Ex-Stargate Head Ed May Unyielding Re Materialism, Slams Dean Radin |341|

Fair enough though not sure why prime numbers would any dimensional topography?

Similarly with time, there doesn't seem to be a good reason to give it a spacial representation? Even to consider it orthogonal - why would you think you could hold the spatial dimensions constant while moving along a time "line"? It implies the future exists in a way that I'm not sure there's reason to believe - perhaps there is a "Res Potentia"* where the possible exists in a way different from the Actual Present...


*Coined by Kauffman - A Hypothesis: Res Potentia and Res Extensa Linked By Measurement, see also:

She breaks it down so simply, love it, thanks
 
Similarly with time, there doesn't seem to be a good reason to give it a spacial representation? Even to consider it orthogonal - why would you think you could hold the spatial dimensions constant while moving along a time "line"? It implies the future exists in a way that I'm not sure there's reason to believe - perhaps there is a "Res Potentia"* where the possible exists in a way different from the Actual Present...
I strongly agree. A stochastic view of reality can spread probability; out over the distance, height and depth of physical objects. We computationally view probability over time and space/time. And while not trained in math enough to sure, the symmetry between structures of the past and future pivoting on the "here and now" time-line -- are computable.

My reasoning is if they are conserved, they are open to math interpretation. Emmy Noether spoke to this.
 
I strongly agree. A stochastic view of reality can spread probability; out over the distance, height and depth of physical objects. We computationally view probability over time and space/time. And while not trained in math enough to sure, the symmetry between structures of the past and future pivoting on the "here and now" time-line -- are computable.

My reasoning is if they are conserved, they are open to math interpretation. Emmy Noether spoke to this.

Where are the structures of the future? In the future? Or do the structures create Time?
 
Where are the structures of the future? In the future? Or do the structures create Time?
These are above my pay grade. "Where and in" states of affairs imply a physical reality environment. In my humble world-view, there is an informational environment and from our viewpoint we can "look" at the structures of past and the future with a probabilistic eye. They would be information structures.

You nailed on head with the video from Ruth and the NPR presentation of res potentia. I was so excited about S. Kauffman, but then read he didn't take it as true, just a thought-experiment. Bob Doyle has a nice write-up on R. Kastner.
http://www.informationphilosopher.com/solutions/scientists/kastner/
 
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You nailed on head with the video from Ruth and the NPR presentation of res potentia. I was so excited about S. Kaufmann, but then read he didn't take it as true, just a thought-experiment. Bob Doyle has a nice write-up on R. Kastner.
http://www.informationphilosopher.com/solutions/scientists/kastner/

Curious where you read S.Kaufmann didn't take Res Potentia as true? Do you mean he accepts it's a hypothesis to be verified with continued science?

He seems to have spent some time thinking about this so I'd be somewhat surprised if he was dismissing it all completely.
 
Curious where you read S.Kaufmann didn't take Res Potentia as true? Do you mean he accepts it's a hypothesis to be verified with continued science?

He seems to have spent some time thinking about this so I'd be somewhat surprised if he was dismissing it all completely.
Not dismisses, but approaches with all due caution.

I remember different context for a response but I found this:
Finally, in Answering Descartes, I propose, VERY tentatively, what seems to be both a new dualism and new interpretation of quantum mechanics built upon Richard Feynman's "sum over all possible histories" formulation of QM, which violates Aristotle's law of the excluded middle and fits only C.S. Pierce's Possibles, not Actuals or Probables, the dualism, tentative, is: Res potentia (ontologically real possibles) and Res extensa (ontologically real Actuals, eg classical world or specific quantum state outcomes of quantum measurement), linked, hence united, by quantum measurement. On this view, tentative, measurement is the Possible becoming Actual, a kind of Natural Incarnation I wrote about to my surprise. - S. Kauffman
http://www.yesmagazine.org/happiness/stuart-kauffman-contribution
 
Honestly curious about this -> How can a backward arrow of causality be parsimonious? How does it work without a closed time loop....something that involves an infinite regression?.

I guess it's parsimonious because Feynmann and Wheeler made reversed time particles somewhat mainstream physics (eg CPT symmetry - antimatter can be seen as time-reversed normal matter). But I don't think they did anything much more with that idea, and yes, time loops seem to be a logical problem: Nothing causes them, so why do they exist?

Otherwise yes, precog as simple time-reversed local information flow doesn't seem to explain any of the hard problems of psi.

