Where does meaning come from?

Encode, I am the farthest thing from a nihilist. Nihilist don’t believe in meaning, I believe meaning is in everything. But something you should know about me is that I sometimes like to suspend my usual convictions and beliefs and argue from a position that isn’t mine. Think of it as an attempt to scope out the other person’s thoughts: if they present to me philosophy X, I will sometimes counter with anti-X (even if I’m an adherent of X myself) just to see how they react, what their thoughts are. It helps to flesh out the details of their position.

I wholeheartedly agree, encode. Meaning is just consciousness, awareness. It is the process by which meaning is drawn from an experience and used to beget further meaning in a new experience. (<-- This, again, coming from my theory of consciousness).

As far as I’m concerned, subjective experience comes with all physical actions. If I throw a ball against a wall, I maintain that a subjective experience characterized by some quality is had by the ball/wall system. Only, I wouldn’t say the quality of this experience is anything remotely like what we’re familiar with in our own experience. It is incomprehensible for all intents and purposes. It is not the experience of vision, or hearing, or touch, or thought, or emotion, or anything we as humans are acquainted with. The latter experiences come along with a very specific kind of physical activity–namely, neurochemical events in the brain–certainly not a ball bouncing off a wall.

In general, I define consciousness, or more accurately “subjective experience” in terms of a trio:

  1. quality
  2. being
  3. meaning

I believe the fundamental substance of the universe, the “stuff” that reality is made of, to be the above three aspects rolled into one substance (and at the end of the day, my theory of consciousness is really a theory of substance). It’s aspect #3 (meaning) that, in my mind, makes the incomprehensible experience that the plant has meaningful, but like the man speaking in a foreign language, our brains are unable to imagine what it feels like, and thus have no direct access to the meaning therein.

Well, that’s all I’ve got for now. I’ll expand on this line of thought later if I come up with anything.

Well, I’m interested in knowing what the “animal” part of the human brain has to offer. I’m rather cynical when it comes to the influence that society or civilization has on the human psyche. I don’t think it’s healthy. At least, it’s unhealthy in the way it conditions us to behave in pre-programmed way, or to behave and speak in ways that seem more like an attempt to adhere to the status quo rather then drawing from our authentic feelings and intuitions and instincts. They say that mankind first appeared on the evolutionary scene about 200,000 years ago (this, they say, is “mindkind” in the modern form, more or less genetically identical to the way we are today). I don’t think man came onto the scene fully equipment with a whole resource of religious beliefs and superstitions and comprehensions of complex abstract concepts. I believe that when man first appeared on the scene, he wasn’t that much different than an advanced animal… except for this one defining feature: he had the ability to not only build thought on past experience, and even build thought on prior thoughts, but the ability to pass on those thoughts to others, sort of naturally “downloading” pre-packaged memes. And “memes” is pretty much what this boils down to. Mankind evolved on the scene equipped with the ability to produce and pass on memes, and for memes themselves to evolve in the hardware of the human brain as they not only get checked and compared with further experience on the part of the individual, but in the very process of being communicated to others. IOW, the human brain is unique among other animal brains in that it was the first platform (as far as we know) on which a different kind of evolution could begin, an evolution of thought, of ideas, as opposed to biological evolution. This allows for a much speedier process of evolution, one that can go from quite rudimentary thoughts on the level of mere animals (like “I’m hungry”) to a sophistication of thought on the level of multivariate calculus or quantum mechanics. As speedy as it is compared to biological evolution, however, it still takes time. They say that the advent of religion and ritual emerged about 40,000 years ago. But if we are the same animals we’ve always been since 200,000 years ago, what happened 40,000 years ago such that religion would spontaneously (from our limited point of view) emerge? The answer is: that’s how long it took for religion to evolve. Memes being passed on, being built on top of other memes, memes transforming and evolving, becoming more and more sophisticate, until we get religion.

My interest in this, my a pantheist point of view (to bring God into the discussion), is to understand what God originally intended to convey to us. If religion, and all other forms of abstract thought we have today, is the culmination of an evolutionary process of memes, a process that we build, that we are involved in driving, then it could be argued that we are distorting the original message conveyed to us by God, the original message conveyed to us by the universe via the senses and the hardwiring of the brain, which I proposed is hardwired to take raw sensory data and build “objects” out of (like most other animals, I believe).

