Greetings Marco, Peter, Dan and fellow discussers,
Your post immediately reminded me of a graphic model a lecturer of my Uni had
developed already in '75. He is teaching experimental physics but has also great
interest in philosophies. He is running a philosophic seminar for small groups
of students of different subjects every term, in which I have been taking part
for the second time by now. Although the possibilities to draw such models by
means of my e-mail-tools are limited, I'll have a try. Here is Mr. Balks
'world-concept'. If interested in more I also can translate those 4 pages
describing it.
/ ?????
/
---------------------------------------------
^_____________________________________________ 1.step of transcendence
Infor- | /AI
mation |---------------/------------------------------(man)
| /Intelligence
| / _______________________________
| / Life (organized/social)
| /__________________________________
| / Life (RNA - potential to duplicate)
| /____________________________________
| /(form-able) Matter Ann.: the lines (*) running from time-axis
| /______________________________________ through the
'atoms/energy/...-area
| /Molecules\ are meant to cover the whole triangular
| /________________________________________ area (this is no
Corel-draw :-) )
| /Atoms\ \
| /_______\__________________________________
| /Energy \ \
| /________\_____________________________________
|/Space-time\ \ \
/---------------------------------------------------->
Time
Under this drawing I have remarked 'Pirsig --> 'world-model'
short description (no exact translation!): In this layer-model every layer is
created by the layer below, for the reason of the occurence of a new qualtiy,
which gets added to the already existing quality. The (*)-lines are meant to
express that, for example part of 'matter' has also the new quality 'life'. The
borderlines between the layers should be considered as more continous.; the seem
to be only existent in this model, imprinted by the necessarily used concepts.
(f.e. viruses - between non-living and living matter)
Peter Lennox wrote:
>
> Thanks for posting that.
> It seems at first glance to fit rather well with a theory I use when trying
> to investigate "perception"; namely that (as a methodological convenience) I
> hypothesise that the basic 'stuff' of the universe is not matter, energy or
> space/time, but rather "information", and that those other terms we use
> refer to 'properties' of this basic stuff, rather than the other way round.
> So, 'matter' is a particularly 'lumpy' form of information, which can of
> course be converted into 'energy', which is much more fleet of foot. In this
> way, one could entertain the notion that a) information can survive the
> transition from one form to another quite easily, and
> b) one could imagine information without energy, but not energy without
> information.
> This is handy because perceptual theorists have long had to wrestle with the
> notion of how the brain 'makes up' information when signal energies are
> interrupted; i.e. if a thing passes behind another thing (for instance), how
> is it that the human brain 'knows' that the thing continues to exist, and is
> merely hidden from view. Studies of pre-linguistic infants confirm quite
> readily that 'intuitive physics' of this sort is established very early in
> development, too early to be universally explained by theories of 'learning
> by association'. There seems to be an innate propensity to believe in the
> information that objects tend to continue to exist, even when the signal
> flows do not, at least for as long as 'memory' allows.
> Postulating "information" as the basic 'stuff' actually gets round an awful
> lot of philosophical dilemmas, such as the 'mind / matter dualism' inherent
> in Descartes' thinking (and of course before), and whilst it seems to offend
> traditional notions of causality (long regarded as fundamental to scientific
> thinking, though see [Popper, Karl] on that subject), it doesn't actually
> contradict the basic principle of causality, if that principle is re-framed
> around the 'information-as-fundamental principle of the universe'; in fact
> perhaps one could actually have a 'law of conservation of information'
> rather more easily than one could have a law of conservation of energy,
> though it might be rather less useful! For that matter, the notion would
> seem to bolster the theoretical position of the idea of a deterministic
> universe, yet within which 'free will' might happily exist!
> I should say that I haven't really explored the metaphysical implications to
> any great extent, so there may be gaping holes in my reasoning in some of
> these areas; but it certainly simplifies thinking about models of
> perception, in the spirit of Occam's (Ockham's) razor.
> regards,
> peter
>
> > Hello everyone
> >
> > I don't know if everyone has read the new moq.org link:
> >
> >
> http://www.sunday-times.co.uk/news/pages/sti/2000/06/04/stifgnusa01007.html
> >
> > but the findings pose serious challenges to how we currently view
> > Universe. First, space and time are no longer united as Albert Einstein
> > declared them to be with his Theory of Special Relativity. It is now
> > seen that what Einstein described, while being a valid point of view,
> > only operates under very specific circumstances.
> >
> > What does this mean exactly? Basically it seems the problem boils down
> > to our measuring instruments. We know what the speed of light is for we
> > have measured it very carefully, with highly precise, technologically
> > advanced instruments. What is it that is being measured, however?
> > Looking at the findings of Dr. Wang, it becomes apparent that the
> > measuring instrument itself is being measured and not the speed of
> > light. In other words, a response to the delay of the receiver. Another
> > researcher, Ralph Sansbury, writes:
[...]
> >
> > Thoughts, anyone?
> > Dan
Well yes I've been there, quite interesting stuff. I bookmarked the 'INE'-site.
It meets my interest as i'm reading a book about Atoms and quantum-mechanics
(Hans-Christian von Baeyer, 'Taming the atom: The Emerging of the Visible
Microworld ' first published in USA in '92 )
I hope my drawing doesn't get to much garbled; I will try again then!
Regards
JoVo
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