Nate

Nate
 
Hurm,
The new popular term is orthogonal. In Euclidean geometry it does mean perpendicular. However, Euclidean geometry does not apply to the way you are using it in the context of space/time in the sense of Einstein's relativity. Orthogonal means something related in programming and information programming. It has always confused me and I remain that way.

Maybe you guys can help me out. Reading modern science papers this term appears often.

Sure! Two pieces of (potentially changing) information are orthogonal if they're not related in any way - if changing one doesn't alter the other. It's an analogy from geometry: Like two lines at absolute right angles, moving any distance along one line doesn't move you any distance along the other. The two dimensions are unrelated. But if one line is at a slope to the other, then moving any distance along that line *will* move you some distance along the other, so now there's a relation between them.

In software and maths, you normally want your simplest fundamental ideas to be orthogonal (have no relation to each other) because if they aren't, that means they're connected - and that means they're not actually the simplest possible ideas. At the very least, you now have a messy, complicated connection between them, and that means when you think about one idea you have to hold the entire cluster of ideas, not just that one idea. That's annoying so we try not to have to do it.

AS I understand it, in Einstein's Special and General Relativity the whole point is that the dimensions of space and time *aren't* orthogonal: that's what 'warping of spacetime' (in SR) and 'curvature of space-time' (in GR) means. So moving along one of the three space dimensions might also move you along one of the other two space dimensions, or the time direction, or both. And so on. And the amount of that curvature can change at any point in space and time. (And with weirder properties of distortion, for any observer, based on the relative velocity between events). So it's a whole very non-orthogonal thing (nonlinear, also). That's what makes it very hard to calculate with.

Einstein didn't originally think of time as a dimension, if I understand correctly: that was Minkowski, who took Einstein's SR equation and modelled it as geometry with time being 'imaginary' (eg, multiplied by i, the square root of negative 1 - this means that to calculate the distance in 'spacetime' you *subtract* the squared distance in time from the squared distance in space, before square-rooting). It's a mathematical trick and I'm not convinced it really does make time an actual dimension (I think it just really accounts for the idea that 'having more time to get somewhere is the same, in terms of speed, as having less time but the thing being closer'). Lots of things about relativity don't make intuitive sense to me, but I'm not a physicist. Einstein then took Minkowsi's geometry idea and used it to build General Relativity, where everything is geometry - but, crucially, he FAILED in the entire rest of his life's project, which was to extend the idea of 'spacetime curvature' to include the electromagnetic force as well as gravity. (His 'Unified Field Theory' project). And since we know EM forces exist - but we can't model them with Relativity but only by adding Quantum Field Theory over the top, using completely different ideas - then Relativity really is an unfinished house.

I think there are at least six levels of connectedness in maths/physics/computing (where 'thing' is usually a simply measurable quantity, a number or series of numbers)

* 'orthogonal': two things are completely unrelated, changing one doesn't change the other

* 'linear': two things are connected fairly simply: changing one changes the other in a small, predictable way, exactly related to how much the change is. Changes add up normally. It's a line at a slope, but still a line.

* 'nonlinear': two things are connected in a curve: changing one changes the other in a complicated way that also changes depending on how far you go along the line. A small change at one point may mean a bigger change at another point. And the exact shape of that curve could be really, really complicated. Things in Newtonian physics like acceleration and friction work like this: sorting out the maths for nonlinear quantities (curves) is what Calculus is about and is the breakthrough that Newton and Leibniz made.

* 'chaotic': two things are connected in a curve, and not only is it a really complicated curve but - although you can precisely model it step by step, in practice a small change makes such a big change that you lose track very quickly. The turbulent movement of air and water (eg, clouds, the weather) is a classic case of this in physics; everyone's seen the Mandelbrot Set fractal. Chaos maths is a really recent discovery, 1980s.

* 'random': two things are connected but there's no known formula that predicts the connection. Stuff just happens; though if it's still well-behaved you can measure just *how* unpredictable it is, which is what statistics and probability are all about (and they're very hard to learn). Quantum mechanics is all about probabilities, but also doing very weird things even by probability standards (eg complex and negative probabilities). Psi also seems to fall in to this basket, which is why people like Dean Radin think there's a connection; even if it's just a metaphor).