Science, I’m convince, is a kind of reconciliation of this departure from the original messagee. It is mankind learning to speak the language of God, to interpet our experiences in their own terms. Science is a Q&A session with God. The experiment is a question: is my hypothesis right? And the results are God’s answer: yeay or nay.

In today’s science, we have learned much about the inner workings of nature. Though this is obviously far from the original message conveyed to us by God (God never told us the world is made of atoms and molecular, of light photons, of black holes and quasars billions of light years away), I believe science offers a special edge by which God’s response to experiments (when it’s a yeay) can be interpreted as: well, that’s not what I originally intended to convey, but it’s more or less equivalent. ← Like a person throwing a message back at you in his own words. You could respond “yes, that’s right,” even though it’s not the words you originally used.

Boy I’m chatty today, ain’t I? :laughing:

That may be, but I’ve been speaking too much about my own thoughts. You have yet to expound on your own. Where would one begin with encode’s thoughts if one were to grasp the big picture in encode’s head?

Hi gib

I am going to break my response up - I think it is easier to manage that way - I hope you have no objections.

I was pretty certain that you were not a nihilist. I really like your style that you suspend your usual convictions and beliefs and argue from a position that isn’t yours - I have similar tricks - even arguing against my self - this keeps the mind very agile in my opinion. When scoping out other peoples thoughts, especially for the first time - I believe having extra tools like some trick is a great way to uncover their reactions.

Well, your theory of consciousness is going to be something that I will be very interested in reading.

I assume you are referring to signals interpreted by the brain otherwise I am not following you precisely. I will attempt to offer my thoughts - let me make up a word - encephalosystem - because you are talking about a system - encephalosystem is the system inside the skull - the brain/mind system. The ball/wall system is a separate system to the encephalosystem. What we are familiar with when we experience translation of the outside world through the encephalosystem is different to what the ball/wall system “experiences”. We can not truly comprehend the ball/wall system is what I think you are saying.

OK . . . that is incredible and very interesting at the same time. I also believe the universe is one substance. This is a new way to think for me - thanks. I have been following James’ idea of affectance for the one substance. This to me involves emergence of the three things you have listed. I keep my mind open because like the style you have mentioned above I am still able to learn by analogy or interpretation.

:-k

gib

And here it is part two . . . nothing super special - your writing is interesting however.

I think the animal part you refer to is what I refer to as the reptilian part. With the current state of affairs it pays to be cynical - certainly sociological influence is corrupt - I am studying this regarding emotions at the moment. It is so easy to study emotion when you have a whole society of people acting the same.

Um, yeah, I would have to mostly agree.

Were the memes via language though? I know cave drawings played a part later on - sometimes I think there is still quite a lot of primitive man in a lot of the human race - not inciting racism, just saying. Building thoughts on prior thoughts is the most significant thing you mention here for me. When the baby watches man and continues to toddler and continues to watch man - all the way through the years to adult - the downloading is continuous of course - even without language. First signs of language could still be grunts and groans. Thoughts on prior thoughts I will leave alone because we are now talking about similar material in another thread.

These memes did not require language to begin with - it seems as those language now has intoxicated memes of the past - that modern man is currently a drunkard. Meaning has become adulterated and has become quite the promiscuous slave of each man.

True - I have heard that our collective evolution has slow because of this. I honestly believe there is an after this - an after philosophy and an after science - super-powerful knowledge on the horizon - only for a select few.

Are all of us the same animals though - or are a small few just trudging through the treacherous waters of humankind as it stands now.

I believe spirituality is a part of our future, just not the way we have ever viewed it before now.

:-k

gib

And now for the third and final part of my response - I am getting a little tired so I hope I am going to be still making some sense - it is 2:27 AM here.

Hmm, interesting notions - a little foreign to me but I will humor them since I am a “believer”. I am certain god did not intend this the way we live now - I ran an idea James had by a Christian friend of mine and my Christian friend asserted that James must be a very smart fellow. Cities I believe are a little too much if you are not indulging in communication with your neighbors but how can we when some of the neighbors are dickheads? Now I am a little off topic, I realize that but what has happened here is that your mention of God had inspired a thought and memory of something James once said to me about 75 people groups. Anyway - back to this.

