our minds, from the rest of our highly complex body (a guarguantan drugs-machine etc), from the rest of life and everything else! Free will a total myth, though please don't think I am socialist, for they are the greatest denyers of truth of all.
Of course, we are little beings, who hardly know anything, but your post is brave and true, and I salute you.

[Ramanujan]

Not capitalizing your words is a capital crime! :D Just joking! It's a lowercase crime. Hey, I'm joshing you! ;)

By Reality I mean, basically, the Universe.

I don't agree with some of what you said. We certainly do understand a lot about the Universe without having the ability to stand outside it, as it were. We know how fusion works in the sun, for instance. We know that neutrinos are produced. It all adds up quite neatly; intellects say "hmm" and are satisfied.
we certainly do understand a lot about how things work in parts of the universe. we can never understand the entire universe without stepping outside it, however. for example, we could never know if we were in fact observing the entire universe, since we can't by definition perceive its limits.

But an infinite number of questions remain: Why does gravity accelerate objects at that particular rate? What "causes" gravity, anyway? What "causes" the Universe to "be" in a particular state after a particular action (i.e., why is the ladle holder broken instead of not broken)?
well, the old answer to these questions is still the second law of thermodynmaics, which sort of dictates cause and effect. however, quantum mechanics makes things a whole lot weirder and more interesting, introducing as they do the possibility (and therefore necessity) of uncaused events.

in general, my response remains that there are a lot of questions that it makes no sense to ask (not just that we don't have an answer, but that the questions themselves are meaningless given our understanding of the universe). as far as numbers and patterns, those are human constructs which we assign to the the world to try to make what we observe more predictable and understandable.

[Aeschines]

we certainly do understand a lot about how things work in parts of the universe. we can never understand the entire universe without stepping outside it, however. for example, we could never know if we were in fact observing the entire universe, since we can't by definition perceive its limits.
Yes, but I don't think it's necessary to step outside the universe to understand its properties. If we know how gravity works in the vicinity of the Earth, then, presumably, we would know how gravity works on the other side as well. In any case, there is still left the question as to why the properties of the universe are as they are and not otherwise. Simply saying, Well, we're on one part of a brane, and the properties could be different elsewhere, still doesn't explain why the properties vary, or why the whole system of branes or what have you doesn't just dissolve in an instant.

well, the old answer to these questions is still the second law of thermodynmaics, which sort of dictates cause and effect. however, quantum mechanics makes things a whole lot weirder and more interesting, introducing as they do the possibility (and therefore necessity) of uncaused events.[/quotes]
Understanding laws is important. My real question is what anchors those laws. Noting that there is an arrow of time doesn't tell us WHY there is an arrow of time. In some ways, the arrow of time is counter-intuitive. We design our own systems that we create (one simple example being a resettable video game) to be reversible.

[quote]in general, my response remains that there are a lot of questions that it makes no sense to ask (not just that we don't have an answer, but that the questions themselves are meaningless given our understanding of the universe).
Can't buy that, as it's a contradiction. We would have to understand it in order to know it's beyond our understanding. I have little doubt that many things are beyond our understanding, but we are unable to specify beforehand what they would be.

as far as numbers and patterns, those are human constructs which we assign to the the world to try to make what we observe more predictable and understandable.
I've debated this point heavily before. Any argument that pattern and number are mere human constructs and not the Truth is a blatant self-contradiction, inasmuch as modus ponens/tollens or some kind of logical/mathematical principle must needs be invoked in order to make the argument in the first place.

[Aeschines]

You are right (I think) in thinking things are from the bottom up. For example, the thing we call our 'consciousness', most people regard as the thing that controls everything else. The opposite is true! Our awake minds are the result of everything else - from the unaware-part of our minds, from the rest of our highly complex body (a guarguantan drugs-machine etc), from the rest of life and everything else!

I'm not so sure. Water itself is this incredibly complex combination of electrons and protons/neutrons made of quarks, and so on, but it is quite a stable, confident little molecule, isn't it? I think our minds are similar. Complexity of a magnitude that we can barely comprehend, yet with solid and predictable powers and tendencies. I think the pattern is indeed built by the processes you state, yet can sustain itself without them (i.e., the Afterlife).