If Newton was correct and the universe is 'classical', then there really is nothing random, just chaotic. This may also be true if, eg, the Bohm interpretation of Quantum Mechanics is correct (the one with 'hidden variables'). But most QM people think that the QM probability wavefunction is fundamentally random, not chaotic. I'm not sure if there are any theological implications to either of these two positions.

(Also I'm not sure most QM people would agree that conscious minds are required to collapse the QM wavefunction; the general belief today seems to be that wavefunction collapse, or 'decoherence', is a real physical process that happens entirely on its own whether observed or not. Avoiding decoherence is a major problem in the design of functioning quantum computers, and it seems to be something related to heat. The colder you keep the computer the longer it will last before decohering. I don't think heat is especially psychic. But the Copenhagen Interpretation, like Special Relativity, does not sit well in my mind. I find the ideas so odd and slippery I just can't get a grasp.)

* 'infinite' (or 'singular' if all the infinity happens at one point in space/time): something is so big it literally can't be measured. The idea of infinity is not especially well-defined: Cantor argued that there are hierarchies of infinity (eg an infinitely big two-dimensional sheet of paper is literally more infinite than an infinitely long one-dimensional ball of string, such that you could not build that paper out of that string by folding the string an infinite number of times while keeping each fold infinitely long) but I'm not convinced there's a meaningful argument to be made either way on that idea; infinity, mathematically, is both equal to and not equal to itself. And that kind of breaks mathematics.

Although our physics equations are full of infinite quantities (eg the 'zero point energy' of quantum field theory, and black holes), I'm pretty sure nothing in our physical, measurable universe is actually infinite - but many religions hold that 'God/spirit/mind is infinite', and the idea of anything mental/spiritual ending doesn't make much intuitive sense, which suggests we do hold to that idea of infinity in our deepest self.

Regards, Nate
 
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Hi Hurmanetar. I like this idea of the '5th dimension', and I guess the idea of conceptualising psi/spirit as a dimension began with William Hamilton's quaternions (1843) and Edwin Abbot's Flatland (1884) - but I think perhaps that '5th dimension' is a whole lot bigger than just one mathematical dimension. I think it's possibly an infinitely dimensioned space. Remember that Einstein with Kaluza and Klein played with a 5-dimensional physics theory in 1921 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kaluza–Klein_theory) and it doesn't predict anything like psi. It has trouble even describing electromagnetism.

But yes, I believe there's much more 'inside' our mind/soul/spirit than 'outside' it, and that there's an actual reality there which can be described by *a* physics (just not necessarily the one that describes our physical world).

Regards, Nate
I am a bit wary about this sort of speculation.

1) I stumbled on this site some time ago:

http://physics.esotec.org/

I showed it to EthanT, who is pretty well versed in these matters, and he didn't seem too interested, and indicated that there are endless speculations of this sort (not necessarily involving ψ).

2) You have to very well versed in maths to be able to distinguish a good theory from one with problems!

3) I rather think extensions of physics can't really explain ψ phenomena, or mind, or describe a mental realm anyway. My argument is that physics works in an almost mechanical way. You set up the equations, and (disregarding issues to do with the practicality of solving the equations) out comes the answer (OK sometimes as a set of probabilities). This means that you don't get an explanation of David Chalmers' "Hard Problem" - how can we actually experience anything, as opposed to compute stuff (like a computer!).

Returning to my first point for a moment, I think this may illustrate a problem with physics itself - once you allow large numbers of extra (and unobserved) dimensions in a theory, there are simply too many possible false trails.

David
 
Fair enough though not sure why prime numbers would any dimensional topography?

Because savants find enjoyment in finding them because they are rare and difficult to find (through ordinary means)? We know through many different studies that the strength of a Psi "signal" is largely dependent on emotional content.

Similarly with time, there doesn't seem to be a good reason to give it a spacial representation? Even to consider it orthogonal - why would you think you could hold the spatial dimensions constant while moving along a time "line"?

An object at rest does not change in the three spatial dimensions, but only the time dimension.

And that's how it works out mathematically. For example, you can take the relation between change in a spatial dimension and change in the time dimension and plot it out in 2 spatial dimensions. You can do this with any two interdependent properties (temperature, pressure, etc) so why does time get honored as being more fundamental and "spatial"? Maybe because the very notion of change is used to construct shapes in the spatial dimensions... maybe because change in the time dimension is measured with change in a spatial distance (pendulum swings, gears rotated, or light beams bounced, etc)... and maybe because when space is "bent", time is also "bent".