Well I must say that I do like this that you have written . . .

I also think there is a lot of corruption in science and this corruption is on purpose - not so much conspiracy by a small group but a natural feedback that occurs when we as a race move too fast. There is just so much knowledge we do not need too - but it seems to be a law that to get something you have to pay more than it is worth - I am not talking about money now either.

Chatty is good.

Hmm . . . I am not sure now is the time - a few brain malfunctions might take place :laughing: I will read back over everything and produce something good.
After a good sleep.

Thank you for your extra thoughts and new thoughts - look forward to some new stuff of my own for your reading pleasure . . .

:smiley:

Yeah, though I don’t like to think of it as a “trick”–sounds too manipulative and dishonest–rather I think of it as an approach.

Precisely!

Oh God, you’ve been talking to James. #-o Just kidding. James and I have a friendly rivalry (he may call it a “bitter” rivalry). But yeah, we hold two contending theories of the ultimate substance of the universe–his is affectance and mine is experience–though they’re not necessarily incompatible. While I’m a subjectivist, James remains an objectivist. He has came up with a reductionist physicalist theory–much like string theory says that all is strings, one dimensional vibrating strands of energy, or much like quantum theory says that all are waves of probabilities–he says all is affectance. But like string theory, or quantum theory, or James’ affectance theory, I am still able to say: okay, well whatever turns out to be the truth in physics, it’s still a representation of experiences being had by the universe. Similar to what I said above about modern science reinterpreting the original message given to us by God, James’ theory may be yet another such reinterpretation. If it is scientifically testable at all, and if it passes such testing, that’s God giving James a ‘yeay’. The only point on which we would differ is that James’ would never say affectance is but a mere representation of something else (I don’t think), whereas I would. He really wants to say affectance is fundamental. I want to disagree. I want to say experience is fundamental, and if his theory is right, affectance is only a physical representation of foreign subjective experiences.

Sure, or even the mammal brain. It’s which ever parts of the brain are required to recognize that we are surrounded by “objects”.

Really? How so?

Mostly? :laughing:

Good question. Just as I don’t think mankind emerged on the scene fully equiped with religion, beliefs, superstitions, complex abstract concepts, etc. neither should I think mankind emerged with a fully developed language. However, while we might have to talk about the evolution of memes making its way to religion on the scale of several thousand years, we might be able to get away with talking about the evolution of language on the scale of one individual’s lifetime. A baby would certainly not be born with a full vocabulary and mastering over the grammar of a language, but we might suppose that the baby will slowly develop a language, gradually invent words, on the way to becoming an adult. Man might be equiped with the compulsion to invent language in response to being in social groups. Man may be inherently driven to communicate with his peers, and the result of this compulsion may be the development of a language, one that gets sufficiently fleshed out within one’s life time.

And if this is the case, I would suspect it would be a collaborative effort. The community would share in the development of language, learning to use the same terms and sounds to denote a thing or a concept every time they hear it from someone else.

That’s possible. We know that if a baby is born into a community that already has a fully developed language, the baby will naturally pick up on the language during the first few years of its life. But what if the baby were born into a community without language? Who would the baby learn words from? Would the baby feel compelled to invent his own words (I know babies will sometimes invent their own words; my daughter invented ‘dity’–it was her generic word for pointing at things and saying ‘look at this’!) And if so, would he invent them fast enough to have a fully developed language by the time he reached adulthood? And how much would this depend on the cooperation of the community–that is, for every word invented, the community coops that word and agrees (implicitely) to use it in their language.

Well, I will say that information tends to get distorted as it gets communicated and passed on. It’s like the game of telephone again. When we look to our past, we see how far removed religious and superstitious beliefs can become from concrete empirical experience. Take transubstantiation for example: Christianity would have us believe that the bread and wine served during the Eucharist literally become the body and blood of Jesus Christ. Yet there is no reason that a man who is observing this sacrament for the first time (say a primitive man who we brought from the past) would say that the bread and wine literally became flesh and blood. Religion, which is the culmination of the passing on of memes, resulting in distortion, comes to furnish us with beliefs and convictions that are completely cut off from empirical experience–sort of throwing us into a delusional world, the intoxicating effect of which makes drunkards of us all.