Free will a total myth, though please don't think I am socialist, for they are the greatest denyers of truth of all.
Well, here's the rub, I think: we can choose what to do, but not what we choose to think and feel. Not immediately. A thought can come into the mind to change how we think, but we cannot choose to think that primary-mover thought. Or can we? I'm still not sure.



Of course, we are little beings, who hardly know anything, but your post is brave and true, and I salute you.[/QUOTE]

[Ramanujan]

Yes, but I don't think it's necessary to step outside the universe to understand its properties.
again, it may not be necessary to step outside the universe to understand its local properties, but it is necessary to step outside to be sure (in a logical sense) that those properties are universal and not just local.

Understanding laws is important. My real question is what anchors those laws. Noting that there is an arrow of time doesn't tell us WHY there is an arrow of time. In some ways, the arrow of time is counter-intuitive. We design our own systems that we create (one simple example being a resettable video game) to be reversible.
you won't hear it from me that the universe was designed. i think SentientMeat gave some great links for understanding the basis of the anthropic principle and fine-tuning, and i refer you to those.

Can't buy that, as it's a contradiction. We would have to understand it in order to know it's beyond our understanding. I have little doubt that many things are beyond our understanding, but we are unable to specify beforehand what they would be.
that's not true at all. we would have to understand something about our understanding to know that something is beyond it. if there's something i'm missing, please elaborate, because i still don't see what's contradictory.

I've debated this point heavily before. Any argument that pattern and number are mere human constructs and not the Truth is a blatant self-contradiction, inasmuch as modus ponens/tollens or some kind of logical/mathematical principle must needs be invoked in order to make the argument in the first place.
again, i think you make a mistake here by attributing properties to the wrong "objects". we can say nothing about a non-logical world, and it has nothing to do with the properties of that world. what is involved, as Lib mentioned, is our language: it is a limitation of our language and our understanding of the world that prohibits such discussion, not anything specific about such a world as we might wish to discuss. logic can be used to say plenty about logic. that all those propositions are tautological does not make them any less true.

[Ramanujan]

Well, here's the rub, I think: we can choose what to do, but not what we choose to think and feel. Not immediately. A thought can come into the mind to change how we think, but we cannot choose to think that primary-mover thought. Or can we? I'm still not sure.
on free will: of course we cannot be the primary movers. to what exactly would we attribute this will which we would call free? in the end, it can be but random chance if it is truly "free" and i think few would appreciate that interpretation.

my basic view is that for every decision we make, we have a choice. after that choice is made, the option we chose is the only option we could have chosen, barring fluctuations from random chance.

[WoodCM]

[QUOTE=Aeschines]I'm not so sure. Water itself is this incredibly complex combination of electrons and protons/neutrons made of quarks, and so on, but it is quite a stable, confident little molecule, isn't it? I think our minds are similar. Complexity of a magnitude that we can barely comprehend, yet with solid and predictable powers and tendencies. I think the pattern is indeed built by the processes you state, yet can sustain itself without them (i.e., the Afterlife).


Well, here's the rub, I think: we can choose what to do, but not what we choose to think and feel. Not immediately. A thought can come into the mind to change how we think, but we cannot choose to think that primary-mover thought. Or can we? I'm still not sure.

Exactly. What I feel about the above depends on the mood I am in, which I cannot control. If I am feeling particurlarly optimistic, then I think 'perhaps there is more to it', and I am not so sure about us being trapped in a world of utter meaningless and nothingness. When not so happy, I feel utter despair and hoplessness. I truly hope that the former is true, but just like you, I don't know.
Still, the greatest comfort to me is that we are truly ignorant, and even if the former is true - think this - all the evil in the world is also meaningless!