A dimension is a direction of change. Time and space are both fundamentally linked to the concepts of change and identity.

A unit of measure in one dimension can be applied to an orthogonal dimension via rotation. We cannot directly view a 4-D object, but with rotation we can project the 4th spatial dimension... such as in the Tesseract (hyper-cube):
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tesseract#/media/File:8-cell-orig.gif

It implies the future exists in a way that I'm not sure there's reason to believe - perhaps there is a "Res Potentia"* where the possible exists in a way different from the Actual Present...

The future and past may exist as a 4-D object in a higher frame (mainframe?), but this doesn't mean the future is set in stone since we can appeal to a 5th dimension which opens the possibility of change in the 4-D shape.
 
I rather think extensions of physics can't really explain ψ phenomena, or mind, or describe a mental realm anyway.

If anything is patterned or behaves with consistency, can it not be described mathematically? ...and therefore be an extension of physics?

My argument is that physics works in an almost mechanical way.

"Mechanical" operation implies consistently patterned operation.

This means that you don't get an explanation of David Chalmers' "Hard Problem" - how can we actually experience anything, as opposed to compute stuff (like a computer!).

Consciousness is implicitly a part of pattern.

There is a little bit of a contradiction in our thinking when we want to try and understand how Psi and consciousness "works" but we don't want to dethrone it from its inherent mystery and bring it down to a mere "mechanical" operation. We can't have it both ways. By identifying patterns and relations in Psi and consciousness, we mechanize and physicalize it. Alex should probably just shut Skeptiko down now before we all become physicalists and materialists again (albeit with a far broader conception of "material" and "physical").

Returning to my first point for a moment, I think this may illustrate a problem with physics itself - once you allow large numbers of extra (and unobserved) dimensions in a theory, there are simply too many possible false trails.

I think there is a significant number of datapoints that support the model of a 5th "spatial" or fundamental dimension. There's probably more than 5... why stop at 5? But we won't know if we need a 6th until we encounter more paradoxes in our exploration of the 5th.
 
Brain Waves Detected Up to 10 Minutes After the Time of Death

Canadian researchers studying the neuroscience of the moment of death ('necroneuroscience') have uncovered a surprising phenomenon: anomalous EEG activity up to 10 minutes after the time of clinical death. The researchers were examining EEG readings recorded at the time that life support was withdrawn from four critically ill patients, and found that in one of patients - a 67-year-old man who suffered cardiac arrest - "single delta wave bursts persisted following the cessation of both the cardiac rhythm and ABP"

On the other hand, it's worth noting also that this study failed to find evidence for the so-called 'death wave' previously found in studies with rats, in which a surge of brain activity was detected at the time of death, leading some people to suggest that it might evidence for a 'near-death experience' type brain event.
 
I am a bit wary about this sort of speculation.

1) I stumbled on this site some time ago:

http://physics.esotec.org/

I showed it to EthanT, who is pretty well versed in these matters, and he didn't seem too interested, and indicated that there are endless speculations of this sort (not necessarily involving ψ).

2) You have to very well versed in maths to be able to distinguish a good theory from one with problems!

3) I rather think extensions of physics can't really explain ψ phenomena, or mind, or describe a mental realm anyway. My argument is that physics works in an almost mechanical way. You set up the equations, and (disregarding issues to do with the practicality of solving the equations) out comes the answer (OK sometimes as a set of probabilities). This means that you don't get an explanation of David Chalmers' "Hard Problem" - how can we actually experience anything, as opposed to compute stuff (like a computer!).

Returning to my first point for a moment, I think this may illustrate a problem with physics itself - once you allow large numbers of extra (and unobserved) dimensions in a theory, there are simply too many possible false trails.

David

BTW, I meant to add since it kind of relates to the OP.. it was from Joe McMoneagle that I first heard put forward the idea that the 5th spatial dimension is one of emotion and meaning. When I first heard it, it seemed meaningless to me, but now I can see where he's coming from.
 
An object at rest does not change in the three spatial dimensions, but only the time dimension.

And that's how it works out mathematically.
This SoA (state of affairs) is still from a Physicalist point of view. As soon as IR (Informational Realism) is offered as a complimentary math based view - your assertion of orthogonality blows-up. An ecological sense tells us that objects in a meaning-rich environment have their mutual information evolving with affordances in their environment. And while their physical position remains constant -- the mutual information with the environment changes when they are recognized by an agent. The probability the object could be in contact with an agent changes when the agent sees the object as a step - leading to a target SoA , such as climbing higher.

