ROGER QUANTIFIES HIS POSITION ON REALITY
This response is to Robert, Walter, David, Ryan, Platt, Steve, Clark, Horse,
etc.
The topic is on the nature of reality and indirectly to Robert's version of
Cartesian duality. Sorry it takes me so long to respond, but I am busy at
work (though I am more of a Corporate Pimp than a Whore...David ;-) ), I type
slow, I joined another MOQ site, and my son is with me this summer. Balance
is what the MOQ is really about, and I really must practice what I preach.
So sorry in advance to those of you that have already read some of my
regenerated quotes from you know where.
Let me start with David......
DAVID:
I can't believe that atoms or particles or waves only exist when humans
look at them. I don't think that our perceptions create reality or that
reality is an abstraction of experience. Rather experience is fundamental
to the nature of reality and has, through the course of evolution,
created humans and their perceptions. Subjects and objects don't pop
into existence magically because of our experience. I think that view is
just some kind of fancy Solipsism. Its impossibly weird.
ROGER:
I find it impossible to believe that atoms or particles exist absent our
models. In fact, modern science came to the same conclusion about 75 years
ago. Now I would agree that there is REALITY beyond human perception (but I
am not sure). I would not call this REALITY "something", I would call it
"being" or "becoming", or like David," the cusp between chaos and matter," or
like RMP, "DQ".
The attributes become waves or particles or chairs or moons with
observation/measurement. These are all intellectual constructs that did not
even exist until we created them (Technically it would be proper to say that
experience gained quality and created us and them). Ultimate REALITY is
unconceptualizable (but not unexperienceable). Science now recognizes this.
Physicist James Jeans wrote: "The outstanding achievement of 20th Century
physics is.... the general recognition that we are not yet in contact with
ultimate reality".
Quantum physics finally allowed us to see the conceit and illusion of
classical physics. God isn't a mathematician, we are. And what we measure
and describe and categorize is mathematical abstractions of the underlying
simplicities of reality, it is not the full REALITY itself. It is shadows or
echoes of DQ. To quote Sir Arthur Eddington:
"We have learnt that the exploration of the external world by the methods
of physical science leads not to a concrete reality but to a shadow world
of symbols, beneath which those methods are unadopted for penetrating."
Or better yet, the "catless" Schroedinger:
"The scientific picture of the real world around me is very deficient. It
gives a lot of factual information, puts all our experiences in a
magnificently consistent order, but it is ghastly silent all and sundry that
is near to our heart, that really matters to us. It cannot tell us a word
about red and blue, bitter and sweet, physical pain and physical delight; it
knows nothing of beautiful and ugly, good or bad, God and eternity.......
So, in brief, WE DO NOT BELONG TO THIS MATERIAL WORLD THAT SCIENCE CONSTRUCTS
FOR US." (emphasis added)
And here is a great one from Max Planck:
"It is obvious that the moon and the mathematician use different methods of
finding the lunar orbit."
Back to David though.......
DAVID:
What I think that what goes on in the cases of our observations in
sub-atomic physics is a matter of "disturbing the universe". The
potential particles and waves, prior to our interruption, exist as an
"electron cloud". The "parts" of the atom are neither here nor there.
The are not yet fully differentiated. They exist at the cusp between
chaos (primordial DQ) and inorganic matter. And that existence does not
depend on our observing it. Rather it is the "that its attributes are
created or realized in the act of measurement". Those attributes, those
particles and waves, are created by our observations, which have a way
forcing the potential to be realized. WE push the atom to make a
"choice" about which way to go.
ROGER:
Now here David seems much closer to me. The only real difference I have is
with the words "we" and "atom" used in the last sentence. I would agree
100% if it was written "Observation (EXPERIENCE) creates us and the atom out
of DQ."
Now to Walter, who questioned the following of Pirsig's....
PIRSIG:
> "The most striking similarity between the Metaphysics of Quality and
> Complementarity is that this Quality event corresponds to what Bohr
> means by "observation." When the Copenhagen Interpretation
> "holds that the unmeasured atom is not real, that its attributes are
> created or realized in the act of measurement," (Herbert xiii) it is
> saying something very close to the Metaphysics of Quality. The
> observation creates the reality."
ROGER:
I agree completely with RMP and would answer "NO" to Walter's question of
whether Heisenberg's uncertainty principle explains the issue away via
sub-particle interaction. The uncertainty principle as I understand it states
that our conceptualization -- our very knowledge-- of ultimate reality has
tradeoffs between position and momentum (among other things). However,
Heisenberg was there with Bohr and company when they agreed with the
Copenhagen Interpretation.
Allow me to quote Dr. Heisenberg: "For the smallest units of matter are, in
fact, not physical objects in the ordinary sense of the word; they are forms,
structures or -- in Plato's sense -- Ideas." They are mental constructs,
and even as such are inadequate explanations of even the shadows of true
REALITY without complementary definitions.
So, to wrap up my position, I would say that ULTIMATE REALITY is unknowable
but is experience-able. In fact it is experience itself. One quality
experience is that of creating the world of subjects and objects , waves and
particles, mathematical models that are simplified yet consistent shadows of
the true reality. (Which of your two world views does this put me in Walter?
Clearly, I no longer am in Magnus' camp.)
However, I am repulsed by the "I am the Entire F*&%#ing Universe" notion. I
don't believe it at all. I am derived from this experience too. And this
derivation of Pure Experience is not all. I am made of experience, but like
Robert I sense that it is greater than me. (And like the old Robert -- but
unlike the new -- I think that it Experience or Ultimate Consciousness or DQ
is essentially unified).
Schroedinger compares "us" to windows. We are composed of the
undifferentiated light of DQ. Our goal is to make the window as large as
possible. Surely "we" close (I haven't always been open, and the "me" that
was open 20 years ago is no more the "me" than you are now), but the light is
eternal.
But then again, I am sure I am wrong,
Roger
******************
"We cannot claim to have discerned more than a very faint glimmer of
light at the best..." [J. Jeans]
********************
MOQ Online Homepage - http://www.moq.org
Mail Archive - http://alt.venus.co.uk/hypermail/moq_discuss/
Unsubscribe - http://www.moq.org/md/index.html
MD Queries - horse@wasted.demon.nl
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b30 : Sat Aug 17 2002 - 16:03:09 BST