[SentientMeat]

Lib: "No statement with a truth value can even be made about the singularity"
“It is a singularity”

(In any case, since I believe that statements supervene on the physical, I’m not too concerned with so-called “metaphysical” consequences.)
Aeschines: why is the universe you describe above the way it is? What causes the rules?The way I described it, the universe is effectively any “way it is” somewhere. “Rules” are merely the way offal-based consciousness encodes “how it is”.
It's not as though there are signs posted, "Do Not Disintegrate."They do (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fission) under certain conditions. In this region of the universe, most of them simply have an enormous (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proton_decay) half-life.
Any argument that pattern and number are mere human constructs and not the Truth is a blatant self-contradictionTruth is itself a human construct, its physical nature being “an offal-based memory/proposition which encodes the universe the way it is rather than the way it isn’t.” I have never understood your contention that objects can be physical but their arrangement in spacetime, for some reason, cannot be. Both objects and their spatial-temporal arrangement surely supervene on the physical (http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=233397)?

As for “free will”, I generally deny (http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=233397) this as being simply an offal-based “calculation”.

[Liberal]

“It is a singularity”Meaning that it is some undefined entity about which you are making no assertion with any truth value. If I label X/0 as "undefined term", I am saying nothing about "X/0" (since there is nothing to say), but about undefined terms. In other words, your statement is amphibolous because it is a truncation of "The equation is a singularity". The point remains that you do not know whether the singularity is timeless or not.

[SentientMeat]

Not that black holes are necessarily singularities, but can statements having truth values be made about black holes?

[Liberal]

Truth is disquotational because truth is expressed by language; therefore, for obvious reasons there are severe epistemological problems with making statements about undefined things. That's why you can make a statement about a singularity's equation, but not about what the equation represents. That's also why people argue endlessly about things like "God" — so often, they never pause to define what they're talking about. So, if you can define a black hole, then you can make a statement about it that is either true or false. But if you make a statement about say, obix, how can I or anyone challenge you?

[fessie]

Wouldn't you say that subsequent statements relate only to the accepted definition of the black hole, and not really to the black hole in and of itself? It's Epistemology 101, but somehow it seems to be often forgotten around here.

[Liberal]

That's a bit Nietzschean, but yes, ultimately, you're correct.

[SentientMeat]

Very well, how about the truth value of this statement?:

Within the event horizon of a black hole, a singularity is the only possible future.

[Voyager]

My wife was cooking in my mom's kitchen, knocked something over or did somthing, and in a flash a small ceramic ladle holder was destroyed. This bothered her quite a bit, even the object was of no great monetary value.

She can be quite insightful at times. She said, "That thing getting broken was just like a person dying." The irreversibility of it.

But the Universe provides counterexamples. We arrange the chairs in the room and put them back.

There you are wrong. We no more put the chairs back then gluing the ladle holder together restores it. We may be able to get it close to being the same, close enough for us, but it never is the same.

Perhaps one day, in a John Varley world, we will be able to save our memories and restore them, and thus defeat death. Will we be the same? It depends on whether you are satisfied with close enough, like the chairs, or not, like the ladle holder. But it would never be truly the same.

[II Gyan II]

'R'eality is an unreachable concept. Explanation of R can be subjected to infinite regress, leading nowhere. But the fundamental constraint is that we live entirely as perceptions i.e. seeing, hearing, feeling, thinking, even (the awareness) of being. Reality would presumably involve the essence of perception. This, fundamentally, can never be "known" since 'knowing' is also a state of perception. Imagine a robot trying to disassemble itself. At best, it can only dissemble till the remaining intact machinery is functioning. There comes a point when the sole remaining part can disassemble itself because it is the part it is trying to disassemble. We are restricted to Perception and all our efforts are limited to that domain.

[II Gyan II]

There comes a point when the sole remaining part can disassemble itself because it is the part it is trying to disassemble.

Correct to can't.

[Aeschines]

The way I described it, the universe is effectively any “way it is” somewhere.

I agree in part. Anything consistent with the laws of pattern and number must come into being, but the rub is that a contradiction cannot come into being.

