From: David Morey (us@divadeus.freeserve.co.uk)
Date: Fri Aug 20 2004 - 22:26:46 BST
Hi Chris
I like to link these ideas to the meaning of intelligence.
Is not intelligence the realisation that we are faced with
possibilities that we have to choose between, intelligence
can assess those possibilties an decide which option has
most value.
regards
David M
----- Original Message -----
From: "Chris Phoenix" <cphoenix@CRNano.org>
To: <moq_discuss@moq.org>
Sent: Friday, August 20, 2004 6:24 PM
Subject: Re: MD Re: Non-empiricist definition of DQ
>
>
> hampday@earthlink.net wrote:
> > Chris wrote:
> >>From Ham to Chris, Thursday, Aug. 19
> >
> > Hi, Chris, and thank's for answering my question to David concerning
> > multiple universe systems.
>
> You're welcome.
>
> >>DQ is the creation of yet-to-be-filled evolutionary niches.
Possibilities.
> >>Empiricism, I think, has trouble dealing with possibility.
> >
> > This is certainly true, and your proposition is significant to my own
thesis
> > and very well developed.
>
> Thanks!
>
> > Now that I know that you and David are not proposing a theory of
"multiple
> > universes", let's focus on "possibility" as it relates to future events.
In
> > your last note to me you said: "Since a niche can't
> > be detected until it's filled, there's no way of knowing which niches
> > exist." But can a niche be said to exist prior to its being experienced
as
> > reality?
>
> To empiricists, it can't be said to exist. And I don't have enough
> philosophic background to explain why "possibility" is different from
> "Easter bunny." It's common-sense obvious that they are different. But
> I'm not sure it's easy to explain.
>
> As I think about it further, it seems that "possibility" can only be
> understood in terms of time, and time is something that even physicists
> have trouble with. Time is what happens when physics transitions from
> reversible (quantum) to irreversible--in other words, entropy. But DQ
> is the opposite of entropy.
>
> When we think of particular possibilities, we're attaching meaning and
> significance (a form of value?) to particular examples of future
> optional patterns. Have I managed to derive the concept of the observer
> causing quantum-mechanical collapse? It's tempting to think so, but I
> suspect it's just a misleading analogy. It's far too easy to mis-apply
> dimly understood physics concepts. So I'll leave this paragraph
> undeleted, but I'll caution that it's *worse than useless* unless a real
> physicist finds a way to formalize it.
>
> > In other words does "potentiality" infer existence? This is the
> > problem I'm having with your proposition, and I suspect that it may also
> > have exposed some ambiguity in the MOQ.
>
> I'd say limitatation (and did say it) rather than ambiguity.
>
> > In my Philosophy of Essence, I place "Essence" beyond the realm of
empirical
> > reality and maintain that it is the a priori Source rather than an
> > "existent". From a logical perspective, this avoids having to deal with
> > conflicting or opposing factors that apply to a dynamic system (DQ?).
I'm
> > quite aware that my thesis is regarded as "supernatural" by the MOQ
> > participants for this reason, but I don't think it violates Pirsig's
central
> > idea that Quality (or Value) transcends the duality of empirical reality
> > (SOM) providing an esthetic link between man and ultimate reality. While
I
> > have not fully grasped the teleological aspects of your "possibilities"
> > concept, and its implications relative to individual Freedom, I think
you
> > may be on to something.
>
> See what you think after reading the above... (BTW, I wrote it before
> visiting your site.)
>
> > Among other things, I would like to see how you explain Free Will in the
> > context of cause-and-effect determinism. (You might be interested in
seeing
> > how I've handled this in the Freedom section of my own thesis at
> > www.essentialism.net. No one has raised questions about the concept
> > outlined there, which probably means they haven't read it or don't
consider
> > it relevant to MOQ). I'd be very interested in your
> > thoughts on this, Chris.
>
> Whoa. Where did cause-and-effect determinism come in? And where did I
> promise to explain free will?
>
> Despite my flirting with physics above, I think I'm talking about a
> metaphysics, not a physics. And I think the deepest questions of free
> will should be answerable by physics. And I only have time right now to
> give the briefest skim to your site.
>
> That said, I find it interesting that possibilities are, in a very
> significant sense, unknowable until they are filled by patterns. When
> we predict them, we are building and manipulating a simplified model; we
> can't *really* know a possibility exists until we try it. Conversely,
> by demanding certainty we shut off all investigation of possibility.
>
> So, speaking metaphysically, I'd say that everything
> evolutionary--everything that is an interplay between DQ (the appearance
> of new niches or possibilities) and SQ (filling niches and thus making
> substrates for new niches)--is unpredictable and nondeterministic.
> Since our thought is evolutionary, possibly on multiple levels (see
> William Calvin for evolution on the neural-signal level), then it would
> appear that our thought is non-deterministic.
>
> Of course, there may be a higher level in which it's possible to know
> exactly what possibilities exist and how evolution will go. So it may
> be that whether we have free will or not depends on which level you look
> from: the human level where we play metaphysics, or some hypothetical
> higher level.
>
> Godel's Incompleteness Theorem proves that interesting systems contain
> ideas the truth of which is unknowable within that system. A richer
> system could exist that would be able to evaluate the truth of things
> that the original system can't--but of course would have its own
> unknowabilities.
>
> I found a paper that seems to confirm this interpretation. "And if such
> is the case, then we (qua mathematicians) are machines that are unable
> to recognize the fact that they are machines. As the saying goes: if our
> brains could figure out how they work they would have been much smarter
> than they are. Gödel’s incompleteness result provides in this case solid
> grounds for our inability, for it shows it to be a mathematical
> necessity. The upshot is hauntingly reminiscent of Spinoza's conception,
> on which humans are predetermined creatures, who derive their sense of
> freedom from their incapacity to grasp their own nature. A human, viz.
> Spinoza himself, may recognize this general truth; but a human cannot
> know how this predetermination works, that is, the full theory. Just so,
> we can entertain the possibility that all our mathematical reasoning is
> subsumed under some computer program; but we can never know how this
> program works. For if we knew we could diagonalize and get a
contradiction."
> http://www.columbia.edu/~hg17/godel-incomp4.pdf
>
> You talk about the alternative to free will as being a state of knowing
> everything. But such a state is impossible for any computational
> system. (A claim that we are not computational systems must appeal to
> non-standard science.) I can't tell, from my limited reading, whether
> that confirms your argument or renders it irrelevant.
>
> Chris
>
> --
> Chris Phoenix cphoenix@CRNano.org
> Director of Research
> Center for Responsible Nanotechnology http://CRNano.org
>
>
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