Perhaps for the psychic and the clarivoyant? :laughing:

Another good question! When they tell us that mankind in his current genetic form emerged 200,000 years ago, this really has to be taken with a grain of salt. The fact is, evolution doesn’t take giant leaps and then plateau for a good long while (like 200,000 years); it’s a steady ongoing process–sometimes making giant leaps, other times changing gradually and slowly. At least, this is what I’m told. So over the course of the last 200,000 years, there has been change and diversification. The only reason they mark 200,000 years ago as the dawning of mankind is because we like to think of ourselves as one unified species–the same animal–and so we need a way of answering the question: when did we first evolve? I do believe a major branching of our ancestors’ species (some kind of primate) occurred 200,000 years ago–a giant leap in evolution–which gave rise to what we would call our “human” ancestors, so it’s as convenient a point as any other to label the “dawning” of mankind, but it would be an oversimplification to say that’s the last time in our history when our genes went through a significant change. Since then, in fact, we’ve gotten different races, different eye and hair colors, different mental disorders like ADD. Thomas Hartman writes that the ADD genes (which I have BTW) evolved around 40,000 years ago (imagine that, around the time of religion’s emergence), and what he calls the “farmer” gene (as opposed to the “hunter” gene–that is, ADD) evolved around 10,000 years ago, accounting for the aggricultural revolution and the advent of civilization. And yes, having ADD myself, I do feel like part of a small few trudging through the treacherous waters of the rest of mankind.

Well, if my theory of meme evolution is correct, a new world religion the likes of which we have never seen before is inevitable.

Damn, you’re dedicated! :laughing:

:laughing-rolling:

Just kidding… friendly rivalry.

You’re tired. :wink:

Do you mean science working too fast? Sacrificing quality for quantity? Is this the reason we hear so many science reports only to be refuted or exposed for their sloppy methods a few years later?

Will do.

gibinator

I really like your style that you suspend your usual convictions and beliefs and argue from a position that isn’t yours - I have similar tricks - even arguing against my self - this keeps the mind very agile in my opinion. When scoping out other peoples thoughts, especially for the first time - I believe having extra tools like some trick is a great way to uncover their reactions. To which you responded:

I understand . . . I was being a little relaxed in my language by using the word trick, I guess over here it can be used as a more innocent figure of speech. I will remember that for the future. Dishonesty can be a problem though for all of us I think - to varying degrees - before you say it - I do no approve of dishonesty either - just that I think when it comes to interactions with other people then we are all guilty of it.

An approach is a much better word - toolkit - like a set of spanners - a set of approaches - only I have not been able to itemize my own into categories.

I am glad I was able to understand you through my approach using the encephalosystem example - sometimes I have to make up words, especially when I am either tired or feeling a little rushed - in this case I was a little tired - still to understand another being is wonderful for me.

Yes, I have been talking to James for quite some time now. The one thing James and yourself have in common is that the pair of you were welcoming of me to this forum where a few others jumped straight on top of me. The peculiar thing about me however ever can be summed up in a few words:

  1. I am an incredibly peaceful guy.
  2. I am everyone’s friendly rival.
  3. What was three again.
    I will get back to you on three, it seems to have slipped my mind all of a sudden - I will say this however - when I am attacked, I turn into a brutal monster, so to speak. I have a tendency to make people think. Like I said I am everyone’s friendly rival - that is probably brought about by what it seems to me that no one can agree on everything. I will stand up when being dictated to - I have a lot of patience. Anyway this is not a thread about me but it does not hurt to illuminate oneself in public a little as far as I am concerned.

Affectance and Experience - that is awesome as far as I am concerned - I have worked out that many things are not as incompatible as some authors like to claim. I have no idea what category I fall into regarding either being a subjectivist or being an objectivist. I am not very good when it comes to having the ability to label myself - I do have a philosophy though - I call it Confinism - I guess you could say that I am a confinist, only I am not even sure what it truly means - I do believe in a concept of the absolute which sometimes I will refer to as totality - basically there is everything and inside everything there are local confinements that portions of everything, relative and affecting as in the butterfly affect. On a more human level I guess the closest thing I am to is an Utilitarian. Whether these are good or bad things, I do not know.