And here, I think, is an interesting argument (my own, heh): Suppose somewhere there is a partition of Reality (or the Universe) that is defined as completely uninflenced by and unknown to any other. Well and good, but somewhere else there is a partition that is defined as influencing and knowing all others. How is this contradiction resolved? I don't know. But this thought experiment leads me to believe that, while partitions are possible, everything in Reality is still connected. That is, there is only one Universe, though different worlds can be layered one on another (the Afterlife is said to be a world separated not from our own by space, but by vibration).

Undoubtedly such reasoning offends your reductionist-materialist sensibilities, but the point still has pertinence. If the Universe is "every which way" somewhere, then in some brane or other location there ought to be a black hole or other feature capable of destroying everything in every other partition. If you counter-argue that there are branes or partitions that are completely separate from, and unknowable to, our own, then I would argue further that such a place is, logically speaking, equivalent to something that does not exist at all.

“Rules” are merely the way offal-based consciousness encodes “how it is”.
I find the term "offal-based consciousness" quite negative and gross. Why do you insist on such a negative phrase?

At any rate, I think the word "merely" in your point is dangerous. How do you explain the incredible congruence between our "mere" encoding and Nature, which has given us such power over it? If we then agree that our rules do give us power and seek to explain just how they do so, we are certainly not lead to the conclusion that chance alone is the cause. If chance is not the cause, then what is? I am not the only person to argue that the congruence of our understanding of pattern and number to the physical world implies that the latter is also, at bottom, pattern and number.

They do (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fission) under certain conditions. In this region of the universe, most of them simply have an enormous (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proton_decay) half-life.
Point taken, the neutron itself is an unstable particle outside the nucleus. But the larger point is that even such a breakdown itself follows rules. Why so? My conclusion, although not particularly profound, is that the pattern of our physical universe is intelligently (thought NOT consciously, as by God) determined. Determined in condradistinction to other partitions, though not entirely separated from them.
Truth is itself a human construct, its physical nature being “an offal-based memory/proposition which encodes the universe the way it is rather than the way it isn’t.”
A self-contradicting set of propositions. Unless of course you don't intend to convince anyone, which goal would require the concept of "Truth," which, according to concept itself, is not "mere truth."
I have never understood your contention that objects can be physical but their arrangement in spacetime, for some reason, cannot be. Both objects and their spatial-temporal arrangement surely supervene on the physical (http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=233397)?
I would say that the concept of "physical" isn't really all that profound to begin with. It comes from, I think, our homo sapiens experience of bumping into big, clunky things while noticing that we also have things like songs, and consciousness, and recipes: things that are important to us but which we don't bump into. Ultimately, I think, it's pattern all the way up and all the way down.
As for “free will”, I generally deny (http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=233397) this as being simply an offal-based “calculation”.
I agree that "free will" is a concept without a foundation, since we can't really point to a function of "will" in the mind.

[Aeschines]

There you are wrong. We no more put the chairs back then gluing the ladle holder together restores it. We may be able to get it close to being the same, close enough for us, but it never is the same.
I agree that, technically, it is not the same. But for human consciousness it is often equivalent to the same.

[Larry Borgia]

What causes Reality, once it has taken a new path, to stay on it?

nothing, because it doesn't. There is no path. There is just whatever is happening now. It will lead to something, but what that is is not ordained. It's just that something is going to happen. If we rewound the clock to any arbitrary point in the past something else might happen. Read Stephen Gould's Wonderful Life for a better explanation of this.

What causes Reality to continue in being at all?

A simpleminded answer to a difficult question: It just does. Seriously though, the fundamental components of matter and energy--quarks, electrons, photons, etc.-- have a certain amount of staying power. They're just not going to blink out of existence. Since they're here, and they interact in such a complex manner that allows stuff like life and self-awareness to develop, reality is self-supporting. What these things "really" are, and how they came to be in the first place is a question no one can answer. Not now at least, and probably never.

[Aeschines]

nothing, because it doesn't. There is no path. There is just whatever is happening now. It will lead to something, but what that is is not ordained. It's just that something is going to happen. If we rewound the clock to any arbitrary point in the past something else might happen. Read Stephen Gould's Wonderful Life for a better explanation of this.
I'm not sure that standard science agrees. No part of space-time exists any more than any other. The present seems to be the present to us only because of the relationship of our mind/brain to it. 2004 has no more existence to it than 1995 or 2020.