Taking the thought-experiment further, even a rock or particle "at rest" in space has its mutual information change with its relation to any large object whose gravitational pull has a possible attraction. Math works just as well for informational transforms, as it does for physical transformation. (my personal tangents are: if informational structures are conserved and exhibit symmetry).

In probability theory and information theory, the mutual information (MI) of two random variables is a measure of the mutual dependence between the two variables. More specifically, it quantifies the "amount of information" (in units such as bits) obtained about one random variable, through the other random variable. - Wiki

Real-world empirical measurement or real-world quasi-empirical measurement of information, that is taking place in our evolving universe; must yield evolving mutual information with time. I would further assert - that an agent in the act of predicting a future state based on objects in their current state is interacting with future mutual information, in a stochastic fashion. This interaction is, to my crazy mind, the future influencing the past, in the simplest form.
 
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This SoA (state of affairs) is still from a Physicalist point of view. As soon as IR (Informational Realism) is offered as a complimentary math based view - your assertion of orthogonality blows-up. An ecological sense tells us that objects in a meaning-rich environment have their mutual information evolving with affordances in their environment.

I'm with you so far.

And while their physical position remains constant -- the mutual information with the environment changes when they are recognized by an agent. The probability the object could be in contact with an agent changes when the agent sees the object as a step - leading to a target SoA , such as climbing higher.

I don't know what this means.

Taking the thought-experiment further, even a rock or particle "at rest" in space has its mutual information change with its relation to any large object whose gravitational pull has a possible attraction.

Sure.. an object "at rest" is an idealized SoA whereas in reality the object is always moving and interacting with environment. But the mathematical modeling of physical systems only applies to a limited contextually determined domain.

Math works just as well for informational transforms, as it does for physical transformation. (my personal tangents are: if informational structures are conserved and exhibit symmetry).

What is the difference between an informational structure and a physical structure? Aren't they subgroups of one thing which is a set of patterns?

Real-world empirical measurement or real-world quasi-empirical measurement of information, that is taking place in our evolving universe; must yield evolving mutual information with time. I would further assert - that an agent in the act of predicting a future state based on objects in their current state is interacting with future mutual information, in a stochastic fashion. This interaction is, to my crazy mind, the future influencing the past, in the simplest form.

Makes sense I think.
 
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Well tell me what it means!

David

I've tried before and... crickets...

I was about to try again but my brains aren't fresh right now. I'll try again later.

...but briefly one thing... coincidence: two points can be non-coincident in one dimension and coincident in another dimension that is orthogonal to the line they form. Non-local interaction of quantum states and memory and psi might all be coincidence in a dimension orthogonal to 4D spacetime. So for example, memory is not a structure in the brain like a computer's hard disk, nor a signal from somewhere else, but is rather a brain-state where micro-structures subject to quantum effects literally occupy the same 5-space (are coincident in the 5th dimension) with the space they occupied at the time the memory was created.
 
What is the difference between an informational structure and a physical structure? Aren't they subgroups of one thing which is a set of patterns?
Physical structure is actualized and can be directly measured. You can sit on a physical structure with it having forces that counter-act weight. An informational structure will not be so accommodating. A blueprint for a stool, or a digital file with a picture of a stool or program for a 3-D printer, which can yield an actualized stool all have mutual information with physical stools, but are on a different LoA (Level of Abstraction). One must use different units of measure to parse or compute their structure and influence.
http://www.socphilinfo.org/node/150

This is what Floridi means when he gives a more formal account of levels of abstraction: A level of abstraction is a finite but non-empty set of observables possibly moderated by transition rules. An observable is a typed variable with a label, that represents the name assigned by the epistemic agent to a feature of the system under consideration. A typed variable is (i) a place-holderfor an unknown or changeable referent; and (ii) a set, called its type, that consists of all the possible values that the variable may take. A transition rule is a predicate that provides the trajectory of change of the observables inside its type. (Floridi, 2011d, extracted from Chapter 3.)

We can state the key idea the simple way: people using different LoAs concentrate on different features of the object, observe those features, and so describe the object very differently. Or we can say the same thing more scientifically: people using different LoAs concentrate on different features of the system, different observables, choosing different variables to measure those observables, and so model different aspects of the natural system.
 
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