Quantum theory and String Theory annoy me - String theory being the less annoying for me. I use the reductionist approach all the time - to me it is a useful tool - I am also elemental in my approach - that comes back to confinism too - for me everything has its elements waiting to be discovered - in the case of affectance, I identify PtA as an element - whether be it divine or physical, I still attempt elements. You might find that I speak of some of your own philosophy in terms of confinement, as it is a propensity I have - or it could be a mental problem - it works for me though. I tend to think in terms of everything is valid in varying degrees.

While I am talking about myself so much I may as well add one last thing - I am also rather Bayesian - in that I believe a subjective degree of belief should necessarily change to fit the evidence. Even though Bayes has followers that are both objectivists and subjectivists. I am not a dualist despite what some people may think - if you pick up on that - the best thing to do is question me because my response is usually rather interesting - and no, please do not challenge me here and now over it.

:smiley:

G-1000

I am not here to judge anyone - that is probably clear by now - I attack those who attack me - the patience is great though . . .

. . . and the force is with me . . . :laughing: I am kidding.

I am able to say that everything is still a degree of truth no matter what turns out to be the truth in physics. All theories might be interpretations. I think that it is probable, that your theory, and James’ theory, are valuable to me given that I talk to the pair of you a lot. My intuition says so.

I see it is a catch 22 - I say everything is fundamental and is being chopped up into components that vary in degree of value depending on who is doing the chopping. The only real enemy we have is ourselves which is why we should proceed with caution when propagating the ego. I am not preaching here - just illuminating myself in public again - sorry about that. I have found many truths in what James says and many truths in what you say. Believe me, once you get past some of my crazier ideas of the mind there will be truths beyond what anyone else has achieved - because I am always the student - I place myself below all others - that is something many people I know have huge issues with. I have bots to prove what I am talking about when it comes to mind.

I am currently working on am emulator for James and I have already come across some issues in what I would call the science but I do have some solutions for those issues - take random for instance - not referring to AO here but random is a problem that everyone seems to have - random does not show itself in nature only in concept.

I am also very interested in your philosophy - very interested - which leads to the next question:

How is it that one can take notice of more than one philosophy? to which I have already explained some of it. We are supposed to live in a civilized world - like the stories we hear of the Greeks or how France was the height of civilization at once stage - LOL - when you think about it, it is kind of a joke because when has there ever been peace around human beings. Now - with me - there is peace. I do not judge - so - How is it that one can take notice of more than one philosophy? I am still trying to figure out how I do that - but I am interested in what I am interested in and apparently I have a pretty powerful brain from what I have been told - although most of the time I fail to see it - I have been told that I am congenial too - yet I personally feel people are intimidated by me. How can one be so congenial when one is everyone’s rival - yet people keep coming back.

What a paragraph that last one was - maniacal, insightful - negatives and positives all wrapped up in one - dualistic and self defeating. But no, you have a marvelous brain as does James and I would not expect the either of you to see eye to eye - I like how you call it a friendly rivalry and I would want James to think the same - I do know James is a caring person however. The pair of you are nearly like family to me by virtue of the amazing minds that you have. Does that place me on a pedestal too - I really do not care - modesty is the quality or state of being unassuming in the estimation of one’s abilities and the quality of being relatively moderate, limited, or small in amount, rate, or level taken from Google dictionary - man I need to find a new dictionary - lol - what I do know is it is easier enough for me to see the benefit in others and myself. ILP kicks ass - I really like it - I am sad to see some go and happy to see some join - some deny their egos and some love themselves (unhealthily). Oh, I have plenty to rant about when it comes to what constitutes a good debate and a better composition for philosophical communication.

Onward with the next post . . .

Peace.

:sunglasses:

Gib

Part 3 - Good communication is about putting differences aside - you seem to do that from what I can tell which is good. A good debate should be cold hearted and any display of anger should be theatrical - I have noticed a few around here do not do that. Then there are the preachers - you know - those preachers.

Sock puppets - WTF - well I will leave that particular feature of ILP alone for the time being.

Now down to business.

Mmm Hmm. I have learnt terms from psychology and neuroscience - hopefully my terms are understandable - there are also terms that will be introduced from philosophy of mind and artificial general intelligence and the all new machine intelligence. Recognition of surrounding objects still need to be parsed via an interpreter. More on that later.