A simpleminded answer to a difficult question: It just does. Seriously though, the fundamental components of matter and energy--quarks, electrons, photons, etc.-- have a certain amount of staying power. They're just not going to blink out of existence. Since they're here, and they interact in such a complex manner that allows stuff like life and self-awareness to develop, reality is self-supporting. What these things "really" are, and how they came to be in the first place is a question no one can answer. Not now at least, and probably never.

Yes, they have staying power. My question, though, isn't just why they don't just disappear; that's just the most drastic example. The broader question is why the properties of anything are what they are and why they don't change. And one of those weird (to me) properties is that they do stay the same and allow for Reality to take one path instead of another.

Just an hour or two ago I was watching my wife walk across the room, and struck me as weird that she was there, now here, yet the consciousness of the whole "event" is so fluid, just marching right along with time itself.

Reality is baffling, surely even to the gods!

[Aeschines]

Truth is disquotational because truth is expressed by language; therefore, for obvious reasons there are severe epistemological problems with making statements about undefined things.
Dear friend, I think you might be on the wrong track.

Point, line, and plane are the undefined terms of classical geometry, but we can certainly say many things about them. Moreover, we can communicate much of them by demonstration. We can get things about them.

As for the singularity, well, I think that's a can of worms. It's a theoretical construct, thought up to tell a story and make sense of how things are in the Universe at present. And the story, as it goes, makes a lot of statements about it. It was not in time and space, time and space came from it. Etc. etc.

I think it is a mistake to think of the singularity as a "real object." It is an element of a story. That's not to say that the things we say about it aren't "true," but the things we say about it have the same somewhat satisfying truth value as a statement like, "The man was taller than average and I'm sure his name didn't begin with an M or S."

[SentientMeat]

Aeschines:
Anything consistent with the laws of pattern and number must come into beingAgain, you use this phrase ‘come into being’. Can these regions not exist over all time, such that there was never such a transition?
That is, there is only one Universe, though different worlds can be layered one on another (the Afterlife is said to be a world separated not from our own by space, but by vibration).Are you channelling Everret and DeWitt (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Many-worlds_interpretation) here, or lekatt?
Undoubtedly such reasoning offends your reductionist-materialist sensibilitiesOffended? Not at all. Believe what you like, and let us explore the consequences of our respective beliefs.
If the Universe is "every which way" somewhere, then in some brane or other location there ought to be a black hole or other feature capable of destroying everything in every other partition.No, by “every which way” I alluded to a continuum of those parameters, not that ‘somewhere’ there was, say, a universe of centaurs playing Jenga with prosthetic limbs.
If you counter-argue that there are branes or partitions that are completely separate from, and unknowable to, our own, then I would argue further that such a place is, logically speaking, equivalent to something that does not exist at all.Agreed, these branes might be unobservable and unfalsifiable and thus unscientific. All we would be left with is their logical and mathematical consistency and that they might be predicted by a theory which has other consequences which are observable: this is perhaps marginally more convincing than mere “faith and maths alone”.
I find the term "offal-based consciousness" quite negative and gross. Why do you insist on such a negative phrase?I find the term succinct and accurate. I will eschew it if you wish, but unless you eat brains then I’d suggest you could accurately describe them as “offal” also.
If we then agree that our rules do give us power and seek to explain just how they do so, we are certainly not lead to the conclusion that chance alone is the cause. If chance is not the cause, then what is? Encoding the universe how it is rather than how it isn’t allows useful and ‘powerful’ prediction and manipulation. This is not “chance” any more than a computer calculation is “chance”. What is the cause of a computer's 'power'?
But the larger point is that even such a breakdown itself follows rules. Why so? My proposal was that those parameters are different “elsewhere”, such that the breakdown does follow different rules “elsewhere” and atoms are not so permanent (or do not even form from cooling plasma in the first place).
A self-contradicting set of propositions.How so?
Ultimately, I think, it's pattern all the way up and all the way down.And why can pattern not supervene on the physical? You are perfectly welcome to deny the physical if you wish, but I would appreciate your explanation of why I cannot deny the non-physical.

[Dijon Warlock]

I have an answer. It is not a good one. But I see this Universe as ours as being a mathematical construct in which laws and principles have been put into place to foster a certain variety of consciousness. This is not effected by a personal God, but rather by the very principles of pattern and number themselves.Interesting that you say this. It reminded me of a website I used to browse around by a guy who was certainly a thinker (although I'm not so sure how right he was about everything).

Check this out when you have time: The universe is the geometric embodiment of a simple integer count (http://www.ebtx.com/ntx/ntx05.htm).

It gets pretty deep; I've never managed to grasp it all.

[Liberal]

Point, line, and plane are the undefined terms of classical geometry, but we can certainly say many things about them. Moreover, we can communicate much of them by demonstration. We can get things about them.Actually, Euclid defined point in Elements in Definition 1: "A point is that which has no part." Line is defined in Definition 2: "A line is breadthless length." And plane is defined in Definition 7: "A plane surface is a surface which lies evenly with the straight lines on itself." But I do understand what you're getting at. Zero, successor, and number are all undefined terms in Peano arithmetic. But then, Peano does not go on to make inferences about zero, or about successors, or about numbers in se. It is perfectly fine — and in fact necessary — to have undefined terms in any deductive system because of the infinite regress of circulus in demonstrando that would result otherwise. But these terms must be stated explicity, and no inferences about their properties may be directly drawn.


I think it is a mistake to think of the singularity as a "real object." It is an element of a story. That's not to say that the things we say about it aren't "true," but the things we say about it have the same somewhat satisfying truth value as a statement like, "The man was taller than average and I'm sure his name didn't begin with an M or S."I like your general take, but I would say this about the man: "The man is indescribable, unknowable, and ontologically uncommitted."

[Liberal]

Interesting that you say this. It reminded me of a website I used to browse around by a guy who was certainly a thinker (although I'm not so sure how right he was about everything).

Check this out when you have time: The universe is the geometric embodiment of a simple integer count (http://www.ebtx.com/ntx/ntx05.htm).

It gets pretty deep; I've never managed to grasp it all.I think it's more succint to say that the universe is a probability distribution.

[SentientMeat]

I'm not sure exactly what you mean there, Lib, but it sounds like a Copenhagen-type interpretation. If so, a majority of physicists would now disagree (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Many-worlds_interpretation).

[Liberal]

Actually, the universe as a probability distribution is a Many-Worlds interpretation. (Cite. (http://www.chaos.org.uk/~eddy/physics/universe.html))

[SentientMeat]

Fair play to “Eddy” at chaos.org.uk (who appears to be some software designer with a beef against the European Patent Office) but his summary of Quantum Cosmology missed out some pretty important elements; quantum gravity (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_gravity) is perhaps a better place to start, with a view to applying it to the entire universe later on.

Just to clarify, are you suggesting that the universe is a “probability distribution” with regards to possible universes we inhabit in the same way that the Earth is a probability distribution with regards to the countries we could inhabit?

[Liberal]

Yeah, the guy is a little flaky, but he is correct about the assertion in question. Here is a bit better introduction to the concept. (50 page PDF)

http://arxiv.org/PS_cache/quant-ph/pdf/0011/0011122.pdf

To save yourself a bit of time, see section 7.5.2, "Many World Splits", first. Then, read from the beginning if you have a further interest. Note that the universe is a probability distribution with respect to its history and future, that is to say, temporally. I brought it up originally because we were discussing the alleged timelessness of the singularity.

[SentientMeat]

Whoa! That will take some reading. Going from an algorithm to a Theory of Everything seems a little dubious at first glance and Technical Reports are notoriously impenetrable, but I'll give it a go if you're sure it's worth my while. (Is this guy a friend of yours or something?)

It seems we might generally agree on a many worlds interpretation and even on some aspects of quantum cosmology re. "instantons" or whatever. The clarification I sought was whether you considered this to somehow impugn the status of the universe as the basis of what we perceived - that you think it's somehow "just a probability distribution"? One could argue that anything is just so.