Parsing is a multiple stage affair.

With the current state of affairs it pays to be cynical - certainly sociological influence is corrupt - I am studying this regarding emotions at the moment. It is so easy to study emotion when you have a whole society of people acting the same. To which you replied Really? How so? Yes really - in one theory I have read emotions themselves have a political agenda - a self-serving interest - then there is the sociological interests pertaining to political agendas - a social mood and social emotional state. Like the repeating television example I gave in the Mind Computing thread - emotions are recursive throughout human nature - they are elements of existence - I will explain more and you might like it.

Mankind certainly did not emerge with a fully developed language I illustrate that quite easily with the following:

[b]When being enters the wild with no language - universe provides for being patterns - the silent language is at work . . .

. . . answers can still come from from within by virtue of being’s submersion . . .[/b]
Is this true? If evolution is a fact, then of course it is true. A little thought also says that this is all you need to survive in the wild - no language.

A baby is born with no grammar - as you indicate - memes are close to the first things they learn along with the words Mummy and Daddy - the meaning of these words arrives later. Compulsion is a good word for what you are describing - I explored this in another thread - again we will no doubt cover that in the future too.

:-k

gib

Now we are up to part four. I hope the responses are not too long for you. somehow I doubt they are. :smiley: You said: The community would share in the development of language, learning to use the same terms and sounds to denote a thing or a concept every time they hear it from someone else. And if this is the case, I would suspect it would be a collaborative effort.

I suspect that initially the community would not have noticed that they were collaborating when language was being developed by them. You pretty much nailed it here. Collaboration we must remember also happens among micro-organisms even though they are not aware of it.

You are a smart little cookie aren’t you gib? A baby born into a community with no language might invent a few words - I do think it would take some momentum before a large vocabulary is built up. Possibly even a number of generations - what are your thoughts on this? Some say that our words have a relationship phonetically to each object. I think all babies are compelled to invent their own words - we should explore this further. Your daughter sounds cute - my youngest daughter used to scold me for messing too much and too often with words - it seems she developed a sense of humor early and also a sense of dad being silly. Dity - I am not certain we could precisely work out the mathematics of whether is is possible to invent a complete language from birth to adulthood - it would be an individual trait, no? It would certainly depend upon the cooperation of the community.

gib

Part 5 - These memes did not require language to begin with Probably not - it seems as those language now has intoxicated memes of the past - that modern man is currently a drunkard. Meaning has become adulterated and has become quite the promiscuous slave of each man. I wonder why you said Probably not, do you think there is a probability associated with what I was saying. I totally messed up the second part of what I was saying.

It seems as though, language now has, intoxicated memes of the past << I am not even certain if this is what i was trying to say at the time.

Most certainly - I can not imagine that I have disagreed with you on the first sentence. We do have quite a bit of concrete empirical evidence but I am surprised at the arrogance of man when he assumes that we have reached the top already. Interesting note on Christianity there . . . thanks gib.

Oh yes, I totally agree. I have noticed too, when reading the Bible, and comparing it to worship that there are two worlds - the one in the Bible and the one of worship - OK I know it is not rocket science but it is clear to me that there is also quite a bit of analogy going on in the Bible - the fact that it is now a book is perhaps a huge distortion.

Whether or not Christianity has helped us to evolve in a more positive light - Hmm - debatable. I guess we could have easily arrived here without it.

“True - I have heard that our collective evolution has slow because of this. I honestly believe there is an after this - an after philosophy and an after science - super-powerful knowledge on the horizon - only for a select few.” To which you responded:

Oh, I was being serious - I was also tired - so bad wording on my part. It should have read something like the following:

I have heard that our collective evolution has slowed because we are at the top of the food chain. I honestly believe there is an after this(meaning the way that things are now) - an after philosophy and an after science(what reason do we have to believe otherwise?) - super-powerful knowledge on the horizon(Google already seems to think so) - only for a select few(I honestly believe this).

I can say that there are some people in the world who are becoming obsolete - I know it sounds horrible - but I am certain of it - I want to face up to the truth of existence and the truth is telling me that the human landscape is going to change rather drastically. This is not the easiest thing for me to explain however because I have not put a lot of time into it - I have spent my time in a more pragmatic world - kind of like the old saying but not entirely - if you can not beat them then join them - my battle of my enemy is a battle I have to face on the same turf - my enemy is smart and not ignorant - that is what I mean by join them - to join them I should be able to beat them. Either way I need to understand my adversary - I cannot see how not we be good.

This, as it turns out is quite and interesting conversation . . .

:-k

What do you think about this:

It took a while, but hidden variable theory was eventually disproved by John Bell, who showed that there are lots of experiments that cannot have unmeasured results. Thus the results cannot be determined ahead of time, so there are no hidden variables, and the results are truly random. That is, if it is physically and mathematically impossible to predict the results, then the results are truly, fundamentally random. askamathematician.com/2009/1 … andomness/

Serendipper

It is a little difficult for me to know, what to think about “it”, but i can offer something of substance to consider . . .
. . . and that is, how sometimes logic works against itself. One is as good as zero because what can one alone affect?

Oh, believe me I am still very much unsettled on it. I have my own theory that I refer to at times as Logical Independence(LI). I will not go into it too much in this thread but there are a few things slightly related to LI that are related to this thread, as follows:

To get my point across I must play with words a little.

► Everything known was once unknown.

► Everything there is still to know already exists, it is just undiscovered, un-evolved an un-configured.

► Everything can be expressed as information.

► Discovery is just the unknown configured into formation.

► Inception is formation.

► Unknown in-formation is known.

∴ i(inception) ≡ unknown/known(both quantifiable - even if random; randomness is then just un-evolved and un-configured)

∴ i can be thought of as always there because: “Nothingness”, is absolutely impossible.

∴ i ≡ secondarily, as the potential for the unknown to become known.

With a twist of lemon: The known is always there - even if undiscovered.

We cannot answer a question if there is no answer to be found - no play on words. The unknown is in a potential state.

:-k

gib

Part 6 - You wrote: Another good question! When they tell us that mankind in his current genetic form emerged 200,000 years ago, this really has to be taken with a grain of salt. The fact is, evolution doesn’t take giant leaps and then plateau for a good long while (like 200,000 years); it’s a steady ongoing process–sometimes making giant leaps, other times changing gradually and slowly.

Like everything - we chop things up for our own convenience and agree on standards. I do take genetics with a grain of salt - period - the geneticists truly still have so much to learn. Junk DNA it would appear is hinting at some of what we are talking about - then there is the theory of systems of genes rather than singular responsible genes. All this aside, you are correct it’s a steady ongoing process, I would say evolution has happened in the last one hundred years and especially the last thirty - but I would say my opinion is inconsequential only that it helps us to keep an open mind. Science does have its benchmarks as does philosophy - any application of science relies on these benchmarks - there is no reason not to invent new terminologies based on categories of information:

Or however else one wants to divide things up . . .
. . . obviously it is these divisions that we work with when we discuss these sorts of things . . .
. . . the divisions are a matter of convenience and . . .
. . . standards are just divisions that we agree upon . . .
. . . these standards however are very self limiting and need constant review - humans seek a system to live by which is ludicrous - the best rules are the rules that change to fit the environment to which we live in and that is always changing too. Mount Everest is not the same mountain it was half a million years ago so why would we say of anything in nature - especially weather, that today’s forecast is based on historical data. Old data is old data - the sooner we learn to realize that the sooner we will also be able to understand the genetics we have discovered - now, my apologies for some loose associations here, right now it makes sense to me but when you read it, if it does not make sense my use of analogy, please ask me to clear it up as there is some valuable info contained within.

Again it seems as though we prefer points of reference - benchmarks - as if we would go crazy without them - yes, we like to think of ourselves as a unified species - but nothing could be further from the truth - well, actually there are many things that could be - I agree to the 200,000 year reference point for the sake of this conversation as I do with a lot of things. I also agree with it being an oversimplification to say that’s the last time in our history when our genes went through a significant change.

Well, I have schizo affective disorder that can not be fully diagnosed - today I experienced mania for the first time because of my new medication - the benchmark used for my diagnosis is one based on the average person I imagine - obviously what ever I have is something new - perhaps a brain :laughing: anyway. I like the way you have turned this conversation around gib - did you think I would not notice - lol - I like it though. Let me think further on this. I already owe you a few things - I am certain I am keeping track of them well enough - I must get the next response finished too.