[Liberal]

Slight nitpick: one could argue that anything describable is just so. And no, I don't know the guy. I don't presume to take credit for it either. In fact, the person who informed me of it was a professor of physics at my old haunt, the philosophy forums. I had asked whether the universe might be described as a "field of probabilities". He responded that a better turn of phrase would be a "probability distribution", upon which I began to research. Sure enough, it was out there.

[SentientMeat]

OK - to rephrase my question: do you think it succinct and accurate to say that the Earth is a probability distribution?

[Liberal]

Yes. The universe and everything in it that exists, ever has existed, or ever will exist — even only possibly.

[SentientMeat]

Fair enough, but I'd take issue with this:
even only possibly.
Does this include my Jenga-playing centaur world?

[Liberal]

Actually, that's the big question of the article I referenced: is virtual reality describable? If so, then its probabilities are distributed over its temporal existence. If not, then it does not exist in the universe.

[Aeschines]

Aeschines:
Again, you use this phrase ‘come into being’. Can these regions not exist over all time, such that there was never such a transition?
Yes, that's right: a coming-into-being from as the effect of a cause (the cause being the unalterable laws of pattern and number) but not requiring time whatsoever. The laws of pattern and number are eternal, and not all of the Universes that they cause have time as we know it.
Offended? Not at all. Believe what you like, and let us explore the consequences of our respective beliefs.
Sounds good.
No, by “every which way” I alluded to a continuum of those parameters, not that ‘somewhere’ there was, say, a universe of centaurs playing Jenga with prosthetic limbs.
Yes, but why only those parameters? My belief is that the number of worlds is a number so large as to be almost beyond our comprehension, yet I also think it is finite. In essence, there is only one Universe with partitions that can, in some way, be overcome. The question, then, is the number of partitions.
Agreed, these branes might be unobservable and unfalsifiable and thus unscientific. All we would be left with is their logical and mathematical consistency and that they might be predicted by a theory which has other consequences which are observable: this is perhaps marginally more convincing than mere “faith and maths alone”.
Yes, I've seen arguments to this effect. One was that the pattern of background radiation in our universe is such that it implies the existence of other bubble universes. In that case, I would say that the theory is compatible with our understanding but not very compelling. ("No information could ever be exchanged between our bubble and any other, but statistically speaking we know they're out there.")
I find the term succinct and accurate. I will eschew it if you wish, but unless you eat brains then I’d suggest you could accurately describe them as “offal” also.
I think it's also innaccurate, as it implies a different kind of consciousness could exist. Which is fine with me. But also fine to a materialist?
Encoding the universe how it is rather than how it isn’t allows useful and ‘powerful’ prediction and manipulation. This is not “chance” any more than a computer calculation is “chance”. What is the cause of a computer's 'power'?
Yes, but we call "encoding how it is" Truth. Anytime someone tries to argue that the Truth is just a human construct with no "real" basis in "how things are," s/he must invoke the concept of Truth in order to make the argument. After all, I could just counter that the arguer's argument is just a construct too, and therefore has no power to burst the bubble of the concept of capital-T Truth.

Also, materialists are free to argue is that all we have are perceptions, qualia, etc., and we do not perceive Nature how it is. I would counterargue that perceptions and qualia are themselves part of Nature, and, therefore, we perceive Nature exactly how it is (insofar as we perceive it at all). This does not mean that we automatically understand Nature: we see an apple fall and do not necessarily understand what gravity is. But I do deny that our perceptions are somehow fundamentally "wrong."

My proposal was that those parameters are different “elsewhere”, such that the breakdown does follow different rules “elsewhere” and atoms are not so permanent (or do not even form from cooling plasma in the first place).
Right, but what anchors those "rules" in any particular region?
And why can pattern not supervene on the physical? You are perfectly welcome to deny the physical if you wish, but I would appreciate your explanation of why I cannot deny the non-physical.
I think the physical is a subset of pattern, and an arbitrary one at that. As I said in another post, physical things are the things we bump into, and nonphysical things are things that we don't. It is a humanocentric, not really scientific concept. But here's what I mean: What is an electron made of? According to current science, it's not made of anything. It's just a particle. And a lepton like that has no subparticles, is not made of "stuff." I don't see how such an "object" is any different than a line of code. It is an eensy-weensy rule for interaction. It is an arbitrary pattern.

[Liberal]

I thought that what we bumped into were fields — electromagnetic fields to be exact. One way to illustrate the weakness of gravity as a force, compared to electromagnetism, is to jump off the top of a skyscraper. When the electromagnetic field of your body meets the electromagnetic field of the street, the weakness of gravity is quite spectacularly shown.

[II Gyan II]

Also, materialists are free to argue is that all we have are perceptions, qualia, etc., and we do not perceive Nature how it is. I would counterargue that perceptions and qualia are themselves part of Nature, and, therefore, we perceive Nature exactly how it is (insofar as we perceive it at all). This does not mean that we automatically understand Nature: we see an apple fall and do not necessarily understand what gravity is. But I do deny that our perceptions are somehow fundamentally "wrong."

In case you were refering to me, I don't claim that Nature is perceived wrong, but that it can't be perceived at all since the participating perceptive apparatus needs to be understood as well. But if you try to understand your own apparatus, what do you understand it with? What does 'pattern' and 'number' mean? They are just essences within experience. Is there any sense in claiming that instead of experience just consisting of these essences that these essences constitute experience? After all, the concept of transcendence is itself a component of experience. Everything is.

[Aeschines]

In case you were refering to me, I don't claim that Nature is perceived wrong, but that it can't be perceived at all since the participating perceptive apparatus needs to be understood as well. But if you try to understand your own apparatus, what do you understand it with? What does 'pattern' and 'number' mean? They are just essences within experience. Is there any sense in claiming that instead of experience just consisting of these essences that these essences constitute experience? After all, the concept of transcendence is itself a component of experience. Everything is.
This is tough to parse, but I don't agree with at least parts of it.

The conclusions we draw from our senses are often quite mundane. I see a rock. A rock is "really" there. Our perceptions correspond with Reality. I don't think we need to understand how sight works, the brain works, or how subatomic physic works to make this claim.

Further, what meaning does "Nature" have in the first place if it is something that "we can't perceive at all"? Throughout history philosophers have been talking about that thing we do perceive, so if suddenly we agree we don't perceive it, then the subject has changed completely.

As "pattern and number" (they are one, actually--just "pattern" should suffice) are the foundation of all things and therefore are beyond definitiion. But they can be understood by demonstration and other means. We really can't define "2" beyond a superficial level, but we can easily demonstrate it.

[II Gyan II]

Further, what meaning does "Nature" have in the first place if it is something that "we can't perceive at all"?


'Nature' is a bad choice of a word. Essence is more appropriate.


As "pattern and number" (they are one, actually--just "pattern" should suffice) are the foundation of all things and therefore are beyond definitiion.

I wasn't dealing with this aspect at all. You say that all of experience can be understood of as structured. Fine. What I'm saying is that we can't say anything about the underlying essence or the engine that drives experience, on the basis that our experience is structural. We are a product of that engine and all we deal with are other products of that engine. It is meaningless to ask how the engine works. All we can do is examine the other products and interact with them in terms of ourselves. What, if anything, "lies beneath" is a fundamentally meaningless question.

[Ellis Dee]

I'm not sure that standard science agrees. No part of space-time exists any more than any other. The present seems to be the present to us only because of the relationship of our mind/brain to it. 2004 has no more existence to it than 1995 or 2020.But there are several arrows of time built into the fabric of reality. The Entropy arrow. The consciousness arrow. The universe expansion arrow. The particle decay arrow...I forget which particle...I'll hazard a WAG and say the K Boson. There's 3 more, but I can't remember them offhand. Many of these are measurable. They point in the direction from the past to the future. Don't these arrows of time lend legitimacy to the concept of a past, present, and future that are truly separated by objective time, as opposed to (merely) our perception of such?