:smiley:

gib

As far as I know this is the final part of my response - Part 7 - I will take a good look through everything later to make sure.

I think it is correct - like everything we do, it might be in need of some refinements - either way once it is perfect, you should not ever expect it to be permanent - except maybe the reality stuff. It’s value should be permanent though because of something that I will exposes at a later date.

I sure am! Too much for my own good at times - in this instance I have been really enjoying the points of expression - this conversation we have been having sure has opened Pandora’s box on a number of things. Keep it coming I say - within our limits of course and time pending - we have been doing fine though I think.

I know! And nothing wrong with that either - I am everyone’s rival :laughing:

Cities I believe are a little too much if you are not indulging in communication with your neighbors but how can we when some of the neighbors are dickheads? Now I am a little off topic, I realize that but what has happened here is that your mention of God had inspired a thought and memory of something James once said to me about 75 people groups.

You have got that right. I did have a point to make here - it is a pity it came out the way it did. I still think some neighbors can be . . . OK I am not that tired now. Cities are a problem though, I am sure you agree. Much meaning in peoples life has been lost due to these megalopolises. Even the small town in which I reside, often times makes me feel meaningless - that is not to say that there is not more than one way to lose meaning, just that it seems easier enough, to attribute a loss of, to the locality one occupies. I guess a mid life crisis can help one achieve the same thing but what is that anyway. I have an idea that nostalgia is a natural phenomenon and that is one of those crazy ideas I have mentioned that would eventually make its way into conversation among some of the other craziness - to say that nostalgia is a higher sense, a sense of meaning or meaning lost, to say that it is one of our best friends in times of meaninglessness - Hmm, more thought required. We do need to feel connected to something though, I guess this is my point, this connection helps to define our purpose and give us meaning. God used to be that connection for many people and now, well, now, yeah you get my gist. One does seem to be happier with a defined group of friends and one tends to settle at this point and when things change one can become unhappy. I still think change is something we need to face up to.

I also think there is a lot of corruption in science and this corruption is on purpose - not so much conspiracy by a small group but a natural feedback that occurs when we as a race move too fast. There is just so much knowledge we do not need too - but it seems to be a law that to get something you have to pay more than it is worth - I am not talking about money now either.

I kind of do mean science working too fast - and I kind of mean that we have accumulated too much information up to 2017 - an information overload - the scales have been broken, so to speak. I still think there is plenty of quality there but to a degree, yes, sacrificing quality for quantity. I imagine that it is the reason why we hear so many science reports only to be refuted or exposed for their sloppy methods a few years later. I would say for every bad report there is plenty more science going on. Some of that science of course would be sloppy. It is probably fair to say that the quality of science has dimished, but by how much? Well we know it was never up to 100% quality, so where would that leave us - lets just play with made up figures to illustrate. If the optimum degree of quality(ODoQ) is usually 92% then I guess taking into consideration the bad science that has not been exposed plus the bad science that has been exposed would drop the ODoQ down to lets say, 83%. Can we afford this level of ODoQ with too much information(aka information overload), am I imagining things, I do not think I am imagining things even as hard as it might be to prove my claim. We know quality in general in life has dropped - not to be confused with quality of life - so why would science be immune?

You know the old saying though - what goes up must come down - there has to be some sort of ceiling for science before it collapses.

Many people have been educated in science in recent decades - not everybody can be a scientist for Pete’s sake. I will leave that there for further discussion.

Ah, good. I will get around to providing the missing pieces of information, I can assure you of that.

It has been a busy weekend.

:smiley:

Hi encode,

Once again, you have given me a lot to digest. :slight_smile: Will have to take some time to work through it… stay tuned…

Hey gibinator,

Awesome gib - I am so tired I could sleep for a week - maybe in a few hours when I wake up I might not be saying that.

What a busy day. Phew . . .

#-o

decode_encode

I hope when you read over everything you have typed in the last four days, you do not come to regret it you crazy fool . . .

:laughing:

My contingency - it had to be said.

I think I just went cross eyed

:laughing: :laughing:

Never have. :wink: